Conan the Guardian

by Roland Green

  At last the blue glare died. Conan opened his eyes, brushed the grit out of them, and stared. Where the Watcher had stood was a vast pit of smoking blue glass, edged with blackened rock and a few charred fragments of Watcher flesh.

  Whether or not Akimos had poisoned the Watcher, the sorcerer who had conjured it up from its long sleep certainly had. Taking him in, spells and all, had been too much for the Watcher.

  The ledge was just wide enough for Conan to squat on his heels until he could breathe easily again. Then he began picking his way back down toward the path, in no particular haste. With the Watcher dead, it would be a witling’s act to break his neck by falling into the pit it left behind!

  Conan reached the path about the time Harphos led the men with brands and torches up to where Talouf was standing guard. At first they could not speak, only stare at Conan as at a man risen from the dead.

  It was Harphos who broke the silence. “Conan, what in the name of—?”

  “It ate something too rough for it,” the Cimmerian said, forcing a laugh. “Our friend Skiron.”

  “Ah,” the Lokhri heir said. “I’d be angry if his spell still bound my mother. But it seems it bound her only as long as Akimos was alive. She woke up, said that he was dead, wondered what I was doing with my healing materials, then fell asleep again.”

  “Thank the gods for small favours,” Conan said. “We’ll need more than a small favour. when she awakes and tries to rule again,” Harphos said dubiously.

  “No, we won’t,” Conan said. He gripped the young man by both shoulders. “All you need is to do two things. One is to ask Livia for her hand. The other is to be the kind of man you were tonight.”

  “Even with my mother?”

  “Before all with your mother!”

  Lady Doris had the courtesy to sleep until nearly the next evening, so much was accomplished while she slept. It was not long after she woke, however, that she summoned Conan, Harphos, and Lady Livia to her chamber.

  Sitting up in bed, clad in a shift pieced together from the tunics of dead soldiers, she still had much of her old force. Conan watched Harphos refuse to meet his mother’s eyes, as she rambled on about what she had heard, about him and Livia and Conan.

  “The men clearly did not think I was listening, for they gabbled like so many geese, as foul and as witless. So, my son, I must ask you this. Are you proposing to wed a Cimmerian’s leavings?” It seemed that more than Doris’s wits had survived her ordeal. So had her determination to rule or ruin her son.

  If Livia had been wearing her dagger, Conan would have snatched it from her. Anything short of murder that Livia did to Lady Doris, the older woman would richly deserve.

  It was Harphos who restored peace, or at least prevented war.

  “Mother,” he said, with the same commanding voice Conan had heard him use in the fighting. “I will wed the Lady Livia of Damaos if she will have me. That is all I will ask of her. Nor will I permit anyone else to ask anything else of her.”

  “You cannot talk to me that way, Harphos! I must consent—”

  “Mother,” Harphos interrupted. “I am of age. I do not need your consent. I would prefer to have it. But by law I only need Lady Livia’s.” He looked at the younger woman.

  “Lady Livia—do I have your consent, to wed me by the laws of Argos and of the gods?”

  A moment passed, in which Conan had one eye on Lady Doris, who was rapidly rising to a hysterical rage.

  The other eye was on Livia. He vowed by all the gods known and unknown that if she refused Harphos, he would turn her over his knee and spank her soundly.

  Then Livia reached out and took Harphos by both hands. The look in her eyes said more than a day’s worth of speech. Conan took his hand off his sword hilt.

  Lady Doris was not yet beaten. “Her acceptance must have witnesses, Argossean citizens. I will refuse to witness her acceptance. Conan is not a citizen. Therefore—”

  Livia used some of her soldier’s words. Then she grinned wickedly at Harphos. “I remember that. But I also remember that if vows are followed by the consummation of the marriage, the vows need no witnesses. The marriage cannot be set aside.”

  “Con—?” Doris began, then lost the power of speech to sheer rage. The silence was merciful; it allowed everyone else to hear a knock on the door.

  “My lady?”

  “Come in, Reza,” Harphos said. The big Iranistani entered, looking to Conan’s eyes rather shamefaced. He had not saved his lady, and to make matters worse he had put his trust in a man who all but slew his lady’s intended husband.

  “Reza,” Harphos said. “You have mostly done well, but not altogether. I will forgive you what you have not done well, if you will do me one favour.”

  “My lord, I am at your command.”

  “Excellent. Confine Lady Doris of Lokhri within this chamber!”

  It took both Conan and Reza, as well as one of Harphos’s sleeping potions, to accomplish this. By the time Conan reached Livia’s chamber, the door was closed and locked. A few sounds escaped, however, to make it plain how those within were amusing themselves.

  Conan set down the jug of wine and the two cups he was carrying and descended the stairs. He had thought of drinking the wine himself, but there was no doubt that Harphos would need restoring more than he would!

  XX

  Outside the Herdsman’s Peace, the rain poured down on Messantia. Conan’s table faced the door to the street, so he was quick to see the hawk-nosed man in a sodden Guardian’s cloak enter. The man left a trail of water on the floor as he crossed the room.

  “Talouf!”

  “Captain Conan! I heard that you’d been seeking me, but not where to find you. We Guardians have our ways, the gods be thanked!”

  The tavern wench was glowering at Talouf for dripping water on the floor. “More wine, for me and this good Guardian,” Conan said. “Also, if you can go up to my chambers and ask the woman there for the silk bag with the red ribbon—”

  “The red ribbon?”

  “Yes.” Conan slapped her bottom with one hand and passed her a coin with the other. She left smiling.

  “Is that a new disguise?” Conan asked, pointing at the cloak and the Guardian’s tunic now revealed as the cloak was thrown back.

  “By Erlik’s everlasting manhood, no. I’m truly a Guardian, and an Argossean citizen as well.”

  It was not altogether surprising. The rewards to those who had fought the battle against Akimos, Skiron, and the Watchers had been generous if discreet. House Damaos and House Lokhri had been open-handed, and so had the archons (although most of their generosity was at the expense of Lord Akimos’s heirs).

  “I hope that’s no bar to you taking the silver I’ve been holding for you since we disbanded the company. You’re the last man I owe anything.”

  “No, no,” Talouf assured his old captain. “I’ll want to put a bit by, and faster than I could on my pay. There’s a wine merchant’s daughter I’ve my eye on—”

  “For herself, or for her father’s barrels?”

  “She’s shaped rather like one of them, I’ll admit, but she’s one of twelve children and a cook the gods themselves wouldn’t put aside. So if you come this way again, you’ll likely find me fat and fatherly. I’ve reached the age where there’s much to be said for that, in truth.” “Not me,” Conan said. “I’ve a fancy to see Messantia, but when that’s done I’ll be bound onward.” Talouf was silent until the wench brought the wine and was out of earshot. Then he whispered, “Best be on your way quickly, then. You’re not without enemies, and if you shed their blood even in self-defence—”

  “I know, I know. The laws of Argos would fall on me like dung from a giant bull, and bury me back in the House of Charof. I’ll be careful, Talouf. I swear it.”

  “Captain, you haven’t a careful bone in your body. Have you thought of joining the Guardians yourself?” “Don’t you know? I was a Captain in the Guardians for all the time I was in Argos.”

>   Talouf looked suspiciously at his wine cup, then likewise at Conan. “A Guardian?”

  “It seems that they would have to bring the law against me for some of what we did if I were not a Guardian. So they wrote it down that I had been a Captain of the Guardians on a secret mission. But for going beyond the law and my authority, I was dismissed and barred forever from the Guardians.”

  Talouf started to spit on the floor, then remembered the wench’s glare and instead spat into an empty wine cup. He shook his head. “The laws of Argos!”

  “You’re certain you want to spend the rest of your life under them, making others obey them?” Conan asked.

  “Better that than the cold bed and scant rations of a free lance, or the short life of a thief,” Talouf said. “But if you wanted to go free-lancing again, I can give you the names of a score of men who would gladly follow you.”

  The thought was tempting. Argos and Aquilonia still had no use for free lances, but Shem and Koth were hiring with a free hand. They feared that Moranthes II might try to prop up his shaky throne with a foreign war, and they would be first in the path of any such.

  It was also futile. “I’d need more silver than I have, and there’s no more to be had from the folk we saved. No, they’re not ungrateful. But Livia and Harphos have learned that there’s more to putting House Lokhri in order than sending Reza there with a club. They need all their silver and as much more as they can talk out of the archons.”

  Talouf looked ready for plain speech about lovestruck Argossean lords when the woman from Conan’s chamber came up and handed him a silk bag with a red ribbon around the neck. Talouf hefted it cautiously, smiled at the weight, then stared at the woman. “Shilka!”

  “Indeed, Sergeant—Talouf?”

  “The same. How fared you to Messantia?”

  “With my sister, when she entered Lady Livia’s service. I thought I should like to see the city before I went home, and found a man with the same thought.” “Well, I’ll not quarrel with either of you,” Talouf said, raising his cup. “But remember this, Captain. There’s too many folk in Argos who want to see no more of you than your back as you board an outbound ship.”

  “I’ll remember that, Talouf,” Conan said, raising his own cup while pouring from the jug for the woman. “Now, let’s toast old comrades and pass on to more pleasant matters!”

  Three cups rose. “Old comrades!” they said together.

  “And new adventures,” Conan added, under his breath.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX