by Roland Green
He forced laughter. "I see that I have talked myself into doing as the Lady wishes—which, of course, may be only to hear me sing tavern songs and juggle dried goat's ears—"
Ermik joined in the laughter. After the laughing ceased, Muhbaras poured them both more wine. That emptied the jug, but there was enough in his cup to soothe his dry throat, and all the wine in the world would not answer the one question that remained.
How, in the name of every god who takes thought for such matters, does a common man go about scratching a sorceress with an itch?
The sandstorm blew up during the night, and was still blowing the next day. The campsite had no well within its boundaries, as Khezal and Conan had chosen it for ease of defense. However, the well was so close that with a rope strung from the outermost sentry post to the well, water bearers could come and go safely even when the sand cut a man's vision to the length of his outstretched arm.
One Greencloak, a new man not yet desert-wise, still wandered away from the rope. Fortunately he had the wits to stop where night overtook him, and as he had been returning from the well with full water bags, did not suffer from thirst.
In the morning the man came in, scoured raw by the sand but not otherwise harmed, and Khezal ordered the camp broken. Sand was still drifting down from a haze-dimmed sky, and the horizon was barely visible at all, but the captain said that the next campsite had two wells and could be held against an army.
"Even one that does not reckon losses if they can bring down an enemy?" Conan said.
"You understand the tribesmen well, Conan—"
"I am a Cimmerian. Does that answer your question?"
"Not entirely. I was about to say that you do not understand them perfectly. No chief will throw away too many warriors. They might be driven to turn on him. Even if they remained loyal, if they were too few, his tribe or clan might fall to a more numerous enemy, or he himself might fall at the hands of a would-be chief with more followers. It is seldom that the tribesmen will fight to the last man, unless one gives them no choice.
"Of course," Khezal concluded with a wry grin, "this might be one of those times."
"I shall always remember you as a cheerful companion," Conan said.
"May we both live long enough to remember each other," Khezal said.
"We shan't, if you don't keep a better watch for snakes," Conan snapped. He pointed at a desert asp wriggling toward the left forefoot of the captain's mount.
"I keep watch enough," Khezal said. In one moment his dagger was in his hand. In another, it was sunk deep in the sand, severing the asp just behind the hood. The body writhed furiously, but was still by the time the captain mounted.
They rode off, arrayed in the manner the Green-cloaks used when they feared a sandstorm. They rode close together, in double columns, with no man much farther than a spear's length from a comrade. Each man wore upon his clothes the whitest object he possessed, and there was a man with horn or drum for every ten riders.
The boy Conan had known in the Ilbars Mountains had become a man to follow. If Khezal's will could have kept him safe in the Turanian service, the Cimmerian might even have returned to it.
But the gods had willed otherwise, so Conan would ride west once more when this quest into the North was done.
Eleven
That morning they were close to the stretch of desert the Girumgi called their own. (Or at least the one where wandering strangers were more likely to die at the hands of Girumgi than of any other tribe's warriors. That was as far as territorial claims commonly went in the desert, where a tribe that wished to could move almost as freely as a fleet of merchant vessels on the open sea.)
So in spite of their formation, the riders were keeping a better lookout for human enemies than for the weather. It was not a total surprise when the sandstorm blew up again, but it gave what would have been little enough notice even for the most vigilant men.
It did not help that only moments before the storm came upon them, they saw riders at the head of a val-ley not far off to their right. Thanks to some curious twist of the land, the air between them and the riders was as clear as a fine day in Vanaheim. It was possible to count the riders, some three score, and to recognize a Girumgi banner and headdresses among the nearer men.
Conan did not dispute the identification of the banner or the nearer riders, but his keen sight left him in doubt about the rest. He could not have said what tribe they were, but he was prepared to wager that they would turn out to be other than Girumgi.
He was not prepared to wager the lives of his men, however. He took the lead when the sky and air both turned brown and the Turanians had to seek shelter before they could no longer see their hands before their faces. He rode down into the foot of the valley, then spread his Afghulis in a line across it. Still mounted, they watched the Turanians follow them out of the thickening storm and find refuge in a natural bowl on the north side of the valley.
"We'll watch above, you watch below," Khezal said, or rather shouted. The sandstorm now howled like a gale at sea, and hand signals would have been more sensible had anyone been able to see them.
"Fair enough," Conan shouted back. He did not add that he was personally going to slip up the valley and see whom they might be facing. It would be hard to punish him for disobeying an order that he had not received.
Conan waited until Turanians and Afghulis were in their intended places, and until the far end of the valley was as invisible as if it had been in Vendhya. The storm was less thick in the valley than on the open desert above, but Conan judged he could still slip close to these mysterious neighbors without being seen.
This quest had already sprouted too many mysteries. Here perhaps was one that he could solve before nightfall, risking no man's life but his own.
In this assumption he had not reckoned on Farad. When Conan slipped between the horses and gripped a rock to pull himself up and over, he found Farad sitting cross-legged atop the rock.
"You were near having your throat slit," Conan snapped. "Indeed, you may be still."
"Would that not be poor repayment for my loyalty?" the Afghuli said.
"Are you being loyal, or more like a louse in a man's breech-guard?"
"It seemed to us that you should not go scouting alone. Who would bring the truth, if you twisted an ankle or struck your head—"
"My head is not the one most likely to be struck here, my friend."
"—on a rock?" Farad went on, unperturbed and keeping his face totally blank. "So we rolled dice for the honor of going with you."
"Using your dice, of course?" Conan said. He could not help smiling, moved by Farad's evident determination.
"Of course. I am not one to leave too much to chance."
"Then let us be off. I could have subdued you if I needed to go alone. Both of us together cannot subdue Khezal and his Greencloaks if they learn of our plan."
Conan leaped off the far side of the rock, Farad followed him, and side by side they walked into the storm.
The storm above must have been scouring the desert and blinding or choking any traveler unfortunate enough to lack shelter. Before Conan and Farad had covered half the distance to the other band's outposts, they had to veil all of their faces but their eyes to breathe freely.
Conan had heard of tribes in Khitai who had the art of making masks of the bladders of certain fish, transparent yet strong enough to keep out the sandstorms of their deserts. The Cimmerian did not wish himself in Khitai—curiosity was joining his oath to Khezal and his men, to drive him onward along the trail of this quest—but he vowed that if ever he returned to Khitai, he would pay those tribesmen a visit.
Meanwhile, he was desert-wise enough to know how to study the ground about him without ever facing directly into the wind, and how to shield his eyes with his fingers when he had no choice. At least today there need be no fear of sun-dazzle!
The ground grew more rugged toward the end of the valley. Even without a sandstorm, a line of sentries w
ould have needed to be close together to guard one another's flanks. As it was, the Girumgi sentries were a good spear-toss apart, and one at least seemed to have scant notion of a sentry's duties.
He wore a Girumgi headdress, two long daggers thrust into his belt, and a waist pouch. He also wore an expression of total disgust at being out here alone amid the blowing sand.
The man furthermore spent much of his time in the shelter of a rock, which prevented both sand from reaching him and his eyes from reaching much of anything. When he did stand in the open, he looked more toward his rear than his front. It was as if he expected enemies to leap from his own camp, not from the valley before him.
Conan was prepared to snatch another prisoner, but Farad saw the sentry's weaknesses as swiftly as the Cimmerian, and struck faster. Crouching low enough to be hidden behind a waist-high rock, Farad crawled to within arm's length of the sentry without being detected. Then the man heard or saw something amiss, his eyes widened—then they widened further as Farad's flung dagger sank into the man's bare throat.
Conan crouched beside the fallen man, as windblown sand covered the pool of blood. "I wanted to capture him silently."
"I was silent. More so than you were, reproaching me."
Conan forced himself to remember that free speech to a chief was one of the most sacred rights of the free Afghuli warrior. The man to fear was he who would not speak plainly to your face, as he was likely enough planning to thrust something sharper than words into your back.
"We must go forward, then. This time, I strike first."
"Of course, Conan. It is with stupid sentries as it is with willing women—there are usually enough to go around."
Conan and Farad slipped through the hole they'd made in the sentry line almost all the way to the main camp. Unfortunately, by the time they were close enough to recognize tribal colors, the storm was blowing so thickly that their sand-scoured eyes could barely tell rocks from huddled humans.
There were also too many of those huddled humans to make it safe to snatch a prisoner. Even the scrape of dagger on leather sheath might be enough to alert five of the prisoner's comrades and bring on a battle royal at the worst possible moment.
Nothing would come of that except their deaths, leaving the Afghulis without leadership. Conan did not trust even Khezal enough to believe his comrades would then escape harm.
They crept in a wide half-circle around the dead sentry. His rock shelter had almost vanished in the brown murk as the wind shifted and more of the storm blew into the valley. Conan thought he saw human figures moving around the rock, but could not be sure.
He hoped they were at least human if they were there at all. A sandstorm in unknown country was something to make a man believe in beings from the netherworld breaking loose and wandering about, seeking to work ill.
Not long afterwards, Conan knew there had been someone watching from the dead sentry's post—and that the watcher had seen him and Farad.
Someone was following them.
It was hard to be certain at first, and no one with eyes or ears less keen than the Cimmerian's could have learned of the pursuer at all. Even deeper within the valley, the sand and dust were swirling thicker, and the wind howled like the mourning cries of demons.
But Conan's ears picked out the clang of steel on stone, the rattle of dislodged rocks, and once, the sound of breathing. Twice he went to ground and saw something moving, as the one behind failed to do the same in time to escape Conan's sharp eye.
At last Conan motioned to Farad, and whispered in the Afghuli's ear that their luck might be changing. They had snatched no prisoner from the enemy's ranks, but perhaps one might be about to crawl right into their arms.
"Your arms, I suppose," Farad said.
"One of us had best be free to run, if this goes amiss," Conan said.
"You need not whip a willing mule," Farad said sourly. "Good hunting, my chief." He crawled left as Conan slipped off to the right and went to ground.
Shrewdly Farad ceased to make much effort to conceal himself. This brought the pursuit in turn out of hiding—three robed men, none of them wearing any tribal markings Conan could recognize. The smallest of the three seemed to be the leader, although the others seemed ready to argue with their orders. At last all three seemed of one mind, and set off in a stalking pursuit of Farad.
This brought the leftmost man so close to Conan that he could have reached out and touched him. This was precisely what he did, with a fist descending like a club on the back of the man's neck. He jerked forward and his chin slammed into rock hard enough to stun him.
Conan quickly bound the man's hands with strips of his garments, then made sure that he was breathing. Two score paces of crawling brought him to the rear of the second man, the small one who led.
It also brought him into view of the third man on the right, just as a flurry of wind left clear air between them. The man's wordless cry gave the alarm, but he then made a fatal mistake by trying to roll over and unsling his bow.
That gave Conan time to close with the smallest man and seize him. The man struck at Conan with a dagger that seemed to be his sole weapon but was sharp enough to add to the Cimmerian's collection of wounds. He also kicked and screeched in a high-pitched voice that made Conan think he might have captured a eunuch or a youth.
None of this kept Conan from taking a firm grip on his captive. Farad, meanwhile, was disposing of the archer. The Afghuli was so determined on a silent kill that he gave the man enough time to have raised the alarm. Fortunately the sight of Farad looming over him seemed to strike the man mute. He tried to change weapons from bow to tulwar, and in the middle of the change Farad's sandal sank into the pit of his stomach. Both weapons fell to the sand and the man fell on top of them.
Farad looked down at his victim. "Do we need him?"
"No," Conan said, as he finished binding and gagging his own captive. "I doubt you'll even be needing to bind him. It will be evening before he can draw a painless breath again."
Conan's captive was in better fettle. While he could neither speak nor struggle, so thoroughly was he gagged and bound, his large kohl-rimmed eyes glared eloquently.
"Game little cockerel, this one," Farad said, prodding the man in the ribs. "And look at the quality of the robe and the belt. A chief's son, I'd wager."
Conan was looking at the robe and the belt, but he was also looking at what seemed to be under them. He knelt and ran a hand across the captive's shoulders, then down across one shoulder blade to the chest.
"Ha!" the Cimmerian said. "You'd lose that wager."
"Eh?" Farad said, bemused at his chief's behavior.
"It's a chief's daughter."
"Eh," Farad said again, this time with an unmistakable leer.
Conan shook his head. "She's a good hostage as long as she's unharmed and not a moment longer. A hostage is worth ten women, where we are."
"Tell that to men who haven't seen a woman for months," Farad said. "I've little taste for fighting the Greencloaks over this one."
The woman did not seem to understand the Afghuli speech the two men were using, but the tones carried enough meaning. Her eyes were very wide, and her breath came quick.
Conan hoisted her over one massive shoulder and patted her lightly on the rump. "Don't worry, lass," he said, in Turanian. "You were game enough to earn a warrior's treatment besides being a good hostage. Anyone who comes to you will do it over my dead body."
"I stand by my chief with my blood and my steel."
Farad said. Although he spoke in Afghuli, the woman caught his tone and seemed to relax.
Then Conan stepped out, in a long ground-eating hillman's stride, with Farad guarding the rear. By the time they heard someone raising the alarm, they were nearly back to their own camp.
The name of the woman—barely that, for she admitted to no more than nineteen summers and looked younger—was Bethina. She was sister to Doiran, heir to the chieftainship of the Ekinari and blood-brother t
o the chief of the Girumgi. She was riding with a mixed band of Girumgi and Ekinari to bring safely home those Girumgi who had escaped the battle in the South.
All this she told willingly after they reached the camp—and after Conan and Farad saved her life.
They brought her in, unbound her feet, and removed her gag. Before they could do more, a man sprang from the dust, knife upraised to stab.
Conan replied with a foot upraised in the man's path. He stumbled over the tree-thick leg and went sprawling. Farad's foot came down on his wrist; he squealed and the knife fell from limp fingers.
Farad snatched up the dagger, freed the girl's hands, and gave her the blade. Conan nodded.
"Just be careful who you use it on, girl," he said. "I've not got so much blood that I can afford to lose it to friends."
She actually grinned, then held up the blade in a way that showed experience in fighting with steel.
She was just in time. A semicircle of Greencloaks had gathered around them. Conan and Farad shifted, so that they as well as the girl had their backs to a stout rock. Conan looked upward, saw more Greencloaks climbing atop the rock to attack from above, and decided that he would be leaving Turan with his honor intact but his hide somewhat otherwise.
"Hold!"
Khezal had a surprisingly robust voice for one of his modest stature and lean build. It rose above the cry of the wind and halted the Greencloaks above and below where they stood.
"Now, what is this brawling?" Khezal said, stepping forward.
He listened while both sides told their tale. At least he had not lost authority over his men. Conan had no illusions what would have happened otherwise.
"The Greencloaks do not harm another's prisoner," he said at last. "Milgun, ask Captain Conan's pardon."
"Captain—?" the man practically spat.
"Milgun," Khezal said. He did not need to say more, let alone draw steel. His eyes finished the work of his voice.
Milgun made a clumsy obeisance. "Your pardon, Conan," he said.
"Now, Conan," Khezal said. "Milgun lost a brother to the Girumgi last year. Anyone who rides with them is no friend to him."
