Grunting his assent, Conan sprang onto his chariot, feeling Evadne's vigorous step on the platform beside him. As he took up the reins and made the sweeping arm-signal to advance, she tossed her hair impatiently over her shoulder and spoke guardedly. "As usual, your fellow barons are none too eager to ride in the fore."
"Aye." He waited for the dozen cavalry of the vanguard to get under way. "'Tis a relief not to have to keep company with them, and play an impossible charade. But an honor, no doubt, to lead the column." Working the reins smartly, he wheeled the chariot onto the road in front of the loitering body of Dinander infantry; led by Rudo and others of his cronies, they hailed him in Favian's name with a scattered cheer.
"An honor indeed!" Evadne laughed cynically. "The question is, can we trust the scoundrels at our backs? When the forequarter of our column meets the enemy, how prompt will its hindquarter be in joining the fight? And whom will their swords and barbs strike down, our common foe or ourselves?" She shook her head bitterly. "This military junket is a fine pretext for the barons to cripple Dinander's strength!"
"As I said before," Conan growled, adjusting the hilt at his waist. "But fear not; should the knaves try any treachery with me, I'll skewer them both with a single sword-thrust!"
Ignoring his boast, Evadne spoke on. "More vexing to me are our affairs at home. I worry for our party's shaky alliance with the nobles." She adjusted her grip on the rail as the chariot gained speed. "Durwald controls enough of his former Iron Guard to seize the Manse and declare himself baron, should he take the notion. I only pray that my comrades are strong enough to curb his ambition, and keep him from undoing all our reforms."
"Then I ask you this, Evadne: why did you choose to leave Dinander and ride with me?" Conan glanced aside from the road to look at her, watching as the longest strands of her blond hair stirred with the wind of the chariot's rumbling motion. "The marshal was eager enough to come and oversee my command, until you warned him off."
The mailed woman turned her unflinching blue eyes on Conan. "Do you really think that I would let the two of you consort alone with these sneaking barons? That would be putting too much at risk: our city's security, our troops and our counterfeit heir, all at once!" She set her chin firmly. "If the gods allow it, I must see that you and these troopers return safe to Dinander." She swung her gaze back along the roadway. "You in particular, for the sake of the realm.
"Besides, Conan, one might as well ask what made you insist on coming." It was her turn to watch him from the corner of her eye. "Oh, I know that Cimmerians love a battle better than a currant cake . . . but I sense in you some other, hidden purpose. Ambition of your own, perhaps?"
If the northerner's shrug was a little too casual, Evadne did not seem to detect it. "Why, woman," he told her lightly, "another day of languishing in that worm-eaten Manse would have driven me mad as poor Calissa! Better to face grinning death out here. Better to shiver and perish in the Varakiel marshes."
"I see." Evadne eyed him skeptically. "Perhaps, in your rough, barbaric way, you guessed how much more respect and obedience your uncouth grunts and grimaces would command on a battlefield!" She settled back against the seat-plank, her gaze abandoning him once more.
"Well, Conan," she continued at length, "you usurp baronial power too lightly! However bold you may be, however handsomely you pose at the head of this column, you lack the skills of a trained commander. You will do best to remain silent and heed my advice. As here ahead, where the trees come down close to the track." She gestured toward a hill that rose on one hand, forcing the road to ascend out of the low plain and wind through stands of woodland.
"Aye, Evadne, I know. Having once played hare-and-hound with your rebels in such a place, I would not wish to repeat the experience."
Giving a whistle and a broad wave, Conan slowed his team to a halt, while the officers of the van and the infantry passed his signal back down the line. Then, instead of waiting for his counselor to give the order, Conan addressed the cavalry officer in his own rough accents: "Send two scouts forward through the woods at each side of the road, and two up the center. Tell them to trumpet an alarm if they find the enemy."
As the officer dispatched the riders, Evadne shook her blond head in astonishment, rebuking him with a whisper. "You are too bold! Your foreign speech will add credence to the rumors of your imposture, which already undermine our troops' morale!"
Conan shrugged. "Better that they come to believe the rumors now than in the midst of battle."
Waiting for the scouts to draw well ahead of the formation, they heard horsemen approaching from the rear. They turned to see Sigmarck and Ottislav cantering up, each followed by a pair of well-armed retainers.
"Well, Baron, what is this new delay?" Sigmarck spoke haughtily from his saddle, able for once to stare down his thin nose at Conan standing in his chariot, though only by a slight margin. "Did we not lose time enough crossing the river?"
Evadne was quick to reply. "We might lose all the time that remains to us on earth if we ride into an ambush in yon woods."
"Haw!" Ottislav, hulking on his large horse behind the lesser baron, brayed forth his opinion. "One should not give too much rein to one's fears, blondhair!" His mustaches twitched with insinuation. "We have to face the enemy sooner or later at all events! Why not just instruct your young master to press on-"
"I ordered a halt," Conan interrupted with gruff restraint, "as is the lead officer's right. If my pace doesn't suit you, you are free to take your troops past me into the van."
"Nay, Baron-or whatever you are." Sigmarck gazed down at him keenly, almost as if seeing him for the first time. "No sense in disrupting the entire column. We leave the matter to you and your lovely . . . advisor. But remember, as senior lords, we claim precedence in all battle decisions." The aristocrat sat gracefully upright in his saddle, turning an insolent charm on Evadne as he continued. "Your regime in Dinander may be new and somewhat. . . informal in its practices; still, it is bound by the traditions that regulate our Nemedian Empire and keep all its parts working together in harmony."
"Not always in harmony," Evadne corrected him. "As when your father's armies mobilized across the Sharken Hills to seize my city's western lands, and had to be driven back by force of arms. Or when your own provincial troops sought to invest Ruthalia, until banned by King Laslo's decree-"
"Now, now, Milady . . ." but Sigmarck's protest was cut short as Conan signaled the column to advance, lashing his team to join them. As the chariot jolted forward, the nobleman spurred his mount to keep pace alongside.
"If you would read to us from the annals of baronial strife," Sigmarck went on smoothly, "there are faults and injustices I could lay at your own province's door. So, doubtless, could my noble friend here." Sigmarck gestured at Ottislav, whose heavy mount clopped close behind. "There are things to be said on both sides in such affairs. Though I would not judge it in the best interest of a government so young and . . . vulnerable as yours to prosecute these ancient feuds."
"No, indeed, Baron Sigmarck." Evadne spoke coldly, yet forcefully enough to be sure the horseman heard her. "We mean to be steady, unquarrelsome neighbors-speaking for my liege lord, of course." She made a stiff-necked bow to Conan, who stood handling the team as if oblivious to the conversation. "Our Baron Favian is a forward-looking ruler; he does not cherish these old grudges."
"Aye, I can tell." Sigmarck nodded slyly to her. "He would seem to have little concern for your city's past; indeed, little link with it. But say"-the suave baron, showing deft horsemanship, reined his steed as close as possible to the chariot's trundling, jolting wheel -"'tis perhaps because of this very newness that your court, as my confidants tell me, is troubled by factions and petty disputes. Ottislav and I want to suggest, should these internal matters ever become too vexing, that you look to us for military support. Our voices have influence beyond the bounds of our own provinces, you know, and our troops stand ready to aid beleaguered friends and fellow nobles where the
need is great and . . . heartfelt."
"A thousand thanks, on behalf of my Lord Favian." Evadne nodded curtly to the horseman. "But I think it safe to say, 'twill be a long time before such aid is needed or requested in Dinander. Just now the main threat to us, as to you, is the snakecult. Hence our support of your present cause; our land has ever been averse to the wiles of the serpent." Her lips flashed a tight, wry smile at the baron. "Once that menace is disposed of, we shall return home to carve out a strong, independent Dinander."
"Haw! For one of your frail sex, you speak with great authority," Ottislav put in with mock approval. "Your baron is lucky to have your protection."
"Aye, though I am a mere woman." Evadne's sarcasm matched the foreigner's. " 'Tis a mistake my enemies have made in the past, to forget that the crucible which smelts cook pots can pour out swordhilts, and that the hand which plucks a loom can also draw a bowstring."
So it went for further leagues through the broadening expanse of the Urlaub Valley, the chain-mailed woman skillfully fending off the threats and blandishments of Baron Sigmarck and his larger, cruder accomplice. When the two nobles finally tired of the pursuit and fell back toward the middle of the column, Conan vented a gusting belly laugh at their thwarted efforts. But Evadne turned on him with a savagery she had spared the foreign nobles.
"Barbaric fool, why must you open your mouth in front of them? You think it a jest, perhaps, to reveal yourself to those schemers? Do you not see that they are subtle foes, whose wiles may yet take a dozen years to unfold to our sorrow?" She grasped the edge of his hauberk with a gloved hand, shoving at his unyielding shoulder in reckless wrath. "I should have known that you were too dangerous, from your stubbornness! And from your habit of promoting your old prison mates, and of arrogating unrighteous authority to yourself!" Her eyes, he was surprised to note, glinted with angry tears. "Well, Lord Conan, I hope your barbaric pride is vindicated. You may have dealt my city her deathblow!"
They rode on in silence, not only because of her smoldering ill-temper, but also because the prospect before them had gradually changed. As the valley broadened, leveling out onto the lush plain where a score of rivers converged to water the Varakiel marshes, the sky ahead had darkened to an eerie grayish-brown.
A pall of smoke, it clearly was, so vast of extent and dark of hue as to signal great devastation in the country ahead. The ominous curtain lay across the eastern sky from pole to pole, scarcely blown before the day's damp, listless breeze. Its crest was formed by towering thunderheads, copper-colored monsters that Conan surmised had flown hither to rut and mate with the dusky, dark billows the earth had spawned. In places the cloud's underside was whorled by darker puffs coiling up from distant conflagrations-the pyres of whole villages and forests, by their size. If this was the work of the snakecult, the sect was indeed a great sower of havoc.
The unfolding evil was equally evident in the country alongside the arrow-straight, deeply rutted road ahead. Before crossing the Urlaub River, they had passed many inhabited farmsteads and cottages. If the dwellers in those crofts were rough and ragged, their crops sparse and their livestock lame and stunted, at least they hinted at the existence of greater wealth lurking in the thickets, concealed along with the womenfolk well back from the foraging army. But here in this lower, richer land were seen only gutted ruins, flame-blackened coppices and orchards, and crops systematically uprooted in trampled fields. The desolation lay heavy in the troopers' hearts, along with the knowledge that they must rely henceforth on the sparse provisions they carted with them.
"Where in Crom's kingdoms are the bodies?" Conan finally demanded of Evadne, breaking the somber silence between them. "Back at Edram Castle I assumed they had been tossed into the river. But here there are no graves, no human bones, only the rotting carcasses of slaughtered animals!"
The warrior-woman shrugged under her glinting mail. "It is said that in past outbreaks of this madness, all were converted to the new faith, even infants and the very old, and led forth from their homes at the beck of a great prophet. Rare indeed, it is said, is the woman or man who can resist the inducements the great Lord Set offers his disciples." Her weary, unemotional voice stayed level as she scanned the ominous horizon to southward. "Whether they lay waste the earth to deny us forage or to prevent desertions from their own ranks, I know not. The tactic is remembered of old, but I never fully believed the stories until now.
"In view of this chaos, you can well imagine what we shall face." Her words clanked flat and gloomy in the artificial dusk. "No ragtag band of heretics, these! Rather, the entire populace of this district, united in arms and consumed by fanaticism, with nothing left on earth to lose. How, I wonder, can we ever hope to prevail against them?"
"How can we dare fail?" Conan lashed the reins to speed the team along, tossing a discreet glance behind; the yellow-lit faces of the foot soldiers following the chariot appeared sour with the acrid wash of smoke, and deep-shadowed by dread. The Cimmerian told Evadne, "Surely this menace threatens the whole province, by an indirect path around the southern hills. As it may peril other Hyborian lands. Even if it ravages whole empires first, it would be our fight too in the end, methinks. This is our best chance to stop it, perhaps the only chance."
The light was sinking low behind them, splashing lurid reds and yellows onto the tainted sky ahead. A courier rode up from the barons at the rear to inquire about making camp; after conferring, Conan and Evadne sent back word that they would march until nightfall to reduce the threat of desertion.
They pressed on through scorched, desolated croplands, halting only when the sun had finally quenched itself in a bloody, smoking cauldron to westward. By torchlight they built a camp hedged with muddy ditches and clumps of briar, since there was no unburned timber remaining with which to form a proper palisade. In the smoky gloom of night, Conan and the barons ordered doubled sentries, as much to keep their troops within as to fend off what might lurk outside.
CHAPTER 14
Dawn of Blood
"Soldiers, loyal retainers! I called you here tonight to remind you of the duty that carries you so far from your homes. You have come these many leagues, across this ravaged country, to serve your barons; never forget that. I, Sigmarck, have sworn a sacred pledge, as has each and every one of you. My oath binds me to a purpose, just as irrevocably as yours binds you to me and to the other lords here assembled.
"Since passing the village of Kletsk this noon, you have been traversing the domains of Baron Ottislav, my noble ally. The village was destroyed, of course, as are the farms and forests around you. The baron's crops are ruined, his serfs and livestock slain or taken in unrighteous bondage. Thus has the harmony of my friend's rule been interrupted, his rulership insulted!
"It is not in the nature of a baron to tolerate an insult, be it to himself or to a fellow baron. Therefore, I have sworn to aid Lord Ottislav in avenging this wrong . . . avenging it to the last drop of blood in my body, to the last inch of steel under my command! That, loyal troopers, is why you are here.
"A hard service it has been, I know; harder still it may be on the morrow. But the harshness of the service is matched by the richness of the reward, both in honor and in your lord's esteem. As you go into battle, remember that! Once we are victorious, glory in it! For victorious we shall be!
"I now make way for my gracious friend himself, Baron Ottislav, who wouldst address you. Afterward, we drink a toast to tomorrow's victory!"
Yellow-lit by the torches raised nearby, Sigmarck was careful to leap down from the seat of the two-wheeled cart before its angle was skewed by the weight of the heavily armored baron heaving himself aboard. Ottislav loomed taller against the sky than his predecessor, even though he stood in the plank bed of the cart and cocked one boot against its seat. He turned his habitual sneer for a long moment around the upturned, dutiful faces of the soldiers crowded near the fires. Then he spoke.
"Haw! Men of the eastlands! Nemedians all! You have seen the wrack of our homela
nd, the rape of our farms and holdings. A dreadful thing, you say to yourselves. What terrible foe, you ask, could have done this to our fine land?
"Well, Nemedians, I tell you, you are wrong! Put aside such unmanly thoughts. There is no terror here, nothing at all to fear-at least not yet. For nothing can compare with the terror of a Nemedian army on the track of vengeance. You are the menace, my ravening hell-hounds, you the terror!
"This havoc is small compared to that we mean to inflict on the enemy. From this moment onward, their lands and possessions are forfeit, their women our cattle, their lives our playthings. We shall scythe them like new grass and thresh them to pieces like brittle grain. Their guts will grease the points of our sabers, their heads dandle from our saddle-posts like green gourds!
"For know you, the carnage of war is a healthy, natural thing. It purges the blood and strengthens the stomach. Bloodletting reminds a man of what a man is made of. A few of you will die, to be sure; and some will suffer grave wounds. But no true Nemedian would let that stand in his way. I bid you go forth to the slaughter in a spirit of honest sport!
"And now I give you-unless the raw lad is tongue-tied-young Favian, Baron of Dinander! Will you let your subjects hear you, sire? Here-, come on up." Ottislav tramped down the length of the groaning wagon and dropped to the ground, leering at the object of his challenge.
Conan, seated on a cask at the fringe of the torchlight, looked up blankly as Evadne leaped to her feet by his side. "I should have known this was their plan!" she whispered fiercely to him. "Here, stay, I'll speak for you." In a trice she clambered up the wagon to stand before the troopers, whose ranks rustled and twittered with expressions of admiration for the trim figure silhouetted against the dark sky.
"Fellow Nemedians, I address you on behalf of my liege, Lord Favian, heir of Dinander. He does not style himself a fancy orator. But he wishes me to remind you that when you fight for him on the morrow, you will be fighting for yourselves as well, for your homelands and for the loved ones biding there. ..."
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