The Conan Compendium

by Robert E. Howard

  The rites consumed much of the night and gave much mutual pleasure. The princess at last fell asleep, and Conan wondered if he should awaken her and warn her that Raihna might be returning from her watch.

  Then it struck him like a thunderclap. Raihna and the princess had contrived this between them, as”a jest, to say no more.

  Why? Bedding royal maidens courted death in most realms, but Chienna was no maiden and, indeed, no woman to be told where she might make her bed. Conan had no fear that the jest would turn deadly.

  He still would be glad to know whence the intrigue came. Yet it seemed that the answer would need a potent spell, to let him understand the thoughts of women. A potent spell, and like a cloak of invisibility, or an invincible sword, likely to be more perilous than helpful in the end.

  At least he need have no more fear of what Raihna might say should she find them together. Conan piled the furs over them again and drew the princess into his arms. She deserved to sleep warm tonight, if on no other night!

  Furs and princess together so warmed Conan that his second sleep was as deep as his first. He awoke to find the princess gone and Raihna in her usual place. She looked very fair in the pale light of early dawn, but it was not in Conan to wake her.

  The camp began its greetings to the day with the scrape of flint and steel kindling cook fires, the clash of pats and knives, the wails of hungry children. The night sentries came in, the day sentries went out, and Conan heard a familiar voice raised in protest.

  It was Aybas, complaining to all who would hear” and some, it seemed, who would not”that he had barely slept last night. Thyrin snored.

  It was then that Conan's laughter shook the tent and awoke Raihna.

  Chapter 17

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  Pain still troubled Count Syzambry day and night, likewise weakness and nightmares. He was not ungrateful to Zylku the apprentice for his work with the potions he had found in the ruins of the palace. Without Zylku, both the pain and the weakness would have been impossible to conceal, and the mustering of men to his standard impossible to accomplish. So in spite of the pain, he slept well the night before the Pougoi came to his camp.

  The sentries were among the best of his men-at-arms. They sent word of the coming of the Pougoi, then stood to arms instead of fleeing.

  Syzambry resolved to honor them for that, the more so when he learned that among the Pougoi were two of the Star Brothers.

  "Star Brothers," he said as they were ushered into his tent. "I hope it is good tidings that you bring me here, on the eve of final victory."

  "The tidings could be better, and likewise worse," the elder of the two Star Brothers said. He had a beard bound with brass wire into three plaits and a fluent command of the lowland tongue.

  "We have come without our beast, which cannot live away from the lake we made for it. We have also come with only part of the warriors of the tribe. The remainder were needed to guard our women and children from those tribes that would use a time of weakness to avenge themselves for our service to you."

  Syzambry had a sense of being told both less and more than the truth.

  The courtly manner of the Star Brother did not ease his mind. The wizard seemed to have spent much of his life winning allies by telling them what they wished to hear.

  "How many warriors have you brought, and what chiefs?" Syzambry asked.

  That should smoke out some of the fleas at least”

  "Fifty warriors, among the best of the tribe, but no chiefs whose names you would know."

  "Then who will lead the warriors in the final battle?"

  "We shall stand close to the forefront of the battle," the younger Star Brother said. "As we shall also be among the warriors, what we say, they will hear easily."

  "I am sure they will," Syzambry said. Pain throbbed in his head, not from any wound but from the old sick headache that came from rage at fools. "But will they hear the commands of men wise in war? I doubt not your intent, but have you ever fought in such a battle as this will be?"

  The two Star Brothers could do no more than shake their heads.

  "I thought as much. Will you grant that I may place one of my own captains over your warriors? It will be prudent for you as well as for them."

  "You doubt our courage?" the elder asked, bristling.

  "I doubt that the greatest sorcerer in the world can cast a useful spell when he is trying to keep steel from entering his guts," Syzambry said. He tried to keep his voice level. From the look of the Star Brothers, he had not succeeded, but they recognized his authority.

  "Good. Then I will chose a captain within days, and you may come to know him before we march. Is there more?"

  The wizards shook their heads and withdrew. Syzambry waited for a decent interval, then summoned Zylku and told him of the meeting with the Star Brothers.

  The man listened in silence, but his face grew pale. "You want me to spy on these ragged-arse hill men?"

  "I want you to sit down with them and some good wine first. Drink lightly, see that they drink deep, and listen. Listen, and what you hear, tell me. You are no soldier, but you are something at times worth more”a man with keen eyes and ears, and a mouth he can keep shut. Also, I think you understand more of magic than you admit."

  Zylku's face said nothing to these last words, but he nodded. "Ah. You smell something, too, about the Pougoi coming in like this?"

  "You presume greatly to hint that I am a witling."

  "Forgive me, my Lord Count."

  "Earn your forgiveness, by learning what the Star Brothers are hiding."

  It might be risking much for little to offend the Star Brothers, and doing so for no more than satisfying curiosity. Yet Syzambry was certain that more was amiss with the Pougoi than the Star Brothers had told him.

  He was almost certain that Eloikas and his minions had a hand in it.

  And if it was something that might give new strength to the flagging royal cause and make it more formidable on the day of battle”

  Syzambry cursed and smote the tent pole with his open palm. The shock awakened pain in several places; he stifled a cry.

  When he was crowned king, the count decided, his first command would be that all who wished the royal favor would wait on him in his bedchamber. Especially Princess Chienna, and she would wait on him in very particular ways.

  When Conan returned leading a host of Pougoi, Decius would have sympathized with Count Syzambry. The captain-general did not doubt Conan's tale, marvelous though it was. He did doubt the Pougoi's change of allegiance. Doubted it aloud and often, until at last Princess Chienna summoned him and bid him hold his tongue.

  "These folk have no home and no retreat," she said sharply. "They can go forward only to doom at the hands of the tribes they have fought, or to some safety in friendship with us. Safety for those warriors who survive a battle that you yourself tell me will be a slaughterhouse.

  Safety, also, for their women and babes."

  "You almost persuade me," Decius said. "Yet this matter is so grave that if King Eloikas

  For a moment, Decius was sure that Chienna was about to strike him with an open hand. Then her fingers closed on the hilt of her dagger. When she spoke, her voice would have curdled milk.

  "Decius, I am neither queen nor regent as yet. But if you trouble my father with this, I will find some way to repay you, outside the law if I find none within it. Go and make sheep's eyes at Mistress Raihna, or grant Lord Aybas his captain's warrant, or do anything that is of use!

  But do not trouble my father, or I will do more than trouble you!"

  Decius bowed and took his leave. In truth, the princess had the right of it. King Eloikas's heart was weakening. It would be a marvel if he lived to see the day of victory.

  If it came. The ruin of the Pougoi, their beast, and the Star Brothers had dealt a shrewd blow against Count Syzambry. It had by no means ended the war.

  Men were coming in from towns and villages the count had looted
to support his host. But few were well-armed, and fewer still knew their way about a battlefield. Aybas would have his captaincy and more if he wished it, not because Decius altogether trusted him, but because beggars could not choose. A dozen captains and three hundred harnesses would have been more to Decius's liking.

  There were tales as well that some of the tribes who no longer feared the Pougoi might take a hand in the war. But on which side? If they did come to the royal camp, would they keep the peace with their enemies for generations ? Perhaps it would be better for the royal cause if the tribes remained in their hills.

  A score and more such questions marched and countermarched through Decius's mind as he walked from Chienna's tent. By the time he reached the edge of the camp, he decided that he would indeed visit Raihna. Not to "make sheep's eyes at her"”in his dreams, he was doing far more”but to take counsel from her. Also from her Cimmerian, and even from Lord Aybas and Marr, if they could be brought to speak”

  A drum began to beat somewhere behind him. Decius turned and saw Conan himself striding down the slope. His face was hard, and only the icy-blue eyes seemed to live.

  "My lord captain-general. You are summoned to Her Highness."

  A cold hand gripped Decius's heart. Foreknowledge came, so he felt no surprise when Conan added:

  "King Eloikas has just died. As chief among the nobles present, you

  "I know the laws and customs of the realm, Cimmerian. Believe me, I do."

  Decius's voice nearly broke on the last words. He wanted to cry "Father!" so that the stars and the moon would hear him.

  The Cimmerian had the grace to look away until the captain-general regained command of himself. When he had done so, the two warriors began retracing their steps up the hill toward the royal tent.

  Count Syzambry shifted restlessly in his padded chair. He had spent the whole day not merely out of bed, but at work, save for the short sleep that his surgeon urged upon him in the afternoon. An afternoon nap, as if he were a child still in smallclothes!

  Perhaps he no longer needed that nap. Perhaps it was that which kept him awake now, growing more restless and uneasy as the sun slipped below the mountain peaks. The sunset gilded some of the snowcaps on the highest peaks, turned others crimson. The breeze had died with the coming of twilight, and the count felt as if the world were holding its breath in anticipation.

  Anticipation of what? He knew what he awaited, at least. Tonight Zylku should return from among the Pougoi. Perhaps he would even return with the truth about the state of the tribe.

  From the scouts who watched the royal camp, Syzambry had learned that at least some of the Pougoi had turned their colors. They were led by a man who might be Aybas”and if Aybas had turned traitor, Syzambry could not think of a death hard enough for him!

  At least the turncoat Pougoi had no beasts or Star Brothers with them as far as the scouts could judge. There was no approaching the royal camp closely, by night or by day. The scouts who tried to had never been seen again, save for one who was found gelded, disemboweled, and otherwise turned into a direful warning.

  After that, the scouts kept their distance, and much of what they brought back was rumors or, at best, tales. One tale ran so far as to say that King Eloikas was dead. If so, should Syzambry offer peace on terms of being named regent for Prince Urras?

  Syzambry looked at that notion now from one side, now from another, as color left the world and night swallowed the camp save where watchfires sparked with saffron flames or crimson coals. It was full dark by the time he judged it best to hold his tongue for now. When he knew his own strength, as well as his foe's weakness, the time might be right for making nimble tongues do the work of sharp steel.

  Where was Zylku? The count would not know his own strength until he knew the state of the Pougoi, and he would not know that until the man returned.

  Boots scraped rocky ground. Swords and spears clattered and clanged.

  The count's guards were alert. The count himself drew his sword and laid it across his knees as his servant opened the tent flaps.

  A dark shape emerged into the circle of the watchfire: Zylku, looking much the same as he had three days ago, save for an unshaven countenance and a dark cloak thrown over his garments. He stepped lightly toward the watchfire.

  The count leaped from his chair, raising his sword to the guard position. In the fire's light he saw that the agent's feet were bare.

  Bare”and bloody, as if he had run barefoot for days over sharp stones.

  Syzambry's breath hissed out in alarm. Otherwise, he would have called the sentries. They needed no calling, though. They had seen the same as their lord, and they stepped forward to do their duty.

  The first two guards to reach the agent gripped him gently by the arms, as they would have done with a harmless madman. With the strength of ten men, Zylku gripped the guards' throats. With the strength of twenty, he slammed their heads together. The crack of shattered skulls was loud enough to raise echoes. Then, for good measure, Zylku's fingers closed on the men's throats and crushed their windpipes. They were dead twice over when he flung them violently away from him, to crash into their comrades.

  The guards' oath to their lord, and perhaps fear of his wrath, held them at their posts. They did not, however, again advance upon Zylku.

  As what had been a man ambled toward the fire, they ran hastily to form a wall of flesh and steel before their lord.

  "Lift me up, you fools!" the count stormed. He hated any order that would remind others of his lack of stature, but he had no choice. All he could see before him was a line of jerkined backs and helmeted heads.

  Two of his servants lifted the chair. They staggered under its weight.

  Two guards ran back to join the servants. They were eager to be as far as they could contrive from Zylku.

  The four men together bore chair and count out of the tent and raised Syzambry until he could see over the heads of his guards. He swallowed a cry of horror when he saw clearly, and his limbs responded to an urge to leap in panic from his chair. The chair swayed, the men struggled to uphold it, the count clung desperately to both his dignity and the arms of the chair, and the guards tried to look in all directions at once.

  Chaos threatened, but it did not quite prevail. The count settled back on the cushions and forced himself to stare at the sight before him.

  Zylku stood in the fire, whose flames leaped as high as his knees. They had already burned the boots from his feet, and now they were turning the flesh on his bones to charcoal. He seemed to feel no pain, though, but stood as if his feet had been in a warm bath, scented with healing herbs”

  The man's mouth opened and he spoke. Or at least words came forth.

  Count Syzambry did not care to think about who in truth had put the words in Zylku's mouth.

  "Count Syzambry. This time it is not you who pays the price for seeking unlawful knowledge of our secrets. Nor will it be you unless you further fail to heed such lessons. There will be a lesson each time you seek what you may not know. Each time that lesson will cost the life of a man under you. Think. How many such lessons will the courage of your men endure?"

  Then, at last, the spell that had bound Zylku broke. All the pain of being burned alive struck him in a single moment. Count Syzambry would have sworn that no such scream could issue from a human throat.

  "Kill him!" the count howled, nearly as shrill as the wretched man himself. The order was not needed. Half a dozen spears were in Zylku's breast before he could scream a second time. There would have been more had several guards not dropped their weapons to clap their hands over their ears. One fell to his knees, spewing.

  As Zylku died, so did the fire. The count thanked the gods for the darkness, which hid his own pallid and fear-twisted countenance from his men. He hoped that the gods were still present in this land to be thanked.

  At least his guards and servants were present and in command of their limbs and senses. They did their duty so that when the count's
wit returned, he was wrapped in furs and in his bed, with a leech attending him.

  Syzambry listened with but half an ear to the leech's earnest mutterings about bleeding and purging, green bile and wind. His thoughts were elsewhere, pursuing the mystery of who had ensorceled Zylku and sent him to his dreadful death.

  No one but the Star Brothers and the royal house could have secrets they would kill to guard. The royal house had no magic at its command, unless the piper still served them. The Star Brothers had magic more than great enough for this dreadful work, even without their beast.

  Yet the Star Brothers were his allies! The count almost choked on the word. Was this a way to treat an ally, one who had promised to raise them and their folk high in the Border Kingdom? Slaughtering a trusted man, sowing fear among the soldiers, and unsettling the count's own mind?

  The Star Brothers had done it, though. Perhaps they were like their hill folk after all, with no sense of honor outside the tribes. Perhaps they did not care what they did, because the secret they wished to protect was that they could prevail without Count Syzambry's aid.

  With the fire gone, the night could not have been darker. It seemed colder, though, and the count drew the furs more tightly about himself as the chill seemed to strike at his wounds. Amidst the throbbing pain, the thought of offering peace to the royal house came again.

  "Tell your master that peace shall come only when he offers his sword to Our service without conditions," Queen Chienna said.

  Decius smiled at the look on the faces of the handful of surviving court officials. The royal "We" was the prerogative of a reigning monarch, not of a regent for an underage king. Nor had it escaped their attention that Urras was still called "Prince."

  It seemed that the matter of a regency would not arise for some time, mostly likely not until after the decisive battle against Count Syzambry. This did not displease Decius in the least.