So, Scyra had learned, were Conan and his people ready. Indeed, she could let them march the way they intended for the rest of the day.
They were moving almost as she would have wished had she been marching with them and guiding their every turn.
After tonight they would need to bear farther to the south to come upon the cave in good time. They would also need protection against the Snakes, whose lands they approached.
The Snakes had been for some time at odds with the Wolves. It was short of open warfare, but most of their warriors would be facing the Wolves at the other end of the Snake lands. Some would still remain close to the cave”too many for twenty Bamulas, a Cimmerian, and a woman to meet successfully.
She could not trust her father to offer magickal protection. He would ask more questions than she could answer with believable lies, and her masquerade would be ended.
A vanguard of Owl warriors, going on ahead? Yes, and what was to keep them trustworthy? Even if they did no more than fight the Snakes”
Sutharo. If she gave him certain promises she had no intention of keeping, he might swear to bind his warriors to peace with Conan, and even with the Snakes, unless the other tribe attacked first. Snake and Owl were old enemies, but there was no declared war between them now, and the Snakes had the Wolves on their hands.
She would make promises, and pray that he did not ask her to keep those promises until after the battle. She could make some excuse that would keep him away from her; Picts had as many superstitions as any about the business of men and women, and more than most. Afterward, Sutharo's wrath would be something to fear, but his writ could not run beyond the Pictish lands. If she and her father lived, those lands would not see them again.
Sixteen
Scyra's directions had kept Conan's band wandering along ridges and over hills for the best part of two days now. The Cimmerian had no difficulty in finding paths that kept the band concealed, but he was beginning to find it hard to believe that Scyra knew what she was doing.
She said that she wished the band to have ample warning of any attackers, so was sending them high, where the Snakes seldom roamed.
The Picts were creatures of the forest, she said, and the Snakes more so than most. They were uneasy on bare rock, and those who kept to it might pass through Snake lands almost unhindered.
It was much in Conan's mind that high, cold, rocky land was enough hindrance to his Bamulas even without Snakes crawling out from under the boulders. One night it grew so cold that Conan ordered a fire built, fearing detection less than he feared finding half his people in the morning frozen as hard as the rocks around them.
Perhaps it was too strong to say that Scyra did not know what she was doing. She knew Picts and the Pictish Wilderness. She did not know the Bamulas and what was needed to keep their trust”which was not leading them across bare slopes with nothing between them and the naked sky but clouds and perhaps a circling eagle!
Conan even tried once more to return Scyra's mind-message, but received as little reply as before. After that, he held his peace. If by some quirk of fate he did sprout a "ghost-voice" at this time, Lysenius would be as likely to hear it as his daughter. The border was still three days' unimpeded march away, and the spells of any sorcerer as potent as Lysenius could strike from an even farther distance.
It was toward evening at the end of the second day that Conan climbed a tree that rose higher than the nearest crest and offered better concealment. He came down with such a grim look on his naturally harsh countenance that only Vuona was bold enough to ask what he had seen.
"Picts," was all the Cimmerian would say.
"How close?" Govindue asked.
"Close enough that they could move between us and the border if they wished to."
"Then our task is to make sure they do not wish to," Bowenu said.
"How are you going to do that?" Kubwande snapped. "Cloud the minds of their chiefs with magick beer, flung across the hills to their camp by your powers?"
"Let Conan send a few of us in some direction the others are not taking, to show ourselves to the Picts and then hide. A small band can hide easily, and while the Picts seek it in vain, the rest can be away to the border."
"My thanks, Bowenu," Conan said. "But you don't know the Picts. They can track a man if he leaves only two needles out of place on a trail.
Also, they would surround a small band with a few warriors and send the rest on in search of the band's comrades. I honor your courage, and hope all will do so, but it would be wasted.
"We cross the border on our feet and together, or we lie down together.
And if we lie down, it will be among enough dead Picts so that their tribe will be known as the Tribe of Widows and Orphans!"
They would have cheered him gladly then, even as "Conan," but he silenced them and sent out the guards and watering parties. Afterward he walked a little apart and was sitting on a rock when Govindue came up.
"It is now my turn to ask if you are troubled, Conan. I cannot offer as much help as you gave me, but what I can give is yours."
Conan looked at the young chief. Even the smallest lie would be a larger betrayal than he could manage.
"I saw the fire-smoke of two bands of Picts. One is the one I spoke of, doubtless Snakes. They will be looking for Wolves, and might stumble on us only by chance. The other is to the west, and closer. I would not say surely that they are on our trail. I wouldn't wager against it either."
"You think¦ has Scyra betrayed us?"
"Not to her father, I am certain. Otherwise, we'd have his spells splattering about us like hawk droppings. But neither Lysenius nor Scyra may be masters now. The Picts may have tortured our plans out of both, stuck their heads on poles in an Owl village, and set out after us to do the same."
"We shall sing a death-song for Scyra," Govindue vowed. "Even for her father, if you think his spirit would be calmed."
"I've known few sorcerers who could ever have a quiet spirit, no matter how many songs you sang for them. Save your breath to drink your beer, and leave Lysenius to the gods. They've more time than we mortals, or so the priests say."
***
Sutharo, son of Yagan, war chief of the Owls, waited with scant patience for his scout to descend the tree. It would have been swifter for the man to shout from on high, but this was not Owl land.
"Have you seen Snakes? Are they close?"
"Many Snakes. From the fires, I think more than three hands of hands.
Not close. Not between us and the hill the white shaman says is the place."
"You have done well. You may drink first when next we find water."
"I thank the chief."
Sutharo hoped they would find water soon. He and the warriors with him had been traveling swiftly for two days now. They had not overtaken the demon-men and their giant chief. The demon-men seemed as swift as Owls, even on bad ground.
It would be worth all that his warriors endured if they came to the place in time to protect the demon-men from the Snakes. If they did, then the white shamans daughter would lie in Sutharo's bed, and a son of such blood would surely be both war chief and shaman.
Such a son might rule over more than one tribe. His father's tomb would be a place all men would know, and in the aftertime, the father would sit by the fire of the highest gods.
It was as well that his warriors did not know that they were bruising their feet and drying their throats to protect men they would afterward be killing. They might wonder at Sutharo's asking such a thing, and even speak doubt to his face.
Some might even challenge him. They would be fools to do so, in the land of the Snakes and where the white shaman might see the quarrel among the Owls. But there were always fools, even among the Owls. There were also those who would not follow a chief who had lied to them for no better reason than to fill his bed with Scyra.
Sutharo had long wished for another chance to fight the Snakes before he grew too old to lead the Owls in war. But he had
begun to think that it was always better to fight as one's own chief, even if the reward for that was not Scyra.
***
Scyra's last message bid Conan bear to the south, around the end of a ridge he could see ahead. That would be all very well if the southern end was not the one closer to the Snakes. Going straight over the ridge would be possible only if he was alone. His eye for ground told him that the far side of the ridge was too steep for the Bamulas to face.
Very well, then. They would go north. It was time to see what disobeying Scyra would bring. If no harm, well and good. If it proved that she was right”well, a man could only die once.
If it drew the sorcerous wrath of Lysenius”again, a man could only die once. But Conan knew he would die with an easier mind if Scyra did not prove treacherous. He had been deceived by more women than some men ever knew in their lives, but he had also met his share of the other kind, and not only Belit. They were something he would regret leaving behind, if indeed his time was at hand.
He pointed his sword toward the north. "We go this way. Be more watchful than ever. Every step takes us deeper into Snake land."
"If the Snakes strike, they will feel that they have bitten stone!"
Kubwande shouted. It was the most worthwhile thing he had said in some time.
***
Scyra cursed under her breath in the Pictish tongue, using words that her father would be astonished she knew. She cursed Conan, invoking parts of his body that would, again, astonish her father.
She did not curse the Crystal of Thraz, although she knew full well that without it, she would never have conceived her plan. As for attempting to put it into execution, sooner would she have tried to spy on a Pictish soul-changing, where a man's soul might enter a snake and a snakes the man.
But it seemed to her, as she sensed Conan swerving farther and farther from the right way, that perhaps the Crystal had made her too ambitious. She had tried to guide, and even to bind, a man who was no more made for that than was a tiger of the Vendhyan jungle, or a wolf of his own native forests. She had known Cimmerians only by their reputation before she met Conan. Now that she knew him, she did not wonder that Cimmeria remained fiercely independent and that Aquilonian intrusions to the north met bloody ends.
Her father stepped up behind her. She felt his breath on the back of her neck, and smelled the Pictish beer on it. Words of reproach almost reached her lips; she swallowed them.
"Conan goes on as you wish?"
"Not altogether. He circles the ridge widdershins."
"Ah. Can you send Sutharo's warriors after him?"
"Even if I could touch Sutharo's mind, I would not. He would call it witchcraft and fear me."
"Any man in his senses would fear you sometimes, Scyra. Just as they would your mother. In that way, there is almost too much of her in you."
Next, he would start rambling about her mother; then he would cry, and then he would drink more Pictish beer and fall asleep. She hoped he would not so unman himself that he could not cast a proper spell when they reached the cave.
No, she had come to hope that he would. If his magick deserted him at the last moment, he might never learn of her betrayal. She would not have to take the final steps of pitting her magick against his. If he could not complete his vengeance, might he not remember that there were other things in the world besides that?
Scyra squeezed her eyes shut and felt them stinging even so. It was hardly likely. Lysenius had lived for his vengeance for too many years to remember much of what life had been like before that.
Also, if his powers deserted him, he would be dead” swiftly if he was fortunate, slowly if he was not, and his daughter with him. It was near to madness already, her scheme to betray Picts while they were all about her. It was not wholly mad, only because she had hopes of concealing the betrayal long enough for her and her father to be beyond the reach of any Pict.
He would forgive her. The Picts would not. Nor would Conan, although if matters went awry, doubtless the Picts would put an end to him before he could take vengeance on her.
Life seemed to be one betrayal leading to another.
Scyra realized that she did not hold such a life as dear as she might have.
***
The Bamulas had learned the art of climbing hills as they had learned archery. A few of them were skilled. Most were better called "determined." Not much to Conan's surprise, Govindue was among the most adept at handling himself on hillsides. Rather more to the Cimmerian's surprise, Vuona was almost as light on her feet. He wondered if she was trying to flaunt her strength before someone, and if so, whether it was him or Govindue.
It happened that the young chief and the woman were the two closest to Conan when he led the band over the north end of the ridge. It wound off to the south, with the side before them bare and rocky, the side behind them thickly wooded. At the foot of the slope, more trees rose, firs and pines, making a sullen darkness that could have hidden enough Picts to sweep away a province, let alone a band of strangers in this land.
Conan went to ground and motioned those with him to do the same. They passed on the message, and no one allowed himself to stand boldly on the rocky spur, in plain sight from below and above alike.
The band had gone its own way, rather than the way Scyra bade them.
Nothing had come amiss”yet. It would still take a better reason than defying Scyra to make Conan lead his people across the bare eastern slope of the ridge.
The Cimmerian had perhaps the time of two or three deep breaths to hold this thought. He had time to wave to those behind him, bidding them move to the north, within the tree line.
Then arrows hailed from the sky. They were numerous enough to warn their targets, but not to do grave hurt. Shooting eagerly, without closing the range, the Picts did not inflict so much as a flesh wound.
Conan knew that such good luck, or the gods' favor, would not last much longer. He also saw from the fall of the arrows that they were coming from the very trees where he had intended to lead his people.
This was not much to his liking. He thought briefly that perhaps Scyra had the right of it, and that he owed her an apology, if he lived to see her again. For a sorceress who had barely seen her twentieth year, she had a wise head on those round, freckled shoulders”
"Run!" he shouted, pointing down the slope toward the trees to the east.
"The Picts”?" somebody shouted.
"That way, and already shooting at long range. If we run, they'll have to run too, to keep us within bowshot. Shooting on the run makes poor practice. The best archers to the rear. If you find a good place to hide and see Picts in the open, give them a little present. But don't fall too far behind. We can't stop to let anyone catch up."
Running was something the Bamulas knew well. Even when their lack of skill on hillsides betrayed them and they went down, they rose again quickly. No one broke bones or sprained muscles, and men whose bruises and cuts left blood trails in the dust on their bodies ran as swiftly as before.
Conan remained in the middle, where he could see and speak to everyone alike, and also be ready to join the rearguard of archers. He bore a stout Bossonian longbow, with a good edge in range over anything Pictish, and a quiver of two dozen arrows, besides his other weapons.
The Bossonian longbow seemed almost clumsy to one who had learned his archery on the subtle but powerful Turanian horsebow, but the Cimmerian despised no weapon that could kill a man.
If the Picts gave him any sort of a chance, he would add a good many of them to his escort from the world, even before drawing steel.
Conan had just seen Picts breaking into the open to the north and unslung his bow when Vuona let out a shriek as if the pits of the netherworld had opened at her feet. Without slowing, Conan turned his gaze toward the woman and saw that she had reason to cry out, for Picts were also sprouting from the trees ahead. Some had already nocked, and the first arrow from them fell almost at Vuona's feet. She dodged sharply to the l
eft with a yelp of surprise.
Conan knew that if his people stopped moving, they would be shot down where they stood, and if they ran, they might be running from one danger into another. The only way to safety seemed to be along the slope, toward the south”toward the way Scyra had bidden them go.
Most certainly, Scyra had seen clearly. The Cimmerian vowed to swallow his pride and admit as much, if he ever saw the witch-girl again.
The gods' hands remained over the band as they ran south, some now staggering and lurching, but all remaining on their feet. Conan heard breath rasping like ill-kept bellows in the forge of a slovenly blacksmith, the kind his father would never have countenanced in their village. It was not his own breath yet, and he knew he had speed and endurance enough to leave his band behind.
He also knew he would do no such thing, Nor would the band abandon the first one who fell. They would form a circle around the fallen comrade and try to stay alive until nightfall. That was too far away to offer much hope, but nothing else offered any at all.
No, that might not be wholly true. Up the slope and ahead lay a shadowy recess that looked very much like the mouth of a cave. Around it, boulders were strewn in a pattern that did not look entirely natural, but that offered as a good a place as any to go to ground.
"That way!" Conan shouted, pointing with his free hand.
It took a few moments for everyone to see where he was pointing, more for everyone to turn. Those moments gave both bands of Picts time to close the distance. The Bamula archers and Conan nocked and shot. The range was long, but the Bamulas and the Cimmerian were shooting more downhill than not. Two Picts fell; two more halted. Most of the returning arrows dropped short, and none did great harm.
Vuona picked that moment to stumble, going down hard enough to furrow one leg on a sharp stone. She rose, bleeding, cursing, and weeping all at once. After a few steps, it became clear to Conan that she could not keep on her feet all the way to the boulders.
He slung his bow and made ready to snatch her up, but it was Govindue who reached the young woman first. He lifted her on his shoulder as if she had been no heavier than a basket of grain or he as strong as the Cimmerian, and ran the rest of the way up the slope with her. Conan was not the last man into the boulders, but he was well behind the young chief.
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