Conan and the Mists of Doom Part 5

"There is only one and he stands before you."

"Well, sit, then. It will never be said that I made an old comrade stand in my presence, even when I'm not at my best for giving hospitality."

Something Conan could not readily name pa.s.sed over Khezal's face at the words "old comrade." So the man put some value on that, did he? Enough, maybe, to explain what he planned and what part the Cimmerian had in those plans?

Khezal sat down. He seemed to move a trifle more stiffly now.

"New wounds, Khezal? Or the old ones bothering you more with the pa.s.sing years?"

"Conan, I'm three years younger than you, which hardly makes me a stiffening dotard drowsing by the fireside. Can you shape your tongue to questions that are neither impertinent nor insulting?" If Conan had held any doubt of Khezal's ident.i.ty, it was fast fading. The wry speech was that of the young captain, hardly more than a boy, who had fought beside Conan against the beasts created by the Jewels of Kurag. The best part of ten years had made the manner sit better on him, like a masterpiece of a saddle on a horse, but had not changed it past recognition.

"If this question is either, may Erlik's hounds bite off your stones. What of my men?"

"We have given rites to three, and hold two honorably captive. The others have fled."

"May I see them?"

"When we have-"

"Now."

"Conan, you are hardly in the best position to make conditions."

"On the contrary, I'm in a fine position. You want something from me. As long as I refuse it, you are worse off than I."

"Your position could be made worse."

"How, without risking my death? Dead men help no living man's schemes, as I'm sure I need not tell you."

Khezal muttered something that invoked unlawful parts of a number of still less lawful G.o.ds. Conan laughed.

"I'm not meaning to begin our new friendship with a quarrel. Not if there's to be a friendship, which I imagine there is, or I'd have awakened with my throat cut. But a quarrel, there'll be, if I can't see my men."

"Conan, by Erlik, Mitra, Vashti, and Crom, by the blood we have shed in each other's company, by Dessa's lively legs, and by Pylia's fine b.r.e.a.s.t.s, I swear that your men have come to no harm."

The Cimmerian laughed. "I can almost believe that oath. How fare the ladies?"

Khezal's face turned sober. "Pylia is dead. The story goes that she challenged some younger rival to see who could wear out the most men in a single night. She won, but died of her victory."

"Remembering Pylia, I can believe that. And Dessa?"

"She keeps her own tavern, after years as Pylia's most trusted girl. Still comely, the last time I saw her, and as we thought she might, thriving as she never would have wed to some dull clerk."

"A wench after my own heart-"

"And other parts? Never mind, you are right. We are neither of us made to be clerks, either."

"No, but I am made so that I will see those men of mine, whether you help or hinder."

"Conan, were I my own master-"

"The son of one of the Seventeen Attendants, not his own master? Tell me that shrimp sing bawdy ballads, and I will believe this more easily."

Khezal's face went taut and dark, and Conan instantly realized that he had struck too deep, even in jest. He had indeed heard much of the affairs of Turan since Yezdigerd ascended the throne, to make him believe that even a man like Khezal could fall from favor. After all, why otherwise would the man be prowling the desert with Turanian cavalry patrols, instead of governing a whole province?

"I ask your pardon, Khezal. I spoke too hastily. But those men are sworn to me, and I to them."

"I doubt it not. And I am sworn to defend Turan against all its enemies, among whom you are numbered. If I am to be forsworn, the fewer who know about it, the better for us all. Informers are always cheap, and there is more than enough silver to buy them. The less you are seen until after we march, the better."

Conan had also heard that Turan now swarmed with spies as an ill-kept kitchen with vermin. If Khezal risked more than his authority over his men- risked his own life, indeed-he deserved a hearing.

He also was a battle comrade, and it was not in Conan to forget the debt he owed to such.

"Let it be as you wish, Khezal. Tell me what you want of me, and I will trust you for what comes next."

"You almost said that without smiling, Conan."

"Did I? Perhaps I'd best become a player in temple pageants, to command my face better."

"I remember seeing you draw-what was his name? Kilar?-anyway, the one with the loaded dice-into cheating you before a half-score of witnesses. One would have taken you for a temple image, not a temple player!"

"I'll thank you more for the flattery when I've heard you out. Or do the tent walls have ears?"

Khezal shrugged, then sat down cross-legged and began to speak.

Khezal had more trouble than expected, finding words to make the situation in the Kezankian Mountains clear to the Cimmerian. It was not that he distrusted Conan's wits-n.o.body but a fool thought the Cimmerian an overmuscled oaf, and not a few of such fools had over the years died from their mistake.

It was that, put into plain Turanian words, the menace of the Valley of the Mists seemed an old peasant wife's tale, mumbled about the fire late at night to frighten the children and the young maids into staying close to home. Time after time, Khezal heard in his mind gusty Cimmerian laughter, and hesitated before adding some detail he knew to be the truth or at least had heard from someone he trusted.

In the end, it was the Cimmerian who reduced Khezal's words to a few brisk statements. He leaned back, managing in spite of the chains to appear as relaxed as a cream-filled cat. (It was only when the Cimmerian was half-done that Khezal noticed there was play in the rivets linking chains to wrist and leg irons that had not been there last night.) "Something in the Kezankian Mountains is sending out raiders to s.n.a.t.c.h villagers. The tale goes that they are taken to a place called the Valley of the Mists and there sacrificed to demons."

"Some name it the Mist of Doom-" Khezal began, but Conan held up a hand with such regal dignity that the listener forgot that the hands were chained and the man himself sat upon a rough pallet, not a throne.

"If we quibble over every small detail, spies will have time to ride from Aghrapur to skulk outside the tent. If we would sound each other out on this, best we do it quickly."

With that, Khezal could hardly disagree. The Cimmerian continued.

"The demon of the mist or whatever draws on old magic is strong in the Kezankians. Fear and grief make the villagers there uneasy, also the nomad tribes between the mountains and the Turanian border. Or does Yezdigerd now claim all the land for the Kezankians and even beyond?"

"Not openly, but those with an ear for the king's true thoughts say so."

Conan snorted like a balky horse. "Trust that to set the Khorajans' teeth on edge. They've learned to live in the shadow of Turan, they and the folk of Khauran. They'll mislike having Yezdigerd's garri-sons peering over their garden walls from the slopes of the mountains."

Khezal said nothing, as there was no reply he cared to make to plain truth plainly stated. Rumors had run that Conan was developing a taste for statecraft, or at least the art of reading kings' intentions. (Not unlikely, this last-any mercenary captain who wanted to stay alive past his first employment needed that art, though not all had it.) "Is this whole tale of demons in the mountains perhaps put about by the Khorajans?" the Cimmerian insisted.

"Folk are vanishing, certainly," Khezal replied. "Those who fight the raiders too fiercely die by human weapons. The raiders at least are human, though none can say of what folk or race."

"Probably of every folk and race in the world, if I know the kind of mercenary who hires out for this sort of dirty work," Conan said. "But no matter. The question I put to you is, why does this concern you?"

"Because my family's estates lie hard against the mountains," Khezal said. "An inheritance from my mother, and not a great one even before half went to dower my sister. But the villagers and their lands are mine."

Conan snorted again. "From what you said, I doubted that you had any lands left."

"I can tell all the sorry tales some other time and place, Conan. Here I only say that stripping me of my lands would have raised tempers, even swords, against Yezdigerd. Sending me and my Greencloaks far afield while royal agents bribe my stewards to send the revenues to Aghrapur rather than to me- that is too subtle for anyone to notice." Conan muttered something that no listening ears could have understood but that sounded to Khezal very much like a wish that King Yezdigerd would find his manhood failing him at an awkward moment. Then he shrugged.

"I don't doubt your loyalty to your folk. You always seemed like that sort. But what will the king say? Will he say you do a lord's duty, or will someone whisper in his ear that you seek to win your people over to rebellion?"

"You've grown longheaded with the years, Conan."

"Long or short, it's the only head I have, and of more use on my shoulders than on a spike outside some Turanian prison. Which is where it's likely to end up if Yezdigerd calls this whole matter a plot against him."

Khezal took a deep breath, then let it out. It had been on the tip of his tongue to question the Cimmerian's courage. But that would have been at one and the same time foolish, perilous, and without reason.

"If he learns about it before we're done, perhaps. If we winkle the secret out of the mountains soon enough, however-"

"I'll take my reward in a safe pa.s.sage out of Turanian lands, at the very least."

"Then you'll ride with us?"

"For whatever good I can do, yes. I haven't fought nearly as many demons as the tales run, though. Remember that."

"Not as many demons, but I'd wager even more men, and here you are, and where are they? Names carved on family tombs, if that much."

"Perhaps," Conan said. "I can't bind my men, however. They didn't swear to follow me against demons. If they wish to leave, they have a safe conduct good from this day forth."

Khezal did not need to ask what the price of his refusal would be. But he had to make one more effort, for the honor of his own men whose blood the Afghulis had shed.

"If they ride with you, I return-a certain bag- that was taken from you."

"With what was in it?"

Khezal smiled thinly. Perhaps the Cimmerian could be bought after all.

"Of course."

Conan sat up, so abruptly that Khezal drew back a pace. It was as well that he did. The Cimmerian flung his ma.s.sive arms apart, the chain snapped free of one wrist iron, and another cat-quick movement sent the end of the chain whipping through the s.p.a.ce Khezal had just departed.

Khezal's hand went as far as the hilt of his dagger before his wits regained command of the member.

"I think you have made your point," he said, after he had also regained command of his voice. "So I will not draw mine. One condition: I bring your men to you, unless you wish to wait for night."

"I suppose no one will suspect plots over a couple of Afghuli captives," Conan said. "As you wish. But bring some decent food for all of us when you do."

"You have had the best there is in the camp."

"What? No private stores for feasting in your tent?"

"None."

"I think I believe you, friend. Very well. More food, then, if not better. And the best doctor for their wounds, if he has not already seen them."

"He has, but he can come again."

"See that he does," the Cimmerian said. His tone was such that Khezal felt an absurd wish to make the formal bow due to a governor or leader of a host. Instead he rose and walked out, erect but not turning his back on the Cimmerian.

Six.

After winning the temporary allegiance of Conan, Khezal's dearest wish was to be gone on the quest for the Valley of the Mists as soon as possible. He would gladly have ridden out that very night, with his hundred best Greencloaks.

Indeed, he would have mortgaged a small estate, or even a large one, to pay a friendly wizard to turn all his men's cloaks into wings, that they might fly on the wind to the Kezankian Mountains. Thus might they outspeed the tales of their coming, surprising the demons and their human servants. Thus might they also settle the matter of the mountains' demons before word of Conan's presence reached unfriendly ears in Aghrapur.

However, Khezal was of much the same mind as Conan-the words "friendly" and "wizard" did not belong in the same sentence. Both would also have doubted that even a wizard who professed friendship would keep a bargain, rather than taking his gold and fleeing at once for the land of the Hyperboreans.

In any case, the lack of magical a.s.sistance for the journey north was only the first and least of Khezal's frustrations. The next was Conan's insistence on waiting until the two Afghulis who were riding north were fit to travel.

"Do you doubt my word, that they will be safe here among the Greencloak garrison of the Virgin's Oasis?" Khezal asked, laughing to cover his fury.

Conan, wholly sober, shook his head. "I doubt not your word, not even your command over your men as long as your eye is on them. But your eye will be on the slopes of the Kezankians, and your men here. That's another matter, and the name for the matter would be 'blood feud' if anything happened to the Afghulis."

Khezal considered this. Neither he nor any Turanian had much love for the Afghulis, but they were not among the realm's leading foes. The Iranistanis were otherwise-and the Afghulis were even less friendly to Iranistan than to Turan.

There would hardly be grat.i.tude toward a man who made blood foes of Turan among the Afghulis.

More important than any lack of grat.i.tude in court circles would be the enmity of proven captains in war. Khezal would have endangered their men, and imperiled their victories. Lack of grat.i.tude among courtiers, Khezal could endure. Knives in the dark, wielded on the orders of men whom he had trusted to guard his back from Yezdigerd, would make life sin-gularly futile for the short time it might last.

"As you wish. I trust that your friends are as hardy as the tale-tellers have them, though. We do not want one of my enemies ambushing us with half a regiment as we cross the caravan route, because a spy has told a tale in the palace!"

"Khezal, I am no more a lover of palaces and what goes on in them than you are.

Trust me for that, and my Afghulis for swift healing."

To Khezal's relief, the Afghulis were standing within a day and riding within two. They moved stiffly at first, but that they were fighting-fit was proved on the third day.

A groom boy, so green that he had hardly wiped his mother's milk from his lips, grew curious about Farad's dagger. He reached out to touch it-and found himself on his back some paces away, lip split and several teeth scattered about on the sand.

"The lad should call himself lucky," was all Khezal could get out of Conan. "And you should call your chief groom a fool, for letting into the field a witling who'll touch another's steel without asking."

"That won't heal the boy."

Conan shrugged, then dipped into his belt pouch. An Iranistani silver prince-piece came out. The Cimmerian tossed it high, then slapped it out of the air with one hand, into the palm of another.