Conan the Invincible Part 11

For once Haranides did not notice the sarcasm. This had to be what he sought. By Mitra, it had to be. He could barely restrain himself from galloping ahead of his troop, but he forced himself to keep the march to a walk. The horses must be conserved if there was a pursuit close at hand, and he prayed there would be.

The men strung out to the east waited once they had pa.s.sed on the signal, each man falling in behind the column as it reached him. Those beyond the man who first flashed his sighting would be riding west to join them. If this was a false alarm, Haranides thought ....

Then they topped another hill, and before them was a small knot of his men. As he rode closer another rider rejoined from the east. Haranides finally allowed himself to kick his mount into a gallop. One of the soldiers rode forward, touching his forehead respectfully.

"Sir, it looks to have been a camp, but there's...."

Haranides waved him to silence. He could see what was unusual about this hollow between two hills. Black-winged vultures, their bald heads glistening red from their feeding, stood on the ground warily watching the quartet of jackals that had driven them from their feast.

"Wait here until I signal," Haranides commanded, and walked his horse down into the hollow: He counted the ash piles of ten burnt-out fires.

The jackals backed away from the mounted man, snarling, then s.n.a.t.c.hed bones still bearing shreds of scarlet flesh and loped away. The vultures shifted their beady-eyed gaze from the jackals to Haranides. A half-eaten skull showed the thing on the ground had once been a man, but it could never have been proven by the scattered bones, cracked by the jackals' powerful jaws. Haranides looked up as Aheranates galloped down the hill.

"Mitra! What's that?"

"Proof there were bandits here, lieutenant. None else would leave a dead man for the scavengers."

"I'll bring the men down to search for-"

"You'll dismount ten men," Haranides said patiently, "and bring them down." He could afford to be patient, now. He was sure of it. "No need to grind what little we might find under the horses' hooves. And lieutenant? Tell off two men to bury that. See to it yourself."

Aheranates had been avoiding looking at the b.l.o.o.d.y bones. Now his face abruptly turned green. "Me? But-"

"Now, lieutenant. The Red Hawk, and your glory, are getting further away all the time."

The lieutenant stared open-mouthed, then swallowed and jerked his horse around. Haranides did not watch him go. The captain dismounted and slowly led his horse through the site of the camp. Around the remains of the fires was scruffed ground where men had slept. Perhaps fifty, he estimated. Well away from the fires were holes from the pegs and poles of a large tent. Four other holes, though, s.p.a.ced in a large square, interested him more.

A short, bowlegged cavalryman trotted up and touched his sloping forehead. "Begging your pardon, sir, but the lieutenant said I was to tell you he found where they had their horses picketed." His voice became flatly noncommittal. "The lieutenant says to tell you there was maybe a hundred horses, sir."

Haranides looked to where two men were digging a hole in the hillside for the remains of the body. Aheranates apparently had decided he should search rather than oversee their work as ordered. "You've been twenty years and more in the cavalry, Resaro," the captain said. "How many horses would you say were on that picket line? If the lieutenant hadn't said a hundred, of course," he added when the man hesitated.

"Not to contradict the lieutenant, sir, but I'd say fifty-three. They didn't clear away the dung, and they kept the horses apart enough to keep the piles separate. Some would be sumpter animals, of course, sir."

"Very good, Resaro. Go back to the lieutenant and tell him I want...."

He stopped at the strained look on Resaro's face. "Is there something else you want to tell me?"

The stumpy man shifted awkwardly. "Well, sir, the lieutenant said we was mistaken, but Caresus and me, we found the way they went when they left here. They brushed their tracks some, but not enough. They went east, and a little north."

"You're sure of that?" Haranides said sharply.

"Yes, sir."

The captain nodded slowly. Toward the Kezankian Mountains, but not toward the caravan route through the mountains to Sultanapur. "Tell the lieutenant I want to see him, Resaro." The cavalryman touched his forehead and backed away. Haranides climbed the eastern hill to stare toward the Kenzankian Mountains, out of view beyond the horizon.

When Aheranates joined him, the lieutenant was carrying a stone unguent jar. "Found this down where the tent was," he said. "Someone had his leman along, seems."

Haranides took the jar. Empty, it still held the flowery fragrance of the perfume of Ophir. He tossed it back to Aheranates. "More like than not, your first souvenir of the Red Hawk."

The lieutenant gaped. "But how can you be certain this was the trull's camp? It could as easily be a... a caravan, wandered somewhat from the route. The man could have been left for some errand and been slain by wild animals. He could even have had no connection with those who camped here at all. He could have come after, and-"

"A man was staked out down there," Haranides said coldly. "'Tis my thought was the dead man. Secondly, no camels were here. Have you ever seen a caravan lacking camels, saving a slaver's? And there is no staking ground for a coffle. Thirdly, there was only one tent. A caravan of this size would have had half a score. And lastly, why have you lost your fervor for pursuing the Red Hawk? Can it be your thought that she has a hundred men with her? Fear not. There are fewer than fifty, though I grant you they may seem a hundred if it comes to steel."

"You have no right! Manerxes, my father, is-"

"Sir, lieutenant! Prepare the men to move out. Along that trail you thought not worth mentioning."

For a moment they stood eye to eye, Haranides coldly contemptuous, Aheranates quivering with rage. Abruptly the lieutenant tossed the unguent jar to the ground. "Yes, sir!" he grated, and turned on his heel to stalk down the hill.

Haranides bent to pick up the smooth stone jar. The flowery fragrance gave him a dim picture of the woman, one at odds with the coa.r.s.e trollop with a sword he expected. But why was she riding toward the Kezankian Mountains? The answer to that could be of vital importance to him. Success, and Aharesus would smooth his path to the top. Failure, and the King's Counselor would give him not a thought as Tiridates had his head put over the West Gate. Placing the jar in his pouch, he went down to join his men.

Chapter XI.

As the bandits climbed higher into the Kezankian Mountains, Conan stopped at every rise to look behind. Beyond the rolling foothills, on the plain they had left a day gone, something moved. Conan estimated the lead the brigands had, and wondered if it was enough.

"What are you staring at?" Hordo demanded, reigning in beside the Cimmerian. The outlaws were straggling up a spa.r.s.ely treed mountainside toward a sheer-walled pa.s.s in the dark granite. Karela, as always, rode well in the lead, her gold-lined emerald cape flowing in the wind.

"Soldiers," Conan replied.

"Soldiers! Where?"

Conan pointed. A black snake of men inched toward the foothills, seeming to move through shimmering air rather than on solid ground.

Only soldiers would maintain such discipline marching through those waterless approaches to the mountains. They were yet distant, but even as the two men watched the snake appeared to grow larger. On the plain the soldiers moved faster than the bandits in the mountains. The gap would close further.

"No matter," the one-eyed man muttered. "They'll not catch us up here."

"Dividing the loot, are you?" Aberius kicked his horse in the ribs, and the beast scrambled up beside the other two. "Best you wait till it's in our grasp. You might not be one of those left alive to .... What's that? Out there. Riders."

Others heard him and turned in their saddles to look. "Hillmen?" a hook-nosed Iranistani named Reza said hesitantly.

"Can't be," a bearded Kothian replied. His name was Talbor, and the tip of his nose had been bitten off. "Hillmen don't raid far from the mountains."

"And not so many together," Aberius agreed. His glower included both Conan and Hordo. "Soldiers, be they not? It's soldiers you've brought on us."

An excited gabble went up from the men gathered around them.

"Soldiers!" "The army's on us!" "Our heads on pikes!" "A whole regiment!" "The King's Own!"

"Still your tongues!" Hordo shouted. "There's no more than two hundred, to my eye, and a day behind us, at that."

"'Tis still five to one against," Aberius said. "Or near enough as makes no difference."

"These mountains are not our place," Reza cried. "We be rats in a box."

"Ferrets in a woodpile," Hordo protested. "If this is not our own ground, still less is it theirs." The rest paid him no mind.

"We chase mists," Talbor shouted, rising in his stirrups to address the bandits who were gathering. "We ride into these accursed mountains after ghosts. It'll not stop till we find ourselves with our backs to a rock wall and Zamoran lances at our throats."

Aberius sawed his reins, and his horse pranced dangerously on the steeply sloping around. "Do you question my tracking, Talbor? The path we follow is the path taken by those I saw." He laid hand to his sword hilt.