Conan the Invincible Part 19

"They're both wounded," Aberius protested desperately. "Like as not, neither will last an hour."

"It's still a chance." Conan let his voice swell. "A chance for a king's treasure in gold and jewels. Who's for gold? Who's for the Red Hawk?" He risked unsheathing his sword and raising it overhead. "Gold!

The Red Hawk!"

In an instant every man save Aberius was waving his weapon in the air.

"Gold!" they bellowed. "Gold!" "The Red Hawk!" "Gold!"

Aberius twisted his thin mouth sourly. "Gold!" "Hawk!" His beady eyes glared murder at Conan.

"Good, then!" Conan shouted over their cries. "Off with you, to rest and drink! Till dawn!"

"Dawn!" they roared. "Gold!"

Conan waited until they were well on their way back to the fires, then returned to Karela. She stared at him as if stricken. He put out a hand to touch her, but she jerked her arm away and stalked toward her tent without a word. Conan stared after her in consternation.

"I said once you had a facile tongue," Hordo said, sheathing his sword.

"You've more than that, Conan of Cimmeria. Belikes you'll be a general, someday. Mayhap even a king. If you live to get out of these mountains.

If any of us do."

"What's the matter with her?" Conan demanded. "I told her I did this for me, not her. I did not break the oath she demanded."

"She thinks you try to supplant her," Hordo replied slowly. "As chief of the band."

"That's foolish!"

Hordo did not seem to hear. "I hope she does not yet realize that what was done tonight can never be undone. Mitra grant her time before she must know that."

"What are you muttering about, you one-eyed old ruffian?" Conan said.

"Did one of those blows tonight addle your brains?"

"You do not see it either, do you?" The bearded man's voice was sad.

"What has been shattered can be mended, but the cracks are always there, and those cracks will break again and again until there is no mending."

"Once there's gold in their purses, they'll be as loyal as they ever were. On the morrow, Hordo, we must bury these creatures as well as our own dead. There must be no vultures aloft to warn whoever sent them out."

"Of course." Hordo sighed. "Rest you well, Cimmerian, and pray you we live to rest another night."

"Rest you well, Hordo."

After the one-eyed bandit disappeared toward the camp fires, Conan peered toward Karela's pavilion, beneath the loom of the cliff. Her shadow moved on the striped walls. She was washing herself. Then the lamps were extinguished.

Muttering curses under his breath Conan found a cloak and wrapped himself in it beneath the shelter of a boulder. Rest you well, indeed.

Women!

Imhep-Aton rose from his place on the mountainside above the bandit camp and turned into the darkness. When he reached a place where the shadows against the stone seemed to darken, he walked on, through the shadow-wall and into a large, well-lit cave. His mount and his packhorse were tethered at the rear of it. His blankets were spread by the fire where a rabbit roasted on a spit. Nearby sat the chest containing the necessities of his thaumaturgies.

The mage rubbed his eyes, then stretched, ma.s.saging the small of his back. One spell had been needed to gain the eyes of an eagle, a second to make the night into day to his sight, still a third to let him hear what was said in the camp. Maintaining all three at once had given him a pain that ran from his head all the way down his backbone.

Yet it was worth the discomfort. The fools thought they ruled where their horses' hooves trod. He wondered what they would think if they knew they were but dogs, to corner a bear and die holding its attention while he, the hunter, moved in for the kill.

Laughing, the necromancer bent to his supper.

Chapter XVI.

Seated on his golden serpent throne, Amanar watched the four dancing girls flexing their sinuosities across the mosaic floor for his enjoyment. Naked but for golden bells at ankles and wrists, they spun and writhed with wild abandon, in the sweat of fear for his displeasure, the tinkle of the bells a counterpoint to the flutes of four human musicians who kept their eyes on their own feet. There were few human servants within the keep, and none ever raised their eyes from the ground.

Amanar luxuriated in the fear he felt emanating from the four women, enjoying that as much as he did the luscious curves they flaunted shamelessly before him. The fifth girl, golden-eyed Yasmeen, had been the first to find herself given screaming to Sitha-threats produced more fear if it was known they would be carried out-and she had somehow managed to cut her own throat with the huge S'tarra's sword.

It had been all the necromancer could do to keep her alive long enough to be sacrificed to Morath-Aminee, and there had been little pleasure for him in the haste of it. He had taken precautions to make certain there would be no repet.i.tion of the unfortunate incident. Through lidded eyes Amanar watched his possessions dance for his favor.

"Master?"

"Yes, Sitha?" the mage said without shifting his gaze. The heavily muscled S'tarra stood bowed at one side of the throne, but its scarlet eyes watched the dancing girls greedily.

"The map, master. It flashes."

Amanar uncoiled from the throne and strode out of the chamber with Sitha at his heels. The girls continued to dance. He had given no command to cease, and they dared not without it.

Close beside the throne chamber was a small room with only two furnishings. A silver mirror hung on one gray stone wall. Against the other a great sheet of clear crystal leaned on a polished wooden frame, etched with a map of the mountains surrounding the keep. In the crystal a flashing red light moved slowly along a valley, triggered by the wards Amanar had set. Lower animals would not set off the warning, nor would his S'tarra. Only men could do that.

Turning to the mirror Amanar muttered cryptic words and made cabalistic gestures that left a faint glow in the air. As the glow faded, the silver mirror grew clear as a window, a window that looked down from an eagle's height on men riding slowly along a mountain valley.

One of the men made a gesture, as if pointing to something on the ground. They were tracking. Amanar spoke further esoteric phrases, and the vision of the mirror raced ahead, seeking. Like a falcon sensing prey, the image stopped, then swooped. On a badly wounded S'tarra, stumbling, falling, rising to struggle forward again. Amanar returned the mirror to the mounted party that followed his servant.

Near thirty men, well armed, and one woman. The mage could not tell whether the woman or a heavily muscled youth with fierce blue eyes commanded. Amanar rubbed his chin thoughtfully with an over-long hand.

"The girl Velita, Sitha," he said. "Fetch her here immediately."

The big S'tarra bowed himself from the room, leaving Amanar to study the image in the mirror. S'tarra used their wounded, those too badly hurt to heal, as fresh meat. This one would not have been allowed to leave his patrol; therefore the patrol no longer existed. Since these men followed, it was likely they had destroyed the patrol, and that was no small feat. It was also unlikely that they followed to no purpose.

"The girl, master." Sitha appeared in the door grasping Velita by her hair so that the dark-eyed girl perforce must walk on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet. Her hands hung pa.s.sively at her sides, though, and she shivered in terror both of that which gripped her and of the man she faced.

"Let her down," Amanar commanded impatiently. "Girl, come here and look into this mirror. Now, girl!"

She stumbled forward-though with her grace it seemed more a step of her dancing-and gasped when she saw the images moving before her. For a moment the necromancer thought she would speak, but then her jaw tightened and she closed her eyes.

"You spoke a name once, girl," Amanar said. "A man who would rescue you. Conan. Is that man among these you see?" She did not move a muscle, or utter a sound. "I mean the man no harm, girl. Point him out to me, or I will have Sitha whip you."

A low moan rose in her throat, and she opened her large eyes long enough to roll them in terror at the huge S'tarra behind her. "I cannot," she whispered. Her body trembled, and tears streamed down her face in silent sobs, but she would speak no more.

Amanar made an exasperated noise. "Fool girl. All you do is delay me for a few moments. Take her, Sitha. Twenty strokes."

Fanged mouth open in a wide grin, the ma.s.sive S'tarra gathered her hair once more in its fist, lifting her painfully as they left. Tears rolled down her face all the harder, yet still her sobs were soundless.

The mage studied the images further. She had actually answered his question, in part at least, though she likely thought she had protected the man. But she had named this Conan a thief, and thieves did not ride with more than a score of armed men at their backs.