Conan the Invincible Part 27

"I must leave you," the mage said to Karela. "A matter requires my attention."

"Not trouble, I hope," she said.

"A small matter," Amanar replied, but his mouth was tight behind his close-cropped beard. "I will see you on the morrow, then. Rest well."

He turned his attention to Conan. "Think well on your decision, Cimmerian. There are worse things than what I offer. Sitha." The sorcerer strode from the camp, his S'tarra minion at his heels.

With the departure of the scaled creature the noise level of the camp began to rise again quickly. Hordo staggered up to Conan and Karela.

"I do not like those things," the one-eyed brigand said unsteadily. He still held his bared tulwar and the now-empty golden goblet, and he swayed as he spoke. "When are we to leave this accursed valley and be about what we know? When are we for the caravan routes?"

"You're drunk, my old hound," Karela said affectionately. "Find yourself a place to sleep it off, and we'll talk in the morning."

"I entered the keep tonight," Conan said quietly.

Karela's green eyes locked with his sapphire gaze. "You fool!" she hissed. Hordo stared with his mouth open.

"He has the pendants," the Cimmerian went on, "and the women. At least, he has two of the women. The other three have disappeared. It's my belief he killed them."

"Killed slave girls?" Hordo said, scandalized. "What sort of man does a thing like that? Even a sorcerer...."

"Keep your voice down," Karela snapped. "I told you not to bandy that word about until I gave you leave. And you, Conan. What's this nonsense you're babbling? If the women are gone, likely he sold them. Or was your precious Velita one of them?"

"She was not," Conan growled back. "And why should she still raise your hackles? You know there's nothing between us, though there seems to be quite a bit between you and Amanar, from the way he was fondling you."

"No!" Hordo protested, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Not Amanar. Not with you. I'll admit I thought better of you taking Conan to your bed, but-"

Face flaming, Karela cut him off sharply. "Be silent, you old fool!

What I do, and with whom, is my business!" Her eyes flung green daggers at Conan, and she stalked away, s.n.a.t.c.hing a flask from Aberius as she pa.s.sed him.

Hordo shook his ma.s.sive head. "Why did you not speak, Conan? Why did you not stop her?"

"She's a free woman," Conan said coldly. His pride was still p.r.i.c.ked by the way she had accepted Amanar's arm about her. "I have no claim on her. Why didn't you stop her?"

"I'm too old to have my liver sliced out," Hordo snorted. "Your Velita was truly in the keep, then? I wonder you didn't take her, and the pendants, and ride from this place." He swept his curved sword in an arc that took in all the dark outside the firelight.

"She's spell-caught," Conan sighed, and told him how he had found Velita, and what she had said.

"So he lied to us," the bearded man said when Conan finished. "And if about the pendants and the women, about what else?"

"About everything. I had thought to tell her about what he's done with Velita, to show him for the man he is, but now I think she'd believe I made it up."

"And likely tell Amanar about it, to amuse him with your jealousy. Or what she'd see as jealousy," he added quickly as the big Cimmerian youth glared at him. "What am I to do, Conan? Even now I cannot abandon her."

Conan lifted his broadsword an inch free of its sheath and slammed it back again. "Keep your sword sharp, and your eye open." His steely gaze took in the motley rogues sprawled drunkenly around the fires. "And have these hounds of hers ready to move at an instant. Without letting her or Amanar discover it, of course."

"You don't ask much, do you, Cimmerian? What are you going to do?"

Conan peered through the darkness toward the fortress before answering.

Even in that overpowering blackness those ma.s.sive walls seemed blacker still. "Kill Amanar, free Velita, steal the pendants, and return to Shadizar, of course. Trifles like that."

"Trifles like that," Hordo groaned. "I need another drink."

"So do I," Conan said softly. The night weighed heavily on his broad shoulders. This valley would be a poor place to die.

Chapter XXII.

The strange darkness lingered in the valley, resisting morning and fading to a gray dawn only after the blood-red sun stood well above the mountaintops. It was mid-morning before full daylight came, but Conan alone noticed in the bandit camp, for the others lay sprawled in drunken stupors. As the sun at last sucked the last canescence from the valley air, the Cimmerian made his way to the spring that bubbled from a cleft not far from the camp.

Scooping water in his cupped hands, he drank, and made a disgusted sound in his throat. Though cold, the water was flat and lifeless, like everything else in the barren and forboding rift. He contented himself with splashing it on his face, and settled to observe the valley.

On the battlements of the keep S'tarra moved, but nothing else stirred except vultures making slow circles in the distance. Conan wondered grimly how Velita had fared at Amanar's return. The sorcerer seemed not to know how far Conan's nocturnal peregrinations had taken him-at least, there was no sign of alarm, no squads of S'tarra sent for him-but that spoke not at all to her faring.

"Tonight," the muscular youth vowed.

Aberius, tottering up to fall on his knees beside the spring, glanced incuriously at him. The man's usual hostility seemed momentarily expelled by wine fumes. The weasel-faced bandit dashed a few handfuls of water over his head and staggered away to be replaced by Hordo, who threw himself at full length by the spring and plunged his head into the pool.

Just as Conan was about to go over and pull him out, the one-eyed man lifted his head and peered at the Cimmerian through dripping hair and beard. "Has this water no taste," he mumbled, "or did my tongue die last night?"

"Both," Conan chuckled. Hordo groaned and lowered his head once more to the water, but this time only far enough to drink. "Have you seen Talbor this morning, Hordo?"

"I've seen nothing this morning but the insides of my own eyelids. Let me decide in peace whether I desire to live or not."

"Talbor was inside the fortress last night, when I was."

Hordo lifted himself on his elbows, flipping water at his face with spatulate fingers. "Such a thing to tell a man with my head. Do you think that's why Amanar was summoned to the keep?"

Conan nodded. "Talbor's not in the camp. I checked at first light."

"He could have stolen what he wanted, taken a horse, and be halfway out of the Kezankians by now," the other man protested. "He's not as particular as you. He'd not insist on Tiridates' playpretties, and a dancing girl besides."

"You could be right," Conan said flatly.

"I know," Hordo sighed. "I don't believe it, either. So is he dead, or is he in the sorcerer's dungeon? And what do we tell her?"

"We wait to see what Amanar tells her. His S'tarra outnumber us at least twenty to one, and those are odds I bet small coins on."

He got to his feet as Sitha appeared at the portcullis and came down the black granite ramp. The tall S'tarra carried neither ax nor sword that Conan could see. It reached the bottom of the incline and set off at a brisk pace across the gray, boulder-strewn valley floor toward the bandit camp. Conan started down the rocky slope to meet it, and Hordo scrambled to his feet to follow.

When Conan walked into the camp, the scaled creature was the center of a ring of brigands. No weapons were in hand, he was relieved to see, but the human eyes there were far from friendly. And who could say of Sitha's?

Hordo pushed past Conan to confront the S'tarra. "What's this, then?

Does your master send a message for us?"

"I come for myself," Sitha hissed. It stood half a head taller than the burly one-eyed bandit, taller even than Conan, and if there was no expression in those sanguine eyes there was certainly contempt in the sibilant voice. A padded gambeson and chainmail hauberk covered it to the knees, but it ,wore no helmet. "I am Sitha, Warden of the S'tarra, and I come to pit myself against you."

Aberius, behind Conan, laughed uneasily. "Without so much as a dagger?"