Conan the Invincible Part 8

Tucking flint and steel back in her pouch, she gave him an amused smile. "If they've gone, at least you'll be closer than you were. Who is this man in Shadizar who wants his slave girl back?"

"If we're riding early, we'd better turn in," he said, and she smiled again.

He wrapped himself in his cloak but did not sleep. Instead he watched her. She was wrapped in a blanket she had carried on her horse, and had her head pillowed on her high-pommeled saddle of tooled red leather. He would not have put it past her to try sneaking off with the horses in the night, but she seemed to settle right into sleep.

Purple twilight deepened to black night, and scudding clouds crossed stars like diamonds on velvet, but Conan kept his eyes open. A gibbous moon rose, and at its height the Cimmerian thought he felt eyes on him from the surrounding night. Easing his narrow-bladed dagger from its forearm sheath, he loosed the bronze brooch that held his cloak and snaked into the night on his belly. Thrice he circled the camp in silence, always feeling the eyes, but he saw no one, nor any sign that anyone had ever been there. And then, abruptly, the feeling was gone.

Once more he crawled all the way around the camp, but there was still nothing. Disgusted with himself, he got up and walked back to his cloak. Karela still slept. Angrily he wrapped himself in the black wool. It was the woman. Waiting for her treachery was making him see and feel what just was not there.

While the sun was but a red rim shining above the horizon Karela woke, and they rode north again. Slowly the land changed, the low rollings becoming true hills. Conan was beginning to wonder what the men he sought would be doing so far to the north of the caravan route, when suddenly Karela kicked her horse into a gallop.

"There it is," she cried. "Just over those next hills."

Hurriedly he galloped after her. "Karela, come back! Karela!" She hurried on, disappearing around a hill. Fool woman, he thought. If the pilgrims were still there, she would have them roused.

As he rounded the hill, he slowed his mount to a walk. She was nowhere in sight, and he could no longer hear the sounds of her horse running.

"Conan!"

Conan's head whipped around at the shout. Karela sat her horse atop a hill to his right. "Crom, woman! What are you-"

"My name is Karela," she shouted. "The Red Hawk!"

She let out a shrill whistle, and suddenly mounted men in a motley collection of bright finery and mismatched armor were boiling through every gap in the hills. In a trice he was the center of a shoulder-to-shoulder ring of brigands. Carefully he folded his hands on the pommel of his saddle. So much as a twitch toward his sword would put iron-tipped quarrels through his body from the four crossbows he could see, and there might be more.

"Karela," he called, "is this the way you keep your oath?"

"I've said no uncivil word to you," she replied mockingly, "and I haven't raised my hand against you. Nor will I. I'm afraid the same can't be said of my men. Hordo!"

A burly, black-bearded man with a rough leather patch over his left eye forced his horse through the circle to confront Conan. A jagged scar ran from under the patch and disappeared in the thatch of his beard.

That side of his mouth was drawn up in a permanent sneer. His ring mail had once belonged to a wealthy man-there were still traces of gilt left--and large gold hoops stretched his ears. A well-worn tulwar hung at his side.

"Conan, she called you," the big man said. "Well, I'm Hordo, the Red Hawk's lieutenant. And what I want to know, what we all want to know, is why we shouldn't cut your miserable throat right here."

"Karela was leading me," Conan began, and cut off as Hordo launched a fist the size of a small ham at him. The big man's single eye bulged as Conan caught his fist in mid-swing and stopped it dead.

Chapter VIII.

For a moment the two strained, arm to arm, biceps bulging, then Hordo shouted, "Take him!" The ring of bandits closed in.

Dozens of hands clutched at Conan, tearing away his cloak, ripping loose his sword, pulling him from the saddle. But their very numbers hampered them somewhat, and he did not go easily. His dagger found a new home in ribs clothed in dirty yellow-in the press he never saw the face that went with them-a carelessly reached arm was broken at the elbow, and more than one face erupted in blood and broken teeth from his ma.s.sive fists. The numbers were too many, though, and rough hands at last managed to bind his wrists behind him and link his ankles with a two-foot hobble of rawhide. Then they threw him to the stony ground, and those who had boots began to apply them to his ribs.

Finally Hordo chased them back with snarled threats, and bent to jerk Conan's head up by a fistful of hair. "We call her the Red Hawk," he spat. "You call her mistress, or my lady. But don't ever sully her name with your filthy mouth again. Not as you live."

"Why should he live at all?" snarled a weasel-faced man in dented halfarmor and a guardsman's helmet with the crest gone. "Hepakiah's choking to death on his own blood from this one's dagger right now" He grimaced suddenly and spat out a tooth. "Cut his throat, and be done!"

With a grin Hordo produced a wavy-bladed Vendhyan dagger. "Seems Aberius has a good idea for a change."

Suddenly Karela forced her horse through the pack around Conan, her green cat-eyes glaring down at him. "Can't you think of something more interesting, Hordo?"

"Still keeping your oath?" Conan snarled. "Fine payment for saving you from the slave block, or worse." Hordo's fist smashed his head back into the ground.

"No man ever had to save the Red Hawk," her lieutenant growled. "She's better than any man, with sword or brains. See you remember it."

Karela laughed sweetly. "Of course I am, good Conan. If anything happens to you, it will be at the hands of these good men, not mine.

Hordo, let's take him to camp. You can decide what to do with him at leisure."

The scar-faced man shouted orders, and quickly a rope was pa.s.sed around Conan, under his arms. The bandits scrambled to their saddles, Hordo himself clutching the rope tied to Conan, and they started off at a trot, the horses' hooves spraying dirt and gravel in Conan's face.

Conan gritted his teeth as he was dragged. With his arms behind him, he was forced to skid along on his belly. Sharp rocks gashed his chest, and hardpacked clay sc.r.a.ped off patches of skin as large as his hand.

When the horses skidded to a halt, Conan spat out a mouthful of dirt and sucked in air. He ached in every muscle, and small trickles of blood still oozed from those sc.r.a.pes that dust had not clotted. He was far from sure that whatever they had planned for him would be better than being dragged to death.

"Hordo," Karela exclaimed in delight, "you have my tent up."

She leaped from the saddle and darted into a red-striped pavilion. It was the only tent in the camp lying in a hollow between two tall, U-shaped hills. Rumpled bedrolls lay scattered around half-a-dozen burned-out fires. Some of the men ran to stir these up, while others dug out stone jars of kil, raw distilled wine, and pa.s.sed them around with raucous laughter.

Conan rolled onto his side as Hordo dismounted beside him. "You're a bandit," the big Cimmerian panted. "How would you like a chance at a king's treasure?"

Hordo did not even look at him. "Get those stakes in," he shouted. "I want him pegged out now."

"Five pendants," Conan said, "and a jewel-encrusted casket. Gifts from Yildiz to Tiridates." He hated letting these men know what he was after-at best he would have a hard time remaining alive to claim a share of what he thought of as his own-but otherwise he might not live to collect even a share.

"Stir your stumps," the bearded outlaw shouted. "You can drink later."

"Ten thousand pieces of gold," Conan said. "That's what one man is willing to pay for the pendants alone. Someone else might pay more. And then there's the casket."

For the first time since arriving in the hollow Hordo turned to Conan, his one eye glaring. "The Red Hawk wants you dead. She's done good by us, so what she wants is what I want."

A score of bandits, laughing and already half-drunk, came to lift Conan and bear him to a cleared s.p.a.ce where they had driven four stakes into the hard ground. Despite his struggles they were too many, and he soon found himself spread-eagled on his back, wet rawhide straps leading from his wrists and ankles to the stakes. The rawhide would shrink in the heat of the sun, stretching his joints to the breaking point.

"Why doesn't Hordo want you to have a chance at ten thousand pieces of gold?" Conan shouted. Every man but Hordo froze where he stood, the laughter dying in their throats.

With a curse the scar-faced brigand jumped forward. Conan tried to jerk his head aside, but lights flared before his eyes as the big man's foot caught him. "Shut your lying mouth!" Hordo snarled.

Aberius lifted his head to stare cold-eyed at the Red Hawk's lieutenant, a ferret confronting a mastiff. "What's he talking about, Hordo?"

Conan shook his head to clear it. "A king's treasure. That's what I'm talking about."

"You shut-" Hordo began, but Aberius cut him off.

"Let him talk," the pinch-faced brigand said dangerously, and other voices echoed him. Hordo glared about him, but said nothing.

Conan allowed himself a brief smile. A bit longer, and these cut-throats would turn him loose and bind Hordo and Karela in his place. But he did not intend to let them actually steal the pendants he had worked so hard for. "Five pendants," he said, "and a golden casket encrusted with gems were stolen from Tiridates' very palace not half a fortnight gone. I'm on the track of those trifles. One man's already offered me ten thousand pieces of gold for the pendants alone, but what one man offers another will top. The casket will bring as much again, or more."

The men encircling him licked their lips greedily, and shuffled closer.

"What makes them worth so much?" Aberius asked shrewdly. "I never heard of pendants worth ten thousand gold pieces."