Conan the Relentless Part 26

"We'll take the time, my friend. Either that or you'll take your leave."

The piper looked from Conan to Raihna, found no more mercy in her face than in the Cimmerian's, then nodded. "Very well. You have been witness to much of my work. Then I heard you, Conan, summoning me to show my colors-"

"What!" The word shot like an arrow from both Conan and Raihna's lips.

It raised echoes from the rocks. Marr shook his head.

"If you break in on my speech at every other word, we shall be here too long. Far too long, when I can lead you to Decius and the king."

This time neither Conan nor Raihna said a word. They merely stared at each other, then at Marr. When it seemed to Conan that both he and Raihna were seeing and hearing the same thing, he nodded to her. She climbed out of the water, silver drops beaded on her skin from forehead to toes. Conan cast her sword down to her and bent to don his clothes while she stood guard, then returned the favor.

When they were both garbed, they turned to find the piper sitting as if he had been turned to wood. Only the play of a thin smile on his face told them that he lived.

Conan sheathed his sword and glared at Marr. "As you can see, we'll not tarry here. You say Decius and the king are safe?"

"Alive, I said. I did not say safe. I do not know what dangers might beset them, either."

"Be that honest with one more question and we can strike a bargain, sorcerer or no."

"What kind of bargain?"

"Answer the question first," Conan growled. He liked men who talked in riddles about as much as he liked sorcerers.

"Ask, and I shall answer." The piper's voice itself had a musical quality to it that made it unlike any human voice that Conan had ever heard-man's, woman's, or child's.

"Can you read a man's thoughts?"

"When he wishes me to read them, as you did when you asked me to show myself, I can read them at some distance."

"But not when he wants to keep them to himself ?"

"No."

Something in the man's tone hinted that it was a matter of "would not"

rather than "could not." Yet- curse it, trust had to begin somewhere!

The closer and the sooner the better, if indeed this woodland wizard could pipe them along a path to Decius and Eloikas!

Conan ran fingers through his mane of black hair, wringing out the last water. "If you told the truth, here's my bargain. You guide us to the king and Decius. Guide us as if you were a common hunter or charcoal burner who knew the land. Not a breath, not a blink, about magic, and that means keeping those pipes out of sight!"

"You bargain hard, Cimmerian."

"I've more than a hundred good men that I don't want scared into flying for their lives. Them I know. You could be much or little. Even if you're much, we haven't forgotten the chaos you sowed at the palace."

"I will prove that I am much before we find Decius and Eloikas. What will you do when I have led you to them?"

"Speak for you to them, and leave the rest to them."

It was clear that the answer did not altogether content Marr. Conan wondered if Decius and Eloikas knew something about the man that he did not. Most likely they did. But they could not tell him what it was unless he put himself in the piper's hands long enough to find them.

After a moment, the piper nodded. He swung his pack down from his shoulder, drew out a dagger, some bread, and a linen bag with runes embroidered on it in blue thread. He thrust the pipe into the bag and the whole affair into the sack, then cut the bread with the dagger and handed each of the others a piece.

"If this is to be binding-" Raihna began.

"Of course. Salt." The piper held out both hands, palm upward. In an eyeblink, his palms turned white with salt. He shook it on the pieces of bread, then motioned the others to eat.

Conan ate, but the bread kept wanting to stick in his gullet. If the man could conjure salt out of the air, did it matter if his pipes were hidden?

Chapter 12.

Count Syzambry awoke to pain that was hardly greater than what he had endured several times before. He still lacked the strength to do more than mutter answers to the surgeon's questions. He contrived not to cry out, or even to groan, when rough hands heaved him about like a sack of barley as they changed his bedclothes and dressings.

Cleaned and somewhat restored by a cup of broth and a draught of poppy syrup, the count lay as if senseless. He feared there was no other way of bringing those about him to talk freely. The surgeons and guards had ignored a direct order to do so.

What he heard was less than soothing. It seemed that nearly five days had pa.s.sed while he lay unwitting. His wound was grave, and it was not healing entirely as the common run of such wounds did.

No one said the word "magic." Syzambry hoped that this came from having found no traces of it rather than from fear of the word. If he needed to seek the aid of the Pougoi wizards, he did not want the fears of his men standing between him and the cure he needed to reach for the Border throne.

Even when he was healed, the battle would be longer than he had expected. King Eloikas, Captain-General Decius, and a good company of fighting men had fled the palace in two bands. The earth-magic had bought them that much time.

To be sure, the two bands together were only a few hundred men. But they had already cut to pieces one company of free lances that Syzambry had expected to be ready to hand for harrying the countryside. Now his men were hard-pressed to hold the ruins of the palace and the land about it.

Beyond where the count's writ ran, the countryside was not rallying to Eloikas. It was not rallying to the count, either.

He could not strengthen his hand, to be sure. He could strip not only his own lands, but the lands of every man who had sworn or promised or even hinted allegiance. Strip them of even the boys and the graybeards, strip them of even rotten bows and rusty swords that might avail against bandits.

Strip them, indeed, so that they would be naked to any blow that Eloikas or Decius might chose to strike.

Another source of strength lay in free lances. Word could go out that there were rich pickings in the Border Kingdom for those who would come to follow Count Syzambry's road to the throne. The free lances would come.

They would also come expecting ready gold, and unless he found Eloikas's h.o.a.rd, Syzambry would have no such thing.

The groan that he had been holding back finally escaped Syzambry's lips. It was not the pain of his wound, but fury at what that wound might do to his ambitions. It would keep him chained to a bed or, at most, a litter, when swift movement alone would save him. How else to save his cause with his loyal handful but to lead them swiftly against his foes, sword in hand?

He groaned again, but more softly, even to his own ears. Perhaps the sleeping draught was taking hold, easing the poisonous thoughts from his mind...

He fell asleep wishing that it could leech the poisons from his body as easily.

Captain-General Decius awoke in his tent to hear the sentries bawling like branded calves. His first thought was that Syzambry had found the royal camp and was hurling his men at it in a final desperate effort.

Decius rolled out of his blankets, jerked on breeches over his loinguard, and left the rest of his harness save for helmet and sword.

He plunged out of the tent, nearly sprawled on his face as a toe caught a rope, but saved his skin if not his dignity.

He thereafter walked a trifle more cautiously, though not less swiftly.

His men and the handful of Guards and armed servants were turning out as if half of them had not spent the night on sentry duty. His place was at their fore.

Decius reached the head of the path immediately behind the first half-dozen men. He waited long: enough to be aware of the chill dawn breeze on his bare chest, then ordered one of the sentries to take a message to the king.

"Tell him that a strong band of strangers is close at hand. Scouts will go out to learn more. All of the men are on duty and ready for battle."