Conan the Relentless Part 5

"I doubt not that Mishrak had a finger in one or two of my journeys before I dusted Turanian soil from my boots," Conan said. "But Crom spare me from ever having to serve him again as we once did."

A shadow pa.s.sed over Raihna's face, and she gripped Conan's hand. Then she smiled again and dismounted. "I must be about my work. You see to our mounts and baggage, and I will join you in good time."

Conan watched Raihna stride toward where her men were tethering the pack animals and unloading them. She was as fair as ever to a man's eye, but it seemed that far more years than before sat upon her shoulders.

No, it was not the years. It was the weight of being a captain, a weight the Cimmerian had come to know rather better than he wished.

If Raihna was southward bound after finishing her work here in this G.o.dless wilderness, perhaps he should join her. A captain's burden could be lighter if borne on two sets of shoulders.

Aybas had slept much of the day, for the night before had been as hideous as ever a night of sacrifice could be. It seemed to him that the Pougoi wizards were in fear of something mightier than themselves, or of their sworn foe, or of both. In their fear, they were sending the warriors farther and farther abroad to s.n.a.t.c.h victims for their beast.

Last night there had been no less than five victims - one a girl-child years from womanhood. Five victims, and no piper playing in the night to give the chained wretches a chance at a clean death. No piper to unsettle the Star Brothers-and Aybas realized more and more that it pleased him to see those bearded bloodsuckers rolling their eyes with fear of the unknown!

The G.o.ds only knew that he himself had been doing enough of that since he took the service that had led him here. What kept Aybas at his work now was the knowledge that he might be near to finishing it. He also knew that if he fled without finishing the work, he was unlikely to leave the Border Kingdom alive. He had come too far to leave his bones in the wilderness out of fear or whim.

The knocking on the door of his hut was loud enough to awaken a dead man, so Aybas listened to the voices with his senses alert. He had his sword drawn before he undid the latch to admit a Star Brother. Before he slammed the door behind the man, he saw that the guards standing outside wore long faces.

"What has the piper done now? Frightened your pet into a fit?"

The Star Brother glared and made what Aybas hoped were useless gestures of aversion. Aybas decided to guard his tongue. True, Count Syzambry needed the Pougoi warriors, but he needed the wizards to keep the warriors willing to do his bidding. For that the wizards needed their pet-and their pet needed its horrid food.

"Lowlander, we rejoice in the gold your master sends. But as for you, we can ill-speak you more easily than you might imagine."

Aybas was not sure whether the wizard meant that he would carry tales to the count or cast a spell. The Aquilonian decided not to hazard either.

"Forgive me. I slept ill and have-" not a fever, he would not say that for fear the wizards would try to heal him "-a flux." Yes, a flux. Even here in this wizard-haunted wilderness, they healed fluxes with herbs and wise women's simples, not with spells pa.s.sed down from places and times far better lost to the memory of man!

"Have you summoned the wise woman?" the wizard asked.

"No, but I will do so at once when you have spoken. The ills of my flesh are of small importance if you bring great news."

The flattery ended the rites of aversion without gaining a smile. The Star Brother inclined his head in what he no doubt thought was a gracious gesture.

"The news is not yet great, but soon will be. The first band is ready and will do its work tonight, at the hunting lodge."

"Is it known if both Princess Chienna and her son are in residence?"

"Of the princess, we can be certain. Of the babe, my Brother seems less sure."

Aybas would have prayed that old King Eloikas's grandson Prince Urras was absent from the lodge where his mother lay. Prayers rising from this land, however, seemed more likely to draw the wrath of the G.o.ds than their favor.

So he merely hoped that the babe would be absent and that only his mother princess Chienna would be abducted tonight. That would be enough to either bring the old king to heel and win Chienna's hand for Count Syzambry or to force Eloikas into open warfare against the count. In either case, Aybas would be done with wizards, if not with the Border Kingdom!

But that happy time was yet to come. Now Aybas could not ask even one Star Brother to leave his hut. Indeed, the man seemed to have more news, if one could read as much of his countenance as showed above his beard.

"Has aught gone ill elsewhere?"

"A band of the Free Friends-" the name the bandits of the realm gave themselves "-sought to while away the time by taking a royal caravan.

It would have been a shrewd blow had they done the work and lived to guard our folks' path homeward."

"But they did not?"

"All but a handful who fled died. Those who fled spoke of a giant, conjured from stone and set loose among them. Our foes seem to have more spells at their command than we had thought."

"Or more men?" Aybas withheld a sigh. "Look you, Brother. All the G.o.ds be witness, you and your comrades know more of magic than I had thought mortal men had it in them to apprehend. But I know rather more of war and battle as they are waged outside these hills. Rather than fear sorcery, fear lest the caravan has taken some of the Friends prisoner and forced them to reveal what they know of our plans. Bid the men who take the princess to retreat by a different route, to hide by day and march by night, to speak to no one, and to delay for nothing save the end of the world!

"That will do as much against our enemies as any spell you can cast or any score of folk you might..."- he would not say, "let your pet slaughter"-"take up."

"Will you never be done with insolence, Lowlander?"

It was in Aybas's mind to say that his insolence was a child's compared to that of Count Syzambry. But he held his peace. Let the wizards find out what manner of man they had bound themselves to when the count ruled in this land. It would be a harsh lesson, and by then Aybas would be well-hidden, far from the Border Kingdom.

"Forgive me again if I give offense. It is not my wish to do so. But it is very much my wish that work so well begun should not fail now through simple mischance."

"The message you set forth will be sent, Aybas. Will that content you?"

"Entirely." Aybas knew that he would not have won more had he offered the wizards the treasury of the priests of Set!

The clouds that had loomed overhead through the twilight pa.s.sed on without dropping more than a cupful of rain. Conan saw lightning and heard the crash of thunder to the west as the storm moved on, but the caravan made a dry camp.

Although Conan had no duties once he had unpacked Raihna's baggage, he took his share of the camp duties nonetheless. It was plain that some among the men had guessed that he and Raihna were once lovers. It was plainer still that all wished to know more about this man to whom they most likely owed their lives.

So Conan drank as much as he wished and could have drunk more than was wise. He brought his sword to the armorer to be examined for nicks.

Cimmerian work was not often seen by armorers from the south, and Cimmerian swords wielded with deadly effect by the sons of Cimmerian smiths hardly ever. Conan and the armorer had a pleasant enough chat over the wine.

He helped a groom oil leather saddlebags that showed signs of cracking.

He helped two newly hired boys repack vials of herbs and simples nastily scooped up from the ground where they had fallen during the fight. He helped another boy with a potter's deft hands for clay mend a broken jug that held something foul-smelling beyond all belief.

"This will give King Eloikas a great power against his enemies, or so it is said," the potter explained.

"Phaugh!" Conan said, yearning for fresh air or, at least, the closing of the jug. "What will he do? Invite them all to dine and then unstopper this jug at the banquet? Surely enough, the stink will slay them all."

The potter frowned and did not reply. Conan felt a chill of unease deep within. Was King Eloikas dabbling in sorcery? Even if he did so because his enemies had begun it, Conan wanted no part of such duels of magic.

If Raihna was going toward the place of such a duel, he was honor-bound to follow her as far as she went. But he would hope that it was not too far, or that if it was, a stoutly wielded sword could win him free again.

In twenty-three years of life, the Cimmerian had learned that sorcerers seldom made a good end. They also made an even worse end for far too many other folk before they came to their own.

"Forget that I asked," Conan said. "I bear King Eloikas no ill will. I will even bear his ill-smelling gifts, if I must."

The potter's frown eased. They chatted briefly, and then Conan moved on to the hut where the wounded lay. There were five of them now, for one had died since reaching the village. As Conan entered, the leech was kneeling beside a man who was clearly taking his last breaths.

Man? Boy, rather; hardly older than Conan had been when he first felt the lash of the slaver's whip. A boy, dying far from home and clearly fearing that he had not done well in his first and only battle.

Conan knelt beside the lad's pallet. "Easy, there. What is your name?"

"Rasmussen, Cap... tain."