Conan The Valiant Part 39

Had stood, rather. Now she knelt, one hand supporting herself, fingers splayed across the rock. The other hand clutched at her bare breast, as though the heart within pained her.

Two paces in front of her, the Jewel glowed in its ring. Glowed, and to Conan's eyes seemed to quiver faintly.

"Illyana!"

"No, Conan! Do not approach her! I tried, and look at me!"

Raihna came over the rise, sword in one hand, the other hand dangling at her side. Conan looked, and saw that the dangling hand was clenched into a fist, with the muscles jumping and twisting like mice under a blanket. Sweat poured off Raihna's face, and when she spoke again Conan heard the agony in her voice.

"I tried to approach her," Raihna repeated. "I thrust a hand too close.

It was like dipping it in molten metal. Is it-do I yet have a hand?"

"It's not burned or wounded, that I can see," Conan said. "What did Illyana mean by casting such a spell, the fool?"

"She-oh, Conan. It is not her spell that commands here now. It is the Jewel itself-perhaps both of them together!"

What Conan might have said to that remained forever unknown. The demons he had outrun reached the foot of the rise and swarmed up it. At the same moment, so did Captain Shamil and a half-score of his veterans, seeking to cut off the demons.

Demons and men alike died in uncounted numbers in the time needed to gulp a cup of wine. Conan shouted to Raihna to guard her mistress and plunged down into the fight. He was not in time to keep one demon from gutting Shamil. The captain screamed but kept flailing with his sword, until a second demon twisted his head clean off his shoulders.

Conan caught the first demon as it bent over Shamil, to feed on his trailing guts. Even beneath the scale armor, the spine gave way to a Cimmerian sword-stroke. The demon slumped on top of its prey as its comrade dashed up the rise.

Conan knew that he would be too late to save Raihna from having to meet the demon one-handed. Prudently, Raihna did not try. She leaped back, losing only most of her tunic and some skin from her left breast. The demon lunged again, and this time Raihna feinted with her sword to draw its gaze, then kicked it hard in the thigh.

Its clutching talons scored Raihna's boot deeply. A trifle closer, and it would have gained a death-grip on her leg. Raihna had made no mistake, however. Off balance, the demon staggered and fell, within a pace of Illyana.

It never reached the ground. A child's height above the ground, an invisible hand caught it. A spasm wracked the demon's body, as if every muscle and sinew was being twisted and stretched at once. It screamed, then flew through the air, landing among its comrades just as they overcame the last of Shamil's men. Conan turned to face the demons, suspecting this might be his last fight.

Instead the demons turned and ran. They ran back through the gap in the line before anyone could think to close it and cut them off. Bora sent a final stone after them, but hit nothing.

Wiping sweat and blood from his eyes, Conan gazed about the valley.

Everywhere the Jewel-fire or camp-fires let him see clearly, the demons were retreating. They were not running, save when they needed to evade enemies. They were retreating, some limping, others supporting comrades who could not walk, fpr the most part in good order.

Conan turned his eyes back to Illyana. She now lay curled up like a child, eyes closed. After a moment he held out his hand for Raihna's tunic. He knelt beside the sorceress and cautiously thrust a hand toward her. A faint tingle ran from the tips of his fingers to his shoulder, but that was all.

He thrust the hafld farther. The same tingle was his reward. He gripped Illyana's hair with one hand, lifted her head, and pushed the tunic in under it.

Then he had to hold Raihna, while she wept on his shoulder. It was not until life returned to her hand and Khezal's voice sounded from the bottom of the rise that she realized she was half-naked and her mistress wholly so.

"Best think of some clothing, yes?" she said.

"Unless you're hurt-" He fingered the red talon-weal on her left breast. She smiled and pushed his hand away.

"Not hurt at all. Quite fit for whatever your hands do, when we're alone." She swallowed. "As long as my mistress is not hurt. If you can find some clothing while I see to her-"

"Conan, there's a time for fondling wenches and a time for taking counsel!" Khezal shouted.

"Coming, Captain," the Cimmerian replied.

Eremius allowed the Jewel-fire to burn on the hillside until the Transformed were safely clear of the valley. He needed to see the battle out to the end. Had the soldiers the will to pursue, they might put the Transformed in some danger. They might also worsen their own defeat, letting the Transformed turn on small bands of pursuers.

Magic could have pierced any darkness, but such magic meant drawing still more on the Jewel. This seemed unwise. Indeed, Eremius could not avoid wondering if his quest to reunite the Jewels was a fool's undertaking. Their will apart was becoming worrisome. Their will together-

No. He was the master of Jewel-magic. He might not make slaves of the Jewels, but surely he would not allow them to make slaves of him!

Nor did his own fate bear contemplation, if by abandoning his quest to reunite the Jewels he allowed Illyana success in hers. Consummating his desire for her, and avenging her theft of the Jewel, were goals he could abandon without feeling that his life was at an end. It was otherwise, with Illyana's desire for vengeance on him.

The last of the Transformed fled over the crest of the far side of the valley. Eremius cast his mind among them and rejoiced at what he learned.

Fewer than a score of the Transformed were slain. Thrice that many had greater or lesser hurts, but nothing that could not be healed in a few days. They had taken no captives to strengthen their ranks, but they had slain several times their own strength.

He had not won the sort of victory that ends a war at a stroke, but he had made a good beginning to the campaign. With this, Eremius was prepared to be content for one night.

He willed the Jewel-fire to blaze higher yet for a moment, then allowed it to die. Then he set about calling the Jewel to him. He had not quite mastered the art of casting a mighty spell in the form of a polite request to a greater than he. Indeed, it was not an art he had ever expected to need!

He still contrived well enough. The Jewel rode peacefully in his pouch as he hurried down the far side of his hill. He sensed no magic on his trail, but human foes were another matter. If that towering Cimmerian who rode with Illyana were to stalk him, even the Jewel might not be enough!

Yakoub cast his gaze to the right and the left. As cat-eyed as Bora, he could still make out no other enemies flanking the man he faced.

Either the man was a fool who had strayed apart from his comrades or he was the bait in a trap. Yakoub much doubted it was the second. From all he knew of the demon-master's human servants, they lacked the wits for such subtleties.

Yakoub lowered himself over the edge of the little cliff until he hung by his fingers, then dropped. His feet slid on the gravel. The man whirled at the sound, but too late. Yakoub clamped a hand over his mouth and drove the knife up under his guard and his ribs. His heels drummed frantically on the stones for a moment, then he went limp.

The man did have comrades, close enough to hear his fate if not to prevent it. They shouted, and one rose into view. The shouts alerted the other sentries around the villagers' camp. Feet thudded on stony ground and arrows hissed in high arcs, to fall as the G.o.ds willed.

Yakoub crouched in such shelter as the cliff offered. He feared the demon-master's men little, the wild shooting of "friendly" archers rather more.

Screams hinted of arrows finding their marks. Scurrying feet interspersed with shouts told Yakoub plainly that the demon-master's men were fleeing. He remained below the cliff until the guards reached him.

The old sergeant in command looked at the body, then grunted approvingly. "Good work, knife against sword."

"It would have been better, if I hadn't had to kill him so soon. That may have warned the rest."

"Maybe. Maybe his friends would've got in close, too. Then half the recruits and all the hillfolk would've been wetting themselves and screaming their heads off. No way to fight a battle. You saved us that.

Sure you don't want to take King Yildiz's coin?"

"Not when I'm betrothed."

"Ah well. A wife's an old soldier's comfort and a young soldier's ruin."

They walked back to the camp together, under a sky bleached gray in the east with hints of dawn. Once parted from the sergeant, Yakoub made his way straight through the sleeping villagers to where Bora's family lay.

Like most of the villagers, they were too exhausted to have awakened during the brief fight. Caraya lay on her side, one arm flung over her two younger brothers. Yakoub knelt beside her, and he neither knew nor cared to what G.o.ds he prayed when he asked that she be kept safe.

Prayers or not, she was likely to be safer than he was, at least for some days. The Transformed had not swept all before them, that was certain. Otherwise fleeing soldiers would long since have awakened the camp. As they were, Eremius's human witlings could not stop the march of a column of ants. The villagers would have a safe journey to Fort Zheman.

Yakoub, son of Khadjar, on the other hand, would be marching in the opposite direction. If he survived the march, he would then have to persuade Eremius that he was the man to lead the human fighters and turn them into soldiers.

In silence, he allowed himself another prayer, that