Conan the Invincible Page 8

  “You’re sure of that?” Haranides said sharply.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain nodded slowly. Toward the Kezankian Mountains, but not toward the caravan route through the mountains to Sultanapur. “Tell the lieutenant I want to see him, Resaro.” The cavalryman touched his forehead and backed away. Haranides climbed the eastern hill to stare toward the Kenzankian Mountains, out of view beyond the horizon.

  When Aheranates joined him, the lieutenant was carrying a stone unguent jar. “Found this down where the tent was,” he said. “Someone had his leman along, seems.”

  Haranides took the jar. Empty, it still held the flowery fragrance of the perfume of Ophir. He toss it back to Aheranates. “More like than not, your first souvenir of the Red Hawk.”

  The lieutenant gaped. “But how can you be certain this was the trull’s camp? It could as easily be a … a caravan, wandered somewhat from the route. The man could have been left for some errand and been slain by wild animals. He could even have had no connection with those who camped here at all. He could have come after, and—”

  “A man was staked out down there,” Haranides said coldly. “’Tis my thought was the dead man. Secondly, no camels were here. Have you ever seen a caravan lacking camels, saving a slaver’s? And there is no staking ground for a coffle. Thirdly, there was only one tent. A caravan of this size would have had half a score. And lastly, why have you lost your fervor for pursuing the Red Hawk? Can it be your thought that she has a hundred men with her? Fear not. There are fewer than fifty, though I grant you they may seem a hundred if it comes to steel.”

  “You have no right! Manerxes, my father, is—”

  “Sir, lieutenant! Prepare the men to move out. Along that trail you thought not worth mentioning.”

  For a moment they stood eye to eye, Haranides coldly contemptuous, Aheranates quivering with rage. Abruptly the lieutenant tossed the unguent jar to the ground. “Yes, sir!” he grated, and turned on his heel to stalk down the hill.

  Haranides bent to pick up the smooth stone jar. The flowery fragrance gave him a dim picture of the woman, one at odds with the coarse trollop with a sword he expected. But why was she riding toward the Kezankian Mountains? The answer to that could be of vital importance to him. Success, and Aharesus would smooth his path to the top. Failure, and the King’s Counselor would give him not a thought as Tiridates had his head put over the West Gate. Placing the jar in his pouch, he went down to join his men.

  XI

  As the bandits climbed higher into the Kezankian Mountains, Conan stopped at every rise to look behind. Beyond the rolling foothills, on the plain they had left a day gone, something moved. Conan estimated the lead the brigands had, and wondered if it was enough.

  “What are you staring at?” Hordo demanded, reining in beside the Cimmerian. The outlaws were straggling up a sparsely treed mountainside toward a sheer-walled pass in the dark granite. Karela, as always, rode well in the lead, her gold-lined emerald cape flowing in the wind.

  “Soldiers,” Conan replied.

  “Soldiers! Where?”

  Conan pointed. A black snake of men inched toward the foothills, seeming to move through shimmering air rather than on solid ground. Only soldiers would maintain such discipline marching through those waterless approaches to the mountains. They were yet distant, but even as the two men watched the snake appeared to grow larger. On the plain the soldiers moved faster than the bandits in the mountains. The gap would close further.

  “No matter,” the one-eyed man muttered. “They’ll not catch us up here.”

  “Dividing the loot, are you?” Aberius kicked his horses in the ribs, and the beast scrambled up beside the other two. “Best you wait till it’s in our grasp. You might not be one of those left alive to … . What’s that? Out there. Riders.”

  Others heard him and turned in their saddles to look. “Hillmen?” a hook-nosed Iranistani named Reza said hesitantly.

  “Can’t be,” a bearded Kothian replied. His name was Talbor, and the tip of his nose had been bitten off. “Hillmen don’t raid far from the mountains.”

  “And not so many together,” Aberius agreed. His glower included both Conan and Hordo. “Soldiers, be they not? It’s soldiers you’ve brought on us.”

  An excited gabble went up from the men gathered around them. “Soldiers!” “The army’s on us!” “Our heads on pikes!” “A whole regiment!” “The King’s Own!”

  “Still your tongues!” Hordo shouted. “There’s no more than two hundred, to my eye, and a day behind us, at that.”

  “’Tis still five to one against,” Aberius said. “Or near enough as makes no difference.”

  “These mountains are not our place,” Reza cried. “We be rats in a box.”

  “Ferrets in a woodpile,” Hordo protested. “If this is not our own ground, still less is it theirs.” The rest paid him no mind.

  “We chase mists,” Talbor shouted, rising in his stirrups to address the bandits who were gathering. “We ride into these accursed mountains after ghosts. It’ll not stop till we find ourselves with our backs to a rock wall and Zamoran lances at our throats.”

  Aberius sawed his reins, and his horse pranced dangerously on the steeply sloping ground. “Do you question my tracking, Talbor? The path we follow is the path taken by those I saw.” He laid hand to his sword hilt.

  “You threaten me, Aberius?” the Kothian growled. His fingers slid from his pommel toward the tulwar at his hip.

  Karela spurred suddenly into their midst, her naked sword in hand. “I’ll kill the first man to bare an inch of blade,” she announced heatedly. Her cat-like eyes flicked each man in turn; both hurriedly removed their hands from their weapons. “Now tell me what has you at each other’s throats like dancing girls in a zenana.”

  “The soldiers,” Aberius began.

  “These supposed pendants,” Talbor started at the same instant.

  “Soldiers!” Karela said. She jerked her head around, and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she spotted the distant line of men on the plain below. “Fear you soldiers so far away, Aberius?” she sneered. “What would you fear closer? An old woman with a stick?”

  “I like not being followed by anyone,” Aberius replied sulkily. “Or think you they follow us not?”

  “I care not if they follow us or no,” she flared. “You are the Red Hawk’s men! An you follow me, you’ll fear what I tell you to fear and naught else. Now all of you get up ahead. There’s level ground there where we’ll camp the night.”

  “There’s a half a day yet we could travel,” Hordo protested.

  She rounded on him, green eyes flashing. “Did you not hear my command? I said we camp! You, Cimmerian, remain here.”

  Her one-eyed lieutenant grumbled, but turned his horse up the mountain, and the rest followed in sullen silence broken only by the creak of saddle leather and the slick of hooves on stone.

  Conan watched the red-haired woman warily. She hefted her sword as if she had half a mind to drive it into him, then sheathed it. “Who is this girl, Conan? What is her name?”

  “She’s called Velita,” he said. He had told her of Velita before, and knew she remembered the dancing girl’s name. In time she would come to what she truly wanted to speak of. He twisted around for another look at the column of soldiers. “They gain ground on us, Karela. We should keep moving.”

  “We move when I say. And stop when I say. Do you think to play some game, Conan?

  He turned back to her. Her green eyes were clouded with emotion as she stared at him. What emotion he could not say. “I play no more games than you, Karela.”

  Her snort was eloquent. “Treasures taken from a king’s palace, so you say, not to mention this baggage you claim to have promised her freedom. Why then do the thieves flee to these mountains, where none live but goats, and savages little better than goats?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it convinces me all the more they are the men I seek. Hon
est pilgrims do not journey to Vendhya by way of the heart of the Kezankian Mountains.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, and shifted her gaze to the soldiers, far below. With a laugh she reared her big black to dance on its hind legs. “Fools. They’ll not clip the Red Hawk’s wings.”

  “It seems most likely they seek Tiridates’ pendants, as we do,” he said. “Much more so than that they seek you.”

  The red-haired woman glowered at him. “The Zamoran Army seeks me incessantly, Cimmerian. Of course, they’ll never catch me. When their hunting becomes too troublesome, my men disperse to become guards on the very caravan routes we raid. The pay is high, for fear of the Red Hawk.” Her sudden laugh was exultant.

  To his amusement he realized she had been offended by his suggestion that the soldiers hunted other than her. “Your pardon, Karela. I should have remembered that taking seven caravans in six months would certainly rival even a theft from Tiridates’ palace.”

  “I had naught to do with those,” she said scornfully. “No creature from those caravans, man, horse, or camel, has ever been seen again. When I take a caravan, those too old or ill-favored to fetch a price on the slave block are turned loose with food and water to find their way to the nearest city, albeit poorer than before.”

  “If not you, then who?”

  “How should I know? The last caravan I took was a full eight months ago, and fat. When we left our celebrating in Arenjun it was to find the countryside too hot to hold us for those vanished caravans. I sent my men to their hiring, and these four months past have I been in Shadizar telling cards beneath the very noses of the King’s Own.” Her full mouth twisted. “I would be there still, if the risk of calling my band together once more had not seemed less than the odium of being eyed by men who thought to give me a tumble.” Her glare seemed to include him and every other man in the world.

  “Strange things are happening in the Kezankians,” Conan said thoughtfully. “Perhaps those we follow have something to do with the vanished caravans.”

  “You make flight of fancy,” she muttered, and he realized she was eyeing him oddly. “Come to my tent, Cimmerian. I would talk with you.” She spurred away up the mountainside before he could speak.

  Conan was about to follow when he became aware of being watched from the jagged mountains to the south. His first thought was of Kezankian hillmen, but then, as the hackles stood on the back of his neck, he knew it was the same invisible eyes he had felt that night with Karela, and again before Crato appeared. Imhep-Aton had followed him.

  His massive shoulders squared, and he threw back his head. “I do not fear you, sorcerer!” he shouted. A hollow, ringing echo floated back to him. Fear you, sorcerer! Scowling, he spurred his horse up the mountain.

  Karela’s red-striped pavilion had been set up on a level patch of stony ground. Already the motley brigands had cook fires going, and were passing their stone jars of kil.

  “What was that shouting?” Aberius called as Conan climbed down from his horse.

  “Nothing,” Conan said.

  The weasel-faced man led a knot of ruffians down to face him warily. When he casually laid his hand on the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword, the memory of how he had used that sword against Crato was clear on those bearded, scarred and gnarled faces.

  “Some of us have thought on these soldiers,” Aberius said.

  “You have thought,” another muttered, but Aberius ignored him.

  “And what have you thought?” Conan asked.

  Aberius hesitated, looking to either side as if for support. There was scant to be found, but he went on. “Never before have we come into these mountains, excepting to hide a day. Here there is no room to scatter. We must go where the stone will let us go, not where we will. And this when five times our number of soldiers follow our backtrail.”

  “If you’ve lost your enthusiasm,” Conan said, “leave. I’d as lief go on alone as not.”

  “Aye, and take the pendants alone,” Aberius barked, “and the rest. You’d like it well for us to leave you.”

  Conan’s sapphire eyes raked them scornfully. Even Aberius flinched under that lashing gaze. “Make up your minds. Fear the soldiers and run, or follow the pendants. One or the other. You cannot do both.”

  “And you bring us to where these soldiers can take us,” Aberius began, “you’ll not live—”

  Conan cut him off. “You do as you will. On the morrow I ride after the pendants.” He pushed through them. They muttered fretfully as he went.

  He found himself wondering if it would be better for him if they stayed or went. They still had no right to the pendants, in his eyes, but now that they were in the mountains he could use Aberius’ tracking ability, at least. The man could tell the mark a hoof made on stone from that made by a falling rock. That was always supposing the weasel-faced brigand did not decide to slip a knife between his ribs. The muscular young Cimmerian sighed heavily. What had started out to be a simple, if spectacular, theft, had grown as convoluted as a pit of snakes, and he had the uneasy feeling that he was not yet aware of all the twists and turns.

  As he approached Karela’s red-striped pavilion, with half its ropes tied to small boulders because the ground was too hard for driving pegs, Hordo suddenly stepped in front of him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” the one-eyed bandit demanded.

  Conan’s temper had been shortened by knowing Imhep-Aton followed him, and by the encounter with Aberius. “Where I want to go,” he growled, and pushed the scar-faced man from his path.

  The startled brigand stumbled aside as Conan started past, then whirled, his broadsword coming out, at the whisper of steel leaving leather. Hordo’s tulwar darted toward him. Conan beat the curved blade aside in the same motion as his draw, and the bearded man danced backward down the slope with surprising agility for one of his bulk. The scar that ran from under his rough leather eye-patch was livid.

  “You have muscles, Cimmerian,” he grated, “but no brains. You think above yourself.”

  Conan’s laugh was short and mirthless. “Do you think I intend to displace you as lieutenant? I’m a thief, not a raider of caravans. But you do as you think you must.” His broadsword was a heavy weapon, but he made it sing in interlocked figure eights about his head and to either side.

  “Put up your blades!” came Karela’s voice from behind him.

  Without taking his gaze totally from Hordo, Conan took two quick steps to his left, turning so he could see both the bearded bandit and the red-haired woman. She stood in the entrance of the pavilion, her emerald cape drawn close to cover her from her neck to the ground. Her green-eyed gaze regarded them imperiously.

  “He sought your tent,” Hordo muttered.

  “As I commanded him,” she replied coldly. “You, at least, Hordo, should know I don’t allow men of my band to draw weapons on each other. I’d have killed Aberius and Talbor for it. You two are more valuable Shall I let each of you consider it the night with his hands and feet bound in the small of his back?”

  Hordo seemed shaken by her anger. He sheathed his sword. “I was but trying to protect you,” he protested.

  The muscles along her jaw tightened. “Think you I need protection? Go, Hordo, before I forget the years you’ve served me well.” The one-eyed man hesitated, cast a sharp glance at Conan, then stalked off toward the fires.

  “You talk more like a queen than a bandit,” Conan said finally, replacing his sword in its worn shagreen scabbard. She stared at him, but he met her gaze firmly.

  “Others end at the headsman’s block, or on the slave block, but none of mine has ever been taken, Conan. Because I demand discipline. Oh, not the foolishness soldiers call discipline, but any command I give must be obeyed at once. Any command. In this band the Red Hawk’s word is law, and those who cannot accept that must leave or die.”

  “I am no hand at obedience,” he said quietly.

  “Come inside,” she said, and disappeared through the entrance. Conan f
ollowed.

  The ground inside the striped pavilion had been laid with fine, fringed Turanian carpets. A bed of glossy black furs, with silken pillows and soft, striped woolen blankets, lay against a side of the tent. A low, highly polished table was surrounded by large cushions. Gilded oil lamps illumined all.

  “Close the flap,” she said. Her mouth worked, and she added with obvious effort, “Please.”

  Conan unfastened the flap and let it drop across the entrance. He was wary of this strange mood Karela seemed to be in. “You should be more careful with Hordo. He’s the only one of this lot who’s loyal to you instead of to your success.”

  “Hordo is more a faithful hound than a man,” she said.

  “The more fool you for thinking so. He’s the best man out there.”

  “He is no man, as I mean a man.” Abruptly she threw back the emerald cape, letting it fall to the rugs, and Conan could not stop the gasp that rose in his throat.

  Karela stood before him naked, soft auburn hair falling about her shoulders. A single strand of matched pearls hung low around the curve of her hips, glowing against the ivory skin of her sweetly rounded belly. Her heavy, round breasts were rouged, and the musky scent of perfume drifted from her as she stood with one knee slightly bent, shoulders back, hands behind her, in a pose at once offering and defiant.

  He took a step toward her, and there was suddenly a dagger in her hand, its needle blade no wider than her finger but long enough and more to reach his heart. Her tilted green eyes never left his face. “You walk among my rogues like a wolf among a pack of dogs, Cimmerian. Even Hordo is but half wolf beside you. No man has ever called me his, for men come to believe the calling. If a woman must be a man’s slave, then I’ll be no woman. I’ll walk behind no man, fawning for his favor and leaping to his command. I am the Red Hawk. I command. I!”

  With great care he lifted the dagger from her fingers and tossed it aside. “You are a woman, Karela, whether you admit it or no. Does there have to be one to command between us? I knew the chains of slavery when I was but sixteen, and I have no desire to wish them on anyone.” He lowered her to the furs.