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 godless 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 snatch 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 gods 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 passed 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 gods 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 gods 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 passed 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."
"Aesir or Vanir?"
"Vanir!" Even dying, the boy had the strength for indignation. Conan smiled.
"Did you¦ did you see me fighting? Did I do well?" Rasmussen gasped.
His northern fairness had turned the color of fresh-fallen snow. Only his eyes held color now.
"Twice, when I had time to look about." Conan said. He had not in fact laid eyes on the boy until this evening, but this was one of those lies that any honest man would tell and any god forgive.
"I did well?"
"Rass, your strength the leech began.
"I¦ tell me, Captain!"
"You paid your way, Rasmussen," Conan said. "Few can do more in their first fight, and many do not do as much."
"Conan tells the truth," came Raihna's voice from behind Conan. "I made a good bargain when I took you on."
But she was talking to a set face and staring eyes. After a moment, she joined the two men beside the pallet and with her sword-callused thumbs, closed the boy's eyes. Then she swayed, and Conan contrived to keep her from falling without appearing to do so.
Presently Raihna was in command of herself again. No words were needed as they walked back to the hut Conan had chosen for them. Still in silence, they sat across from each other while Conan poured the last wine from a skin into two wooden cups.
"To old comrades," Raihna said. They clicked cups, then drank. When her cup was empty, Raihna wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and regained something of her old manner. Then she shook her head with a rueful grin.
"Conan, I wish I had half your skill in telling lies to soothe the dying."
"What lies?" the Cimmerian growled. "I said the lad had done as well as any man does in his first fight. He did not run, and all of his wounds were in front. That is as well as most men do."
Raihna shook her head again. "Conan, you were born a hundred years old."
Conan threw his head back and his laughter raised echoes in dusty corners. "Tell that to the thieves of Zingara. It was said, when I was learning their craft, that a wise thief would not be caught in the same quarter of the city with Conan the Cimmerian. The great lout would warn his prey, the watch, all soldiers sober or drunk, and even the fleas on the watchdogs!"
"They said that of you?"
"Not to my face, I grant you. But, in their cups, some forgot that I was hearing. I let it pass."
He pulled off his boots. "But telling tales of my past will be dry work with the wine gone. What of you? Caravan guarding seems to have done well for you."
Raihna's men seemed well-seasoned, save for the lads, and they were certainly well-armed. They were also well-furnished with things like purgative herbs and spare boots. Conan had known the lack of such small matters to leave great gaps in the ranks of a company, even if it had no enemy to face.
Raihna wore baggy leather trousers”unable to disguise the long, supple legs within”that hung down over the best sort of Argossean riding boot.
The dagger on her belt was of good Aquilonian work, as was the mail now lying in the corner. Her tunic was red Khitan silk, tight enough to set off breasts that seemed as fine as ever.
"I have been one of the lucky ones," she said. Her tale followed swiftly, for it was a short one. Caravan guarding drew many men, but kept few. They fell to bandits, to disease, and hardship, to the temptation to steal from the caravans. If they survived all those, they sometimes fell prey to mere disenchantment at discovering that the distant cities of their dreams had no towers of ivory or women clinking with gold.
"I survived all the perils and thereby learned to keep others alive as well," Raihna concluded. "After that it was a simple matter to win my own band. It was not so simple to win it a reputation."
"Is that why you're here?"
She nodded. "King Eloikas had a fair selection of goods to bring home but only ten of his own men to guard it. His steward would not make a free gift to the bandits. Most guards would not give the steward a civil answer. The Border Kingdom has a reputation as a place of hard rocks and still harder men."
"I've seen nothing to make me doubt that."
"Nor have I. But I grew up poor in Bossonia. A land such as this holds few terrors for me, and where I would go, my men would follow."
"Where are the king's men?"
"They rode on ahead this morning to warn the captain-general of our coming."
"Or so they said," Conan growled under his breath. The unknown captain-general might not be the only one they had warned. And there was the matter of the stuff of sorcery he had seen in some of the bags.
The Cimmerian rose and turned away. Before her men he would uphold Raihna's authority with the last drop of his blood and the last stroke of his sword. Alone with her, he had to ask a few blunt questions, the gods grant without making her fling the wine jug at him”
He turned back to the woman, and thoughts of serious matters fled his mind like rats from a burning barn. Raihna had pulled off her tunic, and above the waist she wore only the dressing over the cut on her ribs.
As Conan watched, she kicked off her boots, then pushed the riding breeches down those long legs. The breeches were a more practical garment than a tavern dancer's silks, but somehow they came off as swiftly.
"You are as fair as ever," Conan said.
Raihna mimed a kick at his manhood. "Shape your tongue to wiser words, Cimmerian. Few women turn into wrinkled hags in a year. Or spare your words and speak to me without them."
She held out her arms. The invitation could not be denied, nor did Conan refuse it.
It was long before they slept, and when they did, it was the kind of sleep that is near-kin to death. They did not hear thunder without lightning roll through the hills. Nor did they hear, closer to hand, the soft but insistent call of pipes.
Aybas heard the thunder. He also heard the cry of the Star Brothers'
pet. Where he was, a dead man might have heard it. He was standing at the very foot of the dam.
It was a cry unlike any he had ever heard, even from a creature that seemed able to make the sounds of every earthly animal. It was a long, whistling moan, with an ugly bubbling note beneath the whistle and the moan. It was a sound that no human ears should have heard, a sound from another world, where evil reigned crying out to the world of men. Evil for which no human tongue had words, but which Aybas feared he might soon be meeting.
That fear took away much of his pleasure at the news that Princess Chienna and her captors were safely away from their pursuers. He did not know if the babe was also captive, but from the wizards' refusal to speak of it, he judged not. That made the news even better. Or did, until the thunder rolled and the beast cried.
It was some consolation for his own fear that the Star Brothers seemed quite as fearful. Perhaps it was not only Aybas who harbored thoughts of evil reaching out from a world beyond the world, an evil hungry and yearning to feed that hunger, an evil perhaps soon to slip past all restraint.
Aybas spoke more sharply than usual when he addressed the Star Brother who seemed to have the most command of himself. "What is this? Is your pet sick?"
"It is in fear," the other replied. Aybas did not even bother to turn away before making the gestures of aversion. Whatever could put the
wizards' pet in fear was something no man in his senses should not also fear.
Thunder rumbled again, and Aybas and the wizards cringed. But the creature beyond the wall made no reply to the thunder. Searching the dark sky, Aybas saw lightning flash beyond a distant peak that bore a rounded bare summit horribly resembling a skull.
It was natural thunder, the gods be praised! Aybas stopped his gestures before the wizards noticed them and took offense. Then he saw that they were too busy jabbering among themselves to notice him even should he begin beating a drum and chanting war songs!
Aybas slipped away and crossed the valley floor toward the village.
Halfway across, he saw two figures half-hidden in a stand of spiceberry bush. The next flash of lightning showed him Wylla's coppery hair and long-fingered hands lifted in prayer. Beside her rose the familiar massive bulk of Thyrin, her father.
Prayer, or some woman's rite? The Star Brothers might be interested to know that Wylla could be doing that which they had forbidden. This might be Aybas's long-sought opportunity to win Wylla's gratitude for saving her.
Yet somehow the idea no longer drew Aybas onward as strongly as it had, even though thoughts of Wylla still did. Having unnecessary dealings with the Star Brothers was too great a price to pay for any woman!
With victory so close, it was best to bide his time, then speak to Count Syzambry. The count could deal with the unruly among the Pougoi should any protest at seeing one of their clanswomen sold away from the valley.
Of course, the count might refuse his acquiescence. But even then, Aybas would be dealing with a mortal man”an ambitious man, to be sure, one who would stop at little to rule in this wretched land” but not with a wizard, one who sent messages without a messenger and tamed creatures from beyond the world.
"Mistress Raihna, Mistress Raihna!"
The shouting slowly penetrated Conan's ears. He sat up and willed sleep from his muscles and wits. In two swift strides he was at the hut door.
Behind him he saw tanned limbs flash as Raihna scrambled into her garments. Conan unbarred the door and allowed the man pounding on it to open it a hand's breadth.
The Conan Compendium Page 341