"Mistress Raihna! Mistress Raihna!" the man repeated.
"Are we attacked again?" Raihna called.
The man made no answer. Instead his mouth opened slightly as he stared at the Cimmerian looming in the crack. The Cimmerian, in the same hut as Mistress Raihna, and not fully garbed.
Conan heard that thought as if the man had been shouting it. He saw the man bend to peer through a crack between the door's weathered planks.
Then the man straightened abruptly as a large hand gripped the collar of his much-mended shirt.
Jerking the man to his feet, Conan opened the door wider but stood to block any view into the hut. "Your captain has asked you a question, my friend," he said with dangerous softness. "Is it your habit to ignore commands from her?"
"Ghhh the man replied. Conan realized that his hand on the man's collar was depriving him of speech, and he loosened his grip. The man rubbed his neck, started to glare at the Cimmerian, then seemed to think better of it.
"There's a Count Syzambry outside the village, ah
"Conan of Cimmeria, once of the Turanian service," Raihna said. She was only just decently clad as she stepped into the doorway, but she wore sword, dagger, and helmet over scanty garments.
"Ah, Mistress, Captain Conan. Count Syzambry says that the Princess Chienna was abducted last night. He wants to question all of us and search the camp and the baggage."
"I'll see him buried in camel dung first!" Raihna snapped.
"Mistress, he has fifty men with him."
"Has, or says he has?" Conan asked.
The man looked dubious about Conan's authority to ask, then cringed at Raihna's look and shrugged. "No one has seen more than twenty, and they are still outside the village."
"Good. Keep them there until I come," Raihna said.
"Yes, Mistress."
The door slammed behind the man and they heard his feet running off.
Conan and Raihna looked at each other.
Even if Count Syzambry had no more than twenty men, that was more than Raihna had. If he had the fifty he claimed to have, he might be a worse menace than the bandits.
Raihna threw her arms around Conan and let him hold her against his massive chest for a moment. Then she kissed him and stepped back.
"Guard my back and your tongue, friend. We haven't brought King Eloikas's goods this far to lose them now to some son of a she-ass calling himself a count!"
Chapter 4
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Syzambry was a small man who sat on a square-built roan stallion as if he had grown in the saddle. He wore a plate back-and-breast, an open-faced helm plumed in scarlet, and a well-used broadsword ready for a left-handed draw.
The helmet hid most of his face but left exposed a bushy dark beard shot with gray, a jutting red nose, and large dark eyes. The count was staring about as if he wished to make folk believe those eyes could see into a man's soul.
Conan, remembering some of the mortal men and other-than-mortal beings he had faced, was not much bothered by the count's playacting.
"Temple pageants are this one's talent, not leading fighting men," the Cimmerian muttered.
Raihna was close enough to squeeze his arm, feel the rock hardness of its muscles, and whisper in his ear. "For your life”and mine, Conan”be silent until I give you leave to speak."
Conan jerked his head in a nod. Speaking out of turn might provoke Count Syzambry to folly. Or it might make a shrewder man wonder if he faced dividing foes, whose quarrels he could turn to his advantage.
Conan now stepped back and studied the count's men without seeming to do so. They were a good twenty and more. None of them was as well-mounted as the count, nor as well-armored. Conan saw much mail among the men and noted a few unfortunates with no more than boiled-leather jacks sewn with iron rings.
Their weapons were better fitted for battle. All had swords, and most of them had either short horsebows or crossbows. Conan could only guess at their stock of arrows and quarrels. He feared that they had sufficient to win any fight Raihna's men were foolish enough to provoke.
Conan was not the only one to see that. Raihna's men took one look at their visitors, a second at their captain's gestures. Then they seemed to vanish into the air, to put stout walls between themselves and the count's men.
A man darted out from behind Raihna's hut and came close enough for Conan to hear his whisper. "We are gathered in the heart of the village. Shall we start blocking the streets?"
Raihna shook her head. "Put the archers where they can see and shoot in all directions. Don't forget the castle side of the village, either. If His Bearded-ness has any more men, he may well send some of them over the hill to take us in the rear."
"The gods be with you, Mistress."
"And with all of you, too."
The man vanished. Raihna struck her left arm with her right hand. "I wish we had gone up to the castle. It would be easier to defend."
"We'd still be getting the pack animals up the path¦ if they hadn't fallen off and squashed themselves like grapes," Conan muttered. "Small use to worry about what might have been."
"Another saying of Captain Khadjar?"
"Any man with his wits about him learns that before he's been in five battles, or he's vulture's fodder."
Raihna folded her arms across her breasts. "Count Syzambry. I am Raihna the Bossonian, captain over this caravan and its guards."
"So I have been led to believe. I was also led to believe that you had royal men with you. Where are they?"
Raihna repeated what she had told Conan. Syzambry's laugh was mirthless. Raihna flushed, and it was Conan's turn to grip her arm.
"I am Conan of Cimmeria, once of the hosts of Turan, and under-captain to Mistress Raihna. I ask, what is the jest?"
Syzambry stared at Conan. His laughter this time was forced as the Cimmerian stared back. Ice-blue eyes caught and held dark ones. It was the dark ones that looked away and a gloved hand that twitched as if it sought the hilt of a sword.
"I do not say that you lie," the count said. "But without the royal men watching you, much might have happened against the king's good. Against your good, Mistress Raihna, if you value your reputation as an honest captain."
"Nothing happened," Raihna said. "Certainly nothing that bears on the matter of Princess Chienna's abduction. The first we knew of it was when your man summoned my guard."
"Yes, and if he had let my men into your camp, we would not be standing here glaring at each other like two packs of wolves over a scrawny stag." The count's eyes gave the lie to the soft-seeming words.
"The guard had my orders, and I have orders from King Eloikas. One of them is to let no one question the men or search the baggage unless he bears a royal writ."
Count Syzambry sniffed. "A nobleman such as I bears such a writ by birth. You need have no fear of disobeying the king by obeying me."
"Forgive me, my lord, if I seem doubtful," Raihna said. "We are strangers in this land. We know not its laws or customs, so we cannot judge the truth of what you speak."
Conan saw that she wanted to add, "And we cannot judge whether you are a count or not," but drew back from such an insult.
"I am the judge here," the count said. It was next to a snarl. The fingers writhed again. Conan eyed the distance between himself and the count. The man had made a serious mistake, perhaps without realizing it. He stood between where Conan and Raihna stood and those of his archers who had good shots at the opposing captains.
With only a trifle of luck, Conan could have the little man off his horse and down in the dust before the archers could shoot. If that came to pass, the fight would take a very different path.
The count glanced at Conan again. The Cimmerian tried to look as harmless as a lamb and to stand as motionless as an oak tree. From the rider's change of countenance, Conan thought he had succeeded.
The count opened his mouth to speak. His intended words died unuttered as a pack mule brayed in the village. Shouts echoed
the mules, some of them in voices Conan recognized. Others were the voices of strangers shouting "Steel Hand!"
Conan looked to Raihna. She nodded. He whirled toward the village. The count gave a wordless yell, and Conan heard crossbows cocking.
Conan continued to whirl, scooping up a stone as he did. He flung the stone with the force of a sling, driving it into the flank of Count Syzambry's horse. The roan squealed and reared, catching the count unready. He clutched frantically at the saddle, the mane, the reins, anything that would keep him from tumbling to the ground.
Meanwhile, Conan's free arm looped around Raihna's supple waist.
Snatching her off the ground, he ran for the cover of the village.
Behind him, the count was still struggling to keep his saddle, never mind control his mount.
"If that little jackal in man's shape shields us for a moment longer
Conan began. The whistle of arrows cut into his words. Arrows and bolts began sprouting from walls and kicking up dust.
Count Syzambry screamed curses. His mount screamed in pain. Conan judged that some ill-aimed shot had struck home in the roan. The archery slackened but did not cease.
Ahead, a vacant hut offered a gaping window. Conan flung Raihna through it like a wharf man flinging a bale aboard ship. Then he followed, landing almost on top of her.
"Ekkkh, Conan!" Raihna gasped. "Watch my fingers if you want my sword in this battle!" Conan stepped back as Raihna sprang nimbly to her feet and drew her blade. Outside, the archery had ended and the count's curses were dying away.
The din from the rear of the village had redoubled. It was still more the hurling of insults and war cries than the clashing of steel. Conan set his shoulder against the sagging door of the hut. Wood and leather gave with a ripping crack, nearly tumbling the Cimmerian onto the ground. Recovering himself, he led Raihna toward the rear of the village.
Conan allowed himself only a glance at the fight there, sufficient to tell friend from foe. The men who had come down the hill numbered at least a dozen; enough to hold Raihna's at bay, not enough to press home an attack.
The attackers also lacked the wits to post flank guards. Conan and Raihna took full advantage of this error. They hurled themselves against the flank of the enemy, wielding the flat of their swords like berserkers. All of Conan's instincts told him to leave foes dying, not merely stunned. But everything he had learned of warcraft since his youth told him that Count Syzambry would stop at nothing to bring him down were he to slaughter the count's men.
Himself and Raihna and Raihna's men. Alone, Conan knew that he could show all the counts of the Border Kingdom a clean pair of heels. He doubted that any Border Kingdom lordling's writ ran far into Nemedia or Aquilonia!
But with duties to Raihna and her men, Conan was not free to wreak bloody havoc among the count's men. He had to use his strength and speed to put them in fear without littering the village streets with their corpses.
This he did with terrifying skill. At least it terrified the count's men, who gave way as quickly as if Conan had actually butchered half of them. He cracked heads, broke sword arms, kicked men in the stomach, and punched them in the back of the neck. Beside him, Raihna did the same with somewhat less strength, but hardly with less speed or effect.
Together they rolled up the enemy's line as quickly as thieves rolling up a stolen tapestry. Those of the count's men who had time to see the fate of their comrades did not wait to meet their own. They turned and fled out of the village and up the hill.
Raihna's archers on the roofs began shooting. Raihna screamed at them to stop. They heard, but they did not obey at once.
"No more blood, you witlings!" Conan roared. "No more blood and we can still win free of this!"
"Tell that to someone began.
Conan did not spend time in arguing. He leaped high, clutched the ankles of the nearest archer and brought him down with a crash on the hut's roof. Rotten timbers and thatching gave under the man's weight and he plunged through the roof in a cloud of dust. From inside, Conan heard curses that proved the man was shaken rather than hurt.
"Mistress," a man called in a more moderate tone. "Garzo is hurt to death, and two others have shed blood. That says nothing of the pack animals hurt or slain. We owe the bastards for that!"
"We owe King Eloikas the safe arrival of his goods!" Raihna snapped.
"We will fight or not as it will help us honor our bond. You swore to obey me in that. Will you stand foresworn in the face of the enemy and before a man who knows how to use strength and wits?"
This speech drew an eloquent silence. Conan knew that Raihna's power over her men was fraying. He hoped that the last few strands would hold until either Count Syzambry saw reason or the fight began in good earnest.
A whistling warned Conan in time. He flung himself one way, Raihna the other, as arrows from the hill sprinkled the village. More pack animals screamed. A mule cantered down the street, blood gushing from its throat. At the corner, it collapsed. A scrubby but stout-legged pony broke into a gallop, toward the count's men. Arrows jutted from its flanks and rump. As it passed the dying mule, more arrows sprouted from it and it reared, then also collapsed.
"I'd wager they're trying to keep us here if they can't beat us down,"
Conan told Raihna.
"Keep us here until they can bring up more men?"
"Why not? I'd also wager that if none come before nightfall, we can win clear then. For now, they seem to lack the stomach for a close fight."
"We can hardly win free with the animals to consider."
"There are times
"There are times when you are too free in telling me how to do my work, Conan!"
"Truth is truth, whether I speak or stay silent."
Raihna shook her head as if that could make matters otherwise. Then she wiped her eyes with a tattered sleeve. The movement lifted breasts that her garb hardly hid. Bruised, grazed, and dusty as she was, Raihna could have walked into any tavern and danced her way to a purseful of silver.
The archery now slackened from both the hill and the valley side of the village. Conan swung himself onto a roof and lay low enough to be invisible, high enough to see clearly.
The count was waving his arms so wildly that he seemed to have more than two. After a moment Conan realized that Syzambry had the wits to know what he faced here: men who could defend themselves well enough if they had warning of an enemy's plans. Commanding his men by silent hand signals, Syzambry must be hoping for surprise.
That he was planning on attacking at all raised Conan's hopes.
Syzambry's men from the hill had lost half of their strength and were past fighting, or they were still fleeing. The count had barely the means with which to attack a foe standing on familiar ground, well-armed and under captains who knew their work.
Conan remained on the roof for some time. The vermin swarming in the thatch left their customary haunts for tastier prey. They drew no response from the Cimmerian, not even a twitch. He had learned the art of silence and stillness while fighting the mountain tribes of the Turanian frontier. Against them, to move was to die.
A whistle, a thump, and the smell of smoke at last made Conan move.
Looking to the right, he saw smoke curling up from the thatch of the next hut.
Fire arrows!
Briefly, Conan cursed Count Syzambry's wits and the scantiness of last night's rain. If the ancient thatch of the village had been well-soaked, the count could never have used this trick. As Conan finished cursing, three arrows plummeted into the thatch of his own hut. All three of them must have struck a dry patch; for flames rose almost at once, then leaped toward the Cimmerian fast enough to singe his hair;
Conan rolled toward the edge of the hut. The thatching sagged under him, and he heard a muted crack of wood. Then a roof beam gave way, and burning thatch, unburned thatch, timbers, and Conan crashed to the floor of the hut.
The Cimmerian leaped to his feet, beating out smoldering patc
hes on his clothes and in his hair. As he finished the work, Raihna appeared. Her light linen trousers now covered less than did most loinguards, and her shirt consisted of rags that threatened to part company with one another at any moment.
Her garb might be in disarray, but her wits were not. "I have the men gathering the most important goods now. They know what those are." For a moment, her lips trembled. "You were right. We shall appear before King Eloikas as little more than beggers and pray
She could not go on. Conan wanted to hold her but doubted that they had the time, or that she would take comfort from it.
"Raihna. We'll need a rear guard to hold the village while the rest of the men go over the hill. That will have to be the way, so that Syzambry's mounted archers can't follow. Give me two or three men, one an archer, and I'll make that rear guard."
"Conan . . ." She stared at him as if he had started speaking in Khitan, or had turned into a dragon.
"In Crom's name, we haven't the time for arguing!" he almost shouted.
"I'm the best man for the work. Give me some good men at my back and flank and I'll do it."
Raihna's hand came up. For a moment, Conan braced himself for a slap.
Then her hand came the rest of the way and lightly brushed his cheek.
They were standing there, knowing that time and foes pressed, when deep-toned war trumpets sounded outside. First, one in the far distance, beyond the hill. Then another, answering it from closer by.
Finally, two more, which grew louder as they sounded.
By the time the last trumpet blast died, Conan heard the sound of many horses, swelling rapidly. He pushed Raihna lightly on one bare shoulder.
"Time for you to run and for me to fight. I think the count's friends are coming."
Decius, captain-general of the Hosts of the Border, knew what might come of sounding the trumpets. If Count Syzambry was at the village and had the wits to heed the warning, his men could show Decius's men a clear pair of heels.
The captain-general prayed to every lawful god, however, that Syzambry would be driven to desperation instead of to flight. If the count hurled his men into the village so that Decius could catch them red-handed”
The Conan Compendium Page 342