"None of mine," the man said. He was clad in a mixture of new hill-folk shirt and cloak and the ruins of civilized breeches and boots. His sword seemed a new one that had seen much hard service in little time.
And was there a slight emphasis on the word "mine"? Chienna dared a look at the¦ the Star Brothers, they called themselves. The hill wizards, the villains of tales that had been old when her nurse was a babe.
Yes. They seemed to be displeased with the man, as if he had spoken out of turn.
A dispute between them? Not likely that it was open enough to give her any advantage, but it might be made worse. Not at once; all those who had taught her war craft had counseled against attacking before knowing the battlefield or the foe.
Afterward, though¦ She remembered Decius saying, "Nothing is worse than sitting and letting the foe do as he pleases. Even if you can strike only the smallest of blows against his weakest part, strike it!"
The captain-general would in time know that he had taught her well, although it was unlikely that she would tell him herself.
The man raised his voice. "Ho, summon a wet-nurse for the babe! At once!"
The princess noted that the wizards again looked displeased. But their displeasure did not stop the man, nor several warriors. The warriors ran off toward one side of the valley as if the ground was spewing flames at their heels.
The man stepped forward. Closer at hand, he showed a pinched, pale face above a scraggly brown beard shot with gray. Yet there were good bones in the face and in the hand he raised in greeting. A nobleman who had come by long and sorry roads to this wretched place, she would wager.
"I am Aybas, formerly of Aquilonia." The accent was not only Aquilonian. but courtly. "The warriors will see to it that your babe suffers for nothing. Can I do aught for your comfort?"
Short of releasing her, or at least taking the hobbles from her ankles, she could think of nothing. Chienna shook her head.
"Then I might suggest. Your Highness, that you sit on the softest rock you can find." He smiled faintly before his face and voice alike turned hard. "The Star Brothers wish to show you the powers they command to punish those who disobey them or make themselves enemies."
Aybas pointed upward, toward the dam of rock and earth that blocked the mouth of the gorge to the left. As he did, something rose above the top of the wall. Something that writhed like a snake but was longer than any snake Chienna had ever seen.
A second writhing thing joined it, then a third, then too many too quickly to count. A body not meant to be described in human tongues followed, climbing the vertical cliff above the wall. Water poured from it as it rose, and it made sounds even less fit to describe.
Prince Urras sensed his mother's fear by her quickened heartbeat and wailed louder yet. The princess sat down, forswearing dignity for the sake of her babe. She rocked and dandled and bounced him, but nothing soothed the infant.
Yet all was not lost. She did not dare to close her eyes to shut out the scene on the rocky crag that was shaped like a dragon's head. She knew that to do so would mean punishment, and punishment so soon would take strength she might need later.
She was not forced to hear the cries of the sacrifices, however. Her babe's wailing drowned them out.
Wylla heard the end of the sacrifice from her perch on a branch high above the valley. Once again she thanked the gods that she had told no one of this dead tree and the view it gave her. She could see much, without ever being seen.
One day a strong wind would bring the tree down, and then she would need to seek another vantage point for spying on the wizards. Until that day, she would use this perch, with the knowledge of no one else in the village, not even her father.
She waited until the last trace of the beast vanished in the mist gathering over the gorge. That mist always seemed to come after the beast fed. Was it part of the Brothers' star-spawned magic?
She did not know. She could not even be sure that the woman and babe she had seen were Princess Chienna and her son. She only knew that she had to bear the news of what she had seen swiftly out of the valley, to where Marr the Piper waited.
She would not have to go far. The pipes had not sounded tonight, but the thunder and the havoc wrought on the weapons told of Marr's near presence.
Wylla wore a warrior's cloak, the shapeless dress of the Pougoi women, and hard-soled leather shoes beaded with colored stones from mountain streams. She cast aside the cloak, then drew the dress over her head.
Under the dress she wore only a birdskin belt, with a dagger of finely shaved mammoth ivory thrust into it. The starlight played delicately over her body as she stood for a moment naked in the night.
Then she bound her cloak about her loins, knelt, and took several deep breaths. As Marr had taught her to expect, the life force flowed into her, making her blood tingle.
When it seemed that her limbs would take fire in the next moment, she leaped up and began to run.
From far ahead in the darkness, the pipes called softly.
Chapter 6
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Close to the time that Wylla met Marr the Piper, Conan met King Eloikas's Palace Guard.
The caravan and Decius's men had camped for the night about double bowshot beyond a small village in the lee of a thickly forested ridge.
The village was inhabited, but it was hardly less ruined than the Dembi village where they had fought two days before.
The villagers' surly looks would have told Conan of years of hard living had their rough huts and scanty garb not done so. A few chickens and some half-ground barley were the best that Decius's coins could pry loose from them.
If this was the common run of folk in the Border realm, Conan decided, he was not going to profit much from it. King Eloikas's gratitude would feed no horses and burnish no armor. That needed gold, something that the Border Kingdom seemed unlikely to offer.
So be it. Honor bound him to Raihna's side as long as she needed him.
He could contrive some other way of filling his purse or take his luck in Nemedia with an empty one. He had wrested gold out of poorer lands after entering them with no more than his sword and the clothes upon his back.
Conan was inspecting the sentries when the Palace Guard appeared.
Decius trusted the caravan men to share the watch with his men, but not Conan to keep a watch by himself. The Cimmerian had judged it best to hold his peace on the matter.
Decius's men were clearly masters of their craft. Conan was advising one of Raihna's archers to hide himself better when the wind had borne to the Cimmerian's ears the clatter of hooves and the thud of boots. He had waved both pairs of sentries into hiding, seen both obey, and strode up the path toward the sound.
A hiding place in the roots of a great gnarled oak offered itself.
Conan crouched there, cupped his hands, and hailed the newcomers.
"Halt! Who is there?"
"The Palace Guard, Captain Oyzhik commanding."
"Advance and be recognized."
Conan heard one of Decius's men scuttling off to summon his chief. He also heard the hooves and boots fade raggedly into silence.
The Cimmerian's keen night sight pierced the darkness. He recognized the royal banner, a sadly tattered one drooping from a crooked lance.
He also recognized a company that numbered a handful of veterans and a great many new recruits. He had seen enough of both in Turan to be able to tell the one from the other, even in the darkness.
The man who had replied, naming himself Captain Oyzhik, was also a type that Conan recognized. Too bald and too fat for his years, he wore fine armor and sat a horse worth as much as three of Decius's. But the armor was undented and the sword slung across his back showed gilding and jewels that could not have survived a single real battle.
"Captain Oyzhik," Conan shouted. "Captain-General Decius has been summoned. I ask you to hold where you are until he comes."
"My men have traveled fast and far on urgent orders
from the King's majesty," Oyzhik replied. His voice was as round as the rest of him.
"They must have their shelter at once."
Conan doubted that such a mob of old men and boys could have traveled fast or far had a god commanded it. Oyzhik no doubt wanted to get his plump arse out of the saddle and into something more comfortable.
The Cimmerian laughed softly. Oyzhik had a surprise coming if he thought the caravan's camp offered what could be called "comfort" in any tongue Conan knew.
The sound of a firm stride coming up the trail warned Conan that Decius was at hand. The Cimmerian rose to greet the captain-general, then fell behind him as Decius went to meet the Palace Guard.
"What brings you here, Oyzhik?" Decius asked.
"Tales came of Count Syzambry's friends and allies gathering men. We did not know what strength the caravan might have. So King Eloikas decreed that the palace would bar its gates and send forth the Guard to be your shield at the end of your journey."
Conan hoped that King Eloikas had been speaking for the ears of the doubtful rather than out of any real belief that this Guard could defend an apple orchard from a band of small boys. Serving a master who had neither silver nor wisdom in war could end in filling a rocky grave in this godless land.
"We thank you, Oyzhik," Decius said. "Captain Conan, return to the camp and wake Raihna and my second. We break camp and march at once."
"At¦ night?" Oyzhik's question came out more squeak than words, as high-pitched as if he had been gelded.
"We are now in good strength, Oyzhik," Decius said. "The trail is clear, or you would not be with us. And our foes will not be expecting us to march by night, so it is the wisest thing we could do."
To Conan, struggling to choke back laughter, a night march seemed to have another virtue. It might cause the plump Guard captain to fall down in a fit, or at least to faint from weariness.
The Cimmerian held his peace, though, until Decius dismissed him. Then he hastened down the trail toward the camp. When he finally saw the campfires glowing ahead, he let out such a roar of laughter that half the men jerked awake at once.
Raihna thrust her head out of the tent they shared. "Share the jest, Conan, if it is so fine."
Conan merely shook his head and laughed harder. It would not do to insult the Palace Guard before the captain-general's men.
"An old tale, Raihna. But the new one tonight is that Count Syzambry's friends may be waiting for us. The Palace Guard has come out, and Decius wants us on the march before he can take a deep breath!"
Raihna's head bobbed and vanished, and all around him Conan saw and heard men garbing and arming themselves.
Conan's first sight of the palace of King Eloikas made him wonder if it was worth guarding.
He had seen mere noblemen keep larger hunting lodges, and not only in wealthy lands such as Turan. He had known of Vendhyans who would not have housed their tiger-hunters in something so wretched.
The gates hung ajar. The outer wall crumbled so that in some places an agile man might have walked over it upright. Holes gaped in every roof that Conan could see, and he did not doubt that under each hole was a puddle of muddy water from every rain in the last ten years.
A beaten-down patch of earth set about with thorn hedges might have been a drill ground. A collection of huts that a swineherd would have disdained might have been a barracks. Otherwise, Conan had no idea of where the Palace Guard lived, or of where Raihna's men might find quarters.
Since Decius's men joined them, he had heard muttered tales of "the secret hoard" of the Border kings. Some folk, it appeared, believed that the palace was so wretched because Eloikas was saving his gold for a time of need.
Conan would believe in that hoard, as he would believe in the will of the gods, when he saw it with his own eyes. For now, he suspected that the cache was so secret that even King Eloikas had forgotten where to lay hands on it.
Oyzhik hurried into the palace to report their arrival to the king.
Conan and Raihna busied themselves with their men and beasts. They were careful to avoid the boggy fields and wretched hovels stretching downhill from the palace. They were likewise careful to keep the caravan beyond bowshot of the brooding forest uphill. The forest held trees Conan had never seen before, in shapes he did not wish to see again, and no birds sang within it.
Conan let Raihna stand close to him, but he laid no hand on her. Both were aware of Decius's eyes upon them, more especially upon Raihna.
"This land pleases me less with each new turn of the trail," Raihna said. "Will you come with me and my men if we choose to leave at once?"
"Best wait for your pay if you want”forgive me, that's telling you your work again."
It was also not noticing her unease, bordering on fear. Gratitude for that shone in her smile. "Unless that means waiting so long that it will buy nothing but a burial shroud, and a poor one at that!" she said.
Then, "Conan," Raihna went on, raising her hands as if to grip his shoulders, "if we leave, would you come with us as far as the nearest civilized land? I think you have hopes to win something in this land
"An empty belly and an untimely grave? That's what this land seems to promise. Raihna, I said in plain words that I would be at your side wherever you went. Does a shield jump off of a man's arm because it thinks he's overmatched?"
Raihna might have embraced him in spite of Decius's presence, but at that moment a palace servant appeared in the gateway, Oyzhik behind him.
"Captain-General Decius. Captain Raihna, Conan of Cimmeria. You are summoned to audience with His Sacred Majesty, Eloikas, King of the Border. Fifth of That Name."
The outer parts of the palace were much as Conan had expected: courtyards where weeds sprouted as high as a man's waist and trees overtopped what was left of the walls; chambers all but open to the sky, with stagnant marshes where once gentlefolk might have taken their pleasure on silk-swathed couches, drinking perfumed wine from gilded cups. One chamber still had much of its fine tile floor intact, and Conan had to call his men away from gaping at it as though it were a rare and wondrous treasure from a distant land.
How much of this they passed, Conan did not know then or afterward. He knew that he was beginning to feel an itch between his shoulders that no scratching would soothe. With every step he was farther from even the modest protection that Raihna's men might offer him and deeper into a place where foes, human and magical, might wait.
Some of them at least, he vowed, would live only as long as he needed to teach them not to lay traps for a Cimmerian. Or a Bossonian swordswoman, he added, taking in how Raihna's face also grew more somber with each step.
A final step took them around a corner, and both Conan and Raihna stopped as if they faced a pit of fire. Beyond them lay a courtyard clean of dust and weeds alike. Opening off of it were chambers that seemed at least fit to belong to a decent merchant's home.
Every door of these chambers was guarded, and the guards were also unlike what Conan had seen so far in Eloikas's palace. Most of them were past youth, but not past bearing good armor and stout swords or bows, with an occasional halberd to season the mix. Conan judged them with a soldier's eye. He would wager that most of them were of a type he had met before, those who might have lost swiftness but had gained experience and would not be opponents to take lightly.
The guard with the most ornate halberd brought it up in salute.
"Hail, Decius. His Majesty awaits."
The captain-general nodded and fell back. Guards took their place around Conan and Raihna, so close that the two could not have drawn a weapon freely had they wished to. Thus hemmed in, they entered the throne room of King Eloikas.
The throne room was about the size of the dining room in a good inn, and so clean that one might have eaten off the floor. One could see that here, at least, silver was spent to keep the dust away, the tapestries mended, the paint of the murals fresh, and the gilding of the bronze throne unscarred.
One could also s
ee, as Conan did at once, a strong resemblance between the man who sat on the throne and the captain-general who knelt before it. Conan and Raihna followed Decius's example, but the Cimmerian did not take his eyes off their two hosts.
If they were not father and bastard son, Conan swore, he would drink nothing but water for a year. Both were of medium height but of soldierly bearing. The king was somewhat scanter of hair, and that more gray than black, but the chisel-shaped nose, high cheekbones, and wide gray eyes were common to both.
Conan was so intent on discovering further resemblances between Eloikas and Decius that the command to rise caught him unaware. Raihna had to dig at his ribs with her elbow to bring him to his feet, a gesture that drew a royal laugh.
It seemed the laugh of a man who had found little to laugh about for far too long but who had not altogether lost the habit. In spite of his suspicions, Conan found himself warming to Eloikas.
Decius presented Conan and Raihna in a few soldierly words. They knelt again. Eloikas greeted them in still fewer words, then bid them rise.
"Mistress Raihna, you have Our gratitude, and you will have your promised fee and more. You have not only brought Us what We put in your charge, which will strengthen Our blows against those who have taken Our daughter and heir¦ but you have struck shrewd blows yourselves against Our common foes. It is Our wish, Mistress Raihna, that you and your men remain within Our realm to aid us in striking further blows.
We expect to be able to reward such service most generously."
Eloikas then folded his hands across a belly remarkably flat for a man of his years and clad in a robe of Brythunian style much patched and dyed over many years. His gaze passed over Conan's head and seemed to fix itself on some detail of the mural on the wall behind the Cimmerian.
Conan could tell that Raihna would have given half of her pay to be alone with him, able to speak freely. She also seemed to be gazing at something far away, then drew herself up.
"Your Majesty, I am honored by your confidence. But I beg you to answer two questions."
Captain Oyzhik hissed like an outraged goose, but Decius waved him to silence. The captain-general did not, however, take his eyes off the king. Nor did he fail to make certain subtle gestures to the guards.
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