Conan left to Raihna the task of bringing the archers to order. He sought to form his men into a solid band that could strike a shrewd blow. The light from the burning huts had shown him what he hardly dared believe: the count at the near end of the earthen bank, with barely a handful of men about him.
"Haroooo!"
It was the under-captain shouting as he plunged forward up the bank. He continued his wordless cries until he was almost within sword's reach of Count Syzambry. Then his steel blazed in the firelight.
"I am Mikus, son of Kiyom, and I am death to traitors and rebels against King Eloikas Fifth of” aarrgghh!"
The count had stood as death closed with him. Not so one of his guards with a short lance slung across his back. Its blade sparkled in the firelight, vanished into Mikus's belly, then burst forth bloody from his back.
Ere the sword fell from Mikus's limp fingers, Conan was charging up the slope. Before he reached the top, the count vanished, and in his place stood a dozen of his men. They made a wall of steel, armor and blades alike, between Conan and Syzambry.
Still, Conan hacked three of them out of the fight, two dying on the ground and the third withdrawing with a useless arm and dragging leg.
But the others were hemming him in, and arrows began to fly as the count's archers found a target.
The archers did not cease shooting as Conan plunged downhill. Indeed, they did not cease shooting after Conan reached safety and the count's men came downhill in pursuit of the Cimmerian. The archers made better practice against their friends than against their foe, or perhaps the nine men made a larger target than a single Cimmerian.
Regardless, it seemed for a while that the next battle would be between the count's archers and the count's men-at-arms. While the count's captains sought order, Conan was doing the same among his own men. Only then could he study his intended battlefield.
The huts were now well ablaze, and the count's men who had watched them were now falling back on their comrades. From the far end of the huts, figures darted off into the darkness, the last of the Guards taking to their heels.
Conan cursed, not much caring who or what heard him. If the Guards had not been fleeing, they could have given him the strength for an attack.
As it was, by the time the Guards rallied and returned to the attack, Syzambry's men would be in the palace.
The Cimmerian cursed again, this time softly. He was cursing himself more than anything else. Decius might well have had the right of it, and Mikus had shown both sense and courage. Compared to them, Captain Conan of the Second Company had not made such a great name tonight!
Little to be done about it, either. If only the united strength of King Eloikas could face Syzambry, then best unite that strength as quickly as possible. The palace could always be retaken once Syzambry's host was gone. If the king lost his fighting men, however, he lost everything.
"Where now, Conan?" It was Raihna, and for a moment the Cimmerian's tongue could not shape itself to the only sensible words.
"To the meeting place with Decius. He may not thank us for this night's work, but we'll be there for him to say so!"
"As the gods will. Who takes the lead?"
"I'll take the rear. My night sight's the keenest and we'll need it against pursuers."
Raihna loped off toward the front of the line. Conan waited until the last man was past the midpoint of the huts before he rose from his hiding place to join the retreat.
As he did so, he heard the rumble and crash of falling masonry from well within the palace. A moment later he heard shouts and screams.
He did not know if the commotion was due to one of the traps or merely to a careless warrior leaning against a weakened wall. It did not matter. Every one of Syzambry's men who found a grave inside the palace would be one less to fight the next time battle was joined.
The scream from within the palace echoed in Syzambry's mind. He wanted to echo it.
He bit his lip, and the scream died unborn. The swordcut he had suffered from that young fool Mikus's blade was not the first battle wound he had taken. It would not be the last, even though victory was dawning before him. No usurped throne was ever held without fighting.
But gods, the pain! No wound had ever hurt so much. The count would have prayed that no wound would ever hurt so much again, but he doubted that his prayers would be answered. He could not even shape his lips to the proper names of the lawful gods.
Chills gripped his heart and belly, almost making him forget the pain.
Had magic entered into him so much that he was unclean in the sight of the gods? Had he done what was forbidden and now was cursed with this dreadful pain from a simple swordcut, and might he be cursed with worse”?
Count Syzambry still did not scream, but he groaned.
From what seemed a vast distance away, a voice that might have been a ghost's uttered sounds without words. Count Syzambry thought he heard what might have been "sleeping draught." and even "Pougoi magic."
Pougoi magic. Yes. That was it. The magic of the tribe's wizards was making him hurt so much. The same magic would take away the pain.
It would take away the pain or he would not be the friend the Pougoi expected. It had been his intention to arm the Pougoi and use them to uphold his throne. He would still do that if their wizards would heal him. If they did not, he would say nothing.
But he would heal himself, or seek the aid of the leeches and surgeons.
The healing would take longer that way, but vengeance lost no sweetness with the passing of time.
Yes, the time would pass, his wound would be gone, and he would use the power of the throne to arm all the enemies of the Pougoi. Then those enemies would fall upon them and cast them down, even their beast.
It would not do, after all, to leave the beast alive and a prey to someone who might think he was meant to rule in the Border Kingdom.
A voice spoke again, with nothing remotely like sensible words. A rim of cold metal pressed against the count's battered lips. He smelled herbs and strong wine, then tasted them as the cup was tilted to trickle the potion into his mouth.
For a moment he thought he would choke. He did not, and the cup was empty almost before he became used to the harsh taste. He was already sliding down into sleep as the cup left him, although even after he slept, it was a while before the pain no longer troubled his dreams.
The last sounds from the battle of the palace were long since left behind. Nothing but the sounds of the night disturbed the march of Conan's band of survivors. The night breeze whispered across the bare hillsides, and in the forests below, the night birds called to one another.
Once a wolf howled, long and harsh. The reply came not from another wolf but from something that seemed as vast as a mountain and growled like the heaving earth during the battle. Conan saw the fear-stricken looks on his men's faces and growled curses under his breath.
As they skirted a field of straggling grain, Raihna dropped back to walk beside the Cimmerian.
"The gods seem far away tonight," she said. Her face was such a mask that it seemed the movement of her lips would crack it.
Conan lifted a hand to wipe blood-caked dust from her cheek. "They're never as close as the priests seem to think. We're alive without their help, so I'm wagering on our
"Hsstt!"
Raihna did not grip Conan's arm this time. There was no need for it.
Both had seen alike: a line of shadowy figures straggling out of the forest. The faintest of moonlight was enough to reveal swords and spears, as well as ragged clothes, scanty armor, and no banner or device that Conan recognized.
Raihna ran like a doe up to the head of the line, waving the men to a halt as she went. They halted, not without a clattering of weapons and thumping of boots that would have alerted trained men below.
The men below, Conan judged, were even less battleworthy than the recruits of the Second Company had been. He saw them staggering with weariness, sometimes falling out of line to d
rink from leather jacks.
He saw them alternately gathered into ragged clumps like bunches of grapes or strung out like a serpent. He saw all of this as he walked along the line of his band, warning the men to be silent, but ready.
"I'm going down when they're all in sight," he told Raihna at last.
"When you see me draw my sword or hear me shout Count Syzambry's war cry, come at a run!"
"Count Syzambry's”?" Raihna began, but she was talking to the Cimmerian's broad back as he strode downhill.
Conan was not so foolhardy as to walk up to the newcomers without marking each rock and stump that might hide him as he went. There were enough of those, so that with the favor of the gods”
"How goes the fight at the palace?" someone called, sounding as if he had already emptied more than one leather jack of something stronger than water.
Conan was silent for another moment as he studied the hundred-odd men before him. Most of them were the rabble they had seemed, but here and there, he noted, was a man who carried himself like a seasoned free lance.
King Eloikas had hired no free lances. Count Syzambry, however”
Conan's sword rasped free and leaped high, opening the throat of the nearest free lance. At the same time, he roared, "Steel Hand! Steel Hand! Steel Hand!"
From uphill, Raihna replied, her voice as shrill as any she-demon hovering over a battlefield to snatch the spirits of the dead and dying. After a moment other voices took up the cry, and with their enemy's war cry on their lips, Conan's men thundered downhill to join him.
They arrived just as the foe realized that they were in a battle, even if they were a good way from the palace and the attackers had feigned friendship! Whoever was in command began shouting orders, and some of his men seemed to obey him.
The real peril to Conan was the free lances. They were rallying around the body of his first victim, half a dozen or more. Conan had a busy time of it, working hard with both sword and dagger to keep the free lances from creeping around his flank.
Then Conan's men struck the ranks of their foes, which in a moment ceased to deserve the name. Eloikas's men had speed, the slope, and an ordered line on their side. They also had a king slain, or driven into the wilderness, to avenge, and their own reputation to restore.
Syzambry's rabble vanished like a dancer's silken veil flung into a blacksmith's forge. Flight did not save a good many of them. A score or more died in the first shock, and as many more died with wounds in their backs. The Guards' blood was up, and they were a pack that no hunter could easily call off from their prey.
Conan did not try to. He held the free lances in play until Raihna joined him, turning their flank as they had sought to turn Conan's. Two men died with Raihna's steel in their back before the rest knew of the fresh danger. Then the four survivors divided, two against each opponent.
Two skilled free lances was no light matter even for the Cimmerian.
When one of them was almost as big as he, it was a serious affair.
Conan had the edge in speed, though, and he used it to hold both men at a distance while he sought an opening.
It came when the larger free lance crowded his comrade away from Conan, jealous of the right to deal the Cimmerian what he thought would be the final stroke. This left a gap between the two men. Conan hurled himself into it, feinting with his dagger to draw the smaller man still farther out of position.
The feint succeeded. Facing only one dangerous opponent now, Conan beat down the larger man's guard, hammered his sword from his hand, then chopped the hand nearly from the wrist. The man reeled back, gaping at his spouting arm and dangling hand. He was still gaping as Conan slashed him across the face, and he fell back screaming and spitting blood and teeth.
Conan whirled, certain that the smaller men would have returned to the fight. Instead, he saw a tangle of arms and legs as four of his Guards swarmed over the free lance.
"Don't the Cimmerian began.
"Conan!" It was Raihna, putting into his name the cry for help she was too proud to utter.
Conan wasted no time in joining Raihna and her opponents. Nor did he waste the opportunity one foe's back gave him. He leaped, jerked the man's head back, and heaved him off his feet. The man went down with a thud and a clatter of armor, and Conan finished the hapless fellow's fighting by hammering his head on the ground.
By the time Conan knew that they had a prisoner, Raihna had opened a safe distance from her surviving foe. The man had a longer blade than she, though, and seemed to have no purpose left in life but to sink it into Raihna's flesh.
He signally failed in that purpose. At the sound of Conan's footsteps, he left an opening for Raihna. Her sword opened his neck, and his head wobbled as strength left him. Then he toppled, and Raihna's dagger ended his last writhings.
The mask was gone from Raihna's face as she rose to face the Cimmerian, her expression like a she-wolf that had just brought down the finest stag in the forest. Rents in her clothing showed more blood-smeared skin than before, and her breasts rose and fell with her panting.
She stepped forward and for a moment stood in the circle of Conan's arms, sword still in hand. Then she threw her head back and brushed sweat-matted hair out of her eyes.
"Time enough when we make camp, my friend. Now tell me, why did you shout Syzambry's war cry?"
"If they were his men, as I thought, they'd lose time guessing who we were. I reckoned that the men could put that time to use."
"You reckoned right. But what if they'd been friends?"
"Then they'd have offered proof and joined with us. Either that or run off, and if they ran, at least they'd be clear of the palace. There's nothing there for any man loyal to King Eloikas save a hard death."
Conan felt Raihna shiver as the truth of his words struck home. Then she kissed him, stepped free, and cupped her hands.
"Ho, the Second Guards! Rally to Captain Conan! We've not done with this night's work!"
They had not, Conan knew, and the end might yet be death for all. But Count Syzambry had lost a hundred men, dead or taken or driven into flight. They were a rabble, but even a rabble could be a loss a usurper might not bear easily.
Chapter 11
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At most times, Conan would not have asked of his Guards an all-night march after two battles. Moreover, some of the Guards bore wounds that would have commonly put them in bed. Others were borne on crude litters by comrades who would not abandon them to wolves, bandits, or the scanty mercy of any men Count Syzambry might have still roaming the palace precincts.
So the march continued until dawn, although it ended with some of the men stumbling along more asleep than awake; a hand on the shoulder of the man ahead was enough guidance. And by the gods' mercy, they were out of the worst hills.
In an empty village on the edge of a wilderness of virgin forest looming higher than temple towers, they met the Guards who had fled the burning huts. They were some seventy strong”most of them armed and only few wounded”under the command of the veterans.
The sergeant of the First Company raised a hand as Conan strode up.
"Hail, Captain Conan. I await your orders. You are the only captain of Guards here."
Conan wanted to order the sergeant to put his men on guard so as to let the Second Company sleep, captain and all. He judged it more prudent to listen to the man's report.
It was simple. Once away from the palace, the sergeant had looked about for a captain to rally the men. Not finding one, he had taken the command himself. The men had formed up and marched in fairly good order until about the hour of false dawn, when they came upon the village.
"It was already deserted, so we saw no harm in settling down."
"It was?" Conan had little stomach for a quarrel with a man who might be valuable help in days to come. He also had little stomach for serving with a man who had robbed his own countryfolk.
"By the Red Rock, I swear it."
The ancient throne of t
he Border Kingdom was something that few men would invoke to uphold a lie. It seemed best to leave the matter.
"Truly, Captain Conan, they had gone with just what they could carry on their backs, and not much of that," the sergeant added. "We saw some men with spears who might have been the rear guard, but they weren't after staying to answer questions. I would not send the men running about the forest after them, either."
"Wise of you."
Returning favor for favor, Conan told the story of the Second Company's adventures. "I'd wager that the village folk ran when the rabble we fought came by. We'll have some more of the truth out of the prisoners, with luck."
The sergeant led Conan to a hut that had a straw-stuffed mattress in one corner. "Fear it's rat-ridden, too, but
Conan lifted the sergeant's jaw with one hand to cut off the flow of apologies. "Sergeant, if the rats aren't bigger than I am, I can face them."
The Cimmerian remained on his feet until the two companies of Guards had divided sentry duty. Then he kicked off his boots and crawled under the molting sheepskins on the bed.
His sleep was sound, though not unbroken. He awoke to find that he was sharing the bed with Raihna. She had taken off rather more than her boots, and as if that message might be too subtle, she then embraced him and drew him hard against her.
Both slept even more soundly afterward, but when the pipes sounded again, the notes were so faint and distant that even the sentries doubted that they heard anything. The sergeant heard nothing at all, and he misliked waking weary captains at the best of times. Conan and Raihna were allowed to sleep until the sun was far toward the west.
Aybas wished that last night's dream would depart from his memory. Even more, he wished that he had never had it in the first place.
Both wishes, he knew, were futile. His wish to be of service to Princess Chienna was not so futile, if he did not let the dream unman him.
It still would not leave him. Random fragments of it would return unbidden, no matter what he was doing. Now he was standing at the princess's door, and he was reliving the moment of the dream when he leaped from the cliff after her falling baby.
The Conan Compendium Page 349