The tentacle waved in the mist, groping, then stretched out its tip toward them. Conan lurched to his feet, shouting curses and calling on every god he thought might let him die like a warrior.
The rainbow colors in the mist and the fire in the lake died. A vast roar that made the beast's cry seem a pitiful mewling filled the night.
The mist rose higher yet, but not as thickly as before. Through the base of the cloud of mist, Conan saw the dam crumble.
The water of the lake thundered into the valley in a solid white wall.
It moved faster than a galloping horse, as fast as a flying hawk. Conan knew trial fie was seeing the death of the Pougoi.
He also saw the beast, although dimly because of the mist. A vast, carapaced shape festooned with tentacles swept into view, then washed through the remains of the dam and down into the valley.
Conan did not see the beast after that, although he knew the moment of its death¦ knew it because the ground shuddered again, and a roar that was almost a scream tore at his ears and a stench like all the graves of the world opened at once filled the night.
How long the Cimmerian gazed into the mist that shrouded the dying valley, he did not know. He was recalled to knowledge of the world and work to be done by Raihna's hand on his arm.
"Conan. The rock has crumbled to within an arm's length of your feet.
If any more falls, you may well fall with it."
Conan looked down and saw that Raihna was right. He shook off both her arm and his bemusement and began to climb.
"That settles the matter of pursuit, to be sure," he said when halfway up the cliff. "I only wish I knew if the Star Brothers drowned along with their tribesmen."
"Pray that they did," Raihna said. "I doubt if Marr could spellbind a stray puppy, and we've not heard the last of Syzambry's men."
The piper was at least in his right senses and sitting up when Conan and Raihna rejoined their comrades. He held Wylla close to his chest while she alternately wept and keened for the dead.
Aybas was wrapping his cloak about the princess. Above the waist, she was still more unclad than not, but below the waist, she had made herself seemly, if not regal. She was letting the babe suck on one or her fingers, and that seemed to have soothed his cries.
"Best we find a milch goat or a ewe and soak a rag in the milk," the princess said. "Urras has thrived on becoming a nurse-brother to the Pougoi. He may not do so well on the road home."
"Milch goat?!' Conan echoed. He realized that he was still a trifle bemused. He hoped that it was only from being too close to such a mighty duel of magic.
"Conan," the princess said, "I could hardly ask you to carry off a wet-nurse. But every patch of hillside about here has its goats. Any who are not good for my babe's milk will surely be good for our rations, will they not?"
"Certainly, my lady”I beg your pardon, Your Highness."
"No pardon needed, Conan. You and your comrades”I would not have asked of anyone sworn to me what you have done of your own will." She looked up at the sky, where stars now shone dimly as a rising wind blew away clouds and mist alike.
"The night is half gone, I fear," she added. "Best we use what is left of it to put some distance between ourselves and any of the Pougoi who may yet live."
Conan hoped that the princess would leave the swordplay to those better fitted for it. Otherwise, he would not quarrel with her apparent wish to command on the march homeward!
He looked down into the valley. Mist still rose in random wisps, but a great sheet of water gleamed beneath it. Here and there, huts and high ground jutted above the flood, and on one patch of high ground, Conan saw tiny figures moving.
Of the beast, the Star Brothers, or Thyrin, there was no sign.
Conan rose, stretched to ease cramped muscles, then turned to Raihna.
"Raihna, which of us is the better goatherd, do you think?"
Chapter 16
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A pallid dawn found Conan and his companions a fair march on their way home.
"The palace is no more, Your Highness," Conan said. "Your father makes shift with a tent in the wilderness. I fear it is a poor homecoming we offer you."
"Captain, anyone would think that you had spent as much time about courts as Aybas here," Chienna said. Free of the Pougoi, she smiled more readily. That smile made her face more than a trifle comely, with its high cheekbones and straight nose.
"I know how to tell the truth to princes," Conan said. "Or at least the kind of princes who care to hear it. Some don't, and those I don't speak to at all if I can avoid it."
"Our house has always kept an ear open for the truth," Chienna said.
"And we have always called the whole Border Kingdom home. We will not be homeless until we set foot in another realm, and both my father and I will die before we do that."
It seemed to Conan that Count Syzambry might yet have something to say about the royal family's going or staying, let alone living or dying.
But the quicker the princess and her son returned to Eloikas, the quicker the king would rally such allies as he might yet have. Had he enough, Syzambry might have nothing whatever to say about anything, including his own life or death.
Conan earnestly hoped so. Falling to Syzambry would be like being stung to death by vipers, or even being gnawed to bloody shreds by rats.
'Twas no death for a warrior, no death for anyone”man, woman, or child”who could feel shame.
Conan's band was two days on its homeward journey when they saw the traces of a fair-sized company of men.
"Pougoi," Marr said after studying the footprints. "Warriors in some number, but not all warriors. I see women and children among them."
He rose and contemplated the wooded ridges rolling away to the west.
"Trying to put a good distance between themselves and their valley, I should judge. But not going toward the royal camp, unless they should stumble on it by accident."
"If they do, we can leave them to Decius," Raihna said. "What danger are they to us?"
"If they've women and children to lead to safety, they may not fight unless we force them," Conan said.
"They might also be readier to fight us than most," Chienna said.
"Vengeance can make wiser folk than the Pougoi”forgive me, Mistress Wylla”forget good sense."
Wylla was so stunned at an apology from a princess of the house that had been long an enemy to her tribe that she could only stand slack-jawed. Marr put an arm around her and bowed to the princess as thanks for both of them.
"I can contrive with my magic that they do not come near us," the piper said. "But the Star Brothers may yet live, some of them, and march with their tribesmen."
"Would not their power have died with their beast?" Aybas asked. From his voice, it was clear that he most earnestly hoped so. He could not have hoped so more earnestly than Conan, but hope sharpened no swords.
"What could live Star Brothers do without their beast?" Conan asked.
"At the very least, sense that my magic was at work," Marr replied. "If they know that, they might find ways to let Pougoi scouts search for us with clear eyes and ears."
"Then let us trust to woodcraft and swift marching," the princess said decisively. "I have no more quarrel with the Pougoi, if they find none with me."
In that, she spoke for all of them. She spoke, indeed, loud enough that an unseen listener heard. He heard clearly, but they did not hear his bare feet on the forest floor as he returned swiftly to his comrades.
They met the listener and half a score of his comrades toward mid-afternoon. Prince Urras was sucking a rag dipped in the last of their goat's milk when Raihna's shriek brought them to their feet and to arms.
"Pougoi!"
Conan was the first to join Raihna at her sentry post. She was already behind a well-placed tree, bow ready, and the Cimmerian found another such from which to watch the warriors approach.
He counted ten of them, all with swords or
spears in hand, the points held downward. The archers had their bows strung but over their shoulders, and at the rear of the line”
"Father!"
Wylla's shriek made Raihna's seem a whisper. The Pougoi girl dashed down the path and flung herself into the arms of the tall man at the rear of the warriors. He bent to kiss her forehead, but Conan saw that the seamed, leathery face and grizzled, shaggy beard were not quite dry.
Conan stepped from his hiding place. "Greetings, Thyrin. It's good to see you and to know that not all of your folk died along with the Star Brothers and the beast."
Thyrin gently pushed Wylla away, and his look of joy gave way to a bleaker face. "Would that the Star Brothers were dead. Two of them live, their powers yet in them, and they still have warriors at their command. Not as many as I did when I defied them, but enough so that if they find other friends
"Such as Count Syzambry?" came the voice of the princess.
Thyrin and Chienna stared, each trying to take the measure of the other. Neither the green eyes nor the brown ones fell, but it was the princess who spoke first.
"I do not know whether it is fit and lawful by your customs for you to have a pardon from my house. But if it is, you shall have it. Indeed, you have it now. Moreover, you shall have land to call your own, better land than you lost, if you do my house this one service."
The Pougoi were so silent that the faint breeze in the high pines sounded to Conan like the roar of a gale. Thyrin coughed.
"Where is that land to come from?"
"When Syzambry falls, his friends will fall with him. Their lands will be the gift of the throne to our friends who have stood by us. I do not know where your new lands will be. I only say that if you stand by us, and if I live, you will have them."
This time the silence was swiftly broken by a warrior asking the question that Conan saw on all faces.
"Stand by you, Lady Princess? That means we fight your enemies? Fight the little count?"
"What greater enemy does my house have? What greater enemy can it have?
If you live to see the sons of your sons' sons, you will not see a more evil man than Syzambry!"
Thyrin asked that the warriors be allowed to draw apart and take counsel with one another. This was granted. They soon returned, and most of them were smiling.
"Do we swear all together, or each man alone?" the warrior who had asked the great question wondered.
"As your laws and customs bid you," Chienna replied. "I will have no friend swearing an oath that comes strangely to his lips."
That drew cheers, which lasted until Raihna could endure them no more.
"Be silent!" she cried. "Or would you let the whole realm know where we are?"
These words drew no cheers but, instead, a few sour looks and some muttered curses from those who still had breath to utter them. Conan stepped forward.
"Lady Raihna and I are both captains in the Palace Guard," he said. "By your oath to the royal house, you also swear to obey Captain-General Decius and any captain speaking for him. Yet no captain of the royal service will ever command you save through chiefs you choose yourselves." The Cimmerian ended by making suitable gestures of honor at Thyrin.
The princess beckoned Conan to her. Tall as she was, she needed to rise on tiptoe to put her mouth to his ear. "I think I have just been told how to lead the Pougoi, Captain Conan. Is that not so?"
"Forgive me if I presumed, Your Highness, but
"You were in haste and could not wait for my permission? My father and Decius have told me how often this excuse is given, by both good captains and bad."
Conan was silent, keeping his gaze turned toward the Pougoi. Then he heard a soft laugh.
"You are a good captain, Conan of Cimmeria," the princess said, "and therefore much may be allowed you. Bring the Pougoi forward and let us have the oath-taking. Then they can go and bring up their comrades and kin and we can all sleep at ease tonight."
The oath-taking went swiftly. Conan had expected nothing else. Nor did he doubt that the rest of the Pougoi who followed Thyrin would be as swift in declaring their new allegiance.
Some, doubtless, were of the faction Aybas had described, and always kept apart from the intrigues of Syzambry and the Star Brothers. Some might be seeing the world with fresh eyes. None could doubt that the Pougoi had little future unless they sought new allies. Homeless, their war strength shrunken, their women and children helpless prey, they could not hope to face the other tribes whom they had made into mortal enemies. The raiding for sacrifices had gone on for too long to be easily forgiven.
Conan only hoped that the Pougoi would not use their new place as upholders of the throne as yet another weapon against their enemies. If they did, the throne would have peace with one mountain tribe and blood-feud with half a dozen others.
The Cimmerian thanked the gods that it would be Eloikas and Chienna who faced that problem, not himself or Raihna. If Aybas wanted to stay and be embroiled in it, good luck to him”and, indeed, the Aquilonian exile's experience of intrigues might make him a wise counselor to the Border throne.
First, however, came the task of being sure that there was a Border throne for Aybas to counsel!
A band of more than a hundred, with fifty fighting men, was harder to hide than Conan's handful. It also had less need to hide. Nothing save Count Syzambry's host”if he yet had one”or Decius and the Guards could meet them in open battle.
Ambushes were another matter, and the Star Brothers' magic was another still. So Conan decided that the newly united, newly sworn allies would move by day and sleep by night. Since it was near sunset by the time the last oath was taken, that meant they would begin the last part of their journey on the next day.
A cluster of huts too small to deserve the name of village offered shelter to the women and children and the princess. The huts were filthy but intact, and they had the look of having been abandoned only a few days before. Why the inhabitants had fled, and whither, Conan did not know. Nor did he care to speak of these questions where anyone less clearheaded than Raihna or Thyrin might hear.
At the end of the oath-taking, Thyrin gave chief's gifts to Conan's party. One gift was the use of a wet-nurse for Prince Urras for as long as he needed one.
The other was a tent for the use of Conan and Raihna.
"You may share it if you wish," Raihna told Aybas. "One or the other of us will always be on watch tonight."
Conan said nothing but considered that Raihna might have told him first if it was her notion that they sleep apart. They would be doing that enough when they rejoined Decius. Raihna was too much woman to let slip away without one final, hot tumble.
Aybas shook his head. "Thyrin has offered me the hospitality of his tent as a peace offering." He lowered his voice and looked toward Wylla, standing close to the piper. "Also, she is sleeping under the stars with him, so it matters little where I sleep."
"Not so," Raihna said. "Sleep where you will wake with a clear head. We need your wits untouched. Aquilonia's loss has been our gain."
Aybas's face told plainly of how long it had been since he heard such praise, but he was equal to the occasion. He bowed, kissed Raihna's hand, and withdrew.
"Who takes first watch?" Conan asked.
"Let it be me," Raihna said. "For one night, you should spare yourself."
"When has a woman ever made me weak, Raihna? Even you, and I have known few women
She punched him lightly in the ribs. "As you say, you have known few women if you think that none can weaken a man for serious business. Go and sleep, Conan."
Conan raised his hand in mock respect. "I think I should never have named you 'Lady.' What next? Wedding Decius, so that you have the rank in truth?"
Raihna turned away quickly, still smiling. Yet it seemed to Conan that the smile was thinner than common for her.
Neither Raihna's smile nor anything else kept the Cimmerian from plunging into a deep sleep the moment he lay down. He had lightly oiled his blades a
nd sworn to find the Pougoi smith at first light. The sword, at least, would not be fit to cut mutton without some skilled work.
Then he had removed his boots, wrapped himself in his bearskin, and lain down on the pine branches covering the floor of the tent. The heady smell of fresh-crushed needles was the last sensation he remembered¦ before he awoke to discover that he was no longer alone on his bed. Indeed, he was no longer alone within the furs. Someone had thrown them back and crawled under them with him.
The "someone" was a woman, and she was not asleep. She was feigning sleep, but Conan's ears were too keen to be deceived.
She was also clad only in her own skin, and that was not feigned. Conan ran a hand down a smooth back and gently patted firmly muscled hindquarters. It seemed that Raihna had decided against their sleeping apart after all. Having had her jest”
The woman rolled over and drew Conan firmly into her arms.
No man to refuse an invitation so plainly offered, he made quick work of his own garments and returned the embrace as heartily as it had been given. Pressing Raihna down onto the furs, he twined his fingers in her hair and kissed her soundly. Meanwhile, her own hands were at work, making Conan's roar”
Until he felt the hair, which was as fine-spun as silk and flowed down past the woman's shoulders nearly to the small of her back.
Not Raihna's hair. Raihna's thick, fair hair ended hardly lower than the back of her neck.
Conan did not cease his kisses; nor did the woman”he could no longer call her Raihna”cease her pleasant activities. But with a free hand now here, now there, the Cimmerian quickly made himself a picture of his companion.
Beyond doubt, not Raihna. As tall and as broad across the shoulders, but not as well-fleshed. Add these discoveries to the long hair, and who was he holding in his arms?
Conan's knowledge came to him with a laugh that the woman took for a sign of pleasure. She redoubled her efforts, not that any such was needed to make her a welcome bedmate.
So he had Princess Chienna. Very well. He was a man with a fine woman in his bed, and when that was so, there was neither rank nor royalty nor anything else”except for the rites that had begun long before men and women wore crowns, or anything else.
The Conan Compendium Page 356