After a few moments of sullen pondering, answers of 'aye' began to make the rounds of the table. Maxio kept his silence.
'You do not speak, Maxio?' Ermak prompted, his sardonic smile in place.
Pointing at Ermak's armoured breast, Maxio spoke not to him, but to the others. 'I will not trust this rogue's word. A murdering plunderer who pretends to be a soldier is not to be believed.'
'Now, Maxio,' said Bombas, veins standing forth on his brow
with the effort of speaking calmly. 'Why must you persist in this hostility toward Ermak?'
'Probably,' said Conan, 'because Ermak has called in reinforcements from Ophir. They rode into town yesterday.'
'Cimmerian!' hissed the Reeve. 'Will you not be still?'
'And who knows who comes into town better than you, Bombas?' jeered the aged Xanthus. 'It is your dogs who guard the city gates, although there is not a diseased cur in the town that is not better off than your guardsmen!'
'That settles it for me!' shouted Maxio. 'If Ermak is bringing more of his mercenaries into town, he does not mean peace!'
'Try to use such addled wits as you have left, Maxio,' said Lisip. 'Ermak must have sent for those men many days ago, long ere the peace talks were even proposed.'
Maxio whirled on the old gang leader. 'You are in league with him! I see it now! The two of you would squeeze the rest of us out and have the city all to yourselves!'
A shouting match erupted, and as it roared on, Xanthus sidled over to the Cimmerian and whispered urgently. 'Slay Bombas for me, barbarian! Do it tonight and you will have the rest of your pay. You need do no other service for me.'
'If the murder of a royal official were easy or safe,' Conan said, 'you would have done it yourself years ago. Besides, are you not afraid that when he dies, your own guilty deeds will become known?' With a snakelike hiss, Xanthus turned away.
'I am leaving!' Maxio shouted. 'Let none seek to follow me. I will observe the peace for the rest of this night, but after that, look to yourselves!' Followed by his gaunt companion, the burglar chief stalked from the room.
'I believe things would be much quieter,' Lisip said, 'if Maxio were out of the way.'
'I have no objection,' Ingas said boredly.
'You all know how I stand on the matter,' said Ermak.
'Very well,' Bombas said. 'Any of you may slay Maxio, no questions asked. He is a mad dog. He slew my brother, and I think I showed great forbearance in speaking to him so courteously this night.'
The talks continued for another hour, and all agreed to the cessation of hostilities, but Conan was confident that their words meant nothing. These were not the sort of men who could ever abide by such conditions. They were predators and scavengers, always eager to attack one they thought to be weaker. He saw Xanthus draw Ingas aside privily and speak with him. Then the man did the same with Ermak. The Cimmerian guessed that he was offering support to each man against the other.
'Are we agreed, then?' Bombas asked, rising. 'I think we shall have a quieter town now. Once Maxio is out of the way, there will be no need for further conflict, and you may all renegotiate your agreements with me. Now that you will not be needing your surplus men, it will be a good idea to dismiss them. I will not even charge them an exit duty at the city gates.'
'You are a greedy fool, Bombas,' said Xanthus. 'Your grasping blindness will be the ruin of us.' He stalked out, his face looking as if he had eaten something exceedingly sour.
'I do not think that Xanthus means you well,' remarked Conan to Bombas as he followed the Reeve from the upstairs room.
'Pay him no heed,' said the Reeve. 'He does not dare move against me, with so much of the king's lawful silver in his coffers.'
Julus and the Zingaran rejoined them in the gardens, and the four men made their way back to the Reeve's headquarters.
'Farewell, Cimmerian,' the Reeve said. 'You gave me good and honest service this night. I may wish to call upon you again.'
'Next time,' Conan said, 'I will want gold in payment.'
'I know that it is gold that buys men's loyalty,' said the Reeve with a sigh. 'And little enough loyalty does it buy at that. Go, Cimmerian.'
Conan left the Reeve's headquarters, the apelike Julus glaring at him all the while. He was not halfway back to the temple when a touch of lilac on the evening breeze told him that he had company. Piris rose from his seat on the lip of a fountain.
'Why did you leave me in there so long?' Piris asked.
'I have a better question,' said Conan. 'Why did I not leave you there for the rest of your life?''
'Because you took service with me,' Piris said, 'and you Cimmerians are known to be men of your word.'
'I recall no vow to keep you out of prison,' Conan said. 'I undertook only to find your scorpion goddess.'
'Have you found her?' Piris demanded eagerly.
'Aye,' Conan said.
'Where is she?' Piris's voice broke into a frustrated squeal.
'Better you should ask yourself where you are going to find the remaining eight hundred dishas you agreed to pay me for finding it for you.'
'But, but...' Piris sputtered. 'If I but had the image in my hands, I could pay you.'
'Pay me, and then you get your scorpion,' Conan said firmly. 'If you do not want it, there are others who would like very much to have the thing.'
Piris's eyes bugged. 'What? What are you saying? Who wants my scorpion?'
'I will tell you nothing more until you come up with the balance of the pay we agreed upon back in Belverus.' He swept an arm, taking in the city around them. 'In a place of such opportunity, a man of your skill should have no trouble finding the money. Good evening to you, Piris.'
Conan turned and left the little man sputtering behind him. He did not want Piris to see him enter the temple, so he walked past it and turned down the alley between the temple and the theatre. When he reached the wall around the temple's rear courtyard, he vaulted to the top and stretched his length upon it. Moments later, Piris came down the alley, looking this way and that, but never upward. When he was gone, the Cimmerian dropped to the courtyard and walked toward the kitchen door.
Abruptly that door burst open and a man came stumbling out, his eyes staring in terror, his mouth drawn back in a wordless scream. It was one of the male acolytes, a burly youth who sometimes stood guard at the door. Conan grasped the front of the young man's robe before he could dash past.
'What is it?' Conan demanded.
'Demons!' the youth shouted. 'Things with wings and claws. They came for me! Let me go!' For all his size, his struggles availed him nothing in the Cimmerian's iron grip. Conan could smell smoke on the robes he held. This was not the milk of Mother Doorgah.
'Just breathe deep, boy,' Conan commanded. 'It passes quickly.' He slapped the panicked face lightly to get the youth's attention and repeated his instruction. Within seconds, the terrified expression began to fade and the young man looked to be halfway lucid.
'Now tell me, lad,' Conan growled, his face an inch from the other's and looking twice as deadly as any demon's, 'what was it? Was it by any chance a little accident with a bellows?' He snapped out the last word and shook the acolyte hard enough to make his bones rattle.
'Yes!' the youth all but shouted. 'Holy Andolla brought the censer from his thaumaturgical study and connected it to the bellows. I placed the bellows to the wall pipe and began to work it. I do this every three or four evenings. But this time something went wrong. Smoke gushed back from the wall pipe. Then, then...' The eyes widened once more at the horror of the memory.
Conan pointed at the rear gate. 'Go! If you ever come back here, the demons will surely take you!' With a strangled cry, the youth dashed for the gate and snatched it open. He did not pause to close it in leaving.
'What is happening out here?' Oppia stood in the back door, a harried expression on her face and her hair in a wild snarl.
Conan scratched his head, gazing at the rear gate. 'I was just coming in when one of y
our acolytes ran past me, screaming as if all the demons of hell were on his trail.'
'Doubtless he thought they were,' she said. Then, sharply: 'And what were you doing, coming in the back way?'
'I left Bombas but a few minutes ago,' he answered. 'I did not want him to see me coming into the temple.'
'Oh,' she said. 'Yes, that is the wisest thing.' Distracted, she turned to re-enter the door.
'Do you not want to hear what happened at the peace conference?' Conan asked.
'Later,' she said. 'Tomorrow, perhaps. There has been an accident here, and I must set things aright.'
'Andolla has summoned mischievous spirits,' Conan said solemnly. 'They will make a shambles of all your undertakings if he cannot control them.'
'Aye, I believe that to be true,' she said, weariness in her voice. 'Go to your chamber, Cimmerian. I will call if I need you.'
Grinning, Conan climbed the stairs to his lodging.
XV
The Border Fort
At morning's first light, Conan awaited the opening of the river gate. The guard who opened the gate was not the same one who had been there when first the Cimmerian had ridden forth to bury his treasure and visit the mining village. This guard, a near-sighted fellow with a scraggly beard, brought out an official tablet.
'Name?' he said. He looked up, and his bleary eyes sharpened at sight of the golden coin that glittered between the fingers of the big barbarian.
'Are you fond of gold?' Conan asked.
'What man is not?' replied the guard.
'This is yours if you will make no note of my passing.'
The guard snatched the coin from him. 'I see no man. If you ride forth quickly, no one else will, either.' He pushed the gate open and Conan rode through. He crossed the bridge and turned south on the narrow dirt track that paralleled the river. He was out of sight of the city walls before the light had grown bright enough for him to be observed.
The morning was peaceful, and the song of birds accompanied him as he rode. The low ground near the river was forested, which suited his plans perfectly. A large number of men could travel this path without being seen.
He found the miners in a clearing by the path. There were about a hundred of them, strong and determined-looking. All were armed in one fashion or another. Iron-headed maces and spiked wooden bludgeons predominated. Powerful men, accustomed to the pick and sledgehammer, would be able to use such weapons with efficiency. A few had crude shields. Against Ermak's professionals, their lack of armour and discipline would be a terrible handicap, but Lisip's thugs would present no such difficulty.
Bellas came forward. 'Lead us to them, Cimmerian,' he said. The iron head of his mace bore a circle of pyramidal lugs; the weapon's handle was four feet long.
'South of here, on the other side of the river, there is an old border fort,' Conan told them. 'Do any of you know it?' No one had been there. He had expected as much. Most peasants and workmen like these had never travelled five miles from the place of their birth.
'Then I will have to scout it out when we get there,' Conan said. 'Come, let us not waste time.'
The men rose to their feet and followed him. They did not look the least afraid, but they were silent and grim. Even among the younger men there was none of the banter he usually saw in soldiers about to go into battle. These were men whose lives were hard, brutal, and lacking in any cause for optimism. They would not celebrate until the fight was over and they had their women and children safely back at home.
An hour's march brought them to the bridge. Conan dismounted and walked across it, examining every inch along the way. The abutments on the banks and the pilings that rose from the bed of the river were ancient, but they were solidly made of well-cut and dressed stone. At one time, he deduced, this must have carried an important road. The bed was crudely made of
limber; the road itself was of rough-hewn planks, now rotted in places.
'Cut wood and repair these bad spots,' the Cimmerian ordered.
'It's no trouble to cross if you're careful where you step,' protested Bellas, who was plainly impatient to get to the fort.
'When we come back this way,' Conan pointed out, 'we may he running, it may be dark, and we may be carrying wounded men or your women and children.'
'Hadn't thought of that,' Bellas admitted. He led a work party into the woods, bearing axes, saws, and adzes. Soon the sounds of woodcutting echoed through the morning air and men returned hearing sap-sticky lengths of wood. These men were used to fashioning mine timbers, and they shaped the wood to fit the bridge gaps swiftly. Ere long the bridge was sound and the men crossed lo the eastern bank. Here another small dirt road paralleled the course of the river.
'I will ride on and find the fort,' Conan said to Bellas. 'March in haste, but do not run, and keep close watch. If anyone comes riding southward, do not let him pass you and thus bear word of your approach to the fort.'
'We will be sure of it,' Bellas said.
The Cimmerian rode onward. Before he had gone far, another road angled in from the north-east to join the one he travelled. This road bore signs of frequent traffic, and Conan surmised that the men in the fort took it when going back and forth to Sicas.
He dismounted when he smelled smoke. Tying his mount in a copse of trees, he took to the bush, staying away from the road as he approached the source of the smoke. Within minutes he lay belly-down on a ridge overlooking the fort, which lay on low ground in a bend of the river and occupied no strategic advantage that Conan could discern. He decided that it had been a garrison post for troops ranging the old border and was abandoned as soon as the border shifted to the south-east.
It was a small place, laid out in a rough rectangle. Its lower walls were sound, but the upper battlements were in ruin. This made no difference in its current employment, which was a I pen for human livestock. Two stone towers flanked the gate, and smoke rose from one of the towers. More smoke came from the built within the yard surrounded by the walls. A few ramshackle sheds were built against the inner periphery. He guessed that Lisip's men were quartered in the towers, while the prisoners sheltered in the sheds.
With his practised soldier's eye, he measured the defences and turned over in his mind various means of storming the place. Its walls had lost a good six or seven feet from their original height. The miners had tools, and there was abundant wood nearby tor making scaling ladders. Had he been leading well-trained and drilled soldiers, he would have gone for a simple assault with scaling ladders, attacking two or three of the low walls simultaneously. But that was a tricky job even for professional soldiers.
The gate lay between the two towers, each of which rose perhaps ten feet higher than the flanking walls. New conical roofs had been erected over these towers, which had once themselves been topped with battlements. There were arrow slits in the towers, but the Cimmerian doubted that any of Lisip's men were armed with crossbows. This place had been renovated as a prison for keeping hostages in, not as a castle for repelling assault from without.
The gate itself was made of massive timbers. They fit the opening none too well, and to Conan's initial amazement, they appeared to be barred on the outside. He realized that it made sense when he recollected that this was nothing but a glorified cattle pen. He decided that entry would have to be made through the gate.
People moved about listlessly in the surrounded courtyard, but he could tell little about them save that all seemed to be women and children. A few men paced along the walls. These were likewise obscured by distance, but he saw no glint of armour on them, just the occasional metallic glint from the hilts and pommels of belted weapons. Then something different caught his eye.
A man came from one of the towers, not ambling casually, but hiding with purpose. Iron reflected a hazy silver light around his form, and as he made a circuit of the wall-walk, he slapped or punched or otherwise improved the alertness of the others. Conan cursed to himself. As he had feared, there was a leavening of Ermak's men among Lis
ip's thugs. How many might there be?
No matter. He and his group would have to fight whoever was here with what they had. The miners wanted their women and children back, and they were willing to accept many of their troop slain to accomplish it.
He examined the terrain to determine how close the miners could approach the front gate without being seen. There was a curve in the road where it rounded a low hill about three hundred paces from the gate. He could find no means that would allow I hem to come closer. Conan knew that he could get the gate open. The question was: Could he keep it open long enough for the miners to storm through?
An hour later, the men arrived. Conan was waiting for them
by the road.
'The fort is a little way farther down this road,' he told them. 'The prisoners are there. I could see them from above. Lisip's scum guard them, but I saw one of Ermak's men, and there may be more of those. I have Lisip's pass to get me through the gate.' He held up the leaden seal the old gang boss had given him.
'When I get the gate open,' he continued, 'you must attack immediately. The gate cannot be pushed shut from within. They must come out and pull it shut, and for that reason alone, I have a chance of holding it until you get there, but do not tarry along the way.' Whatever these men were, he thought ruefully, they were not foot-racers.
'Just get the gate open,' Bellas said. 'After that, you may stand back and let us do the rest.'
'Do not be too confident,' Conan cautioned. 'I do not know how many of Ermak's men are in there.'
'They will die like the rest,' Bellas said.
'They may take more killing, though,' said Conan. 'Do not try to fight them single-handed. If one shows himself, let two or three of you together attack him. Move fast, attack from more directions than he can defend, and do not get in each other way.' They nodded at the advice. He hoped that they would remember it in the excitement of battle.
'I go now,' he told them. 'Be ready to come running as soon as you see the gate open.'
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