Conan the Guardian

by Roland Green

  Reza’s face was eloquent in disapproval of this levity.

  “Forgive me, Reza. You know that I am more my father’s daughter than my mother’s.”

  “They both made you what you are, my lady, and I think both would be proud of what that is.”

  “Bless you for those kind words, Reza, and—oh, Mitra, here they come!”

  A veritable caravan was passing through the gate-four mounted guards, two sedan chairs, each borne by eight sweating slaves, a half score of servants on foot, and four more mounted guards bringing up the rear.

  “The groom was told to examine the horses while he fed and watered them, was he not?” Livia asked urgently. It would tell her much, if Lady Doris’s guards rode their own horses or hired ones, and if their own horses were well or ill fed. That House Lokhri was declining was no secret. How fast and how far were matters yet to learn, and the horses might have something to say.

  “That was the first order you gave for the groom, my lady,” Reza said consolingly. Livia could not remember for the life of her giving any such order. She suspected that Reza had given it himself, but if he had, it would be obeyed as if it came from her, or indeed from the very gods.

  Sorcerers might terrify her servants and disorder her house. The spell was not known to man that could make anyone of House Damaos disobey the chief steward.

  The caravan was now marching up the winding path toward the portico. Reza lifted a hand, and from the roof another trumpet gave its silver-throated cry. The horses began to curvet and prance, and their riders to look uneasy.

  As the stable hands rushed out to attend the visitors’ horses, the litter bearers halted and lowered their burdens. Lady Doris was the first out. Her son was by law the head of House Lokhri, but Lady Doris recked little for the law and less for wagging tongues. Her own was such a trenchant weapon that even those men who called young Harphos friend would not speak up for him, lest they be flayed alive as by bandits on the Silk Road to Khitai.

  Harphos dismounted next. As always, he looked as if he were about to sprawl on his face in the dust. As always, he spared himself that indignity. This time, Livia saw, he did so without clutching the roof of the litter like a drowning man clutching a log. He was as crop-headed as ever, a style which did not suit his long face, but his tunic and robe and boots were not only new but almost matched.

  “The blessing of our house to yours, Lady Doris,” Livia said formally.

  Lady Doris took her eyes off the statues behind the path long enough for good manners, then stepped up on to the portico beside Livia. She was not as tall as Livia, but rather fuller of hip and breast. In her youth she had been accounted one of the finest-looking women of Argos, and even now her blue-black hair showed not a thread of grey.

  Harphos walked up to the two women with his eyes so fixed on Livia that he nearly stumbled. His mother had to remind him to return her greeting. Livia turned her face briefly aside, not sure whether she would be hiding tears or smiles. Harphos was not much of a man, but no one deserved being under the thumb of Lady Doris as he was!

  “I see you have one of the new castings of Polyemius's ‘The Runner,’” Lady Doris said. “A fine work for those whose taste runs to such things.”

  Livia’s hands did not quite curl into claws. No meeting with Lady Doris since her father died had passed without some such sharp remark from the older woman. In truth, House Damaos had one of the oldest castings of Polyemius’s master-work, if not indeed the original. But Lady Doris would rather be laid on the rack than admit it, since it was some years since her house had been able to buy even a casting of a lesser Polyemius.

  “We can discuss taste and much else at more leisure and in greater comfort within,” Livia said. “The Rose Chamber has been prepared for our pleasure.” And if so much as a splinter of porcelain remains in view, may the gods have mercy on the servants, because Reza will have none!

  She held out her arm to Harphos. “Come, my lord. We have a new vintage from Nemedia on which I would value your opinion.”

  Harphos drank little, but she had to say something to the poor antic. Her reward was a faint smile from Harphos and wide eyes from Lady Doris as her son took Livia’s proffered arm.

  Lady Doris’s eyes grew no smaller as they proceeded through the battered palace. Livia trusted to Reza’s judgement and the servants’ hands, and made no effort to guide her guests through undamaged rooms. Lady Doris had been here too often not to be suspicious of that.

  The Rose Chamber was as clean as it needed to be, and the climbing rose that wound upward to the sun hole in the middle of the ceiling had opened several new blossoms since last night. Their delicate scent fought without great success against Lady Doris’s heavy perfume.

  Servants brought trays of fruit and cakes and a great jug of the Nemedian wine, cooled in snow. Livia was lifting the jug when she halted, holding it at arm’s length.

  A chip the size of a child’s hand was missing from the rim of the cooling pot. One of the kitchen servants had overlooked it, and even Reza could not be everywhere.

  Since this was so, Livia vowed to say nothing of the matter. But her halt had drawn Lady Doris’s eyes.

  “Your servants seem less polished than I remember them,” the older woman said. “Has ill luck in finding good ones finally overtaken even the House of Damaos?”

  She looked and sounded ready to dance on the table if this was so. Livia’s own reply was as cool as the snow.

  “No. Only accidents that might have happened to anyone, while we made the house fit for your reception.”

  “Quite a lot of accidents, I would say,” Harphos put in. “I could see where things had been cleaned up— very well, but still—”

  He broke off as Livia let slip a word ladies of her rank and station were not supposed to know. Then he laughed nervously.

  “Sorry, Livia. If it is something you would rather not speak of—”

  “It is nothing shameful,” she said, smiling. That was the most intelligent thing she had heard him say in years, and now he was actually apologizing to her— without the prompting of his mother, and, to judge from her expression, possibly without her approval!

  “Then by all means let us speak of it,” Lady Doris said briskly. “We of the archonal Houses must stand together against the follies of servants, or our very palaces will tumble about our ears.”

  If bumbling servants ever did bury Lady Doris in the rubble of the Lokhri palace, Livia would call for a day of public rejoicing. Since the woman was both alive and a guest under her roof, she kept this thought to herself.

  They rambled over a weary stretch of tales of dropped vases, burned food, and spilled chamberpots. “I wonder if there is magic in all this somewhere, spells cast to addle our servants’ wits?” Doris concluded.

  Fortunately she said this as she turned to help herself to more grapes, so she did not see Livia flinch. Commanding her voice with an effort, the younger woman inquired, “Magic? As well blame Atlanteans!” “Magic has not been gone from Argos so long as that,” Doris replied. “And when I dined with Lord Akimos two nights ago, I overheard the Fourth Archon say that he would not spend public money to hire witch-seekers.”

  “Who? Lord Akimos or the archon?”

  “The archon, of course. Although now that I recall it, Lord Akimos seemed to be of the same mind. He came to the house as though he was weary and cast down, but...”

  By the time Lady Doris had finished reciting what every one of her fellow guests wore, ate, and said, Livia was fidgeting openly and Harphos looked as if he would if he dared. Livia smiled at him again, and he ventured to reply in kind.

  “I wonder if the archon and Lord Akimos have the right of it,” Harphos said. “There was that river dragon they killed a few days ago, by the Great Bridge on the Khorotas. The fisher folk had lost a half score of women and children to something, but no one imagined it was a river dragon. First one seen in the Khorotas in a century, or so I heard.”

  “You cannot h
ave heard the truth at a drinking party with Guardian captains,” Lady Doris said sharply.

  “But, Mother, they certainly talked like it happened. It was a captain of free lances who killed the beast. He dived into the river after one of his men fell off the bridge, and found it feeding on—”

  “Remember you are at the table of a lady, Harphos,” Lady Doris said. “Do not forget what I taught you, as to what may be spoken of there.”

  Livia was greatly tempted to use that unladylike word again, or even several of them. With Lady Doris shocked into muteness, perhaps Harphos would find his tongue again.

  And perhaps pigs would fly. More likely, Lady Doris would recover both wits and tongue and wonder why Lady Livia was so curious about this matter of the river dragon.

  A century ago was the time when magic was cast out of Argos, or so the scrolls said. A century without either magic or river dragons—and now within a few days her house was disordered by magic and a river dragon roamed the Khorotas.

  She would not waste her breath praying that this was coincidence. Instead she would speak to Reza. He seldom needed to buy his own drink in any of several taverns, but if he did, tongues might wag. Perhaps he could even have a word with that captain of free lances.

  Livia turned her thoughts back to her guests. Half her mind would suffice for Lady Doris, but to ignore poor Harphos would be like kicking a puppy.

  III

  There were hotter suns than that of Argos. There was thinner air than a man breathed on the slopes of the Rabirian Mountains. There was much harder work than cutting timber in those mountains.

  Conan had endured all three, and not as a free man, either. But he had never endured all three together, when he had a band of free lances to lead, or at least keep out of trouble.

  Earning the extra two drachmas of their bond had put Conan’s Company to no small difficulty. Except for the handful left in the village on the Khorotas, Conan wished them to remain together.

  He knew the look in the eyes of too many Argosseans; if one of the company made trouble, all would suffer for it. The more they were under his eye, the less trouble they would make. Or so Conan judged.

  He understood that few Argosseans would hire an entire company of free lances. Few had the gold, and fewer still had work that demanded so many fresh hands and would last long enough to let the men earn their bonds.

  Days went by, and there was no work. There were, however, Guardian captains (and not only Helgios) who more than hinted of the company’s fate if it did not find work soon.

  “You lose your own silver, for a start,” one said to Conan one night over some wine only a trifle short of vinegar. “Then it may not be long after that before we ask you to please go back the way you came.”

  Back across the Argossean border, into Ophir—into borderlands where the camp fires of Iskandrian’s men now sparkled from hilltops within sight of the Khorotas. Conan and his men would not escape discovery this time, even if the Argosseans did not courteously warn the Ophireans of their coming! Having seen the Argosseans now, Conan would not have trusted any one of them to guard his sister’s virtue, if offered the right price for selling her to a tavern.

  “And if we do not choose death in Ophir?”

  “Then you will be choosing it in Argos, Captain Conan. How many Guardians can you fight?”

  “More than you seem to think, if you’re fools enough to force the battle on us!”

  “Ah, but the folly will not be ours then. Or at least it will be divided between us. What the gods will say of that, I leave to you to learn. You will most probably be meeting them before I.”

  Conan fought the wish to prove the Guardian a liar in that at least, by snapping his neck on the spot. But more than a score of men oath-sworn to the Cimmerian would die of slow hanging or slower impalement if he did that. His hands only twitched.

  “We have drunk together, Cimmerian,” the Guardian went on. “So I owe you a favour.”

  “On Argossean favours, a man could quickly grow thin,” Conan growled.

  “Not on this one, I think. If your men are stout enough for hard work, seek it in the Rabirian Mountains.”

  “What sort of work?”

  “Mining, quarrying, road-mending, timber-cutting, who knows? It changes with the seasons, likewise the whims of the merchants.”

  Conan could believe that. His experience of merchants led him to believe that they could contend with the gods themselves for honours in the matter of whims. As to the rest—it made as much sense as anything he had heard in Argos, and more than most.

  So he bought more wine, and thanked the captain, and the next day sought and was given the right to take his men into the mountains. They grumbled and cursed, and two of them deserted, but the rest were still with him when the jagged peaks pierced the northern horizon and the sound of felling axes echoed down the glens.

  Lord Akimos twisted from the waist in a vain effort to ease the pain in back and buttocks. He also loosened the thong of his riding cloak, which seemed ready to saw his head from his shoulders.

  Nothing could alter the fact that he was too old to be riding up into these mountains at all, let alone in disguise. A disguise, moreover, which demanded that he ride with scant escort on horses reprieved from the knackers.

  He had no choice, however. If it was noised about that he had ridden north to speak with the dragon-slayer, it would reach Skiron’s ears sooner rather than later.

  Then he might quickly be worse off than before. Skiron might well cast down the dragon-slayer in a duel of spells. Even if he was defeated, Akimos would still have only one sorcerer and be at the man’s mercy, instead of having two whom he could play one against the other.

  He reined in and raised a hand in signal to those behind him.

  “Time to let the horses blow. And for Mitra’s sake, hand me the flask.”

  Enough wine to dull the pain would topple him from the saddle. But a mouthful or two would wash the grit from between his teeth and remind him of the world outside these mountains.

  As Akimos lifted the flask, he heard the sound of axes borne on the breeze. Then abruptly the axes gave way to angry shouting. He thrust the flask into his belt and put spurs to his horse. They clattered up the path, with guards drawing swords and unslinging bows as they rode.

  Conan needed no warning from Talouf the Shemite that the twins were at the end of their tether. He had been watching them for days, as sharply as the little knife man he had made his sergeant.

  So when he heard an angry shout from Jarenz, he turned. When he saw the youth dancing about on one leg, holding a bloody foot in both hands and cursing, he started downhill. When he saw guards approaching, he broke into a run.

  Talouf was right behind him, but he had learned something in his few days as a sergeant: his knife was still in his sheath. The Cimmerian and the Shemite reached the fallen log from uphill at the same moment as Jarenz’s brother Vandar reached it from below.

  The guards whirled. One raised his club, the other a short whip. The whip cut the air, an arm’s length in front of Vandar’s nose.

  “Back to work, you!” the guard snarled. “We can see to your brother.”

  “As you did with a rope as rotten as the food in the hall?” shouted Vandar. His voice almost broke in his rage. He stepped forward.

  The whip cracked again, this time coming down across his shoulder. Vandar made an animal noise in his throat and leaped for the guard.

  He never contemplated the leap. As he began it, Talouf dove between the two men, flinging himself under Vandar’s feet. The tall youth went sprawling. The guard raised his whip, to lay it across Vandar’s back.

  The whip never fell. A long Cimmerian arm shot over the guard’s shoulder, catching the whip in mid-air. A quick twist, and the lash was wound around a massive Cimmerian hand.

  The guard whirled, and a booted Cimmerian foot hooked around his ankle. He went on whirling, lost his balance, and crashed to the ground as the whip dangled from Co
nan’s hand.

  “I’ll give this back when you know enough not to use it on free men,” Conan said.

  “Who says you pack of apes are free?” the guard with the club asked. He still had the club raised, but he had backed away from the fight to what he clearly hoped would be a safe distance.

  “It was written in the bond-scroll—” Conan began.

  “What? You can read? First a Cimmerian who can read, and then one who makes jests? This day is full of—ekkhh!”

  Conan dangled the guard from one hand while plucking the club from his limp hand with the other. “This day will be full of broken bones and missing teeth for you, if you don’t mind your tongue. Call your captain. I’ll have words with him about this matter, and now!”

  The guard could hardly have left more swiftly if he had been fired from a siege engine. The whip man rose, looked at his whip, then contemplated Talouf. The Shemite had one hand on the hilt of his dagger. Vandar had no weapons, but his face would have sent demons to flight.

  Conan jerked his thumb downhill. “You go to the leech. If he’s too drunk to climb the hill, bring his salves and bandages yourself. I’ve tended a few wounds in my time.”

  “You-”

  Conan stretched the whip between his two hands, his muscles writhed, and the tough leather parted like thread.

  “Go, or the next wound I tend after Jarenz’s will be yours.”

  The guard found obedience wise, although he did not leave quite as fast as his comrade.

  Conan turned to Jarenz. “Now, let’s see to that leg.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Thank you,” the youth stammered. “I will never be able to thank you—”

  “Yes, you will,” Conan said. “Thank me by keeping your mouth shut when the captain comes uphill. We may end this day without another fight, if matters stay between him and me.”

  “Yes, Captain. Of course, Captain. I will be silent as—”

  “Start now.”

  Jarenz’s mouth opened, then shut without a word. Talouf and Vandar laughed.