There was a brief silence. Then the one called Rumal spoke. 'My lord, I rejoice that you have found such comfort in your exile, but I fail to see how—'
'Mitra give me relief from such dullards!' cried Khondemir, his composure slipping for once. 'I did not cultivate the woman for her beauty and charm, great though those are. In order to wield magical power over a rival, one must get close to him, and how closer than through a mistress?'
Conan and Manzur saw the pacing feet of the wizard as he explained as much of his plans as he thought fitting that his followers should know. 'When the Hyrkanian horde reaches this place, the woman shall slip from their lines and join me here. She shall bring me that which shall give me power over this Hyrkanian kinglet.'
'That is all very well,' came the voice of an older man. 'But how are we to resist this Hyrkanian horde in the meantime? Forty to one odds are daunting at the best of times. Out here, with no cover and no city walls, they are suicidal. This earthen rampart will not hold for long, and our men may perish beneath the arrow storm before the Hyrkanians begin their assault.'
'I chose this place,' Khondemir said, 'for reasons other than its magical possibilities. I have told you how
primitive and superstitious these steppe horsemen are. This place is surrounded by their taboos. According to the rules of their barbaric religion, no Hyrkanian may ride his horse into the City of Mounds. More important, none may fire an arrow toward it. Do the Hyrkanians now sound so formidable?'
The men assembled thought this over for a while. 'It may be,' said one, 'that we can hold them at bay for some time, dismounted and without their bows. Our own bowmen will be under no such obligation, and a flying squad of horsemen can be appointed to go to whatever part of the rampart the Hyrkanians may be breaching and reinforce the defenders at that spot. How long must we hold out thus?'
'Only a brief while,' Khondemir said. 'It is not my intention that there should be much bloodshed. With that which the concubine shall bring me, and with the aid of the Power which I shall summon, I shall gain complete mastery of the soul of Bartatua. He shall become my puppet, to do with as I wish. The savages would never follow me, or any other who was not of their blood. But they will follow Bartatua, and I shall control him. After his campaign to take the caravan cities, he plans to conquer Khitai. Who knows whether or not he could take that vast land? But he could take Turan, and that is where I shall cause him to direct his hordes.'
The wizard paused, waiting to be certain of the effect of his words. When he heard no objections, he resumed. 'That is my plan, my friends. We shall let the steppe tribes take Turan for us. They shall do the dying while we reap the conquest. When we are firmly in power, with myself on the throne and Yezdigerd chained as my footstool, I shall have the puppet, Bartatua, lead his hordes away, toward Khitai or Vendhya or into
the black lands south of Stygia, what does it matter? They shall have performed their task: putting us back in our rightful place as lords of Turan!'
There were loud shouts of approval now. The men seemed well satisfied with Khondemir's arrangements. 'A bold plan, my lord,' said Rumal, 'but only bold men may hope to seize and wield power. And what of the princess? Why is she here with her escort?'
'A trifling business,' Khondemir explained. 'In order to summon the Power, I must have a sacrifice. For complicated and abstruse reasons concerning history and bloodlines, princesses make superior sacrifices. I requested the escort in order to expand our numbers and to emphasise the importance of my mission. The Red Eagles can bear the brunt of our defence and take most of the casualties in such fighting as takes place before I have complete control of Bartatua.'
At mention of Ishkala's fate, Manzur began to start up, only to find an irresistible pressure at the back of his neck, bearing him inexorably down until his face was pressed against the grassy turf. Only by keeping perfectly still was he allowed to breathe. When he had calmed, Conan removed his hand from the back of the youth's neck and signalled for him to back away from the tent.
'Ishkala!' Manzur whispered urgently when they were removed. 'We must go to the Sogarian camp and warn her, immediately! Nay, we should rescue her!'
'Rescue her?' Conan said. 'From the midst of a thousand defenders? You would earn scant thanks.'
'Then at least let us inform the Red Eagles of what awaits them! They are to be sacrificed to the mad ambitions of Khondemir, just as she is to be sacrificed in his hellish ritual!'
Conan leaned close. 'Lower your voice, idiot! You'll
have the whole band upon us! Your Red Eagles are nothing to me, and your princess has no call upon my loyalties. Until a few days ago, I was leading forays against Sogaria. Your prince would skin me an inch at a time in the city square if I rescued his whole family from .the Kagan's own tent. Do you think his children are more important to him than his territory?'
'You lie, Cimmerian!' said Manzur hotly. 'We will be received in Sogaria as saviours.'
'I would laugh if it would not bring the Turanians down upon us. Suppose you were able to convince the captain of the Red Eagles to take Ishkala and return to Sogaria. What then? They would encounter the Hyrkanian host that comes hither and they would be destroyed in minutes!'
'Then let us kill Khondemir,' Manzur said, mad with frustration.
'Now you are beginning to think,' Conan said, 'That is a sensible idea. I came here with the intention of taking his head to begin with. There remains a problem. The Hyrkanians come apace. I do not give Khondemir's magic great credit, but I am certain that without it, this camp will be overwhelmed and destroyed in no great time, even if the Hyrkanians are denied their horses and bows. If we slay the mage now, panic will ensue and all will try to flee. They will be slaughtered.'
'What care we for that?' Manzur asked. 'A pack of scurvy Turanian gallows bait? Let them die!'
'That will leave only a thousand Red Eagles between your Ishkala and certain death. I have seen already what happens when the heavy cavalry of your cities encounters even a small band of Hyrkanian horse-archers. Against such a host, it would not even provide amusement.'
'I'll not allow her to be sacrificed in that fiend's foul rites!' Manzur protested, his hand reaching for his sword. He fumbled at his waist for a moment before remembering that the blade was still slung across his back. He reached for it awkwardly, then began to unsling it instead.
'Quiet!' Conan held up a hand for silence. 'Someone comes.' The Cimmerian reached behind his shoulder and drew the long blade as easily and smoothly as if it had been sheathed at his hip. Manzur vowed silently that he would master that trick, should he live so long. With his sword properly slung at last, he drew it and stood at guard.
Voices and torches were coming their way. 'I heard them over here,' said someone. 'They were speaking a foreign dialect, and trying not to be heard.'
'Probably more Sogarian spies,' said another. 'We'll corner the fools against the rampart and then cook them over a slow fire. It's an amusing sight, and conducive to great looseness of tongue.'
As the torches drew near, three separate groups of hunters could be seen. They had spread wide and were closing in, thinking to herd their quarry toward the rampart and away from the Sogarian camp. Manzur expected Conan to dart away into the gloom, but the Cimmerian did nothing of the sort.
'Should we not be away?' said the younger man.
'You are of a mind to be a hero, are you not?' Conan asked. 'Think you that you could do better against these noose-cheaters than you did against me?'
The barbarian continued to amaze him. 'I have no doubt of it,' Manzur answered.
'Good. Then let us do away with a few of them before we take our leave. It- is not polite to make a call upon someone without leaving a souvenir of one's visit.'
Manzur had no idea of why his companion was so keen to fight after counselling so much caution, but it was just what he needed. His feelings of frustration and rage were coming to a head, and he gripped his sword hilt with fierce exultation. Enemies to fight at
last! The two he had slain during his escape from Sogaria were not sufficient, and the experience had been over too swiftly to be properly savoured. This promised to be far more gratifying.
Each torch party had three or four men. They were quite close before they realised that the two they sought were standing before them.
'Mitra!' said a one-eyed man in a green vest. 'What are these, black Kushites?'
A torch holder leaned forward and squinted with mock studiousness. 'I do believe it's a northern savage and a boy. Perhaps the black paint is some new fashion from the east. Soon we'll all be wearing it.'
The men held weapons at the ready, and in their confidence, they showed no fear of the intruders. They revealed gap-toothed grins, anticipating a bit of rare sport.
'Soon you will have no need of paint or anything else,' Conan said, speaking Turanian as it was spoken by army officers. 'But if you would know who I am, ask the deserters among you if they know the name of Conan of Cimmeria.'
The men looked at each other and shrugged. 'There are no deserters here,' said another torch bearer. 'We are all honest bandits, and followers of the great Lord Khondemir.'
'We waste time,' said the one-eyed man. 'Take them in hand and let us conduct them to a suitable fire. There is too much spying going on in this camp.'' A man who held a spiky mace raised it and advanced
upon Conan. The Cimmerian's blade made a wide arc, too swift to see. He cut the man from shoulder to waist, nearly halving him. The backstroke was horizontal and took a second man across the belly. All of a sudden, the quiet corner of the camp was a nightmare scene of blood and entrails.
Manzur attacked at once. His opponent raised a talwar and managed to parry two blows before the poet's blade swept across his throat and he went down with a ghastly liquid gasp. Two more assailants pressed Manzur and the young man was forced to defend himself desperately, unable to make an attacking move without laying himself open to a death blow.
Conan slapped aside a gutting lunge from a shortsword and split the swordsman's skull. For an instant he was clear, and with a backhanded blow he removed one of Manzur's assailants before returning his attention to the two men before him. One had a mace and the other held a dagger and a torch. They looked at Conan, then at each other. As if at a signal, the torch dropped to the ground and the two took to their heels. The others had no more heart and beat a hasty retreat while calling for reinforcements.
Conan turned to Manzur in time to see the youth pass his sword through his last assailant's body. Manzur surveyed the scene of carnage with delight, no doubt composing a poem on the spot.
'Come, let us away!' Conan said. As if in a daze, Manzur looked at him vacantly. Then his eyes cleared as he heard the clamour of the aroused camp.
The two ran for the rampart. Behind them the pursuit was confused as men blundered about in the dark, blinded by their own torches. Conan and Manzur ran up the grassy slope and paused at its top. Manzur caught a glint of teeth in the Cimmerian's blackened face.
'Let this be a lesson to you,' Conan said. 'Where you chase a man who hides in the dark, stay in the dark yourself, else you'll never see him. Men do not bear torches in the dark because it helps them search, because it makes them feel better.'
'I shall remember,' Manzur said. They ran down the opposite slope and across the rolling ground toward their horses.
There was no pursuit beyond the rampart, although they saw a line of men atop the earthwork, holding torches aloft.
'What was that all about?' Manzur asked as they paused for breath. 'Why did you wish to fight them? We did not reduce their numbers by much.'
'There is much conspiring and double-dealing going on in that camp,' Conan said. 'Khondemir thinks that he is in control of it all. I thought it would not hurt to toss a new and puzzling factor into events. Thus his confidence will be undermined and distrust has been planted.'
'And to do this, you were willing to take on such odds?' Manzur said admiringly.
Conan shrugged his massive shoulders as he cleaned the blood from his sword. 'What odds?'
Commander Jeku sat before his tent in the first light of morning. An attendant handed him a steaming cup of herb tea, and the officer raised it to his lips just as a delegation of men came from the Turanian camp. Khondemir was at their head, and close behind him were the men he recognised as Bulamb and Rumal. The rest were sub chiefs of the Turanian host. Their bearing and attitude were not friendly. If anything, they were hostile.
'Greeting, Lord Khondemir,' said Jeku. 'Have some
tea. I trust you have come to tell me that you are done with your spells and that we may ride from this dreary place.'
'I have come for no such thing, as you know well,' said the wizard icily. 'Six of my men were killed last night, murdered by spies from your camp.'
'So that's it, eh?' said Jeku, smiling beneath his moustache. 'I send no spies. It isn't gentlemanly. Your men brawled among themselves, as they do every night, and some were killed. They concocted this story of a fight with my men in order to escape disciplinary action.' He looked down his long nose. 'Not that your rabble have any discipline to escape. Take my advice and hang a few as an example to the rest. Do not trouble me with the bloody doings of your pack of deserters and runaway serfs.'
'They were spies,' Khondemir insisted, 'and they came from here. Where else could they have come from? The trackless steppe? One called himself Conan of Cimmeria. The other said nothing.'
Jeku barked a short laugh. 'Just two? And they did for six of your men and walked from the midst of the rest unharmed? I can see why you think they were real soldiers.' His face lost its humour and he glared at the Turanians. 'Cimmeria! It is a land from travellers' tales! No foreigner has ever served in the Red Eagles, but only Sogarian men of good family. Now begone with your accusations, back to your riffraff. And be quick about your charlatan's magic, for I have lost patience. Tomorrow at first light the Red Eagles ride, with or without you and your Turanian scum!'
The one called Bulamb stepped forward. 'No pompous ass of a foreigner speaks thus to our sovereign.' His hand was upon the hilt of his dagger.
'Sovereign, is it?' Jeku raised a hand to his shoulder. 'Look about you, dogs.'
The Turanians looked, and saw at least forty Sogarian guards with bows in their left hands, arrows nocked and drawn to the ear. Bulamb's hand fell away from his hilt.
'If I lower my hand,' Jeku said, 'you will all be riddled with shafts. My men could use the practice. You may try your spells, wizard, but I never heard of magic that was swifter than an arrow's flight.'
'You'll not slay us,' Khondemir said, 'with your assassins or with your arrows. And you'll not be riding from this place at morning light.'
'My arm grows weary, wizard, and my tea grows cold. Do not vex me further.'
Snarling, Khondemir whirled on his booted heel and stalked off. His followers fell in behind. When the delegation was far enough from the captain, Jeku's guardsmen lowered their bows and returned their arrows to their belt quivers, disappointed.
The captain smiled again as he sipped the pungent herbal brew. The wizard, he was sure now, was a fake. Jeku could return to Sogaria and report that the prince had been gulled and that the supposedly great mage was nothing but a Turanian conspirator, one of the many pretenders to the throne of the late King Yildiz.
He began to compose his report. It would have to be couched in diplomatic language of course, so that the prince would not come out of it looking like an idiot. There would have to be some lowly advisor or chamberlain to take the blame. It was going to be difficult.
'He lies, master!' hissed Bulamb as the Turanian party returned to its tents. 'Those men had to come from the Sogarian camp! Let us get our men together and force the foreigners to turn the murderers over to us!'
'Aye,' said Rumal. 'They were naught more than worthless scum, but the insult to you is intolerable! We cannot let these Sogarians, inhabitants of a small and unimportant city, think they can insult the greatest
king in the world with impunity!'
'No, my friends,' Khondemir said. 'We shall come to a settlement with that insolent dog soon enough. Now is not the time for a split between the forces. We shall face the Hyrkanians before the day is out. We can only chew on our gall and plan our revenge.' He turned to Bulamb. 'That name, Conan of Cimmeria. Did you inquire among the former soldiers about it?'
'I did, majesty. A few said that they have heard the name, although none has met the man. It seems that a few years ago there was an officer of that name in your beloved father's army. There was some sort of scandal, and in some way he fell afoul of the usurper, Yezdigerd.' They all spat ceremoniously.
'One told me,' said red-bearded Rumal, 'that it is one of the names that is always to be seen on the annual kill-or-capture list. He said he remembered it because of the size of the reward offered: a thousand in gold plus immediate promotion of one grade.'
'What would this notable malefactor be doing in this place?' Khondemir mused. 'Perhaps he enlisted in the Sogarian service to escape the wrath of the usurper. It is no matter. We shall find him and his companion when we winnow the Red Eagles, after we need them no longer. We have more important things to concern us now.'
'The men are upset,' said an officer. 'They do not like it that aliens come into their midst to slay.'
'What of it?' said Khondemir in disgust. 'Most nights more than six are killed in their nightly brawling.'
'But these are foreigners!' said another.
'Enough,' Khondemir barked, making a chopping gesture with one be-ringed hand. 'We have preparations to see to. Let us get back to our command tent.'
'What now?' Manzur asked. 'All seems quiet. What can we do?'
The two men sat upon a rise of ground overlooking the City of Mounds. With the sun at their back, they ran little risk of being spotted. Should their enemies come after them, their horses were tethered nearby and they could easily outdistance any pursuit.
'We do nothing,' Conan said. 'We rest. Soon the Hyrkanian horde will be here, and then we shall have plenty to do.'
The Conan Chronology Page 462