So there was nothing for Amulius Procas to do but plod grimly on, sending out his light horse to drive away the enemy whenever they revealed their presence by a flight of arrows. Numerically his losses were trivial, only a fraction of the death toll of a joined battle. But the constant attrition ' depressed his men's morale; and the wind of chill foreboding, sweeping across his heart, whispered that King Numedides would not forget and still less forgive the failure of the expedition launched at the king's express command.
In the throat of Saxula Pass, an avalanche of boulders ' crashed down upon the hapless royalists. Procas glumly ordered the wreckage cleared, the smashed wagons abandoned, and the mortally wounded men and beasts mercifully put to the sword. On the far side of the pass, his troops moved in, but the harassment continued unabated.
Procas realised that his Cimmerian opponent was a master at this irregular warfare; and he shook with shame that his own forced withdrawal had spurred the barbarian's fecund
inventiveness. This stain upon his honour, he swore, he would wash out in rebel blood.
On the third day of the retreat, as the grey skies turned to lead, the disheartened, exhausted royalists gathered on the southern bank of the Alimane at the ford of Nogara, There I in- a time Procas lingered, tormented by indecision. Even though the floods of spring had subsided, the river's reach invited an attack when his fording men were least disposed . counter it. It would be a cruel jest of the capricious gods . ensnare the Aquilonian general in the very trap in which, not two months earlier, he had all but crushed the rebels. Moreover, to essay a crossing in the gloom of coming night would involve an almost certain loss of men and equipment.
Yet to pitch a camp on the Argossean side would doom sentries and sleeping men to death by flights of phantom arrows from the forest. Procas gnawed his lip. Since his troops could not effectively defend themselves against such tactics, the sooner he led them across the Alimane the safer they would sleep. Although the river was broad and swift, making the fords formidable, it would at least place his army beyond bow shots from the southern shore.
While these thoughts shambled through the mind of Amulius Procas, one of his officers approached the chariot in which he stood, atop a small rise along the river bank. The officer, a heavy-shouldered giant of a man - a Bossonian from his accent - with a surly expression on his coarse-featured face, saluted.
'Sir, we await your orders to begin the fording,' he said. 'The longer we stay, the more of our men will those damnable hidden archers wing.'
'I am aware of that, Gromel,' said the general stiffly. Then he heaved a sigh and made a curt gesture. 'Very well, get
on with it! Naught's to be gained by loitering here. But it goes against my grain to let these starveling rascals harry us home without repaying them in their own coin. Were it not for political considerations . . .'
Gromel raked the hills behind them with a contemptuous glance. 'Curse these politics, which tie the soldier's hands I'' he growled. 'The cowards will not stand and fight, knowing, we should wipe them out. So there is nothing for it save to' gather on the soil of Poitain, there to stand ready to crush them if they essay the fords again.'
We shall be ready,' said Procas sternly. 'Sound the trumpets.'
The retreat across the Alimane proceeded in good order, although night dimmed the twilight before the last company splashed into the river bed. As the men moved away from the southern bank, ten score archers, lurking in the undergrowth, stepped into view with bows strung and arrows nocked.
Procas had left his chariot to heave himself, grunting with pain from ancient wounds, into the saddle of his charger. I Commanding a small rear guard of light horse, the dour old veteran was among the last to wade his steed into the darkling flood, while arrows from shore whistled past like angry insects.
In midstream the general suddenly exclaimed, clapping a hand to his leg. At his cry, the Bossonian officer who had ' addressed him earlier rode nigh and reined in. He opened thick lips to ask what was amiss, then spied the rebel arrow ' that had pierced the old man's thigh above the knee. A gleam of satisfaction flickered in Gromel's porcine eyes and quickly vanished; for he was a man implacably bent on pursuit of promotion, however he might attain it.
Stoically, Procas sat his steed across the river; but once amid the bushes that fringed the northern shore, he suffered his aides to lift him from the beast while Gromel trotted ahead to summon the surgeon.
After plucking forth the barb and binding the wound, the physician said: 'It will be many days, General, ere you be well enough to travel again.'
'Very well,' said Procas stolidly. 'Pitch my tent on yonder hillock. Here we shall camp and let the rebels come to us, if they’ve got the stomach for it.'
Ghostly among the shadows of the trees nearby, a slender iii-.are clad in the garments of a page, much worn and travel-stained, watched and listened. Had any viewer with catlike yes perceived the swelling rondure of that youthful figure, he would have recognised a lithe and lovely woman. Now, with a mirthless smile, she unhitched her horse and quietly led the animal to a prudent distance from the camp that the other Legion was hastily erecting.
That his rival, Amulius Procas, had been wounded during a cowardly retreat before a rabble would be pleasing news for Thulandra Thuu, thought the Lady Alcina. Now that lie mighty Cimmerian was dead, Procas had served his purpose and could safely be sacrificed to her master's vaulting ambition. She must get word to the wizard as soon as the aspects of the stars and planets again permitted the use of her obsidian talisman. She melted into the darkness and vanished from the scene.
'ending towards his magical mirror of burnished obsidian, Thulandra Thuu learned with delight of the injury to General Procas. As the image of Alcina faded from the gleaming glass, the sorcerer thoughtfully stroked the bridge of his hawk-like nose. Reaching out a slender hand, he raised a metal mallet and smote the skull-shaped gong that hung beside his iron throne, and its sonorous note echoed dully through the purple-shrouded chamber.
Presently the draperies drew aside, revealing Hsiao the Khitan. Arms tucked into the voluminous sleeves of his green silk robe, he bowed, silently awaiting his master's commands.
'Does the Count of Thune still wait upon me in the antechamber?' the sorcerer enquired.
'Master, Count Ascalante attends your pleasure,' murmured the yellow servant.
Thulandra Thuu nodded. 'Excellent! I will speak to him forthwith. Inform him that I shall receive him in the Chamber of the Sphinxes, and go yourself to notify the king that I shall presently request an audience upon urgent business of state. You have my leave to go.'
Hsiao bowed and withdrew, and the draperies fell back' into place, concealing the door through which the Khitan had passed.
The Chamber of the Sphinxes, which Thulandra Thuu had converted to his own use from a disused room in the palace, was aptly named. Tomblike in its barrenness, it was walled and floored in roseate marble and contained no visible furnishings beyond a limestone seat, placed against the further wall. This seat, shaped like a throne, was upheld by a pair of stone supports carved in the likeness of feline monsters with human heads. This motif was repeated in the matching tapestries that hung in rich array against the wall behind the throne. Here, cunningly crafted in glittering threads, two catlike beasts with manlike faces, bearded and imperious, stared out with cold and supercilious eyes. The only light in this chill chamber was provided by a. pair of copper torches, the flames of which danced in the silver mirrors set into the wall behind them.
Not unlike the sphinxes was Ascalante, officer-adventurer and self-styled Count of Thune. A tall and supple man, elegantly clad in plum-coloured velvet, he prowled around the chamber with a feline grace. For all his military bearing and debonair deportment, his eyes, like those of the embroidered monsters, were cold and supercilious; but they were wary, too, and a trifle apprehensive.
For some time now, Ascalante had awaited an audience with the all-powerful sorcerer of unknown origin. Although Thu
landra Thuu had recalled Ascalante from the eastern frontier and demanded his daily presence at court, the magician had let him cool his heels outside the audience chamber for several days. Now it might be that his fortunes were about to change.
Suddenly Ascalante froze, his hand instinctively darting in the hilt of his dagger. One of the tapestries lifted to reveal a narrow doorway, within which stood a slender, dark-skinned man, silently regarding him. The cool, amused intelligence behind those hooded eyes seemed capable of reading a man's thoughts as if they were painted on his forehead. Recovering his composure, Ascalante made a courtly obeisance in Thulandra Thuu entered the room. The sorcerer bore in ornately carven staff, which writhed with intertwined inscriptions in characters unknown to Ascalante.
Thulandra strode unhurriedly across the chamber and .rated himself on the sphinx-supported throne. He acknowledged the other's bow with a nod and the shadow of a smile, saying: 'I trust you are well, Count, and that your enforced inactivity has not wearied you?'
Ascalante murmured a polite reply.
'Count Ascalante said the magician, 'your experience and accomplishments have not eluded those who serve as my eyes mid ears in distant places. Neither, I may add, has your lust for high office, nor a certain lack of scruple as regards the means whereby you hope to attain it. I hasten to assure you that the king and I approve of your ambition and of your - ah - practicality.'
'I thank you, my lord,' replied the count with a show of composure that aped the suavity of the sorcerer.
'I shall come directly to the point,' said Thulandra Thuu, 'for events move ever forward through the passing hours, and mortal men must scurry to keep abreast of them. Briefly, this is the situation: it has pleased His Majesty to withdraw his favour from the honourable Amulius Procas, commander of the Border Legion.'
Amazement burned in the inscrutable eyes of Ascalante, Tor the news astounded him. All knew that Procas was the ablest commander Aquilonia could put in the field, now that Conan had left the king's service. If anyone could subdue the restive barons in the North and crush the rebellion in the South, it was Amulius Procas. To remove him from command at such a time, before either menace had been obliterated, was madness.
'I can divine the feelings that your loyalty reins in,' purred Thulandra with a narrow smile. 'The fact is that our General Procas has led a rash and ill-planned raid across the Alimane, thus risking open war with Milo, King of Argos.'
'Forgive me, lord, but I find this almost impossible of credence,' said Ascalante. 'To invade a friendly neighbouring state without our monarch's express command is tantamount to treason!'
'It is precisely that,' smiled the sorcerer. 'And that the king imprudently did order a punitive expedition into Argos is a datum that, I fear, history will fail to record, since every copy of the document has strangely disappeared. You take my meaning, sir?'
Amusement gleamed in Ascalante's eyes. 'I believe I do, my lord. But pray continue.' The Count of Thune appreciated a subtle act of villainy much as a connoisseur of wines might savour a rare vintage.
'The general might have avoided censure,' Thulandra Thuu added with mock regret, 'if he had stamped out the last sparks of the rebellion; for the rumours you have heard about the self-styled Army of Liberation, now gathered north of the Rabirians, are true. An adventurer who called himself Conan the Cimmerian-'
'That giant of a man who last year led the Lion Regiment of Aquilonia to victory over the marauding Picts?' cried Ascalante.
'The same,' replied Thulandra. 'But time presses and affords us little leisure for profitless gossip, however diverting. Had General Procas shattered the rebel remnant and then retreated across the Alimane before King Milo learned of the incursion, all had been well. But Procas bungled the mission, stirred up the wrath of Argos, and fled from the field of battle without spilling a single drop of rebel blood. He so botched the fording of the Alimane that rebel archers targeted scores of our finest soldiers. And his errors were compounded in Messantia by the blunders of a stupid spy ' Vibius Latro —a Zingaran named Quesado-whom His Majesty had impulsively urged upon the diplomatic corps. 'The upshot was that, during the retreat, the general himself was wounded-so severely that, I fear, he is no longer able to command. Fortunately for us, the rebel leader Conan also perished. So to return to you, my dear Count-'
'To me?' murmured Ascalante, affecting an air of infinite modesty.
'To yourself,' said the sorcerer with a sliver of a smile. 'Your service on the Ophirean and Nemedian frontiers, and, qualifies you to take command of the Border Legion, which has fallen from the failing hands of General Procas or shortly will, once he receives this document.' The sorcerer paused and withdrew from the deep sleeve of his garment a scroll, richly embellished with azure and topaz ribbons, upon which the royal seal blazed like a clot of freshly shed blood.
'I begin to understand,' said Ascalante. And eagerness welled up within his heart, like a bubbling spring beneath a stone.
'You have long awaited the call of opportunity to ascend to high office in the realm and earn the preferment of your king. That opportunity approaches. But-' and here Thulandra raised a warning finger and continued in a voice sibilant with emphasis - 'you must fully understand me, Count Ascalante.' My lord?'
'I am aware that the Herald's Court has not as yet approved your assumption of the Countship of Thune, and that certain — ah - irregularities surround the demise of your elder brother, the late lamented count, who perished in a 'hunting accident'.'
Flushing, Ascalante opened his lips to make an impassioned protest; but the sorcerer silenced him with lifted hand and a bland, uncaring smile.
These are but minor disagreements, which shall be swept away in the acclaim that greets the laurelled victor. I will you well rewarded for your service to the crown,' Thulandra Thuu continued craftily. 'But you must obey my orders to the letter, or the County of Thune will never fall to you.
'I am aware that you have little actual experience am border warfare, or in commanding more men than constitute a regiment. The actual command of the Border Legion, then, I shall place in the hands of a certain senior officer, Gromel , the Bossonian by name, who has been well blooded in our recent warfare against the Picts. I have long had Gromel ' under observation, and I plan to bind him to me with hopes of recompense. Therefore, while he shall deploy and order the actual battle lines, you will retain the nominal command, Is this quite understood?'
'It is, my lord,' hissed Ascalante between clenched teeth. Good. Now that Conan lies dead, you and Gromel between you can easily immobilise the remaining rebels south of the Alimane until the fractious horde disintegrates from , hunger and lack of accomplishment.'
Thulandra Thuu proffered the scroll, saying: 'Here are your orders. An escort awaits you at the South Gate. Ride for the ford of Nogara on the Alimane with all dispatch.'
'And what, lord, if Amulius Procas refuses to accept my bona fides?' enquired Ascalante, who liked to make certain that he held all the winning pieces in any game of fortune, 'A tragic accident may befall our gallant general before! your arrival to assume command,' smiled Thulandra Thuu. 'An accident which —when you officially report it-will be termed a suicide due to despondency over cowardice in the face of insubstantial foemen and repentance for provoking hostilities against a neighbouring realm. When this occurs, be sure to send the body home to Tarantia. Alive, Procas would not have been altogether welcome here; dead, he will play the leading role in a magnificent funeral.
'Now be on your way, good. sir, and forget not to obey orders to be given to you from time to time by one Alcina, a trusted green-eyed woman in my service.'
Grasping the embossed scroll, Ascalante bowed deeply
nn! departed from the Chamber of Sphinxes.
Watching his departure, Thulandra Thuu smiled a slow and mirthless smile. The instruments that served his will were all weak and flawed, he knew; but a flawed instrument ; all the more dispensable should it need to be discarded after use.
VI
I
Death in the Dark
For many days, the presence of the army of Amulius Procas on the far side of the Alimane deterred the rebels from attempts to ford the river. Although Procas himself, injured and unable to walk or ride, remained secluded in his tent, his seasoned officers kept a vigilant eye alert for any movement of the rebel forces. Oman's men marched daily up and down the river's southern shore, feinting at crossing one or another ford; but Fracas's scouts remarked every move, and naught occurred to give pleasure to the Cimmerian or his cohorts.
'Stalemate!' groaned the restive Prospero. 'I feared that it might come to this!'
'What we require for our success,' suggested Dexitheus, 'is a diversion of some kind, but on a colossal scale-some sudden intervention of the gods, perchance,'
'In a lifetime devoted to the arts of war,' responded the Count of Poitain, 'I have learned to rely less upon the deities than on my own poor wits. Excuse me, Your Reverence, but methinks if any diversion were to deter Amulius Procas, it would be one of our own making. And I believe I know what that diversion well may be; for our spies report that the pot of my native county is coming to the boil.'
That night, with the approval of the general, a man clad all in black swam the deeper reaches of the Alimane, crept dripping into the under-brush, and vanished. The night was heavily overcast, dark and moonless; and a clammy drizzle herded the royalist sentries beneath the cover of the trees and shut out the small night sounds that might otherwise have alarmed them.
The swimmer in dark raiment was a Poitanian, a yeoman of Count Trocero's demesne. He bore against his breast an envelope of oiled silk, carefully folded, in which lay a letter signed in the count's own hand and addressed to the leaders of the simmering Poitanian revolt.
The Conan Chronology Page 601