by Roland Green
It was that, put into plain Turanian words, the menace of the Valley of the Mists seemed an old peasant wife's tale, mumbled about the fire late at night to frighten the children and the young maids into staying close to home. Time after time, Khezal heard in his mind gusty Cimmerian laughter, and hesitated before adding some detail he knew to be the truth or at least had heard from someone he trusted.
In the end, it was the Cimmerian who reduced
Khezal's words to a few brisk statements. He leaned back, managing in spite of the chains to appear as relaxed as a cream-filled cat. (It was only when the Cimmerian was half-done that Khezal noticed there was play in the rivets linking chains to wrist and leg irons that had not been there last night.)
"Something in the Kezankian Mountains is sending out raiders to snatch villagers. The tale goes that they are taken to a place called the Valley of the Mists and there sacrificed to demons."
"Some name it the Mist of Doom—" Khezal began, but Conan held up a hand with such regal dignity that the listener forgot that the hands were chained and the man himself sat upon a rough pallet, not a throne.
"If we quibble over every small detail, spies will have time to ride from Aghrapur to skulk outside the tent. If we would sound each other out on this, best we do it quickly."
With that, Khezal could hardly disagree. The Cimmerian continued.
"The demon of the mist or whatever draws on old magic is strong in the Kezankians. Fear and grief make the villagers there uneasy, also the nomad tribes between the mountains and the Turanian border. Or does Yezdigerd now claim all the land for the Kezankians and even beyond?"
"Not openly, but those with an ear for the king's true thoughts say so."
Conan snorted like a balky horse. "Trust that to set the Khorajans' teeth on edge. They've learned to live in the shadow of Turan, they and the folk of Khauran. They'll mislike having Yezdigerd's garri-sons peering over their garden walls from the slopes of the mountains."
Khezal said nothing, as there was no reply he cared to make to plain truth plainly stated. Rumors had run that Conan was developing a taste for statecraft, or at least the art of reading kings' intentions. (Not unlikely, this last—any mercenary captain who wanted to stay alive past his first employment needed that art, though not all had it.)
"Is this whole tale of demons in the mountains perhaps put about by the Khorajans?" the Cimmerian insisted.
"Folk are vanishing, certainly," Khezal replied. "Those who fight the raiders too fiercely die by human weapons. The raiders at least are human, though none can say of what folk or race."
"Probably of every folk and race in the world, if I know the kind of mercenary who hires out for this sort of dirty work," Conan said. "But no matter. The question I put to you is, why does this concern you?"
"Because my family's estates lie hard against the mountains," Khezal said. "An inheritance from my mother, and not a great one even before half went to dower my sister. But the villagers and their lands are mine."
Conan snorted again. "From what you said, I doubted that you had any lands left."
"I can tell all the sorry tales some other time and place, Conan. Here I only say that stripping me of my lands would have raised tempers, even swords, against Yezdigerd. Sending me and my Greencloaks far afield while royal agents bribe my stewards to send the revenues to Aghrapur rather than to me— that is too subtle for anyone to notice."
Conan muttered something that no listening ears could have understood but that sounded to Khezal very much like a wish that King Yezdigerd would find his manhood failing him at an awkward moment. Then he shrugged.
"I don't doubt your loyalty to your folk. You always seemed like that sort. But what will the king say? Will he say you do a lord's duty, or will someone whisper in his ear that you seek to win your people over to rebellion?"
"You've grown longheaded with the years, Conan."
"Long or short, it's the only head I have, and of more use on my shoulders than on a spike outside some Turanian prison. Which is where it's likely to end up if Yezdigerd calls this whole matter a plot against him."
Khezal took a deep breath, then let it out. It had been on the tip of his tongue to question the Cimmerian's courage. But that would have been at one and the same time foolish, perilous, and without reason.
"If he learns about it before we're done, perhaps. If we winkle the secret out of the mountains soon enough, however—"
"I'll take my reward in a safe passage out of Turanian lands, at the very least."
"Then you'll ride with us?"
"For whatever good I can do, yes. I haven't fought nearly as many demons as the tales run, though. Remember that."
"Not as many demons, but I'd wager even more men, and here you are, and where are they? Names carved on family tombs, if that much."
"Perhaps," Conan said. "I can't bind my men, however. They didn't swear to follow me against demons. If they wish to leave, they have a safe conduct good from this day forth."
Khezal did not need to ask what the price of his refusal would be. But he had to make one more effort, for the honor of his own men whose blood the Afghulis had shed.
"If they ride with you, I return—a certain bag— that was taken from you."
"With what was in it?"
Khezal smiled thinly. Perhaps the Cimmerian could be bought after all.
"Of course."
Conan sat up, so abruptly that Khezal drew back a pace. It was as well that he did. The Cimmerian flung his massive arms apart, the chain snapped free of one wrist iron, and another cat-quick movement sent the end of the chain whipping through the space Khezal had just departed.
Khezal's hand went as far as the hilt of his dagger before his wits regained command of the member.
"I think you have made your point," he said, after he had also regained command of his voice. "So I will not draw mine. One condition: I bring your men to you, unless you wish to wait for night."
"I suppose no one will suspect plots over a couple of Afghuli captives," Conan said. "As you wish. But bring some decent food for all of us when you do."
"You have had the best there is in the camp."
"What? No private stores for feasting in your tent?"
"None."
"I think I believe you, friend. Very well. More food, then, if not better. And the best doctor for their wounds, if he has not already seen them."
"He has, but he can come again."
"See that he does," the Cimmerian said. His tone was such that Khezal felt an absurd wish to make the formal bow due to a governor or leader of a host.
Instead he rose and walked out, erect but not turning his back on the Cimmerian.
Six
After winning the temporary allegiance of Conan, Khezal's dearest wish was to be gone on the quest for the Valley of the Mists as soon as possible. He would gladly have ridden out that very night, with his hundred best Greencloaks.
Indeed, he would have mortgaged a small estate, or even a large one, to pay a friendly wizard to turn all his men's cloaks into wings, that they might fly on the wind to the Kezankian Mountains. Thus might they outspeed the tales of their coming, surprising the demons and their human servants. Thus might they also settle the matter of the mountains' demons before word of Conan's presence reached unfriendly ears in Aghrapur.
However, Khezal was of much the same mind as Conan—the words "friendly" and "wizard" did not belong in the same sentence. Both would also have doubted that even a wizard who professed friendship would keep a bargain, rather than taking his gold and fleeing at once for the land of the Hyperboreans.
In any case, the lack of magical assistance for the journey north was only the first and least of Khezal's frustrations. The next was Conan's insistence on waiting until the two Afghulis who were riding north were fit to travel.
"Do you doubt my word, that they will be safe here among the Greencloak garrison of the Virgin's Oasis?" Khezal asked, laughing to cover his fury.
Cona
n, wholly sober, shook his head. "I doubt not your word, not even your command over your men as long as your eye is on them. But your eye will be on the slopes of the Kezankians, and your men here. That's another matter, and the name for the matter would be 'blood feud' if anything happened to the Afghulis."
Khezal considered this. Neither he nor any Turanian had much love for the Afghulis, but they were not among the realm's leading foes. The Iranistanis were otherwise—and the Afghulis were even less friendly to Iranistan than to Turan. There would hardly be gratitude toward a man who made blood foes of Turan among the Afghulis.
More important than any lack of gratitude in court circles would be the enmity of proven captains in war. Khezal would have endangered their men, and imperiled their victories. Lack of gratitude among courtiers, Khezal could endure. Knives in the dark, wielded on the orders of men whom he had trusted to guard his back from Yezdigerd, would make life sin-gularly futile for the short time it might last.
"As you wish. I trust that your friends are as hardy as the tale-tellers have them, though. We do not want one of my enemies ambushing us with half a regiment as we cross the caravan route, because a spy has told a tale in the palace!"
"Khezal, I am no more a lover of palaces and what goes on in them than you are. Trust me for that, and my Afghulis for swift healing."
To Khezal's relief, the Afghulis were standing within a day and riding within two. They moved stiffly at first, but that they were fighting-fit was proved on the third day.
A groom boy, so green that he had hardly wiped his mother's milk from his lips, grew curious about Farad's dagger. He reached out to touch it—and found himself on his back some paces away, lip split and several teeth scattered about on the sand.
"The lad should call himself lucky," was all Khezal could get out of Conan. "And you should call your chief groom a fool, for letting into the field a witling who'll touch another's steel without asking."
"That won't heal the boy."
Conan shrugged, then dipped into his belt pouch. An Iranistani silver prince-piece came out. The Cimmerian tossed it high, then slapped it out of the air with one hand, into the palm of another.
"Here. Even a fool deserves a trifle of poppy syrup to soothe his hurts."
"Perhaps I should hold on to those jewels after all. We may need them to silence the angry and heal the hurt, if we have many more of these exchanges."
"At your pleasure, my friend. But I will talk to Farad and Sorbim, if you will talk to your people."
"I will, and pray to Mitra that all listen!"
"Halt! Who seeks to pass?"
Captain Muhbaras's mind had lurched up out of sleep before his body was ready to follow. That sentry had to be one of the new recruits, a "settled" nomad. How settled any of the tribesmen could become was a matter of some debate. It was evident that he had not learned sentry drill as thoroughly as could be wished.
The reply came in a woman's voice, which finished the work of awakening the captain's body. He could make out no words, but there was no need for that. The only women out and about here by night were the Maidens of the Mist, and the most likely reason they would be here was something either dire, urgent, or both.
Across the single room in the hut, blankets roiled and heaved like water in a millrace. A round face with a crinkly black chin beard rose above the blankets, like an otter surfacing from a dive.
"A woman?" the face said. The mouth was a thin gash, unwholesomely out of proportion to the rest of the face. It always seemed a marvel to the captain that Ermik's tongue was not forked, like that of a serpent.
"A Maiden."
"Ah. No doubt seeking to end that—"
In a moment the captain was out of his blankets and off his pallet. In another moment he had taken two strides and was standing over the other. His hand was on the hilt of his sword. His gaze was fixed on the wall of the hut.
If he allowed his gaze to drift downward, he knew he might draw the sword and thrust it into the thick neck below the round face. That would silence the greasy voice, but raise a howling and a shrieking back in Khoraja that would not end until he himself was dead, and likely many of his men dead with him. Men he had sworn to lead out of these Hell-cursed mountains, as he had sworn to lead them in.
"You may think that, if you wish, and risk both body and soul if the Lady of the Mist hears your thoughts. Do not ever let them pass your lips. Not where a Maiden can hear them. Not where I can hear them. Not where a hawk, a mouse, or a beetle can hear them!
"Do you understand?"
The small dark eyes above the blankets resembled a pig's eyes, but they were as unblinking as a serpent's.
"Do you?" the captain repeated.
"I do."
"Then hold your tongue and go back to sleep."
"I must visit the—"
"After I am done with the Maiden."
The other's mouth opened again, and the captain's hand tightened on the age-darkened leather of the sword's grip. Even one bawdy word from the other might send him over the brink—and perhaps he could buy his life and his men's by saying that the Maidens would have slain Ermik, the Grand Council's spy, had the captain not done so.
The Maidens—or their mistress. It would sound dreadful enough to persuade the Council.
Indeed, it might even be the truth.
"Do not be long."
The other could foul his blankets for all that the captain cared, save that the hut reeked enough as it was.
"I shall be no longer than the Maiden detains me. How long that will be depends on her errand, and I offer you another piece of wisdom."
"Will you have any wisdom left if you keep offering me pieces of it?"
The captain ignored the pert reply as he would have the yelping of a cur in the streets. "The shorter the time I am gone, the worse the news the Maiden bears."
That opened Ermik's eyes agreeably wide. They stared after the captain as he strode out into the night.
Conan was seated cross-legged on a carpet in the Afghulis' tent, watching the surgeon's Vendhyan slave tend Farad's wounds. Before him on the rug stood a jug of wine. A small bribe had procured it from the surgeon's stores, and after a cup of it, Conan felt a trifle more reconciled to the world as it was.
The slave jerked a dressing from Farad's ribs, taking a scab with it. Blood trickled, Farad glared, the slave cringed and muttered something under his breath. It was probably not a curse, although, like most Vendhyans, the slave could hardly be overly fond of Afghulis. Centuries of border raids, burned villages, and looted caravans had seen to that.
However, Conan understood several of the Ven-dhyan dialects, and the first time the slave ill-wished the Afghulis, he said as much. He added that if the slave could not keep his tongue between his teeth by the power of his will, either his tongue or his teeth might be removed, or perhaps his lips sewn shut. Mutes were not always the best slaves, but if muting them improved their manners—
The slave could hardly have abased himself more, or more swiftly promised good behavior in the future.
The Vendhyan was quickly but deftly putting a fresh dressing on Farad's battered ribs when tramping feet thudded outside the tent. Before anyone could give warning, Captain Khezal pushed his way into the tent.
Neither his sudden coming nor the look on his face made Khezal seem the bearer of good news. When with one look he sent the slave fleeing as if scorpions were nesting in his breeches, he made Conan certain of this.
He did not even venture to guess what the bad news might be; Khezal's scheme was one likely to go awry at half a dozen points before they even sighted the peaks of the Kezankians. Nor was the Cimmerian's knowledge of Turan's intrigues or the nomads' feuds what it had been. The bad news might be something altogether unconnected with the quest for the Valley of the Mists.
At least Conan thought he could trust Khezal to tell him all of the truth that any man not of Turan could be trusted to know. That was more than could be said of more than a few leaders Cona
n had followed.
"We have found the remaining Afghulis," Khezal said.
"Rejoice," Farad replied. Conan trusted that Khezal did not hear the ironic note in the Afghuli's voice.
"Or rather, they have found those who sought them," Khezal went on. "They laid an ambush even more cunning than I had expected from such skilled warriors."
"Flattery may raise hearts," Conan said. "It also uses time, of which I suspect we have but little, unless there is no more to your tale."
"Forgive me, Conan. I forgot that you were never a courtier."
"Improve your memory, then, my friend. Nor will I become a courtier soon enough to let you babble to no purpose."
Khezal took a deep breath. "It is to some purpose to know that the Afghulis who fled are unharmed. They unhorsed a half-score Greencloaks and took three as hostages to a cave. They have threatened the hostages with gelding and other harsh fates if Conan and any living Afghulis in Turanian hands are not freed at once."
Farad saved Conan the trouble of a swift reply by bursting into laughter that could doubtless be heard all over the camp. Khezal's face colored, and he looked at the ceiling of the tent, as if he wished the sky would fall on the Afghulis or him or both, to end this shameful moment.
At last both Farad and Khezal gained command of themselves, and into the silence Conan thrust a few words. "Then we must ride out at once, to prove that we are alive and free before they begin working on your men."
"What if I refuse to let you go?" Khezal asked. His eyes searched Conan's face, rather as if he were judging the temper of a horse he wished to buy. "This could be a scheme to escape. The nomads would doubtless pay you much for your knowledge of our camp."
"The nomads would pay us in slit throats after torturing the knowledge out of us, unless we contrived to die fighting them," Conan snapped. "Do not waste time or breath by testing me, Khezal. Not if you wish to keep your men whole."
"One must admit that there are fewer posts for eunuchs than there once were," Khezal said. He might almost have been meditating. Conan had to respect the inward courage that let the captain command himself in matters like this.