Conan and The Mists of Doom

by Roland Green

  "I—not enemy to Greencloaks," Bethina said haltingly.

  "Your brother rides with the Girumgi and you (obscenity) your brother!" someone shouted.

  The fragile peace nearly dissolved then and there. Bethina bared her teeth, reminding Conan of a Cim-merian wildcat defending her cubs. Conan was sorry if it embarrassed Khezal, but he was resolved to feed steel to the next man who shouted.

  All saw that resolve on the Cimmerian's grim countenance and held their peace.

  "Bethina," Khezal said, in a tribal dialect that Conan barely understood. "You say you are not an enemy to the Greencloaks. Yet your brother does ride with the Girumgi, who have certainly shed our blood, and not long since.

  "Tell us more."

  "I—have not—not the right words," Bethina stammered.

  "I will put your words into the speech of my people," Khezal said.

  "And I will have the first man who brawls," Conan said.

  The silence of the camp was broken only by the wind, until Bethina began to speak.

  Twelve

  Bethina's brother Doiran was deeper in intrigues than had been suspected, or so it seemed from her story. He had at first sworn blood-brotherhood to the chief of the Girumgi to assure his succession among the Ekinari, if his father died prematurely.

  Old Irigas did not die prematurely. Indeed, he had not yet died at all. But he was all but bedridden, and seldom spoke of anything save long-dead wives and long-ago battles.

  "He will die in peace," Bethina said through Khezal, "but his legacy to his people is a son who will lead them to war."

  The Girumgi were always ready to try conclusions with Turan, and listening to their hotheaded younger warriors had done no good work on Doiran's judgment. However, he was too shrewd to trust only to one set of allies.

  Khoraja had a long rivalry with Turan, if the fox could be said to have a rivalry with the elephant. Any time in the last century, if Turan had wished to turn Khoraja into a satrapy or even a desert, it could have done so. The price would have been great, in blood and treasure and also in new enemies for Turan, but it could have been done.

  The ironhanded young Yezdigerd seemed more likely than his sire to attempt the overthrow of Khoraja, so the Khorajans were looking to their defenses. They were intriguing with the desert tribes, and they had found ready ears (and open palms) among Doiran and his followers in the ranks of the Ekinari.

  It was then that Bethina spoke for herself.

  "Many Ekinari—friends to Turan. Or not friends— honest men. Think Khoraja—use us like—like toys. I, Bethina—for these I speak."

  No one seemed ready to believe than any desert tribesmen could be true friends to anyone, let alone Turan. But it was possible to believe that they did not care to be cat's paws for Khoraja. The shrewdness, if not the honesty, of the tribesmen had been a proverb in Turan for nearly as long as the empire had borne that name.

  "The tribesmen aren't fools," Milgun admitted. "The Ekinari least of all. Lady, maybe I did not think."

  As Milgun was widely believed incapable of chewing nuts and walking at the same time, this drew laughter. But it was the healthy kind, and presently the men dispersed, to look to their mounts and gear, so as to be ready to ride out when the storm abated.

  At last Bethina, Farad, Khezal, and Conan were alone. Khezal kept looking back down the valley, as if expecting a solid wall of furious warriors to sprout from the sand at any moment.

  "Best we be ready to fight or flee, if the lady's friends come for her," he said.

  "Oh, I do not think that will happen, or at least not soon enough to fear," Bethina said. Suddenly she spoke flawless Turanian, with the tones of a noblewoman.

  The three men looked at the woman as if she had just grown a long purple tail. Then they looked at one another.

  Bethina laughed. "In truth, the men with me—and I am grateful that they were not slain—were there to help me be taken captive. When they are found, they will show where I fell down into a crevice. I will be thought dead, at least for long enough that we may ride north safely."

  Conan nodded. It seemed the politest thing to do. It also occurred to him that Bethina's allegiance was even more of a gift than it had seemed. If he remembered correctly, the Ekinari's lands were well to the north—toward the Kezankian Mountains, if not actually bordering on their foothills.

  They might know more than most about the mysteries of those mountains.

  Bethina nodded graciously, as the heiress of some great house might have nodded to three upper servants. "I look forward to riding with you gentlemen, for I see in you wisdom and strength."

  Then she vanished into the murk, so swiftly and silently that for a moment Conan wondered if she was a spirit. But then he saw footprints, even now filling with windblown sand, and heard laughter like the tinkling of temple bells from behind a rock.

  The three men looked at one another again, and all spoke a single word, each in his native tongue.

  "Women!"

  They rode out as soon as the sandstorm died enough to allow traveling, but before there was too little wind to cover their tracks and too little sand in the air to hide them. They put several hours of desert between them and the Girumgi, then found a patch of rough, scrub-grown ground and went to earth like so many foxes.

  As daylight drained from the sky and a spangling of stars took its place, they mounted and were once more on the move.

  Riding by night and resting up by day, it took them five days to reach Ekinari lands. Or at least these were lands where one was more likely to encounter riders of the Ekinari than those of any other tribe.

  The Ekinari were hardly a peaceful people—in the desert as in Afghulistan, no lover of peace at any price lived long enough to breed sons. But as Bethina pointed out, they had more good wells and safe places for their women and children than many tribes.

  "Our warriors do not need to ride across every patch of ground and cleanse it of enemies, that the tribe may live," Bethina said. "We can look beyond today's blood-feuds. That is why Doiran will not prevail in the end."

  "That might be so, if he stood or fell by what the Ekinari will do for him," Conan pointed out. "With the warriors and the gold of the Girumgi behind him, he will think that he can do as he pleases. He may even be right."

  "That is not the brother I knew," Bethina replied. "You are saying that he is ready to make slaves of his own people, if he can be their master under the Girumgi?"

  "Good men have done worse things when ambition fuddles their wits," Conan said sharply. "Besides, it's not hard to find tribesmen to follow you if you say you seek to hurt Turan. Turan has not been just in its dealings with the desert folk, and they have long memories for grievances."

  Bethina gave Conan a radiant smile, and Khezal gave him a sour look. Farad carefully looked at the desert, but the Cimmerian could see a smile curving the man's lips under his beard.

  Under the stars, they rode toward the Kezankian Mountains.

  The Kezankian Mountains did not tower as high as the Ibars range in Turan, let alone the Himelias in northern Vendhya. Those were mountains that seemed fit to hold up the very sky, or pierce it and thrust their snow-clad peaks into the abyss beyond.

  However, from the direction Conan and his companions approached them, the Kezankians leaped almost straight from the desert. Eagles nesting halfway up the mountain faces looked as tiny as doves, even to the Cimmerian's keen eyes. Birds flying any higher were as invisible as if they had been mag-icked.

  Meanwhile, the desert wind itself grew cooler, and its flutings and pipings around the rocks set more than one man's teeth on edge.

  "It's as if the wind itself knows this is a place to avoid," Farad said.

  "Ha," Conan said. "I thought you would be feeling more at home than you have since we—"

  "Fled Afghulistan?" Farad said. His grin showed all his teeth, but there was no mirth in his black eyes. Then he shook his head.

  "I know what my homeland's mountains may hold—"


  "Bandits, sheep, and lice," Bethina said. Farad stared at her, then laughed loud enough to raise echoes.

  "Not so wrong, lady," Farad said. "But even the lice are—I won't call them friends, but at least no strangers to a man. Everyone is a stranger to these mountains, and they look like the sort who treat any stranger as an enemy."

  Looking up at the gray walls before them and listening once more to the wind, Conan could not find it in his heart to disagree.

  They found the remains of the camp the next morning, soon after they themselves had made camp for the day. Out hunting with Farad, Conan was the first to see the patch of soot in the middle of the trampled ground.

  While Farad kept watch, the Cimmerian squatted by the trampled ground and studied it. He sifted soil between his fingers, sniffed the ashes, and finally rose.

  "You look like a hound seeking a scent," Farad said.

  "Close enough," the Cimmerian replied. "Now let's be finding their midden-pit. I'd wager this camp held at least forty men, tribesmen and others. Something they left in the pit has to tell us more about who they are."

  "If we can find it and dig it up," Farad said.

  "Oh, I think we can find it. As for digging it up, I'll do it myself if there's no other way."

  "I can spare you that, my chief."

  As it happened, Khezal's orders spared both Conan and Farad the dirty chore. A gang of Greencloaks set briskly to work with knives, hands, and the odd spade. (Cavalry were not much for building field-works or carrying digging tools with them.) The rubbish they unearthed told Khezal and Conan much the same.

  "Two score bandits—what the tribes call loose-feet," Khezal said. "They're commonly a desperate, vicious lot."

  "Then who left this?" Conan said, holding up a blackened square of metal.

  "A Khorajan left his cloak pin," Khezal said. "In truth, a Khorajan captain, or at least a man of rank. That's silver with a relief of the king, as far as I can judge under the soot."

  "Are you sure serving Mishrak never tempted you?" Conan chaffed the Turanian. "You have a good nose for spy's work."

  "Also a tender conscience about it," Khezal said. He lowered his voice. "More so since Yezdigerd's accession, and I'd wager I'm not the only one."

  Conan had no doubt of that. There were as many honest folk in Turan as anywhere, and more than in some lands he had traveled (and mostly departed as swiftly as he'd come). But as long as Yezdigerd's promise of empire dazzled their eyes with glory and filled their hands with gold, many Turanians might be less honest than they would be otherwise.

  Turan might profit from his quest with Khezal, but the Cimmerian intended to end it far from Turan with the jewels at his belt, bound once again for Koth.

  "Best we mount a good guard," Khezal said. "Forty loosefeet with a civilized captain leading them might do some mischief if they surprised us."

  Conan nodded. "Perhaps. But we might do them more, if we surprised them."

  Khezal frowned. Conan gave a gusty laugh.

  "You Turanians still think like the plains horsemen who were your ancestors. You should never go to war without a hillman or few along, to tell you what to do when the land's at a slant."

  Khezal threw the Cimmerian a weary look. "Very well, my friend. You speak and I will listen. But by all the gods, for every needless word you say, I will take one jewel from that bag before I return it to you. Talk me deaf, and you will ride empty-pursed for Koth."

  "Better empty-pursed than empty-headed," Conan riposted. He drew his dagger and began to trace lines in the sand with the point.

  Conan shifted his weight cautiously, lest a dislodged stone roll far enough to make a sound. The desert night was still, the wind for once asleep like everything else.

  Or rather, as the bandits would expect everything else to be.

  The trap Conan had proposed was simple. The main band would camp in the very shadow of the cliffs, choosing a place where no one could strike from above unless they rode on the back of an eagle. They would be loud and lax in keeping watch, as if they thought themselves safe in their barracks. Anyone watching as the light faded would see easy prey, with hardly a sentry about, and none of those sober.

  After dark, the revelry would continue, for all that Khezal swore to geld anyone who actually let a drop of wine touch his lips. Meanwhile, bands of men chosen for their handiness with steel and their keen night-sight would creep unseen out into the sand, at three points covering the three approaches to the main body.

  Anyone who yielded to the thought of murdering and looting unsuspecting and incapable victims would face the rudest of surprises. Indeed, a man could die from such a surprise.

  A small hand touched the Cimmerian's shoulder. He did not move, but his heart leapt within him. Perhaps the thought about dying of surprise had been ill omened.

  He did not strike, however, because in the next moment the hand was laid gently across his mouth. He felt slender but strong fingers across his lips, and smelled healthy woman and the faintest of perfumes.

  Conan shifted position again. His eyes were now accustomed to the dark, and he had no difficulty recognizing Bethina. What gave him difficulty was her reason for being out here with the ambush posts, and he could hardly ask her now, not when the slightest whisper might warn lurking foes.

  She solved the problem for both of them by sliding into his arms, until her head rested on his shoulder and her lips were against his ear. They were more than agreeable lips to feel, fluttering softly on his skin as she explained.

  "The men are taking their part too seriously. They do nothing but sing one lewd song after another."

  Conan grunted, and shifted a third time, so that he could reply to Bethina as she had spoken to him. Her ear also felt more than pleasant against his lips.

  "You're no garden rose, to wilt at a few rough words. Tell me the truth."

  She was silent briefly, then replied:

  "I see you know women."

  "If I didn't at my age, I'd be a fool or bleaching bones."

  "Perhaps. But—under law, I can be chief over the Ekinari, instead of Doiran. Under law, if I do as a man does."

  "And how do men among the Ekinari?"

  "They must—they must be whole men, not eunuchs. Also, they must have taken a foe in battle."

  The promise in the first words made Conan's blood race. The danger in the second silenced it at once.

  "This is no game, Bethina."

  "The bandits are no friend to Ekinari or any other tribe. The Khorajans still less so. I did not come here for sport, Conan."

  The Cimmerian fought back laughter. "There are sports and sports, lady. But I agree, a dark ditch waiting for flea-ridden bandits is no place for most of them." He squeezed an admirably firm and rounded shoulder. "You'll find me as apt as—"

  The Cimmerian broke off abruptly. In a lull in the songs from camp, a less convivial sound had reached his ears. It might have been the wind rising again; it might also have been the hiss of sand sliding under an incautious footfall.

  The wisest thing was to wait for the intruder's next mistake. Bethina stiffened but made no sound, save the faintest rustle as she drew steel from under her robes.

  The sound came again. This time it was unmistakably a footfall. A moment later a pebble rattled, the sound lasting until Conan could judge the direction. The intruder was close to the left. Too close to be left alone.

  All very well, but he had no wish to spring the trap for a single man. "We want to draw them in, put an end to most of them, and learn from the rest," he remembered Khezal telling the men.

  Again Conan moved, with the caution of a snake approaching a bird. He saw a darker patch against the sky, man-shaped and hardly a spear's length away. The man wore a bandit's ragged robes and was as hairy and bearded as one, but he wore a sword and dagger with silver hilts.

  Too vain of his blades to blacken them for night work, the Cimmerian thought. The ranks of warriors would not miss this one.

  The
man turned at the last moment, so saw his death coming in the shape of a gigantic dark form leaping apparently from the ground. Then a fist like a maul exploded in his stomach and an arm like a giant snake locked around his neck. The man's senses had left him before his assailant had laid him on the ground.

  Conan crouched in turn, stripping off the man's robes. A wide-eyed Bethina pulled the senseless man into the ditch and began binding his hands and feet with strips of his own garments, as Conan took his victim's place. He had to stoop a trifle to look the same size, although the man had been well grown. He had also worn under his robes more than enough to say "Khoraja" to anyone who knew the handiwork of that city's artisans.

  The Cimmerian reached down and stroked Bethina's forehead, all he could reach without dropping his guard. He thought he heard a light, nearly stifled giggle, and vowed to touch more than her forehead as soon as they found a time and place. The lass had heart and wits to go with her looks!

  In the Khorajan's place, Conan had a clear view all around him, to the horizon in three directions and the cliff in the fourth. The fires in the camp were dying down; no need to burn scarce dung to keep up the act. The stars no longer glowed undimmed; a haze was creeping across the sky. Another sandstorm? Conan hoped not, for he had small taste for another blind groping against a far deadlier foe than Bethina's "guards."

  The sound this time was many footfalls, men trying so hard to be silent that they would have succeeded against almost any man but the Cimmerian. He counted more than twenty dark-robed and hooded figures with either bows or swords. Then farther off he heard a horse whicker.

  The bandits themselves had divided their forces. Some would no doubt rush in to surprise the camp and sow panic. Then their mounted comrades would ride in to finish the work, driving off the Turanians' horses and carrying away loot and prisoners. The surviving Greencloaks would have small chance of pursuing, or even of living through another encounter with the meanest foe.

  It did not take a warrior of Conan's experience to doubt that the bandits had devised this scheme by themselves. A shrewder captain than the bandits of any land usually produced was behind tonight's work.