"I swear!" Conan grated. Almost wishing to find himself face to face with the sorcerer, he strode from the room.
Chapter XXI
As Conan approached the bandit camp he was struck with the sounds of raucous laughter and drunken, off-key singing. Stumbling into the light he stared in amazement. The brigands were in full carouse.
Hook-nosed Reza squatted with a whole roast in his hands, tearing at it with his teeth. Aberius staggered past, head tilted back and a crystal flagon upturned. Half the wine spilled down his chest, but the weasel-faced man laughed and tossed the costly vessel to shatter against the rocky ground. Hordo swung his tulwar in one hand, a golden goblet in the other, roaring an obscene song at the moon. Every man sang or laughed, ate or drank, as was his wont and his mood, belching and wiping greasy fingers on his robes, gulping down costly Aquilonian wines like the cheapest tavern swill.
Through the midst of the revelry Karela and Amanar approached Conan. She held a crystal goblet like a lady of high degree, but there was a stagger to her walk, and the mage had his long arm about her slim shoulder. Amanar had pushed back her scarlet cape so that his elongated fingers caressed her silken flesh in a possessive manner. Remembering Velita, Conan was both disgusted and offended, but he knew he must yet control his temper until the pendant was in his grasp.
"We wondered where you were," the red-haired woman said. "Look at this feast Amanar has brought us.
This has cured the fit of sulking that had taken my hounds."
Amanar's dark eyes were unreadable. "There is little to see even in daylight, Conan of Cimmeria, and few men care to wander here in the night. What did you find to interest you in the darkness?"
"They built the fires too hot for my northern blood," Conan replied. He eyed the way those long fingers kneaded Karela's shoulder. "That's a shoulder, mage," he said with more heat than he had intended, "not a lot of bread dough."
Karela looked startled, and Amanar laughed. "The hot blood of youth. Just how old are you, Cimmerian?" He did not remove his hand.
"Not yet nineteen," Conan said proudly, but he was saddened to see the change in Karela's eyes. He had seen the same in other women's eyes, women who thought a man needed a certain number of years to be a man.
"Not yet nineteen!" Amanar choked on his own laughter. "Practically a beardless youth for all his muscles. The Red Hawk, the great robber of caravans, has robbed a cradle."
She shrugged off the mage's arm, her tilted green eyes glowing dangerously. "A barbar boy," she muttered. Then, in a louder voice, "I have considered your offer, Amanar. I accept."
"Excellent," the sorcerer said with a satisfied smile. He rubbed the side of his long face with the golden staff and regarded Conan. "And you, young Cimmerian who likes to wander in the dark? Despite your youth my offer to you yet holds, for I think there must be skill in those massive shoulders."
Conan managed to force a smile onto his lips. "I need to think longer. In a day or two, as you first spoke of, I will give you my answer."
Amanar nodded. "Very well, Cimmerian. In a day or two we shall see what your future will be." His red-flecked eyes turned to Karela with a caressing gaze that made Conan's flesh crawl. "You, my dear Karela, must come to the keep on the morrow. Without the young Cimmerian, of course, as he has not yet made up his mind. We must have a number of long private discussions concerning my plans for you."
Conan longed to smash his fist into that dark face but instead he said, "Perhaps you'll speak of some of those plans to us all. Knowing what they are might help me decide, and some of these others as well."
Karela's head had been turning between the two men with a comparing gaze, but at that she jerked rigidly erect. "My hounds go where I command, Cimmerian!"
A sudden silence fell, laughter and song all dying away. Conan looked around for the cause and found Sitha standing at the edge of the light, clutching a great double-bladed battle-ax across its broad chest.
Red eyes glowed faintly as it surveyed the men around the fires, and they shifted uneasily, some loosening their weapons in their scabbards. The S'tarra's lipless mouth curled back from its fangs in what might have been meant for a smile. Or a sneer.
"Sitha!" Amanar said sharply.
Looking neither to left nor right, the S'tarra strode through the camp to kneel at Amanar's feet. At an impatient gesture Sitha rose and leaned close to whisper in its master's ear.
Conan could catch no sound of what was said, nor read anything on the mage's dark face, but Amanar's knuckles grew white on his golden staff, telling Conan the man found the news displeasing. Talbor, Conan thought. Amanar gestured for his minion to be silent.
"I must leave you," the mage said to Karela. "A matter requires my attention."
"Not trouble, I hope," she said.
"A small matter," Amanar replied, but his mouth was tight behind his close-cropped beard. "I will see you on the morrow, then. Rest well." He turned his attention to Conan. "Think well on your decision, Cimmerian. There are worse things than what I offer. Sitha." The sorcerer strode from the camp, his S'tarra minion at his heels.
With the departure of the scaled creature the noise level of the camp began to rise again quickly. Hordo staggered up to Conan and Karela.
"I do not like those things," the one-eyed brigand said unsteadily. He still held his bared tulwar and the now-empty golden goblet, and he swayed as he spoke. "When are we to leave this accursed valley and be about what we know? When are we for the caravan routes?"
"You're drunk, my old hound," Karela said affectionately. "Find yourself a place to sleep it off, and we'll talk in the morning."
"I entered the keep tonight," Conan said quietly.
Karela's green eyes locked with his sapphire gaze. "You fool!" she hissed. Hordo stared with his mouth open.
"He has the pendants," the Cimmerian went on, "and the women. At least, he has two of the women. The other three have disappeared. It's my belief he killed them."
"Killed slave girls?" Hordo said, scandalized. "What sort of man does a thing like that? Even a sorcerer...."
"Keep your voice down," Karela snapped. "I told you not to bandy that word about until I gave you leave. And you, Conan. What's this nonsense you're babbling? If the women are gone, likely he sold them. Or was your precious Velita one of them?"
"She was not," Conan growled back. "And why should she still raise your hackles? You know there's nothing between us, though there seems to be quite a bit between you and Amanar, from the way he was fondling you."
"No!" Hordo protested, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Not Amanar. Not with you. I'll admit I thought better of you taking Conan to your bed, but-"
Face flaming, Karela cut him off sharply. "Be silent, you old fool! What I do, and with whom, is my business!" Her eyes flung green daggers at Conan, and she stalked away, snatching a flask from Aberius as she passed him.
Hordo shook his massive head. "Why did you not speak, Conan? Why did you not stop her?"
"She's a free woman," Conan said coldly. His pride was still pricked by the way she had accepted Amanar's arm about her. "I have no claim on her. Why didn't you stop her?"
"I'm too old to have my liver sliced out," Hordo snorted. "Your Velita was truly in the keep, then? I wonder you didn't take her, and the pendants, and ride from this place." He swept his curved sword in an arc that took in all the dark outside the firelight.
"She's spell-caught," Conan sighed, and told him how he had found Velita, and what she had said.
"So he lied to us," the bearded man said when Conan finished. "And if about the pendants and the women, about what else?"
"About everything. I had thought to tell her about what he's done with Velita, to show him for the man he is, but now I think she'd believe I made it up."
"And likely tell Amanar about it, to amuse him with your jealousy. Or what she'd see as jealousy," he added quickly as the big Cimmerian youth glared at him. "What am I to do, Conan? Even now I cannot abandon her."
&
nbsp; Conan lifted his broadsword an inch free of its sheath and slammed it back again. "Keep your sword sharp, and your eye open." His steely gaze took in the motley rogues sprawled drunkenly around the fires. "And have these hounds of hers ready to move at an instant. Without letting her or Amanar discover it, of course."
"You don't ask much, do you, Cimmerian? What are you going to do?"
Conan peered through the darkness toward the fortress before answering. Even in that overpowering blackness those massive walls seemed blacker still. "Kill Amanar, free Velita, steal the pendants, and return to Shadizar, of course. Trifles like that."
"Trifles like that," Hordo groaned. "I need another drink."
"So do I," Conan said softly. The night weighed heavily on his broad shoulders. This valley would be a poor place to die.
Chapter XXII
The strange darkness lingered in the valley, resisting morning and fading to a gray dawn only after the blood-red sun stood well above the mountaintops. It was mid-morning before full daylight came, but Conan alone noticed in the bandit camp, for the others lay sprawled in drunken stupors. As the sun at last sucked the last canescence from the valley air, the Cimmerian made his way to the spring that bubbled from a cleft not far from the camp.
Scooping water in his cupped hands, he drank, and made a disgusted sound in his throat. Though cold, the water was flat and lifeless, like everything else in the barren and forboding rift. He contented himself with splashing it on his face, and settled to observe the valley.
On the battlements of the keep S'tarra moved, but nothing else stirred except vultures making slow circles in the distance. Conan wondered grimly how Velita had fared at Amanar's return. The sorcerer seemed not to know how far Conan's nocturnal peregrinations had taken him-at least, there was no sign of alarm, no squads of S'tarra sent for him-but that spoke not at all to her faring.
"Tonight," the muscular youth vowed.
Aberius, tottering up to fall on his knees beside the spring, glanced incuriously at him. The man's usual hostility seemed momentarily expelled by wine fumes. The weasel-faced bandit dashed a few handfuls of water over his head and staggered away to be replaced by Hordo, who threw himself at full length by the spring and plunged his head into the pool.
Just as Conan was about to go over and pull him out, the one-eyed man lifted his head and peered at the Cimmerian through dripping hair and beard. "Has this water no taste," he mumbled, "or did my tongue die last night?"
"Both," Conan chuckled. Hordo groaned and lowered his head once more to the water, but this time only far enough to drink. "Have you seen Talbor this morning, Hordo?"
"I've seen nothing this morning but the insides of my own eyelids. Let me decide in peace whether I desire to live or not."
"Talbor was inside the fortress last night, when I was."
Hordo lifted himself on his elbows, flipping water at his face with spatulate fingers. "Such a thing to tell a man with my head. Do you think that's why Amanar was summoned to the keep?"
Conan nodded. "Talbor's not in the camp. I checked at first light."
"He could have stolen what he wanted, taken a horse, and be halfway out of the Kezankians by now,"
the other man protested. "He's not as particular as you. He'd not insist on Tiridates' playpretties, and a dancing girl besides."
"You could be right," Conan said flatly.
"I know," Hordo sighed. "I don't believe it, either. So is he dead, or is he in the sorcerer's dungeon? And what do we tell her?"
"We wait to see what Amanar tells her. His S'tarra outnumber us at least twenty to one, and those are odds I bet small coins on."
He got to his feet as Sitha appeared at the portcullis and came down the black granite ramp. The tall S'tarra carried neither ax nor sword that Conan could see. It reached the bottom of the incline and set off at a brisk pace across the gray, boulder-strewn valley floor toward the bandit camp. Conan started down the rocky slope to meet it, and Hordo scrambled to his feet to follow.
When Conan walked into the camp, the scaled creature was the center of a ring of brigands. No weapons were in hand, he was relieved to see, but the human eyes there were far from friendly. And who could say of Sitha's?
Hordo pushed past Conan to confront the S'tarra. "What's this, then? Does your master send a message for us?"
"I come for myself," Sitha hissed. It stood half a head taller than the burly one-eyed bandit, taller even than Conan, and if there was no expression in those sanguine eyes there was certainly contempt in the sibilant voice. A padded gambeson and chainmail hauberk covered it to the knees, but it ,wore no helmet. "I am Sitha, Warden of the S'tarra, and I come to pit myself against you."
Aberius, behind Conan, laughed uneasily. "Without so much as a dagger?"
Sitha bared its fangs. "My master would not be pleased, an I slew you. We will pit strength at the stones."
"Stones?" Hordo said. "What stones?"
The S'tarra spun on its booted heel, motioning for them to follow. In a muttering file they did, down the valley away from the keep to a spot where boulders had been arranged to form a rough circle half a hundred paces across. The ground between had been smoothed and leveled, and in the center of the circle lay two rough spheres of dark granite. Conan estimated the smaller at twice the weight of a man, the larger at half again as much.
"Lift one of the stones," Sitha said. "Any one of you." It flashed bare fangs again, briefly. "Any two of you."
"Hordo!" someone called. "Hordo's strongest!"
Aberius eyed the stones, then Karela's one-eyed lieutenant. "Who'll wager?" he cried, his narrow face taking on a malicious smile. "Who thinks old Hordo can lift the small stone?"
"Old Hordo, is it?" Hordo spat.
He bent to the lesser of the huge stones as a babbling knot formed around Aberius to get their wagers marked. The burly man threw his arms about the stone, fitting his hands carefully to the undercurves, and heaved. The scar running from under his eye-patch whitened with strain, and his eye bulged. The round stone stirred. Abruptly his hands slipped, and he staggered back with an oath.
"Mitra!" the one-eyed brigand panted. "There's no way to get a good grip on the accursed thing."
Chortling, Aberius collected his winnings.
"Your strongest cannot lift it," Sitha hissed. "Can two of you do it? Let any two try." His scathing glance took in Conan, but the Cimmerian said nothing.
Reza and another hawk-nosed Iranistani, named Banidr, pushed forward. Aberius began again to hawk his wagering. Those who had lost the first time were now quickest to press their coins at him.
Reza and Banidr conferred a moment, dark heads together, then squatted, one on either side of the stone. Pressing their forearms in under the lower curve of the stone sphere, each grasped the other's upper arm. Their closeness to the stone forced them into spraddle-legged stances. For a moment they rocked back and forth, counting together, then suddenly tried to heave themselves erect. Veins popped forth on their foreheads. The stone lifted. A finger breadth. A handwidth. Banidr cried out, and in an instant the stone had forced their arms apart, torn loose their grips, and thumped to the ground. Banidr fell back, clutching himself. Arguments broke out as to whether the two had lifted the stone far enough or not.
"This!" Sitha's shout riveted the bandits, drying their arguments in midword. "This I mean by lifting the stone!" The S'tarra bent over the large granite ball, locked its arms about it, and straightened as easily as if it had been a pebble. Gasps broke from the bandits as it started toward them; they parted before it.
Five paces. Ten. Sitha let the stone fall with a crash, and turned back to the dumbstruck men. "That I mean by lifting." Peals of hissing laughter broke between its fangs.
"I'll have a try," Conan said.
The S'tarra's laughter slowed and stopped. Red eyes regarded Conan with open contempt. "You, human? Will you try to carry the stone back to its place, then?"
"No," the young Cimmerian said, and bent to the larger st
one.
"Two to one he fails," Aberius cried. "Three to one!" Men eyed Conan's massive chest and shoulders, weighed the odds, and crowded around the weasel-faced man.
Conan squatted low to get his arms below the largest part of the big stone. As his fingers felt for purchase on the rough sphere, he found Sitha's frowning gaze on him.
With a sudden roar, the big Cimmerian heaved. His mighty thew corded, and his joints popped with the strain. The muscles of his broad back stood out in stark relief, and his massive arms knotted. Slowly he straightened, every fiber quivering as he came fully erect. His eyes met Sitha's once more, and snarling, the S'tarra took a backward step. With great effort Conan stepped forward, back bowed under the strain. He took another step.
"Conan," someone said softly, and another voice repeated, louder, "Conan!"
Teeth bared by lips drawn back in a rictus of effort, Conan went forward. Now his eyes were locked on the stone Sitha had carried.
Two more voices took up the cry. "Conan!" Five more. "Conan!" Ten. "Conan!" The shouts were flung back from the mountain slopes as a score of throats hurled forth their chant with his every step. "Conan!
Conan! Conan!"
He came level with the other stone, took one step more, and let the great sphere fall with a thunderous thud that every man there felt in his feet. Conan's shoulder joints creaked as he straightened, looking at Sitha. "Will you try to take my stone back?"
Cheering bandits darted between a glowering Aberius, parting with all his former winnings and more, and Conan, some clasping his hand, others merely wanting to touch his arm. Sitha's hands twitched in front of its chest as if clutching for the thick haft of a battle-ax.
Of a sudden the bronzen tones of a great gong broke from the fortress and echoed down the valley. Sitha whirled at the first tone and broke into a run for the black keep. The gong pealed forth again, and again, its hollow resonance rolling against the mountains. Atop the ebon ramparts of the keep S'tarra ran.
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