Swiftly the attackers were upon them. Juma and Conan leaped to the threatened side of the wagon, the Kushite wielding a long-staved ax he had procured from beneath the bench, Conan swinging his sword. There rang forth at once the din of a farrier's shop as clanging metal strokes, shouts, whinnies, and the stamping of hooves surged about the wagon.
The riders veered by in quick succession, crossing weapons smartly with the defenders, yet suffering some disadvantage due to the height and stability of the wagon platform. The first attacker was knocked half out of his saddle by an ax-stroke from Juma, the second was fended off and belabored by Conan's lashing blade. One marauder leaped aboard the plank bed of the wagon, only to be knocked back over the side by chiming, concerted blows from both defenders. The mounted standard-bearer, obviously the leader, hung back from the fight at first, rallying his troops to fresh efforts with arm-waving and gruff shouts.
But the attackers' second pass fared even worse, leaving one man prone and motionless in the field, one dragging himself painfully up the embankment, and a third trying to stay astride a weakened, bleeding horse while engaging in an ax-duel with Juma. The leader wheeled his mount on the far side of the roadway, having failed to skewer the agile Cimmerian in a lance-charge straight past the wagon.
Yet Conan, massaging his well-exercised sword arm, did not wait for the lancer's next pass. Sheathing his sword and striding back along the bed of the wagon, he leaped from its edge straight onto the back of one of the riderless cavalry mounts waiting in the field.
He felt the animal start and stagger under his robust weight and then rear high, pawing the air with a whinnying scream of protest. Conan lashed the reins fiercely and dug his rough boot-heels into the animal's ribs, urging the stallion forward and downward. Reluctantly the beast complied, whickering as it leaped up the embankment. This placed the wagon's bulk between Conan and the spearman, gaining him time to get the animal under control.
"Juma, I know yon flag-carrier," he shouted to his friend, who was still locked in a murderous grapple with the man on the bleeding horse. "I go to face him down while you finish here."
The Kushite, busy dragging his foe from the saddle, would have been hard-pressed to answer, and the Venji wagoneer cowered useless in his place beneath the seat. But it hardly mattered, for Conan had already urged his steed around the wagon toward the fourth rider―who, in turn, lowered his bannered lance. He spurred his mount forward to spear his challenger.
The horsemen met in a mud-splashing flurry of hooves and weapons, too swift and turbulent to be seen clearly. But one stroke must have told, for amid the jabbing of blades and the glinting arcs of spray, the flag-bearing tip of the cavalry lance fluttered down into the mire, shorn off by a powerful blow. At this, the armored man suddenly broke off combat, spurring his horse in a wide curve back toward the jungle. The unarmored rider, screeching out a savage war-whoop, was quick to wheel his mount in pursuit.
The remaining three harriers of the original seven did not follow; though still in the saddle, they were occupied with the wagon's cavalry guard further up the road. The Turanians, maneuvering under Jefar Sharif's strident commands, engaged the putative rebels in a series of drillyard cavalry passes. These clashes were rendered picturesque, if comically slow and ineffective, by the muddy field and the high-spraying arcs of water.
Meanwhile Conan, crouching low against his laboring horse's spine, ate
flying mud; he spat it from his mouth and shook it out of his eyes with every plunge of his galloping steed. His horse, less burdened because of its rider's lack of armor, slowly overtook the fleeing horse and rider; the only question was whether steed or man could see to find their quarry in the spume of foul water kicked up by its flying hooves.
The racers drew together soon after the armored rider reentered the jungle at the reedy edge of a field; his mount was slowed by the sudden upward slope, enabling the pursuer to close. Conan's horse thundered alongside, forcing the other steed to edge away in its headlong flight. The shift took the fleeing animal too close beneath an ancient tree; a leaf-screened limb knocked its passenger from the saddle onto the weedy earth, where he struck with a brazen clank of armor. His riderless steed galloped off into the forest; Conan, meanwhile, reined in sharply, forcing his animal to halt a dozen paces further on.
Leaping down from the horse's back, he ran to the fallen rider. The man's crested helm had been knocked from his head by the collision; he lay gasping on the ground, groping vainly for his sword, which had been knocked out of its sheath. His face, though bloodied and disfigured by a mashed nose, bore a familiar cast; the slope of his eyes, as they narrowed on Conan's looming shape, was definitely Khitan.
"Well, Warlord, I expected to see you again." The Cimmerian's sword was raised upright as he halted over his enemy. "I would go through the nicety of a duel with you, if there were time… but there is not. My apologies." His sword slashed down, cleaving the suddenly wide-eyed face and the skull behind it.
Leaving the body twitching its last, Conan returned to his winded horse and swung himself up onto its back. No sooner had he done so than a splashing sound drew near and ceased, to be supplanted by the swish of jungle fronds and scuff of hooves through forest litter. Conan urged his horse forward to meet the approaching rider, a wary-looking Jefar Sharif.
"Ah, Conan, so you have survived." The Turanian officer's face creased in a smile to hide his initial look of crestfallen surprise. "A creditable feat, fighting on a stolen horse against an armored foe." The sharif cast his gaze around the jungle foliage. "Where is the rebel leader―he escaped you, I take it? A shame, since my men are busy killing the last of his cohorts.
There will be none left for questioning… Tarim!" His banter ceased as his searching eyes found the armored body lying prone among the weeds.
"Nay, Sharif, he did not escape." Holding his sword down out of sight by his side, Conan sidled his mount ahead through the brush. "I do not think there is any need to tell you who it is, since you and he planned this ambush and my death! But that is the least of your treachery."
"What mean you, Sergeant? We fight on the same side…" Jefar's pretense ended abruptly with the scrape of his drawn sword, as Conan raised his ready weapon. "Curse you to hell, barbarian!" Yet the sharif, instead of meeting his subordinate officer's rush, wheeled his mount around toward the rice field.
The horse, winded and listless in the heat, did not turn quickly; in a trice Conan was upon its rider. Instead of smiting the sharif's armored, lavender-cloaked back, the Cimmerian launched himself atop the lordling and bore him bodily from the saddle. The two plunged into a red-flowered bush and rolled there in a savage, thrashing fight, sinking from view in the greenery. The plant's pendulous blossoms continued shaking in a spastic frenzy which dwindled gradually to stillness.
At length the bush shivered once again, its twigs cracking with the burden of shifting weight. From it Conan arose, holding Jefar Sharif's red-streaked dagger in one hand. Breathing heavily, he flung the knife away into the forest and stepped from the bush. Then he turned to face another flurry of hoof-splashes approaching from the nearby field.
It was Juma, hugging another of the attackers' unmanned horses between his black, blood-streaked knees. He reined the animal roughly to a stop and took in the scene, glancing knowingly from Conan to the purple-clad body crumpled in the brush. "Our beloved sharif… killed cruelly by rebels, no doubt."
"Aye," Conan breathed wearily. "But fear not, I have already avenged his death on their leader, who lies yonder." Stooping to recover his sword, he pointed with it into the trampled undergrowth. "It was Phang Loon, as I guessed―though none, I am happy to say, will recognize him now." He turned and strode off to collect the riderless horses from among the trees.
Juma tugged his mount around to face the other three troopers who now cantered up from the rice field. They reined in and raised their mud-splashed visors, regarding the scene with looks ranging from astonishment to suspicion.
T
he Kushite addressed them in gruff tones. "Good work, men; I see that the rebels are all slain. Jefar Sharif's heroic death leaves me, as senior sergeant, in command. All that remains is to strip the bodies and continue our trek to Aghrapur!"
Chapter 15
The Triumph
In trackless reaches of the Colchian Mountains the Ilbars River had its source, brewed of snowmelt on lofty, jagged peaks and of rain-squalls on the broader slopes. Down barren ravines and chasms the numberless torrents flowed, lapped along their courses by goat and bear, lizard and panther. Hence onward the waters wound their way, through broader ponds and streams where sheep sucked, and steel-eyed hillmen reined their horses to drink, through silver-blue forests and braided, gleaming cataracts.
Where the tributaries joined to form the mighty Ilbars, the land stretched level in fertile valley and steppe. Here the river rolled slowly and deliberately, finding the leisure and the unopposable will to meander through lush meadowlands. Along its broad, smooth artery coursed the lifeblood of an empire: trade, plunder, and migration, flowing past thriving cities from walled Samara through caravan-rich Akif, to Aghrapur itself, the pulsing, glittering heart of Turan.
The river swarmed with many types of craft: fishing-boats, coracles, reed rafts, and oared galleys, even tall-masted galleons ghosting upstream under shallow sail from the weedy mains of the Vilayet. One of the strangest vessels, square and cumbersome-looking as it poled clear of Akif's busy dock, was a low-sided, boxy-cabined raft, built of sturdy planed timbers which would have floated high in the water even if they had not been roughly joined and caulked with pine-gum and oakum.
The unwieldy barge traveled a one-way journey downriver from Tamrish in the wooded hills. Such craft were fated to be broken up when they reached the capital, their timbers planed as roof-beams for the city's burgeoning tenements, or perhaps as stout keels for more weatherly ships.
Though slow and ungainly, the barge scattered the less massive boats or jostled them aside as it wallowed out into the main river channel.
Across its deck, amid curses and the thumping of poles wielded more as weapons than as navigational tools, one specially notable figure flitted: a slim, perfumed, resplendent eunuch of the royal palace, looking decidedly out of place on the raft's broad stern―for the aft deck resembled a barnyard in its assortment of lowing animals and crops baled and basketed for the city markets. In those rough surroundings, the official's silk robes and effete bearing drew stares and murmured comments, muted only because of the presence of a large, oiled, capable-looking slave close behind the functionary, bearing the various sacks and baskets of his equipage.
The eunuch was engaged in a search, plainly. He moved haltingly along the raft's low bulwark, sometimes venturing a question to the rustic passengers seated there, sometimes only wrinkling his nose in impatient disdain and passing onward. At one place, near the chained muzzle of a fly-swarming, cud-chewing bullock, he received an answer to his query.
The animal's rag-turbaned owner sucked thoughtfully on his toothless gums, then pointed further aft. There, a handful of steersmen plied broad-bladed oars, directing the motion of the keel-less craft and keeping its stern from swinging around to become its bow.
"Conan?" The eunuch, lifting his robe daintily to protect it from water and other substances washing the rough deck, minced toward the stern bulwark. "Is Sergeant Conan of the Expeditionary Guard among you, sailors?" Flanked closely by his burly slave, the functionary stopped a safe distance away to regard the line of ragged idlers.
The steersmen received him with snorts and scornful smiles, their white teeth gleaming in rough, sun-darkened faces. A few spat contemptuously―yet the largest one of all remained sober-fiaced. This was a turbanless rogue, lank and black of hair, clad in the shredded, scarcely recognizable remnant of an expeditionary tunic. Handing his thick oar to another worthy, he stepped forward and replied in a barbaric accent.
"I am Conan, late of Venjipur. This is my brother officer, Sergeant Juma." He waved one hand to the hulking, half-uniformed black who sat on a crate beside him, tilting to his lips an earthenware flask of some upstream vintage. "Are you the Emperor Yildiz's delegate?"
The question brought hoots and guffaws from the other steersmen. But their amusement soon gave way to raised eyebrows and murmurs of astonishment. For promptly, at a nod from his master, the slave opened
one of his baskets and released a white carrier pigeon. The bird fluttered tentatively upward, then flapped away into the low sun to eastward. The eunuch regally ignored the event, addressing the steersman with a deep, brisk bow.
"Greetings; I am Sempronius, First Assistant Secretary of the Imperial Chancery. I was told that you were aboard this… vessel, but I did not expect to find you riding… back here." The eunuch was a slender, fine-featured man dressed all in silk, from turban to vest, to pantaloons and pointed slippers. He moved with an energetic, supercilious air, his glance around the crowded deck hinting at boundless distaste for the raft and the rowdy-looking group he confronted. After speaking, he raised a lavender-scented kerchief to his finely sculptured nose to mask the stench of the cows and other livestock.
"Aye, well," Conan answered him plainly, "we took regular passage as your dispatch advised. But strong hands were needed to help navigate the rapids, and fight off river pirates." Stepping away from the stern transom, Conan reached down to haul Juma to his feet. The Kushite hove up wistfully, surrendering his sloshing jug to one of the steersmen. He waved the others a drunken farewell as he and Conan followed Sempronius forward. "quickly and the gifts for the emperor are stowed yonder." The Cimmerian pointed to the roof of the squat, boxy cabin, where perishable cargo had been lashed to keep it dry.
"Gifts―from the southern lands?" Sempronius eyed the bales and bundles heaped on the upper deck as he approached the cabin, licking his thin lips with interest. "Did you bring along anything good… lotus, say, or hemp?"
"Nay," Conan replied absently, with hardly a glance aside to Juma. "We brought a potted jungle tree for Yildiz, as well as some wickerwork and assorted smaller gifts."
"Oh." Sempronius swiftly lost interest in the cargo. "Well, my task is to prepare you for the public triumph and banquet, and to introduce you to His Resplendency and the court"―he turned around to eye them dubiously―"both of you, I suppose, since you make an impressive pair.
Though we need a native Turanian officer to round out the group and inspire fellow feeling in the crowd."
"One did start the journey with us." Juma, speaking in drink-slurred
Turanian, joined the conversation for the first time. "Unfortunately, he died in a rebel attack the first day. Poor Jefar Sharif!" he concluded with a maudlin, overdone sigh.
"No matter." Sempronius shrugged in profound unconcern. "The dead are of no use to us. It would hardly serve our purpose to parade heroic corpses before the mob. General Abolhassan can appoint some good-looking Turanian to play the role, or else fill it himself." Already moving as if he owned the raft, among passengers who parted respectfully before him, the eunuch conducted them around the cabin and onto the less crowded foredeck. "We will have much to occupy us, what with the reception, the palace tour, and your decoration." As he spoke, Sempronius signaled his voiceless slave to set down his baggage in a vacant place along the raft's bulwark. The servant immediately began opening parcels.
"Tell me," Conan asked with some interest, "will we get to see the emperor's pearl-lined baths? I have heard much about them, and of the skill of the masseuses employed there―"
"You will need to bathe sooner than that! I will have my slave rub you down with scented oil." Sempronius turned back to Conan, holding a piece of iridescent silk that might have been intended as raiment. "When we were astern with the cattle, I did not notice it so much"―the eunuch wrinkled his nose primly―"but frankly, Sergeant, you smell."
"Smell, do I?" Conan shot an angry glance aside at Juma. "Hardly more than yourself, foppish gelding, with your stinking pomade and courtly
fragrance! In the jungle, indulgences of that sort would get you quickly tracked and killed." He bunched a heavy fist, flourishing it before his detractor's face; the eunuch and his slave only edged closer together, confronting him stubbornly. "If your nose were mashed flat against your pretty face, I do not think my smell would bother you so much!" Conan glanced again at Juma, who, beneath the dull passiveness of intoxication, looked vaguely concerned.
"But―ah, well, what matters it? No need for an oil-rub by a scented steer!" Abruptly, Conan relaxed his belligerent posture. Shaking off the miserable rag of his vest and stepping out of his torn breeks, he strode up onto the bulwark, then over the side of the raft into the water, splashing the startled watchers with the spray of his plunge.
Swimming was not really necessary, since the river current rolled at the
same resolute speed as the raft. An occasional kick was enough to keep Conan alongside, bobbing and cavorting in the water. Beyond him the nearer riverbank rolled by, bushy with reeds and screened by a few low-hanging trees. Amused passengers offered to watch out for crocodiles; they shouted many spirited warnings, most of them unjustified.
Meanwhile, passing sailboats steered close to the barge to see the cause of the commotion.
Before long Juma too had stripped and leaped in. Shedding most of his winy stupor in the brisk morning coolness of the water, he proved that he too possessed the rare knack of swimming. Whilst the two ruffians sported and strove to drown each other, Sempronius leaned overside and emptied a gleaming blue glass jug over their heads, anointing them with soapy, perfumed oil.
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