"Well met, Conan of Cimmeria," the man said. "I am Thyrin, father to Wylla."
"I am Captain Conan of the Second Guards, father to none that I know of," the Cimmerian replied. "Is your daughter with you?"
"She wished to join us, but I bid her join the others. She can tend the babe if no more, and with them, she will be closer to safety.
"I like not this care for Captain Oyzhik, Cimmerian. Did my daughter not say that he will do our enemies more harm alive than dead, I would spear him in a moment. It will be a chancy affair, making our way to safety with a man such as Oyzhik."
"I am of your mind. At least Marr will try to keep the alarm from being raised. Lead on, Thyrin."
Aybas was prepared to march straight up to the princess's lodgings, trusting to his standing with the guards. Raihna counseled greater caution.
"If I were the Star Brothers
"You could never render yourself so ugly of either body or spirit,"
Aybas said.
Raihna seemed to be glaring and smiling at the same time. "There is a place for the gallantries of the Aquilonian court, and this is not it.
If I were the Star Brothers, I would have my most trusted men about the princess now, especially with the tales being rumored of Syzambry's troubles."
"It is the habit of the Star Brothers to have their most trusted men guarding the sacrifices," Aybas said. "Conan and Thyrin are the ones most in need of caution."
"You did not tell us that!" Raihna exclaimed.
"You did not ask it of me," Aybas replied blandly.
"If you have the wits of a louse, you should know what to tell us without being asked!" Raihna said.
"Here, now, Mistress Aybas began, swallowing indignation as he saw Raihna reaching for her sword.
"Peace," Marr said. "I can work against the wits of any or all of the guards as needs be. Also, no doubt the Star Brothers think that the princess needs less guarding, being a mere woman."
Raihna mimed running the piper through, and Wylla, recently rejoined with the other three, pulled a long face. Then she stuck out her tongue at both men. The unease dissolved in soft laughter.
It was good tidings that Oyzhik was lodged in a hut apart from the common lodgings for the sacrifices. No doubt the Star Brothers did not wish anyone to bear reports of his being ill-treated to Count Syzambry or the captain's friends.
No doubt, too, that the Star Brothers intended to keep Oyzhik captive until his fate was decided. His hut was backed against the cliff, and four guards stood before it. Two had bows, two had spears, all bore swords”uncommonly complete arming for the Pougoi, even among the Star Brothers' chosen warriors.
It did not help matters, either, that the hut was less than a hundred paces from the principal longhouse of the Star Brothers' guards. If the four on duty did not die silently and swiftly, they would have help from a score of their comrades before Conan and Thyrin could free Oyzhik.
"Are the sacrifices fettered?" Conan whispered.
Thyrin shook his head. "Only for punishment, and they would not dare punish Oyzhik in any way that left marks."
The underbrush and shadows could have hidden a score of men the size of Conan and Thyrin. Only guards making the rounds could have discovered them, and these guards stood before the door like temple images.
Conan's night sight, with a trifle of help from the moon, soon revealed a climbable path up the cliff. It did not offer a road out of the valley, not when they would have Oyzhik as a burden. It could take a good climber like the Cimmerian to the roof of the hut.
"I'll climb," Conan said. "When I'm nearing the hut, I'll wait for moonlight, then wave. You go forward and keep the guards busy while I reach the roof. Then you can hide so that the Star Brothers
Thyrin's glare would have shattered stone. "Doubt not that my honor equals yours, Cimmerian. If you must doubt my honor, at least do not doubt my wits. Wylla and I will face outlawry at best for this night's work, whether anyone sees us or not."
There seemed no more to be said, so Conan faded into the shadows until he reached the foot of the cliff, where he waited for the moonlight to give him a good view of his first few hand and footholds. Then he began to climb.
"What, ho, friends," Aybas said. "Is the princess within?"
The two spearmen at the door laughed coarsely. "Where'd she go without passing us? She knows what'd happen if she tried, too. Too fine-bred to have a taste for our kind, she is, like all the lowlanders."
One of them caught sight of Raihna. "Or maybe there's some lowlanders as might fancy a hill man?"
Raihna's smile was feigned, but only her comrades knew it. "I am sent from the lowlands, indeed. I serve Count Syzambry, and I am come to examine the princess with a woman's knowledge of her fitness to bear his sons."
Aybas strangled laughter. Any woman less resembling a midwife than Raihna, he had yet to see. Before the guards could voice doubts, Raihna added, "I am also come to reward those who have served the count well."
The sway of her hips as she spoke would have made most tavern dancers jealous. The guards could not but see what reward she was promising, and Aybas doubted that they were eunuchs.
While the spearmen stared at Raihna, Aybas and Marr moved. Each stepped behind a guard, each drew a short club from his belt, and each struck their man a shrewd blow where the skull joins the neck. The guards dropped as if poleaxed.
"Lift them onto the bench here," Aybas ordered. "They often sit down while on duty. Wylla, you remain here as sentry. Make it seem that you and the guards are¦ ah, enjoying each other's company."
Wylla stuck out her tongue again, but she also drew off her tunic and pushed her trousers low on her hips. The splendid breasts and supple waist thus revealed made Aybas pray that Wylla at least would live through the night. She was not for him, that was certain, but still, she was too young to die for the folly of others.
While Marr and Raihna heaved the guards onto the bench, Aybas knocked on the door. As Wylla sat down on the bench with her arms about the two guards, Aybas heard a noise from within the hut.
"Who is there?"
"By Mitra's beard, it is Lord Aybas. I bear dire news."
A squeak like a trapped mouse was all that Aybas had of reply. He cursed softly.
"Must I tell it for all the Pougoi, and perhaps the Star Brothers, to hear? Or may I enter and speak privily?"
After a moment that seemed to pass like the melting of a glacier, Aybas heard the bar lift. He thrust the door open and strode in, past the waiting woman. She let out another squeak, then was silent as Raihna put a hand over her mouth and showed her the dagger in the other.
The princess was still awake. The babe was sleeping, until the moment when strange folk burst into his mother's chamber, at which he awoke with a wail fit to rouse sleepers all over the valley.
The piper's music whistled softly. Then it seemed to sing with no words, but soft and soothing nevertheless. The wails diminished, and at last ceased. As the princess picked up the babe, his eyes drifted shut and he slept again.
"He has taken no harm?" Chienna said, shifting him to one arm. The other was clenched at her waist, and she seemed to wish it held steel.
"Here, Your Highness," Aybas said. He drew his second dagger from his boot and handed it to the princess. She stared at it, then at Raihna, and nearly dropped the sleeping baby.
"He will come to more harm from being dropped than from my music," Marr said. "He only sleeps, and will sleep until it is safe for him to wake."
"Safe¦ ?" Princess Chienna appeared to be mazed in her wits. Aybas gritted his teeth. Why did women of sense seem to lose that sense at precisely the worst time?
"Your Highness, I¦ we are come to take you and Prince Urras to your father. The king is alive and well, although in hiding. With you and your son by his side, the realm will rally to his banner."
The princess shook her head, making her long black hair dance about her shoulders, white and gleaming where the bedgown revealed them. The ge
sture seemed to end her confusion.
"Allow me to don suitable apparel, then, good people," she said with regal dignity. "It will be neither seemly nor safe to walk through the mountains in my night shift."
With an imperious gesture, she summoned her waiting woman. Raihna released the servant, and the two women vanished into the bedchamber, leaving Raihna holding the baby. As if by instinct, she began gently rocking him, and her face as she looked at the sleeping prince told Aybas a whole tale of matters that would never reach the Bossonian's lips.
The princess and her waiting woman were out of the bedchamber in less time than Aybas would have given to carving a joint of good beef. It only seemed like sufficient time for the moon to set and dawn to break across the mountains.
The princess was dressed in a Pougoi warrior's attire, with an arrangement of leather thongs and fleeces across her back for the babe.
Aybas had not known that she possessed either, and his opinion of her and her house rose further.
Very surely, he had wagered on the wrong horse whilst serving Syzambry.
If he gained no other reward from his change of allegiance, he would at least die with a better opinion of his own judgment.
Aybas stepped to the door. Wylla now had one of the guards' heads lolling on her breasts. The other had fallen off the bench. She had undone his trousers to give him a more convincing appearance of revelry.
"Is all well?"
Wylla shrugged, which lifted her breasts most interestingly. It also sent the guard sprawling off the bench to join his comrade.
Aybas took the shrug for "yes" and motioned the others to come out. The princess held back. The Aquilonian started to address her in terms unfit for royal ears when he saw that she was pointing at her waiting woman. The piper nodded and began to play.
The music could not have reached even into the bedchamber, but Aybas felt it in his bones. They were turning soft and warm, like fresh porridge, within him. His eyelids were vastly heavy; he needed to grip a post of the porch to uphold himself”
The music ended abruptly. Aybas stood unaided, opened his eyes, and saw the waiting woman sprawled on the floor. He made a gesture of aversion.
"It was either my music or a blow," the piper said. "Or leave her to face sacrifice to the beast."
Aybas swallowed whatever he had begun to say. He held out a hand to Wylla, and she took it. He realized that this was the first time he had ever touched her.
Then such thoughts flew from his mind as he heard the drums and trumpets of the Star Brothers sounding the alarm to the valley.
Conan covered the last few paces of his path along the cliff in a brief space of darkness as clouds hid the moon. When light returned, he lay on the roof of the hut, watching Thyrin approach the guards.
"Ho, friends. How fare you this night?" Thyrin greeted the men.
"Well enough," one of the archers grunted. "What of you, to be about the camp at this hour?" The suspicion in his voice shouted to the Cimmerian.
Suspicion had not yet led to drawn weapons when Conan struck. His first weapon was a fist-sized stone, flung hard at the back of the archer's head. The man wore a helmet, but the force of Conan's throw would have cracked an oak plank. It pierced the helmet, shattered the skull within, and flung the archer forward against a comrade.
Thyrin's sword whirled. The second guard's chest gaped. He dropped his spear and clutched at the wound with both hands. His mouth was still open in a soundless scream when a second swordcut swept his head from his shoulders.
Conan leaped from the roof onto the remaining guards. They were standing so close that he drove them both to the ground with force enough to leave them half-stunned. He finished them with his dagger.
Conan's dagger also made quick work of the knotted thong that held the bar of the hut door in place. As he heaved the door open, it groaned.
Conan wrinkled his nose at the reek from within.
"Stinks like the Aghrapur stews in here," he muttered as his eyes tried to penetrate the mephitic gloom and reach Oyzhik. When they did, the Cimmerian muttered again, and in soldier's language.
Oyzhik lay sprawled on foul straw, an empty wine cup by his outflung hand. All the smells told a plain tale of how he had been spending his captivity. At least he would give no trouble; Conan only hoped that the man had not altogether drunk away his wits.
The Cimmerian had to stoop to enter the hut, stoop further to lift the drink-sodden Oyzhik onto his massive shoulders. As he rose and turned toward the door, he saw Thyrin pointing with one hand and gesturing for silence with the other.
From the doorway, Conan saw the danger. A band of guards was marching from the longhouse, past the watchfire. Conan counted at least four of them, no doubt the relief for the guards just slain.
There was no way past the men without a fight. So best to begin it on his own terms and at his own time. Without ceremony, Conan slid Oyzhik to the ground and drew his sword.
"Hayaaaaahhhhh!"
The guards heard a war cry more dreadful than any they had ever imagined. They saw a giant figure hurling itself at them, and panic chained their limbs. Then the giant was among them, wielding a sword that seemed longer than a man was tall, at least to those who lived long enough to see it at all.
Two of the guards did not. They died at once, their skulls split from crown to eyebrows. The other two were killed as they ran. One of them screamed as he died. It was the scream, joined to Conan's war cry, that brought other guards to the longhouse door.
They did not advance into the open, however. To their sleep-muddled vision, the enemy seemed more than human. They were certain that the Hairy Man of the Mountains had come out of legend to avenge their abandoning his cult.
"The Star Brothers lied!" one man screamed.
"Forgive us, oh Great Hairy Lord!" another wailed.
Conan did not stop to correct their mistake. He lunged at the door, slammed it in the faces of the bemused guards, and wedged a long of firewood under it. Then he caught up a burning brand from the watchfire, whirled it about his head, and flung it high into the dry thatch of the longhouse.
By the time he rejoined Thyrin and Oyzhik at the hut door, the roof was well alight. The crackling of the flames mounted as Conan heaved Oyzhik onto his shoulders again.
When he straightened, the thunder of drums and the cry of trumpets had overwhelmed the crackle of flames. Thyrin cursed.
"I prayed for silence, but the gods
"Leave the gods well enough alone," Conan snapped. "How fast we can run matters more now."
"I am no cripple, Cimmerian," Thyrin said. "But I warn you. The paths through the village or to the way you entered the valley will be guarded now. There is another way out, and indeed an easier one for women or those carrying burdens
"Then lead me to it," Conan growled. He thought of handing Oyzhik to Thyrin to silence the man, then thought better of it. Conan was younger, and also less likely to drop the prisoner into a well "by mischance."
"I will, but I will also pray to the gods that Marr the Piper knows of the way and is bound for it even now."
"One more riddle Conan said.
"No riddle," Thyrin said. "Simply the truth. The way is easy enough once one is on it. But to reach the foot of it, one must cross the dam that holds in the beast's lake. The top of the dam is but a man's height above the water, well within the reach of the beast."
Conan's horror of sorcery made his heart leap for a moment. Then he shrugged, settling his burden into a more bearable position.
"I've been in reach of worse than your star-beast and cut my way out again," he said. "Lead where you must, my friend."
Chapter 15
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It was not long after the alarm was raised that Aybas knew their retreat was cut off. At least the princess would not have to struggle with the cliff while carrying the babe on her back.
When he learned of the other way out of the valley, Aybas nearly lost hope altogether. Now they fa
ced an easy climb, but to reach it, they had to pass close to the worst of all possible foes. The beast of the Star Brothers would surely be awake and hungry before they could be out of its reach.
"Perhaps," Marr said. "But think on this. If we are beyond the beast before it wakes fully, it will be a good rear guard to us. Not even the Star Brothers can altogether master the beast when it is fully awake, hungry, or enraged."
"How do we keep it from awakening before we are safely past?" the princess asked.'
"I have knowledge that may help us," the piper said, touching the pipes at his waist.
The look on Chienna's face reminded Aybas of the Cimmerian's countenance when magic was mentioned. It was dawning on her just how wholly at the mercy of sorcery they were on this night. Aybas did not doubt that his own face mirrored the princess's.
For two moons he had dreamed of finding a place beyond the reach of the Star Brothers and their evil magic. Now he might be on his way to such a place. But the road to it would lead through still more magic”magic that might in the end be as unclean as the Star Brothers'. So be it.
The alternative was to remain in the valley until the Pougoi killed him. Aybas believed that he had some punishment yet to come for serving Count Syzambry, but he would rather it did not come tonight.
"Very well," he told Marr. "You take the lead. Raihna, guard Marr.
Wylla, guide us as needed. Princess, see to your babe before all else.
I will guard the rear."
How easy it was to once again give orders instead of take them. Aybas knew that if he lived through the night, he would be fit for at least a captaincy in the hosts of the Border Kingdom.
The dam loomed against the stars, ten times Conan's height. He studied the dam's face, finding no stairs but sufficient hand and footholds for swift climbing.
"By Erlik's beard, how did the Pougoi find the hands to build this?"
"The Star Brothers found their beast," Thyrin said. "It gave them knowledge. They used that knowledge to raise the stones of the dam, and more knowledge to bind the stones together."
The near presence of so much magic made the night seem even colder.
The Conan Compendium Page 354