All this Conan took in in an instant, but one sight among all the others drew his eyes. Jondra, drawn from her sleeping furs and naked save for a quiver slung over her shoulder, stood before her crimsonwalled tent, nocking arrows and firing as calmly as if she shot her bow at straw targets. And where her shafts went hillmen died.
Another had become aware of her, the Cimmerian saw. A hillman at the far end of the camp suddenly gave an ululating cry and kicked his mount into a gallop for the bare-skinned archer.
“Jondra!” Conan shouted, but even as he did he knew she could not hear above the tumult. Nor would all his speed take him to her side in time.
Tossing his sword to his left hand, he flung himself in two bounds back to the sentry who lay with his face a ruined mask staring at the sable sky. Ruthlessly he put a foot on the man’s outstretched arm, ripped free the heavy hunting spear from the death-grip that held it. With desperate quickness he straightened, turned and threw, freezing as the spear left his hand. No will or thought was left for motion, for all rode with that thick shaft. The hillman’s mount was but two strides from Jondra, his blade heartbeats from her back, but still she neither heard nor turned. And the hillman convulsed as a forearm-long blade transfixed his chest. His horse galloped on, and he slowly toppled backwards, falling like a sack before the woman he meant to slay. Jondra started as the body hit the ground almost at her feet, but for a moment continued to fumble at her empty quiver in search of another arrow. Abruptly she tossed aside her bow and snatched the tulwar from the dead man’s hand.
Conan found he could breathe again. He took a step toward her … and something sliced a line of fire across his back. The big youth threw himself into a forward roll and came to his feet searching for his attacker. There were men behind him, both hillmen and hunters, but all save Arvaneus and Telades were killing or being killed, and even as he looked they engaged turbanned foes. He had no time to seek out particular enemies, Conan thought. There were enough for all. The dark blood-rage rose in him, cold enough to burn.
When he turned back Jondra was gone, but thoughts of her were buried deep now in the battle-black of his mind. Some men are said to be born for battle; Conan had been born on the field of battle. The scent drawn in with his first breath had been the coppery smell of fresh-spilled blood. The first sound to greet his ears had been the clash of steel. The first sight his eye beheld had been ravens circling in the sky, waiting till living men departed and they ruled what remained.
With the battle fury that had been his birthright he strode through the flames and screams of the encampment, and death rode on his steel. He sought the turbanned men, the bearded men, and those he found went before Erlik’s Black Throne with eyes of azure fire their last memory of the world of men. His ancient broadsword flashed banefully in the light of burning tents, flashed till its encrimsoned length could flash no more, but seemed rather to eat light as it ate life. Men faced him, men fell before him, and at last men fled him.
The time came when he stood alone, and no turbans could his questing eye find but those on dead men. There were standing men, he realized as the haze of battle-rage thinned and cleared his eyes, Zamoran hunters gathered in a loose circle about him, staring in wonder tinged with fear. He turned to face each man in turn, and each fell back a step at his gaze. Even Arvaneus could not hold his ground, though his face flushed with anger when he realized what he had done.
“The hillmen?” Conan demanded hoarsely. He stripped the rough woolen cloak from a hillman’s corpse and wiped his blade clean.
“Gone,” Telades said in a high voice. He paused to clear his throat. “Some few fled, I think, but most … .” His gesture took in the entire hilltop, strewn with bodies and burned-out tents, illumined by flaming carts.”It was your work that saved us, Cimmerian.”
“Hannuman’s Stones!” Arvaneus roared. “Are you all women? It was your own arms saved you, swords in your own hands! If the barbar slew one or two, it was his skin he sought to save.”
“Do not speak the fool,” Telades retorted. “You of all men should not speak against him. Conan fought like a demon while the rest of us struggled to realize that we were awake, that it was not a nightmare we faced.” A murmur of agreement came from the circle of men.
Face twisted darkly, Arvaneus opened his mouth, but Conan cut him off. “If some of them escaped, they may return with others. We should be gone from this place, and quickly.”
“There stands your hero,” Arvaneus sneered. “Ready to run. Few hillman bands are larger than the number which attacked us, and most of them now wait for the worms. Who else will come against us? I, for one, think we slew all of the mountain dogs.”
“Some did flee,” Telades protested, but Arvaneus spoke on over him.
“I saw none escaping. If I had, they wouldn’t have lived to escape. If we run like rabbits, then like rabbits we run from shadows.”
“Your insults begin to disturb me, huntsman,” Conan said, hefting his sword. “In the past I have forborne killing you for one reason or another. Now, it is time for you to still your tongue, or I will still it for you.”
Arvaneus stared stiffly back at him, his tulwar twitching in his hand, but he did not speak. The other hunters moved back to give room.
Into the silence Jondra stepped, a robe of brocaded sky-blue silk covering her to the ankles and held tightly at her neck with both hands. She studied the two men confronting each other before speaking. “Conan, why do you think the hillmen will return?”
She was attempting to ignore the tension, the Cimmerian knew, and so disarm it, but he thought the answer to her question was more important than killing Arvaneus. “It is true that bands of hillmen are ususally small, but in Shadizar it is said the Kezankian tribes are gathering. The soldiers we saw marching north bear this out, for it is also said the army is being sent to deal with them. To go risks nothing; to stay risks that the few who fled may bring back a thousand more.”
“A thousand!” the hawk-faced man snorted. “My lady, it is well known how the hill tribes war constantly with one another. A thousand hillmen in one place would kill each other in the space of a day. And if, by some miracle, so many were gathered together, their attention would surely be on the soldiers. In any case, I cannot believe in this bazaar rumor of a gathering of the tribes. It goes against all that I know of the hillmen.”
Jondra nodded thoughtfully, then asked, “And our injured? How many are they, and how badly hurt?”
“Many nicks and cuts, my lady,” Arvaneus told her, “but only fourteen hurt badly enough to be accounted as wounded, and but two of those seriously.” He hesitated. “Eleven are dead, my lady.”
“Eleven,” she sighed, and her eyes closed.
“’Twould have been more, my lady, save for Conan,” Telades said, and Arvaneus rounded on him.
“Cease your chatter of the barbar, man!”
“Enough!” Jondra barked. Her voice stilled the hunters on the instant. “I will reach a decision on what is to be done tomorrow. For now the wounded must be tended, and the fires put out. Arvaneus, you will see to it.” She paused to take a deep breath, looking at no one.”Conan, come to my tent. Please?” The last word was forced, and as she said it she turned away quickly, her robe flaring to give a glimpse of bare thighs, and hurried from the circle of men.
Conan’s visits to Jondra’s tent and sleeping furs had been an open secret, but an unacknowledged one. Studiously the men all avoided looking at Conan, or at each other, for that matter. Arvaneus seemed stunned. Tamira alone met his eyes, and she glared daggers.
With a shake of his head for the vagaries of women, the big Cimmerian sheathed his sword and followed Jondra.
She was waiting for him in her scarlet tent. As he ducked through the tent-flap, she slipped the silk robe from her shoulders, and he found his arms full of sleek bare skin. Full breasts bored into his ribs as she clutched at him, burying her head against his broad chest.
“I … I should not have spoken as I d
id earlier,” she murmured. ‘‘I do not doubt what you saw, and I do not want you to stay away from my bed.”
“It is well you believe me,” he said, smoothing her hair, “for I saw as I said. But now is no time to speak of that.” She sighed and snuggled closer, if that was possible. “It is time to speak of turning back. Your hunters have taken grievous hurt from the hillmen, and you are yet a day from the mountains. Do you enter the mountains with carts and oxen, you’ll not escape further attention from the tribes. Your men will be slain, and you will find yourself the slave of an unwashed tribesman whose wives will beat you constantly for your beauty. At least, they will until the harsh life and the labor leaches your youth as it does theirs.”
Word by word she had stiffened in his arms. Now she pushed herself from him, staring up at him incredulously. “It has been long years,” she said in breathless fury, “since I apologized to any man, and never have I b … asked one to my bed before you. Whatever I expected for doing so, it was not to be lectured.”
“It must be spoken of.” He found it hard to ignore the heavy, round breasts that confronted him, the tiny waist that flared into generous hips and long legs, but he forced himself to speak as if she were draped in layers of thick wool. “The hillmen are roused. Ants might escape their notice, but not men. And should you find this beast you hunt, remember that it is a hunter as well, and one that kills with fire. How many men will you see roasted alive to put a trophy on your wall?”
“A folk tale,” she scoffed. “If hillmen cannot frighten me off, do you think I will run before a myth?”
“Eldran,” he began with a patience he no longer felt, but her screach cut him off.
“No! I will not hear of that … that Brythunian!” Panting, she struggled to gain control of herself. At last she drew herself up imperiously. “I did not summon you here for argument. You will come to my bed and speak only of what we do, or you will leave me.”
Conan’s anger coiled to within a hair’s breadth of erupting, but he managed to keep his reply to a mocking, “As my lady wishes.” And he turned his back on her nudity.
Her furious cries followed him into the fading night, echoing across the camp. “Conan! Come back here, Mitra blast you! You cannot leave me like this! I command you to return, Erlik curse you forever!”
No man looked up from his labor, but it was clear from the intensity with which they minded their work that none was deaf. Those prodding burning bundles from the carts with spears abruptly redoubled their efforts to save what had not already caught fire. The newly set sentries suddenly peered at the failing shadows as if each hid a hillman.
Tamira was passing among the wounded, lying in a row on blankets in the middle of the camp, holding a waterskin to each man’s mouth. She looked up with a bright smile as he passed. “So you’ll sleep alone again tonight, Cimmerian,” she said sweetly. “A pity.” Conan did not look at her, but a scowl darkened his face.
One of the carts had been abandoned to burn, and flaming bundles lay scattered about the others. The fat cook capered among the men, waving a pewter tray over his head and complaining loudly at their use of his implements for shoveling dirt onto the fires. Conan took the tray from the rotund man’s hands and bent beside Telades to dig at the rocky soil.
The shaven-headed hunter eyed him sideways for a time, then said carefully, “There are few men would walk out on her without reason.”
Instead of answering the unasked question, Conan snarled, “I’ve half a mind to tie her to her horse so you can lead her back to Shadizar.”
“You’ve half a mind if you think that you could,” Telades said, throwing a potful of dirt and small stones on a fiery bale, “or that we would. The Lady Jondra decides where to go, and we follow.”
“Into the Kezankians?” Conan said incredulously. “With the tribes stirring? The army didn’t come north for the weather.”
“I’ve served the House Perashanid,” the other man said slowly, “since I was a boy, and my father before me, and his before him. The Lady Jondra is the house, now, for she is the last. I cannot desert her. But you could, I suppose. In fact, perhaps you should.”
“And why would I do that?” Conan asked drily.
Telades answered as though the question had been serious. “Not all spears are thrown by the enemies you expect, northlander. If you do stay, watch your back.”
Conan paused in the act of stooping for more dirt. So the spear that grazed his back had not been cast by a hillman’s hand. Arvaneus, no doubt. Or perhaps some other, long in the Perashanid’s service, who did not like the last daughter of the house bedding a landless warrior. That was all he needed. An enemy behind him—at least one—and the hillmen surrounding. Tomorrow, he decided, he would make one last try at convincing Jondra to turn back. And Tamira, as well. There were gems aplenty in Shadizar for her to steal. And if they would not, he would leave them and go back alone. Furiously he scooped dirt onto the tray and hurled it at the flames. He would! Erlik take him if he did not.
In the gray dawn Djinar stared at the pitiful following that remained to him. Five men with shocked eyes and no horses.
“It was the giant,” Sharmal muttered. His turban was gone, and his face was streaked with dirt, and dried blood from a scalp wound. His eye focused on something none of the rest could see. “The giant slew who he would. None could face him.” No one tried to quiet him, for the mad were touched by the old gods, and under their protection.
“Does any man think we can yet take the Eyes of Fire from the Zamoran woman?” Djinar asked tiredly. Blank stares answered him.
“He cut off Farouz’s hand,” Sharmal said. “The blood spurted from Farouz’s arm as he rode into the night to die.”
Djinar ignored the youth. “And does any man doubt the price we will pay for failing Basrakan Imalla’s command?” Again the four who retained their senses kept silent, but again the answer was in their dark eyes, colored now by a tinge of horror.
Sharmal began to weep. “The giant was a spirit of the earth. We have displeased the true gods, and they sent him to punish us.”
“It is decided, then.” Djinar shook his head. He would leave much behind, including his favorite saddle and two young wives, but such could be more easily replaced than blood from a man’s veins. “In the south the tribes have not yet heeded Basrakan’s call. They care only for raiding the caravans to Sultanapur and Aghrapur. We will go there. Better the risk no one will take us in than the certainty of Basrakan’s anger.”
He did not see Sharmal move, but suddenly the young man’s fist thudded against his chest. He looked down, perplexed that his breath seemed short. The blow had not been that hard. Then he saw the hilt of a dagger in the fist. When he raised his eyes again, the other four were gone, unwilling to meddle in the affairs of a madman.
“You have been attainted, Djinar,” Sharmal said in a tone suitable for instructing a child.”Better this than that you should flee the will of the true gods. Surely you see that. We must return to Basrakan Imalla, who is a holy man, and tell him of the giant.”
He had been right, Djinar thought. Death had been in that camp. He could smell it still. He opened his mouth to laugh, and blood poured out.
Chapter 12
Amid the lengthening shadows of mid-afternoon, some semblance of normality had returned to the hunter’s camp. The fires were out, and those carts that could not be salvaged had been pushed to the bottom of the hill, along with supplies too badly burned for use. Most of the wounded were on their feet, if not ready for another battle, and the rest soon would be. The dead—including now the two most seriously wounded—had been buried in a row on the hillside, with cairns of stones laid atop their graves to keep the wolves from them. Zamoran dead, at least, had been treated so. Vultures and ravens squawked and contended beyond the next hill, where the corpses of hillmen had been dragged.
Sentries were set now not only about the hilltop camp itself, but on the hills surrounding. Those distant watchers, mounted so t
hey could bring an alarm in time to be useful, had been Conan’s idea. When he put the notion forward Jondra ignored it, and Arvaneus scorned it, but the sentries were placed, if without acknowledgement to the Cimmerian.
It was not for pique, however, that Conan stalked through the camp with a face like a thunderhead. He cared nothing who got credit for the sentries, so long as they were placed. But all day Jondra had avoided him. She had hurried about checking the wounded, checking the meals the cook prepared, meddling in a score of tasks she would normally have dismissed once she ordered them done. All in the camp save Conan she had kept at the run. And every particle of it, he knew, was to keep from talk with him.
Tamira trotted by in her short white tunic, intently balancing a flagon of wine and a goblet on a tray, and Conan caught her arm. “I can’t stop now,” she said distractedly. “She wants this right away, and the way she’s been today I have no wish to be slow.” Suddenly the slender thief chuckled. ‘‘Perhaps it would have been better for us all if you hadn’t slept alone last night.”
‘‘Never mind that,” Conan growled.”It’s time for leaving, Tamira. Tomorrow will see us in the mountains.”
“Is that what you said to Jondra to anger her so?” Her face tightened. “Did you ask her to go back with you, too?”
“Fool girl, will you listen? A hunting trophy is no reason to risk death at the hands of hillmen, nor are those gems.”
“What of Jondra?” she said suspiciously. “She won’t turn back.”
“If I can’t talk her into it, I will go without her. Will you come?”
Tamira bit her full under-lip and studied his face from beneath her lashes. Finally, she nodded. “I will. It must be in the night, though, while she sleeps. She’ll not let me leave her service, if she knows of it. What would she do without a handmaiden to shout at? But what of your own interest in the rubies, Cimmerian?”