Soundlessly Conan slipped through the slit. The first announcement of his presence Tamira received was his hand closing over her mouth. His free arm encircled her, pinning her arms and lifting her before she had time to do more than gasp into his palm. She had dropped the gems, he saw, but that was the end of his moment of peace. Tamira exploded into a wriggling, kicking, biting bundle. And footsteps were approaching the front of the tent.
With a muttered oath the Cimmerian ducked back through the slit with his struggling burden. Behind the tent was no place to stop, however, not if someone was going to enter the tent, not with Tamira as likely as not to scream that he had been thieving. Cursing under his breath, he scrambled down the stony slope until he found a clump of scrub brush that hid them from the camp. There he tried to set her down, but she kicked him fiercely on the ankle, rocks slid beneath his foot, and he found himself on the ground with Tamira beneath him, her eyes starting from her head from the force of the fall.
“You great oaf!” she wheezed after a moment. “Do you try to break my ribs?”
“I did not kick myself,” he growled. “I thought we agreed to leave in the night. What were you doing in Jondra’s tent?”
“Nothing was said about the rubies,” she retorted. “I haven’t changed my plans for them, even if you have. Perhaps,” she finished angrily, “you find what Jondra gives you more valuable than rubies, but as I am not a man I have a different view of the matter.”
“Leave Jondra out of this,” he snapped. “And do not try to change the subject. You have a horse waiting this very instant.”
Tamira shifted uneasily beneath him, and her eyes slid away from his. “I wanted to be ready,” she muttered. “For the night.”
“Do you think I’m a fool,” he said, “that I take you for a fool? The saddle cannot escape discovery till nightfall. But if someone planned to steal the rubies and leave the camp within the turn of a glass … . You could not have been planning such a thing, could you?”
“They would not have held you to blame.” Her tone was sullenly excusatory. “Jondra would not blame you if she found you with the rubies in your pouch. And if she did, it would be less than you deserve.”
“Jondra,” he breathed. “Always Jondra. What is it to you whose bed I share? You and I are not lovers.”
Tamira’s large brown eyes grew even wider. Scarlet suffused her cheeks, and her mouth worked for a long moment before sound finally came out. “We most certainly are not!” she gasped. “How dare you suggest such a thing? Let me up! Get off me, you great ox! Let me up, I say!” Her small fists punctuated her words, pounding at his shoulders, but suddenly her fingers had tangled in his hair, and she was pressing her lips to his.
Conan blinked once in surprise, then returned her kiss with as much fervor as she was putting into it. “Don’t think this will convince me to stay,” he said when they broke apart for air. “I’m not such a fool.”
“If you stop,” she moaned, “then you are a fool.”
With one last silent reminder that he would not be a fool, Conan gave up talk and thought alike for pleasures at once simpler and more complex.
Chapter 13
He was not a fool, Conan told himself once more as he guided his horse along a trail halfway up a nameless peak on the fringe of the Kezankians. If he kept saying it, he thought he might convince himself in time. Before and behind him stretched the hunting party, all mounted and many leading pack animals, wending their way deeper into the hillman domains. The sun stood barely above the horizon. They had left the camp in the hills before the first glimmer of dawn. The ox-carts with the wounded would be on their way back to Shadizar.
Lost in his own thoughts, Conan was surprised to find that Jondra had reined aside to await him. He had not spoken to her since she turned her back on him, but he noted that at least she was smiling now.
She drew her horse in beside his. The trail was wide enough for the animals to walk abreast. “The day is fine, is it not?” she said brightly.
Conan merely looked at her.
“I hoped you would come to me in the night. No, I promised myself I would not say that.” Shyly she peered at him through lowered lashes. “I knew you could not leave me. That is … I thought … you did stay because of me, did you not?”
“I did,” he said glumly, but she appeared not to notice his tone.
“I knew it,” she said, her smile even more radiant than before. “Tonight we will put the past behind us once and for all.” With that she galloped up the line of mounted men to resume her place at their head.
Conan growled deep in his throat.
“What did she want?” Tamira demanded, guiding her mount up beside his. It was the same bay mare she had chosen out for her flight. She glared jealously after the noblewoman.
“Nothing of consequence,” Conan replied.
The young woman thief grunted contemptuously. ‘‘’Tis likely she thinks you are still here because of the over-generous charms she displays so freely. But you came because of me. Didn’t you?”
“I came for you,” Conan told her. “But unless you want to see how strongly Jondra wields a switch, you had best not let her see us talking too often.”
“Let her but try.”
“Then you intend to explain to her that you are not Lyana the handmaiden, but Tamira the thief?”
“If she faced me in a fair fight,” the slender woman began with a toss of her head, then broke off in a laugh. “But it is not talk I want from you. She can have that. Till tonight, Conan.”
The big Cimmerian sighed heavily as she let her horse fall behind his. It was no easy task he had ahead of him, and all because he could not allow a woman who had shared his bed—much less two of them—to enter the Kezankians while he rode back to Shadizar. He supposed those men who called themselves civilized and him barbarian could have managed it easily. It was beyond him, though, and his pride was enough to make him believe he could bring both safely out of the mountains. Of course, he knew, soon or late each woman would find out about the other. At that point, he was sure, he would rather face all the hillmen of the Kezankians than those two females.
The thought of hillmen brought him back to his surroundings. If he did not keep watch, they might not even make it fully into the mountains, much less out. His eyes scanned the steep brown mountain slopes around him, dotted with tress bizarrely sculpted by wind and harsh clime. He searched the jagged peaks ahead. No signs of life did he discern, but the breeze brought a sound to him, faint yet disturbing. It came from behind.
He reined his horse around to look back, and felt the hair stir on the back of his neck. Far below and far distant among the foothills a battle raged. He could make out little save dust rising as smoke from the hills and the small forms of men swarming like ants, yet for an instant he saw what he could swear was a Zamoran honor standard atop a hill. Then it was ridden down, and the men who rode over it wore turbans. Most of the other shapes he could make out were turbanned as well.
“What is the matter?” Jondra shouted, galloping down the trail. She had to force her way through a knot of hunters gathered behind Conan. “Why are you halted?”
“’Tis a battle, my lady,” Telades said, shading his eyes with one hand to peer down at the hills. “I cannot say who fights.”
“Hillmen,” Conan said. “From the look of it hillmen are killing some part of the Zamoran army.”
“Nonsense!” Arvaneus snapped. “The army would sweep any hillman rabble aside. Besides, the tribes never gather in such numbers, and … and … .” The force of his words weakened as he spoke, and he finished lamely with, “It is impossible to make out details at this distance. That could be anyone fighting. Perhaps it is not a battle at all.”
“Perhaps it is a folk dance,” Conan said dryly.
Jondra touched his arm. “Is there aught we can do to aid them?”
“Not even if we had wings,” the big Cimmerian replied.
Relief was writ plain on the faces
of the hunters at his reply, but it was relief tinged with fear. It was all very well to talk of entering the Kezankians and risking the wrath of the hill tribes. To actually see that wrath, even at a distance, was something else, and most especially when it seemed to be dealt out by more hillmen than a man might expect to see in a lifetime of roaming the mountains.
Jondra looked from face to face, then put on a smile. “If so many hillmen are down there, then we shall have the mountains to ourselves.” Her words had little effect on the hunters’ expressions. A raven appeared, flying around the side of the mountain. “There,” Jondra said, drawing her bow from its lacquered case behind her saddle. “Should there be a hillman or two left in the mountains, we’ll deal with them as easily as this.” Her bowstring slapped against her forearm leather; the raven’s wings folded, and the bird dropped like a stone. Conan thought he heard her mutter something about “Brythunian” as she recased her bow. “Now let us ride,” she commanded, and galloped back up the trail.
Slowly the column of hunters formed again behind the noblewoman. As Tamira passed Conan, she gave him an anxious, wide-eyed look. Perhaps he was a fool, he thought, but he could be no other than what he was. With a reassuring smile for the young woman thief, he joined the file of horsemen picking its way up the mountain.
Eldran ran a judicious eye over the two score men following him through a field of boulders deeper into the mountains, and said, “We stop for a rest.”
“About time,” said a round-cheeked man with gray streaking the long hair that was held back from his face by a leather cord. “We’ve ridden since before first light, and I’m not so young as I once was.”
“If you tell me about your old bones one more time, Haral,” Eldran laughed, and the others joined in, though their laughter was strained. Haral’s age and plumpness were belied by the scars on his face, and the wolf whose fur trimmed his cloak had been slain with his bare hands. “A short stop only,” Eldran went on. “These mountains feel ill, and I would be done with what we came for and out of them quickly.”
That cooled their mirth, as he had intended it should. The laugh had been good for easing the disquiet, and perhaps more than disquiet, that had fallen over them all since they entered the mountains, but they must be ever mindful of what they were about and where they were if they were to leave with their lives.
As the others sat or lay or even walked a bit to stretch their legs, Eldran reclined with his reins wrapped loosely about one hand. He had had his own difficulties in keeping his mind cleanly on his purpose in the Kezankians. Even through the unease that hung about him like a miasma, a tall Zamoran beauty with arrogance enough for a score of kings had a way of intruding on his thoughts when he was not careful. But was she truly Zamoran, he wondered. Her manner, acting as if she ruled whatever ground she stood on, said yes. But those eyes. Like the mists of morning clinging to the oaks of the forest. No Zamoran ever had such eyes, as gray as his own.
Angrily he reminded himself of his purpose, to avenge his brother and those who went with him into the Kezankians, never to return. And to avenge as well those who had died attempting to defend their farmholds against the beast of fire. To make certain that more deaths did not come from the beast. If he and every man with him died, it would be small price for success. They had all agreed to that before ever they left Brythunia.
A raven circled high above him. Like the bird he and Jondra had shot, he thought. Angrily he leaped to his feet. Could nothing put the woman from his mind? Well, he would not be reminded of her longer by that accursed bird. He pulled his bow from its wolf-hide case behind his saddle.
“Eldran!” From a space clear of boulders higher on the mountain, a bony man with a pointed nose waved to him frantically. “Come quickly, Eldran!”
‘‘What is it, Fyrdan?” Eldran called back, but he was scrambling up the slope as he spoke. Fyrdan was not one to become excited over nothing. Others of the band followed.
“There,” the bony man said, flinging out an arm to point as Eldran joined him.
Eldran cupped his hands beside his eyes to improve his seeing, but there was little to make out save boiling dust and the tiny figures of struggling men on the hills far below. “Hillmen,” he said finally.
“And Zamorans,” Fyrdan added. “I saw the banner their general carried go down.”
Slowly Eldran’s hands dropped to his sides. “Forgive me, Jondra,” he said softly.
“Perhaps the soldiers had not fetched her yet,” Haral said. “Perhaps these are the other soldiers we saw.”
Eldran shook his head. “The others were further west. And I watched their camp until their general left to find her.”
“A Zamoran wench,” Fyrdan said scornfully. “There are plenty of good Brythunian women eager for a tumble with … .” His words trailed off under Eldran’s glare.
“We will speak no more of the woman,” the gray-eyed man said. “We will talk of other things, things that must be said. We have tracked the beast here to its home ground, and its spoor is on the mountains themselves. The very rocks are baneful, and the air reeks of maleficence. Let no man say he has not felt it as I have.”
“Next you will be claiming second sight,” Haral grumbled, then added with a chuckle, “Unless you’ve changed greatly since last we swam together, you cannot qualify to become a priestess.” No one echoed his jollity; grave eyes watched Eldran, who went on in grim tones.
“I have no need of second sight to scent death. Who follows me from here must resign himself that his bones will go unanointed. I will not think ill of any man who turns back, but let him do it now.”
“Do you turn back?” Haral asked gently. Eldran shook his head. “Then,” the plump man said, “I will not either. I am old enough to choose the place of my dying, an it comes to that.”
“My brother rode with yours, Eldran,” Fyrdan said. “My blood burns as hot for vengeance as yours.” One by one the others made it known that they, too, would go on, and Eldran nodded.
“Very well,” he said simply. “What will come, will come. Let us ride.”
The raven was gone, he saw as he made his way back down to the trail. Birds of ill omen, they were, yet he could not find gladness in him for its absence. It had reminded him of Jondra, and whether she lived or no he could not think he would ever see her again. But then, he thought bleakly, there would be ravens beyond counting deeper in the Kezankians, and bones aplenty for them to pick.
Chapter 14
Basrakan Imalla stalked the floor of his oakenpaneled chamber with head bowed as if his multi-hued turban were too heavy. His blood-red robes swirled with the agitation of his pacing. So many worries weighing on his shoulders, he thought. The path of holiness was not an easy one. There was the matter of another dead raven in the next chamber. Men, it had said before dying. But how many, and where? And to have two of the birds slain in only a few days. Did someone know of the ravens’ function? Someone inimical to him? Another had reported men as well. Not soldiers; the birds could distinguish them. But the inability to count meant there could be ten or a hundred. It might even be the same party seen by the dead raven. He would have to increase his patrols and find these interlopers, however many groups of them there were.
At least the bird that accompanied the men he had sent against the soldiers had reported victory. No, not merely victory. Annihilation. But even with that came burdens. The warriors he had sent forth camped now, so said the raven. Squabbling among themselves over the looting of the dead, no doubt. But they would return. They had to. He had given them a victory, a sign from the old gods.
Unbidden the true source of his worries rushed back to mock him, though he tried as he had so often in days past to force it from him. A sign from the old gods. The sign of the ancient gods’ favor. Seven times, now, he had tried to summon the drake, each attempt carefully hidden from the eyes even of his own acolytes, and seven times he had failed. Unrest grew in the camps for the lack of the showing. And those he had sent after th
e Eyes of Fire had not returned. Could the old gods have withdrawn their grace from him?
Wrapping his arms around him, he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Am I worthy, O gods of my forefathers?” he moaned. “Am I truly worthy?”
“Our question exactly, Imalla,” a voice growled.
Basrakan spun, and blinked to find three hillmen confronting him. He struggled to recover his equilibrium. As he drew himself up, two of the bearded men shrank back. “You dare disturb me?” he rasped. “How did you pass my guards?”
The man who had stood his ground, his mustaches curled like the horns of a bull, spoke. “Even among your guards there are doubts, Imalla.”
“You are called Walid,” Basrakan said, and a flicker of fear appeared in the other’s black eyes.
There were no sorceries involved, though. This Walid had been reported to him as one of the troublemakers, the questioners. It had taken him a moment to remember the man’s description. He had not thought the troublemaking had gone so far as this, however. But he had prepared for every eventuality.
With false calmness he tucked his hands into the long sleeves of his crimson robe. “What doubts do you have, Walid?”
The man’s thick mustache twitched at the repetition of his name, and he half turned his head as if looking for support from his companions. They remained well behind him, meeting neither his eyes nor Basrakan’s. Walid drew a deep breath. “We came here, many of us, because we heard the old gods favored you. Those who came before us speak of a fabulous beast, a sign of that favor, but I have seen no such creature. What I have seen is thousands of hillmen sent to battle Zamoran soldiers, who have ever before slaughtered us when we fought them in numbers. And I have seen none of those warriors return.”