"Have you gone mad, woman?" he shouted. For an answer she sank her teeth into his shoulder. "Crom!"
He hurled her away from him. She rolled across the ground and bounded to her feet. Still, he saw wonderingly, gripping the rusty sword.
"I need no man to protect me!" she spat. "I"m not some pampered concubine!"
"Who said you were?" he roared.
Then he had to jerk his sword free of its scabbard as she rushed at him with a howl of pure rage. Her green eyes burned, and her face was twisted with fury. He swung up his sword to block her downward slash.
With a sharp snap the rusty scimitar broke, leaving her to stare in disbelief at the bladeless hilt in her hands.
Almost without a pause she hurled the useless hilt at his face and spun to dash for the dead men by the well. Their weapons still lay about them. Conan darted after her, and as she bent to s.n.a.t.c.h another scimitar, he swung the flat of his blade with all his strength at the tempting target thus offered. She lifted up on her toes with a strangled shriek as the steel paddle cracked against her rounded nates.
Arms windmilling, she staggered forward, her foot slipping in a pool of blood, and screaming she plunged headfirst over the crude stone wall of the well.
Conan dived as she went over; his big hand closed on flesh, and he was dragged to his armpits into the well by the weight of her. He discovered he was holding the red-haired wench by one ankle while she dangled over the depths. An interesting view, he thought.
"Derketo take you!" she howled. "Pull me up, you motherless whelp!"
"In Shadizar," he said conversationally, "I saved you a mauling. You called me a barbar boy, let a man near take my head off, and left without a word of thanks."
"Son of a diseased camel! Sp.a.w.n of a bagnio! Pull me up!"
"Now here," he went on as if she had not spoken, "all I did was save you from rape, certainly, perhaps from being sold on the slave block.
Or maybe they"d just have slit your throat once they were done with you." She wriggled violently, and he edged further over the rim to let her drop another foot. Her scream echoed up the stone cylinder. She froze into immobility.
"You had no thought of saving me," she rasped breathlessly. "You"d have ridden off to leave me if those dogs hadn"t tried you."
"All the same, if I had ridden on, or if they"d killed me, you"d be wondering what you"d fetch at market."
"And you want a reward," she half wept. "Derketo curse you, you smelly barbar oaf?"
"That"s the second time you"ve called me that," he said grimly. "What I want from you is an oath, by Derketo since you call on the G.o.ddess of love and death. An oath that you"ll never again let an uncivil word pa.s.s your lips toward me, and that you"ll never again raise a hand against me."
"Hairy lout! Dung-footed barbar! Do you think you can force me to-"
He cut her off. "My hand is getting sweaty. I wouldn"t wait too long.
You might slip." Silence answered him. "Or then again, I might grow tired of waiting."
"I will swear." Her voice was suddenly soft and sensuously yielding.
"Pull me up, and I"ll swear on my knees to anything you command."
"Swear first," he replied. "I"d hate to have to toss you back in.
Besides, I like the view." He thought he heard the sound of a small fist smacking the stone wall of the well in frustration, and smiled.
"You untrusting ape," she snarled with all her old ferocity. "Very well. I swear, by Derketo, that I"ll speak no uncivil word to you, nor raise a hand against you. I swear it. Are you satisfied?"
He hoisted her straight up out of the well, and let her drop on the hard ground with a thud and a grunt.
"You...." She bit her lip and glared up at him from the ground. "You didn"t have to be so rough," she said in a flat tone. Instead of answering, he unfastened his swordbelt, propping the scabbard against the well. "What-what are you doing?"
"You spoke of a reward." He stepped out of his breechclout. "Since I doubt a word of thanks will ever crack your teeth, I"m collecting my own reward."
"So you"re nothing but a ravisher of women after all," she said bitterly.
"That was close to an uncivil word, wench. And no ravishment. All you need to do is say, "stop," and you"ll leave this place as chaste as a virgin for all of me."
He lowered himself onto her, and though she beat at his shoulders with her fists and filled the air with vile curses the word "stop" never once pa.s.sed her lips, and soon her cries changed their nature, for she was a woman fully fledged, and he knew something of women.
After he regained his clothes and his weapons while she rummaged among the dead men"s things to cover herself. Her own garments, she said, had been ripped to shreds. He noted that this time she inspected the weapons carefully before selecting one, but he had no worries at turning his back on her even after she had belted it on. When she had been turning the air blue, not one of her curses had been directed at him. If she could keep her oath then, he was sure she would keep it now.
Once he had filled his goatskin waterbags, he swung into his saddle.
"Hold a moment," she called. "What"s your name?" She had clothed herself in flowing pantaloons of bright yellow and an emerald tunic that was far too tight across the chest, though loose elsewhere. A braided gold cord held her auburn mane back from her face. He had seen her dig it out from the purse of one of the dead men.
"Conan," he said. "Conan of Cimmeria. And you?"
"My name is Karela," she said proudly, "of whatever land I happen to be standing on. Tell me, these pilgrims you seek, they have something of great value? I don"t see you as a holy man, Conan of Cimmeria."
If he told her about the pendants, she would no doubt want to go with him. From the way she had handled her sword he was sure she could pull her weight, but even so he did not want her along. Let her get a sniff of ten thousand pieces of gold, and he would have to sleep with both eyes open, oath or no. He was sure of that, too.
"Valuable only to a man in Shadizar," he said casually. "A dancing girl who ran away with these pilgrims. Or maybe they stole her. Whatever, the man"s besotted with her, and he"ll pay five gold pieces to have her back."
"Not much for a ride in this country. There are harder bandits about than these dog stealers." She nodded to the bodies, where Conan had dragged them, well away from the water.
"I seek pilgrims, not bandits," he laughed. "They won"t put up much fight. Farewell, Karela." He turned to ride away, but her next words made him draw rein.
"Don"t you want to know where these pilgrims of yours are?"
He stared at her, and she looked back with green eyes innocently wide.
"If you know where they are, why didn"t you speak of it before? For that matter, why speak of it now? I can"t see you volunteering help to me."
"Those jackals... made a fool of me." She grimaced, but the open look returned to her face quickly. "I was mad, Conan. I wanted to take it out on anyone. You saved my life, after all."
Conan nodded slowly. It was barely possible. And just as possible she would send him off chasing hares. But he had nothing else to go on besides picking a direction out of the air. "Where did you see them?"
"To the north. They were camped beyond some low hills. I"ll show you."
She vaulted easily into the saddle of her big black. "Well, do you want me to show you, or do you want to sit here all day?"
Short of dangling her down the well again, he could think no way of making her talk. He moved his black cloak to clear the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword, and motioned her to ride past. "You lead," he said.
"I know," she laughed as she dug her heels into her mount"s ribs. "You like the view."
He did that, he thought wryly, but he intended to watch Karela with an eye to treachery. Trailing the robbers" horses, he rode after her.
For the rest of that day they rode north, across rolling countryside spa.r.s.ely covered with low scrub. When they camped at nightfall, Conan said, "How much farther?"
Karela shrugged; her heavy round b.r.e.a.s.t.s shifted beneath the tight green tunic. "We"ll reach it some time after dawn, if we break camp early."
She began to pile dry twigs from the scrub for a fire, but he scattered them. "No need to advertise our presence. What makes you think they"ll still be there?"