Conan waited for another blast of the red-haired bandit"s temper, but instead she sat her horse staring at Hordo as if she had never seen him before. Finally she said, "Very well, though you"re like to lose your other eye if you don"t listen to me. Get the rest on their way."
The one-eyed man bared his teeth in a fierce grin and whirled his horse back down the trail.
"A good man," Conan said quickly.
Karela glared. "Do not upbraid me, Cimmerian."
The ma.s.s of brigands clattered down the twisting trail and were soon lost to sight. Hordo booted his horse back up to where Conan and the others waited.
"Think you the watchers will take a hand in this, Conan?" the bearded brigand asked.
"What watchers?" Karela demanded. Aberius let out a low moan.
Conan shook his head. "Men on the hillside, but not to concern us now, I think. If they numbered enough to interfere, we"d know it already."
"Hordo, you knew of this and didn"t tell me?" Karela said angrily.
"Do we wait here talking," Conan asked, "or do we find the hillmen before they find us?"
For a reply Karela kicked her horse into a gallop up the trail.
"If her mind were not on you, Cimmerian," Hordo growled, "she"d not need to be told." He spurred after the Red Hawk.
Aberius looked as if he wanted to ride back after the other bandits, but Conan pointed ahead. "That"s the way."
The weasel-faced brigand showed his teeth in a snarl, and reluctantly turned his horse after the other two. Conan rode in close behind, forcing him to a gallop.
As soon as they reached the others, Conan drew his sword and rested it across his muscular thighs. With thoughtful looks Karela and Hordo did the same. On that narrow trail, often snaking back on itself with screening escarpments of stone, they would be on the hillmen without warning. If the hillmen did not come on them the same way. Aberius lagged back, chewing his lip.
Abruptly they rounded a sharp bend, and were into the camp of the hillmen. There were no tents, but dark, hooknosed men in turbans and dirty motley bent to strap bedrolls while others kicked dirt over the ashes of their fires. A thick, bow-legged man, his bare chest crossed by a belt that held his tulwar, saw them first, and an ululating cry broke from his throat. For a bare moment every man in the camp froze, then a shriek of "Kill them!" sent all rushing for their horses.
Conan pulled his horse around as soon as the shout rose. There was no need to do more to ensure being followed. "Back," he said, forcing his horse against those of Karela and Hordo. Aberius seemed to have broken free already. "Back, for your lives."
Karela sawed her reins, brought her horse around, and then all three were pounding back the way they had come. Conan kept an eye behind. For the twists of the trail he could see little, but what he saw told him the hillmen had been quicker to horse than he had hoped. The lead horseman, a burly man with his beard parted and curled like horns, flashed into and out of sight as the trail wound round boulders and rock walls. When they reached the soldiers, they must be far enough ahead to distinguish themselves from the fierce tribesmen, though not far enough to allow too many questions.
Conan looked ahead. Karela was stretching her black out as much as the trail would allow, and Hordo rode close behind her, using his quirt to urge greater speed from her mount. If Conan could buy them a tenth of a gla.s.s at one of these narrow places .... As the Cimmerian rode between two huge, round boulders, he abruptly pulled his horse around. A quick glance showed that neither of the others had noticed. A few moments, and he would catch up to them.
The fork-bearded hillman galloped between the boulders, raised a wavering battlecry, and Conan"s blade clove turban and skull to his shoulders.
Even as the man fell from his saddle-pad, more turbanned warriors were forcing their way into the gap. Conan"s sword rose and fell in murderous butchery, its steel length stained quickly red, blood running onto his arm and spattering across his chest.
Of a sudden he was aware of Karela, sword flashing, trying to force her way in beside him. Her red hair stood about her head like a mane, and battle light shone in her green eyes. Behind, Conan could hear Hordo calling for her to come back. Her curved blade took a hillman"s throat, then another"s slash cut one of her reins. A lance pinked her mount, and it reared, screaming and twisting, ripping the other rein from her hand.
"Take her, Hordo!" Conan cried. He brought the flat of his blade down across the rump of her great black horse, earning himself a b.l.o.o.d.y slash across his chest for his inattention to the hillmen. "Take her to safety, Hordo!"
The big, one-eyed brigand gathered in her dangling rein and spurred down the trail, pulling her horse behind. Conan heard her shouts fading. "Stop, Hordo! Derketo shrivel your eye and tongue! Stop this instant, Hordo! I command it! Hordo!"
Conan had no time to watch, though, for he was engaged again even as she shouted. The hillmen tried to force their way through by sheer weight of numbers, but only two men at a time would fit into the gap, and when more tried they fell before Conan"s whirlwind blade. There were six men down beneath the prancing hooves, then seven. Eight. A horse stumbled on a body and reared. The savage cut Conan had intended for the hook-nosed rider half-severed the horse"s neck. It fell kicking beneath the hooves of the next horse, and that one went down as well, its rider catapulting from the saddle to lose his turbanned head to the mighty Cimmerian"s broadsword.
The rest of the swarthy riders fell back from that b.l.o.o.d.y pa.s.sage, blocked now with dead to the height of a man. Raised tulwars and shouted threats of what would be done when Conan was taken told him they had not given up, though. He edged his horse back. Once he was gone they would clear away the dead, tumbling men and horses alike by the trail, and follow to avenge their honor. But he had gained the time he needed.
The Cimmerian pulled his horse around and booted it into a gallop.
Behind him the blood-curdling cries still rose.
Chapter XIV.
By the time Conan rejoined the other two, Karela was controlling her horse awkwardly with the single rein, and Hordo was a.s.siduously avoiding her savage glare.
"Where"s Aberius?" Conan said. There had been no sign of the man along the way.
Karela thrust a murderous look at the big Cimmerian, but there was no time to speak, for as he spoke they rounded a bend, and there ahead was the Zamoran cavalry column. The officer in the lead raised his hand to signal a halt as the three reached him. Some of the mailed men eyed Conan"s b.l.o.o.d.y sword and loosened their own in their scabbards.
"Ho, my lord general," Conan said, bowing to the blocky, sunburnt officer. His armor showed more wear than any general"s ever had, the Cimmerian thought, but flattery never hurt, and it could never be piled on too deeply. Though perhaps it might go better with the officer who joined them then, slender and handsome even beneath his dirt.
"Captain," the blocky officer said, "not general. Captain Haranides."
Conan suddenly hoped the hillmen showed quickly. The dark eyes that regarded him from beneath that russet-crested helm were shrewd. "Who are you? And what are the lot of you doing in the Kezankians?"
"My name is Crato, n.o.ble captain," Conan said, "late guard on a caravan bound from Sultanapur, as was this man, Claudo by name. We had the misfortune to fall among hillmen. The lady is Vanya, daughter of Andiaz, a merchant of Turan who took pa.s.sage with us. I fear that we three are all who survived. I also fear the hillmen are at our heels, for I looked back not long since and saw them on the trail behind."
"Merchant"s daughter!" the young officer crowed. "With those bold eyes?
If that wench is a merchant"s daughter, I"m King of Turan." The captain"s mouth tightened, but he kept silent. Conan could see him watching their reactions. "What say you, Crato? What price for an hour of the jade"s time?"
Conan tensed, waiting for her to draw her sword, but she merely pulled herself haughtily erect. "Captain Haranides," she said coldly, "will you allow this man to speak so? My father may be dead, but I yet have relatives who have the ear of Yildiz. And in these months past I hear that your Tiridates wishes to be friends with King Yildiz." The captain still said nothing.
"Your pardon, n.o.ble sir," Conan said, "but the hillmen...." Where were they, he wondered.
"I see no hillmen," the young officer said sharply. "And I"ve heard of no caravans since those seven that disappeared. More likely you"re brigands yourselves, who had a falling out with the rest of your band.
Perhaps being put to the question will loosen your tongues. The bastinado-"
"Easily, Aheranates," the captain said. Abruptly he wore a warm smile for the three. "Speak more easily. I"m sure these unfortunates will tell us all they know, if only..." The smile froze on his face, then melted. "Sheol!" he thundered. "You"ve brought them straight to us!"
Conan looked over his shoulder and would have shouted for joy if he dared. The hillmen sat their horses in a startled knot not two hundred paces distant. But already the shock of seeing the soldiers was wearing off, and curved tulwars were being waved above turbanned heads.
Ululating cries of defiance floated toward the cavalry.
"Shall we retreat?" Aheranates asked nervously.
"Fool!" the hook-nosed captain spat. "An we turn away, they"ll be on our backs like vultures on dead meat. Pa.s.s the word-but quietly!-that I"ll give no signal, but when I ride forward every man is to charge as if he had a lance up his backside. Move, lieutenant!" The slender officer licked his lips, then started down the column. Haranides turned a gimlet eye on Conan as he eased his sword. "I hope you can use that steel, big man, but in any case, you stay close to me. If we"re alive when this is over, there are questions I want to ask."
"Of course, n.o.ble captain," Conan said, but Haranides was already spurring forward. Howling, the cavalry column poured after him up the trail. Screaming hillmen charged, and in an instant the two ma.s.ses of men were locked in a maelstrom of flashing steel and blood.
Karela and Hordo turned away from the battle and rode for a narrow gorge that let off the trail. Conan hesitated, staring at the combat.
Haranides might well have tried to kill him, had the captain known who he was, but this leading the man to his death suddenly festered inside the tall Cimmerian.
"Conan," Hordo called over his shoulder, "what are you waiting for?
Ride before someone sees us going." The bearded ruffian continued to suit his actions to his words, following close behind his auburn-haired leader.
Reluctantly Conan rode after them. As they made their way up the sheer-walled cut in the dark granite, the sounds of killing seemed to follow them.