Chapter 16.
A pallid dawn found Conan and his companions a fair march on their way home.
"The palace is no more, Your Highness," Conan said. "Your father makes shift with a tent in the wilderness. I fear it is a poor homecoming we offer you."
"Captain, anyone would think that you had spent as much time about courts as Aybas here," Chienna said. Free of the Pougoi, she smiled more readily. That smile made her face more than a trifle comely, with its high cheekbones and straight nose.
"I know how to tell the truth to princes," Conan said. "Or at least the kind of princes who care to hear it. Some don"t, and those I don"t speak to at all if I can avoid it."
"Our house has always kept an ear open for the truth," Chienna said.
"And we have always called the whole Border Kingdom home. We will not be homeless until we set foot in another realm, and both my father and I will die before we do that."
It seemed to Conan that Count Syzambry might yet have something to say about the royal family"s going or staying, let alone living or dying.
But the quicker the princess and her son returned to Eloikas, the quicker the king would rally such allies as he might yet have. Had he enough, Syzambry might have nothing whatever to say about anything, including his own life or death.
Conan earnestly hoped so. Falling to Syzambry would be like being stung to death by vipers, or even being gnawed to b.l.o.o.d.y shreds by rats.
"Twas no death for a warrior, no death for anyone-man, woman, or child-who could feel shame.
Conan"s band was two days on its homeward journey when they saw the traces of a fair-sized company of men.
"Pougoi," Marr said after studying the footprints. "Warriors in some number, but not all warriors. I see women and children among them."
He rose and contemplated the wooded ridges rolling away to the west.
"Trying to put a good distance between themselves and their valley, I should judge. But not going toward the royal camp, unless they should stumble on it by accident."
"If they do, we can leave them to Decius," Raihna said. "What danger are they to us?"
"If they"ve women and children to lead to safety, they may not fight unless we force them," Conan said.
"They might also be readier to fight us than most," Chienna said.
"Vengeance can make wiser folk than the Pougoi-forgive me, Mistress Wylla-forget good sense."
Wylla was so stunned at an apology from a princess of the house that had been long an enemy to her tribe that she could only stand slack-jawed. Marr put an arm around her and bowed to the princess as thanks for both of them.
"I can contrive with my magic that they do not come near us," the piper said. "But the Star Brothers may yet live, some of them, and march with their tribesmen."
"Would not their power have died with their beast?" Aybas asked. From his voice, it was clear that he most earnestly hoped so. He could not have hoped so more earnestly than Conan, but hope sharpened no swords.
"What could live Star Brothers do without their beast?" Conan asked.
"At the very least, sense that my magic was at work," Marr replied. "If they know that, they might find ways to let Pougoi scouts search for us with clear eyes and ears."
"Then let us trust to woodcraft and swift marching," the princess said decisively. "I have no more quarrel with the Pougoi, if they find none with me."
In that, she spoke for all of them. She spoke, indeed, loud enough that an unseen listener heard. He heard clearly, but they did not hear his bare feet on the forest floor as he returned swiftly to his comrades.
They met the listener and half a score of his comrades toward mid-afternoon. Prince Urras was sucking a rag dipped in the last of their goat"s milk when Raihna"s shriek brought them to their feet and to arms.
"Pougoi!"
Conan was the first to join Raihna at her sentry post. She was already behind a well-placed tree, bow ready, and the Cimmerian found another such from which to watch the warriors approach.
He counted ten of them, all with swords or spears in hand, the points held downward. The archers had their bows strung but over their shoulders, and at the rear of the line-
"Father!"
Wylla"s shriek made Raihna"s seem a whisper. The Pougoi girl dashed down the path and flung herself into the arms of the tall man at the rear of the warriors. He bent to kiss her forehead, but Conan saw that the seamed, leathery face and grizzled, s.h.a.ggy beard were not quite dry.
Conan stepped from his hiding place. "Greetings, Thyrin. It"s good to see you and to know that not all of your folk died along with the Star Brothers and the beast."
Thyrin gently pushed Wylla away, and his look of joy gave way to a bleaker face. "Would that the Star Brothers were dead. Two of them live, their powers yet in them, and they still have warriors at their command. Not as many as I did when I defied them, but enough so that if they find other friends-"
"Such as Count Syzambry?" came the voice of the princess.
Thyrin and Chienna stared, each trying to take the measure of the other. Neither the green eyes nor the brown ones fell, but it was the princess who spoke first.
"I do not know whether it is fit and lawful by your customs for you to have a pardon from my house. But if it is, you shall have it. Indeed, you have it now. Moreover, you shall have land to call your own, better land than you lost, if you do my house this one service."
The Pougoi were so silent that the faint breeze in the high pines sounded to Conan like the roar of a gale. Thyrin coughed.
"Where is that land to come from?"
"When Syzambry falls, his friends will fall with him. Their lands will be the gift of the throne to our friends who have stood by us. I do not know where your new lands will be. I only say that if you stand by us, and if I live, you will have them."
This time the silence was swiftly broken by a warrior asking the question that Conan saw on all faces.
"Stand by you, Lady Princess? That means we fight your enemies? Fight the little count?"
"What greater enemy does my house have? What greater enemy can it have?
If you live to see the sons of your sons" sons, you will not see a more evil man than Syzambry!"
Thyrin asked that the warriors be allowed to draw apart and take counsel with one another. This was granted. They soon returned, and most of them were smiling.
"Do we swear all together, or each man alone?" the warrior who had asked the great question wondered.
"As your laws and customs bid you," Chienna replied. "I will have no friend swearing an oath that comes strangely to his lips."
That drew cheers, which lasted until Raihna could endure them no more.
"Be silent!" she cried. "Or would you let the whole realm know where we are?"
These words drew no cheers but, instead, a few sour looks and some muttered curses from those who still had breath to utter them. Conan stepped forward.
"Lady Raihna and I are both captains in the Palace Guard," he said. "By your oath to the royal house, you also swear to obey Captain-General Decius and any captain speaking for him. Yet no captain of the royal service will ever command you save through chiefs you choose yourselves." The Cimmerian ended by making suitable gestures of honor at Thyrin.
The princess beckoned Conan to her. Tall as she was, she needed to rise on tiptoe to put her mouth to his ear. "I think I have just been told how to lead the Pougoi, Captain Conan. Is that not so?"