Conan had to lean on his weapon for a moment to keep from falling to his knees. He used that moment to look about him.
Pougoi and Guards were swarming all over the wagon circle, making sure that dead men and not-men stayed dead. A few were binding prisoners.
Conan was glad to see that the discipline of the Guards was holding.
Even the newest recruit could call himself a veteran and a soldier after this day.
Thyrin leaped onto a wagon next to Conan, then jumped down beside the Cimmerian. Cleansing his tribe"s honor seemed to have taken twenty years from Wylla"s father.
"Marr lives!" he shouted. "He will not pipe again, but he lives!"
"Good," Conan said. The word did not come strangely to his lips, even though he was speaking of a sorcerer who was living instead of dying.
"See Marr to safety," Conan said. "When Syzambry learns that we are in his rear, he will be desperate. I want us ready to meet him before then."
Though the new recruits might call themselves veterans and soldiers now, there would be more fighting before they could call themselves victors.
Count Syzambry was bearing more and more to his left. The ground helped him. So did the fight the royal host was making directly to his front.
Most of all, the one messenger who had returned from the left had said that the royal flank was open.
But what was he seeing to his rear? The mist and the trees as before, but also running men. Men garbed like Pougoi warriors, and others like his own levies.
He saw a warrior leap from a stump onto the back of a dismounted man-at-arms. Mail was no proof against strong arms that jerked a head back or a sharp dagger drawn swiftly across a bare throat.
"Treachery!" the count screamed. "The Pougoi are turning against us!
Kill the Pougoi!"
He hoped that enough of the loyal men in his rear yet lived to hear him and obey. Otherwise, he had the tribesmen and-G.o.ds deliver him!-the Star Brothers squarely behind him.
Syzambry spurred his horse. He was a light burden so that even after a long fight, the roan bore him forward rapidly.
His swift movement drew the eye of a tall, black-haired man who had stepped unseen from the shelter of the trees.
Aybas needed the boulder at his back that he might stand. Soon he would be unable to stand even with its aid. He had two sword wounds to match against the five men he"d slain this day, and one of those wounds would ere long send him to join the slain.
A bear reared itself before Aybas. Had the magic of the piper or the Star Brothers sent the animals of the forest into the battle on one side or another?
Aybas sat down. He could not run from the bear even if it were a foe.
Sitting gave him a moment"s clear vision. He saw that the bear was Captain-General Decius"s banner and that Mistress Raihna held it.
"Lord Aybas!" Decius called. "Be at ease. We have brought up men to join yours. The flank is safe. You bought us the time to make it so.
Lord Aybas!"
Decius"s voice took on a questioning note as he called the name several times more. The man so addressed did not hear him. He heard instead his mother, calling him by his birth name.
"Peace, Mother," he said. "Peace. I am coming."
Conan measured the s.p.a.ce of open ground between himself and Syzambry.
He also counted the archers in sight.
The sum of both was good. Conan flung his sword-belt aside but wasted no time removing his mail. It would not slow him enough to matter.
Then he hurled himself out of the trees, his long legs devouring the ground. He drove into the rear of Syzambry"s guards before any of them knew that an enemy was at hand.
Then he leaped. He leaped onto the rump of the count"s horse, and one hand s.n.a.t.c.hed at the reins. The other arm went around the little count"s throat.
"Ride toward the Silver Bear or I"ll have your wind here and now!" he commanded.
Syzambry raised both hands, but one of them held a dagger. Conan dropped the reins and gripped the count"s mail-sleeved arm, twisting fiercely. The count gasped and the dagger fell.
But the Cimmerian was alone in the midst of enemies. The disarmed count might be a shield against archery, but the sheer weight of numbers-
It was the sheer weight of numbers that prevailed as the Silver Bear rolled forward. Conan saw Raihna striding beside Decius and holding the banner high above a head as fair as ever, if filthy and drawn from the battle. Behind the banner streamed fifty-odd of Chienna"s best fighting men, horse and foot all charging together.
Count Syzambry had no more than twenty men around him. A moment after Decius struck, he had ten. Then those ten were throwing down their weapons and raising their hands, crying for mercy.
"You may have it, but that"s for the queen to say," Decius snapped.
"For now, off of your mounts and down on your knees. Conan, need you fear that we would give you no trophy of your valor, that you needed to s.n.a.t.c.h this one?"
"I"ve a taste for gifts that will please queens," the Cimmerian said, grinning. "Think you that this will please Chienna?"
Syzambry said something more than rude. Conan tightened his grip, and the count returned to silence.
"More than likely," Decius said. "What else have you done since you and our whole flank vanished into the woods?"
Conan waited to speak, because he saw Queen Chienna riding up with her handful of Guards. She wore armor and leather breeches, and it seemed to Conan that perhaps the Border Kingdom had found its warrior-ruler after all.
Then he told of his day"s work, and as he finished speaking, Thyrin came up to say that Syzambry"s men were yielding. By the time the work of disarming them was done, it had begun to rain.
The rain did not silence the cries of the wounded and dying. It did hide the chunnnkkkl as an ax took Count Syzambry"s head from his shoulders and toppled it into the mud
It was not Conan"s hand wielding the ax. He thought headsman"s work beneath him but did not say so. Instead, he said that Syzambry should die at the hand of one of those he had offended and of his own land.
The head man of the peasant levies, who had lost half of his family when Syzambry burned his village, did the work well enough.
It was not beneath Conan, however, to lift Aybas"s body onto the bier for the dead of the royal host. What sort of name Aybas had left behind on his travels, Conan did not know. The man would leave behind a honorable name in the land where his travels ended.
Chapter 20.
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It was just past dawn on the eleventh day after the battle, with the promise of a day perfect for traveling fast and far. Conan"s own restlessness had touched his roan stallion, once Count Syzambry"s mount. It was pawing the ground gently, but persistently. From time to time it raised its head and snorted at the Cimmerian as if to say, "Will you never be done with your nattering?"
Conan threw a baleful glance at his mount. He would say a proper farewell to Decius and Raihna or the beast could start the journey south without him!