While Marr and Raihna heaved the guards onto the bench, Aybas knocked on the door. As Wylla sat down on the bench with her arms about the two guards, Aybas heard a noise from within the hut.
"Who is there?"
"By Mitra"s beard, it is Lord Aybas. I bear dire news."
A squeak like a trapped mouse was all that Aybas had of reply. He cursed softly.
"Must I tell it for all the Pougoi, and perhaps the Star Brothers, to hear? Or may I enter and speak privily?"
After a moment that seemed to pa.s.s like the melting of a glacier, Aybas heard the bar lift. He thrust the door open and strode in, past the waiting woman. She let out another squeak, then was silent as Raihna put a hand over her mouth and showed her the dagger in the other.
The princess was still awake. The babe was sleeping, until the moment when strange folk burst into his mother"s chamber, at which he awoke with a wail fit to rouse sleepers all over the valley.
The piper"s music whistled softly. Then it seemed to sing with no words, but soft and soothing nevertheless. The wails diminished, and at last ceased. As the princess picked up the babe, his eyes drifted shut and he slept again.
"He has taken no harm?" Chienna said, shifting him to one arm. The other was clenched at her waist, and she seemed to wish it held steel.
"Here, Your Highness," Aybas said. He drew his second dagger from his boot and handed it to the princess. She stared at it, then at Raihna, and nearly dropped the sleeping baby.
"He will come to more harm from being dropped than from my music," Marr said. "He only sleeps, and will sleep until it is safe for him to wake."
"Safe... ?" Princess Chienna appeared to be mazed in her wits. Aybas gritted his teeth. Why did women of sense seem to lose that sense at precisely the worst time?
"Your Highness, I... we are come to take you and Prince Urras to your father. The king is alive and well, although in hiding. With you and your son by his side, the realm will rally to his banner."
The princess shook her head, making her long black hair dance about her shoulders, white and gleaming where the bedgown revealed them. The gesture seemed to end her confusion.
"Allow me to don suitable apparel, then, good people," she said with regal dignity. "It will be neither seemly nor safe to walk through the mountains in my night shift."
With an imperious gesture, she summoned her waiting woman. Raihna released the servant, and the two women vanished into the bedchamber, leaving Raihna holding the baby. As if by instinct, she began gently rocking him, and her face as she looked at the sleeping prince told Aybas a whole tale of matters that would never reach the Bossonian"s lips.
The princess and her waiting woman were out of the bedchamber in less time than Aybas would have given to carving a joint of good beef. It only seemed like sufficient time for the moon to set and dawn to break across the mountains.
The princess was dressed in a Pougoi warrior"s attire, with an arrangement of leather thongs and fleeces across her back for the babe.
Aybas had not known that she possessed either, and his opinion of her and her house rose further.
Very surely, he had wagered on the wrong horse whilst serving Syzambry.
If he gained no other reward from his change of allegiance, he would at least die with a better opinion of his own judgment.
Aybas stepped to the door. Wylla now had one of the guards" heads lolling on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The other had fallen off the bench. She had undone his trousers to give him a more convincing appearance of revelry.
"Is all well?"
Wylla shrugged, which lifted her b.r.e.a.s.t.s most interestingly. It also sent the guard sprawling off the bench to join his comrade.
Aybas took the shrug for "yes" and motioned the others to come out. The princess held back. The Aquilonian started to address her in terms unfit for royal ears when he saw that she was pointing at her waiting woman. The piper nodded and began to play.
The music could not have reached even into the bedchamber, but Aybas felt it in his bones. They were turning soft and warm, like fresh porridge, within him. His eyelids were vastly heavy; he needed to grip a post of the porch to uphold himself-
The music ended abruptly. Aybas stood unaided, opened his eyes, and saw the waiting woman sprawled on the floor. He made a gesture of aversion.
"It was either my music or a blow," the piper said. "Or leave her to face sacrifice to the beast."
Aybas swallowed whatever he had begun to say. He held out a hand to Wylla, and she took it. He realized that this was the first time he had ever touched her.
Then such thoughts flew from his mind as he heard the drums and trumpets of the Star Brothers sounding the alarm to the valley.
Conan covered the last few paces of his path along the cliff in a brief s.p.a.ce of darkness as clouds hid the moon. When light returned, he lay on the roof of the hut, watching Thyrin approach the guards.
"Ho, friends. How fare you this night?" Thyrin greeted the men.
"Well enough," one of the archers grunted. "What of you, to be about the camp at this hour?" The suspicion in his voice shouted to the Cimmerian.
Suspicion had not yet led to drawn weapons when Conan struck. His first weapon was a fist-sized stone, flung hard at the back of the archer"s head. The man wore a helmet, but the force of Conan"s throw would have cracked an oak plank. It pierced the helmet, shattered the skull within, and flung the archer forward against a comrade.
Thyrin"s sword whirled. The second guard"s chest gaped. He dropped his spear and clutched at the wound with both hands. His mouth was still open in a soundless scream when a second swordcut swept his head from his shoulders.
Conan leaped from the roof onto the remaining guards. They were standing so close that he drove them both to the ground with force enough to leave them half-stunned. He finished them with his dagger.
Conan"s dagger also made quick work of the knotted thong that held the bar of the hut door in place. As he heaved the door open, it groaned.
Conan wrinkled his nose at the reek from within.
"Stinks like the Aghrapur stews in here," he muttered as his eyes tried to penetrate the mephitic gloom and reach Oyzhik. When they did, the Cimmerian muttered again, and in soldier"s language.
Oyzhik lay sprawled on foul straw, an empty wine cup by his outflung hand. All the smells told a plain tale of how he had been spending his captivity. At least he would give no trouble; Conan only hoped that the man had not altogether drunk away his wits.
The Cimmerian had to stoop to enter the hut, stoop further to lift the drink-sodden Oyzhik onto his ma.s.sive shoulders. As he rose and turned toward the door, he saw Thyrin pointing with one hand and gesturing for silence with the other.
From the doorway, Conan saw the danger. A band of guards was marching from the longhouse, past the watchfire. Conan counted at least four of them, no doubt the relief for the guards just slain.
There was no way past the men without a fight. So best to begin it on his own terms and at his own time. Without ceremony, Conan slid Oyzhik to the ground and drew his sword.
"Hayaaaaahhhhh!"
The guards heard a war cry more dreadful than any they had ever imagined. They saw a giant figure hurling itself at them, and panic chained their limbs. Then the giant was among them, wielding a sword that seemed longer than a man was tall, at least to those who lived long enough to see it at all.
Two of the guards did not. They died at once, their skulls split from crown to eyebrows. The other two were killed as they ran. One of them screamed as he died. It was the scream, joined to Conan"s war cry, that brought other guards to the longhouse door.
They did not advance into the open, however. To their sleep-muddled vision, the enemy seemed more than human. They were certain that the Hairy Man of the Mountains had come out of legend to avenge their abandoning his cult.
"The Star Brothers lied!" one man screamed.
"Forgive us, oh Great Hairy Lord!" another wailed.
Conan did not stop to correct their mistake. He lunged at the door, slammed it in the faces of the bemused guards, and wedged a long of firewood under it. Then he caught up a burning brand from the watchfire, whirled it about his head, and flung it high into the dry thatch of the longhouse.
By the time he rejoined Thyrin and Oyzhik at the hut door, the roof was well alight. The crackling of the flames mounted as Conan heaved Oyzhik onto his shoulders again.