Chapter 6.
Close to the time that Wylla met Marr the Piper, Conan met King Eloikas"s Palace Guard.
The caravan and Decius"s men had camped for the night about double bowshot beyond a small village in the lee of a thickly forested ridge.
The village was inhabited, but it was hardly less ruined than the Dembi village where they had fought two days before.
The villagers" surly looks would have told Conan of years of hard living had their rough huts and scanty garb not done so. A few chickens and some half-ground barley were the best that Decius"s coins could pry loose from them.
If this was the common run of folk in the Border realm, Conan decided, he was not going to profit much from it. King Eloikas"s grat.i.tude would feed no horses and burnish no armor. That needed gold, something that the Border Kingdom seemed unlikely to offer.
So be it. Honor bound him to Raihna"s side as long as she needed him.
He could contrive some other way of filling his purse or take his luck in Nemedia with an empty one. He had wrested gold out of poorer lands after entering them with no more than his sword and the clothes upon his back.
Conan was inspecting the sentries when the Palace Guard appeared.
Decius trusted the caravan men to share the watch with his men, but not Conan to keep a watch by himself. The Cimmerian had judged it best to hold his peace on the matter.
Decius"s men were clearly masters of their craft. Conan was advising one of Raihna"s archers to hide himself better when the wind had borne to the Cimmerian"s ears the clatter of hooves and the thud of boots. He had waved both pairs of sentries into hiding, seen both obey, and strode up the path toward the sound.
A hiding place in the roots of a great gnarled oak offered itself.
Conan crouched there, cupped his hands, and hailed the newcomers.
"Halt! Who is there?"
"The Palace Guard, Captain Oyzhik commanding."
"Advance and be recognized."
Conan heard one of Decius"s men scuttling off to summon his chief. He also heard the hooves and boots fade raggedly into silence.
The Cimmerian"s keen night sight pierced the darkness. He recognized the royal banner, a sadly tattered one drooping from a crooked lance.
He also recognized a company that numbered a handful of veterans and a great many new recruits. He had seen enough of both in Turan to be able to tell the one from the other, even in the darkness.
The man who had replied, naming himself Captain Oyzhik, was also a type that Conan recognized. Too bald and too fat for his years, he wore fine armor and sat a horse worth as much as three of Decius"s. But the armor was undented and the sword slung across his back showed gilding and jewels that could not have survived a single real battle.
"Captain Oyzhik," Conan shouted. "Captain-General Decius has been summoned. I ask you to hold where you are until he comes."
"My men have traveled fast and far on urgent orders from the King"s majesty," Oyzhik replied. His voice was as round as the rest of him.
"They must have their shelter at once."
Conan doubted that such a mob of old men and boys could have traveled fast or far had a G.o.d commanded it. Oyzhik no doubt wanted to get his plump a.r.s.e out of the saddle and into something more comfortable.
The Cimmerian laughed softly. Oyzhik had a surprise coming if he thought the caravan"s camp offered what could be called "comfort" in any tongue Conan knew.
The sound of a firm stride coming up the trail warned Conan that Decius was at hand. The Cimmerian rose to greet the captain-general, then fell behind him as Decius went to meet the Palace Guard.
"What brings you here, Oyzhik?" Decius asked.
"Tales came of Count Syzambry"s friends and allies gathering men. We did not know what strength the caravan might have. So King Eloikas decreed that the palace would bar its gates and send forth the Guard to be your shield at the end of your journey."
Conan hoped that King Eloikas had been speaking for the ears of the doubtful rather than out of any real belief that this Guard could defend an apple orchard from a band of small boys. Serving a master who had neither silver nor wisdom in war could end in filling a rocky grave in this G.o.dless land.
"We thank you, Oyzhik," Decius said. "Captain Conan, return to the camp and wake Raihna and my second. We break camp and march at once."
"At... night?" Oyzhik"s question came out more squeak than words, as high-pitched as if he had been gelded.
"We are now in good strength, Oyzhik," Decius said. "The trail is clear, or you would not be with us. And our foes will not be expecting us to march by night, so it is the wisest thing we could do."
To Conan, struggling to choke back laughter, a night march seemed to have another virtue. It might cause the plump Guard captain to fall down in a fit, or at least to faint from weariness.
The Cimmerian held his peace, though, until Decius dismissed him. Then he hastened down the trail toward the camp. When he finally saw the campfires glowing ahead, he let out such a roar of laughter that half the men jerked awake at once.
Raihna thrust her head out of the tent they shared. "Share the jest, Conan, if it is so fine."
Conan merely shook his head and laughed harder. It would not do to insult the Palace Guard before the captain-general"s men.
"An old tale, Raihna. But the new one tonight is that Count Syzambry"s friends may be waiting for us. The Palace Guard has come out, and Decius wants us on the march before he can take a deep breath!"
Raihna"s head bobbed and vanished, and all around him Conan saw and heard men garbing and arming themselves.
Conan"s first sight of the palace of King Eloikas made him wonder if it was worth guarding.
He had seen mere n.o.blemen keep larger hunting lodges, and not only in wealthy lands such as Turan. He had known of Vendhyans who would not have housed their tiger-hunters in something so wretched.
The gates hung ajar. The outer wall crumbled so that in some places an agile man might have walked over it upright. Holes gaped in every roof that Conan could see, and he did not doubt that under each hole was a puddle of muddy water from every rain in the last ten years.
A beaten-down patch of earth set about with thorn hedges might have been a drill ground. A collection of huts that a swineherd would have disdained might have been a barracks. Otherwise, Conan had no idea of where the Palace Guard lived, or of where Raihna"s men might find quarters.
Since Decius"s men joined them, he had heard muttered tales of "the secret h.o.a.rd" of the Border kings. Some folk, it appeared, believed that the palace was so wretched because Eloikas was saving his gold for a time of need.
Conan would believe in that h.o.a.rd, as he would believe in the will of the G.o.ds, when he saw it with his own eyes. For now, he suspected that the cache was so secret that even King Eloikas had forgotten where to lay hands on it.
Oyzhik hurried into the palace to report their arrival to the king.
Conan and Raihna busied themselves with their men and beasts. They were careful to avoid the boggy fields and wretched hovels stretching downhill from the palace. They were likewise careful to keep the caravan beyond bowshot of the brooding forest uphill. The forest held trees Conan had never seen before, in shapes he did not wish to see again, and no birds sang within it.
Conan let Raihna stand close to him, but he laid no hand on her. Both were aware of Decius"s eyes upon them, more especially upon Raihna.
"This land pleases me less with each new turn of the trail," Raihna said. "Will you come with me and my men if we choose to leave at once?"
"Best wait for your pay if you want-forgive me, that"s telling you your work again."
It was also not noticing her unease, bordering on fear. Grat.i.tude for that shone in her smile. "Unless that means waiting so long that it will buy nothing but a burial shroud, and a poor one at that!" she said.
Then, "Conan," Raihna went on, raising her hands as if to grip his shoulders, "if we leave, would you come with us as far as the nearest civilized land? I think you have hopes to win something in this land-"
"An empty belly and an untimely grave? That"s what this land seems to promise. Raihna, I said in plain words that I would be at your side wherever you went. Does a shield jump off of a man"s arm because it thinks he"s overmatched?"