"Aesir or Vanir?"
"Vanir!" Even dying, the boy had the strength for indignation. Conan smiled.
"Did you... did you see me fighting? Did I do well?" Rasmussen gasped.
His northern fairness had turned the color of fresh-fallen snow. Only his eyes held color now.
"Twice, when I had time to look about." Conan said. He had not in fact laid eyes on the boy until this evening, but this was one of those lies that any honest man would tell and any G.o.d forgive.
"I did well?"
"Ra.s.s, your strength-" the leech began.
"I... tell me, Captain!"
"You paid your way, Rasmussen," Conan said. "Few can do more in their first fight, and many do not do as much."
"Conan tells the truth," came Raihna"s voice from behind Conan. "I made a good bargain when I took you on."
But she was talking to a set face and staring eyes. After a moment, she joined the two men beside the pallet and with her sword-callused thumbs, closed the boy"s eyes. Then she swayed, and Conan contrived to keep her from falling without appearing to do so.
Presently Raihna was in command of herself again. No words were needed as they walked back to the hut Conan had chosen for them. Still in silence, they sat across from each other while Conan poured the last wine from a skin into two wooden cups.
"To old comrades," Raihna said. They clicked cups, then drank. When her cup was empty, Raihna wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and regained something of her old manner. Then she shook her head with a rueful grin.
"Conan, I wish I had half your skill in telling lies to soothe the dying."
"What lies?" the Cimmerian growled. "I said the lad had done as well as any man does in his first fight. He did not run, and all of his wounds were in front. That is as well as most men do."
Raihna shook her head again. "Conan, you were born a hundred years old."
Conan threw his head back and his laughter raised echoes in dusty corners. "Tell that to the thieves of Zingara. It was said, when I was learning their craft, that a wise thief would not be caught in the same quarter of the city with Conan the Cimmerian. The great lout would warn his prey, the watch, all soldiers sober or drunk, and even the fleas on the watchdogs!"
"They said that of you?"
"Not to my face, I grant you. But, in their cups, some forgot that I was hearing. I let it pa.s.s."
He pulled off his boots. "But telling tales of my past will be dry work with the wine gone. What of you? Caravan guarding seems to have done well for you."
Raihna"s men seemed well-seasoned, save for the lads, and they were certainly well-armed. They were also well-furnished with things like purgative herbs and spare boots. Conan had known the lack of such small matters to leave great gaps in the ranks of a company, even if it had no enemy to face.
Raihna wore baggy leather trousers-unable to disguise the long, supple legs within-that hung down over the best sort of Argossean riding boot.
The dagger on her belt was of good Aquilonian work, as was the mail now lying in the corner. Her tunic was red Khitan silk, tight enough to set off b.r.e.a.s.t.s that seemed as fine as ever.
"I have been one of the lucky ones," she said. Her tale followed swiftly, for it was a short one. Caravan guarding drew many men, but kept few. They fell to bandits, to disease, and hardship, to the temptation to steal from the caravans. If they survived all those, they sometimes fell prey to mere disenchantment at discovering that the distant cities of their dreams had no towers of ivory or women clinking with gold.
"I survived all the perils and thereby learned to keep others alive as well," Raihna concluded. "After that it was a simple matter to win my own band. It was not so simple to win it a reputation."
"Is that why you"re here?"
She nodded. "King Eloikas had a fair selection of goods to bring home but only ten of his own men to guard it. His steward would not make a free gift to the bandits. Most guards would not give the steward a civil answer. The Border Kingdom has a reputation as a place of hard rocks and still harder men."
"I"ve seen nothing to make me doubt that."
"Nor have I. But I grew up poor in Bossonia. A land such as this holds few terrors for me, and where I would go, my men would follow."
"Where are the king"s men?"
"They rode on ahead this morning to warn the captain-general of our coming."
"Or so they said," Conan growled under his breath. The unknown captain-general might not be the only one they had warned. And there was the matter of the stuff of sorcery he had seen in some of the bags.
The Cimmerian rose and turned away. Before her men he would uphold Raihna"s authority with the last drop of his blood and the last stroke of his sword. Alone with her, he had to ask a few blunt questions, the G.o.ds grant without making her fling the wine jug at him-
He turned back to the woman, and thoughts of serious matters fled his mind like rats from a burning barn. Raihna had pulled off her tunic, and above the waist she wore only the dressing over the cut on her ribs.
As Conan watched, she kicked off her boots, then pushed the riding breeches down those long legs. The breeches were a more practical garment than a tavern dancer"s silks, but somehow they came off as swiftly.
"You are as fair as ever," Conan said.
Raihna mimed a kick at his manhood. "Shape your tongue to wiser words, Cimmerian. Few women turn into wrinkled hags in a year. Or spare your words and speak to me without them."
She held out her arms. The invitation could not be denied, nor did Conan refuse it.
It was long before they slept, and when they did, it was the kind of sleep that is near-kin to death. They did not hear thunder without lightning roll through the hills. Nor did they hear, closer to hand, the soft but insistent call of pipes.
Aybas heard the thunder. He also heard the cry of the Star Brothers"
pet. Where he was, a dead man might have heard it. He was standing at the very foot of the dam.
It was a cry unlike any he had ever heard, even from a creature that seemed able to make the sounds of every earthly animal. It was a long, whistling moan, with an ugly bubbling note beneath the whistle and the moan. It was a sound that no human ears should have heard, a sound from another world, where evil reigned crying out to the world of men. Evil for which no human tongue had words, but which Aybas feared he might soon be meeting.
That fear took away much of his pleasure at the news that Princess Chienna and her captors were safely away from their pursuers. He did not know if the babe was also captive, but from the wizards" refusal to speak of it, he judged not. That made the news even better. Or did, until the thunder rolled and the beast cried.
It was some consolation for his own fear that the Star Brothers seemed quite as fearful. Perhaps it was not only Aybas who harbored thoughts of evil reaching out from a world beyond the world, an evil hungry and yearning to feed that hunger, an evil perhaps soon to slip past all restraint.
Aybas spoke more sharply than usual when he addressed the Star Brother who seemed to have the most command of himself. "What is this? Is your pet sick?"
"It is in fear," the other replied. Aybas did not even bother to turn away before making the gestures of aversion. Whatever could put the wizards" pet in fear was something no man in his senses should not also fear.
Thunder rumbled again, and Aybas and the wizards cringed. But the creature beyond the wall made no reply to the thunder. Searching the dark sky, Aybas saw lightning flash beyond a distant peak that bore a rounded bare summit horribly resembling a skull.
It was natural thunder, the G.o.ds be praised! Aybas stopped his gestures before the wizards noticed them and took offense. Then he saw that they were too busy jabbering among themselves to notice him even should he begin beating a drum and chanting war songs!
Aybas slipped away and crossed the valley floor toward the village.
Halfway across, he saw two figures half-hidden in a stand of spiceberry bush. The next flash of lightning showed him Wylla"s coppery hair and long-fingered hands lifted in prayer. Beside her rose the familiar ma.s.sive bulk of Thyrin, her father.
Prayer, or some woman"s rite? The Star Brothers might be interested to know that Wylla could be doing that which they had forbidden. This might be Aybas"s long-sought opportunity to win Wylla"s grat.i.tude for saving her.