"Then rise, Sergeant Conan."
The G.o.ds might keep King Eloikas from regretting his decision. One look told Conan, however, that the same could hardly be said of Captain Oyzhik. Had he been able to conjure the roof down on his king and his new sergeant alike, he might well have done so.
As Conan expected, his quarters and those of the Guard lay outside the palace, while Raihna"s men would seek a dry room within it, if such existed. It was hard upon sunset before they had a chance to speak without fear of eavesdroppers by dint of taking a light supper out onto the drill ground and eating it while sitting on a blanket.
"I wish we could serve together," Raihna said.
"Missing a bedmate already?" Conan jested. "Cast one of your languishing looks at Decius and you"ll not-ufffl"
He broke off as she punched him urgently in the ribs. "I am not blind to his desire for me. I am also not blind to his kinship with Eloikas."
"I wonder. Could Decius have something to do with Princess Chienna"s abduction? b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have won thrones before this when there were no legitimate heirs."
"My grat.i.tude to you overflows, Conan. You know perfectly how to give me a sound sleep at night."
"Yes, and I"ll have no chance to use it tonight, or for many nights to come. If Decius is no enemy, best we not make him one."
"I fear Oyzhik more."
"An open enemy"s easier to watch than one biding his time. Turan taught me that, if nothing else. More-over, I"d wager all the wine in this realm that Eloikas or Decius have men among the Guards to watch Oyzhik.
Unless his chiefs want me dead, Oyzhik might find a few obstacles in his path."
"Wager more than this wine," Raihna said. She spat into the dust and rinsed her mouth from the water bottle. "In some lands, this would not pa.s.s even as vinegar."
"I"ve heard a score of tales of the Border Kingdom," Conan said, "but none of them ever claimed that it was a great land for fine living."
He did not add what most of the tales did say: that the Border Kingdom reeked of ancient and unwholesome sorcery. Or sorcery even more unwholesome than that commonly found, at least since the fall of the nighted realm of Acheron.
Was this the secret truth about the Border Kingdom? That when the tide of the dark hosts of Acheron drew back from civilized lands, some of its leavings remained here among the sharp-peaked mountains and the forests as dark as a death-spell?
It was, as such things went, a warm night for the Border Kingdom. But the Cimmerian felt more than an itch between his shoulder blades at the thought of Acheron yet living here. He felt a chill, as from the breath of the wind off of a Hyperborean glacier.
Chapter 7.
Conan began his new undertaking as Sergeant of the Second Company of the Palace Guard the next day.
Indeed, he began it before the roses of sunrise touched the eastern sky and the fanged peaks jutting against it. This was not much to the liking of some of the recruits, who had been accustomed to rising when whim or wine allowed.
"From this day forth, you"ve no whims unless I order you to have them,"
Conan roared at the staggering, bleary-eyed men. "I"ll not give that order."
He spat on the ground in disgust. "Or at least I won"t give it until you sons of flea-ridden wolves are closer to being soldiers than you are now. From the looks of you, I"ll have a long gray beard before that happens!"
He put his hands on his hips and raked the line with his eyes. No one laughed, no one flinched, and several men looked him in the eye as if daring him to put them to the test.
Good. They might lack training but perhaps not spirit. Seen by the dawn"s light, indeed, they looked a trifle closer to being soldiers than they had when he first met them.
"Very well. Now, let me see your weapons."
Conan remained silent until it became clear that fewer than half of the men had brought their weapons. That, and the condition of many of those that were displayed, drew another sulphurous blast from the Cimmerian.
He eloquently described the ancestry of soldiers who went about without their weapons. He added predictions of the fate awaiting them, barring the favor of G.o.ds sometimes charitable to fools.
When Conan told the unarmed to run back to their quarters and bring their weapons, most of them actually ran.
The first day was a tale of errors and omissions, intermingled with minor catastrophes and follies. By the second day, the Second Company had mustered its wits and concluded that its new sergeant was serious.
By the third day, it dawned upon them that neither Captain Oyzhik nor the captain of the Second Company was going to lift a finger to save them from the Cimmerian. The choice was either mutiny or obedience.
Somewhat to Conan"s relief, those who favored obedience outnumbered those who favored mutiny. He suspected that a reluctance to face Decius"s seasoned veterans had something to do with the matter.
After the third day, Conan"s work with the Second Company marched forward swiftly and, for the most part, steadily. It was work he knew well, having learned it from a master, High Captain Khadjar in Turan.
It was work that needed doing if the Second Company was to be worth even its scanty rations.
Most of all, it was work that Conan enjoyed and that the men of the company came to enjoy also. They were not so lost to pride that being a company of soldiers instead of a rabble did not put heart into them. By the fifth day, Conan had appointed four under-sergeants from their ranks. Three of them were men who had on the first day brought clean weapons to muster; the fourth was the one who had first returned from quarters with his.
By now, Conan had concluded that nothing could be expected for good or ill from either Oyzhik or the company"s captain. The latter spent most of his time in his quarters and most of that time either drunk or sleeping. It pa.s.sed belief that anyone could stomach enough of the Border wine to fuddle his wits, but it seemed that the man was made of stout stuff.
As for Oyzhik, it was said that he was being kept busy strengthening the palace"s defenses against an attack by Count Syzambry. This left the captain-general"s men free to take the field against the count and on the trail of the lost princess.
Conan might have believed those tales except that Decius seemed to be present at the palace almost every day. He seldom missed spending at least a moment with Raihna, either-or so the Bossonian told Conan.
"I no longer wonder why you suspect Decius," Raihna added. "I sleep no sounder because of it, but that is hardly your fault."
Conan grinned, and as they were alone, slapped her smartly on the rump.
Raihna was no woman for sleeping alone unless she had to. But with so many doubtfully friendly eyes around and about, a cold and narrow bed was also the safest.
Some of the village girls had eyed the Cimmerian"s ma.s.sive frame with open approval. But Conan had soon thereafter seen soldiers of both the Guards and Decius"s troops eyeing him in a rather less-than-friendly fashion. Clearly, bedding one of the girls would be poaching. Conan could live with a cold bed if it meant a safe back.
He also kept a watchful eye and a keen ear for any opportunity to win enough gold to free Raihna"s company from any need to remain in this land. Once the need for gold no longer bound her men to Eloikas"s service, they would hardly let another sun set before they marched south.
It was the eighth day of Conan"s service in the Border Kingdom. The sun was well up, and he was watching over an archery match. Not all of the Guards had bows, and not all of those who had bows had any skill with them.
Conan, however, had gone to Turan barely knowing the point of an arrow from the fletching. Little more than two years later, he was an archer fit for the battlefield. He vowed that every man of his company could achieve at least that much mastery of the bow. Then the company could hurl forty arrows at a single command, two hundred paces in any direction.
That would be no small gift to King Eloikas, Conan judged. Archers would be useful in every kind of fighting the king faced, beginning with the defense of the palace against Count Syzambry.
The contest was not yet half done when Kalk, the senior sergeant, approached Conan. "Sergeant Conan, I have sighted men skulking up toward the ridge. I am sure they are none of ours."
Conan turned his eyes toward the hillside, which sloped up toward a knife-edged ridge. The slope was covered with small trees or large bushes. Call them what one would, they were abundant enough to hide a company.
"We need not raise the alarm yet," Conan said. "Pick five men and tell the rest to continue the contest. Then meet me here, and we"ll go teach these uninvited guests better manners."
Kalk nodded, then remembered to raise his hand in acknowledgment and respect. He also seemed to be smiling as he turned away.
Kalk was like many of the recruits of the Guard, fit to learn the arts of the soldier if someone was ready to teach him. Oyzhik never had been, and Conan wondered how many Guards had died through Oyzhik"s sloth. Their kin would owe Oyzhik a blood-debt, that he knew.
Conan led the six men toward the hill as the sun finished burning off the mist. When they struck the steepest part of the slope, he allowed Kalk to take the lead. Careful not to be noticed, he dropped back to the rear. From there he could study the ground both uphill and down. He also had no man at his back.