Whatever sorcery Antimides had enmeshed himself in, the Cimmerian was glad it did not touch him. With a shiver he followed the others.
Chapter XVI.
Dusk was falling as Conan returned to the house where his company was quartered, and the gray thickening of the air, the coming blackness, fitted his mood well. Iskandrian had taken Valentius under his protection at the army"s barracks readily enough, but the old general had listened to their story with a suspicious eye on the Cimmerian.
Only for Valentius" agreement that Antimides appeared to have strangled himself had the mercenaries left those long, stone buildings unchained, and the petulant glare the young lord gave Conan as he said the words was as clear as a statement that he would have spoken differently could he but be sure he would not himself be implicated.
And then there had been Synelle. Conan had found her in a strange mixture of fury and satisfaction. She already knew of Antimides" death, though he was not aware the word had spread so quickly; that accounted for her contentment. But she had upbraided him savagely for riding away without her permission, and for taking the time to bring Valentius to Iskandrian"s care.
The last seemed to infuriate her more than the first. He was in her service, not that of the fopling Valentius, and he would do well to remember it. To his own amazement he had listened meekly, and worst of all had had to fight with himself to stop from begging her forgiveness.
He had never begged anything from man or woman, G.o.d or demon, and it made his stomach turn to think how close he had come.
He slammed open the door of his room, and stopped dead. In the dimness Julia, naked and bound hand and foot, frowned up at him with her mouth working frantically at a gag.
"Machaon!" he shouted. "Narus!" Hastily he untied her gag. Her bonds had been tightly tied, and she had pulled them tighter with her struggles. He had to wield his dagger carefully to cut only the strips of cloth and not her flesh. "Who did this?" he demanded as he labored to free her.
With a groan she expelled a damp wad of cloth from her mouth, and worked her jaw before speaking. "Do not let him see me like this," she pleaded. "Hurry! Hurry!"
Machaon, Narus and Boros tumbled through the door, all shouting questions at once, and Julia screamed. As Conan severed the last binding, she jerked free of him and scrambled to the bed, s.n.a.t.c.hing a blanket to cover herself.
"Go away, Machaon!" she cried, cowering back. Rubiate color suffused her cheeks. "I will not have you see me so. Go away!"
""Tis gone," Boros said drunkenly, pointing to the corner where Conan had hidden the bronze figure.
For the first time the Cimmerian realized the board was lifted aside, and the s.p.a.ce beneath it empty. A chill as of death oozed through him.
It seemed meet that this day should end so, with disaster peering at him like the vacant eve-sockets of a skull.
"Mayhap," Boros muttered, "do we ride hard, we can be across the border before it"s used. I"ve always wished to see Vendhya, or perhaps Khitai.
Does anyone know a land more distant?"
"Be quiet, you old fool," Conan growled. "Julia, who took the bronze?
Crom, woman, stop worrying about that accursed blanket and answer me!"
Not ceasing her efforts to make the blanket cover all of her bountiful curves, and less precariously, Julia glared at him and sniffed. ""Twas a trull in men"s breeches and wearing a sword." She glanced at Machaon out of the corner of her eye. "She said I have a boy"s bottom. My bottom is as round as hers, only not so big."
Conan ground his teeth. "Her eyes," he asked impatiently. "They were green? Her hair red? Did she say anything else?"
"Karela?" Machaon said. "I thought she meant to kill you, not steal from you. But why is Boros so affrighted by this thing she took? You"ve not got us meddling with sorcerers again, Cimmerian?"
"You know her," Julia said accusingly. "I thought so from what she said about my. . ." She cleared her throat and began again. "All I remember of what she said is that she swore by Derketo and thanked you for five hundred pieces of gold. Have you truly given her so much? I remember my father"s lemans, and I"d not think this Karela was worth a silver."
Conan pounded a huge fist on his thigh. "I must find her, Machaon, without delay. She has stolen a bronze figure that came to me by happenstance, a thing of evil power that will wreak destruction undreamed of, does she sell it to those I fear she will. Give me precise directions to find that ruined keep."
Julia moaned. "That is what she meant about gold? She takes the h.e.l.lish thing to those Boros spoke of? Mitra protect us all, and the land!"
"I understand not a word of all this," Machaon said, "but one thing I do know. An you enter the Sarelain Forest in the night, you"ll break your neck. That tangle is bad enough to travel in daylight. "Twould take a man born there to find his way in the dark."
"I can find her," Boros said, swaying, "so long as she has the bronze.
Its evil is in truth a beacon." He pushed his sleeves up bony arms. "A simple matter of-"
"An you attempt magic in your condition," Conan cut him off, "I"ll put your head on a spike over the River Gate with my own hands." The gray-bearded man looked hurt, but subsided, muttering under his breath.
Conan turned to Machaon. "There is no time to waste. Daylight may be too late."
Machaon nodded reluctantly, but Narus said, "Then take a score of us with you. Her band-"
"-would hear so many coming and melt away," the Cimmerian finished for him. "I go alone. Machaon?"
Slowly the tattooed veteran spoke.
Machaon was right. Conan thought as an unseen branch whipped across his face for what seemed the hundredth time. A man could easily break his neck in that blackness. He forced his horse on through the heavy thicket of vines and undergrowth, hoping he moved in the right direction. As a boy he had learned to guide himself by the stars, but the sky was seldom visible, for the forest was ancient, filled with huge oaks whose thick interwoven branches formed a canopy with few openings above his head.
"You"ve come far enough," a voice called from the dark, "unless you want a quarrel in your ribs!"
Conan put a hand to his sword.
"None of that!" another man said, then chuckled. "Me and Tenio grew up in this forest, big man, poaching the King"s deer by night. He sees better than I do, and you might as well be standing under a full moon for all of me."
"I seek Karela," Conan began, but got no further.
"Enough talk," the first voice said. "Take him!"
Suddenly rough hands were pulling the big Cimmerian from his horse, into the midst of a knot of men. He could not even see well enough to count how many, but he seized an arm and broke it, producing a scream.
There was no room to draw his sword, nor light to see where to strike; he s.n.a.t.c.hed his dagger instead and laid about him, bringing yells and curses when he slashed flesh. In the end their numbers were too great, and he was pressed to the dirt by the weight of them, his wrists bound behind him and a cord tied between his ankles for a hobble.
"Anybody hurt bad?" panted the man who had chuckled earlier. "My arm,"
someone moaned, and another voice said, "b.u.g.g.e.r your arm! He near as cut my ear off!"
Cursing the dark-not all had cat"s eyes-they pulled Conan to his feet and pulled him through the trees, dragging him, when the hobble caught roots and tripped him, until he managed to get his feet under him again.
Abruptly a blanket was pulled aside before him, and he was thrust into a stone-walled room lit by rush torches in rusted iron sconces on the walls. A huge hearth with a roaring fire of logs as big as a man"s leg, a great iron pot suspended on pivoting arm above it, filled one wall.
Blankets at the windows-narrow arrow-slits, in fact-kept the light from spilling into the surrounding forest. A dozen men, as motley a collection of ruffians as Conan had ever seen, sprawled on benches at crude trestle tables, swilling wine from rough clay mugs and wolfing down stew from wooden bowls.
Karela got to her feet as Conan"s captors crowded in after him, complaining loudly about their wounds and bruises. Her dark leather jerkin, worn over tight breeches of pale gray silk tucked into red boots, was laced snugly, yet gaped enough at the top to reveal the creamy upper slopes of her full, heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A belt worn low on her well-rounded hips supported her scimitar.
"So," she said, "you"re more fool than I thought you, Cimmerian. You"ll force me to kill you yet."
"The bronze, Karela," he said urgently. "You must not sell it. They"re trying-"
"Silence him!" she snapped.
"-to raise Al"Kiir," he managed to get out, then a club smashed against the back of his head, and darkness claimed him.
Chapter XVII.
The fool, Karela thought as she stared at Conan"s huge prostrate form.
Was his masculine arrogance so great that he could believe all he must needs do to retrieve the figure was ride up and take it? She knew him for a prideful man, and knew as well that the pride was justified. By himself, with naught but his broadsword, he was more than a match for ...