Conan the Relentless Part 15

The recruits set a good pace in mounting the slope. The Border Kingdom was home to all. As children, they had climbed its hills, and as men, they could teach even a long-limbed Cimmerian something about moving on rough terrain.

Beyond the line of the ridge, the ground plunged away into a cliff.

Only a bird, or perhaps an ape, could descend the drop. The cliff was so high that the stream below was a silver thread winding through gray rocks dwarfed to pebbles and dark green trees that might have been flowers in a garden.

The slope behind Conan lay silent in the sun. If the skulkers were not Kalk's fancy, they had either departed or lain quiet as the Guards pa.s.sed them.

Conan frowned at Kalk. The sergeant spread his hands. "It was not the sun," he said mildly.

"I didn't say it was," Conan replied. "We'll spread out as we go down.

Grow eyes in the backs of your heads and ears in your a.r.s.es and we may find something."

Six men was a jest for a real search of the slope. Sixty would not have been too few, and three times that many might not have been wasted.

The men had finished spreading out along the ridge line when Kalk shouted.

"Sergeant Conan! I was not deceived. Come and look just below the top of the cliff!"

Conan thought of drawing his sword but realized that he would need both hands for a secure grip. He stepped cautiously toward Kalk, but no caution could have saved his ankle from the snare Kalk had set the night before.

What caution could not prevent, strength and speed did. As he felt the leather thongs coil serpent-like around his ankle, Conan flung himself backward, away from the cliff. With his sword still at his waist, he had both hands free to break his fall.

The Cimmerian landed, rolled, then lashed out with his feet. The savage lunge of powerful legs snapped the thongs like twine before Kalk could draw his steel. The sergeant's blade was still coming clear when Conan's feet lashed out again.

This time one boot drove against Kalk's knee. He screamed at the pain of his ruined kneecap, then toppled sideways over the cliff. Kalk went on screaming all the way down, until the scream ended in a distant sound, like a ripe melon flung down on a stone floor.

Conan did not wait to listen to the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin's fate. Kalk had friends, and the Cimmerian had other matters at hand.

He dealt with two of the friends in a flurry of steel striking sparks from steel, then slicing flesh. Both men were down and bleeding when a shout made Conan turn.

One of the Guards was grappling with an archer who had an arrow nocked to his bow. Conan hurled himself at the men as his ally drew a dagger and stabbed the archer in the thigh. The man screamed but lashed out with his bow. The other man fell backward, to land on the very edge of the cliff.

Then he was over the edge as the stone under him crumbled. Conan was barely in time to grab the hand that was the only part of the man visible. The man's b.l.o.o.d.y fingers made Conan's grip uncertain, and he s.h.i.+fted to using both hands. Thus he pulled the man up until he could firmly grip a wrist. Then the sound of boots in dry gra.s.s drew Conan's attention to his rear.

The archer had retrieved his bow and arrow and lurched to a sitting position. Well beyond the reach of Conan's sword, he was trying to draw and shoot. If he succeeded, the arrow could hardly miss a vital spot.

Conan knew that his death might be no more than a few score heartbeats away. But he did not have it in him to send the man who had saved him plunging after Sergeant Kalk. That might not save him either.

What saved Conan was a man who burst from undergrowth the Cimmerian would have sworn could not hide a squirrel. The man jumped on the archer, las.h.i.+ng out with hands and feet. The archer seemed to leap upright, then to topple. When he came down, he landed squarely on Conan's rib cage. The Cimmerian's breath came short, and for a moment he had to fight for his grip. Then he saw, with staring eyes and doubting mind, who had come to save him.

The man wore sun-bleached leather leggings and a sweat-stained linen jerkin. He looked twenty years younger than usual, but he was nevertheless Captain-General Decius.

"If dangling your friends over the edge of a cliff is sport to you, Conan, no wonder you walk alone."

Decius knelt and caught the loyal Guard's free arm. The double pull had him safe in another moment, whereupon he fainted.

Conan rose cautiously and retrieved his sword. "So this is where you've been in days past, when you were not flattering Raihna?"

"Here and there and other places like it," Decius said. "My men are out and about, however. I mean no insult, Conan, but I can trust my sergeants more than yours."

Conan remembered his glimpse of Kalk's body, bent backward over a blood-spattered stone. "By Erlik's bra.s.s tool, I should hope so!"

While they spoke, Decius tore strips from the archer's s.h.i.+rt and bound his b.l.o.o.d.y thigh. Now he wiped his hands on the remnant of the s.h.i.+rt and stood.

"He will do long enough for questioning. I doubt that we will learn many of Oyzhik's secrets from him, but Kalk is silent forever."

"I didn't send him-" Conan began, then realized that Decius was smiling. The smile broadened, and Conan knew that his own face must have said more than he wished.

"I have shared your doubts about Oyzhik, Conan, if you were wondering.

As for your doubts about me-" Decius shrugged.

"I'm done with those," Conan growled. He thrust his sword back into its scabbard with a thump. "What of your doubts about me?"

"I have none," Decius said. "Not anymore. But... I do have a favor to ask of you."

The words came out strangely, and Decius's look was stranger still. He was sweating even more than the sun could explain and seemed unsure of what to do with his hands.

Conan knew a moment's unease at not knowing what the favor might be.

Then he decided that the G.o.ds forbid he should be ungrateful to the man who had saved him from joining Sergeant Kalk on the rocks below.

"You can ask, although I don't promise to grant," the Cimmerian replied.

"What lies between you and Raihna?" The words came out in a rush as if Decius feared his voice would betray him otherwise.

Conan wanted to laugh. Decius was not much younger than the Cimmerian's father would have been were he alive. He was also a widower who had buried three sons as well as his wife. Yet the captain-general was asking as if he were a love-stricken youth.

He would also be as easily hurt as any such youth, and he would not forget such an injury. That thought made it easier for Conan to find words.

"By all the lawful G.o.ds of this realm and my homeland, I swear that Raihna and I are not bonded, hand-fasted, betrothed, dedicated, wed, married... have I left anything out?"

Deeius smiled uncertainly. "Not to my knowledge. But... you are bedmates?"

Conan swallowed a peevish reply to the question. Decius had not only saved him from Kalk's fate, he had done so at the risk of meeting it himself. Decius might not have come to the hill alone, but he had surely hidden himself far beyond help by any companions. That courage called for at least a civil reply to the man's uncivil question.

"We have been, and may be again. It was the choice of both of us."

"Well, then," Decius said. Relief seemed to leave him speechless and unsteady on his feet for a moment. "Then-it is much to ask you, Conan--but will you press my suit with Mistress Raihna?"

Conan silently invoked the names of a number of G.o.ds of love and desire. All of them seemed to have led Decius's wits astray. He hoped they would shortly lead them home again. Meanwhile, he could at least answer this question from sure and certain knowledge.

"I will not, and for two good reasons. One is that the lady would not think the better of you for lacking the... for not speaking for yourself.

The second is that I doubt you saved my head today so that Raihna could break it tonight!"

"I suppose that is the best I can hope for," Decius said. He cupped his hands and gave a war cry that had either no words or none that Conan understood.

Three heads popped up from the scrub and three hands rose beside them.

Conan judged distances and saw that Decius had not in fact put himself beyond help. His men had stayed hidden while their captain-general inquired if Raihna was a free woman!

So Decius was not altogether foolhardy. Conan still muttered another prayer that the love G.o.ds would undo their work on Decius's wits. The Cimmerian had never heard of good coming of mixing love and war, least of all for captains with other men's lives in their hands!