Conan the Relentless Part 25

"I am here, Star Brother, and at your command."

"At... at... my-?" Forkbeard's fury altogether took possession of his tongue, and he sputtered into silence. Aybas thought of asking forgiveness for unintended offenses, but he also lapsed into silence.

He much doubted that he could utter such words and still command his face.

With neither man able to break it, the silence drew on. It began to seem to Aybas that the rocks overhead would crumble with the pa.s.sage of the years and allow the lake and the beast to come roaring into the grotto.

"Aybas," Forkbeard snapped then. "Did you speak to anyone of this notion that Prince Urras is nurse-brother to the Pougoi?"

"Other than to the princess and her servant, I spoke no word to any living creature, or even to the air. I do not know what the women may have said, where, or to whom. But my tongue has been guarded, and I will swear it by whatever you hold most sacred."

"That would not be lawful, since you are not a Star Brother." The wizard seemed to be speaking merely to avoid looking witless. Then he sat down abruptly and twisted his beard with the fingers of both hands.

"Perhaps you are blameless. But your... the scheme... this truth... it has escaped to the warriors of the Pougoi. They think it the truth. They think well of a future king of the Border being nurse-brother to the Pougoi."

Forkbeard did not add, "They think ill of sacrificing him to the star-beast." He did not need to. The very air shouted it in Aybas's ears. He was hard put not to grin in triumph.

To give his mouth some occupation, Aybas inclined his head and spoke.

"I rejoice that there is peace between the Star Brothers and the warriors of the Pougoi. Great will be the Pougoi when their strong right hand and their strong left hand wield the same weapon."

Forkbeard shot Aybas a look that made the Aquilonian wonder if he was suspected of jesting. Then the wizard rose.

"You speak the truth. The warriors are our right hand, and the left and the right hands cannot quarrel without leaving the Pougoi helpless in the face of their enemies."

Those might just be the words flung together to sound well, but Aybas thought he heard more in them. Certainly he had not had any messages from Count Syzambry since the night the palace fell and the king fled.

Indeed, he had not even heard of any messages.

Had Syzambry perhaps not survived the moment of his victory? Or was it merely that some aspect of the piper's magic kept messages from pa.s.sing between the count and the Star Brothers? How much magic did that cursed Marr have at his command?

"Prince Urras is nurse-brother to the Pougoi," Forkbeard said. "This shall be proclaimed so that all may know it. Go in peace, Aybas, but guard your step and your tongue. You are no nurse-brother to anyone, save perhaps a flea-ridden b.i.t.c.h weaned on..."

The wizard went on at some length in describing all the various unlikely and unclean animals that were near-kin to Aybas. Aybas submitted to the insults with dignity and did not laugh aloud until he was far across the valley toward his hut. Then he laughed until he had to lurch to a stump and collapse upon it until his breath returned. As it did, so did a clear mind.

Who had spread word of his strategem among the warriors of the Pougoi?

He knew none whom he could trust with the matter, and he doubted that the princess did either. She was a shrewd woman, notwithstanding that she was young enough to be Aybas's daughter. But shrewd enough to understand the ways of the Pougoi after only a few days' captivity among them? Aybas doubted that miracle.

Then the name burst into his mind like a thunderclap.

Wylla!

She had heard, perhaps by magic, perhaps by being in the right place with a ready ear. Her father was not least among the Pougoi warriors, in spite of his advanced years. He would surely listen to her, would know warriors whom he could trust with anything, and would speak to them. With law and custom giving them a weapon against the Star Brothers, the warriors could be counted on to finish the work that Wylla had begun.

Aybas knelt and rested one hand on the stump, placed the other over his heart. For the first time since he left Aquilonia, he swore an oath by the G.o.ds of his childhood, in the manner he had been taught as a boy.

He would speak no word and do no deed to harm Wylla, and he would guard her from the words and deeds of others as best he could. He would not touch her without her consent, nor allow others to do so.

If he was forsworn in this, might he end his life here in this valley, without name or honor or any fit prayers and sacrifices.

It was the fourth day after the fall of the palace and the flight of the king.

Rumors flew now like geese bound south in the autumn. It was said that Syzambry was ensorceled, dying, dead, sick abed, or all of these at once. Conan wondered aloud how much truth there might be behind all these words, thinking to keep his men from hoping for too much.

To Raihna, he spoke his mind more freely. "Something has gone awry with Syzambry or his plans or both. I'd wager my manhood on that. But what it might be, and what good we can take from it-" He threw his hands into the air,

Raihna slipped down off the boulder where she had been perched whetting her dagger. "I'll pray you do not lose the wager, if that is the stakes."

"What, no thoughts of Decius?"

"A woman can think of a score of well-looking men, Conan. But she can only bed one who is present."

Conan put an arm across Raihna's shoulders, but she slipped from under it and darted down the path. "There's a pool down there where the stream makes a bend. Race you to a bath."

Raihna had a head start, but Conan's long legs quickly made up the distance. They finished the race running side by side, with Conan's arm around Raihna's waist.

They were splas.h.i.+ng in the pool when Conan thought he heard a footfall.

He took his eyes from Raihna's sun-dappled shoulders and freckled b.r.e.a.s.t.s and studied the trees around them.

The mountain wind gave a stately motion to the branches high aloft.

Conan did not think he'd heard the sound of either wind or forest. A deer, perhaps, since he and his companion were farther from the main camp than usual, and upwind of it as well.

Nevertheless, Conan reached down to be sure that the well-greased dagger on his ankle was still there and drawing freely. As he did, Raihna popped up directly before him and threw her arms around his neek. She not only pulled his head down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she pulled him off balance. He tumbled forward, and they both went down to the bottom of the pool in a warm tangle.

When they rose, Conan could see in Raihna's eyes the thought that they were now clean enough. He drew her against him, then looked beyond her for a soft patch of ground. He found it, but he also found something that drove all thoughts of bed sport out of his mind.

A man was standing on the patch of needles. He was not a man easy to describe, save that he was shorter than Conan and slighter of build.

But then, so were most men.

His garb was more uncommon. He wore a loose tunic and looser trousers, homespun and dyed in motley green and brown. A leather sack swung from one shoulder, and he held a long staff of well-seasoned wood in his left hand. He seemed to be unarmed, but wore on his belt what drew and held the Cimmerian's eyes: a set of pipes, seven of them, the shortest no longer than Conan's thumb, the longest nearly half the length of his forearm. Pipes carved with vast care and cunning from some dark wood, then given silver mouthpieces and silver bands. Bands of silver spun as fine as thread and then braided and knotted-

"I crave pardon if I surprised you," the man said. "I am Marr the Piper."

"Tell me something my own eyes can't," Conan growled. He was edging toward the bank of the pool, moving slowly, refraining from any sudden gesture that might surprise or alarm this visitor. He wished that Raihna had not kept him from drawing the dagger from his ankle.

He could not wish more of Raihna. She was standing waist-deep in the pool, making no effort to cover herself as she wrung water out of her hair. She bore no weapon, but a woman like her was well-armed enough without steel as long as she was also without clothing. A man's body might be safe from her, but his mind-

Conan reached the bank. With a single lunge he was out of the water and gripping his sword. Marr looked his way. "That will not be needed."

"Needed, or useful?"

"Why do you think it might not be useful?"

"If you aren't a sorcerer or near-kin to one-"

"Whatever else I may be, I arn no enemy to you or your friends." Conan did not lower the sword, but when he spoke, his voice was less harsh.

"That will take some explaining."

"If we have the time-"