“Soldiers,” Conan replied.
“Soldiers! Where?”
Conan pointed. A black snake of men inched toward the foothills, seeming to move through shimmering air rather than on solid ground. Only soldiers would maintain such discipline marching through those waterless approaches to the mountains. They were yet distant, but even as the two men watched the snake appeared to grow larger. On the plain the soldiers moved faster than the bandits in the mountains. The gap would close further.
“No matter,” the one-eyed man muttered. “They’ll not catch us up here.”
“Dividing the loot, are you?” Aberius kicked his horses in the ribs, and the beast scrambled up beside the other two. “Best you wait till it’s in our grasp. You might not be one of those left alive to … . What’s that? Out there. Riders.”
Others heard him and turned in their saddles to look. “Hillmen?” a hook-nosed Iranistani named Reza said hesitantly.
“Can’t be,” a bearded Kothian replied. His name was Talbor, and the tip of his nose had been bitten off. “Hillmen don’t raid far from the mountains.”
“And not so many together,” Aberius agreed. His glower included both Conan and Hordo. “Soldiers, be they not? It’s soldiers you’ve brought on us.”
An excited gabble went up from the men gathered around them. “Soldiers!” “The army’s on us!” “Our heads on pikes!” “A whole regiment!” “The King’s Own!”
“Still your tongues!” Hordo shouted. “There’s no more than two hundred, to my eye, and a day behind us, at that.”
“’Tis still five to one against,” Aberius said. “Or near enough as makes no difference.”
“These mountains are not our place,” Reza cried. “We be rats in a box.”
“Ferrets in a woodpile,” Hordo protested. “If this is not our own ground, still less is it theirs.” The rest paid him no mind.
“We chase mists,” Talbor shouted, rising in his stirrups to address the bandits who were gathering. “We ride into these accursed mountains after ghosts. It’ll not stop till we find ourselves with our backs to a rock wall and Zamoran lances at our throats.”
Aberius sawed his reins, and his horse pranced dangerously on the steeply sloping ground. “Do you question my tracking, Talbor? The path we follow is the path taken by those I saw.” He laid hand to his sword hilt.
“You threaten me, Aberius?” the Kothian growled. His fingers slid from his pommel toward the tulwar at his hip.
Karela spurred suddenly into their midst, her naked sword in hand. “I’ll kill the first man to bare an inch of blade,” she announced heatedly. Her cat-like eyes flicked each man in turn; both hurriedly removed their hands from their weapons. “Now tell me what has you at each other’s throats like dancing girls in a zenana.”
“The soldiers,” Aberius began.
“These supposed pendants,” Talbor started at the same instant.
“Soldiers!” Karela said. She jerked her head around, and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she spotted the distant line of men on the plain below. “Fear you soldiers so far away, Aberius?” she sneered. “What would you fear closer? An old woman with a stick?”
“I like not being followed by anyone,” Aberius replied sulkily. “Or think you they follow us not?”
“I care not if they follow us or no,” she flared. “You are the Red Hawk’s men! An you follow me, you’ll fear what I tell you to fear and naught else. Now all of you get up ahead. There’s level ground there where we’ll camp the night.”
“There’s a half a day yet we could travel,” Hordo protested.
She rounded on him, green eyes flashing. “Did you not hear my command? I said we camp! You, Cimmerian, remain here.”
Her one-eyed lieutenant grumbled, but turned his horse up the mountain, and the rest followed in sullen silence broken only by the creak of saddle leather and the slick of hooves on stone.
Conan watched the red-haired woman warily. She hefted her sword as if she had half a mind to drive it into him, then sheathed it. “Who is this girl, Conan? What is her name?”
“She’s called Velita,” he said. He had told her of Velita before, and knew she remembered the dancing girl’s name. In time she would come to what she truly wanted to speak of. He twisted around for another look at the column of soldiers. “They gain ground on us, Karela. We should keep moving.”
“We move when I say. And stop when I say. Do you think to play some game, Conan?
He turned back to her. Her green eyes were clouded with emotion as she stared at him. What emotion he could not say. “I play no more games than you, Karela.”
Her snort was eloquent. “Treasures taken from a king’s palace, so you say, not to mention this baggage you claim to have promised her freedom. Why then do the thieves flee to these mountains, where none live but goats, and savages little better than goats?”