“Mitra!” Haranides breathed. “Your back, Conan! I could not have stood it a tenth so long.”
Wincing, Conan bent to pick up the iron. He ignored the dead man. To his mind all torturers should be treated so. “The means of our escape,” he said, holding Ort’s weapon up. Its metal was yet hot enough to burn, but the glow had faded.
Carefully Conan fit the length of the iron through a link of the chain a handsbreadth from the manacle on one wrist. He took a deep breath, then twisted, the iron one way, his wrist the other. The manacle cut into the just-healed wounds left from his being staked out by the bandits, and blood trickled over his hand. The other two men held their breath. With a sharp snap the chain broke.
Laughing, Conan held up his free wrist, the manacle still dangling a few inches of chain, and the iron. “I’d hoped the heat hadn’t destroyed the temper of the metal. It would have broken instead of the chain, otherwise.”
“You hoped,” Hordo wheezed. “You hoped!” The bandit threw back his shaggy head and laughed. “You bet our freedom on a hope, Cimmerian, and you won.”
As quickly as he could Conan broke the rest of his chains, and those of the other men. As soon as Hordo was free, the bearded man leaped to his feet. Conan seized his arm to stop him from rushing out.
“Hold hard,” the Cimmerian said.
“The time is gone for holding hard,” Hordo replied. “I go to see to the Red Hawk’s safety.”
“To see to her safety?” Conan asked. “Or to die by her side?”
“I seek the one, Cimmerian, but I’ll settle for the other.”
Conan growled deep in his throat. “I’ll not settle for death on S’tarra pikes, and if you will you’re useless to me. And to Karela. Haranides, how many of your men do you think still live? And will they fight?”
“Perhaps a score,” the captain replied. “And to get out of these cells they’ll fight Ahriman and Erlik both.”
“Then take you the jailer’s keys, and free them. If you can take and hold the barbican, we may live yet.”
Haranides nodded. “I’ll hold it. What will you be doing, Cimmerian?”
“Slaying Amanar,” Conan replied. Haranides nodded gravely.
“What about me?” Hordo said. The other two had been ignoring him.
“Are you with us?” Conan asked. He barely waited for Hordo’s nod before going on. “Rouse the bandits. Somehow you must get over the wall without being seen, and bring them up the ramp before the catapults can fire on them. You must kill S’tarra, you and Karela’s hounds, and set as many fires as you can within the keep. Both you and Haranides must wait my signal to move, so we are all in position. When the top of the tallest tower in the keep begins to burn, then ride.”
“I’ll be ready,” Hordo said. “It is taught that no plan of battle survives the first touch of battle. Let us hope ours is different.”
“Fare you well, Haranides,” Conan said; then he and Hordo were hurrying from the dungeon.
At the top of the stone stairs, as they entered the donjon itself, a S‘tarra rounded the corner not two paces from them. Hordo’s shoulder caught the creature in its mailed midriff, and Conan’s balled fist broke its neck. Hurriedly Conan pressed the S’tarra’s sword on Hordo, taking a broadbladed dagger for himself. Then they, too, parted.
The way to Amanar’s chamber atop the tower was easy to find, Conan thought. All one did was climb stairs until there were no more stairs to climb, sweeping marble arcs supported on air, polished ebon staircases wide enough to give passage to a score of men and massive enough to support an army.
And then there was only a winding stone stairway, curving around the wall of the tower with no rail to guard its inner drop. With his foot on the bottom step Conan paused, remembering Velita’s tale of a spell-trap. Were Amanar not within the keep, Conan’s next step could mean his bloody death by darkling sorceries. A slow death, he recalled. But if he did not go up, others would die at Amanar’s hands even if he did not. He took a step, then a second and third before he could think, continuing to place one foot in front of another until he was at the top, staring at an ironbound door.
A sigh of relief left him. Too, there was use in the knowledge that Amanar was within the keep. But this was not a way he cared to go about collecting information.
He opened the door and stepped into a room where evil soaked the walls, and the very air seemed heavy with sorcerous portent. Circular the room was, without windows and lined with books, but there was that about the pale leather of those fat tomes that made the Cimmerian want not to touch them. The tattered remains of mummies, parts of them ripped away, lay scattered across tables among a welter of beakers, flasks, tripods, and small braziers with their fires extinguished to cold ash. Jars of liquid held distorted things that might once have been parts of men. A dim light was cast over all by glass balls set in sconces around the walls that glowed with an eerie fire.
But Velita was not there. In truth, he admitted to himself, he had no longer expected her to be. He could, at least, avenge her.
Quickly he located the crystal coffer of which she had spoken.
It sat in a place of honor, on a bronze tripod standing in the center of the room. Carelessly he tossed the smoky lid aside to shatter on the stone floor, rummaged in the silken wrappings, and lifted out the silver-mounted black stone on its fine silver chain. Within the stone red flecks danced, just as in Amanar’s eyes.
Tucking the pendant behind his wide leather belt he searched hurriedly for anything else that might be of use. He was ready to go when he suddenly saw his sword, lying among a litter of thaumaturgical devices on one of the tables. He reached for it … and stopped with his hand hovering above the hilt. Why had Amanar brought the sword to this peccant chamber? Conan had had experience of ensorceled swords, had seen one kill the man who grasped it at the command of another. What had Amanar done to his blade?
The door of the room banged open, and Sitha sauntered in, fanged mouth dropping open in surprise at seeing Conan. Conan’s hand closed over the swordhilt in an instant and brought the blade to guard. At least, he thought with relief, it had not killed him so far.
“So, Cimmerian,” Sitha said, “you have escaped.” Almost casually it reached to a jumble of long, mostly unidentifiable objects, and produced a spear with a haft as thick as a man’s wrist. The point was near a shortsword in length. “The master cannot punish me for killing you here, in this place.”