Malak licked his lips. “Why are they trying to capture us? I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps Amphrates is even madder than we thought,” Conan replied grimly. “Perhaps he wants to see how much the Torturers’ Guild can make us scream before we die.”
“Mitra!” Malak breathed. “Why did you have to tell me something like that?”
Conan shrugged. “You asked.” Again the horn sounded. “Get ready. They’re coming again.”
Again four riders bore the net spread between them, but this time the outriders brought their number up to a full score. As the horsemen pounded toward them, Conan motioned unobtrusively; Malak shrugged and nodded. The two men stood, waiting, as they had before. Closer the net came, and closer. Only three strides from the men on the ground, half the outriders swung in close to the net. This time there would be no unimpeded cutting
of the net or killing of its bearers.
As the outriders closed with the net, Conan leaped to the left and Malak to the right. Net-bearers and outriders galloped between them, cursing and trying to turn their horses. A club swung at Conan’s head. Its wielder grunted in surprise when his wrist slapped into the Cimmerian’s palm, yelled in disbelief as the massive youth jerked him from the saddle. Conan’s fisted hilt struck once, spraying blood and teeth, and his opponent slumped.
Drumming hooves alerted him to an attacker coming from behind. His hand closed on the long club as it fell from nerveless fingers, and he rose, spinning into a backhand blow with the staff. The thick length of wood cracked as it slammed across the midsection of a charging horseman. Eyes bulging and air rushing from him in one long strangled gasp, the rider bent as if seeking to fold himself around the club, and his horse galloped out from under him.
“Conan!”
Before his last opponent had struck the ground Conan was seeking the reason for Malak’s cry. Two of the black-armored warriors were leaning from their saddles to club at a bloody, writhing shape on the ground.
With a wild yell the Cimmerian was on them, ensanguined steel slashing. Two corpses fell away from him as he dragged the small thief to his feet, dazed of eye and with scarlet rivulets streaming down his face. The net-bearers were coming once more, he saw, and Malak was barely able to stand, certainly in no shape to fight.
Muscles bulging in a massive shoulder and arm, Conan hurled his companion aside and leaped for the net. His hand closed on it, and he heaved. A surprised warrior was catapulted from his saddle to land atop the grid of thick ropes, tangling in it as he rolled. A club smashed into the Cimmerian’s back, staggering him, but he whirled, roaring, and drove his blade under iron breastplate.
There was no hope of escape. He knew that. Too many men crowded around him, striking with staves and clubs. Dust pounded up by dancing hooves coated his sweated body. The coppery stench of blood was in his nostrils, and his ears were filled with the din of men shouting their rage that he would not fall. Soon he must go down, but he would not surrender. His blade was a whirlwind of razor steel, encarnadining whatever it touched. By fury alone he hacked a way through the press of mounted men, but the mass swirled and enclosed him again.
Loudly the horn sounded, the brazen note slicing through the tumult. And the men who had crowded so about him drew back. With obvious reluctance they abandoned their silent dead and groaning wounded, galloping back to form once more their circle at three hundred paces distance.
In wonder Conan watched them go. Blood trickled in the dust on his face, and stained the back and chest of his tunic. Malak was gone, he saw. No, not gone. Captured. Netted, an arm and a leg sticking through the thick mesh, like a pig on its way to market. Regret coursed through the Cimmerian, and a determination not to end so.
Slowly he turned, attempting to keep an eye on all of those about him. Horses wandered riderless between the circle and him. He might seize one of those and fight his way clear, if he was willing to abandon Malak. He made no move toward a horse. Close to him there were bodies, some still, some twitching. A few cried out for succor, or stretched a hand toward the black-armored watchers.
“Come, then!” Conan shouted at the iron circle. “Let us finish it, an you have the stomach!” Here and there a horse moved as if its rider had shifted angrily, but only silence answered him.
The rattle of rocks sliding down the hill announced the arrival of the two who had remained on the hilltop. The big man in the gold-chased armor stopped at ten paces distance from the Cimmerian, but the leather-masked rider halved that before drawing rein. Conan set himself. He could make out little of the one who approached, for the mask covered all but eyes, and a cloak of black wool swathed all else, but if single combat was sought, Conan was ready.
The lone figure’s hands rose to remove the nasaled helmet. Then the mask came off, and the Cimmerian gasped despite himself. A woman faced him, dark eyes smouldering above high cheekbones, raven hair pinned in tight coils about her head. Beautiful she was, with the beauty that can only come to the woman who has left girlhood behind, but there was a fierceness to that beauty, in the firm set to her lovely jaw and the penetrating quality of her gaze. Her cloak was thrown back to reveal riding breeches and tunic of sable silk, clinging to every curve of full breast and rounded thigh. Conan drew a deep breath. Of all women, he had never expected to be confronted by this one.
“You are the one called Conan.” Her voice was sensuous, yet imperious.
Conan did not answer. That she had left her perfumed palace and bright gardens for the heat of the plains was surprise enough, but that she had come seeking him—and such he did not now doubt—was more than merely worrisome. Yet he had lived long enough among those who called themselves civilized and him barbarian to know some rules of survival among them. He would give no information until he knew more.
The mounted woman’s delicate brows drew down at his silence. “You know who I am, do you not?”
“You are Taramis,” Conan replied simply, and her frown deepened.
“Princess Taramis.” She emphasized the first word. His face lost none of its grimness, nor did his sword lower from its ready position. She was tall for a woman, and she drew herself up to the last hairsbreadth of her height. “I am the Princess Royal of Zamora. Tiridates, your king, is my brother.”
“Tiridates is not my king,” Conan said.
Taramis smiled as if she found herself back on a familiar path. “Yes,” she breathed. “You are a northlander, a barbarian, are you not? And a thief?”
Conan stiffened. It was all he could do not to check the encircling horsemen to see if some were drifting closer with their nets, yet he knew the true danger lay with the woman before him. “What do you want of me?” he demanded.
“Serve me, Conan the thief.”
He had had patrons of the moment before, those who gave him gold for a particular theft, and at that moment it seemed his alternative was to battle the remaining black-armored warriors. Yet perversity touched him. “No.”
“You refuse me?” Taramis said incredulously.