The strange darkness lingered in the valley, resisting morning and fading to a gray dawn only after the blood-red sun stood well above the mountaintops. It was mid-morning before full daylight came, but Conan alone noticed in the bandit camp, for the others lay sprawled in drunken stupors. As the sun at last sucked the last canescence from the valley air, the Cimmerian made his way to the spring that bubbled from a cleft not far from the camp.
Scooping water in his cupped hands, he drank, and made a disgusted sound in his throat. Though cold, the water was flat and lifeless, like everything else in the barren and forboding rift. He contented himself with splashing it on his face, and settled to observe the valley.
On the battlements of the keep S‘tarra moved, but nothing else stirred except vultures making slow circles in the distance. Conan wondered grimly how Velita had fared at Amanar’s return. The sorcerer seemed not to know how far Conan’s nocturnal peregrinations had taken him—at least, there was no sign of alarm, no squads of S’tarra sent for him—but that spoke not at all to her faring.
“Tonight,” the muscular youth vowed.
Aberius, tottering up to fall on his knees beside the spring, glanced incuriously at him. The man’s usual hostility seemed momentarily expelled by wine fumes. The weasel-faced bandit dashed a few handfuls of water over his head and staggered away to be replaced by Hordo, who threw himself at full length by the spring and plunged his head into the pool.
Just as Conan was about to go over and pull him out, the one-eyed man lifted his head and peered at the Cimmerian through dripping hair and beard. “Has this water no taste,” he mumbled, “or did my tongue die last night?”
“Both,” Conan chuckled. Hordo groaned and lowered his head once more to the water, but this time only far enough to drink. “Have you seen Talbor this morning, Hordo?”
“I’ve seen nothing this morning but the insides of my own eyelids. Let me decide in peace whether I desire to live or not.”
“Talbor was inside the fortress last night, when I was.”
Hordo lifted himself on his elbows, flipping water at his face with spatulate fingers. “Such a thing to tell a man with my head. Do you think that’s why Amanar was summoned to the keep?”
Conan nodded. “Talbor’s not in the camp. I checked at first light.”
“He could have stolen what he wanted, taken a horse, and be halfway out of the Kezankians by now,” the other man protested. “He’s not as particular as you. He’d not insist on Tiridates’ playpretties, and a dancing girl besides.”
“You could be right,” Conan said flatly.
“I know,” Hordo sighed. “I don’t believe it, either. So is he dead, or is he in the sorcerer’s dungeon? And what do we tell her?”
“We wait to see what Amanar tells her. His S’tarra outnumber us at least twenty to one, and those are odds I bet small coins on.”
He got to his feet as Sitha appeared at the portcullis and came down the black granite ramp. The tall S’tarra carried neither ax nor sword that Conan could see. It reached the bottom of the incline and set off at a brisk pace across the gray, boulderstrewn valley floor toward the bandit camp. Conan started down the rocky slope to meet it, and Hordo scrambled to his feet to follow.
When Conan walked into the camp, the scaled creature was the center of a ring of brigands. No weapons were in hand, he was relieved to see, but the human eyes there were far from friendly. And who could say of Sitha’s?
Hordo pushed past Conan to confront the S’tarra. “What’s this, then? Does your master send a message for us?”
“I come for myself,” Sitha hissed. It stood half a head taller than the burly one-eyed bandit, taller even than Conan, and if there was no expression in those sanguine eyes there was certainly contempt in the sibilant voice. A padded gambeson and chainmail hauberk covered it to the knees, but it wore no helmet. “I am Sitha, Warden of the S’tarra, and I come to pit myself against you.”
Aberius, behind Conan, laughed uneasily. “Without so much as a dagger?”
Sitha bared its fangs. “My master would not be pleased, an I slew you. We will pit strength at the stones.”
“Stones?” Hordo said. “What stones?”
The S’tarra spun on its booted heel, motioning for them to follow. In a muttering file they did, down the valley away from the keep to a spot where boulders had been arranged to form a rough circle half a hundred paces across. The ground between had been smoothed and leveled, and in the center of the circle lay two rough spheres of dark granite. Conan estimated the smaller at twice the weight of a man, the larger at half again as much.
“Lift one of the stones,” Sitha said. “Any one of you.” It flashed bare fangs again, briefly. “Any two of you.”
“Hordo!” someone called. “Hordo’s strongest!”
Aberius eyed the stones, then Karela’s one-eyed lieutenant. “Who’ll wager?” he cried, his narrow face taking on a malicious smile. “Who thinks old Hordo can lift the small stone?”
“Old Hordo, is it?” Hordo spat.
He bent to the lesser of the huge stones as a babbling knot formed around Aberius to get their wagers marked. The burly man threw his arms about the stone, fitting his hands carefully to the undercurves, and heaved. The scar running from under his eye-patch whitened with S
train, and his eye bulged. The round stone stirred. Abruptly his hands slipped, and he staggered back with an oath.
“Mitra!” the one-eyed brigand panted. “There’s no way to get a good grip on the accursed thing.” Chortling, Aberius collected his winnings.