“Silence him!” she snapped.
“—to raise Al’Kiir,” he managed to get out, then a club smashed against the back of his head, and darkness claimed him.
17
The fool, Karela thought as she stared at Conan’s huge prostrate form. Was his masculine arrogance so great that he could believe all he must needs do to retrieve the figure was ride up and take it? She knew him for a priceful man, and knew as well that the pride was justified. By himself, with naught but his broadsword, he was more than a match for … .
Abruptly she cursed to herself. The Cimmerian was no longer the same man who had emprisoned a part of her and carried it away with him. She had been thinking of him as he was when she first knew him, a thief and a loner with naught but his wits and the strength of his sword arm. Now he commanded men, and men who, she reluctantly admitted, were a more dangerous pack than the hounds she led.
“Was he alone?” she demanded. “An you’ve led his Free-Company here, I’ll have your hides for boots!”
“Didn’t see nobody else,” Tenio muttered. “That means there weren’t nobody else.” A small, ferrety man with a narrow face and sharp nose, he spat a tooth into his palm and glared at it. “I say kill him.” Some of those nursing broken ribs and knife gashes growled assent.
Marusas, her Zamoran, produced a dagger in his long, calloused fingers. “Let us wake him, instead. He looks strong. He would scream a long time before he died.”
Instantly all of the men were shouting, arguing for one course or the other.
“Kill him now! He’s too dangerous!”
“He’s just a man. Flay him, and he’ll scream like any other.”
“You didn’t fight him out there! You don’t know!”
“He cut me to the bone with ten of us on him, and broke Agorio’s arm!”
“Silence, you dogs!” Karela roared, and the bickering ceased as they turned to stare at her. “I say who dies, and I say he doesn’t. Not yet, at least! Do any of you mangy curs care to dispute me? To your kennels!”
She put a hand to her scimitar hilt, and a dangerous light glowed in her green eyes. One by one they dropped their eyes from hers, muttered, and shuffled back to their drinking or to tend their wounds. Jamaran, a huge, shaven-headed Kushite with shoulders broader than Conan’s and the thick fingers of a wrestler, was the last to remain glowering at her, his dark face twisted with anger. A split of his cheek showed where Conan’s fist had landed in the struggle.
“Well, Jamaran?” she said. She knew he wanted to replace her, and take her to his bed as well, though he did not know she was aware of his desires. He had thoughts about the proper place for women; sooner or later she would have to show him the error of his ways or slay him. “Are you ready to dispute my rule?”
Surprise glimmered on his face, and was quickly supplanted by a sneering smile. “Not yet,” he growled. “I will tell you when, my red-haired pretty.” His black eyes ran over her body like a caress, then with incredible lightness on his feet for a man of his size he stalked to the nearest table and snatched up a mug, tossing back his head to drink deeply.
Karela quivered in shocked outrage as she glared at his broad back. Never before had he been so open. She would have to kill him, she tho
ught, after this. But it could not be done now. The temper of her band was too delicately balanced. As much as she hated admitting it, a wrong move now could wreck all she had labored for. With a snarl she released her sword.
It was not like the days in Zamora, she thought grimly. Then none of her band dared to challenge her word, or to think of her as a woman. It was all Conan’s fault. He had changed her in some way she did not understand, some way she did not want to be changed. He had woven a thread of weakness into her fabric, and other men could sense it.
As if her thoughts of him had been a call the Cimmerian groaned and stirred.
“Gag him,” she ordered. “Move, Derketo curse you! I’ll not be bothered by his babblings!”
Conan shook himself as Tenio and Jamaran knelt beside him. “Karela,” he said desperately, “listen to me. These men are dangerous. They mean to bring an evil—”
Tenio tried to shove a rag into his mouth, and screamed as the Cimmerian sank teeth into his hand. Jamaran smashed a fist into Conan’s jaw; the ferret-faced man jerked his hand free, sprinkling drops of blood as he shook it. Before Conan could speak again Jamaran had thrust the wadding home and bound it. As he got to his feet the shaven-headed man kicked Conan in the ribs and pulled back his booted foot for another. Tenio drew his dagger with his undamaged hand, a murderous gleam in his eyes.
“Stop that,” Karela commanded. “Did you hear me? Leave him!”
Slowly, reluctantly, the two drew away from the Cimmerian.
She could feel those sapphire eyes on her. He shook his head furiously, fighting the gag, making angry noises behind it. Shivering, she turned her back to stare into the fire.
Karela knew she could not afford to let herself listen to the young giant. He had always been able to talk her into anything. Did he put his hands on her, her will melted. This time, she told herself, this time it would be different.
The night went slowly for her, and she was aware that it was because of Conan’s eyes on her back. The rest of the bandits took themselves off to sleep, most simply pulling blankets about them on the stone floor, but sleep would not come near Karela. Like a leopard in a cage she paced, and the goad that made her pace was an unblinking icy blue gaze. She would have had him blindfolded, except that she would not admit even to herself that simply his eyes on her could affect her so greatly.
Finally the titian-haired beauty settled before the great hearth and studied the leaping flames as if they were the most important thing in the world. Yet even then she could not escape the Cimmerian, imagining him writhing in the fire, imagining him suffering all the tortures of the damned, all the tortures he so richly deserved. She could not understand why that seemed to make her feel even worse, or why from time to time she had to surreptitiously wipe tears from her cheeks.