Karela’s tilted eyes met Conan’s. “Fools,” she said, seeming to include all men, but most certainly him. With a quick, “Follow or stay, I care not,” she started down a long tunnel, torchlight glinting off damp walls.
Even the air felt moldy, Conan thought as he set out after her.
“As I was saying,” Hordo resumed, striding beside the Cimmerian, “she walked into the Thestis ready to take command. Wouldn’t tell me where she’d been, or how she knew where I was. Threatened to put a scar down my other cheek if I did not stop asking questions.”
His lone eye swiveled to Conan expectantly, but the big youth was watching Karela, wondering what was in her mind. Why had she come to rescue him? “And?” he said absently when he realized that Hordo had stopped talking.
The one-eyed man grunted sourly. “And nobody tells me anything,” he grunted sourly. “She had a woman with her. You remember the Lady Jelanna? ‘Twas her, but not so haughty this time. Bedraggled and haggard, she was, with bruises on her face and arms, and terrified to tears. ‘She will not stop,’ she kept moaning, ‘not until I am broken.’ And Karela kept soothing her and looking at the rest of us like it was us had done whatever had been done to this Jelanna.”
“Crom,” Conan muttered. “Do you have to be so long-winded? What does Jelanna have to do with anything?”
“Why, it was her told Karela how to find this passage. Lady Jelanna grew up in the Palace, it seems, playing hide-and-seek and such, as children do. Only sometimes they played in the old parts of the Palace, and she found three or four of the secret passages. She got out of the Palace by one herself. She was desperate to get out of the city, Cimmerian, so I told off two men to escort her to her estate in the country. Least I could do, and her showing us how to get in to you. I tell you true, I thought the next time I saw you we’d both be taking a pull at the Hellhorn.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why she would aid me,” Conan said, with a jerk of his head at Karela to indicate which ‘she’ he meant.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than the auburn-haired woman rounded on him. “The wolves were too good for you, you big Cimmerian oaf. If you are to be torn to pieces, I want to do it with my own hands. I want to hear you beg my forgiveness, you barbar bastard. I get first call at you, before that fool Garian.”
Conan eyed her calmly, a slight smile on his lips. “Did you stop because you lost the way, Karela? I will take the lead, an you wish.”
With a snarl she drew back her torch as if to strike him with it.
“There it is,” Hordo shouted, pointing to a short flight of stairs, barely revealed by the light, that led up to the ceiling and stopped. Relief dripped from every word. “Come on, Cimmerian,” he went on, herding Conan quickly past the furious-eyed woman. “We had trouble getting this back in place, in case anybody should take a look at the other side, but you and I should be able to lift it clear.” In a fierce whisper he added, “Watch your tongue, man. She’s been like a scalded cat ever since Machaon and those other fools told her they’d never heard of the Red Hawk.”
Eyeing the fierce scowl with which Karela watched them, Conan managed to turn his laughter into a cough. “This other side,” he said. “Where is it? If there’s anyone there, will they be likely to fight?”
“Not a chance of it,” Hordo laughed. “Now put your shoulder into it.”
The stairs seemed to end in one large slab of stone. It was to this Hordo urged Conan to apply himself. When he did, the thick slab lifted. With Hordo’s aid he slid it aside, then scrambled warily up. A heavy smell of incense filled the air. As the others followed with torches, Conan saw that he was in a windowless room filled with barrels and bales. Some of the bales were broken open to reveal incense sticks.
“A temple?” the Cimmerian asked in disbelief. “The passage comes out in the cellar of a temple?”
Hordo laughed and nodded. Motioning for silence, the one-eyed man climbed a wooden ladder fastened to one wall, and cautiously lifted a trapdoor. His head went up for a quick look, then he motioned the rest to follow and scrambled out himself.
Conan was quick to follow. He found himself in dim light from silver lamps, between a large rectangular block of marble and a towering, shadowed statue. With a start it came to him that he was between the altar stone and the idol of Erebus, a place where none but sanctified priests were allowed. But then, what was one death sentence more or less?
Quickly everyone found their way out of the cellar and, by way of narrow halls of pale marble, to a courtyard behind the temple. There two more of the Free-Company waited with the horses. And, Conan was glad to note, with hauberk, helm and scimitar for him. Hastily he armed himself properly.
“We can be beyond the city walls,” Hordo said, swinging into his saddle, “before they think to look outside the Palace.”
“We cannot leave yet,” Conan said quietly. He settled his helm on his head and likewise mounted. “Ariane is in Albanus’ hands.”
“Yet another woman?” Karela said dangerously.
“She befriended Hordo and me,” Conan said, “and as reward for it Albanus has her. I swore to see her safely out of this, and I will.”
“You and your oaths,” Karela muttered, but when he galloped out of the courtyard she was first of the company behind him.
XXIII
Isolated plumes of smoke rose into the bright afternoon sky above Belverus, marking houses of the wealthy that had been visited by revolutionary mobs. The sound of those mobs could be heard from time to time, borne on the breeze. It was a wordless, hungering snarl.
Once in that gallop across the city Conan saw one of those howling packs, some three of four score ragged men and women pounding at the locked doors and barred windows of a house with axes, swords, rocks, their bare hands. In the same instant that he saw them, they became aware of the Free-Company. A growl rippled through them, a sound that seemed impossible to come from a human throat, and like rats pouring from a sewer they threw themselves toward the mounted men. In their eyes was a hatred of any who had more than they, even if it was only armor. Many of the weapons they waved were bloodied.
“The bows will drive them back,” Hordo shouted.
Conan was not so sure. There was desperation in those faces. “Ride,” he commanded.
Galloping on, they quickly left the mob behind, yet even as it was disappearing from sight its members kept pursuing, their howls heard long after they could no longer be seen.