Mutters of negation filled the room, but Farouz said, “Jhal keeps a wench alive till his pleasure is spent. Do you now abandon the Imalla’s quest to join him?”
Djinar’s dagger was suddenly in his hand. He tested the edge on a well-calloused thumb. “I go to ask questions,” he said, and strode from the room.
Behind him the hubbub of argument over the looting rose higher.
Chapter 7
Conan let his reins fall on the neck of his horse, moving at a slow walk, and took a long pull on his water-skin. His expression did not change at the stale taste of the tepid fluid. He had drunk worse at times when the sun did not beat down so strongly from a cloudless sky as it did now, though it had risen not three handspans above the horizon. His cloak was rolled and bound behind his saddle pad, and a piece of his tunic was held on his head like a kaffiyeh by a leather cord. Rolling hills, with here and there an outcrop of rock or a huge, half-buried boulder, stretched as far as the eye could discern, with never a tree, nor any growth save sparse patches of rough grass.
Twice since leaving Shadizar he had crossed the tracks of very large bodies of men, and once he had seen Zamoran infantry in the distance, marching north. He kept himself from their sight. It did not seem likely that Baratses had influence enough to set the army on his trail, but a man in Conan’s profession quickly learned to avoid chance encounters with large numbers of soldiers. Life was more peaceful, less complicated without soldiers. Of the Lady Jondra’s hunting party he had seen no sign.
Plugging the spout of the skin, he slung it from his shoulder and returned to a study of the tracks he followed now. A single horse, lightly laden. Perhaps a woman rider.
He booted the roan into a trot, its quickest pace. He intended to have a word with Abuletes when he returned to Shadizar, a quiet converse about messages sent to horse traders. The tavernkeeper’s friend had denied having another animal beside this gelding on its last legs, and bargained as if he knew the big youth had reason to leave Shadizar quickly. Conan dug in his heels again, but the animal would move no faster.
Snarls, growing louder as he rode, drifted to him over the next rise. Topping the swell of ground, he took in the scene below in one glance. Half a score of wolves quarreled over the carcass of a horse. Some eyed him warily without ceasing their feast. Twenty paces away the Lady Jondra crouched precariously atop a boulder, her bow clutched in one hand. Five more of the massive gray beasts waited below, their eyes intent on her.
Suddenly one of them took a quick step forward and leaped for the girl on the rock. Desperately she drew her feet up and swung the bow like a club. The wolf twisted in mid-air; powerful jaws closed on the bow, ripping it from her grasp. The force of it pulled her forward, slipping down the side of the boulder. She gave a half-scream, grabbed frantically at the stone, and hung there, closer now to the creatures below. She pulled her legs up, but the next leaper would reach them easily.
“Crom,” Conan muttered. There was no time for planning, or even for conscious decisions. His heels thudded into the roan’s ribs, goading it into a sliding charge down the hillside. “Crom!” he bellowed, and his broadsword whispered from its worn shagreen scabbard.
The wolfpack gained its feet as one, gray forms crouching to await him. Jondra stared at him in wild disbelief. The roan, eyes wide and whinnying in terror, suddenly broke into a gallop. Two of the wolves darted for the horse’s head, and two more dashed in behind to snap at its hamstrings. A forehoof shattered a broad gray-furred head. Conan’s blade whistled down to split the skull of a second wolf. The roan kicked back with both hind legs, splintering the ribs of a third, but the fourth sank gleaming fangs deep into one of those legs. Screaming, the horse stumbled and fell.
Conan stepped from his saddle pad as the animal went down, just in time to meet leaping gray death with a slashing blade. Half cut in two the great wolf dropped. Behind him Conan heard the roan scramble to its feet, whinnying frantically, and the solid thuds of hooves striking home. There was no opportunity to so much as glance at his mount, though, or even to look at Jondra, for the rest of the pack swarmed around him.
Desperately the big Cimmerian cut and hacked at deadly shapes that darted and slashed like gray demons. Blood splashed cinereous fur, and not all of it was theirs, for their teeth were like razors, and he could not keep them all from him. With cold certainty he knew he could not afford to go down, even for an instant. Let him once get off his feet, and he was meat for the eating. Somehow he managed to get the Karpashian dagger into his left hand, and laid about him with two blades. All thought left him save battle; he fought with as pure a fury as the wolves themselves, asking no quarter and giving none. To fight was all he knew. To fight, and let the losers go to the ravens.
As suddenly as the combat had begun it was ended. One instant steel battled slashing fangs, the next massive gray forms were loping away over the hills, one limping on three legs. Conan looked around him, half wondering that he still lived. Nine wolves lay as heaps of blood-soaked fur. The roan was down again, and this time it would not rise again. A gaping wound in its throat dripped blood into a dark pool that was already soaking into the rocky soil.
A scrabbling sound drew Conan’s eyes. Jondra slid from the boulder and took her bow from the ground. Snug tunic and riding breeches of russet silk delineated every curve of her full-breasted form. Lips pursed, she examined the gouges in the bow’s glued layers of bone and wood. Her hands shook.
“Why did you not put arrows into a few?” Conan demanded. “You might have saved yourself before I came.”
“My quiver … .” Her voice trailed off at the sight of her half-eaten horse, but she visibly steeled herself and went to the carcass. From under the bloody mass she tugged a quiver. A crack ran down one side of the black lacquerwork. Checking the arrows, she discarded three that were broken, then slung the quiver on her back.”I had no chance to reach this,” she said, adjusting the cords that held the lacquered box on her back.”The first wolf hamstrung my gelding before I even saw it. It was Hannuman’s own luck I made it to that rock.”
“This is no country for a woman to ride alone,” Conan grumbled as he retrieved the rolled cloak and wiped his bloody blade on his saddle pad. He knew he should take a different course with this woman. He had, after all, ridden halfway across Zamora for the express purpose of getting close enough to steal her gems. But there he stood with his horse dead, a dozen gashes that, if not serious st
ill burned and bled, and no mind to walk easily with anyone.
“Guard your tongue!” Jondra snapped. “I’ve ridden—” Suddenly she seemed to see him fully for the first time. Taking a step back, she raised the bow before her as if it were a shield. “You!” Her voice was a breathless whisper. “What do you do here?”
“What I do is walk, since my horse is slain in the saving of your life. For which, I mind me, I’ve heard no word of thanks, nor an offer to bind my wounds in your camp.”
Mouth dropping open, Jondra stared at him, astonishment warring with anger on her face. Drawing a deep breath, she shook herself as if waking from a dream. “You saved my life …” she began, then trailed off. ‘‘I do not even know your name.”
“I am called Conan. Conan of Cimmeria.”
Jondra made a small bow, and her smile trembled only a little. “Conan of Cimmeria, I offer you my heartfelt thanks for my life. As well, I offer the use of my camp for as long as you choose to stay.” She looked at the wolf carcasses and shuddered. “I have taken many trophies,” she said unsteadily, “but I never thought to be one. The skins are yours, of course.”
The Cimmerian shook his head, though it pained him to abandon useful pelts. And valuable ones, too, could they be gotten back to Shadizar. He hefted his waterskin, showing a long rent made by slashing jaws. A last few drops of water dripped to the ground.
“Without water, we can waste no time with skinning in this heat.” He shaded his eyes with a broad palm and measured how far the sun had yet to rise to reach its zenith. “It will get hotter before it cools. How far is it to your camp?”
“On horses we could be there by the time the sun is high, or shortly after. On foot … .” She shrugged, making her heavy breasts move under the tight silk of her tunic. “I walk little, and so am no judge.”
Conan made an effort to keep his mind on the matter at hand. “Then we must start now. You will have to keep up, for if we stop in this heat we shall likely never move again. Now, which way?”
Jondra hesitated, clearly as unused to taking commands as to walking. Haughty gray eyes dueled with cool sapphire blue; it was gray that fell. Without another word, but with an irritated expression painted on her features, the tall noblewoman fitted a shaft to her bow and began walking, headed south of the rising sun.