“If she faced me in a fair fight,” the slender woman began with a toss of her head, then broke off in a laugh. “But it is not talk I want from you. She can have that. Till tonight, Conan.”
The big Cimmerian sighed heavily as she let her horse fall behind his. It was no easy task he had ahead of him, and all because he could not allow a woman who had shared his bed—much less two of them—to enter the Kezankians while he rode back to Shadizar. He supposed those men who called themselves civilized and him barbarian could have managed it easily. It was beyond him, though, and his pride was enough to make him believe he could bring both safely out of the mountains. Of course, he knew, soon or late each woman would find out about the other. At that point, he was sure, he would rather face all the hillmen of the Kezankians than those two females.
The thought of hillmen brought him back to his surroundings. If he did not keep watch, they might not even make it fully into the mountains, much less out. His eyes scanned the steep brown mountain slopes around him, dotted with tress bizarrely sculpted by wind and harsh clime. He searched the jagged peaks ahead. No signs of life did he discern, but the breeze brought a sound to him, faint yet disturbing. It came from behind.
He reined his horse around to look back, and felt the hair stir on the back of his neck. Far below and far distant among the foothills a battle raged. He could make out little save dust rising as smoke from the hills and the small forms of men swarming like ants, yet for an instant he saw what he could swear was a Zamoran honor standard atop a hill. Then it was ridden down, and the men who rode over it wore turbans. Most of the other shapes he could make out were turbanned as well.
“What is the matter?” Jondra shouted, galloping down the trail. She had to force her way through a knot of hunters gathered behind Conan. “Why are you halted?”
“’Tis a battle, my lady,” Telades said, shading his eyes with one hand to peer down at the hills. “I cannot say who fights.”
“Hillmen,” Conan said. “From the look of it hillmen are killing some part of the Zamoran army.”
“Nonsense!” Arvaneus snapped. “The army would sweep any hillman rabble aside. Besides, the tribes never gather in such numbers, and … and … .” The force of his words weakened as he spoke, and he finished lamely with, “It is impossible to make out details at this distance. That could be anyone fighting. Perhaps it is not a battle at all.”
“Perhaps it is a folk dance,” Conan said dryly.
Jondra touched his arm. “Is there aught we can do to aid them?”
“Not even if we had wings,” the big Cimmerian replied.
Relief was writ plain on the faces
of the hunters at his reply, but it was relief tinged with fear. It was all very well to talk of entering the Kezankians and risking the wrath of the hill tribes. To actually see that wrath, even at a distance, was something else, and most especially when it seemed to be dealt out by more hillmen than a man might expect to see in a lifetime of roaming the mountains.
Jondra looked from face to face, then put on a smile. “If so many hillmen are down there, then we shall have the mountains to ourselves.” Her words had little effect on the hunters’ expressions. A raven appeared, flying around the side of the mountain. “There,” Jondra said, drawing her bow from its lacquered case behind her saddle. “Should there be a hillman or two left in the mountains, we’ll deal with them as easily as this.” Her bowstring slapped against her forearm leather; the raven’s wings folded, and the bird dropped like a stone. Conan thought he heard her mutter something about “Brythunian” as she recased her bow. “Now let us ride,” she commanded, and galloped back up the trail.
Slowly the column of hunters formed again behind the noblewoman. As Tamira passed Conan, she gave him an anxious, wide-eyed look. Perhaps he was a fool, he thought, but he could be no other than what he was. With a reassuring smile for the young woman thief, he joined the file of horsemen picking its way up the mountain.
Eldran ran a judicious eye over the two score men following him through a field of boulders deeper into the mountains, and said, “We stop for a rest.”
“About time,” said a round-cheeked man with gray streaking the long hair that was held back from his face by a leather cord. “We’ve ridden since before first light, and I’m not so young as I once was.”
“If you tell me about your old bones one more time, Haral,” Eldran laughed, and the others joined in, though their laughter was strained. Haral’s age and plumpness were belied by the scars on his face, and the wolf whose fur trimmed his cloak had been slain with his bare hands. “A short stop only,” Eldran went on. “These mountains feel ill, and I would be done with what we came for and out of them quickly.”
That cooled their mirth, as he had intended it should. The laugh had been good for easing the disquiet, and perhaps more than disquiet, that had fallen over them all since they entered the mountains, but they must be ever mindful of what they were about and where they were if they were to leave with their lives.
As the others sat or lay or even walked a bit to stretch their legs, Eldran reclined with his reins wrapped loosely about one hand. He had had his own difficulties in keeping his mind cleanly on his purpose in the Kezankians. Even through the unease that hung about him like a miasma, a tall Zamoran beauty with arrogance enough for a score of kings had a way of intruding on his thoughts when he was not careful. But was she truly Zamoran, he wondered. Her manner, acting as if she ruled whatever ground she stood on, said yes. But those eyes. Like the mists of morning clinging to the oaks of the forest. No Zamoran ever had such eyes, as gray as his own.
Angrily he reminded himself of his purpose, to avenge his brother and those who went with him into the Kezankians, never to return. And to avenge as well those who had died attempting to defend their farmholds against the beast of fire. To make certain that more deaths did not come from the beast. If he and every man with him died, it would be small price for success. They had all agreed to that before ever they left Brythunia.
A raven circled high above him. Like the bird he and Jondra had shot, he thought. Angrily he leaped to his feet. Could nothing put the woman from his mind? Well, he would not be reminded of her longer by that accursed bird. He pulled his bow from its wolf-hide case behind his saddle.
“Eldran!” From a space clear of boulders higher on the mountain, a bony man with a pointed nose waved to him frantically. “Come quickly, Eldran!”
‘‘What is it, Fyrdan?” Eldran called back, but he was scrambling up the slope as he spoke. Fyrdan was not one to become excited over nothing. Others of the band followed.
“There,” the bony man said, flinging out an arm to point as Eldran joined him.
Eldran cupped his hands beside his eyes to improve his seeing, but there was little to make out save boiling dust and the tiny figures of struggling men on the hills far below. “Hillmen,” he said finally.
“And Zamorans,” Fyrdan added. “I saw the banner their general carried go down.”
Slowly Eldran’s hands dropped to his sides. “Forgive me, Jondra,” he said softly.
“Perhaps the soldiers had not fetched her yet,” Haral said. “Perhaps these are the other soldiers we saw.”
Eldran shook his head. “The others were further west. And I watched their camp until their general left to find her.”