Whatever her threat was to be, Conan did not hear its finish, for Telades hurried into the camp, half out of breath and using his spear as a walking staff. Men hastened to surround him, and the Cimmerian was first among them.
A hail of words came from the hunters.
“Did you find tracks?”
“We heard a great cry.”
“What did you see?”
“It must have been the thing we hunt.”
“Did you see the beast?”
Telades tugged off his spiked helm and shook his shaved head. “I heard the cry, but I saw neither animal nor tracks.”
“Give your report to me,” Jondra snapped. The hunters parted to let her through. Her eagerness was betrayed by the bow in her hand. “Or am I to wait until you’ve told everyone else?”
“No, my lady,” Telades replied abashedly. “I ask forgiveness. What I saw was the army, my lady. Soldiers.”
Again a torrent of questions broke over the man.
“Are you sure?”
“From the lot we saw fighting?”
“How could they get into the mountains ahead of us?”
Jondra’s cool gray eyes swept across the assembled hunters, and the torrent died as though she had cracked a whip.
“Where are those soldiers, Telades?” Conan asked. Jondra looked at him sharply, but closed her mouth and said nothing.
“Not two leagues to the north and east of us,” Telades replied. “Their general is Lord Tenerses. I got close enough to see him, though they did not see me.”
“Tenerses,” Conan mused. “I have heard of him.”
“They say he hunts glory,” the shaven-headed hunter said, “but it seems he thinks well enough to know when danger is about. His camp is so well hidden, in a canyon with but one entrance, that I found it only by merest chance. And I could not see how many men he has with him.”
“Not one fewer than Zathanides,” Conan said, “if what I have heard of him is true. He is a man with a sense of his own importance, this Tenerses.”
Jondra broke in in flat tones. “If you two are quite finished discussing the army, I would like to hear the results I sent this man for in the first place. Did you find tracks, Telades, or did you not?”
“Uh, no, my lady. No tracks.”
“There are still nine others,” the noblewoman said half to herself. “As for these soldiers,” she went on in a more normal tone, “they have naught to do with us, and we naught to do with them. I see no reason why they should be a subject of further discussion, nor why they should even become aware of our existence. Am I understood?”
Her gaze was commanding as it met each man’s eyes in turn, and each man mumbled assent and grew intent in his study of the ground beneath his feet, until she came to Conan. Eyes of chilling azure looked back at her in unblinking calmness, and it was smoky gray orbs that dropped to break the mesmerizing contact.
When she looked at him again, it was through long eyelashes. “I must talk with you, Conan,” she murmured. “In my tent. I … would have your advice on the hunt.”
Over Jondra’s shoulder Conan saw Tamira watching him intently, hands on hips. “Perhaps later,” he said. When the noblewoman blinked and stared, he added quickly, “The mountains are dangerous. We cannot spare even one watcher.” Before she could say more—and he could see from the sparks in her eyes that she intended to say much more—he retreated across the camp to his place by the boulder.
As he settled once more with his back to the stone, he noticed that both women were looking at him. And both were glaring. The old saying was certainly proving true, he thought. He who has two women oft finds himself in possession of none. And not one thing could he think to do about it. With a sigh he set back to tending his steel. Some men claimed their blades had the personalities of women, but he had never known a sword to suffer jealousy.
The other trackers began returning at decreasing intervals. Jondra allowed these no time to become involved in extraneous—to her—matters with the other hunters. She met each man as he entered the camp, and her sharp gaze kept the rest back until she finished her questioning and gave the tracker leave to go.
One by one the trackers returned, and one by one they reported … nothing of interest to Jondra. One, who had searched near Telades, had found the cheekpiece of a soldier’s helmet. Another had seen a great mountain ram with curling horns as long as a man’s arm. Jondra angrily turned her back on him before he finished telling of it. Several saw hillmen, and in numbers enough to make a prudent man wary, but none had found the spoor of the beast, or anything that might remotely be taken as a sign of its presence or passage. The gray-eyed noblewoman heard each man out, and strode away from each impatiently tapping her bow against her thigh.
The last to return was Arvaneus, trotting into the camp to lean on his spear with an arrogant smile.