“Conan!” Tamira’s shriek cut through the din to the Cimmerian’s ears. “Conan!”
Desperately the Cimmerian’s eyes sought for the slender woman … and found her, lifted to a hillman’s saddle by a fist in her hair. Grinning broadly through his beard, the tribesman tauntingly lowered his blade toward her throat. With one hand she frantically attempted to fend off the razor edge, while the other clutched at his robes.
Conan’s broadsword came into his hand. Two bounds took him to Tamira’s side; the hillman’s head went back, and his mouth fell open as the Cimmerian’s steel slid smoothly between his ribs. Lifeless fingers loosened in Tamira’s hair, and Conan caught her as she fell. Trembling arms snaked round his neck; she sobbed limply against his chest.
With a corpse on its back the horse galloped on, and in the space of a breath Conan had taken in the situation in the camp. The fight went badly. Had gone badly, for there was little of it left. Few of the turbanned warriors remained in the camp, and they were occupied with mutilating the dead. Murderous cries from the dark told of hillmen spreading in pursuit of hunters. Jondra’s tent was in flames.
A chill went through the big Cimmerian. As he watched, the last of the tent collapsed, sending a shower of sparks into the night. If Jondra was in that, there was no hope for her. He hoped that she had gotten out, but he could not help her now. He had a woman to care for, and no time to spare for another.
Bending to catch Tamira behind the knees, he heaved her onto his shoulder like a sack. A halfformed protest came through her weeping, but the flow of tears did not slow. None of the tribesmen slashing at corpses noticed the muscular youth or his well-curved burden as he faded into the night.
Like a spirit Conan moved from shadow to shadow. Darkness alone, however, was no shield, he knew. From the clouded velvet sky a nacreous moon shed little light, but enough to make movement plain to a discerning eye, and Tamira’s short, white robe made matters no better. The night-clad rocks were filled with the clatter of galloping hooves on stone, the shouts of hunting hillmen. They hunted, and, given time, they would find.
The Cimmerian kept moving, always away from the noise of the hillmen, and his eyes searched for a hiding place. A line of deeper blackness within the dark caught his gaze. He made his way to it and found a horizontal fracture in the face of a cliff. It was wide enough to hold Tamira, deep enough for her to remain hidden from all but someone sticking an arm into it.
Lowering the girl from his shoulder, he thrust her into the crack. “Stay quiet,” he told her in low tones, “and do not move. I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Listen to me, woman!”
‘‘He … he was going to kill me,” she sobbed.”He was I-laughing.” She clutched at him, but he gently removed her hands from his shoulders.
“’Tis over, now. You are safe, Tamira.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“I must find Jondra. Remain here till I return, and I will get the three of us out of these mountains.” He had thought his voice full of confidence—certainly more confidence than he felt, at the moment—but she drew back from him into the crack in the cliff.
“Go then,” she said sullenly. He could not see her, but her tears seemed to dry up suddenly. “Well? Go, if you want to.”
He hesitated, but Jondra was still to be found, and whether alive or dead he did not know. Tamira would be safe here until he could return. “I will come back quickly,” he said, and slipped away into the night.
Tamira peered from the crevice, but though her night vision was like that of a cat, she could see nothing. Conan had disappeared. She settled back sulkily.
She had nearly been killed, had been taunted with her own death, and he went after her when it should have been clear even to a blind man that she needed the
comfort of his arms. But then, were not all men blind? It was not fair that he could affect her so much, while he cared so little. Once she had been able to think calmly and logically about any man. Once—it seemed a hundred years ago—before she allowed the young Cimmerian giant to … . Even alone in the dark she blushed at the thought.
She would not think of him any more, she decided. Drawing herself to the front of the crack, she tried once more to pierce the darkness. It was futile, like attempting to peer through a raven’s wing. A chill wind whined through the mountains, and she pulled her knees up, huddling, painfully aware of how little warmth was to be had from her short tunic.
Where had he gone? To look for Jondra, he claimed, but how did he intend to find her in the night? Was the noblewoman even alive? The tent had been aflame, Tamira remembered. Nothing could have survived in that. Except … the iron chests containing Jondra’s jewels.
Tamira’s eyes gleamed with delight, and she bit her lip to suppress a giggle. “Let him search for Jondra,” she whispered. “He’ll return to find me gone. Gone from the mountains, and the rubies with me.”
With the suppleness of a cat she rolled from the crevice, came to her feet in the night. The cold breeze ruffled her white tunic about her thighs. For an instant she considered the problem of that garment’s paleness.
“Well, I cannot go naked,” she said finally, then clamped her teeth shut. She could not afford to make a sound, now.
Silently she glided into the dark, moving with all the stealthy skill she possessed. No matter what was said in Shadizar, in the taverns of the Desert, concerning Conan, she was the best thief in the city.
A sound halted her, a grating as of boots on rock, and she wished she had her daggers. Whoever it was, she thought contemptuously, he was clumsy. Noiselessly she moved away from he-who-stepped-on-rocks … and was buried beneath a rush of smelly robes and unwashed flesh.
She kicked at the cursing men who swarmed over her, struck at them until her wrists were caught in a grip like a vise. Hands fumbled at her body. She saw a bearded face, merciless and hard, and a curved dagger raised high. A scream choked in her throat. So many men to kill one woman. It was unfair, she thought dully. Her tunic was grasped at the neck and ripped open to the waist.
“See!” a voice said hoarsely. “It is as I said. A woman, and young.”
The hard face did not change. “A lowland woman! A vessel of lust and corruption!”
“Even so,” a third man said, “remember the Imalla’s commands. And remember Walid’s fate before you think to disobey.” The hard-faced man blinked at that, and frowned.
“Take me to the Imalla,” Tamira gasped. She knew that Imallas were holy men among the hill tribes. Surely a holy man would protect her.