“Not the proper dress for a noble Zamoran woman while hunting,” she whispered to herself. But then, Zamoran nobles were seldom roused from their slumber by murderous hillmen or tents burning around them. Nor did they take part in the hunt as the prey.
She turned once more to study the pool, and licked lips that were dry again in moments. To reach it she would have to traverse a steep, rocky slope with not so much as a blade of grass for cover. At the bottom of the slope was a drop; she could not be sure how far from this angle, but it did not look enough to cause difficulty. The pool itself beckoned her enticingly. A patch of water she could doubtless wade in three strides without sinking to her knees, with three stunted trees on its edge, and at that moment it seemed more inviting than her palace gardens.
“I will not remain here until my tongue swells,” she announced to the air. As if the sound of her own voice had spurred her to action, she crawled from the shelter of the stone slabs and started down the slope.
At first she moved carefully, picking her way over the loose stone. With every step, however, she became more aware of her nudity, of the way her breasts swayed with every movement, of how her skin flashed palely in the sunlight. First night and then the stone slabs had provided some illusion of being less naked. She had often lain naked in her garden, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun, but here sunlight stripped the illusion as bare as she. Here she could not know who watched her. Reason told her if there was a watcher, she had greater problems than nudity, but reason prevailed nothing against her feelings. Curling one arm over her breasts helped little, and she found herself crouching more and more, hurrying faster, taking less care of where she put her feet.
Abruptly the stones beneath her turned, and she was on her back, sliding amid a cloud of dust. Desperately she clawed for a hold, but each stone she grasped merely set others sliding. Just as she was ready to moan that matters could not get worse, she found herself falling. Only for long enough to be aware of the fall did she drop, then a jolt pulled her up short. The slide of rocks and dirt she had begun did not cease, however. A torrent of rubble showered down on her. Covering her face with her arms, spitting to clear dust from her mouth, she reflected that she would be a mass of bruises from shoulders to ankles after this day.
The rain of dirt and stones slowed and halted, and Jondra examined her position with a sinking feeling. The first shock was that she hung upside down, against the face of the drop she had been sure would present no difficulty. A twisted tree stump no thicker than her wrist held her ankle firmly in the V it formed with the face of the drop. Beneath her a pile of rubble from her fall reached just high enough for her to touch the stones with her fingertips.
Deliberately she closed her eyes and took three deep breaths to calm herself. There had to be a way out. She always found a way to get what she wanted, and she did not want to die hanging like a side of mutton. She would, she decided, just have to get hold of the stump and lift her ankle free.
At her first attempt to bend double a jolt of pain shot from her ankle, and she fell back gasping. The ankle was not broken, she decided. She would not accept that it was. Steeling herself against the pain, she tried again. Her fingers brushed the stump. Once more, she thought.
A rustle drew her eyes toward the pool, and terror chilled her blood. A bearded hillman stood there in filthy yellow tunic and stained, baggy trousers. He licked his lips slowly, and his staring black eyes burned with lust. He started toward her, already loosening his garments. Suddenly there was a noise like a sharp slap, and the hillman stopped, sank to his knees. Jondra blinked, then saw the arrow standing out from his neck.
Frantically she searched for the shaft’s source. A movement on a mountain caught her eye, a moment’s view of something that could have been a bow. Three hundred paces, the archer in her measured calmly, while the rest of her nearly wept for relief. Whichever of her hunters it was, she thought, she would gift him with as much gold as he could carry.
But she was not about to let anyone, least of all a man in her service, find her in such a helpless position. Redoubling her efforts, she split several splinters of wood from the stump and chipped her fingernails, but got no closer to freeing herself.
Suddenly she gasped in renewed horror at the sight of the man who appeared walking slowly toward her. This was no hillman, this tall form with fur leggings and clean-shaven face and gray eyes. She knew that face and the name that went with it, though she would have given much to deny it. Eldran. Vainly she tried to protect her modesty with her hands.
“You!” she spat. “Go away, and leave me alone!”
He continued his slow advance toward her, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his broadsword, his fur-lined cloak slung back from his shoulders. No bow or quiver was in evidence. His eyes were fixed on her, and his face was grim.
“Stop staring at me!” Jondra demanded. “Go away, I tell you. I neither need nor want your help.”
She flinched as three hillmen burst silently from the rocks behind the Brythunian, rushing at him with raised tulwars. Her mouth opened to scream … and Eldran whirled, the broadsword with its clawed quillons seeming to flow into his hand. In movements almost too fast for her to follow the four danced of death. Blood wetted steel. A bearded head rolled in the dust. And then all three hillmen were down, and Eldran was calmly wiping his blade on the cloak of one.
Sheathing the steel, he stepped closer to her. “Perhaps you do not want my help,” he said quietly, “but you do need it.”
Jondra realized her mouth was still open and snapped it shut. Then she decided silence would not do, but before she could speak the big Brythunian had stepped onto the pile of rubble, taken hold of her calves and lifted her clear of the stump that had held her. One arm went behind her knees, and she was swung up into his arms. He cradled her there as easily as did Conan, she thought. He was as tall as the Cimmerian, too, though not so broad across the shoulders. For the first time since the attack she felt safe. Color abruptly flooded her face as the nature of her thoughts became clear to her.
“Put me down,” she told him. “I said, put me down!”
Silent, he carried her to the pool and lowered her gently by its edge. “You are down,” he said. She winced as he felt her ankle. “A bad bruise, but it should heal in a few days.”
There was dried blood on his forehead, she saw. “How came you by that? Have you met other hillmen?”
“I must get my bow,” he said curtly, and stalked away.
As well if he did not return, she thought angrily, but the thought brought a twinge of anxiety. Suppose he did not return. Suppose he decided to abandon her, naked and alone in this wilderness. When he reappeared she gave a small sigh of relief, and then was angry with herself for that.
He set his bow and a hide quiver of arrows down, then turned to her with a bleak face. “We met other hillmen, yes. Two score men followed me into these accursed mountains, and I failed to keep them safe until we accomplished our purpose. Hillmen, hundreds of them, found our camp. I do not know if any of my companions still live.” He sighed heavily. “I surmise the same fate befell you. I wish I could promise to see you to safety, but there is a task I have yet to accomplish, and it must take precedence even over you. I will do what I can for you, though. I must regret that I cannot take days to sit here and just look at you.”
It came to her that he was looking at her, looking as if he intended to commit what he saw to memory. It also came to her that she was naked. Quickly she scrambled to her knees, crouching with her arms over her breasts. “A civilized man would turn his back,” she snapped.
“Then the men you call civilized do not appreciate beauty in a woman.”
“Give me your cloak,” she commanded. “I am no tavern wench to be stared at. Give it to me, I say!”
Eldran shook his head. “Alone in the heart of the Kezankians, naked as a slave girl on the auction block, and still you demand and give orders. Take garments from the hillmen, if you wish, but do so quickly, for we must leave this place. There are others of their sort about. If you do not wish me to watch, I will not.” Taking up his bow again, he nocked an arrow, and his eyes scanned the mountain slopes. “Hurry, girl.”
Face flushed with anger and some other emotion she did not quite understand, Jondra refused even to look at the corpses. “Their garments are filthy and bloodstained,” she said, biting off each word. “You must provide me decent garb. Such as your cloak!”
“Wiccana has cursed me,” the Brythunian said as if she had not spoken, “that she made your eyes touch my soul. There are many women in my native land, but I must come to here, and see you. I look into your eyes, and I feel your eyes touch me, and there are no other women. It is you I want to bear my children. A petulant, pam