“Your wolves will not kill this barbar,” Conan growled, then realized that his words had been spoken to a dead man.
Letting spear and transfixed man fall, he closed the gate, thrust the heavy iron bar that fastened it into its brackets and shoved the latch pins home. It would take time to get that open from the other side, time for him to escape. Though, from the screams and snarls that yet echoed down the tunnel, it might be some while before the soldiers dealt with wolves and panicked nobles and reached that gate.
Little there was in that chamber to be of use to him. Crude rush torches guttered in rusty iron sconces on the walls, illuminating six large, iron-barred cages mounted on wheels. No weapons were in evidence excepting only the long, curved dagger, which Conan retrieved, and the spear. He left that lodged in the wolf-keeper’s body; its length would make it a cumbersome weapon in the narrow confines of the old stone corridors. There was not even cloth to bind his gashes unless he tore from his own breechclout or from the filthy, and now blood-soaked, tunic on the corpse.
The wolf-keeper had, however, brought a clay jug of wine and a large spiced sausage on which to sup while his charges did their bloody work. On these Conan fell eagerly, ripping the sausage apart with his teeth and washing it down with long gulps of sour wine. He had had no food or drink since before his imprisonment. No doubt his jailors had deemed it a waste to feed one who was to die soon. Tossing the empty jug aside and popping the last bit of sausage into his mouth, the Cimmerian took one of the rush torches and set about finding his way out of the Palace.
It did not take him long to discover that those ancient corridors were a labyrinth, never straight, crossing and recrossing themselves and each other. He had no wonder in him that the secret passages beneath the Palace had been lost; it would be all men could do to keep track of these.
Suddenly, in crossing another pitch-dark hall, he realized that his footprints had mingled with others. Other fresh prints. He bent to examine them, and straightened with a curse. Both sets were his own. He had doubled back on himself, and could continue to do so until he starved.
Face grimly determined, he followed his own prints until he came to a forking of the passage. The trail in the dust went left. He went right. A short time later he found himself again staring at his own backtrail, but this time he did not pause to curse. Hurrying on to the next turning, he again took the opposite way to that he had taken before. And the next time. And the next.
Now the passages seemed to slope downward, but Conan pressed on regardless, even when he found himself burning a way through halls choked with cobwebs that crisped drily at the touch of the flame. Turning back held no more assurance of escape than going forward, only a greater chance of encountering the Golden Leopards.
Coming to a fork, the Cimmerian turned automatically right—he had taken the left at the last —and stopped. Far ahead of him was a dim glow, but it was no opening to the outside. Bobbing slightly, it was coming closer.
Hurriedly he turned back, ducked into the other side of the fork. On silent feet he ran twenty paces and hurled the torch ahead of him as far as it would go. The flames flared, fanned by the wind of the torch’s flight, then winked out, leaving him in blackness.
Conan crouched, facing the direction of the fork, curved dagger at the ready. If those who approached went on, he would be without light but alive. If not … .
Diffuse light reached the fork, brightening slowly, resolving into two torch-bearing figures, swords in their free hands. The Cimmerian almost laughed. Hordo and Karela, but the Karela he had known long ago. Gone were the veils and gray robes of a Nemedian noblewomen, replaced by golden breastplates and a narrow girdle of gold and emeralds, worn low on her rounded hips, from which hung strips of pale green silk. A Turanian cape of emerald green encircled her shoulders.
“Hordo,” Conan called, “had I known you were coming I wouldn’t have drunk all the wine.” Nonchalantly he strolled to meet them.
The two whirled, swords coming up, torches raised. From the other fork men in jazeraint hauberks crowded. Machaon, Narus, more familiar faces from his Free-Company, pushed into the light.
Hordo took in Conan’s gashes, but did not speak of them. “’Tis not like you,” he said gruffly, “to drink all the wine. Mayhap we could find some more, if we look.”
Karela threw the one-eyed man a murderous look and shoved her torch into Machaon’s hand. With gentle fingers she touched Conan’s wounds, wincing at purpled flesh and dried blood.
“I knew you would change your mind,” Conan said, reaching for her.
Her hand cracked across his face, and she stepped back smoothly with blade half raised. “I should throw you back to the wolves,” she hissed.
From somewhere in the darkness beyond the armored men, a voice called unintelligibly. Another answered, both fading as the speakers moved further away.
“They hunt me,” Conan said quietly. “An you know a way out of here, I suggest we take it. Else we must fight a few hundred Golden Leopards.”
Muttering, Karela snatched back her torch and forced her way through the men of the Free-Company to disappear back up the other fork.
“She’s the only one knows the way,” Hordo said quickly. He hurried after her, and Conan followed. Machaon and the rest fell in behind, their booted feet grating in the dust of centuries.
“How did you get into the Palace?” Conan demanded of the one-eyed man as they halftrotted after the auburn-haired beauty. “And what made Karela decide to let you know who she was?”
“Mayhap I’d best begin at the beginning,” Hordo puffed. “First thing that happened was, after you were arrested, a hundred Golden Leopards came for us, and—”
“I know about that,” Conan said. “You got away. What then?”
“You heard about that, did you? I’m too old for this running, Cimmerian.” Despite his heavy breathing, though, the bearded man kept pace easily. “I took the company to the Thestis. Hellgate is near the safest past of Belverus these days. Everybody who lives there is up in the High Streets waving a sword and shouting revolution. And maybe breaking into some rich man’s house now and again.”
“What else did you expect?” Conan laughed grimly. “They’re poor, and have riches within their reach. But about Karela.”
Hordo shook his shaggy head. “She walked into the Thestis this very morn. No, she strode in, looking as if she was ready for her hounds to follow her against a caravan of gold. From what you said, you knew she was here already, eh?”
“Not until I was in the dungeon,” Conan replied. “I will explain later.”
Suddenly Karela stopped, stretching on tiptoe to reach a rusty iron sconce. She seemed to be trying to twist it.
“Looks like where we came in,” Hordo muttered softly. “Looks like twenty places we passed, too.” Emerald eyes flashed at him scornfully, and he subsided.
Just as Conan was about to step forward to aid her, the sconce turned with a sharp click. A shot distance away on the same wall was another sconce, which Karela treated the same way. It swiveled, clicked, and there was a heavier thunk from deep within the wall. With a grate of machinery long unused, a section of stone wall as high as a man and twice as wide receded jerkily to reveal a descending flight of crude brick stairs.
“If you two can stop chattering like old women for a moment,” Karela said bitingly, “follow me. And take care. Some of the bricks are crumbling. It would pain me for you to break your neck, Cimmerian. I reserve that pleasure for myself.” And she darted down the steps.
Hordo shrugged uncomfortably. “I told you, she’s the only one knows the way.”
Conan nodded. “Follow me,” he told Machaon, “and pass the word to watch for crumbling steps.” The grizzled sergeant began muttering over his shoulder to those behind.
Taking a deep breath Conan followed Karela down the dark stairs, lit only by her torch, now only a glimmer far below. He did not actually believe that she would come just to lead him into a trap of her o
wn devising rather than let him die at someone else’s hands. But then, he did not entirely disbelieve it either.
At the bottom of the long stair, Karela waited impatiently. “Are they all in?” she demanded as soon as he entered the light of her torch. Without waiting for him to reply she called up the stair. “Is everyone clear of the entrance?”
There was some scraping of feet on stone, then a voice called back hoarsely, “We’re clear, but I hear boots coming.”
Calmly Karela placed both feet on one particular stone, which sank a finger’s breadth beneath her weight. The grating of machinery sounded again.
“It’s closing,” the same man’s voice shouted incredulously.
Karela’s tilted eyes met Conan’s. “Fools,” she said, seeming to include all men, but most certainly him. With a quick, “Follow or stay, I care not,” she started down a long tunnel, torchlight glinting off damp walls.
Even the air felt moldy, Conan thought as he set out after her.
“As I was saying,” Hordo resumed, striding beside the Cimmerian, “she walked into the Thestis ready to take command. Wouldn’t tell me where she’d been, or how she knew where I was. Threatened to put a scar down my other cheek if I did not stop asking questions.”
His lone eye swiveled to Conan expectantly, but the big youth was watching Karela, wondering what was in her mind. Why had she come to rescue him? “And?” he said absently when he realized that Hordo had stopped talking.
The one-eyed man grunted sourly. “And nobody tells me anything,” he grunted sourly. “She had a woman with her. You remember the Lady Jelanna? ‘Twas her, but not so haughty this time. Bedraggled and haggard, she was, with bruises on her face and arms, and terrified to tears. ‘She will not stop,’ she kept moaning, ‘not until I am broken.’ And Karela kept soothing her and looking at the rest of us like it was us had done whatever had been done to this Jelanna.”
“Crom,” Conan muttered. “Do you have to be so long-winded? What does Jelanna have to do with anything?”
“Why, it was her told Karela how to find this passage. Lady Jelanna grew up in the Palace, it seems, playing hide-and-seek and such, as children do. Only sometimes they played in the old parts of the Palace, and she found three or four of the secret passages. She got out of the Palace by one herself. She was desperate to get out of the city, Cimmerian, so I told off two men to escort her to her estate in the country. Least I could do, and her showing us how to get in to you. I tell you true, I thought the next time I saw you we’d both be taking a pull at the Hellhorn.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why she would aid me,” Conan said, with a jerk of his head at Karela to indicate which ‘she’ he meant.
Hardly were the words out of his mouth than the auburn-haired woman rounded on him. “The wolves were too good for you, you big Cimmerian oaf. If you are to be torn to pieces, I want to do it with my own hands. I want to hear you beg my forgiveness, you barbar bastard. I get first call at you, before that fool Garian.”
Conan eyed her calmly, a slight smile on his lips. “Did you stop because you lost the way, Karela? I will take the lead, an you wish.”
With a snarl she drew back her torch as if to strike him with it.
“There it is,” Hordo shouted, pointing to a short flight of stairs, barely revealed by the light, that led up to the ceiling and stopped. Relief dripped from every word. “Come on, Cimmerian,” he went on, herding Conan quickly past the furious-eyed woman. “We had trouble getting this back in place, in case anybody should take a look at the other side, but you and I should be able to lift it clear.” In a fierce whisper he added, “Watch your tongue, man. She’s been like a scalded cat ever since Machaon and those other fools told her they’d never heard of the Red Hawk.”
Eyeing the fierce scowl with which Karela watched them, Conan managed to turn his laughter into a cough. “This other side,” he said. “Where is it? If there’s anyone there, will they be likely to fight?”
“Not a chance of it,” Hordo laughed. “Now put your shoulder into it.”
The stairs seemed to end in one large slab of stone. It was to this Hordo urged Conan to apply himself. When he did, the thick slab lifted. With Hordo’s aid he slid it aside, then scrambled warily up. A heavy smell of incense filled the air. As the others followed with torches, Conan saw that he was in a windowless room filled with barrels and bales. Some of the bales were broken open to reveal incense sticks.
“A temple?” the Cimmerian asked in disbelief. “The passage comes out in the cellar of a temple?”
Hordo laughed and nodded. Motioning for silence, the one-eyed man climbed a wooden ladder fastened to one wall, and cautiously lifted a trapdoor. His head went up for a quick look, then he motioned the rest to follow and scrambled out himself.
Conan was quick to follow. He found himself in dim light from silver lamps, between a large rectangular block of marble and a towering, shadowed statue. With a start it came to him that he was between the altar stone and the idol of Erebus, a place where none but sanctified priests were allowed. But then, what was one death sentence more or less?
Quickly everyone found their way out of the cellar and, by way of narrow halls of pale marble, to a courtyard behind the temple. There two more of the Free-Company waited with the horses. And, Conan was glad to note, with hauberk, helm and scimitar for him. Hastily he armed himself properly.
“We can be beyond the city walls,” Hordo said, swinging into his saddle, “before they think to look outside the Palace.”
“We cannot leave yet,” Conan said quietly. He settled his helm on his head and likewise mounted. “Ariane is in Albanus’ hands.”
“Yet another woman?” Karela said dangerously.
“She befriended Hordo and me,” Conan said, “and as reward for it Albanus has her. I swore to see her safely out of this, and I will.”
“You and your oaths,” Karela muttered, but when he galloped out of the courtyard she was first of the company behind him.
XXIII
Isolated plumes of smoke rose into the bright afternoon sky above Belverus, marking houses of the wealthy that had been visited by revolutionary mobs. The sound of those mobs could be heard from time to time, borne on the breeze. It was a wordless, hungering snarl.
Once in that gallop across the city Conan saw one of those howling packs, some three of four score ragged men and women pounding at the locked doors and barred windows of a house with axes, swords, rocks, their bare hands. In the same instant that he saw them, they became aware of the Free-Company. A growl rippled through them, a sound that seemed impossible to come from a human throat, and like rats pouring from a sewer they threw themselves toward the mounted men. In their eyes was a hatred of any who had more than they, even if it was only armor. Many of the weapons they waved were bloodied.
“The bows will drive them back,” Hordo shouted.
Conan was not so sure. There was desperation in those faces. “Ride,” he commanded.
Galloping on, they quickly left the mob behind, yet even as it was disappearing from sight its members kept pursuing, their howls heard long after they could no longer be seen.
On reaching Albanus’ palace, Conan did not pause. “Every third man stay with the horses,” he commanded. “Everybody else over the wall. Bring your bows. Not you,” he added, as Karela maneuvered her horse close to the wall.
“You do not command me, Cimmerian,” she spat back. “I go where I please.”
“Erlik take all hardheaded women,” Conan muttered, but he said no more to her.
Standing on his saddle and taking a care where he placed his hands among the pottery shards, he hoisted himself to the top of the wall. As if they had trained for such a thing Hordo, Karela and four and twenty of the others smoothly followed. Below, half a score of men ran from the gatehouse. They had only time to gape before arrows humming like hornets cut them down.
Conan dropped to the ground inside, his eyes blue ice, and ran past the bodies. He half heard
the thuds of the others following, but he paid them no mind. Ariane filled his mind. His word had sent her to Albanus. Now his honor demanded he free her if it cost his own life.
With a single heave of his massive arm he threw back one of the tall doors of the palace. Before the crash of its striking the marble wall had finished reverberating in the columned hall, a heimeted man in the cloak of the Golden Leopards ran to face the young Cimmerian giant, sword in hand.
“Ariane,” Conan shouted as he beat aside the soldier’s attack. “Where are you, Ariane?” His blade half-severed the man’s head; he kicked the falling body aside and hurried deeper into the palace. “Ariane!”
More Golden Leopards appeared now, and Conan threw himself at them in a frenzy, his wild battle cry ringing from the arched ceiling, his blade slashing and hacking as if possessed of a demon, or wielded by one. The soldiers fell back in confusion, leaving three of their number dead or dying, unsure of how to face this wildman of the barbarian northcountry. Then Hordo and the others were on them as well. The one-eyed man’s fierce mien was matched by the ferocity of his attack. Karela danced among them, blade darting like a wasp, each time drawing back blooded.
Even as the last body fell, Conan was shouting to his men. “Spread out. Search every room, if need be. Find the girl called Ariane.”
He himself strode through the halls like an avenging god. Servants and slaves took one look at the thundercloud of his face and fled. He let them go, seeking only one person. Then he saw another that interested him. The gray-bearded chamberlain tried to run, but Conan seized a fistful of the man’s tunic and lifted him till only the other’s toes touched the floor.
Conan’s voice held the promise of death. “Where is the girl Ariane, chamberlain?”
“I … I know no girl—”