Conan’s arm knotted, lifted the other clear of the floor. “The girl,” he said softly.
Sweat beaded the chamberlain’s face. “Lord Albanus,” he gasped. “He took her to the Royal Palace.”
With a groan the Cimmerian let the gray-bearded man drop. The chamberlain darted away; Conan let him go. The Palace. How could he get to her there? Could he return through the secret passage from the Temple of Erebus? He would spend the rest of his life wandering in the ancient labyrinth without ever finding his way into the newer Palace.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to find Hordo bearing down on him, Machaon and Karela close behind.
“Machaon found someone in the dungeons,” Hordo said quickly. “Not the girl. A man who looks like King Garian, and even claims he—”
“Show me,” Conan said. Hope took life again within him.
The dungeons beneath Albanus’ palace were much like any others, rough stone, heavy wooden doors on rusting hinges, a thick smell of stale urine and fear sweat. Still, when Conan looked into the cell to which Machaon led him, he smiled as if it were a fountained garden.
The ragged, dirty man chained to the wall stirred uncertainly. “Well, Conan,” he said, “have you joined Albanus and Vegentius?”
“Derketo,” Karela breathed. “He does look like Garian.”
“He is Garian,” Conan said. “That bruise on his cheek names him so.”
Garian’s chains clanked as he touched the bruise. He laughed shakily. “To be known by so little a thing.”
“If this be Garian,” Karela demanded, “then who sits on the Dragon Throne?”
“An imposter,” Conan replied. “He has no bruise. Fetch me hammer and chisel. Quickly.” Machaon disappeared to return in moments with the required items.
As Conan knelt to lay chisel to the first manacle at Garian’s ankle, the King said, “You will be rewarded for this, barbarian. All that Albanus possesses will be yours when I regain the throne.”
Conan did not speak. One mighty blow with the hammer split the riveted iron band open. He moved to the next.
“You must get me out of the city,” Garian went on. “Once I reach the army, all will be well. I grew up in those camps. They will know me. I’ll return at the head of ten thousand swords to tear Albanus from the Palace.”
“And to start a civil war,” Conan said. He freed the other ankle, again with a single blow. “The imposter looks much like you. Many will believe he is you, most especially since he speaks from the Dragon Throne. Perhaps even the army will not be as quick to believe as you think.”
Hordo groaned. “No, Cimmerian. This is not our affair. Let us put the border behind us.”
Neither Conan nor Garian paid him any mind. The King was silent until Conan had broken off the manacles from his wrists. Then he said quietly, “What do you suggest, Conan?”
“Re-enter the Palace,” Conan said as though that were the easiest thing in the world. “Confront the imposter. Not all the Golden Leopards can be traitors. You can regain your throne without a sword being lifted outside the Palace walls.” He did not think it politic to mention the mobs roaming the streets.
“A bold plan,” Garian mused. “Yet most of the Golden Leopards are loyal to me. I overheard those who guarded me here talking. We will do it. I go to regain my throne, Cimmerian, but you have already gained my eternal gratitude.” His regal manner was returning to him. He regarded his own filth with an amused smile. “But if I am to re-enter the Palace, I must wash and garb myself to look the King.”
As Garian strode from the cell, shouting for hot water and clean robes, Conan frowned, wondering why the King’s last words had been so disquieting. But there was no time to consider that now. There was Ariane to think of.
“Cimmerian,” Karela said angrily, “if you think I will ride at your side back to the Palace, you are a bigger fool than I believe you. ’Tis a death-trap.”
“I have not asked you to go,” he replied. “Often enough you’ve told me you go where you will.”
Her scowl said that was neither the answer she expected nor the one she wanted.
“Hordo,” the Cimmerian went on, “bring the men in from the street. Let all know where we go. Let those who will not follow go. I’ll have no man ride with me this day against his will.”
Hordo nodded and left. Behind Conan Karela uttered an inarticulate oath. Conan ignored her, his mind already occupied with the problem of gaining entry to the Palace and, more important to him than regaining Garian’s throne, getting Ariane free.
When Conan strode from the palace with Garian, now resplendent in the best scarlet velvet he could find to fit him, the Cimmerian was not surprised to find all eight and thirty of his men mounted and waiting, even those who bore wounds from the past hour’s fighting. He knew he had chosen good men. He was surprised, though, to see Karela sitting her horse beside Hordo. Her green glare dared him to question her presence. He mounted without speaking. There were enough problems to be confronted that day without another argument with her.
“I am ready,” Garian announced as he climbed into the saddle. He had a broadsword strapped on over his tunic.
“Let us ride,” Conan commanded, and led the small band out of the palace grounds at a gallop.
XXIV
The approach to the Palace, up the winding streets to the top of the hill and across the greensward to the drawbridge, was made at a slow walk. Garian rode slightly to the front of Conan. A King should lead his army, he had said, even when it was a small one. Conan agreed, hoping the sight of Garian would make the guards hesitate enough to let them get inside.
At the drawbridge they dismounted, and the guards there indeed stared open-mouthed as Garian strode up to them.
“Do you recognize me?” Garian demanded.
Both nodded, and one said, “You are the King. But how did you leave the Palace? There was no call for an honor guard.”
Conan breathed a sigh of relief. They were not Vegentius’ men. The guards eyed those behind the King, most especially Karela, but kept their main attention on Garian.
“Do you think the King does not know the secret ways beneath this hill?” Garian smiled as if the thought were laughable. As the two guards began to smile as well, though, his face became grim. “Are you loyal men? Loyal to your King?”
The two stiffened as one, and both recited the oath of the Golden Leopards as if to remind Garian of it. “My sword follows he who wears the Dragon Crown. My flesh is a shield for the Dragon Throne. As the King commands, I obey, to the death.”
Garian nodded. “Then know that there is a plot against the Dragon Throne, and its perpetrators are Lord Albanus and Commander Vegentius.”
Conan put his hand to his sword as the soldiers started, but they merely stared at the King.
“What are we to do?” one of them asked finally.
“Take those who are in the barbican,” Garian told them, “leaving only two to lower the portcullis and guard the gate, and go with them to your barracks. Rouse all who are there. Let your cry be, ‘Death to Albanus and Vegentius!’ Any who will not shout that are enemies of the Dragon Throne, even if they wear the golden cloak.”
“Death to Albanus and Vegentius,” one guard said, and the other repeated it.
When they had disappeared into the barbican, Garian sagged. “I did not think it would be this easy,” he told Conan.
“It won’t be,” Conan assured him.
“I still think I should have told them of the imposter, Cimmerian.”
Conan shook his head. “It would only confuse them. They’ll find out after he’s dead, if luck is with us.” It mattered little to him when or how they found out, so long as there was enough confusion for his purposes. He eyed the door to the barbican. What took them so long?
Suddenly there was a cry from inside the stone gatehouse, cut abruptly short. One of those who had stood at the gate appeared in the door with a bloody blade in his fist. “There was one who would not say it.” he said.
>
One by one those others who had been on guard slipped out, sword in hand. Each paused long enough to say to the King, “Death to Albanus and Vegentius,” then trotted into the Palace.
“You see,” Garian told Conan as they led the Free-Company through the gate. “It will be easy.”
As the portcullis rattled down behind them, shouts rang out from the direction of the Golden Leopards’ quarters, and the clash of swords. An alarm gong began to ring, then stopped with a suddenness that spoke of the death of him who had sounded it. The sounds of fighting spread.
“I want to find Albanus,” Garian said. “And Vegentius.”
Conan only nodded. He, too, wanted Albanus. Vegentius he would take if he came across him. He hurried on, the Free-Company deployed behind him. First he would try the throne room.
Abruptly two score golden-cloaked soldiers appeared ahead.
“For Garian!” Conan called, not slowing. “Death to Albanus and Vegentius!”
“Kill them!” came the reply. “For Vegentius!”
The two groups ran together roaring, swords swinging.
Conan ripped the throat from the first man he faced without even crossing swords, and then he was like a machine, blade rising and falling and rising again bloodier than before. The way was forward. He hacked his way through, like a peasant through a field of wheat, chopping and moving forward, leaving bloody human stubble behind.
And then he was clear of the melee. He did not pause to see how his companions fared against those who had survived his blade. The numbers were on the Free-Company’s side, now, and he yet had to find Ariane. Of Garian he cared not one way or the other.
Straight to the throne room he ran. The guards that normally stood at the great carven doors were gone, drawn into the fighting that sounded now in every corridor. The door that usually was opened by three men, Conan pushed open unaided.
The great columned chamber stood empty, the Dragon Throne guarding it with a malignant glare.
The King’s apartments, Conan thought. He set out still at a run, and those who faced him died. He no longer waited to call out the challenge. Any who wore the golden cloak and did not flee were the enemy. Few fled, and he regretted killing them only for the delay it caused him. Ariane. They slowed him finding Ariane.
Karela stalked the Palace halls like a panther. She was alone, now. After the first fight she had searched among the bodies for Conan, uncertain whether she wanted to find him or not. There had not been long to look, for other soldiers loyal to Vegentius had appeared, and the fighting that followed had carried all who still stood away from that spot. She had seen Garian laying about him, and Hordo desperately trying to fight his way to her side. The one-eyed man had been like death incarnate, yet she was glad he had not been able to follow. There was that she had to do of which her faithful hound would not approve.
Suddenly there was a man before her, blood from a scalp wound trickling down his too-handsome face. The sword in his hand was stained as well, and from the way he moved he knew how to use it.
“A wench with a sword,” he laughed. “Best you throw it down and run, else I might think you intend to use it.”
She recognized him then. “You run, Demetrio. I have no wish to soil my blade with your blood.” She had no quarrel with him, but he stood between her and where she wanted to go.
His laugh turned into a snarl. “Bitch!” He lunged, expecting an easy kill.
With ease she beat aside his overconfident attack and slashed him across the chest with her riposte. Shaken, he leaped back. She followed, never allowing him to set himself for the attack again. Their blades flashed intricate silver patterns in the air between them, ringing almost continually. He was good, she admitted, but she was better. He died with a look of incredulous horror on his face.
Stepping over his body she hurried on, until at last she came to the chambers she sought. Carefully she pushed the door open with her blade.
Sularia, in the blue velvet robes of a noblewoman, faced her, frowning. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Some lord’s leman? Don’t you know enough not to enter my apartments without permission? Well, as you’re here, what word of the fighting?” Her eye fell on the bloody sword in Karela’s hand, and she gasped.
“You sent a friend of mine to the lowest of Zandru’s Hells,” Karela said quietly. With measured paces she stepped into the room. The blonde backed away before her.
“Who are you? I know none who are friends of your sort. Leave my chambers immediately, or I’ll have you flogged.”
Karela laughed grimly. “Jelanna would not know your sort, either, but you know of her. As for me, I do not expect you to recognize the Lady Tiana without her veils.”
“You’re mad!” Sularia said, a quaver in her voice. Her back was almost to the wall.
Karela let her sword drop as she continued her advance. “I need no sword for you,” she said softly. “A sword is for an equal.”
From beneath her robes Sularia drew a dagger, its blade as wide as a man’s finger and no more than twice as long. “Fool,” she laughed. “If you truly are Tiana, I’ll give you reason to wear your veils.” And she lunged for Karela’s eyes.
The auburn-haired woman moved nothing but a single hand, which darted to close over the hand that held the dagger. Sularia’s blue eyes widened in disbelief as her lunge was stopped by a grip made steel by long hours with a sword. Karela knotted her other hand in those blonde tresses, tight enough to force the women to meet her hard emerald gaze. Slowly she twisted, forcing the dagger and the hand that held it alike to turn.
“Despite it all,” she whispered to the blonde, “you might have lived had not you put your sluttish hands on him.” With all her strength she drove the dagger home in Sularia’s heart.
Letting the dead woman fall, Karela retrieved her sword and wiped the blade contemptuously on a wall hanging. There was still the Cimmerian.
Her mind whirling with a thousand thoughts of what she would do to him when she found him, she stalked from the room. Almost she had been ready to let him live, but Sularia had brought it all flooding back, all the thousand humiliations she had suffered because of him. That he had lain with such as Sularia was the worst humiliation of all, though when she questioned that strange thought her mind skittered away from answering.
Then, from a colonnaded gallery, she saw him in a courtyard below, lost in thought. No doubt he still wondered how to find this precious Ariane of his. Her beautiful face twisted in a savage snarl. From the corner of her eye she caught a movement below, and her breath suddenly would not come. Vegentius had entered the courtyard, and Conan had not moved. Slowly, like a murderer in the night, the big soldier, as big as Conan, crept forward, ensanguined sword upraised. His red-crested helmet and chain mail looked untouched, though that bloody blade was proof he had seen fighting. At any moment he would strike, and she would see Conan die. Tears ran down her face. Tears of joy, she told herself. It would give her much joy to see the Cimmerian meet his death. Much joy.
“Conan!” she screamed. “Behind you!”
Conan listened to the approaching footsteps, footsteps that grew less wary by the second. The Cimmerian’s hand already rested on his sword hilt. He did not know who it was that crept toward him, save that by his actions he was an enemy. Whoever he was, a few steps more and the surpriser would be the one surprised. Just one step more.
“Conan!” a scream rang out. “Behind you!”
Cursing his lost advantage the Cimmerian threw himself forward, tucking his shoulder under as he hit the flagstones, drawing his scimitar as he rolled to his feet. He found himself facing a very surprised Vegentius.
A quick glance upward showed him the source of the shout, Karela, half hanging over the stone rail of a gallery two stories above the courtyard. He knew it had to be his imagination, yet in that brief look he could have sworn that she was crying. It did not matter, in any case. He must concern himself with the man he faced.
Vegentius wore a grin as
if what was to come were the greatest wish of his life. “Long have I wanted to face you with steel, barbar,” he said. His face yet bore the yellowing bruises of their last encounter.
“That is why you try to sneak up behind me?” Conan sneered.
“Die, barbar!” the big soldier thundered, launching a towering overhead blow with his sword.
Conan’s blade rose to meet it with a clang, and immediately he moved from defense to offense. Almost without moving their feet the two men faced each other, blades ringing like hammer and anvil. But it was always Conan’s blade that was the hammer, always he attacking, always Vegentius parrying, ever more desperately. It was time to end, the Cimmerian thought. With a mighty swing, he struck. Blood fountained from the headless trunk of the Commander of the Golden Leopards. As the body toppled, Conan was already turning to look for Karela. The gallery was empty.
Still, he could not suppress a complacent smile at the thought that she did not hate him as much as she pretended. Else why had she cried out?
He looked around as Hordo hurried into the courtyard.
“Vegentius?” the one-eyed man asked, looking at the headless body. “I saw Albanus,” he went on when Conan nodded. “And Ariane and the imposter. But when I got to where I saw them, they were gone. I think they were headed for the old part of the Palace.” He hesitated. “Have you seen Karela, Cimmerian? I can’t find her, and I do not want to lose her again.”
Conan pointed out the gallery where Karela had stood. “Find her if you can, Hordo. I’ve another woman to seek.”
Hordo nodded, and the two men parted in opposite directions.
Conan wished the bearded man luck, though he suspected Karela had disappeared once more. But his own concern was still Ariane. He could not imagine why Albanus would go into the ancient portion of the Palace, unless it was to escape by way of one of the secret passages. If Jelanna knew some of them, it seemed reasonable that the hawk-faced lord might also. Yet the Cimmerian did not think he could find even the one he had escaped through, lost as it was in that maze of pitch-dark corridors. There was only the wolf pit to hope for. And hoping against hope Conan ran.