Conan the Invincible

  The slender lieutenant—Haranides could not help wondering how he had come through the fight without a scratch—touched his forehead stiffly in salute. “Sir.” He sawed at his reins to pull his horse around and began telling off the men.

  Haranides sighed. He was not in good odor with the lieutenant, which meant he would not be in good odor with the lieutenant’s father, which meant … . Odor. He fingered the polished stone jar in his pouch. The perfume had seemed familiar to him, but it was not until he was beating aside a hillman’s curved sword that he remembered where he had smelled it before. And knew that the red-haired jade who had come to ‘warn’ him of the tribesmen was the Red Hawk.

  The problem was that Aheranates, too, knew that he had had her in his grasp and let her slip away. Once the fighting was done and wounds were tended as well they could be in the field, Haranides had ordered them along the trail of the three.

  “Sir?” Haranides looked up from his brown study to find Resaro knuckling his forehead. “The prisoner, sir?”

  When the butchery was over, they had found a hillman who had merely been stunned by a blow to the head. Now Haranides had great need to know what had brought such a body of tribesmen together. They normally formed much smaller bands for their raiding. It was necessary to know if he might find himself facing other forces as large. He grimaced in disgust. “Put him to the question, Resaro.”

  “Yes, sir. If the captain will pardon me for saying so, sir, that was a fine piece of work back-there. The handful we didn’t slice into dogmeat are likely still running.”

  “See to the prisoner,” Haranides sighed. Resaro touched his forehead and went.

  The man might think it fine work, the captain thought, and in the ordinary course of events it might have been considered so, but this was no ordinary patrol. Two hundred good cavalrymen had he led through the Gate to the Three Swords. After burying his dead, separating those too badly wounded to go on, and detaching enough healthy men to give the wounded a chance if they were attacked on their way out of the mountains, he had four score and three left. And he had neither the Red Hawk nor Tiridates’ trinkets in hand. In eyes of king and counselor it would be those lacks that damned him.

  A choked scream rose from where Resaro had the hillman. “Mitra blast Tiridates and the Red Hawk both,” the captain growled under his breath. He walked into what had been the bandit camp, examining the ground between the looming boulders as much to keep his mind off the hillman’s moans as in hope of finding anything of importance.

  Aheranates found him standing where the pavilion had been. “Would I could see what she saw from here,” Haranides said without looking at the slender man. “There is a wrong feel to this place. What happened here?”

  “A battle. Sir.” A supercilious smile curled the lieutenant’s mouth at for once being ahead of Haranides. “Or, at least, a fight, but it must have been a big one. Hillmen attacked the bandits in camp and cut them up badly. We no longer need worry about the Red Hawk. An she still lives, she’s screaming over a torture-fire about now.”

  “A very complete picture,” the captain said slowly. “Based on what?”

  “Graves. One mass grave that must hold forty or more, and seventeen single graves. They’re upslope, to the north there.”

  “Graves,” Haranides repeated thoughtfully. The hill tribes never acted in concert. In their dialects the words for ‘enemy’ and ‘one not of my clan’ were the same. But if they had found some compelling reason … . “But who won, lieutenant?”

  “What?”

  The hook-nosed captain shook his head. “Learn something about those you chase. None of the hill tribes bury their victims, and they take their own dead back to their villages so their spirits won’t have to wander among strangers. On the other hand, if the bandits won, why would they bury the hillman dead?”

  “But the bandits wouldn’t bury tribesmen,” Aheranates protested.

  “Exactly. So I suggest you take a few men and find out what’s in those graves.” It was Haranide’s turn to smile, at the consternation on the lieutenant’s face.

  As the slender youth began to splutter about not being a graverobber, a bowlegged cavalryman ran to a panting halt before them. The edge of a bloodstained bandage showed under his helmet. “Captain,” he said nervously. “Sir, there’s something maybe you ought to see. It’s … .” He swallowed convulsively. “You’d best see for yourself, sir.”

  Haranides frowned. He could not think of anything that would put one of these tough soldiers in this taking. “Lead the way, Narses.”

  The soldier swallowed again, and turned back the way he had come with obvious reluctance. Haranides noted as he followed that Aheranates was clinging to his heels. He supposed that to the lieutenant’s mind, even something that made a seasoned campaigner turn green was better than opening day-old graves.

  Near a thornbush springing from the crevice between two boulders a pair of soldiers stood, making an obvious effort not to look into the narrow opening. From chain mail and helmet to hook nose and bandy legs, they were like Narses, and like him, too, in the tightness around their eyes and the green tinge about their lips.

  Narses stopped beside the two and pointed to the cleft. “In there, sir. Saw a trail of … of blood, sir, leading in, so I looked, and … .” He trailed off with a helpless shrug.

  The blood trail was clear to be seen, dried black smears on the rock, and on the stony ground beneath the bush.

  “Clear the brush away,” Haranides ordered irritably. Likely the bandits, or the tribesmen, had tortured someone and tossed the body here for the ravens. He liked looking at the results of torture even less than he liked listening to it, and if the men’s faces were any indication, this was a bad job of it. “Get a move on,” he added as the men fiddled with their swords.

  “Yes, sir,” Narses said unhappily.

  Swinging their swords like brush knives, to the accompaniment of grumbled curses as thorns found the chinks of their chain mail and broke off in the flesh, the bush was hacked to a stump and the limps dragged clear of the crevice. Haranides put his foot on the stump and levered himself up to peer into the crevice. His breath caught in his throat.

  He found himself staring straight into sightless, inhuman eyes in a leathery scaled face. The fanged mouth was frozen in rictus, seemingly sneering at him. One preternaturally long bony hand, a length of severed rope dangling from the wrist, clutched with clawed fingers at a sword gash in chain mail stained with dried blood. All of its wounds appeared to be from swords, he noted, or at least from the sorts of weapons men bore.

  “But then, what self-respecting vulture would touch it,” he muttered.

  “What is it?” Aheranates demanded.

  Haranides climbed down to let the lieutenant take his place. “Did you see anything else up this way?” the captain asked the three soldiers.

  A shriek burst from Aheranates’ mouth, and the slender young officer half tumbled back to the ground. He stared wildly at the captain, at the three soldiers, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mitra’s Holies!” he whispered. “What is that?”

  “Not a hillman,” Haranides said drily. With a sob the lieutenant stumbled a few steps and bent double, retching. Haranides shook his head and turned back to the soldiers. “Did you find anything?”

  “Yes, sir,” Narses said. He seemed eager to talk about anything but what was in the crevice. “Horse tracks, sir. Maybe a score or more. Came from the camp down there, right past … past here, and went off that way, sir.” He flung a hand to the south.

  “Following?” the captain mused half to himself.

  “We must go back,” Aheranates panted suddenly. “We can’t fight demons.”

  “This is the first demon I ever saw killed by a sword,” Haranides said flatly. He was relieved to see the momentary panic in the three soldiers’ eyes fade. “Get that thing down from there,” he went on, turning their looks to pure disgust. “We’ll see if our hillman friend knows what i
t is.”

  Grumbling under their breath, the bow-legged cavalrymen climbed awkwardly into the cranny and worked the stiffened body free. Haranides started back while they were still lifting it down.

  The hillman was spreadeagled between pegs in the ground, surrounded by cavalrymen betting among themselves on whether or not he would open up at the next application. From the coals of a small fire projected the handles of half a dozen irons. The smell of scorched flesh and the blisters on the soles of the hillman’s feet and on his dark, hairless chest told the use to which the irons had been put.

  Resaro, squatting by the tribesman’s side, thrust an iron carefully into the fire. “He isn’t saying much so far, sir.”

  “Unbelieving dogs!” the hillman rasped. His black eyes glared at Haranides above a long, scraggly mustache that was almost as dark. “Sons of diseased camels! Your mothers defile themselves with sheep! Your fathers—”

  Resaro casually backhanded him across the mouth. “Sorry, sir. Be a lot worse done to one of us in his village, but he seems to take it personally that we expect him to talk, instead of just killing him outright.”

  “Never will I talk!” the hillman growled. “Cut off my hands! I will not speak! Pluck out my eyes! I will not speak! Slice off—”

  “Those all sound interesting,” Haranides cut him off. “But I can think of something better.” The black eyes watched him worriedly. “I’ll wager the odds are good there’s a hillman up there somewhere watching us right this minute. One of your lot, or another one. It doesn’t matter. What do you think would happen if that man sees us turn you loose with smiles and pats on the back?”

  “Kill me,” the hillman hissed. “I will not talk.”

  Haranides laughed easily. “Oh, they’d kill you for us. A lot more slowly than we would, I suspect. But worst of all,” his smile faded, “they’ll curse your soul for a traitor. Your spirit will wander for all time, trapped between this world and the next. Alone. Except for other traitors. And demons.” The hillman was silent, but unease painted his face. He was ready, Haranides thought. “Narses, bring that thing in there and show it to our guest.”

  The watching soldiers gasped and muttered charms as Narses and another carried the rigid corpse into the circle. Haranides kept his eyes on the hillman’s face. The dark eyes slid away from the reptilian creature, then back again, abruptly so full of venom as to seem deadly.

  “You know it, don’t you?” the captain said quietly.

  The hillman nodded reluctantly. His eyes were still murderous on Haranides. “It is called a S’tarra.” His mouth twisted around the word, and he spat for punctuation. “Many of these thrice-accursed dung-eaters serve the evil one who dwells in the dark fortress to the south. Many men, and even women and children, disappear within those light-forsaken stone walls, and none are seen again. Not even their bodies to be borne away for the proper rites. Such abominations are not to be endured. So did we gather—” The thin-lipped mouth snapped shut; the tribesman resumed his glare.

  “You lie,” Haranides sneered. “You know not the truth, as your mother knew not your father. Hill dogs do not attack fortresses. You cower in fear of your women, and you would sell your children for a copper.”

  The dark face had become engorged with rage as Haranides spoke. “Loose me!” the tribesman howled. “Loose me, drinker of jackal’s urine, and I will carve your manhood to prove mine!”

  The captain laughed contemptuously. “With such numbers as you had, you could not have taken a mud hut held by an old woman and her granddaughter.”

  “Our strength was as the strength of thousands for the righteousness of our cause!” the dark man spat. “Each of us would have killed a score of the diseased demon-spawn!”

  Haranides studied the hillman’s anger-suffused eyes, and nodded to himself. That was as close as he was likely to get to confirmation that there were no more hillmen out. “You say they take people,” he said finally. “Do valuables attract them? Gold? Gems?”

  “No!” Aheranates burst out. Haranides rounded on him angrily, but the slender man babbled on. “We cannot pursue these … these monsters! Mitra! ’Twas the Red Hawk we were sent for, and if these creatures kill her, good and well enough!”

  “Erlik take you, Aheranates!” the captain grated.

  The hillman broke in. “I will guide you. And you ride to slay the scaled filth,” he spat, “I will guide you faithfully.” Anger had been washed from his face by some other emotion, but what emotion was impossible to say.

  “By the Black Throne of Erlik!” Haranides growled. Seizing Aheranates’ arm he pulled the young lieutenant away from the prying eyes of the men, behind a massive boulder. The captain glanced around to make certain none of the others had followed. When he spoke his voice was low and forceful. “I’ve put up with your insolence, with foolishness, slyness, and pettiness enough for ten girls in a zenana, but I’ll not put up with cowardice. Especially not in front of the men.”

  “Cowardice!” Aheranates’ slender frame quivered. “My father is Manerxes, who is friend to—”

  “I care not if your father is Mitra! Hannuman’s stones, man! Your fear is so strong it can be felt at ten paces. We were sent to return with the Red Hawk, not with a rumor that she might possibly be dead somewhere in the mountains.”

  “You mean to go on?”

  Haranides gritted his teeth. The fool could make trouble for him once they returned to Shadizar. “For a time, lieutenant. We may overtake the bandits. And if they have been captured by these S’tarra, well the hilltribes may consider their keep a fortress, but if they thought to take it with fewer than ten score, it’s possible eighty real soldiers can do the task. In any event, I won’t turn back until I’m sure the Red Hawk and the king’s playthings are beyond my grasp.”

  “You’ve gone mad.” Aheranates’ voice was cold and calm, his eyes glazed and half-focused. “I have no other choice. You cannot be allowed to kill us all.” His hand darted for his sword.

  In his shock Haranides was barely able to throw himself back away from the lieutenant’s vicious slash. Aheranates’ eyes were fixed; his breath came in pants. Haranides rolled aside, and the other’s blade bit into the stony ground where his head had been. But now the captain had his own sword out. He lunged up from the ground, driving it under the younger man’s ribs to thrust out behind his shoulder.

  Aheranates stared down incredulously at the steel that transfixed him. “My father is Manerxes,” he whispered. “He … .” A bubble of blood formed on his lips. As it broke, he fell.

  Haranides got to his feet, cursing under his breath, and tugged his sword free of the body. He started at a footstep grating on the rock behind him. Resaro stepped up to look down at Aheranates’ body.

  “The fool,” Haranides began, but Resaro cut him off.

  “Your pardon for interrupting, sir, but I can see as you’re distraught over the lieutenant’s death, and I wouldn’t want you to say something, in anguish, so to speak, that I shouldn’t ought to hear.”

  “What are you saying?” the hook-nosed captain asked slowly.

  Resaro’s dark eyes met his levelly. “The lieutenant was a brave man, sir. Hid the terrible wounds he took againsts the hillmen till it was too late for him, but I expect he saved us all. His father will be proud of him.” He fumbled a rag from beneath his tunic. “You’d best wipe your sword, sir. You must have dropped it and got some of the lieutenant’s blood on it.”

  Haranides hesitated before accepting the cloth. “When we get back to Shadizar, come see me. I’ll need a good sergeant in my next posting. Now get the hillman on a horse, and we’ll see if we can find the Red Hawk.”

  “Yes, sir. And thank you, sir.”

  Resaro knuckled his forehead and disappeared, but Haranides stood looking at the lieutenant’s corpse. Whatever slight chance he might have had of surviving a return to Shadizar without the Red Hawk and the Tiridates’ trinkets had died with that foppish young idiot. With a muttered oath he went to join
his men.

  XVIII

  Conan’s keen eyes swept the ridges as the bandit column wound its way along the floor of the narrow, twisting valley. Hordo was by his side, muttering unintelligibly beneath his breath, while Karela maintained her usual place ahead of them all. Her emerald cape was thrown back, and she rode with one fist planted jauntily on her hip. With the need for tracking past, Aberius was back with the rest of the brigands, riding strung out behind.

  “She acts as if this is a parade,” Hordo growled.

  “It may be,” Conan replied. He eased his broadsword in its worn shagreen sheath. His gaze still traversed the ridgelines, never stopping in any one place for long. “We have watchers, at least.”

  Hordo tensed, but he was too long in the trade of banditry to look around suddenly. He loosened his own blade. “Where are they?” he asked quietly.

  “Both sides of the valley. I don’t know how many.”

  “It won’t take many in here,” Hordo grumbled, eying the steep slopes. “I’ll warn her.”

  “We both go,” Conan said quickly. “Slowly, as if we’re just riding forward to have a casual word.” The one-eyed man nodded, and they kicked their mounts to a faster walk.

  Karela looked around in surprise and irritation as they rode up on either side of her. Her mouth opened angrily.

  “We’re being followed,” Hordo said before she could speak. “Along the ridges.”

  She glanced at Conan, then turned back to Hordo. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Conan said. Her back stiffened, and she faced forward again without speaking. He went on. “Half a glass past, I saw movement on the east ridge. I thought it was an animal, but now there are two to the east and three to the west, and they move together.”

  “Hannuman’s stones,” she muttered, still not looking at him. They rounded a bend in the trail, and whatever else she had to say was lost in a gasp.

  In the center of the trail, only twenty paces from them, stood eight reptilian warriors like those they had killed, in chain mail and ridged helmets, bearing on their shoulders the four crossed poles of a bier. Atop the bier was a tall throne of intricately carved ivory, in which sat a man robed in scarlet. A white streak serpentined through his black hair. He held a long golden staff across his chest and bowed slightly without rising.