Conan the Invincible

Short of dangling her down the well again, he could think no way of making her talk. He moved his black cloak to clear the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword, and motioned her to ride past. “You lead,” he said.

  “I know,” she laughed as she dug her heels into her mount’s ribs. “You like the view.”

  He did that, he thought wryly, but he intended to watch Karela with an eye to treachery. Trailing the robbers’ horses, he rode after her.

  VIII

  For the rest of that day they rode north, across rolling countryside sparsely covered with low scrub. When they camped at nightfall, Conan said, “How much farther?”

  Karela shrugged; her heavy round breasts shifted beneath the tight green tunic. “We’ll reach it some time after dawn, if we break camp early.”

  She began to pile dry twigs from the scrub for a fire, but he scattered them. “No need to advertise our presence. What makes you think they’ll still be there?”

  Tucking flint and steel back in her pouch, she gave him an amused smile. “If they’ve gone, at least you’ll be closer than you were. Who is this man in Shadizar who wants his slave girl back?”

  “If we’re riding early, we’d better turn in,” he said, and she smiled again.

  He wrapped himself in his cloak but did not sleep. Instead he watched her. She was wrapped in a blanket she had carried on her horse, and had her head pillowed on her high-pommeled saddle of tooled red leather. He would not have put it past her to try sneaking off with the horses in the night, but she seemed to settle right into sleep.

  Purple twilight deepened to black night, and scudding clouds crossed stars like diamonds on velvet, but Conan kept his eyes open. A gibbous moon rose, and at its height the Cimmerian thought he felt eyes on him from the surrounding night. Easing his narrow-bladed dagger from its forearm sheath, he loosed the bronze brooch that held his cloak and snaked into the night on his belly. Thrice he circled the camp in silence, always feeling the eyes, but he saw no one, nor any sign that anyone had ever been there. And then, abruptly, the feeling was gone. Once more he crawled all the way around the camp, but there was still nothing. Disgusted with himself, he got up and walked back to his cloak. Karela still slept. Angrily he wrapped himself in the black wool. It was the woman. Waiting for her treachery was making him see and feel what just was not there.

  While the sun was but a red rim shining above the horizon Karela woke, and they rode north again. Slowly the land changed, the low rollings becoming true hills. Conan was beginning to wonder what the men he sought would be doing so far to the north of the caravan route, when suddenly Karela kicked her horse into a gallop.

  “There it is,” she cried. “Just over those next hills.”

  Hurriedly he galloped after her. “Karela, come back! Karela!” She hurried on, disappearing around a hill. Fool woman, he thought. If the pilgrims were still there, she would have them roused.

  As he rounded the hill, he slowed his mount to a walk. She was nowhere in sight, and he could no longer hear the sounds of her horse running.

  “Conan!”

  Conan’s head whipped around at the shout. Karela sat her horse atop a hill to his right. “Crom, woman! What are you —”

  “My name is Karela,” she shouted. “The Red Hawk!”

  She let out a shrill whistle, and suddenly mounted men in a motley collection of bright finery and mismatched armor were boiling through every gap in the hills. In a trice he was the center of a shoulder-to-shoulder ring of brigands. Carefully he folded his hands on the pommel of his saddle. So much as a twitch toward his sword would put iron-tipped quarrels through his body from the four crossbows he could see, and there might be more.

  “Karela,” he called, “is this the way you keep your oath?”

  “I’ve said no uncivil word to you,” she replied mockingly, “And I haven’t raised my hand against you. Nor will I. I’m afraid the same can’t be said of my men. Hordo!”

  A burly, black-bearded man with a rough leather patch over his left eye forced his horse through the circle to confront Conan. A jagged scar ran from under the patch and disappeared in the thatch of his beard. That side of his mouth was drawn up in a permanent sneer. His ring mail had once belonged to a wealthy man—there were still traces of gilt left—and large gold hoops stretched his ears. A well-worn tulwar hung at his side.

  “Conan, she called you,” the big man said. “Well, I’m Hordo, the Red Hawk’s lieutenant. And what I want to know, what we all want to know, is why we shouldn’t cut your miserable throat right here.”

  “Karela was leading me,” Conan began, and cut off as Hordo launched a fist the size of a small ham at him. The big man’s single eye bulged as Conan caught his fist in mid-swing and stopped it dead.

  For a moment the two strained, arm to arm, biceps bulging, then Hordo shouted, “Take him!” The ring of bandits closed in.

  Dozens of hands clutched at Conan, tearing away his cloak, ripping loose his sword, pulling him from the saddle. But their very numbers hampered them somewhat, and he did not go easily. His dagger found a new home in ribs clothed in dirty yellow—in the press he never saw the face that went with them—a carelessly reached arm was broken at the elbow, and more than one face erupted in blood and broken teeth from his massive fists. The numbers were too many, though, and rough hands at last managed to bind his wrists behind him and link his ankles with a two-foot hobble of rawhide. Then they threw him to the stony ground, and those who had boots began to apply them to his ribs.

  Finally Hordo chased them back with snarled threats, and bent to jerk Conan’s head up by a fistful of hair. “We call her the Red Hawk,” he spat. “You call her mistress, or my lady. But don’t ever sully her name with your filthy mouth again. Not as you live.”

  “Why should he live at all?” snarled a weasel-faced man in dented half-armor and a guardsman’s helmet with the crest gone. “Hepakiah’s choking to death on his own blood from this one’s dagger right now.” He grimaced suddenly and spat out a tooth. “Cut his throat, and be done!”

  With a grin Hordo produced a wavy-bladed Vendhyan dagger. “Seems Aberius has a good idea for a change.”

  Suddenly Karela forced her horse through the pack around Conan, her green cat-eyes glaring down at him. “Can’t you think of something more interesting, Hordo?”

  “Still keeping your oath?” Conan snarled. “Fine payment for saving you from the slave block, or worse.” Hordo’s fist smashed his head back into the ground.

  “No man ever had to save the Red Hawk,” her lieutenant growled. “She’s better than any man, with sword or brains. See you remember it.”

  Karela laughed sweetly. “Of course I am, good Conan. If anything happens to you, it will be at the hands of these good men, not mine. Hordo, let’s take him to camp. You can decide what to do with him at leisure.”

  The scar-faced man shouted orders, and quickly a rope was passed around Conan, under his arms. The bandits scrambled to their saddles, Hordo himself clutching the rope tied to Conan, and they started off at a trot, the horses’ hooves spraying dirt and gravel in Conan’s face.

  Conan gritted his teeth as he was dragged. With his arms behind him, he was forced to skid along on his belly. Sharp rocks gashed his chest, and hardpacked clay scraped off patches of skin as large as his hand.

  When the horses skidded to a halt, Conan spat out a mouthful of dirt and sucked in air. He ached in every muscle, and small trickles of blood still oozed from those scrapes that dust had not clotted. He was far from sure that whatever they had planned for him would be better than being dragged to death.

  “Hordo,” Karela exclaimed in delight, “you have my tent up.”

  She leaped from the saddle and darted into a red-striped pavilion. It was the only tent in the camp lying in a hollow between two tall, U-shaped hills. Rumpled bedrolls lay scattered around half-a-dozen burned-out fires. Some of the men ran to stir these up, while others dug out stone jars of kil, raw distilled wine, and passed them around with raucous la
ughter.

  Conan rolled onto his side as Hordo dismounted beside him. “You’re a bandit,” the big Cimmerian panted. “How would you like a chance at a king’s treasure?”

  Hordo did not even look at him. “Get those stakes in,” he shouted. “I want him pegged out now.”

  “Five pendants,” Conan said, “and a jewel-encrusted casket. Gifts from Yildiz to Tiridates.” He hated letting these men know what he was after — at best he would have a hard time remaining alive to claim a share of what he thought of as his own —but otherwise he might not live to collect even a share.

  “Stir your stumps,” the bearded outlaw shouted. “You can drink later.”

  “Ten thousand pieces of gold,” Conan said. “That’s what one man is willing to pay for the pendants alone. Someone else might pay more. And then there’s the casket.”

  For the first time since arriving in the hollow Hordo turned to Conan, his one eye glaring. “The Red Hawk wants you dead. She’s done good by us, so what she wants is what I want.”

  A score of bandits, laughing and already halfdrunk, came to lift Conan and bear him to a cleared space where they had driven four stakes into the hard ground. Despite his struggles they were too many, and he soon found himself spread-eagled on his back, wet rawhide straps leading from his wrists and ankles to the stakes. The rawhide would shrink in the heat of the sun, stretching his joints to the breaking point.

  “Why doesn’t Hordo want you to have a chance at ten thousand pieces of gold?” Conan shouted. Every man but Hordo froze where he stood, the laughter dying in their throats.

  With a curse the scar-faced brigand jumped forward. Conan tried to jerk his head aside, but lights flared before his eyes as the big man’s foot caught him. “Shut your lying mouth!” Hordo snarled.

  Aberius lifted his head to stare cold-eyed at the Red Hawk’s lieutenant, a ferret confronting a mastiff. “What’s he talking about, Hordo?”

  Conan shook his head to clear it. “A king’s treasure. That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “You shut,” Hordo began, but Aberius cut him off.

  “Let him talk,” the pinch-faced brigand said dangerously, and other voices echoed him. Hordo glared about him, but said nothing.

  Conan allowed himself a brief smile. A bit longer, and these cut-throats would turn him loose and bind Hordo and Karela in his place. But he did not intend to let them actually steal the pendants he had worked so hard for. “Five pendants,” he said, “and a golden casket encrusted with gems were stolen from Tiridates’ very palace not half a fortnight gone. I’m on the track of those trifles. One man’s already offered me ten thousand pieces of gold for the pendants alone, but what one man offers another will top. The casket will bring as much again, or more.”

  The men encircling him licked their lips greedily, and shuffled closer. “What makes them worth so much?” Aberius asked shrewdly. “I never heard of pendants worth ten thousand gold pieces.”

  Conan managed a chuckle. “But these were gifts from King Yildiz to King Tiridates, gems that no man has ever seen before. And the same on the casket,” he embroidered.

  Abruptly Karela burst through the close-packed circle of men, and they edged back from the rage on her face. Gone were the makeshift garments she had acquired at the Well of the Kings. Silver filigreed breastplates of gold barely contained her ivory breasts, and a girdle of pearls a finger wide hung low on her hips. Red thigh boots covered her legs, and the tulwar at her side had a sapphire the size of a pigeon’s egg on the pommel.

  “The dog lies,” she snarled. The men took another step back, but there was raw greed on their faces. “He seeks no gemstones, but a slave girl. He told me so himself. He’s naught but a muscle-bound slave catcher for some besotted fool in Shadizar. Tell them you lie, Conan!”

  “I speak the truth.” Or some of it, he thought.

  She whirled on him, knuckles white on the hilt of her sword. “Spawn of a maggot! Admit you lie, or I’ll have you flayed alive.”

  “You’ve broken half your oath,” he said calmly. “Uncivil words.”

  “Derketo take you!” With a howl of rage she planted the toe of one red boot solidly in his ribs. He could not contain a grunt of pain. “Think of something lingering, Hordo,” she commanded. “He’ll admit his lies soon enough then.” Suddenly she spun on her heel, drawing her sword till a handbreadth of razor-sharp blue steel showed above the worked leather scabbard. “Unless one of you has a mind to challenge my orders?”

  A chorus of protests rose, and to Conan’s amazement more than one gnarled and scarred face was filled with fear. With a satisfied nod Karela slammed the tulwar back into its sheath and strode away toward her tent. Men half-fell in their haste to get out of her way.

  “The second part of your oath,” Conan shouted after her. “You struck me. You’re foresworn before Derketo. What vengeance will the goddess of love and death take on you, and on any who follow you?”

  Her stride faltered for an instant, but she went on without turning. The doorflap of the red-striped pavilion was drawn behind her.

  “You’ll die easier, Conan,” Hordo said, “if you watch your tongue. I’ve a mind to rip it out of you now, but some of the lads might want to hear if you babble more of this supposed treasure.”

  “You act like whipped curs around her,” Conan said. “Have none of you ever thought for yourselves?”

  Hordo shook his shaggy head. “I’ll tell you a tale, and if you make me speak of it again I’ll skewer your liver. From whence she came no one knows, but we found her wandering naked as a babe, and little more than one she was, in years, but with that sword she now wears clutched in her fist. He that led us then, Constanius by name, thought to have his sport with her, then sell her. He was the best of us with a sword, but she killed him like a fox killing a chicken, and when two who were close to him tried to take her, she killed them, too, and just as quick. Since then we’ve followed her. The looting she leads us to has always been good, and no man who did as he was told has ever been taken. She commands, and we obey, and we’re satisfied.”

  Hordo went away then, and Conan listened to the others talking as they drank around the fires. Amid coarse laughter they discussed what sport would be had of him. Hot coals were much talked of, and the uses of burning splinters, and how much of a man’s skin might be removed and yet leave him living.

  The sun blazed higher and hotter. Conan’s tongue swelled in his mouth with thirst, and his lips cracked and blackened. Sweat dried on his body till no more came, and the sun scored his flesh. Aberius and another fish-eyed rogue staggered over and amused themselves by pouring water on the ground beside his head, betting on how close they could come to his mouth without letting a drop fall where he could reach it. Even when the clear stream was so close he could feel the coolness of it on his cheek, Conan refused to turn his head toward it. He would not give them so much satisfaction.

  In time the other man left, and Aberius squatted at Conan’s head with the clay waterbottle cradled in his arms. “You’d kill for water, wouldn’t you?” the weasel-faced man said softly. He glanced warily over his shoulder at the other bandits, still drinking and shouting of what tortures they would inflict on the big Cimmerian, then went on. “Tell me about this treasure, and I’ll give you water.”

  “Ten—thousand—gold—pieces,” Conan croaked. The words scraped like gravel across his dry tongue. Aberius licked his lips eagerly. “More. Where is this treasure? Tell me, and I’ll convince the others to set you free.”

  “Free—first,” Conan managed.

  “Fool! The only way you’ll get free at all is with my help. Now, tell me where to find—” He squawked suddenly as Hordo’s big hand snatched him into the air by the scruff of his neck.

  The one-eyed brigand shook the rat of a man, Aberius’ feet dangling above the ground. “What are you doing?” Hordo demanded. “He’s not for talking with.”

  “Just having a little sport,” Aberius laughed weakly. “Just taunti
ng him.”

  “Taunting,” Hordo spat. He threw the smaller man sprawling in the dust. “It’s more than taunting we’ll do to him. You get on back to the rest.” He waited while Alberius scrambled, half-crawling, to where the other brigands watched laughing, then turned back to Conan. “Make peace with your gods, barbar. You’ll have no time later.”

  Conan worked his mouth for enough moisture to get out a few painful words. “Letting her do you out of the gold, Hordo.”

  “You don’t learn, do you, barbar?”

  Conan had just time to see the booted foot coming, then the world seemed to explode.

  IX

  When the Cimmerian regained consciousness, it was black night and the fires were burning low. A few brigands still squatted in muttered conversation, passing their stone jars of kil, but most were sprawled in drunken snoring. There was a light in the pavilion—Conan watched Karela’s well-curved silhouette on the striped tent wall—but even as he watched it was extinguished.

  The rawhide cords had tightened until they dug into his wrists. Feeling was almost gone from his hands. If he remained there much longer he would not be able to fight even were he to get free. His massive arms corded. There was no give to his bonds. Again he pulled, his body knotting down to the rippled-iron muscles of his stomach with the strain. Again. Again. Blood stained his wrists from the cutting rawhide, and wet the ground. Again he pulled. Again. And there was a slackness to the cord at his left wrist. No more than a fingers-breadth, but it was there.

  Suddenly he froze. The feeling that had come in the camp with Karela, of eyes on him, was back. And more than back, for his senses told him the watcher was coming closer. Warily he looked around. The men by the low-burning fire had sunk into sodden mounds, making as much noise asleep as they had awake. The camp was still. Yet he could still feel those eyes approaching. His hackles rose, for he was sure the bearer of those watching eyes now stood over him, staring down, but there was nothing there.

  Angrily he began to jerk at the rawhide binding his left wrist, harder and harder despite the quickened flow of blood and the burning pain that circled his wrist. If there was something standing above him—and he had seen enough in his life to know that there were many things not visible to the eye—he would not lie for it like a sheep at slaughter.