Conan the Rebel (10 page)

Amnun spoke to the squad leader, who rapped orders to his men. They advanced into the room.

They did so warily, professionally. Amnun must have cautioned them about the person they were to arrest. Shield nestled by shield, the front line made a walking wall to curtain the pikemen behind. Given more space, Conan could have bounded around them,

killing two or three on his way. Here he was boxed in.

He smote. A Stygian helmet rang. The wearer's head snapped back. Dazed by the pain in his neck, he faltered. His shield sank. Conan's sword screamed as it swung into the upper spine of the soldier beside the first. Blood spouted. A third man stumbled over the falling corpse, and Conan slew him on the return swing.

But their chief called the remainder toward the door. There they ' re-formed, and came forward again. This time the pikes of the second and third ranks jutted ahead of the advance. Suddenly Conan was caged among steel-tipped shafts. 'Yield, yield!' Amnun urged from the entrance. Conan bellowed. Right and left his sword flew, to knock pikes aside. Barely for a moment did he have a clear shot past them, but that was enough. His left hand rose and whipped through an arc. The dirk flew from it. Amnun screamed as that weapon pierced his throat; then he sank to earth, the lifeblood gushing out of him. 'Take your reward!' Conan bawled.

He fully expected to die. He merely hoped to send a few more Stygians down hell-road before him. But the squad's orders were to bring him in alive. The officer called a new command. Several pikemen reversed their weapons and used them as clubs. Though Conan raged forth, striking, slaying two more and wounding nearly everyone else, the rain of blows to his skull became too much at last. He went down, on the floor and into darkness. The soldiers pounded him vindictively until their officer bade them stop.

VIII

Captives of the Black Ring

Tothapis' vulture countenance drew into a scowl. His fingers lapped the right arm of his cobra throne. For a moment that tattoo was the solitary sound among the shadows bulking and swaying misshapen in his centrum.

'I like it not,' he said finally. 'It is reckless.'

Nehekba, seated on a stool at his feet, let great bronze-hued eyes go wider still. Catching the candlelight, they seemed to turn the entire loveliness of her face luminous. 'Why, what would you do, my lord?' she murmured.

'The more I think about this thing,' he answered, 'the wiser it appears to me that we have the lot of them killed out of hand: Conan, the Taian princess, Jehanan, yes, and that Ophirite Falco. ' Abort his deadly destiny, together with the three lesser fates which are somehow linked to it.'

'My lord, forgive me, but I must say that fear speaks through your lips, not reason,' the priestess-witch retorted. 'We must probe deeper, learn more, before we take any such drastic action. Else the chain of future events that we sever could recoil upon us in unforeseeable ways. For example, Mitra,' at the name of the hated Sun god, both persons uttered a hiss and drew a serpentine line through the air, 'might find another than Conan able to wield the Ax that was forged in heaven, if that is indeed what he is intended for; and this time we would have no forewarning of who or where. We must gather clues, trace out the possibilities in him, before we can ascertain how the deeds he is to do may safely and permanently be prevented from ever coming to pass.'

'Aye, true,' Tothapis conceded. 'But we have drugs and torture for quick interrogation of him and the rest. Instead, not only have

the

you demanded he be luxuriously maintained in the Keep of the Manticore, you want all of them brought together. No!'

'Potions and pangs will get but little out of that strong, stubborn warrior,' Nehekba argued. 'They should be our last resort, short of his execution, not our first. Whereas if we let the prisoners meet, let them talk and act freely, unaware they are observed, they will reveal everything about themselves – including, I am sure,, whatever weaknesses Conan has that we can use against him.'

Tothapis remained uneasy. Nehekba persisted: 'What is to fear? No mortal has ever escaped from the Manticore. Be zealous in the'! service of Set, and Our Master of Night will aid you. Does he not delight in guile?'

Decision crystallized in the wizard. 'Very well,' he said, 'we will try it.'

He traced the sign and spoke the words that opened a way for' vision and hearing between this house and the castle. The scene that appeared was of a room occupied by the officer of the day. He saw nothing in return, and started apprehensively when the voice of Tothapis addressed him. Scrambling to his feet, he saluted and heard his orders, while sweat sprang forth on his skin. 'Yes, great lord, it shall be done at once,' he chattered.

Tothapis and Nehekba followed the progress of the men he' summoned. Those carried their assignments through without, incident. After they had departed from the common room, the priest kept his view on the four who were now there. Getting her ' first close look at Conan, Nehekba drew a sharp breath and leaned avidly forward.

When the door of his apartment opened, the Cimmerian snatched up a chair. His wild hope was that he could brain whoever entered and somehow make his way out of prison. He snarled in disappointment and dropped the weapon as he saw an entire squad of fully armed soldiers. If they were here to fetch him for torture or worse, he would attack and die fighting. But the treatment he had received thus far, baffling though it was, made that seem unlikely. Instead of chains and a dungeon cell, he had been given palatial quarters high in this great building. A physician had poulticed injuries. A barber came in daily, well guarded, to shave him. The rays that passed through a small hinged panel in the door carried delicious food and drink, in abundance. A closet held a variety of fine garments in his size. There was a pool in which he could swim as well as bathe, with fresh water pumped in from outside each time he had drained it. After three days of such conditions he suffered from no more than rage at being confined, longing for daylight, and puzzlement tinged with fear of what this might portend.

'Rejoice,' said the chief of the squad in accented Shemitish. 'In his kindness, lord Tothapis has decided you should not languish alone, but may have company during certain hours. Come with us.'

Bewildered, heart thumping beneath his tunic, Conan obeyed. The men conducted him down a corridor whose doors resembled those of his place and doubtless concealed similar appointments. At the end, it gave on a large chamber, richly carpeted, well furnished, full of light and soft air from open windows. Whitewashed walls bore murals of flowers and wildfowl. A large carafe of wine and four crystal goblets stood on a table. Three people, already present, stared as Conan entered.

'We will bring you back at dinnertime,' the Stygian officer said. He and his men withdrew. Conan heard a heavy bolt slam down. The chamber had but one single exit. Driven by his wish to be free, he went to the nearest window and glanced out. As he had expected, it offered no egress, just a sheer wall going down to the same paved courtyard that his balcony overhung, impossible to climb or jump without smashing himself.

He turned to confront the others. 'My name is Conan, and I hail from the far northern country of the Cimmerians,' he declared in Shemitish. 'Are you captives here, too?'

'I – I believe so,' replied the youth. 'I certainly am. We have none of us met before. I am Falco, a son of the Baron of Kirjahan in Ophir.'

Conan nodded. The fellow's nationality was plain to see, despite Stygian garb. Perhaps eighteen years old, he stood slim, a trifle on the short side, but lithely muscled. Fair-skinned, hazel-eyed, hair ruddy brown, his regular features showed him to be of the western Ophirites, civilized, courdy-mannered, often commercial-minded, rather than of the hard-riding plainsmen in the east of that kingdom; but he would surely have been taught to keep a saddle, shoot a bow, and wield a blade as well as to read, write, and make music for ladies. Conan recalled maps he had seen. Ophir lay north of Shem, and Kirjahan was not far from the Aquilonian border.

Falco bowed to the woman in the group. 'And may we ask your name, my lady?' he said.

Conan regarded her with pleasure. She was very tall for her sex, slender but well proportioned and firm-fleshed in a gauzy gown, her hair and eyes dark but her complexion more nearly golden, her countenance moulded out of those of several races but finely formed. The look she gave him was bold, in no way coquettish. She J started to address them in a language he did not recognize, except that it seemed to belong to the Hyborian family. Seeing that nobody understood, she changed over to Stygian.

'She is Daris of Taia,' Falco interpreted. 'Her father Ausar has taken the lead in the revolt of that province against King Mentuphera.' He hesitated, concern upon his boyish visage. 'If her father yet lives.'

Conan frowned. After his experience he could not help feeling wary of anyone called Taian. 'How came she here?' he asked.

Falco inquired, got a reply, and explained briefly what had happened. Conan's suspicions fell from him. 'Why, good for you, girl!' he said. 'Your heart is sister to Bêlit's.'

The fourth person present uttered a broken cry. The attention of the rest swung to him. A big, sturdily built Shemite, he had stood ' apart, silent, shoulders stooped, grief etched in every line of his cruelly maltreated face. 'Who are you?' Conan inquired.

'I am no one, nothing,' was the mumbled response. Abruptly the downcast eyes lifted to meet the Cimmerian's. 'But did I hear you speak: a name?'

'Yes. Bêlit's, the corsair queen of the Black Coast -'

Conan got no chance to finish. The stranger stumbled forward and seized his arms in a grip that even he found painful. He heard a hoarse scream: 'Lives she, then? How fares she?'

'As well as may be,' Conan said. 'She has a galley and a crew of Suba pirates to harry ships and shores in vengeance -' A terrible

thought struck home. 'Who are you?'

The Shemite let him go. 'I was Jehanan, her brother.' He slumped onto a chair, his body driven by sobs that came from the depths of his breast.

'Jehanan!' Conan squatted down beside the weeping man, embraced him, and said quickly, 'Hearken. I am Bêlit's lover now, and we were utterly happy together until I was lured ashore by a false promise that I could liberate you, Jehanan, and bring you hack to her. By the lance of Crom, I will do that yet!'

'No. No. She would not want to see what I have become.'

'What do some scars matter?'

'In these of mine -' Jehanan touched face, left shoulder, ribs -'dwells pain unending. I can move about despite it, work, fight, aye. But it unmans me, and sleep comes only with exhaustion.'

Conan gasped. He released the other and rose, to stand white-cheeked, nostrils wide, muscles aquiver and iron-hard throughout his mighty frame. Falco drew Daris clear of him. After a moment, Conan roared. The lion sound echoed and re-echoed in the room. He seized a heavy table and battered it to kindling against the floor.

Then he could speak. 'They will pay, they will pay, they will pay such a weregild as the world never knew ere now.' He began to prowl, back and forth. His tone became swordblade-flat. 'Jehanan, do not despair. If nothing else, there is revenge to be had. And later, well, cool sea air and wide sea horizons bring much peace to the soul. What we must do is plan our escape. To that end, first we must all of us exchange all the information we have.'

He bent his glare on Falco. 'We start with you, young sir,' he said. 'How do you come to be here, and what do you know about the place?'

The Ophirite flushed. He was not used to being ordered around like a commoner. But having considered more closely the giant who paced before him, he said respectfully, 'If you wish it – of course. May I suggest we sit down over some wine?'

Conan shook his head. 'Do as you please, but talk,' he grated. His wrath was his own intoxication; it was as if he could hear edged metal whistling and clattering in his skull, and a bitter taste was on his tongue.

Falco filled three glasses. The first he offered to Daris, who took it' and perched alertly on a settee. The next was for Jehanan, who snatched and gulped while tears still cataracted from his eyes. The third he brought over to the Taian maiden, joined her, sipped, murmured, 'Excellent,' and leaned back to converse.

'I sorrow at the tragedy I have learned of,' he said, 'but frankly, sir, I cannot believe escape is possible, and I actually wonder if it would be quite desirable. Perhaps I should begin at the beginning.

'I am a younger son of the Baron of Kirjahan, and thus my hope of advancement has lain away from home, in the direct service of my king. A year or more ago, his intelligence officers had assembled facts that, taken together, appeared ominous – things that travellers abroad had seen and heard, reports of troop recruitment here, invoices of exports to Stygia, and the like. Its King Mentuphera. is known to be a man vauntingly ambitious for power and glory. Could he be preparing a venture that would threaten Ophir?

'Finally, Lord Zarus of Vendishan was dispatched to Luxur, the Stygian royal seat. Ostensibly he was – is – a special ambassador, sent to discuss such matters as the improvement of trade relations between our countries and cooperation in the suppression of piracy. In fact, he is to gather what intelligence he can. I was in his entourage as an amanuensis.

'Forbidden to go more than a few miles from the city, discouraged from meeting people, incessantly spied upon, our mission nevertheless collected enough clues in the course of several months that Zarus did come to. fear something dangerous was in train. Finally, I offered to burgle the Stygian foreign office, where more evidence should be. I had memorized much about the building plan and the routine of workers and guards. Lord Zarus warned me that if I was caught, he would have to disown me and my fate would likely be grim. I went ahead regardless.'

Contemplating the Ophirite, Conan thought, with a hint of wryness in the middle of his fury, that no boy of spirit ever really believes he can die. Still, it was a spirit, the Cimmerian admired.