Part 9 (2/2)
Conan worked his mouth for enough moisture to get out a few pitiful 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.
Chapter IX.
When the Cimmerian regained consciousness, it was black night and the fires were burning low. A few brigands still squatted in muttered conversation, pa.s.sing 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 ma.s.sive 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 lowburning 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.
Rage fueled his muscles, and suddenly the stake tore free of the ground. Immediately he rolled to his right, clutching that cord in both hands and pulling with all his might. Slowly the second stake pulled out of the hardpacked earth.
Conan's bones creaked as he sat up. The lacerated flesh of his wrists had swollen to hide the cords. Diligently he worked to loose them, then freed his ankles. The craving in him for water was enough to send another man for the nearest waterbag, but he forced himself to work some suppleness back into his stiffened muscles before he moved. When he rose, if he was not at full strength he was nonetheless a formidable opponent.
In pantherine silence he moved among the sleeping men. It would have been easy for him to slay them where they lay, but killing drunken men in their stupor was not his way. He retrieved his sword and dagger and fastened them on. His red Turanian half-boots he found discarded by the coals of a burned-out fire. Of his cloak there was no sign, and he had no hope of recovering the coins from his purse. He would have to search every man there. Still, he thought as he stamped his feet to settle his boots, as soon as he could get to their horses he would be back on the trail of the pendants. He would take the precaution of scattering the rest of the mounts before he left. There was no need to leave the brigands able to pursue.
”Conan!” The shout rolled through the hollow as if launched from a dozen throats, but there was only one shape approaching the camp.
The Cimmerian cursed as bandits stirred from their sodden sleep and sat up. He was in their midst with no way out short of fighting, now. He drew his broadsword as a light appeared in Karela's striped tent.
”Conan! Where are the pendants?”
That booming voice stirred something in Conan's mind. He was sure he had heard it before. But the heavily muscled man approaching was unfamiliar. A spiked helmet covered the man's head, and a chain mail tunic descended to his knees. In his right hand he gripped a great double-bladed ax, in the other a round buckler.
”Who are you?” Conan called.
The brigands were all on their feet now, and Karela was before her pavilion with her jeweled tulwar in hand.
”I am Crato.” The armored man came to a halt an arm's reach from Conan.
Beneath his helm his eyes were gla.s.sy and unblinking. ”I am the servant of Imhep-Aton. Where are the pendants you were to bring him?”
A chill ran down Conan's back. He knew the voice, now. It was the voice of Ankar.
From behind Conan the voice of Aberius rang out. ”He was telling the truth. There are pendants.”
”I don't have them, Ankar.” Conan said. ”I'm chasing the men who stole them, and a girl I made a promise to.”
”You know too much,” the big man muttered in Imhep-Aton's voice. ”And you do not have the pendants. Your usefulness is at an end, Cimmerian.”
With no more warning the ax leaped toward Conan. The Cimmerian jumped back, the razor steel drawing a fine red line across his chest. The possessed man recovered quickly and moved in, buckler held across his body, ax at the ready well to his side. If a sorcerer controlled the body, the man whose once it had been was an experienced ax fighter.
Conan danced back, broadsword flickering in snakelike thrusts. A slas.h.i.+ng attack would leave him open, and that ax could cut a man half in two. Crato continued his slow advance, catching each sword thrust with his buckler. Watching those lifeless eyes was useless, Conan quickly realized. Instead he watched the ma.s.sive shoulders for the involuntary movements that would foretell the big man's attacks.
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