Part 12 (1/2)

”You threaten me, Aberius?” the Kothian growled. His fingers slid from his pommel toward the tulwar at his hip.

Karela spurred suddenly into their midst, her naked sword in hand.

”I'll kill the first man to bare an inch of blade,” she announced heatedly. Her catlike eyes flicked each man in turn; both hurriedly removed their hands from their weapons. ”Now tell me what has you at each other's throats like dancing girls in a zenana.”

”The soldiers,” Aberius began.

”These supposed pendants,” Talbor started at the same instant.

”Soldiers!” Karela said. She jerked her head around, and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she spotted the distant line of men on the plain below. ”Fear you soldiers so far away, Aberius?” she sneered.

”What would you fear closer? An old woman with a stick?”

”I like not being followed by anyone,” Aberius replied sulkily, ”Or think you they follow us not?”

”I care not if they follow us or no,” she flared. ”You are the Red Hawk's men! An you follow me, you'll fear what I tell you to fear and naught else. Now all of you get up ahead. There's level ground there where we'll camp the night.”

”There's a half a day yet we could travel,” Hordo protested.

She rounded on him, green eyes flas.h.i.+ng. ”Did you not hear my command?

I said we camp! You, Cimmerian, remain here.”

Her one-eyed lieutenant grumbled, but turned his horse up the mountain, and the rest followed in sullen silence broken only by the creak of saddle leather and the slick of hooves on stone.

Conan watched the red-haired woman warily. She hefted her sword as if she had half a mind to drive it into him, then sheathed it. ”Who is this girl, Conan? What is her name?”

”She's called Velita,” he said. He had told her of Velita before, and knew she remembered the dancing girl's name. In time she would come to what she truly wanted to speak of. He twisted around for another look at the column of soldiers. ”They gain ground on us, Karela. We should keep moving.”

”We move when I say. And stop when I say. Do you think to play some game, Conan?”

He turned back to her. Her green eyes were clouded with emotion as she stared at him. What emotion he could not say. ”I play no more games than you, Karela.”

Her snort was eloquent. ”Treasures taken from a king's palace, so you say, not to mention this baggage you claim to have promised her freedom. Why then do the thieves flee to these mountains, where none live but goats, and savages little better than goats?”

”I don't know,” he admitted. ”But it convinces me all the more they are the men I seek. Honest pilgrims do not journey to Vendhya by way of the heart of the Kezankian Mountains.”

”Perhaps,” she said, and s.h.i.+fted her gaze to the soldiers, far below.

With a laugh she reared her big black to dance on its hind legs.

”Fools. They'll not clip the Red Hawk's wings.”

”It seems most likely they seek Tiridates' pendants, as we do,” he said. ”Much more so than that they seek you.”

The red-haired woman glowered at him. ”The Zamoran Army seeks me incessantly, Cimmerian. Of course, they'll never catch me. When their hunting becomes too troublesome, my men disperse to become guards on the very caravan routes we raid. The pay is high, for fear of the Red Hawk.” Her sudden laugh was exultant.

To his amus.e.m.e.nt he realized she had been offended by his suggestion that the soldiers hunted other than her. ”Your pardon, Karela. I should have remembered that taking seven caravans in six months would certainly rival even a theft from Tiridates' palace.”

”I had naught to do with those,” she said scornfully. ”No creature from those caravans, man, horse, or camel, has even been seen again. When I take a caravan, those too old or ill-favored to fetch a price on the slave block are turned loose with food and water to find their way to the nearest city, albeit poorer than before.”

”If not you, then who?”

”How should I know? The last caravan I took was a full eight months ago, and fat. When we left our celebrating in Arenjun it was to find the countryside too hot to hold us for those vanished caravans. I sent my men to their hiring, and these four months past have I been in Shadizar telling cards beneath the very noses of the King's Own.” Her full mouth twisted. ”I would be there still, if the risk of calling my band together once more had not seemed less than the odium of being eyed by men who thought to give me a tumble.” Her glare seemed to include him and every other man in the world.