Part 25 (1/2)

”A safe haven,” she snapped back, ”close to the caravan route. No longer will I need to send my men off to hide as caravan guards when the army hunts us too closely. No longer must I play the fortuneteller while I wait to rejoin them. These things are worth much to me.”

The Cimmerian snarled deep in his throat. ”They mean naught to me. The Desert is haven enough. I came here to steal five pendants, not to serve a pract.i.tioner of the black arts.”

They reached the bottom of the ramp, and Hordo looked from one to the other of them. ”You two arguing again?” the one-eyed man growled. ”What had this Amanar to say?”

The two ignored him, squaring off at one another.

Karela bit off her words. ”He does not have the pendants. Remember, it was he who first mentioned them. And I saw no more than a handful of women among his servants, not one of whom looked to be your dancing girl.”

”You talked of the pendants?” Hordo said incredulously.

Conan spared the bearded bandit not a glance. ”You believe the man? A sorcerer? He'd have us think the mountains filled with tribes of S'tarra, whole nations of them, but that wounded one we followed was coming here. He knows of the pendants because his minions stole them.”

”Sorcerer!” Hordo gasped. ”The man's a sorcerer?”

Karela's green eyes flashed to the one-eyed man, the blaze in them so fierce that he took a step back. ”Show me where you've camped my hounds,” she snapped. ”I'll see they're bedded properly.” She stalked away without waiting for a reply.

Hordo blinked at Conan. ”I'd best go after her. She's going the wrong way. We'll talk later.” He darted after the red-haired woman.

Conan turned to look back up at the fortress. Dimly, through the grate of the portcullis, he could make out a shape, a S'tarra, watching him.

Though he could distinguish no more than it was there, he knew it was Sitha. Fixing what he could remember of the keep's interior in his head, he went in search of the others.

Chapter XX.

A gibbous moon crept slowly over the valley of the Keep of Amanar while purple twilight yielded to the blackness of full night. And blackness it was, except about the fires where the bandits huddled well away from the keep, for the pale light of the moon seemed not to enter that maleficent vale.

”I've never seen a night like this,” Hordo grumbled, tipping a stone jar of kil to his mouth.

Conan squatted across the fire from the one-eyed brigand. It was a larger blaze than he would have built, but Hordo as well as the others appeared to be trying to keep the night at bay.

”It is the place, and the man,” the Cimmerian said, ”not the night.”

His eyes followed Karela for a moment, where she moved among the other fires stopping at each for a word, and a swallow of kil, and a laugh that more often than not sounded strained on the part of the men. She had decked herself in her finest, golden breastplates, emerald girdle, a crimson cape of silk and her scarlet thigh-boots. Conan wondered whether her attire was for the benefit of the others, or if she, too, felt the oppression of the darkness that pressed against their fires.

Hordo scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and tossed another dried dung-chip on the fire. ”A sorcerer. To think we would ever serve such. She won't let me tell them, you know. That this Amanar's a mage, I mean.” He added yet another chip to the blaze.

Conan edged back from the heat. ”Soon or late, they'll find out.” He checked the position of the moon, then laughed to himself. In that valley there might as well be no moon and sky full of rain clouds. A good night for a thief.

”More kil, Cimmerian? No? More for me, then.” The one-eyed man turned the stone jar up and did not lower it until it was dry. ”It'd take vats of this to comfort my bones this night. A mage. Aberius darts his eyes like a ferret. He'll bolt the first chance he sees. And Talbor says openly he'd ride out on the instant, could he find two coppers to steal.”

”Why wait for the coppers?” Conan asked. ”You like this thing as little as Aberius or Talbor. Why not ride out on the morrow?” It was in his mind that by dawn Amanar might not be so friendly toward the bandits.

”You can persuade her if anyone can, and I think a night like this would be halfway to convincing her for you.”

”You do not know her,” Hordo muttered, avoiding the Cimmerian's blue-eyed gaze. ”Once a thing is in her mind to do, she does it, and there an end to it. And what she does, I do.” He did not sound particularly happy about that last.

”I think I'll take a walk,” Conan said, rising.

Hordo's lone eye stared at him incredulously. ”A walk! Man, it's black as Ahriman's heart out there!”

”And it's hot as the gates of Gehanna here,” Conan laughed. ”If you build that fire any higher, you'll melt.” He walked into the night before the other man could say more.