Part 10 (1/2)

”You just told me that,” Decius said, letting impatience creep into his voice. ”If some of your men, as well as mine, can walk, we shall be able to carry all the packs.”

”And the wounded?” It was the Cimmerian who spoke, in a voice like a grindstone sharpening a war ax.

”They can wait until I reach a castle that has men to spare. There are several on the-”

”No,” Conan said, more politely than before. ”Raihna, if Decius insists, I will stay behind with the wounded. Otherwise, Syzambry will be sending men back to cut their throats or to torture knowledge from them.”

Decius decided that the Cimmerian had pa.s.sed the test. The man could have proposed that the packs stay behind, perhaps with himself as guard. Or he could have been careless of the wounded.

He had done neither. He had not only his wits about him, but some notions of honor. Raihna had not brought a cuckoo or, still worse, a serpent, into the Border realm. Too many men had come wearing fairer guises than the Cimmerian and left red ruin behind them.

”If most of us walk, your wounded can ride as well,” Decius said. ”This will mean camping tonight rather than reaching a castle.”

”I am sworn to my men and they to me,” Raihna said firmly.

”And I am sworn to Captain Raihna,” Conan added.

Decius would have given a good sword to know by what oaths the two were sworn to each other. No look had pa.s.sed between them to hint that they were lovers, but the captain-general would have wagered the same sword that they were. This displeased him, although he could not have said why.

Conan and Raihna walked in the rear of the united bands when they marched out well before noon.

”King Eloikas made no bad choice when he gave Decius his banner,” Conan said.

”You think so?” Raihna replied. ”When his eyes were on me as they were?”

”A man can be a good captain and also a good judge of women,” Conan told her. He did not quite touch her. ”Otherwise, where were we last night?” he added softly.

Raihna colored briefly, then laughed. ”I stand rebuked. But truthfully, King Eloikas must have made some bad choices-or else had bad luck-to be afflicted with folk like Count Syzambry.”

”Had you heard of him before you came north?”

Raihna colored again, and this time her calm did not quickly return.

”I-we were eager to start. Eager to make our name. We were told that...

that the Border Kingdom had powerful robber lords. But we did not think... we did not think that they were more than what is commonly found in wild lands.”

Conan saw pain and shame on Raihna's face. She would not make that error again. Besides, he wanted no more rebukes for telling her how to do her work.

”If I make no mistake, Syzambry is one who fears neither G.o.d nor man nor King Eloikas,” Conan said. ”That sort is less common, and always worse.”

Raihna's face twisted briefly into a mask that might have frightened children into fits. Or the mask of a child who had been that frightened-by what, Conan did not care to ask.

He knew that Raihna had left Bossonia in haste for reasons of which she did not care to speak. He had met her when she served as bodyguard to the sorceress Illyana on their quest for the Jewels of Kurag. What she had done between leaving Bossonia and taking service with Illyana was a mystery that she chose to leave dark.

So be it. Raihna was bedmate, battle comrade, and captain fit to follow. That was enough to tell Conan that whatever happened to her had not turned her wits. More than that he would not ask of man, woman, or G.o.d.

But he would ask a few questions of King Eloikas, or of someone close enough to him to know the answers. As long as he was sworn to Raihna, Conan cold not return to the road south. He was bound to the Border Kingdom, and if need be, to the fight against Count Syzambry.

Such a fight was always chancy, more so than a pitched battle by daylight against an open foe. Out of such a fight, though, a shrewd man might s.n.a.t.c.h something worth having.

Conan knew that he could rise again in the south if he entered the southern realms as a beggar. He would rise faster if he entered with a clinking purse.