Part 14 (2/2)

He eloquently described the ancestry of soldiers who went about without their weapons. He added predictions of the fate awaiting them, barring the favor of G.o.ds sometimes charitable to fools.

When Conan told the unarmed to run back to their quarters and bring their weapons, most of them actually ran.

The first day was a tale of errors and omissions, intermingled with minor catastrophes and follies. By the second day, the Second Company had mustered its wits and concluded that its new sergeant was serious.

By the third day, it dawned upon them that neither Captain Oyzhik nor the captain of the Second Company was going to lift a finger to save them from the Cimmerian. The choice was either mutiny or obedience.

Somewhat to Conan's relief, those who favored obedience outnumbered those who favored mutiny. He suspected that a reluctance to face Decius's seasoned veterans had something to do with the matter.

After the third day, Conan's work with the Second Company marched forward swiftly and, for the most part, steadily. It was work he knew well, having learned it from a master, High Captain Khadjar in Turan.

It was work that needed doing if the Second Company was to be worth even its scanty rations.

Most of all, it was work that Conan enjoyed and that the men of the company came to enjoy also. They were not so lost to pride that being a company of soldiers instead of a rabble did not put heart into them. By the fifth day, Conan had appointed four under-sergeants from their ranks. Three of them were men who had on the first day brought clean weapons to muster; the fourth was the one who had first returned from quarters with his.

By now, Conan had concluded that nothing could be expected for good or ill from either Oyzhik or the company's captain. The latter spent most of his time in his quarters and most of that time either drunk or sleeping. It pa.s.sed belief that anyone could stomach enough of the Border wine to fuddle his wits, but it seemed that the man was made of stout stuff.

As for Oyzhik, it was said that he was being kept busy strengthening the palace's defenses against an attack by Count Syzambry. This left the captain-general's men free to take the field against the count and on the trail of the lost princess.

Conan might have believed those tales except that Decius seemed to be present at the palace almost every day. He seldom missed spending at least a moment with Raihna, either-or so the Bossonian told Conan.

”I no longer wonder why you suspect Decius,” Raihna added. ”I sleep no sounder because of it, but that is hardly your fault.”

Conan grinned, and as they were alone, slapped her smartly on the rump.

Raihna was no woman for sleeping alone unless she had to. But with so many doubtfully friendly eyes around and about, a cold and narrow bed was also the safest.

Some of the village girls had eyed the Cimmerian's ma.s.sive frame with open approval. But Conan had soon thereafter seen soldiers of both the Guards and Decius's troops eyeing him in a rather less-than-friendly fas.h.i.+on. Clearly, bedding one of the girls would be poaching. Conan could live with a cold bed if it meant a safe back.

He also kept a watchful eye and a keen ear for any opportunity to win enough gold to free Raihna's company from any need to remain in this land. Once the need for gold no longer bound her men to Eloikas's service, they would hardly let another sun set before they marched south.

It was the eighth day of Conan's service in the Border Kingdom. The sun was well up, and he was watching over an archery match. Not all of the Guards had bows, and not all of those who had bows had any skill with them.

Conan, however, had gone to Turan barely knowing the point of an arrow from the fletching. Little more than two years later, he was an archer fit for the battlefield. He vowed that every man of his company could achieve at least that much mastery of the bow. Then the company could hurl forty arrows at a single command, two hundred paces in any direction.

That would be no small gift to King Eloikas, Conan judged. Archers would be useful in every kind of fighting the king faced, beginning with the defense of the palace against Count Syzambry.

The contest was not yet half done when Kalk, the senior sergeant, approached Conan. ”Sergeant Conan, I have sighted men skulking up toward the ridge. I am sure they are none of ours.”

Conan turned his eyes toward the hillside, which sloped up toward a knife-edged ridge. The slope was covered with small trees or large bushes. Call them what one would, they were abundant enough to hide a company.

”We need not raise the alarm yet,” Conan said. ”Pick five men and tell the rest to continue the contest. Then meet me here, and we'll go teach these uninvited guests better manners.”

Kalk nodded, then remembered to raise his hand in acknowledgment and respect. He also seemed to be smiling as he turned away.

Kalk was like many of the recruits of the Guard, fit to learn the arts of the soldier if someone was ready to teach him. Oyzhik never had been, and Conan wondered how many Guards had died through Oyzhik's sloth. Their kin would owe Oyzhik a blood-debt, that he knew.

Conan led the six men toward the hill as the sun finished burning off the mist. When they struck the steepest part of the slope, he allowed Kalk to take the lead. Careful not to be noticed, he dropped back to the rear. From there he could study the ground both uphill and down. He also had no man at his back.

<script>