Part 19 (1/2)

”Good. But send a second man in case the first meets with ill luck. I am going to Decius. Our rallying point is the Chamber of the Red Fish.”

”So be it, Captain Conan.”

Conan thought of giving a second rallying place, outside the palace.

But that would be admitting doubts about the outcome of the battle before it had even begun, an admission that stuck in his throat.

In silence the Cimmerian stalked toward the Chamber of the Red Fish.

Taking its name from the mosaic in what had once been an ornamental pool, the chamber could be defended by a handful against a stout band.

It also had a staircase, battered by the years but still fit to let a nimble man climb to the roof and look about him.

Conan reached the chamber to find that half of Raihna's men were already there. Leaving them to build barricades of stone and ancient furniture, Conan scrambled up the stairs.

The horns and drums in the distance were silent now. Darkness hid whatever they had been rallying, be it men or monsters. Conan looked at the sky, where lowering clouds veiled the moon more often than not. He half-expected to hear the witch-thunder.

Instead, he saw a pinpoint of ruby-tinted light spring to life in the darkness downhill from the palace. The pinpoint grew into a ball of fire, and its color changed from that of rubies to that of old wine.

By that light Conan saw what seemed a mighty host drawn up before the palace. A second look showed him that it was not mighty, and indeed barely a host.

Count Syzambry was well to the fore, mounted on his roan stallion and surrounded by some two-score riders. Many more men stood behind the hors.e.m.e.n, most of them archers, bearing scanty armor and few weapons save their bows. A final band of perhaps three-score had surrounded the huts and the remainder of the Palace Guard there. From the way they kept their distance from the huts, it seemed that the Guards were neither asleep nor yielding.

That was enough for Conan. Syzambry might command sorcery, but all it had done so far was to reveal how few men he had. They were no band of beardless boys, but neither were they the predestined victors of tonight's battle.

Now, if only the Guards in the barracks could strike into Syzambry's rear at the moment his men went forward-

The globe of light had turned the hue of old blood. It spread so far that Conan could barely make out the count. Then the little man flung his hands wide apart and something fell smoking from the globe of light.

A vagrant breeze brought the Cimmerian the smell of heated metal and burned gra.s.s. An angry hiss rose, along with clouds of smoke and steam, as what had fallen struck a puddle.

Then the globe of light shrank back to barely more than a pinpoint. The smoke curled up to form a stalk swaying in the breeze, the light bobbing at the end of it like a flower.

The earth quivered. Smoke and blood-hued light began to move toward the palace as if drawn inexorably forward by something just out of human sight.

Not quite out of sight, either, as Conan saw in the next moment. What drew the fire-flower after it was also making a furrow in the earth, an arm's length wide. Smoke poured out of it, stones and earth flew to either side, and the quivering of the earth doubled and redoubled.

Conan abandoned thoughts of rallying the Guards to surround Syzambry's men. The first task for all of the king's captains now had to be keeping their men clear of this sorcerous monstrosity rumbling toward the palace. If that meant leaving the palace so that it would not topple on their heads and bury them in the ruins-

One of the barracks huts did collapse, the sound lost in the rumble of the ravaged earth. Dust and smoke swirled up, and Guards poured out like ants from a kicked hill. They came with their weapons in hand, though, and dragging or carrying wounded comrades.

Conan forced himself down the stairs. For better or worse, the Guards caught in the barracks would have to make their own way tonight. His battle would be here, so far as a man could fight sorcery.

The Cimmerian was three steps from the floor when the earth heaved fiercely. The steps cracked. So did a section of wall and several sections of roof. Conan leaped as the stairs sagged under him, leaped again to avoid falling stones, went down, caught himself on his hands, and ended kneeling at Raihna's feet.

She had a grin for him, but he could see that she was trying to hearten herself as well as her men. He returned the grin and sprang to his feet.

Most of the men who'd been in the chamber when Conan climbed up were there when he came down. Few had fled, and Raihna had brought the rest of her band with her. But there was more than one man who had remained because falling stone pinned him to the floor.

Conan gripped the nearest such stone, wrapped his ma.s.sive arms around it, and heaved it clear. In the last moment of silence before the fallen men began screaming, Conan heard his own breath coming hard.