Part 22 (2/2)

”Count Syzambry's-?” Raihna began, but she was talking to the Cimmerian's broad back as he strode downhill.

Conan was not so foolhardy as to walk up to the newcomers without marking each rock and stump that might hide him as he went. There were enough of those, so that with the favor of the G.o.ds-

”How goes the fight at the palace?” someone called, sounding as if he had already emptied more than one leather jack of something stronger than water.

Conan was silent for another moment as he studied the hundred-odd men before him. Most of them were the rabble they had seemed, but here and there, he noted, was a man who carried himself like a seasoned free lance.

King Eloikas had hired no free lances. Count Syzambry, however-

Conan's sword rasped free and leaped high, opening the throat of the nearest free lance. At the same time, he roared, ”Steel Hand! Steel Hand! Steel Hand!”

From uphill, Raihna replied, her voice as shrill as any she-demon hovering over a battlefield to s.n.a.t.c.h the spirits of the dead and dying. After a moment other voices took up the cry, and with their enemy's war cry on their lips, Conan's men thundered downhill to join him.

They arrived just as the foe realized that they were in a battle, even if they were a good way from the palace and the attackers had feigned friends.h.i.+p! Whoever was in command began shouting orders, and some of his men seemed to obey him.

The real peril to Conan was the free lances. They were rallying around the body of his first victim, half a dozen or more. Conan had a busy time of it, working hard with both sword and dagger to keep the free lances from creeping around his flank.

Then Conan's men struck the ranks of their foes, which in a moment ceased to deserve the name. Eloikas's men had speed, the slope, and an ordered line on their side. They also had a king slain, or driven into the wilderness, to avenge, and their own reputation to restore.

Syzambry's rabble vanished like a dancer's silken veil flung into a blacksmith's forge. Flight did not save a good many of them. A score or more died in the first shock, and as many more died with wounds in their backs. The Guards' blood was up, and they were a pack that no hunter could easily call off from their prey.

Conan did not try to. He held the free lances in play until Raihna joined him, turning their flank as they had sought to turn Conan's. Two men died with Raihna's steel in their back before the rest knew of the fresh danger. Then the four survivors divided, two against each opponent.

Two skilled free lances was no light matter even for the Cimmerian.

When one of them was almost as big as he, it was a serious affair.

Conan had the edge in speed, though, and he used it to hold both men at a distance while he sought an opening.

It came when the larger free lance crowded his comrade away from Conan, jealous of the right to deal the Cimmerian what he thought would be the final stroke. This left a gap between the two men. Conan hurled himself into it, feinting with his dagger to draw the smaller man still farther out of position.

The feint succeeded. Facing only one dangerous opponent now, Conan beat down the larger man's guard, hammered his sword from his hand, then chopped the hand nearly from the wrist. The man reeled back, gaping at his spouting arm and dangling hand. He was still gaping as Conan slashed him across the face, and he fell back screaming and spitting blood and teeth.

Conan whirled, certain that the smaller men would have returned to the fight. Instead, he saw a tangle of arms and legs as four of his Guards swarmed over the free lance.

”Don't-” the Cimmerian began.

”Conan!” It was Raihna, putting into his name the cry for help she was too proud to utter.

Conan wasted no time in joining Raihna and her opponents. Nor did he waste the opportunity one foe's back gave him. He leaped, jerked the man's head back, and heaved him off his feet. The man went down with a thud and a clatter of armor, and Conan finished the hapless fellow's fighting by hammering his head on the ground.

By the time Conan knew that they had a prisoner, Raihna had opened a safe distance from her surviving foe. The man had a longer blade than she, though, and seemed to have no purpose left in life but to sink it into Raihna's flesh.

He signally failed in that purpose. At the sound of Conan's footsteps, he left an opening for Raihna. Her sword opened his neck, and his head wobbled as strength left him. Then he toppled, and Raihna's dagger ended his last writhings.

The mask was gone from Raihna's face as she rose to face the Cimmerian, her expression like a she-wolf that had just brought down the finest stag in the forest. Rents in her clothing showed more blood-smeared skin than before, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose and fell with her panting.

She stepped forward and for a moment stood in the circle of Conan's arms, sword still in hand. Then she threw her head back and brushed sweat-matted hair out of her eyes.

”Time enough when we make camp, my friend. Now tell me, why did you shout Syzambry's war cry?”

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