Part 37 (2/2)

”Pougoi!”

Conan was the first to join Raihna at her sentry post. She was already behind a well-placed tree, bow ready, and the Cimmerian found another such from which to watch the warriors approach.

He counted ten of them, all with swords or spears in hand, the points held downward. The archers had their bows strung but over their shoulders, and at the rear of the line-

”Father!”

Wylla's shriek made Raihna's seem a whisper. The Pougoi girl dashed down the path and flung herself into the arms of the tall man at the rear of the warriors. He bent to kiss her forehead, but Conan saw that the seamed, leathery face and grizzled, s.h.a.ggy beard were not quite dry.

Conan stepped from his hiding place. ”Greetings, Thyrin. It's good to see you and to know that not all of your folk died along with the Star Brothers and the beast.”

Thyrin gently pushed Wylla away, and his look of joy gave way to a bleaker face. ”Would that the Star Brothers were dead. Two of them live, their powers yet in them, and they still have warriors at their command. Not as many as I did when I defied them, but enough so that if they find other friends-”

”Such as Count Syzambry?” came the voice of the princess.

Thyrin and Chienna stared, each trying to take the measure of the other. Neither the green eyes nor the brown ones fell, but it was the princess who spoke first.

”I do not know whether it is fit and lawful by your customs for you to have a pardon from my house. But if it is, you shall have it. Indeed, you have it now. Moreover, you shall have land to call your own, better land than you lost, if you do my house this one service.”

The Pougoi were so silent that the faint breeze in the high pines sounded to Conan like the roar of a gale. Thyrin coughed.

”Where is that land to come from?”

”When Syzambry falls, his friends will fall with him. Their lands will be the gift of the throne to our friends who have stood by us. I do not know where your new lands will be. I only say that if you stand by us, and if I live, you will have them.”

This time the silence was swiftly broken by a warrior asking the question that Conan saw on all faces.

”Stand by you, Lady Princess? That means we fight your enemies? Fight the little count?”

”What greater enemy does my house have? What greater enemy can it have?

If you live to see the sons of your sons' sons, you will not see a more evil man than Syzambry!”

Thyrin asked that the warriors be allowed to draw apart and take counsel with one another. This was granted. They soon returned, and most of them were smiling.

”Do we swear all together, or each man alone?” the warrior who had asked the great question wondered.

”As your laws and customs bid you,” Chienna replied. ”I will have no friend swearing an oath that comes strangely to his lips.”

That drew cheers, which lasted until Raihna could endure them no more.

”Be silent!” she cried. ”Or would you let the whole realm know where we are?”

These words drew no cheers but, instead, a few sour looks and some muttered curses from those who still had breath to utter them. Conan stepped forward.

”Lady Raihna and I are both captains in the Palace Guard,” he said. ”By your oath to the royal house, you also swear to obey Captain-General Decius and any captain speaking for him. Yet no captain of the royal service will ever command you save through chiefs you choose yourselves.” The Cimmerian ended by making suitable gestures of honor at Thyrin.

The princess beckoned Conan to her. Tall as she was, she needed to rise on tiptoe to put her mouth to his ear. ”I think I have just been told how to lead the Pougoi, Captain Conan. Is that not so?”

<script>