Part 41 (2/2)

”What is the jest, Conan?”

”I hope it ends as a jest, you being here.”

”You fear Marr?”

”I fear offending any man who had that power.”

”It shames both him and me to say that you need fear anything from this-” she patted the furs.

”You and Raihna.”

”Eh? Oh, that we are both our own mistresses?”

”Yes. Although I do not think that Mistress Raihna will be so free for long. Not if Decius lives-”

Conan's laugh was louder this time. ”I won't ask where Raihna spent the night, because I think I know. But I will ask this. Did she-?”

”Send me? Of course. She said that Decius was not made by the G.o.ds to be as alone as he was. You were, but no man should be without a woman on the eve of what might be his last battle. So I came, and you were not.”

”Suppose I turn you over my knee for speaking ill-omened words about last battles?”

”Oh, if that is your pleasure-” She wriggled, raising herself so that he could pull her over his knee if he wished. At the same time, her hands danced along Conan's limbs in a way that could have only one conclusion. This time Wylla fell asleep when they were done.

Conan did not sleep. Quietly he slipped from under the furs, garbed and armed himself, and went to find his rest under a pine tree just inside the sentry line.

He would not ask the G.o.ds to let him understand women, even if they could give him that power. But would it be too much to ask that women should not understand him as easily as Raihna seemed to?

Chapter 18.

The scout was looking over his shoulder when his time came, not ahead as he should have been. Small shame to him, however. He was an honest trapper's almost equally honest son, who had taken service with Count Syzambry many years ago.

He had not imagined then that he would end as the scout for a host led only in name by the count. He had not imagined that the Pougoi wizards, the Star Brothers, were even real, let alone that they would come forth from their valley.

As for believing that they could put fear into the count and all his host-a thousand men or more- the scout would have called it madness. He would have suggested that the speaker needed physicking, to restore his wits.

And if by some chance he had believed that he would end serving the Star Brothers, he would have fled the Border Kingdom as fast as his feet would carry him. Indeed, he would have crawled, if need be, to put distance between himself and those monster-wors.h.i.+pers.

Not having fled, or even left the count's service, the scout was now bound to his master and his duty. Bound as with bands of iron by loyalty to his comrades, oaths to the count-and by stark terror of the Star Brothers.

It was that terror that made the scout look back over his shoulder at the wrong moment. He had just decided that no spy for the wizards followed close on his heels when a hand like steel closed on his sword arm.

The scout tried to whirl around, cry out, and draw his sword with his left hand. He accomplished none of these. Another hand clamped itself over his mouth, both hands jerked, and he soared through the air into the bushes as his sword flew out of his hand.

Conan tapped the scout's head gently against a fir trunk, and the man went limp. The Cimmerian listened to the man's breathing, judged him fit to travel, and slung him over his broad shoulders.

Carrying his prisoner as he would the carca.s.s of a deer, Conan loped away from the trail and deep into the woods. Only when he was beyond any human senses did he turn west, toward the royal vanguard that awaited him.

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