Part 21 (1/2)

”Why did you run away?” he asked abruptly. ”Are you a slave?”

”We have no slaves in Gazal,” she answered. ”Oh, I was weary-so weary of the eternal monotony. I wished to see something of the outer world.

Tell me, from what land do you come?”

”I was born in the western hills of Aquilonia,” he answered.

She clapped her hands like a delighted child. ”I know where that is! I have seen it on the maps. It is the westernmost country of the Hyborians, and its king is Epeus the Sword-wielder.”

Amalric experienced a distinct shock. His head jerked up, and he stared at his companion.

”Epeus? Why, Epeus has been dead for nine hundred years. The king's name is Vilerus.”

”Oh, of course,” she said with embarra.s.sment. ”I am foolish. Of course Epeus was king nine centuries ago, as you say. But tell me-tell me all about the world!”

”Why, that's a big order!” he answered, nonplussed. ”You have not traveled?”

”This is the first time I have ever been out of sight of the walls of Gazal,” she declared.

His gaze was fixed on the curve of her white bosom. He was not, at the moment, interested in her adventures; Gazal might have been h.e.l.l for all he cared.

He started to speak; then, changing his mind, caught her roughly in his arms, his muscles tensed for the struggle he expected. But he encountered no resistance. Her soft, yielding body lay across his knees, and she looked up at him somewhat in surprise but without fear or embarra.s.sment She might have been a child, submitting to a new kind of play. Something about her direct gaze confused him. If she had screamed, wept, fought, or smiled knowingly, he would have known how to deal with her.

”Who in Mitra's name are you, girl?” he asked roughly. ”You are neither touched with the sun nor playing a game with me. Your speech shows you to be no simple country la.s.s, innocent in her ignorance. Yet you seem to know nothing of the world and its ways.”

”I am a daughter of Gazal,” she answered helplessly. ”If you saw Gazal, perhaps you would understand.”

He lifted her and set her down in the sand. Rising, he brought a saddle blanket and spread it out for her.

”Sleep, Lissa,” he said, his voice harsh with conflicting emotions.

”Tomorrow I mean to see Gazal.”

At dawn they started westward. Amalric had placed Lissa on the camel, showing her how to maintain her balance. She clung to the seat with both hands, displaying no knowledge whatever of camels. This again surprised the young Aquilonian. A girl raised in the desert, who had never before been on a camel; nor, until the preceding night, had she ever ridden or been carried on a horse.

Amalric had manufactured a sort of cloak for her. She wore it without question, not asking whence it came- accepting it as she accepted all the things he did for her, gratefully but blindly, without asking the reason. Amalric did not tell her that the silk that s.h.i.+elded her from the sun once covered the black hide of her abductor.

As they rode, she again begged him to tell her something of the world, like a child asking for a story.

”I know Aquilonia is far from this desert,” she said. ”Stygia lies between, and the lands of Shem, and other countries. How is it that you are here, so far from your homeland?”

He rode for a s.p.a.ce in silence, his hand on the camel's guide rope.

”Argos and Stygia are at war” he said abruptly. ”Koth became embroiled.

The Kothians urged a simultaneous invasion of Stygia. Argos raised an army of mercenaries, which went into s.h.i.+ps and sailed southward along the coast At the same time, a Kothic army was to invade Stygia by land.

I was one of that mercenary army of Argos. We met the Stygian fleet and defeated it, driving it back into Khemi. We should have landed, looted the city, and advanced along the course of the Styx, but our admiral was cautious. Our leader was Prince Zapayo da Kova, a Zingaran.

”We cruised southward until we reached the jungle-clad coasts of Kush.

There we landed, and the s.h.i.+ps anch.o.r.ed while the army pushed eastward, along the Stygian frontier, burning and pillaging as we went. It was our intention to turn northward at a certain point and strike into the heart of Stygia, to join the Kothic host pus.h.i.+ng down from the north.