Part 9 (2/2)
”My mistress is a better rider than I am. Remember that Bossonia is in great part hill country.” That explained her stride, so familiar and so pleasing to Conan's eye.
Raihna's voice hardened. ”Also, her father was a great landowner. He kept more horses than I saw before I left home.” Her voice hinted of a tale Conan would have gladly heard, if he'd dreamed she would tell him a word of it.
Conan sought a subject more pleasing to both of them. ”Will bringing the Jewels together end the danger? Perhaps they'll be safer apart.”
”There is no corruption in Illyana!” Raihna snapped.
”I didn't say it was her I doubted,” Conan replied. At least he doubted her no more than any other wizard, and perhaps less than some. ”I was thinking of other wizards, or even common thieves. Oh well, once we have the Jewels they'll be a boil on Mishrak's a.r.s.e and not ours!”
”Hssst! Ranis!” Yakoub whispered.
”Tamur!” The guard called him by the name under which Yakoub had dealt with him.
”Softly, please. Are you alone?”
Ranis shrugged. ”One man only. I could hardly travel alone to this quarter without arousing suspicion.”
”True enough.” Yakoub covertly studied Ranis's companion. Given no time to flee or call for help, he would be even less trouble than his master.
”So, Ranis. What brings you here? I already know that you failed.”
Ranis could not altogether hide his surprise. He had the sense not to ask how Yakoub knew this. Indeed, he suspected Yakoub would not have needed Houma's aid to hear of a fight that left seven men dead or maimed in an alley of the Saddlemakers' Quarter.
”I want to try again. My honor demands that I try again.”
Yakoub swallowed blistering words about the honor of those who flee and leave comrades dead behind them. Instead he smiled his most charming smile. ”That speaks well of you. What think you will be needed, to once more face the Cimmerian? Remember, the tale in the streets runs that any man who faces him is cursed for self-destruction!”
”I can believe that. I've seen him fight twice. But by all the G.o.ds, no barbarian is invincible! Even if he were, he's insulted my lord and me twice over!”
So Ranis had enough honor to recognize an insult when it was given? A pity he had not enough to recognize the need of dying with his men, thereby saving Yakoub a trifle of work. Not that the work would be dangerous, save for the odd chance, but there was always that.
Part of Yakoub's disguise as a crippled veteran was a staff nearly his own height. A single thrust crushed the throat of Ranis's companion before he knew that he faced an armed foe.
The staff whirled, then swept in a low arc as Yakoub sought to take Ranis's legs out from under him. Ranis leaped high and came down on Yakoub's unguarded left side. Or at least, the side he thought unguarded. The staff seemed to leap into his path and that of his sword. The blade sank into wood, met steel, and rebounded. Before Ranis could recover, one end of the staff smashed against his temple. He staggered, sword hand loosening its grip but desperation raising his arm once more to guard.
He was too slow to stop the lead-shod end of the staff from driving into his skull squarely between his eyes. Ranis flew backward as if kicked by a mule, striking the wall and sliding down to slump lifeless in the filth of the tavern's rear yard.
Yakoub saw that Ranis's companion had died of his crushed throat and would need no mercy steel. Kneeling beside each body in succession, he closed their eyes and placed their weapons in their hands. Such was honorable treatment. Also, to any who did not look too closely at the wounds, it would seem that they had slain each other in some petty quarrel.
Doubtless Mishrak would be suspicious, when word reached him. By that time, however, the bodies would be too far gone to tell anyone without magic at his command very much. Not less important to Yakoub, he himself would be some distance on the road back to the mountains and his work there. His saving Bora's father Rhafi should a.s.sure him, if not a hero's wel-come, at least freedom from awkward questions.
”You know what to do,” Conan said to the four tribesmen. ”Have you any questions, besides when you will be paid?”
The men grinned. The eldest shrugged. ”This is no matter for pay, as you well know. But-we cannot kill those who would steal what is yours?”
”He whom I now serve wishes live prisoners, who may tell him what he needs to know.”
”Ah,” the man said. He sounded much relieved. ”Then you have not grown weak, Conan. Those who live may yet be killed afterward. Do you think your master will let us do the work for him?”
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