Conan The Defender Part 19

"Gladly," Hordo muttered.

Alone, Conan rode forward, his big black stallion prancing slightly.

Two pikemen in golden cloaks guarded the drawbridge, and a man in the crested helmet of an officer stepped out from the barbican as the big Cimmerian drew rein.

"What seek you here?" the officer demanded. He eyed the rest of the Free-Company thoughtfully, but they were distant and few in number.

"I wish to enter my company in the service of King Garian," Conan replied. "I have trained them in a method of fighting new to Nemedia, and to the western world."

The officer smiled in mockery. "Never yet have I heard of a Free-Company without some supposedly secret art of war. What is yours?"

"I will demonstrate," Conan said. "It is better in the showing."

Inwardly, he breathed a sigh of relief. His one real fear beyond reaching the Palace had been that they would not so much as listen.

"Very well," the officer said slowly, eyeing the rest of the company once more. "You alone may enter and demonstrate. But be you warned, an this secret is something every recruit in the Nemedian army is taught, as are most Free-Company tricks, you will be stripped and flogged from the gates to the foot of the hill for the edification of your company."

Conan touched boots to the big stallion's flanks. The horse pranced forward a step; the pikemen leveled their weapons and the officer looked wary. The Cimmerian allowed a cold smile to touch his mouth, but not his eyes. "'Tis nothing known to any Nemedian, though it may be taught to recruits."

The officer's mouth tightened at his tone. "I think others might like to see this, barbar." He stuck his head back into the gatehouse and muttered an order.

A golden-cloaked soldier emerged, gave Conan an appraising glance, and sped into the Palace. As Conan rode through the gate following the officer, other soldiers appeared from the barbican, some following behind. The Cimmerian wondered if they came to watch, or to guard that he did not take the Palace single-handed.

The Outer Court was paved in flagstone, four hundred paces in each direction, and surrounded by arcaded walks to the height of four stories.

Beyond those walks directly opposite the gate could be seen the towers that rose in the gardens of the Inner Court, and the Palace proper, wherein King Garian and his court lived.

The soldiers who had followed dropped back deferentially as a score of officers, led by one as large as Conan himself, appeared. The officer who had brought Conan in bowed as this big man came near.

"All honor to you, Commander Vegentius," he said. "I hoped this barber might provide some entertainment."

"Yes, Tegha," Vegentius said absently, his eye on Conan. And a strangely wary eye, the Cimmerian thought. Abruptly the big officer said, "You, barber. Know I you, or you me?" His hand tightened on his sword as he spoke.

Conan shook his head. "I know you not, Commander." Though, as he thought on it, this Vegentius did look familiar, but vaguely, as one seen but briefly. No matter, he thought. The memory would come, an it were important.

Vegentius seemed to relax as the Cimmerian spoke. Smiling vigorously, he said, "Let us have this demonstration. Tegha, get the barber what he needs for it."

"I need a straw b.u.t.t," Conan told the officer, "or some other mark."

Laughter rose among the officers as Tegha chose out two soldiers to fetch a b.u.t.t.

"Archery," one of them laughed loudly. "I saw that bow at his saddle, but thought it for a child."

"Mayhap he shoots it with one hand," another replied.

Conan kept his silence as the comments grew more ribald, though his jaw tightened. Removing the short weapon from its lacquered saddlecase, he carefully checked the tension of the string.

"A harp," someone shouted. "He plays it like a harp."

Conan fingered through the forty arrows in the quiver strapped behind the cantle of his saddle, making sure once again that each fletching war sound.

"He must miss often, to carry so many shafts."

"Nay, he uses the feathers to tickle women. Take her ankle, you see, and turn her...."

The laughing comments droned on, some measure of silence falling only when the soldiers returned with a straw b.u.t.t.

"Set it there," Conan commanded, pointing to a spot some fifty paces away. The soldiers ran to comply, as eager as their superiors to see the barbarian's discomfiture.

"Not a great distance, barbar."

"But it's a child's bow."

Breathing deeply to calm himself, Conan rode away from the bunched officers, stopping when he was a full two hundred paces from the b.u.t.t.

Nocking a shaft, he paused. This demonstration must proceed perfectly, and for that his concentration must be on the target, not clouded by anger at the chattering baboons who called themselves officers.

"Why wait you, barbar?" Vegentius shouted. "Dismount and-"

With a wild cry Conan swung the bow up and fired. Even as the shaft thudded home in the b.u.t.t he was putting boot to the stallion's flanks, galloping forward at full speed, sparks striking from the flagstones beneath the big black's drumming hooves, firing as quickly as he could nock arrow to bowstring, shouting the ululating warcry that oft had wrung fear from the warriors of Gunderland and Hyperborea and the Bossonian Marches.

Arrow after arrow sped straight to the b.u.t.t. At a hundred paces distant he pressed with his knee, and the ma.s.sive stallion broke faultlessly to the right. Conan fired again and again, mind and eye one with bow, with shaft, with target. Again his knees pressed, and the war-trained stallion pivoted, rearing and reversing his direction within his own length. Still Conan fired, thundering back the way he had come. When at last he put hand to rein there were four arrows left in the quiver behind his saddle, and he knew, did anyone count the feathered shafts that peppered the b.u.t.t, they would number thirty and six.

He cantered back to the now silent officers.

"What sorcery is this?" Vegentius demanded. "Have your arrows been magicked, that they strike home while you careen like a madman?"

"No sorcery," Conan replied, laughing. For it was, indeed, his turn to laugh at the stunned expressions worn by the officers. "'Tis accounted a skill, though not a vast one, if a man can hit a running deer with a bow. This is but a step beyond. I myself had no knowledge at all of the bow when I was taught."

"Taught!" Tegha exclaimed, not noticing the glare Vegentius gave him.

"Who? Where?"

"Far to the east," Conan said. "There the bow is the princ.i.p.al weapon of light cavalry. In Turan-"

"Whatever they do in these strange lands," Vegentius broke in harshly, "'tis of no matter here. We have no need of outlandish ways. A phalanx of good Nemedian infantry will clear any field, without this frippery of bowmen on horses."

Conan considered telling him what a few thousand mounted Turanian archers would do to that phalanx, but before he could speak another group approached, and the officers were all bowing low.

Leading this procession was a tall, square-faced man, the crown on his head, a golden dragon with ruby eyes and a great pearl clutched in its paws proclaiming him to be king Garian. Yet Conan had no eyes for the king, nor the counselors who surrounded him, nor the courtiers who trailed him, for there was among them a woman to seize the eye. A long-legged, fullbreasted blonde, she was no gently born lady, not wearing transparent red silk held by pearl clasps at her shoulders and snugged about her slender waist by entwined ropes of pearls set in gold. But an she were someone's leman, he paid her not the attention he ought. For she returned Conan's stare, if not so openly as he, yet with a smoky heat that quickened his blood.

Conan saw that Garian was approaching him, and doffed his helm hoping the King had not seen the direction of his gaze.

"I saw your exhibition from the gallery" Garian said warmly, "and I have never seen the like." His brown eyes were friendly-which meant he had not noticed Conan's gaze-though not so open as the eyes of one who did not sit on a throne. "How are you called?"

"I am Conan," the Cimmerian replied. "Conan of Cimmeria." He did not see the blood drain from Vegentius' face.

"Do you come merely to entertain, Conan?"

"I come to enter your service," Conan said, "with my lieutenant and two score men trained to use the bow as I do."

"Most excellent," Garian said, clapping a hand against the stallion's shoulder. "Always have I had an interest in innovations of warfare.

Why, from my childhood I as much as lived in the army camps. Now," a trace of bitterness crept into his voice, "I have not even time to practice with my sword."