Conan the Invincible Part 21

Haranides sighed. He was not in good odor with the lieutenant, which meant he would not be in good odor with the lieutenant's father, which meant .... Odor. He fingered the polished stone jar in his pouch. The perfume had seemed familiar to him, but it was not until he was beating aside a hillman's curved sword that he remembered where he had smelled it before. And knew that the red-haired jade who had come to 'warn' him of the tribesmen was the Red Hawk.

The problem was that Aheranates, too, knew that he had had her in his grasp and let her slip away. Once the fighting was done and wounds were tended as well they could be in the field, Haranides had ordered them along the trail of the three.

"Sir?" Haranides looked up from his brown study to find Resaro knuckling his forehead. "The prisoner, sir?"

When the butchery was over they had found a hillman who had merely been stunned by a blow to the head. Now Haranides had great need to know what had brought such a body of tribesmen together. They normally formed much smaller bands for their raiding. It was necessary to know if he might find himself facing other forces as large. He grimaced in disgust. "Put him to the question, Resaro."

"Yes, sir. If the captain will pardon me for saying so, sir, that was a fine piece of work back there. The handful we didn't slice into dogmeat are likely still running."

"See to the prisoner," Haranides sighed. Resaro touched his forehead and went.

The man might think it fine work, the captain thought, and in the onary course of events it might have been considered so, but this was no ordinary patrol. Two hundred good cavalrymen had he led through the Gate to the Three Swords. After burying his dead, separating those too badly wounded to go on, and detaching enough healthy men to give the wounded a chance if they were attacked on their way out of the mountains, he had four score and three left. And he had neither the Red Hawk or Tiridates' trinkets in hand. In eyes of king and counselor it would be those lacks that d.a.m.ned him.

A choked scream rose from where Resaro had the hillman. "Mitra blast Tiridates and the Red Hawk both," the captain growled under his breath.

He walked into what had been the bandit camp, examining the ground between the looming boulders as much to keep his mind off the hillman's moans as in hope of finding anything of importance.

Aheranates found him standing where the pavilion had been. "Would I could see what she saw from here," Haranides said without looking at the slender man. "There is a wrong feel to this place. What happened here?"

"A battle. Sir." A supercilious smile curled the lieutenant's mouth at for once being ahead of Haranides. "Or, at least, a fight, but it must have been a big one. Hillmen attacked the bandits in camp and cut them up badly. We no longer need worry about the Red Hawk. An she still lives, she's screaming over a torture-fire about now."

"A very complete picture," the captain said slowly. "Based on what?"

"Graves. One ma.s.s grave that must hold forty or more, and seventeen single graves. They're upslope, to the north there."

"Graves," Haranides repeated thoughtfully. The hill tribes never acted in concert. In their dialects the words for 'enemy' and 'one not of my clan' were the same. But if they had found some compelling reason....

"But who won, lieutenant?"

"What?"

The hook-nosed captain shook his head. "Learn something about those you chase. None of the hill tribes bury their victims, and they take their own dead back to their villages so their spirits won't have to wander among strangers. On the other hand, if the bandits won, why would they bury the hillman dead?"

"But the bandits wouldn't bury tribesmen," Aheranates protested.

"Exactly. So I suggest you take a few men and find out what's in those graves." It was Haranides' turn to smile, at the consternation on the lieutenant's face.

As the slender youth began to splutter about not being a graverobber, a bowlegged cavalryman ran to a panting halt before them. The edge of a blood-stained bandage showed under his helmet. "Captain," he said nervously. "Sir, there's something maybe you ought to see. It's...." He swallowed convulsively. "You'd best see for yourself, sir."

Haranides frowned. He could not think of anything that would put one of these tough soldiers in this taking. "Lead the way, Na.r.s.es."

The soldier swallowed again, and turned back the way he had come with obvious reluctance. Haranides noted as he followed that Aheranates was clinging to his heels. He supposed that to the lieutenant's mind, even something that made a seasoned campaigner turn green was better than opening day-old graves.

Near a thornbush springing from the crevice between two boulders a pair of soldiers stood, making an obvious effort not to look into the narrow opening. From chain mail and helmet to hook nose and bandy legs, they were like Na.r.s.es, and like him, too, in the tightness around their eyes and the green tinge about their lips.

Na.r.s.es stopped beside the two and pointed to the cleft. "In there, sir.

Saw a trail of... of blood, sir, leading in, so I looked, and ...." He trailed off with a helpless shrug.

The blood trail was clear to be seen, dried black smears on the rock, and on the stony ground beneath the bush.

"Clear the brush away," Haranides ordered irritably. Likely the bandits, or the tribesmen, had tortured someone and tossed the body here for the ravens. He liked looking at the results of torture even less than he liked listening to it, and if the men's faces were any indication, this was a bad job of it. "Get a move on," he added as the men fiddled with their swords.

"Yes, sir," Na.r.s.es said unhappily.

Swinging their swords like brush knives, to the accompaniment of grumbled curses as thorns found the c.h.i.n.ks of their chain mail and broke off in the flesh, the bush was hacked to a stump and the limbs dragged clear of the crevice. Haranides put his foot on the stump and levered himself up to peer into the crevice. His breath caught in his throat.

He found himself staring straight into sightless, inhuman eyes in a leathery scaled face. The fanged mouth was frozen in rictus, seemingly sneering at him. One preternaturally long bony hand, a length of severed rope dangling from the wrist, clutched with clawed fingers at a sword gash in chain mail stained with dried blood. All of its wounds appeared to be from swords, he noted, or at least from the sorts of weapons men bore.

"But then, what self-respecting vulture would touch it," he muttered.

"What is it?" Aheranates demanded.

Haranides climbed down to let the lieutenant take his place. "Did you see anything else up this way?" the captain asked the three soldiers.

A shriek burst from Aheranates' mouth, and the slender young officer half tumbled back to the ground. He stared wildly at the captain, at the three soldiers, scrubbing his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Mitra's Holies!" he whispered. "What is that?"

"Not a hillman," Haranides said drily. With a sob the lieutenant stumbled a few steps and bent double, retching. Haranides shook his head and turned back to the soldiers. "Did you find anything?"

"Yes, sir," Na.r.s.es said. He seemed eager to talk about anything but what was in the crevice. "Horse tracks, sir. Maybe a score or more.

Came from the camp down there, right past... past here, and went off that way, sir." He flung a hand to the south.

"Following?" the captain mused half to himself.

"We must go back," Aheranates panted suddenly. "We can't fight demons."

"This is the first demon I ever saw killed by a sword," Haranides said flatly. He was relieved to see the momentary panic in the three soldiers' eyes fade. "Get that thing down from there," he went on, turning their looks to pure disgust. "We'll see if our hillman friend knows what it is."

Grumbling under their breath, the bow-legged cavalrymen climbed awkwardly into the cranny and worked the stiffened body free. Haranides started back while they were still lifting it down.

The hillman was spreadeagled between pegs in the ground, surrounded by cavalrymen betting among themselves on whether or not he would open up at the next application. From the coals of a small fire projected the handles of half a dozen irons. The smell of scorched flesh and the blisters on the soles of the hillman's feet and on his dark, hairless chest told the use to which the irons had been put.

Resaro, squatting by the tribesman's side, thrust an iron carefully into the fire. "He isn't saying much so far, sir."

"Unbelieving dogs!" the hillman rasped. His black eyes glared at Haranides above a long, scraggly mustache that was almost as dark.

"Sons of diseased camels! Your mothers defile themselves with sheep!

Your fathers-"

Resaro casually backhanded him across the mouth. "Sorry, sir. Be a lot worse done to one of us in his village, but he seems to take it personally that we expect him to talk, instead of just killing him outright."

"Never will I talk!" the hillman growled. "Cut off my hands! I will not speak! Pluck out my eyes! I will not speak! Slice off-"

"Those all sound interesting," Haranides cut him off. "But I can think of something better." The black eyes watched him worriedly. "I'll wager the odds are good there's a hillman up there somewhere watching us right this minute. One of your lot, or another one. It doesn't matter.

What do you think would happen if that man sees us turn you loose with smiles and pats on the back?"

"Kill me," the hillman hissed. "I will not talk."

Haranides laughed easily. "Oh, they'd kill you for us. A lot more slowly than we would, I suspect. But worst of all," his smile faded, "they'll curse your soul for a traitor. Your spirit will wander for all time, trapped between this world and the next. Alone. Except for other traitors. And demons." The hillman was silent, but unease painted his face. He was ready, Haranides thought. "Na.r.s.es, bring that thing in here and show it to our guest."

The watching soldiers gasped and muttered charms as Na.r.s.es and another carried the rigid corpse into the circle. Haranides kept his eyes on the hillman's face. The dark eyes slid away from the reptilian creature, then back again, abruptly so full of venom as to seem deadly.