Conan the Invincible Part 34

"Fool," she began, and her green eyes started with horror as her slim fingers rose to the golden pin that held her scarlet cloak and undid it. The cloak slid from her shoulders to the floor. "I am the Red Hawk," she said. It was little more than a whisper, but her voice rose to a scream. "I am the Red Hawk!"

She could not stop watching with bulging eyes as her hands removed the golden breastplates from her heavy round b.r.e.a.s.t.s and casually dropped them, unfastened the emerald girdle that rode low on her flaring hips.

"Enough," Amanar said. "Leave the boots. I like the picture they present." She wanted to weep as her hands returned quiescent to her sides. "Beyond these walls," the black-robed man went on, "you are the Red Hawk. Inside them, you are... whatever I want you to be. I think from now on I will keep you thus when you are with me, aware of what is happening. Your fear is like the rarest of wines."

"Think you I'll return once I am free?" she spat. "Let me get a sword in my hand and my hounds about me, and I will tear this keep down about your head."

His laughter sent s.h.i.+vers along her bones. "When you leave these walls, you will remember what I tell you to remember. You will go believing that we conferred, on this matter or that. But when once again within this donjon, you will remember the true nature of things. The Red Hawk will grovel at my feet and crawl to serve my pleasure. You will hate it, but you will obey."

"I'll die first!" she shouted defiantly.

"That will not be permitted," he smiled coldly. "Now be silent." The words she was about to speak froze on her tongue. Amanar produced a knife with a gilded blade from beneath his robe and tested its edge with his thumb. "You will watch what occurs here. I do not think Susa will mind." The girl on the altar moaned. The sorcerer's red-flecked black eyes suddenly held Karela's gaze as a viper holds the gaze of a bird. She could feel those eyes reaching into the very depths of her.

"You will watch," Amanar said softly, "and you will begin to learn the true meaning of fear." He turned back to the altar; his chant rose, cutting into her mind like a knife. Flaming mists began to form.

Karela's green eyes bulged as if they would start from her head. She would not scream, she told herself. Even if she had a voice she would not scream. But her flanks and the rounded slopes of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were of a sudden slick with sweat, and in her mind there was gibbering terror.

Chapter XXVII.

"Conan!" Haranides shouted. "Conan!" The three men still lay chained to the walls of the cell beneath Amanar's keep.

Conan opened one eye, where he lay curled as comfortably as he could manage on the stone. "I'm sleeping," he said, and closed it again.

The Cimmerian estimated that a full day and more had pa.s.sed since Karela had come to their cell, though there had been no food and but three pannikins of stale water brought to their cell.

"Sleeping," Haranides grumbled. "When do we hear of this escape plan of yours?"

"The Red Hawk," Hordo said hopefully. "When she sets me free, I'll get the rest of you out. Even you, Zamoran."

Conan sat up, stretching until his shoulder joints cracked. "If she were coming, Hordo," he said. "she'd have been here long since."

"She may yet come," the one-eyed man muttered. "Mayhap she took my advice and rode away."

Conan said nothing. His best hope for Karela was that she had accepted Amanar's word for Hordo's crimes and was even then in the bandit camp, surrounded by the men she called her hounds.

"In any case," Haranides said, "we cannot put our hopes on her. Even if she gets you free, bearded one, you heard her say she'd do nothing for the Cimmerian and myself. I think me she is a woman of her word."

"Wait," Conan said. "The t.i.the will come."

A key rattled in the lock.

"'Tis Ort who's come," Haranides growled. "With his irons, no doubt."

"Ort?" Hordo said. "Who is-"

The heavy, iron-strapped cell door slammed open, and the fat jailor stood in the opening. Behind him was a brazier full of glowing coals, and from the coals projected the wooden handles of irons, their metal ends already as bright red as the coals they nestled among.

"Who's to be first?" Ort giggled.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed an iron from the fire and waved its fiery tip at them.

Hordo put his back against the wall, teeth bared in a snarl. Haranides crouched, ready to spring in any direction, so far as his chains would let him. Conan did not move.

"You, captain?" Ort said. He feinted toward Haranides, who tensed. "Ort likes burning officers. Or you, one-eye?" Giggling, he waggled the glowing iron at Hordo. "Ort could give you another scar, burn out your other eye. And you, strong one," he said, turning his peg-eyed gaze on Conan, "think you to sit unconcerned?"

Suddenly Ort darted at the Cimmerian, red-hot iron flas.h.i.+ng, and danced back. A long blister stood on Conan's shoulder. Awkwardly he raised one arm to cover his head, and huddled against the wall, half turning his back on the man with the burning iron. The other three men all stared at the big youth incredulously.

"Fight him!" Haranides shouted, and had to throw himself back to avoid a vicious slash of the iron that would have taken him across the face.

"Face him like a man, Conan," Hordo urged.

Cautiously Ort dashed again to strike and retreat, curiously agile on his feet. Conan groaned as a second blister grew across his shoulders, and pressed himself tighter to the stone.

"Why he is no man at all," Ort giggled. The nearly round jailor swaggered closer, to stand over Conan raising his blazing weapon.

A roar of battle rage broke from Conan's throat, and his mighty thews pushed him from his crouch. One hand seized Ort's bulk, pulling him closer; the other looped its chain about the jailor's neck, catching at the same time a desperately flung hand. Biceps bulging, he jerked the heavy iron chain tight, fat flesh bulging through the links. Ort's tiny eyes, too, bulged from that fat face, and his feet scrabbled desperately at the bare stone floor. The jailor had but one weapon, and he used it, stabbing again and again with the burning iron at the Cimmerian's broad back.

The stench of burning flesh rose as the fiery rod seared Conan's muscles, but he locked the pain from his mind. It did not exist. Only the man before him existed. Only the man whose eyes were staring from his fat face. Only the man he must kill. Ort's mouth opened in a futile attempt to breathe, or perhaps to scream. His tongue protruded through yellowed teeth. The chain had almost disappeared into the fat of his neck. The iron dropped, and breath rattled in Ort's throat and was silent. Conan put all his strength into one last heave, and there was the crack of a breaking neck.

Slowly he unwound the chain, freeing it with some difficulty, and let the heavy body fall.

"Mitra!" Haranides breathed. "Your back, Conan! I could not have stood it a tenth so long."

Wincing, Conan bent to pick up the iron. He ignored the dead man. To his mind all torturers should be treated so. "The means of our escape,"

he said, holding Ort's weapon up. Its metal was yet hot enough to burn, but the glow had faded.

Carefully Conan fit the length of the iron through a link of the chain a handsbreadth from the manacle on one wrist. He took a deep breath, then twisted, the iron one way, his wrist the other. The manacle cut into the just healed wounds left from his being staked out by the bandits, and blood trickled over his hand. The other two men held their breath. With a sharp snap the chain broke.

Laughing, Conan held up his free wrist, the manacle still dangling a few inches of chain, and the iron. "I'd hoped the heat hadn't destroyed the temper of the metal. It would have broken instead of the chain, otherwise."

"You hoped," Hordo wheezed. "You hoped!" The bandit threw back his s.h.a.ggy head and laughed. "You bet our freedom on a hope, Cimmerian, and you won."

As quickly as he could Conan broke the rest of his chains, and those of the other men. As soon as Hordo was free, the bearded man leaped to his feet. Conan seized his arm to stop him from rus.h.i.+ng out.

"Hold hard," the Cimmerian said.

"The time is gone for holding hard," Hordo replied. "I go to see to the Red Hawk's safety."

"To see to her safety?" Conan asked. "Or to die by her side?"

"I seek the one, Cimmerian, but I'll settle for the other."

Conan growled deep in his throat. "I'll not settle for death on S'tarra pikes, and if you will you're useless to me. And to Karela. Haranides, how many of your men do you think still live? And will they fight?"

"Perhaps a score," the captain replied. "And to get out of these cells they'll fight Ahriman and Erlik both."

"Then take you the jailor's keys, and free them. If you can take and hold the barbican, we may live yet."