Conan the Relentless Part 20

If they had begun in any sort of order, they had little or none by the time they came within sword's length of Conan. Their order had not survived scrambling over the upheaved ridge of earth. From the screams heard even over the war cries, it seemed that some of the men would not survive either.

Conan wished that the palace's unknown ally were not using sorcery nearly as dreadful as Count Syzambry's. Defending a place by casting it down upon its defenders was to Conan neither honorable nor wise.

At least the sight could leave the men under Conan and Raihna no doubt that any chance of safety, let alone victory, lay to the fore. To the rear lay only a palace sinking into ruins even as they watched. To the fore lay a human foe, and above that foe, the open sky.

"Eloikas!" Conan roared, his voice rising over the battle din. He hurled himself forward. As a lode-stone draws iron, so the Cimmerian drew after him the men who saw him. Raihna was not far behind Conan, and she did as well with those who saw her.

Count Syzambry's men were scattered, unsure of their footing, and, in places, actually outnumbered. They had better armor and weapons, and more skill, but at first these were not enough.

Nothing save ma.s.sed archery or overwhelming numbers would have been enough against the Cimmerian. His broadsword hummed through the air, clanged against armor and other blades, and tore flesh and bone with slaughterhouse sounds. When the fighting grew too tangled or opponents too close for proper sword work, it was the turn of his dagger or ma.s.sive fist.

Together, the Cimmerian's weapons stretched half a dozen foes helpless on the ground before any of the men following him reached an enemy.

When they did, it was with hearts raised by the sight of Conan's work, against foes equally cast down.

The count's men were actually withdrawing when their lord scrambled over the ridge and saw what seemed to be rout and ruin. He heard war cries giving way to shouts of warning, even to stark terror.

He saw the Cimmerian storming forward like an elemental force of nature.

He shouted an order, and the top of the ridge sprouted his archers.

They c.o.c.ked or drew, and arrows and bolts sleeted down into the ranks of the palace's defenders. Now the warnings and screams were not only from the count's men. Beneath his dust-caked beard, he smiled.

Conan had hoped that in the dust and confusion, the count's archers would be holding back for fear of hitting comrades. They were doing this, to be sure, but they were also bringing down too many of the Guards. The Guards would be spent and broken before "friendly" archery wasted the count's ranks.

The Cimmerian judged as best he could the distance to the count. If a man could just cross the broken ground and scale the slope to bring the count down-

Arrows thudded into the earth and tinged off chunks of rubble by way of a warning. The archers had picked the Cimmerian out of the ranks of his men. If he tried to grapple the count, he would be an arrow-sprouting corpse long before he covered half the distance.

Conan withdrew, more slowly than he had advanced in spite of the arrow hail. It was against his nature to retreat at all, ten times over to start a panic among his men.

The Guards' archers went to work as their comrades retreated. Caught standing in the open, with only luck and armor between themselves and steel-tipped shafts, many of the count's archers quickly lay sprawled on their high ground. The rest hastily sought the protection of the reverse slope, and not all of the count's curses and entreaties could bring them back.

Thus Conan and Raihna, and more than half of their men, returned to such safety as the palace still provided. In the swirling din of the fight, Conan had not noticed that the duel of earth-magic seemed to have ended. But as he helped Raihna bandage an arrow gash in one of her arms, he realized that the earth was both still and silent. Also, the palace was no longer raining stones and tiles!

"What now?" Raihna asked, gritting her teeth as Conan tightened the bandage to hold the lips of the wound together. "We've barely won a skirmish, let alone a battle."

"I'll wager that's more than Syzambry expected," the Cimmerian grunted.

He would have given half the h.o.a.rd of the Border realm, if he'd possessed it, for some wine to rinse dust and grit from his mouth.

"If the lads in the barracks have held their ground, they're in the count's rear," Conan went on. "Curse it! I'd deal with a sorcerer myself, if he could just take a message to-"

Raihna put a hand on the Cimmerian's arm and pointed. One of Decius's under-captains was picking his way cautiously through the rubble. He kept looking up to see what was about to tumble on him, and each time he looked up, he stumbled on something that had already tumbled down.

At last Raihna took pity on him, scurried down the hall, and led him the rest of the way. Behind what had once been the wall of a sculpture gallery, the three leaders took counsel.

"Decius wishes you to bring your men back to join his so that we may retreat as one-" the messenger began. He said no more before a Cimmerian roar interrupted him.

"Has Decius turned-lost his wits, or sent a coward as his messenger?"

Conan thundered the question loud enough to raise echoes and bring down loose pebbles from half-ruined walls.

Raihna gripped his arm again, and this time she put her other hand over his mouth. "Conan, for the love of the G.o.ds! You want to tell Decius, not the count!"

The messenger had turned pale at the Cimmerian's look, and he still had a corpse's hue as he continued.

"Captain Conan, the lord captain-general did not ask. He commanded."

"I don't care if Mitra and Erlik together are commanding it," Conan snarled. "We've a good part of the Guard out there, and the G.o.ds only know how they're faring. If they could break out into Syzambry's rear-"

"King Eloikas cannot move as fast as one might wish," the under-captain said doggedly. "He must leave the palace now, to escape the men Count Syzambry is bringing against our rear."

Perhaps it was just his blood being roused, or the fact of the sorcery so close at hand. Conan still thought that the man knew something he was not saying about Eloikas's reasons for this hasty departure.

"I wasn't asking the king to lead our charge himself," Conan said.

"Only to remember men sworn to him, and to make one last try for victory. We can still bring down the count. If we can't do that, we can hurt his men and slow their pursuit."

"Perhaps-" The messenger seemed torn between fear of Decius and the king and fear of Conan. Or was it knowledge that the Cimmerian's counsel held wisdom?

"Raihna," Conan said. "Gather a half score of archers and hold them ready. I'm going to climb as high as I can to see how the men in the barracks fare. If they've fallen or fled, we'll do as Decius wishes."

The messenger opened his mouth to argue, then saw Raihna's hand rest lightly on her sword hilt. His mouth shut again, with an audible click.

Conan saw on Raihna's face a wish that he send someone else. He also saw the knowledge that nothing she said would lead anywhere, save perhaps to a quarrel in their last moments of life. Conan would not readily ask a man under him to go where he would not, still less when the man was barely fledged as a soldier.

Conan dropped his bearskin and slung on a quiver and bow. He kicked off his boots, to bring toes as well as fingers to his climb. Then, as the archers gathered, he picked his stretch of wall.

As Raihna raised her hand, he stepped to the base of the structure. The hand came down, arrows hissed into the night, and Conan began to climb.

Chapter 10.

Count Syzambry was no man to admit failure, let alone defeat. He could alter his plans if they went too plainly awry.

The way in through the front of the palace would need more men than he had in hand. He must not only beat down the king's men, including that black-haired giant who seemed to be worth half a company by himself. He must also face losing men to falling walls, traps, ambushes, and the G.o.ds only knew what else as he made his way through the palace.

If he held the defenders he faced, the men he had to the rear of the palace would close the trap. Even holding where he was promised stout fighting, but not beyond what he could ask of his men.

Syzambry's decision had come swiftly. His orders were swifter still..

"Bring half the men from the Guards barracks into line. Move the rest so they stand between our rear and the Guards. Then every man prepare to advance."

Some thought him mad, or at least foolhardy. He could see it in their eyes. But they remained silent, so he need not fear losing any fighting man by summary execution for disobeying orders.

Weakening the watch on the Guards' barracks might let their survivors escape. Every servant of the king who lived through this night would be one more to hunt down later. The Pougoi warriors had refused to march with him against the palace, but they would not scruple at hunting down royal soldiers. If they did, the Star Brothers would remain them of the need to feed the beast.

Conan was perched as securely as the wall allowed before Raihna's archers had time to shoot three times. As the third flight of arrows whistled toward the enemy, he saw that Syzambry's archers were not shooting back.

Indeed, it seemed that the count's men had abandoned the fight, though not the field. Conan strained even his excellent night sight, trying to make out what might be happening beyond that magic-sp.a.w.ned earthen bank.

The dust was still settling, but the magical light was altogether gone and the moonlight turned fitful and dim. Conan would not have light at the price of another duel of sorcery, but he misliked planning his battle like a blind man groping in a rat-infested cellar.