Conan the Relentless Part 27

He did not add that he would lead the scouts himself. Eloikas would most likely forbid it. That would waste the time needed to choose another man, when they might have no time at all to spare.

"That all, lord?" the messenger asked.

"Isn't that-?" Decius snarled, then caught himself. "Tell the king that the moment we know more, he shall know it-"

Decius broke off because his jaw had sunk onto his chest. Nor was his the only jaw agape.

Captain Conan of the Second Company was striding up the path, looking weather-worn and leaner than before, but alive and ready for battle.

Behind him, shapes in the dawn and clatters and clangs farther down the path told Decius that Conan had a following.

Decius mustered his wits. "Well, Captain Conan. You-" He decided that "you finally stopped running" would be a mortal insult, and possibly a false accusation as well. "You have come, I hope, to give some explanation of your conduct?"

"That, and more," Conan said. He seemed as impervious to Decius's scorn as a castle keep to a child's arrows. "My conduct includes chopping a band of Syzambry's free lances to rags, as well as some other matters best not talked of before everybody. When you've heard them, I think you'll say I've explained enough."

Decius began to believe that the Cimmerian spoke the truth, and not only because of his a.s.sured tone. The royal party had heard rumors of the shattered free lances, as they had heard tales of Syzambry's having been wounded almost to death.

A figure behind Conan removed a helmet and shook the tangles out of fair hair. Decius's heart leaped within his breast, and he could no longer command his face.

"Welcome, Mistress Raihna."

Her smile made the captain-general's heart leap again. Then a man clad in green and brown, with a sack over one shoulder and a staff in hand, stepped through the ranks of Conan's men. From the manner in which they gave way for him, Decius judged him to be one who had served them well.

"This man is a woodcutter who guided us to your camp," Raihna said.

"He knew where we were?" one of the sentries growled. His hand was not far from his bow.

"Peace," Conan said. "The woodcutter's a loyal man. Hot pincers and the rack together wouldn't give his knowledge to Syzambry."

Decius was willing to take that on faith. What he doubted was that this man was a woodcutter, or anything else that it was wise to speak of before others. Conan and the "woodcutter" were indeed going before the king, although they might not care for what came of it.

Decius called the eager sentry over. "Go to His Majesty. Tell him that Captain Conan has returned with survivors of the Second Company and knowledge he wishes to lay before the king."

As the man scurried off, Decius resumed his contemplation of the "woodcutter." This was not as pleasant as the contemplation of Raihna would have been, but duty before pleasure. The woodcutter stood as if it was nothing new for him to be inspected like a pack mule or a bale of cloth.

He continued to stand under Decius's scrutiny until the messenger returned with the summons of the king. By then, Decius had decided that the man would reveal nothing he did not choose to... which meant that it would be well to deal generously with Captain Conan, unless he had done something altogether disgraceful. Generous dealing might open his mouth, at least!

The tent of King Eloikas had three walls and a roof, made of stout cloth dyed with herbs until it shared the color of the forest floor.

The rear of the tent was the solid rock of the base of a cliff. In that rock was a narrow cleft: the king's path to Safety in the last extremity should the camp be falling to his enemies.

To Conan, the rock cleft seemed more like a path to a quicker and more merciful death for Eloikas. The Cimmerian doubted that the king could survive a long scramble through the bowels of the hill.

Eloikas had looked a hale sixty when Conan had last seen him. Now he looked a feeble and sickly seventy, and his hands were so thin they seemed almost transparent. His lips held a bluish tinge, and his breath came with a painful effort.

He still commanded, for which Conan was grateful. The Cimmerian told the tale of his journey from the palace briefly, so as not to tire the king. Whatever Conan had done, or what might be done to him, he suspected that what Marr the Piper had to say would prove of importance.

Decius, he suspected, was not of the same mind. The Cimmerian no longer doubted the captain-general's loyalty. He had, by all accounts, fought too hard and endured too much in Eloikas's cause to be any kind of traitor.

But a man smitten by Raihna and seeking a chance to disgrace a rival-the captain-general might still be so described. Men could make as great mischief out of jealousy as out of treason, as Conan knew all too well. Were matters otherwise, he might still be a captain in the Turanian service instead of climbing the hills of the Border Kingdom.

The captain-general heard Conan out in silence, then waited while the king asked a few shrewd questions. Etoikas's body might be failing him, but his wits were not.

"It seems to Us that you have done good service, and that your skill and loyalty are not in doubt," Eloikas said at last. "Lord Decius, do you have aught to add to what We have said to this worthy Cimmerian?"

In his mind, the worthy Cimmerian performed rites of aversion to keep Decius's mouth shut. The rites, the tone of the king's voice, or perhaps merely Decius's good sense, did the work.

"No, Your Majesty. Few men could have done as well as Captain Conan.

Fewer still could have done better."

"Thank you, my lord," Conan said with elaborate politeness. "The woodcutter who guided us here is without, along with Mistress Raihna.

May I have the king's leave to bring them within? I believe that the king himself should hear the woodcutter's tale."

That tale was shorter than Conan had feared it might be, for Marr entered the tent with his pipes on his belt. Conan heard Decius suck in his breath, and the king's eyes widened.

"I had thought I was unknown," the piper said calmly, sitting down without asking leave. "It seems that my knowledge was not complete."

"Your pipes have been a legend in the land since before my daughter was born," Eloikas said. He was trying to seem at ease, but Conan noticed that he said "my" instead of the royal "Our."

"You yourself are not much less of one," Decius added. "What brings you here, piper? Consider that your magic shook down the palace and slew a good number of the king's men, and give a civil answer!"

"He will give no answer at all unless you are silent," Raihna said. Her eyes locked with the captain-general's, and it was not the woman who looked away.

Marr sighed. It was the most human sound Conan had heard from him yet.

"I have walked a long road to come to a place I had hoped never to see.

I beg you not to make the road longer."

He touched his pipes. "May I play a trifle? I think I know a tune or two that will make matters easier among us."

"A spell-weaving tune?" Decius muttered. But Eloikas looked at the Cimmerian and Raihna rather than at his captain-general. The two outlanders shook their heads. Eloikas nodded, and Marr began to play.

Afterward Conan remembered few of the sensations that flowed through him like an underground stream as the piper played. One was surprise that the music sounded so much like common piping that any shepherd lad might have played to soothe himself when twilight drew near and the wolves approached.

Another was an amazing sense of being at peace with himself and every other creature in the world. He would not have embraced Count Syzambry as a brother, but the count would have been safe from the Cimmerian's steel while the music played.

Much beyond that, Conan could not have found words to name what he felt. He only remembered clearly that when the music ended, all of the people in the tent looked as if they had just waked from a healing sleep.

Marr wrapped his pipes and returned them to their bag. "I have done as much as I can for now," he said. "I would rather hear Captain Conan speak. I am sure that on the road here he has devised a plan to rescue Princess Chienna and Prince Urras."

Conan muttered something best not said aloud in the presence of either kings or sorcerers. Trust a sorcerer to call for a miracle and then lay the burden of its performance on a common man's shoulders, with royal wrath awaiting failure!

Yet it seemed to Conan that he had more thoughts on the matter than he had suspected. It also seemed that they came to his lips more swiftly than usual. Had Marr put them there? Or had the piper merely made it easier for Conan to say what was already in his mind?

The smells of woodsmoke, heating stew, and pine needles reached Decius's nostrils as he strode through the camp. As he approached the Cimmerian's tent, the aroma of leather and oil joined the others.

"Captain Conan," Decius said. "Are you alone?"

"Yes."