Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza (11 page)

As he fought his way out of the circle of bandits, Conan heard Klarnides’s shout and raised another battle cry of his own in answer. He hoped the young Aquilonian was not tempting fate by such optimism. He also knew that worse lies had been told to hearten better soldiers than the Thanza Rangers!

Now Tharmis Rog was bringing up more men, and Conan knew that he hardly needed to fear laggards among the Rangers this day. The battle was going their way, and nothing turned green soldiers into seasoned veterans faster than a victory.

But as Tharmis Rog came up, a slim figure in grey and green darted down from above and met the master-at-arms. He was not a slow man, yet he seemed helpless as a baited bear before the newcomer. In a moment Rog was on the ground, helpless with a bloody leg and a bloodier arm.

Conan strode forward, to stand over his friend; and for the first time, he realized that the slim figure was a woman. From out of a tanned face too thin for beauty but too fine to forget, stared eyes the exact hue of his own.

Conan raised his sword. “Ho, north-eyed lady! Have you a name? I sing for chiefs I kill.”

“I am called Lysinka of Mertyos,” the woman said. “But do not put it into a song even if you live to sing it. I’m sure you crack stones and make cows go dry when you sing.”

Her voice was low and rough, not one Conan would have expected to move him, yet it did. He heard in it a rare quality—a willingness to die rather than flee that matched his own.

“I do not sing for soldiers I kill,” she said. “But honour demands that I know your name.”

Conan started to say, “Sellus,” then decided that this woman deserved the truth in her last moments of life. “I am Conan, a Cimmerian.”

“That name is not unknown to me. But why does a wolf run with the Aquilonian dogs?” she asked. All the while her light broadsword was describing gentle circles in the air close to one booted foot. Conan remained aware of it every moment, even as he met the woman’s eyes. He had seen how swiftly that blade could move.

“Because I swore an oath, and these men need me to bring them safely out of the forest.”

“You swore yourself in bondage to babies?” The scorn in her voice would have cut a lesser man like a whiplash.

“Who have you sworn oath to?” Conan asked. “You do not look like one to desert your followers either. So why do we not do our duty to them and settle this?” Lysinka replied with her blade. It leaped up so fast that even Conan’s eyes barely followed it. He needed all his speed to leap aside from her thrust without trampling the prostrate Tharmis Rog. Conan struck down at her lunging blade, but she swept it clear in time. She followed through into spinning completely around so swiftly that she was facing the Cimmerian before he could even think of striking at her back.

As she came out of the spin, however, Conan had more to worry about than his opponent’s honour. She had a dagger in her hand; and as Conan moved to parry a thrust, she tossed it and threw.

It was aimed at his throat, and only neck muscles as tough as the Cimmerian’s could have deflected the steel enough to save him from a mortal wound. As it was, he felt blood trickle, but none of the weakness that would have come from a vital wound. He advanced on Lysinka, and she laughed and gave ground before him.

The two fighters circled each other three times before they closed in again. Conan thought that his back was safe, because his own men were there, and also because Lysinka did not seem the sort to allow treachery.

For his own part, he called back any Ranger who seemed ready to strike at Lysinka from behind. He was aware that arrows were still flying in both directions, that steel was clashing, men shouting and dying, and blood flowing.

None of it mattered in the least, if he could not gain honourable victory over this formidable woman.

The end came more swiftly than perhaps either expected. Certainly those watching could not afterward recount what they saw.

Conan, however, would remember the climax of the fight to his dying day, even among all the other battles of his long and war-filled life.

Lysinka came at him, thrusting. Her sword point raked his arm from wrist to elbow. A spasm of his hand let his sword fall. His unslowed feet shifted him so that his dagger was in position to lock Lysinka’s sword. She drew a second dagger and thrust at his thigh. He rode the blow, but that unlocked her sword.

It also brought the Cimmerian within easy reach of a fallen spear. He dove for it and came up holding it like a quarterstaff, while with one foot he kicked upward. He was aiming at Lysinka’s stomach or knee, but as she thrust again on a low line, his boot crashed into her wrist. Her sword in its turn clattered on the ground.

Conan kicked again, this time sending Lysinka’s fallen blade skittering out of both fighters’ reach. Lysinka dove, to rearm herself with the Aquilonian’s heavier blade. Conan reached it first, slamming a heavy foot on it. The woman thrust again at his thigh with her dagger, this time from below.

Conan reversed the spear and thrust down hard with the butt end. He caught Lysinka’s forearm; her fingers went limp and the dagger joined the sword on the ground. Before she could withdraw this time, Conan was on top of her, bearing her to the ground with his weight, kneeling with one leg to either side of her, and pressing the spear firmly against her throat.

“Well, Lysinka of Mertyos,” Conan said. “I have won, but perhaps you need not lose. We can sing the song of this battle together.”

The thin face twisted in what might have been an attempt at a smile. “My voice is no better than yours, Conan. We would drive all life from the forest.”

“The Rangers are here only to drive bandits back into peaceful lives. There are pardons for those who wish them.”

“After we’ve rotted in stinking cells on rations of slop and mould for years, so that none of us are fit to do more than beg,” Lysinka snapped. “Pardons these days go only to those with gold.”

Conan had heard as much, so he could not find words to convince Lysinka otherwise. He prudently changed the subject to one closer to his heart. He knew that neither Aquilonian law nor Klarnides had given him authority to negotiate, but here was a golden moment that would not wait on anyone else’s permission.

“We’ve halved your strength at least, and we can do the same again any time we please,” he said, in his harshest voice. It would have frightened most men and even some gods, save for Crom.

Lysinka laughed. “Have I not persuaded you that we would rather rot here in our forest than in Numedides's dungeons?”

“Can I persuade you to another choice? A truce, so that we can each gather up our dead and wounded. Meanwhile, you can speak with your comrades and learn what they think.”

She laughed again but softly. “Why do you think I would listen to my followers?”

“Because you look like a leader with sense, and such listen to those they’ve led into battle. Otherwise they’ve been known to find a spear in their back in some night brangle. Then they rot, without grave or honour, where they fall,”

“Cimmerian, may I call you more longheaded than most?”

“Call me what you please, but the truce is all I can offer. I’ll have to speak to my captains while you speak to your men for anything more.”

“Very well. Let me stand and take back my weapons, then we shall call truce. I will bring you an answer from my men as soon as they give it.”

“So be it.”

Conan descended the slope to find a number of ugly sights, beyond the normal litter of dead and dying men of both sides—and a few women bandits as well.

“None of them fought like that she-cat you bested,” Tharmis Rog said, “and for that my thanks. But they were none of them to be taken lightly, either, even the small ones with naught but daggers.”

Tharmis Rog was one of the ugly sights. He was sitting up, arm and leg swathed in strips of cloth that had mostly already turned red. Conan hoped his friend’s wounds looked worse than they felt.

Rog seemed to read the Cimmerian’s thoughts. “Oh, I’ve taken worse in tavern brawls.” He spat. “That she-cat was playing with me, I’d wager. A good piece of work, that, you teaching her not to do so too often.” The master-at-arms lowered his voice. “Best watch your back. Nestorinus is down and Klarnides looks more than a bit restless over your proclaiming truce without his leave.”

Conan said nothing of what Klarnides could do with his leave. It would be a waste to say it to anyone but the captain. He gripped Rog’s hand, then continued downhill.

He came to the second ugly sight almost at once. Nestorinus lay on his side, wounds gaping in back and belly from a spear thrust completely through him. Conan looked at the wounds a second time and realized that the spear had entered from behind.

“He was advancing so boldly that a foe came up behind him unnoticed and did this,” a high-pitched voice said from behind the Cimmerian. “Let that and only that be said of his death.”

Conan turned, to see a Klarnides who looked ten years older than he had this morning, for all that his voice once more sounded like a eunuch’s. But the blood and grime, not to mention the hacked sword blade, told plainly enough that he had played the part of a man in today’s fight “As you wish,” Conan said.

“I do not wish,” Klarnides snapped, then swallowed. When he spoke again, his voice was both lower and softer. “I command. I also command that you explain that truce, which you called without my leave.”

“Simple enough. It was that or kill Lysinka. Kill her, and every man of hers would try to kill us or die trying. We’d do well if a score of us saw sunset today, or any of us left the forest alive.”

“How do you come to know so much about the bandits of Thanza, Conan of Cimmeria?”

Conan’s hand tightened on his sword. Klarnides stood, bloody arms crossed on his chest, the smile of an older and wiser man on his grimy boy’s face.

“So I enlisted under a false name,” Conan growled. “Punish me for that, and you’ll have to punish two Rangers out of three. Also, you’ll have people talking about how Nestorinus really died, and I doubt his kin will thank you for that!”

For a moment, Conan feared he might be at sword’s point with Klarnides, a man whom he wanted to kill even less than he had Lysinka. He carefully kept his hands away from the hilts of his blades, trusting that his speed and longer reach would save him when Klarnides struck first.

Instead, the captain thrust his sword into its scabbard, worked his mouth, and finally spat on the bloody ground.

“That for your threats, Conan. I wasn’t going to turn you over to thief-catchers or Ophireans. I wanted to see if you knew more than swordplay.

“I wouldn’t yield the command of the Rangers to a stranger called Sellus the Northerner. Conan the Cimmerian is another man entirely. One I would follow, if it gave us victory and brought the Rangers home.” Conan had perhaps the time of three heartbeats to consider Klarnides’s offer. Then the captain’s mouth opened. Before the shout of warning left it, Conan heard stealthy footfalls behind him.

Then a hot iron seemed to sear his left side, granite boulders fell on him from the sky.

Conan went down under the impact, but managed to twist so that his head struck none of the rocks littering the hillside. He rolled—and his attacker punched him savagely in the throat.

For a moment the world faded around the Cimmerian, almost to black. It remained grey for another moment, but he had the strength to grope for his opponent and grapple the first thing that came to hand.

That turned out to be the man’s jaw. The attacker howled as Conan dislocated it, and he tried to bite the Cimmerian’s fingers. Conan jerked his hands clear, and with his vision returning, smashed both fists against the man’s nose. A riposte took him in the stomach, and once again the Cimmerian’s breath left him.

But Conan could roll again, even if he could not stand; and when he was clear of his opponent, he saw the man’s blood on his fists. Now the man lurched to his knees, his face a bloody mask as more blood dripped from his mouth. The attacker lunged for the fallen knife that was coated with the Cimmerian’s gore.

The lunge fell short, as Conan slammed one fist down on the man’s wrist. Bone cracked, and the man screamed. Then the Cimmerian’s other hand smashed into his opponent’s stomach. The man flew backward, and when he fell, his head found a rock. The life was out of his eyes by the time Conan was able to kneel beside him.

“Mitra have mercy,” Klarnides exclaimed, as he unwound his sash. “Here, Conan. That gash in your side is going to bleed you on to a pallet if it’s not staunched.”

“Do as you please,” Conan said. The wound was beginning to hurt, and he felt enough blood flowing to suspect that Klarnides was right. But there were more important matters to settle first, before he lay down and let Klarnides fuss over him like a woman.

“Lysinka!” Conan roared. The shout was almost as loud as his battle cry. Again echoes rolled around the hillside.

“Lysinka! Come down here and explain this truce-breaking or there is no truce! Come down now!”

Then he added, quite as loudly, “If any man so much as frowns at her when she comes, I’ll kill the whoreson with my own two hands!”

“You’ll kill nobody but yourself, Conan, if you don’t let me dress that wound!” Klarnides snapped. “You haven’t taken up the command yet. I can still give you an order; and by Erlik, you will obey it!” “Yes, my lord,” Conan said, with an elaborate bow that sent pain like a fire up and down his side. He cursed. “But be quick about it.”

Conan was roughly dressed by the time Lysinka came down. He thought her eyes were wider than before, but she seemed otherwise unchanged. Then Conan saw that she wore no knives, that her sword was roughly peace-bonded into its scabbard with rawhide thongs, and that she carried herself rather more like a prisoner going to the block than a war leader coming to negotiate.

“The truce is broken,” she said, before either Ranger captain could say a word. “But I ask that if you wish vengeance, it fall on me alone, and only after I have spoken.”

“Speak, then,” Klarnides said. “Conan praises your honour. Show it and I may do likewise.”