Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

"If this seems to be doubting your courage—" Illyana had begun.

"You're not doubting my courage. You're doubting that I'm the biggest fool in Turan. Go do your best with the magic. I'll do my best to keep anyone from ramming a sword through your—" Conan sketched a gesture that made Illyana blush.

The door rattled. Conan took a cautious step away from it. As he did, the innkeeper stamped up the stairs, puffing and red-faced.

"Has your lady witch set my house afire, besides everything else?" the man muttered. He looked as if no answer would surprise him.

"Not that I know," Raihna said. She had clothed herself in trousers and tunic. The landlord's eyes said this was no improvement over her previous attire.

"Has the cursed spell worked ?"

" I don't know that either."

"Mitra and Erlik deliver us! Do you know anything about what's going on in there?"

"As much as you do."

"Or as little," Conan added.

The innkeeper looked ready to kill everyone in sight, including himself. His hands clutched at the remnants of his hair. His bald spot and the rest of his face shone with sweat.

"Well, I know that there's a mob on the way, to burn this inn if your lady witch doesn't!"

Conan and Raihna cursed together. Even Dessa added a few rough jests about some people's manhood.

"If your servants had the courage of lice, no one would have known of our work until it was done," Raihna snapped. "As it is, I'll be cursed if I let my mistress work in vain."

Her hand darted toward her sword but Conan halted her draw. "No reason to harm this man. He did warn us."

"That won't save us if the mob gathers before we can flee," the swordswoman replied.

"No, but our friend can do more." Conan turned to the innkeeper. "I much doubt this inn has no hiding places or secret ways out. Keep the mob out until Illyana's done, let us use the secret way, and we'll make it seem you were our prisoner. If they think you're afraid of us—"

"They'll know the gods' own truth!" the man blurted. "I don't know why I'm doing this. Really I don't."

"Either you're too brave to betray guests or too cowardly to want your throat slit," Raihna said. "I care little. Now go downstairs and do your work while we finish ours!"

"Yes, and have some food sent up," Conan added. "Cold meat, bread, cheese—travelers' fare."

"I'll do my best," the innkeeper said, with a shrug. "If the cooks haven't all run off as well!"

From inside the house a child screamed like a mad thing. Bora tried the door and found it locked.

"To me! Zakar, try your axe!"

The village woodcutter was one of the first men Bora had freed with the Powder. His head was clear and his body at his command. He came running, swinging an axe as if he would cleave not just the door but the house.

A few strokes shattered the door. Bora and Zakar dashed inside. Bora snatched up the abandoned child, to find it a girl unhurt but witless with fear. As he ran to the door, he saw a basket of bread and smoked goat meat, also left behind in the family's panic.

"Zakar, take that as well. The gods only know where we'll next eat."

"Not in this world, likely enough," Zakar replied, shouldering his axe. "But I won't go alone, because my friend here will eat first. I don't care if we face every demon in creation. There's no demon can do much harm with his skull split!"

Bora could only hope Zakar was right. Something was holding back the demons from the village, giving its people a reprieve. Most of them were now free of the spells and fleeing west. Could they flee far enough before the demons were unleashed again? Bora knew how fast the demons could cover ground.

Outside, Bora looked for someone to care for the child. It was a long search, for the village was now all but deserted. Those who remained were more likely to be held by fear than by magic, and against that the Powder had no strength.

At last two girls a trifle younger than Caraya appeared, leading an aged man between them. "Here," Bora said without ceremony. The little girl began squalling again as she was handed over, but Bora took no heed.

"Your own home's not far now," Zakar said. "We could be there and back before anyone missed you."

"Ivram said he freed them at once." Everything in Bora cried out to be Rhafi's son and not the village's leader, just for a little while. "What he did will have to be enough."

"The gods keep me from—what in Mitra's name is that ?"

A cloud of dust danced at the far end of the street, where the village gave way to orchards. Out of the dust loped a stooped figure, a monstrous caricature of a man. In the green light its thick limbs shimmered.

One of those arms snatched at a branch. Thick as Bora's arm, the branch snapped like a twig. A second branch armed the demon's other hand. Brandishing both clubs, it broke into a shambling run.

Zakar met it halfway down the street. One club flew into the air, chopped in half by the axe. The second swung. It crashed into Zakar's ribs as his axe came down on the demon's head.

Came down, and bounced off. Not without effect— the demon staggered, and Bora saw blood run. But without slaying—or saving Zakar. One clawed hand drove into his belly and ripped upward. He barely had time to scream before the demon's fangs were in his throat.

The demon threw the dying woodcutter down and looked about for fresh prey. For a moment Bora would gladly have sold his whole family for a spell of invisibility.

Then heavy footsteps thudded behind him. A robed arm flung a small clay vial down the street. It landed at the demon's feet, shattering and spraying the Powder of Zayan.

"I don't know if it will work against whatever spells bind those—creations," Ivram muttered. "A good pair of heels might work better."

"But—there must be—"

"Only the gods can help them now," Ivram said. "Your kin are safe. The village needs you as a live leader, not a dead memory!"

"As you wish," Bora said. He recognized in his own voice the same note he'd heard in the priest's. They both spoke lest chattering teeth otherwise betray their fear. The demon was kneeling, snuffling at the Powder on the ground, as they turned and ran for the other end of the village.

With a sharp ping , the strands of Illyana's hair parted. The Jewel arched down from the head of Eremius's staff.

Never in all his years of sorcery had Eremius cast a spell so quickly. The Invisible Hand gripped the Jewel halfway to the ground and lowered it the rest of the way as lightly as a feather.

To slow his heart and breathing, Eremius told himself that the Jewel would not have shattered in a fall from such a height. The message accomplished nothing. Heart and lungs knew that it was a lie. He had contrived a narrow escape from disaster as well as defeat.

He reached for the Jewel, to rebind it with strands of his own hair. His fingers seemed to strike invisible glass a hand's breadth on all sides of the Jewel. He prodded the barrier with his staff, and felt the same sensation.

As he considered his next counter to Illyana's spells, his staff suddenly flew from his hand. Before he could regain his grip, it plummeted down to the Jewel, into it, and into the earth beneath the Jewel!

Eremius was still gaping when the ground erupted with a crash and roar of shattering stone. Dust and rock chips stung as his staff flew into the air, part of a geyser of stone and earth. Eremius lunged for the staff, plucked it out of the air, and hastily backed away from the Jewel.

The Jewel itself now seemed to dissolve into a pool of emerald light, flowing like some thick liquid in an invisible bowl. A disagreeably high-pitched whine rose from it. Eremius cringed, as he would have at an insect trapped in his ear.