Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

"Let me water Windmaster, and I'll be off."

"Mitra—" The words died in Bora's throat. He would not praise Mitra tonight, not when the god had let his good servant Ivram die like a dog.

Conan crouched behind the chimney of the inn. Enough of the mob now carried torches to show clearly all he needed to see. Too many, perhaps. If he could see, he might also be seen, for all that he'd blacked his skin with soot from the hearth in Illyana's chamber.

Both the mob and Achmai's men were where they had been the last time he looked. Most likely they would not move further—until he made them move.

Time to do just that.

Conan crawled across the roof to the rear of the inn and shouted, "All right! We hold the stables. They won't be in any danger from there!"

As he returned to the front, Conan heard with pleasure a shout from Achmai's ranks.

"Who said that? Sergeants, count your men!"

Conan allowed the counting to be well begun, then shouted, imitating a sergeant's voice, "Ha! I've two missing."

Then, imitating the captain:

"These town pigs have made away with them. Draw swords! That's two insults to Lord Achmai!"

Angry, confused shouting ran along the line of Achmai's men. Conan raised his voice, to imitate a youth.

"Achmai's hired swords want to save their witch friends. Well, take that, you sheep rapers!"

A roof tile placed ready to hand flew over the heads of the mob, driven by a stout Cimmerian arm. It plummeted into the ranks of Achmai's riders, striking a man from his saddle.

"Fools!" the captain screamed. "We're friends. We want—"

His protests came too late. Stones followed Conan's tile. A horse reared, tossing his rider from the saddle. Comrades of the fallen men drew their swords and spurred their mounts forward. When they reached the edge of the mob, they began laying about them.

The mob in turn writhed like a nest of serpents and growled like a den of hungry bears. One bold spirit thrust a torch at a swordsman's horse. It threw its rider, who vanished among dozens of hands clutching at him. Conan heard his screams, ending suddenly.

The fight between Achmai's men and the mob had drawn enough blood now. It would take the leaders on either side longer to stop it than it would take Conan and his people to flee Haruk.

Conan ran to the rear of the inn, uncaring of being seen. "Ride!" he shouted at the stable door. It squealed open, and Raihna led the others toward the street.

Illyana came last. As she reached the gate, curses and shouts told Conan that the street was not wholly deserted. Illyana waved, then put her head down and her spurs in.

Conan leaped from the roof of the inn to the roof of the woodshed and landed rolling. He let himself roll, straight off the woodshed on to straw bales. His horse was already free; he flew into the saddle without touching the stirrups.

He had the horse up to a canter and his sword drawn as he passed the gate. To the people in the street, it must have seemed that the blackfaced Cimmerian was a demon conjured up by the witch. They might hate witchcraft, but they loved their lives more. They scattered, screaming.

Conan took a street opposite to the one Illyana had used and did not slow below a gallop until he was out of town. It was as well, for he had not gone unseen by men with their wits about them. Torches and fires showed half a dozen men riding hard after him.

Conan sheathed his sword and unslung his bow. Darkness did not make for the best practice. He still crippled three horses and emptied one saddle before his pursuers saw the wisdom of letting him go.

Conan slung his bow, counted his arrows, then dismounted to let his horse blow and drink. His own drink was the last of the innkeeper's wine. When the leather bottle was empty, he threw it away, mounted again, and trotted away across country.

Eremius raised his staff. The silver head bore gouges and scars from its passage through rocks and earth, but its powers seemed undiminished.

From his other wrist the Jewel glowed, its fire subdued by the dawn light but steady as ever. Once again he considered whether Illyana sought harm to his Jewel, even at cost to her own? That was a question he would surely ask, when the time came to wring from her all her knowledge.

This morning, it was only important that his Jewel was intact. Now he could regain some part of his victory. Not all, because too many of the villagers yet lived. But enough to give new heart to his human servants and even the Transformed, if their minds could grasp what they were about to see.

Eremius rested the head of his staff on the Jewel. Fire blazed forth, stretched out, then gathered itself into a ball and flew across the village. It flew onward, up the hill beyond the village and over its crest.

"Long live the Master!"

Human shouts mingled with the raw-throated howls of the Transformed. The crest of the hill shuddered, heaved itself upward, then burst apart into a hundred flying boulders, each the size of a hut.

The end of that thrice-cursed priest's shrin !

If the man lived, he would have an end nearly as hard as Illyana's. He and the youth who helped him cast the Powder and free the villagers!

Eremius would recognize them if he saw them again, too. He had torn their faces out of the prisoners' minds before letting the Transformed tear their bodies. Slowly, too, with both minds and bodies. The Transformed had not learned to love the agony of their prey, but they could be taught.

Meanwhile—

Staff and Jewel met again. Once, twice, thrice balls of emerald fire leaped forth. They formed a triangle encompassing the village, then settled to the roofs of three houses.

Where they settled, flames spewed from the solid stone. Eremius lifted staff and Jewel a final time, and purple smoke rose above the flames.

Stonefire was smokeless by nature. Eremius wanted to paint Crimson Spring's fate across the sky, for all to see.

Maryam lifted her eyes from Ivram's dead face to the eastern sky. Those eyes were red but dry. Whatever weeping she had done, it was finished before Bora came.

"A child," she said in a rasping voice.

"Who?" Bora knew his own voice was barely a croak. Sleep had begun to seem a thing told of in legends but never done by mortal men.

"The demons' master. A vicious child, who can't win, so he smashes the toys."

"Just—just so he can't smash us," Bora muttered. He swayed.

Two strong arms came around him, steadying him, then lowering him to the ground. "Sit, Bora. I can do well enough by a guest, as little as I have."

He heard as from a vast distance the clink of metal on metal and the gurgle of liquid pouring. A cup of wine seemed to float out of the air before his face. He smelled herbs in the wine.

"Only a posset. Drink."

"I can't sleep. The people—"

"You must sleep. We need you with your wits about you." One hand too strong to resist gripped Bora's head, the other held the cup to his lips. Sweet wine and pungent herbs overpowered his senses, then his will. He drank.

Sleep took him long before the cup was empty.

Conan reached the meeting place as dawn gave way to day. Raihna was asleep, Dessa and Massouf had found the strength for another quarrel, and only Illyana greeted him.

She seemed to have regained all her strength and lost ten years of age. Her step as she came downhill was as light as that of her dancer's image, and her smile as friendly.

"Well done, Conan, if you will accept my praise. That was such good work that even a sorceress can recognize it."

In spite of himself, Conan smiled. "I thank you, Illyana. Have you any new knowledge of our friend Eremius?"

"Only that he once more commands his Jewel, as I

do mine. That is not altogether bad. Some part of—of what I sensed last night—told me his Jewel had been in danger."