At the fires he leaned over Akeba, who sat cross-legged before a fire, honing his sword. "Hors.e.m.e.n approach," he said quietly. "I know not if it is Tamur or others. But the sentry is nowhere to be seen."

Stiffening, the Turanian slid his honing stone into his pouch and his curved blade into its scabbard. He had removed his distinctive tunic and spiral helmet, for the Turanian army was little loved on this side of the Vilayet. "I will take a walk in the dunes. You can see to matters here?" Conan nodded, and Akeba, taking up a spade as if answering a call of nature, strolled toward the dunes.

"Yasbet!" Conan called, and she appeared at the flap of her tent. He motioned her to come to him.

She made a great show of buckling on her sword belt and adjusting its fit on her hips before making her way slowly across the sand. As soon as she was in arm's reach of him, he grabbed her shoulders and firmly sat her down in the protection of a large driftwood bole.

"Stay there," he said when she made to rise. Turning to the others, scattered among the campfires, he said, as quietly as he could and still be heard, "None of you move." Some turned their faces to him curiously, and Muktar got to his feet. "I said, 'don't move!'" Conan snapped. Such was the tone of command in his voice that the bearded captain obeyed. Conan went on quickly. "Hors.e.m.e.n will be here any moment. I know not who. Be still!" A Hyrkanian drew back the hand he had stretched forth for his bow, and a sailor, who had risen with a look of running on his face, froze. "Besides this, the sentry has disappeared. Someone may be watching us. Choose your place of cover and when I give the word - not yet! - seize your weapons and be ready. Now!"

In an instant the beach seemed to become deserted as men rolled behind piles of driftwood. Conan s.n.a.t.c.hed a bow and quiver, and dropped behind the bole with Yasbet. He raised himself enough to barely look over it, searching the dunes.

"Why did you see to my safety before telling the others?" Yasbet demanded crossly. "All my life I have been wrapped in swaddling. I will be coddled no longer.""Are you the hero in a saga, then?" Was that the drumming of hooves he heard? Where in Zandru's Nine h.e.l.ls was Akeba? "Are you impervious to steel and proof against arrows?"

"A heroine," she replied. "I will be a heroine, not a hero."

Conan snorted. "Sagas are fine for telling before a fire of a cold night, or for entertaining children, but we are made of flesh and blood. Steel can draw blood, and arrows pierce the flesh. Do I ever see you attempting to be a hero - or a heroine - you'll think your bottom has suddenly become a drum. Be still, now."

Without taking his eyes from the dunes he felt the arrows in his quiver, checking the fletching.

"Will we die then, Conan, on this pitiful beach?" she asked.

"Of course not," he said quickly. "I'll take you back to Aghrapur and put pearls around your neck, if I don't return you to Fatima for a stubborn wench first." Of a certainty the sound of galloping horses was closer.

For a long moment she seemed to consider that. Then suddenly she shouted, "Conan of Cimmeria is my lover, and I his! I glory in sharing his blankets!"

Conan stared at her. "Crom, girl! I told you to be still!"

"If I am to die, I want the world to know what we share."

As Conan opened his mouth, the drumming abruptly became a thunder, and scores of horses burst over the dunes, spraying muddy sand beneath their hooves, roiling in a great circle on the beach. Conan nocked an arrow, then hesitated when he saw that many of the horses had no riders. Tamur appeared out of the shifting ma.s.s of riders.

"Do not loose!" Conan shouted, striding out to meet the Hyrkanian, who swung down from his horse as Conan approached. "Erlik take you, Tamur! You could have ended wearing more feathers than a goose, riding in that way."

"Did not Andar tell you who we were?" The scarred Hyrkanian said, frowning. "I saw you set him to watch."

"He was relieving himself," Akeba said disgustedly, joining them, "and did not bother to set another in his place." He was trailed by a narrow-jawed Hyrkanian, greased mustaches framing his mouth and chin.

Tamur glared at the man, who shrugged and said, "What is there to watch for, Tamur? These scavenging dung-rollers?" Andar jerked his head at the mounted men, who sat their small, s.h.a.ggy horses in a loose circle about those they herded.

"You did not keep watch as you were told," Tamur grated. He turned and called to the other Hyrkanians, "Does any here stand for this one?" None answered.

Alarm flashed onto Andar's face, and he grabbed for his yataghan. Tamur spun back to the mustached man, his blade flashing from its scabbard, striking. Andar fell, sword half-drawn, his nearly severed neck spurting blood into the sand.

Tamur kicked the still-jerking body. "Take this defiler of his mother's womb into the dunes and leave him with the offal he thought was more important than keeping watch."

Two of the Hyrkanians seized the dead man by his ankles and dragged him away. None of the others so much as twitched an eyebrow. Behind him Conan could hear Yasbet retching.

"At least you got the horses," Conan said.

"They look more like sheep," Akeba muttered.

Tamur gave the Turanian a pained look. "Perhaps, but they are the best mounts to be found on the coast. Hark you now, Conan. These horse traders tell me they have seen other strangers. Give them what they ask for the mounts, and they will tell what they know."

"What they ask," Conan said dryly. "They would not be blood kin of yours, would they, Tamur?"

The Hyrkanian looked astonished. "You are an outlander, Cimmerian, and ignorant, so I will not kill you. They are the scavengers and dung-rollersAndar named them, living by digging roots and robbing the nests of sea-birds.

From time to time they loot a ship driven ash.o.r.e by a storm." He thrust his blade into the sand to clean away Andar's blood. "They are no better than savages. Come, I will take you to their leader."

The men on the s.h.a.ggy horses were a ragged lot, their sheepskin coats moth-eaten, their striped tunics threadbare and even filthier than when they were worn by seamen whose luckless vessels had ended on this coast. The leader was a stringy, weather-beaten man with one suspicious, darting eye and a sunken socket where the other had been. About his neck he wore a necklace of amethysts, half the gilding worn from the bra.s.s. It seemed one of those ships had carried a trull.

"This is Baotan," Tamur said, gesturing to the one-eyed man. "Baotan, this is Conan, a trader known in far lands and a warrior feared by many."

Baotan grunted and shifted his eye to Conan. "You want my horses, trader? For each horse, five blankets, a sword and an axe, plus a knife, a cloak, and five pieces of silver."

"Too much," Conan said.

Tamur groaned. For Conan's ear alone, he muttered, "Forget the trading, Cimmerian. 'Tis the means to destroy Baalsham we seek."

Conan ignored him. Poor traders were little respected, and a lack of respect would mean poor information if not outright lies. "For every two horses, one blanket and one sword."

Baotan showed the stumps of yellowed teeth in a grin, and climbed down from his horse. "We talk," he said.

The talk, Baotan and Conan squatting by one of the campfires, was more leisurely than Conan would have liked, yet he had to maintain his pose as a trader. Tamur produced clay jugs of sour Hyrkanian beer and lumps of mare's milk cheese. The beer made Baotan's eyes light up, but the one-eyed man gave ground grudgingly, and often stopped bargaining entirely to talk of the weather or some incident in his camp.

At last, though, the bargain was struck. The sky was beginning to darken; men dragged in more driftwood to pile on the fires. For the pack horses they needed, one sword and one blanket. For the animals they would ride, one axe and one blanket. Plus a knife for every man with Baotan and two pieces of gold for the stringy man himself.

"Done," Conan said.

Baotan nodded and began to produce items from beneath his coat. A pouch.

A small pair of tongs. What appeared to be a copy of a bull's horn, half-sized and molded in clay. Before Conan's astonished gaze, Baotan stuffed herbs from the pouch into the clay horn. With the tongs, the one-eyed man deftly plucked a coal from the fire and used it to puff the herbs to a smouldering burn.

Conan's jaw dropped as the man drew deeply on the horn, inhaling the pungent smoke. Tilting back his head, Baotan expelled the smoke in a long stream toward the sky, then offered the horn to Conan.

Tamur leaned close to speak in his ear. "'Tis the way they seal a bargain. You must do the same. I told you they were savages."

Conan was prepared to believe it. Doubtfully he took the clay horn. The smouldering herbs smelled like a fire in a rubbish heap. Putting it to his mouth, he inhaled, and barely suppressed a grimace. It tasted even worse than it smelled, and felt hot enough to blister his tongue. Fighting an urge to gag, he blew a stream of smoke toward the sky.

"They mix powdered dung with the herbs," Tamur said, grinning, "to insure even burning."

From across the fire Akeba laughed. "Would you like some aged mussels, Cimmerian?" he called, near to rolling on the sand.

Conan ground his teeth and handed the clay horn back to Baotan, who stuck the horn in his mouth and began to emit small puffs of smoke. The Cimmerian shook his head. He had seen many strange customs since leaving the mountains of his homeland, but, sorcery aside, this was certainly the strangest.When his mouth no longer felt as if he were attempting to eat a coal from the fire - though the taste yet remained - Conan said, "Have you seen any other strangers on the coast? You understand that I must be concerned with other traders."

"Strangers," Baotan said through teeth clenched around the clay horn, "but no traders." Each word came out accompanied by a puff of smoke. "They bought horses, too. No trade goods. Silver." He grinned suddenly. "They paid too much."

"Not traders," Conan said, pretending to muse. "That is strange indeed."

"Strangers are strangers. Their boat was much charred at the back, and some of them suffered from burns."

The galley. It had survived both fire and storm after all. "Perhaps we might help these men," Conan said. "How far off are they, and in which direction?"

Baotan waved a hand to the south. "Half a day. Maybe a day."

Far enough that they might not know Foam Dancer had also survived. But if that was so, why the horses? Perhaps there was something here that Jhandar feared. Conan felt excitement rising.

"Use our campfires this night," he said to Baotan. "Akeba, Tamur, we ride at first light."

Yasbet appeared from the dark to nestle her hip against Conan's shoulder. "It grows cold," she said. "Will you warm me?" Ribald laughter rose from the listening men, but, oddly, a glare from her silenced them, even Tamur and Baotan.

"That I will," Conan said, and as he rose flipped her squealing over his shoulder.

Her squeals had turned to laughter by the time they reached her tent.

"Put me down, Conan," she managed between giggles. "'Tis unseemly."

Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck rose, and he whirled, staring into the dark, at the headland.

"Are you trying to make me dizzy, Conan? What is it?"

Imaginings, he told himself. Naught but imaginings. The galley and those it carried were far to the south, sure Foam Dancer and all aboard had perished in the storm.

"'Tis nothing, wench," he growled. She squealed with laughter as he ducked into the tent.

Che Fan rose slowly from the shadows where he had dropped, and peered at the beach below, dotted with campfires. There was no more to learn by watching.

The barbarian was abed for the night. He made his way across the headland and down the far slope, gliding surefooted over the rough ground, a wraith in the night.

Suitai was waiting at their small fire - well shielded by scrub growth - along with the six they had chosen from the uninjured to accompany them. The men huddled silently on the far side of the fire from the Khitans. They had seen just enough on the voyage to guess that the two black-robed men carried a sort of deadliness they had never before encountered. Thus they feared greatly, and wisely, although still ignorant.

"What did you see?" Suitai asked. He sipped at a steaming decoction of herbs.

Che Fan squatted by the fire, filling a cup with the same bitter liquid as he spoke. "They are there. And they have obtained horses from that dung-beetle Baotan."

"Then let us go down and kill them," Suitai said. "It may be more difficult if we must find them again." The six who had accompanied them from the galley shifted uneasily, but the Khitans did not appear to notice.

"Not until they have found what they came to seek," Che Fan replied.

"The Great Lord will not be pleased if we return with naught but word of their deaths." He paused. "We must be careful of the barbarian called Conan."

"He is but a man," Suitai said, "and will die as easily as any other."Che Fan nodded slowly, uncertain why he had spoken such a thing aloud.

And yet.. In his boyhood had he learned the art of appearing invisible, of hiding in the shadow of a leaf and becoming one with the night, but there was that about the muscular barbarian's gaze that seemed to penetrate all such subterfuge. That was nonsense, he told himself. He was of the Brothers of the Way, and this Conan was but a man. He would die as easily as any other. Yet...

the doubts remained.

XVIII.

Tugging his cloak closer about him against the brisk wind, Conan twisted on his sheepskin saddle pad to look behind for the hundredth time since dawn.

Short-gra.s.sed plain and rolling hills, so spa.r.s.ely grown with a single stunted tree was a startlement, revealed no sign of pursuit. Disgruntled, he faced front. The pale yellow sun, giving little warmth in the chill air, rose ahead of them toward its zenith. The Vilayet lay two nights behind. No matter what his eyes told him, deeper instinct said that someone followed, and that instinct had kept him alive at times when more civilized senses failed.

The party rode well bunched, half of the Hyrkanians leading strings of pack horses, cursing. The small beasts, seeming little larger than the hampers and bales lashed to their pack saddles, tried to turn their tails into the wind whenever they found slack in the lead ropes. The men not so enc.u.mbered kept hands near weapons and eyes swiveling in constant watch. It was not unknown for travelers to be attacked on the plains of Hyrkania. Traders were usually immune, but more than one had lost his head.

Tamur galloped his s.h.a.ggy horse between Conan and Akeba. "Soon we shall be at the Blasted Lands."

"You have been saying that since we left the sea," Conan grumbled. His temper was not improved by the way his feet dangled on either side of his diminutive mount.

"A few more hills, Cimmerian. But a few more. And you must be ready to play the trader. One of the tribes is sure to be camped nearby. Each takes its turn guarding the Blasted Lands."

"You've said that as well."

"I hope we find a village soon," Yasbet said through clenched teeth. She half stood in her stirrups then, seeing the amus.e.m.e.nt that flitted across the men's faces, sat again hastily, wincing.

Conan managed to keep a straight face. "There is liniment in one of the packs," he offered. It was not his first time to do so.

"No," she said brusquely, the same answer she had given to his other offers. "I need no coddling."

"'Tis not coddling," he snapped, exasperated. "Anyone may use liniment for a sore... muscle."

"Let him rub some on," Sharak chortled. The astrologer clung to his horse awkwardly, like a stick figure placed on a pony by children. "Or if not him, wench, then let me."

"Still your tongue, old man," Akeba said, grinning. "I see you ride none too easily yourself, and I may take it in mind to coat you with so much liniment that you run ahead of us the rest of the way."

"You have done well, woman," Tamur said suddenly, surprising everyone.

"I thought we would have to tie you across your saddle before the sun was high, but you have the determination of a Hyrkanian."

"I thank you," she told him, glaring at the Cimmerian. "I was not allow... that is, I have never ridden before. I walked, or was carried in a palanquin." She eased herself on her saddle pad and muttered an oath. Sharak cackled until he broke into a fit of coughing. "I will use the liniment this night," Yasbet said stiffly, "though I am not certain the cure won't be worse than the disease.""Good," Conan said, "else by tomorrow you'll not be able to walk, much less -" He broke off as they topped a rise. Spread before them was a great arc of yurts. More than a thousand of the domed felt structures dotted the rolling plain like gray mushrooms, "There's the encampment you predicted, Tamur. I suppose 'tis time for us to begin acting the part of traders."

"Wait. This could be ill," the nomad said. "There are perhaps four tribes camped here, not one. Among so many there may well be one who remembers that we swore vengeance on Baalsham despite the ban. Do they realize we have brought you here to break the taboo on the Blasted Lands..." A murmur rose from the other Hyrkanians.

From the tents two score of fur-capped hors.e.m.e.n galloped toward them, lance points glittering in the rising sun.

"It is too late to turn back, now." Conan kicked his mount forward.

"Follow me, and remember to look like traders."

"For violating a taboo," Tamur said, trailing after the Cimmerian, "a man is flayed alive, and kept so for days while other parts important to a man are removed slowly. Burning slivers are thrust into his flesh."

"Flayed?" Sharak said hollowly. "Other parts? Burning slivers? Perhaps we could turn back after all?"

Yet he followed as well, as did the others, Yasbet riding with shoulders back and hand on sword hilt, Akeba in an apparently casual slouch above the cased bow strapped ahead of his saddle pad. The rest of the Hyrkanians came more slowly, muttering, but they came.