If the northerner's shrug was a little too casual, Evadne did not seem to detect it. "Why, woman," he told her lightly, "another day of languishing in that worm-eaten Manse would have driven me mad as poor Calissa! Better to face grinning death out here. Better to shiver and perish in the Varakiel marshes."

"I see." Evadne eyed him skeptically. "Perhaps, in your rough, barbaric way, you guessed how much more respect and obedience your uncouth grunts and grimaces would command on a battlefield!" She settled back against the seat-plank, her gaze abandoning him once more.

"Well, Conan," she continued at length, "you usurp baronial power too lightly! However bold you may be, however handsomely you pose at the head of this column, you lack the skills of a trained commander. You will do best to remain silent and heed my advice. As here ahead, where the trees come down close to the track." She gestured toward a hill that rose on one hand, forcing the road to ascend out of the low plain and wind through stands of woodland.

"Aye, Evadne, I know. Having once played hare-and-hound with your rebels in such a place, I would not wish to repeat the experience."

Giving a whistle and a broad wave, Conan slowed his team to a halt, while the officers of the van and the infantry pa.s.sed his signal back down the line. Then, instead of waiting for his counselor to give the order, Conan addressed the cavalry officer in his own rough accents: "Send two scouts forward through the woods at each side of the road, and two up the center. Tell them to trumpet an alarm if they find the enemy."

As the officer dispatched the riders, Evadne shook her blond head in astonishment, rebuking him with a whisper. "You are too bold! Your foreign speech will add credence to the rumors of your imposture, which already undermine our troops' morale!"

Conan shrugged. "Better that they come to believe the rumors now than in the midst of battle."

Waiting for the scouts to draw well ahead of the formation, they heard hors.e.m.e.n approaching from the rear. They turned to see Sigmarck and Ottislav cantering up, each followed by a pair of well-armed retainers.

"Well, Baron, what is this new delay?" Sigmarck spoke haughtily from his saddle, able for once to stare down his thin nose at Conan standing in his chariot, though only by a slight margin. "Did we not lose time enough crossing the river?"

Evadne was quick to reply. "We might lose all the time that remains to us on earth if we ride into an ambush in yon woods."

"Haw!" Ottislav, hulking on his large horse behind the lesser baron, brayed forth his opinion. "One should not give too much rein to one's fears, blondhair!" His mustaches twitched with insinuation. "We have to face the enemy sooner or later at all events! Why not just instruct your young master to press on-"

"I ordered a halt," Conan interrupted with gruff restraint, "as is the lead officer's right. If my pace doesn't suit you, you are free to take your troops past me into the van."

"Nay, Baron-or whatever you are." Sigmarck gazed down at him keenly, almost as if seeing him for the first time. "No sense in disrupting the entire column. We leave the matter to you and your lovely . . . advisor. But remember, as senior lords, we claim precedence in all battle decisions." The aristocrat sat gracefully upright in his saddle, turning an insolent charm on Evadne as he continued. "Your regime in Dinander may be new and somewhat. . . informal in its practices; still, it is bound by the traditions that regulate our Nemedian Empire and keep all its parts working together in harmony."

"Not always in harmony," Evadne corrected him. "As when your father's armies mobilized across the Sharken Hills to seize my city's western lands, and had to be driven back by force of arms. Or when your own provincial troops sought to invest Ruthalia, until banned by King Laslo's decree-"

"Now, now, Milady . . ." but Sigmarck's protest was cut short as Conan signaled the column to advance, lashing his team to join them. As the chariot jolted forward, the n.o.bleman spurred his mount to keep pace alongside.

"If you would read to us from the annals of baronial strife," Sigmarck went on smoothly, "there are faults and injustices I could lay at your own province's door. So, doubtless, could my n.o.ble friend here." Sigmarck gestured at Ottislav, whose heavy mount clopped close behind. "There are things to be said on both sides in such affairs. Though I would not judge it in the best interest of a government so young and . . . vulnerable as yours to prosecute these ancient feuds."

"No, indeed, Baron Sigmarck." Evadne spoke coldly, yet forcefully enough to be sure the horseman heard her. "We mean to be steady, unquarrelsome neighbors-speaking for my liege lord, of course." She made a stiff-necked bow to Conan, who stood handling the team as if oblivious to the conversation. "Our Baron Favian is a forward-looking ruler; he does not cherish these old grudges."

"Aye, I can tell." Sigmarck nodded slyly to her. "He would seem to have little concern for your city's past; indeed, little link with it. But say"-the suave baron, showing deft horsemanship, reined his steed as close as possible to the chariot's trundling, jolting wheel -"'tis perhaps because of this very newness that your court, as my confidants tell me, is troubled by factions and petty disputes. Ottislav and I want to suggest, should these internal matters ever become too vexing, that you look to us for military support. Our voices have influence beyond the bounds of our own provinces, you know, and our troops stand ready to aid beleaguered friends and fellow n.o.bles where the need is great and . . . heartfelt."

"A thousand thanks, on behalf of my Lord Favian." Evadne nodded curtly to the horseman. "But I think it safe to say, 'twill be a long time before such aid is needed or requested in Dinander. Just now the main threat to us, as to you, is the snake-cult. Hence our support of your present cause; our land has ever been averse to the wiles of the serpent." Her lips flashed a tight, wry smile at the baron. "Once that menace is disposed of, we shall return home to carve out a strong, independent Dinander."

"Haw! For one of your frail s.e.x, you speak with great authority," Ottislav put in with mock approval. "Your baron is lucky to have your protection."

"Aye, though I am a mere woman." Evadne's sarcasm matched the foreigner's. " 'Tis a mistake my enemies have made in the past, to forget that the crucible which smelts cook pots can pour out swordhilts, and that the hand which plucks a loom can also draw a bowstring."

So it went for further leagues through the broadening expanse of the Urlaub Valley, the chain-mailed woman skillfully fending off the threats and blandishments of Baron Sigmarck and his larger, cruder accomplice. When the two n.o.bles finally tired of the pursuit and fell back toward the middle of the column, Conan vented a gusting belly laugh at their thwarted efforts. But Evadne turned on him with a savagery she had spared the foreign n.o.bles.

"Barbaric fool, why must you open your mouth in front of them? You think it a jest, perhaps, to reveal yourself to those schemers? Do you not see that they are subtle foes, whose wiles may yet take a dozen years to unfold to our sorrow?" She grasped the edge of his hauberk with a gloved hand, shoving at his unyielding shoulder in reckless wrath. "I should have known that you were too dangerous, from your stubbornness! And from your habit of promoting your old prison mates, and of arrogating unrighteous authority to yourself!" Her eyes, he was surprised to note, glinted with angry tears. "Well, Lord Conan, I hope your barbaric pride is vindicated. You may have dealt my city her deathblow!"

They rode on in silence, not only because of her smoldering ill-temper, but also because the prospect before them had gradually changed. As the valley broadened, leveling out onto the lush plain where a score of rivers converged to water the Varakiel marshes, the sky ahead had darkened to an eerie grayish-brown.

A pall of smoke, it clearly was, so vast of extent and dark of hue as to signal great devastation in the country ahead. The ominous curtain lay across the eastern sky from pole to pole, scarcely blown before the day's damp, listless breeze. Its crest was formed by towering thunderheads, copper-colored monsters that Conan surmised had flown hither to rut and mate with the dusky, dark billows the earth had sp.a.w.ned. In places the cloud's underside was whorled by darker puffs coiling up from distant conflagrations-the pyres of whole villages and forests, by their size. If this was the work of the snake-cult, the sect was indeed a great sower of havoc.

The unfolding evil was equally evident in the country alongside the arrow-straight, deeply rutted road ahead. Before crossing the Urlaub River, they had pa.s.sed many inhabited farmsteads and cottages. If the dwellers in those crofts were rough and ragged, their crops spa.r.s.e and their livestock lame and stunted, at least they hinted at the existence of greater wealth lurking in the thickets, concealed along with the womenfolk well back from the foraging army. But here in this lower, richer land were seen only gutted ruins, flame-blackened coppices and orchards, and crops systematically uprooted in trampled fields. The desolation lay heavy in the troopers' hearts, along with the knowledge that they must rely henceforth on the spa.r.s.e provisions they carted with them.

"Where in Crom's kingdoms are the bodies?" Conan finally demanded of Evadne, breaking the somber silence between them. "Back at Edram Castle I a.s.sumed they had been tossed into the river. But here there are no graves, no human bones, only the rotting carca.s.ses of slaughtered animals!"

The warrior-woman shrugged under her glinting mail. "It is said that in past outbreaks of this madness, all were converted to the new faith, even infants and the very old, and led forth from their homes at the beck of a great prophet. Rare indeed, it is said, is the woman or man who can resist the inducements the great Lord Set offers his disciples." Her weary, unemotional voice stayed level as she scanned the ominous horizon to southward. "Whether they lay waste the earth to deny us forage or to prevent desertions from their own ranks, I know not. The tactic is remembered of old, but I never fully believed the stories until now.

"In view of this chaos, you can well imagine what we shall face." Her words clanked flat and gloomy in the artificial dusk. "No ragtag band of heretics, these! Rather, the entire populace of this district, united in arms and consumed by fanaticism, with nothing left on earth to lose. How, I wonder, can we ever hope to prevail against them?"

"How can we dare fail?" Conan lashed the reins to speed the team along, tossing a discreet glance behind; the yellow-lit faces of the foot soldiers following the chariot appeared sour with the acrid wash of smoke, and deep-shadowed by dread. The Cimmerian told Evadne, "Surely this menace threatens the whole province, by an indirect path around the southern hills. As it may peril other Hyborian lands. Even if it ravages whole empires first, it would be our fight too in the end, methinks. This is our best chance to stop it, perhaps the only chance."

The light was sinking low behind them, splashing lurid reds and yellows onto the tainted sky ahead. A courier rode up from the barons at the rear to inquire about making camp; after conferring, Conan and Evadne sent back word that they would march until nightfall to reduce the threat of desertion.

They pressed on through scorched, desolated croplands, halting only when the sun had finally quenched itself in a b.l.o.o.d.y, smoking cauldron to westward. By torchlight they built a camp hedged with muddy ditches and clumps of briar, since there was no unburned timber remaining with which to form a proper palisade. In the smoky gloom of night, Conan and the barons ordered doubled sentries, as much to keep their troops within as to fend off what might lurk outside.

CHAPTER 14.

Dawn of Blood

"Soldiers, loyal retainers! I called you here tonight to remind you of the duty that carries you so far from your homes. You have come these many leagues, across this ravaged country, to serve your barons; never forget that. I, Sigmarck, have sworn a sacred pledge, as has each and every one of you. My oath binds me to a purpose, just as irrevocably as yours binds you to me and to the other lords here a.s.sembled.

"Since pa.s.sing the village of Kletsk this noon, you have been traversing the domains of Baron Ottislav, my n.o.ble ally. The village was destroyed, of course, as are the farms and forests around you. The baron's crops are ruined, his serfs and livestock slain or taken in unrighteous bondage. Thus has the harmony of my friend's rule been interrupted, his rulership insulted!

"It is not in the nature of a baron to tolerate an insult, be it to himself or to a fellow baron. Therefore, I have sworn to aid Lord Ottislav in avenging this wrong . . . avenging it to the last drop of blood in my body, to the last inch of steel under my command! That, loyal troopers, is why you are here.

"A hard service it has been, I know; harder still it may be on the morrow. But the harshness of the service is matched by the richness of the reward, both in honor and in your lord's esteem. As you go into battle, remember that! Once we are victorious, glory in it! For victorious we shall be!

"I now make way for my gracious friend himself, Baron Ottislav, who wouldst address you. Afterward, we drink a toast to tomorrow's victory!"

Yellow-lit by the torches raised nearby, Sigmarck was careful to leap down from the seat of the two-wheeled cart before its angle was skewed by the weight of the heavily armored baron heaving himself aboard. Ottislav loomed taller against the sky than his predecessor, even though he stood in the plank bed of the cart and c.o.c.ked one boot against its seat. He turned his habitual sneer for a long moment around the upturned, dutiful faces of the soldiers crowded near the fires. Then he spoke.

"Haw! Men of the eastlands! Nemedians all! You have seen the wrack of our homeland, the rape of our farms and holdings. A dreadful thing, you say to yourselves. What terrible foe, you ask, could have done this to our fine land?

"Well, Nemedians, I tell you, you are wrong! Put aside such unmanly thoughts. There is no terror here, nothing at all to fear-at least not yet. For nothing can compare with the terror of a Nemedian army on the track of vengeance. You are the menace, my ravening h.e.l.l-hounds, you the terror!

"This havoc is small compared to that we mean to inflict on the enemy. From this moment onward, their lands and possessions are forfeit, their women our cattle, their lives our playthings. We shall scythe them like new gra.s.s and thresh them to pieces like brittle grain. Their guts will grease the points of our sabers, their heads dandle from our saddle-posts like green gourds!

"For know you, the carnage of war is a healthy, natural thing. It purges the blood and strengthens the stomach. Bloodletting reminds a man of what a man is made of. A few of you will die, to be sure; and some will suffer grave wounds. But no true Nemedian would let that stand in his way. I bid you go forth to the slaughter in a spirit of honest sport!

"And now I give you-unless the raw lad is tongue-tied-young Favian, Baron of Dinander! Will you let your subjects hear you, sire? Here-, come on up." Ottislav tramped down the length of the groaning wagon and dropped to the ground, leering at the object of his challenge.

Conan, seated on a cask at the fringe of the torchlight, looked up blankly as Evadne leaped to her feet by his side. "I should have known this was their plan!" she whispered fiercely to him. "Here, stay, I'll speak for you." In a trice she clambered up the wagon to stand before the troopers, whose ranks rustled and twittered with expressions of admiration for the trim figure silhouetted against the dark sky.

"Fellow Nemedians, I address you on behalf of my liege, Lord Favian, heir of Dinander. He does not style himself a fancy orator. But he wishes me to remind you that when you fight for him on the morrow, you will be fighting for yourselves as well, for your homelands and for the loved ones biding there. ..."

Evadne's speech was interrupted by a bulkier shape looming at her side: that of Conan, effortlessly mounting the wheel-spokes and stepping into the cart. As he placed an arm across her shoulders to steady her, whispers flew among the troops at the sight of this handsome couple standing limned in torchlight.

"Troopers," Conan's timbrous voice carried out over the throng, "I come before you not as a baron ..."

At this a buzz of bemused a.s.sent issued from his listeners, since rumor held that, indeed, he was not one.

". . . or even as a Nemedian."

Again, at Conan's hesitancy, there sounded earnest agreement from the throng, for the accents of his speech corroborated his words.

"I stand before you as a man."

Although murmurs still coursed through the crowd, there was none who could gainsay this, so the troops stood patiently awaiting his next p.r.o.nouncement.

"As a man, I know good from evil. Or I try to know it. I surely can recognize a great and growing evil when it tweaks me in the face." He paused uncertainly again as his listeners nodded and murmured, affirming the wisdom of his words.

"I have marched with you in these past days. I know, as you know, that what we face here is wholly, utterly evil. It is the way of the serpent." The muttering of the troopers grew heartfelt, with occasional strident yells of agreement. Conan's next words had to be shouted to be heard.

"As a man, I know enough to set my boot heel on the head of a viper!"

Without further oration, he turned and was gone, helping Evadne down from the bed of the wagon. He left the troops in a turmoil, cheering, jostling and waving fists in the air. A chant of "Favian" was set up somewhere, to die away just as quickly in disputes over the truth of the name.

Whether the soldiers had enjoyed his speech for its sentiment or for its brevity was unclear, even to those who liked it best. The hubbub was due in part, certainly, to the eve-of-battle toasting; tots of rum were promptly dispensed from heavily guarded casks around the camp. The northerner tossed off the one that was handed to him and sat down again in the torchlight, disregarding the thoughtful, resentful stares and whispers of Sigmarck and Ottislav. Evadne, saying nothing, settled down close by his side.

Conan was pensive, pondering recent events. After pa.s.sing the ruin of Edram Castle and making their first night's camp in the wasted lands, it had taken another day's brisk march to draw near the creeping edge of the devastation. The ashes of cottage and barn had grown gradually warmer, the air darker and fouler with smoke, and then, toward dusk, their scouts had reported finding the enemy. No refugees, no trailing supply lines, just swarms of footborne ravagers bearing crude weapons, torches and firepots through the fields. Even now, by night, distant red-lit underbellies of cloud could be glimpsed where fires flared to southward and eastward.

Conan still hoped to find Ludya, or to send word for her. Yet he was forming the eerie conviction that no living human remained between himself and the Varakiel, long leagues to northward. Nor were there yet any bodies. In the chapel-yard of the ravaged village of Kletsk, even the new graves had been ruptured, their soil upturned and their tenants vanished with the rest of the townsfolk.

At these odd circ.u.mstances, superst.i.tious fears beset the troops. Worst was their dread of the vipers that seemed so strangely prevalent in these damp lowlands; fortunately, none of the men had-yet been bitten. Desertions had been surprisingly few, and were less likely this deep in enemy territory. The troops seemed ready to fight-more so, possibly, than were their leaders.

Now they awaited the dawn to face a foe they knew nothing about. The barons, confident of victory, had formed only the vaguest battle plan: march forth at first light, attack from the flank and the rear, and rely on the snake-cultists' relative lack of weapons, armor and training to defeat them. Conan himself knew no better approach. If the Nemedian companies kept their formations tight and mobile amidst a scattered enemy, there was no reason why their few hundred troops could not vanquish ten thousand and more.

And so the Cimmerian sat brooding late into the night, pondering the turbulent events in Dinander and the strange turn of fortune that had brought him to his present station. Of course, he reminded himself, he could still make his escape. Never would it be easier than now; he need merely stray beyond the torchlight on an errand of nature, and fail to return.

But he knew he would stay; he had spoken truth to the soldiers earlier. He found himself confronted with an evil well worth the battling; also, there was the dwindling hope of finding his old love. But even more, he sensed a dawning of unknown potentials; if he survived this battle, where would it leave him situated with the barons and thralls of Nemedia?

So he sat until long after Ottislav and Sigmarck had drunk their fill and retired to their tents, when the only lights remaining were a few dim tapers marking the sentries' routes. Evadne dozed near him, curled on the ground, a horse blanket drawn across her chilly mail; she tended to stay close to Conan and her few faithful guard officers, in this camp full of l.u.s.ty foreign males. Now, as the outlander sat brooding, she stirred in the starless, smoky dimness and spoke to him.

"Perhaps you were right, Conan. I despised you yesterday, but now I understand you better." Fresh from her rest, and without the tension of public discourse, her voice sounded pleasantly soft. "This battle we face may be more important than any politics, even more important than Dinander itself."

"It will be all-important to us, if we are to die in it." As he spoke, Conan scanned the darkness for any last sign of distant fires; he saw none.

"No, do not think of death. Just lead your troops well." She sat up, hugging the blanket around herself. "You primed them well tonight; now they will follow you more loyally as Conan than they ever would as Favian. Be yourself, do not trouble to play a role."

"The role is outworn anyway." For the tenth time that night, Conan tilted his cup to his lips to make sure it was empty.

"You no longer need it. I have seen you fight fiercely, both for and against our cause. You have the prowess to be a strong leader in battle."

"Aye, if nowhere else!" Conan's gloom lay on him as black and heavy as the night shrouding the camp. "But you, Evadne . . ." he turned to her . . . "you have the wit to govern a land at peace, to steer the destinies of courts and kingdoms. Pray you, take care in battle tomorrow; stand apart with the barons and see that they don't betray us. You are too valuable to be sacrificed in the front line."

At these words Evadne stiffened beneath her blanket. "I am a warrior, remember! I did not bring an end to the Einharson tyranny with honeyed words, but with bloodied steel. My place is among our troops."

She halted abruptly in her speech as a footfall sounded nearby; when one of the officers stepped into the light and saluted, followed closely by an infantryman, her steel dirk winked back into its scabbard. Conan, likewise, laid down his sword and spoke a greeting. "Yes, Rudo. What is it?"

"Co . . . Milord Baron, we sent forth roving patrols as you ordered. Now this sentry"-Rudo pushed the footsoldier forward-"brings a report of enemy movements to eastward."

"Yes? What did you see, then? Speak, man!" Conan admonished him.

"Milord, we saw nothing. They carried no lights, and we dared not show ours. But we heard footsteps -a great many, moving steadily on both sides of us. Also, a strange sound . . . it may have been just their feet sliding through tall gra.s.s, but it sounded like . . . like hissing snakes." The sentry choked to a halt, fl.u.s.tered. "We ... we made our way back to camp by following a ditch. They must have seen the camp lights earlier, I think they mean to strike at dawn."

"Crom! I told Sigmarck his torchlight ceremony was a mistake!" Conan reached out to extinguish the flickering taper, then thought better of it. "Rudo, what about the other approaches to the camp?"

"No word yet. The last patrol we dispatched to westward is overdue."

"h.e.l.l's gnawing fiends! Rudo, alert the barons! And you, man, make the rounds of the officers' tents. Have them bid the troopers ready themselves quietly, without lights. Full armor. And tell them to lace their buskins up high against serpents!"

Conan strode to his tent, followed closely by Evadne-for they shared the same pavilion, a chaste curtain strung between their cots. As he fumbled for greaves and ba.s.sinet with which to complete his armor, her whisper came to him through the cloth: "There is little in this fight for a crack Nemedian legion to fear. The snake-worshipers can scarcely have mastered military tactics and drill."

"Only enough to raze Edram Castle." Feeling for the tent post, he clutched his steel buckler to prevent it from clattering to the floor.

"Well, at least they have lost the advantage of surprise." He heard the soft clink of her chain-mail being arranged.

"Aye. But if they are not utter fools, they have surrounded us by now."

"Conan, do you remember what you once said at the Manse? About us being two of a kind?" Her whisper in the darkness was made even softer by a faint huskiness in her voice. "Tonight I saw that like me, you have a knack for leadership. I know you better now. Perhaps there could be profit in a union between us. ..."

"By Ishtar! You women are seized by l.u.s.t at the strangest times!" Conan's ill-restrained astonishment gusted through the tent. "I would oblige you, Evadne, but it could scarcely be managed in this armor."

"I didn't mean that!" Her momentary closeness vanished in a long, unmoving silence. "Although," she finally added, "once this battle is past, you could ask me again."

"I shall, depend on it!" The brisk rattling of his armor-stays revealed his exhilaration at the thought.

In another moment both Sigmarck and Ottislav were before the tent, gruffly demanding Conan's presence. With a last click of his sword-buckle, he strode out to meet them. "Hush, you two," he rasped, "or the enemy will be no more surprised than we are."

"So? What does it matter?" Sigmarck's voice issued low in the night gloom. "Neither of us can do aught in this blackness anyway. We make ready, and come morning, we fight them; what more is there?"

"You intend to wait here behind our flimsy barricade and let them come at us, in all their mult.i.tudes? What will you do if they decide not to attack us, but merely stand off and throw fire and snakes into our midst? Or build defenses of their own, and starve us out?"

"Aha, I see that the young baron knows the value of discretion!" Ottislav's laugh fell unpleasantly on Conan's ear. "But how do you expect to run, lad, if we are surrounded? 'Twould be disastrous to be caught by the enemy while sneaking away. . . ."

"Run? I said nothing of running. I mean to attack at first light!" Conan's voice throbbed forcefully in the darkness. "That way we can break the encirclement and hold on to the initiative. What are our cavalry for, if not to attack and keep the foe off balance?"

"But attack whom, and where?" Sigmarck demanded. "To attack outward in all directions at once is madness! It would disperse our force."

"When you fight a serpent, where do you strike? At its head! Once the head is destroyed, the body twitches and dies." Conan's words flowed out swift and sure. "So we press toward the enemy's commanders, who will be somewhere to eastward, near their center. That will be easy once dawn comes: we simply order the men to attack into the rising sun. When we've overrun their first perimeter, we can turn our strength where it will do the most good."

Evadne had come out of the tent to stand close beside Conan. "A clever plan, my baron-but remember, we have the burden of a shared command. I think it might be better to stand on the defensive at first."