Conan looked across the dwindling fire. His chariot was being trundled back from the stream by the two bodyguards, with Lar riding proudly behind the now gleaming bright-work. Ludya produced a mirrored wooden chest and busied herself in renewing her makeup, while Conan fished a dried sausage out of the nearby food box and began gnawing at it. The chewing hurt his skull; otherwise his wound no longer pained him unduly. He took up a wineskin and swigged deeply from it as the guards wheeled the car close by. To dry it more efficiently, they immediately began poking the fire and throwing on fresh brushwood.

"See what a splendid conveyance it will make, for myself and my entire household!" With boyish energy Lar leaped down from the platform to face his prisoner. "Oh, Sir Baron, I hope you will not mind my using it, since you will have no further need of it." He gave an impulsive laugh, revealing fine, straight teeth. "Many great cities lie ahead of us on our march; I fear that their lords and ladies might despise my ramshackle old vehicle."

Conan sat munching his sausage, watching his host warily. "You plan to continue moving southward, then?"

"Oh, indeed!" Lar nodded briskly. "To south and west lie the heaviest populations, the most fertile ground for our teachings. Although in time I antic.i.p.ate sending missions eastward and northward as well, to all the corners of the earth."

"Once you have dealt with my fellow barons, you mean," Conan said guardedly. "How fares the battle, then? Do you know?"

Lar turned his gaze earnestly and slowly across the unfeatured plain, as if the combat raged mere paces away. "Your side is doomed, I fear. For every five of my followers who die, your barons lose one."

"Aye." Conan nodded, believing implicitly in the youth's p.r.o.nouncement. "Their troops are staunch fighters, vastly outnumbered. But can you afford such losses, even from your huge host?"

"Fear not. If there is an imbalance, it is only temporary." The boy shrugged blithely, stretching himself before the fire. "Daily my minions grow stronger-in their devotion and in their fighting skills. Truly, I should thank you Nemedians . . ." Lar laughed impulsively again . . . "for bringing us weapons, armor and fresh converts, all of which will serve our needs later on."

Conan shifted on his cushion, dispirited by the lad's calm confidence. "And yet the army you face here is tiny, compared to those of the southern kings."

"Aye." Lar nodded thoughtfully, gazing at Conan. "You have traveled in the south, have you not? Doubtless there is much you could tell me that would be useful later." His hand reached absently into a fold of his tunic as he studied the Cimmerian's face. "But no! What could possibly lie before us that is stronger than our faith, stronger than the ancient wisdoms of our sect?" He grinned impulsively, moving away to bask nearer the fire.

"The magic you command is powerful." Taking another pull from the wineskin, Conan pressed on in his resolve to draw the youth out. "It must be very ancient."

"Oh yes, it is." Lar smiled boyishly at Conan, then at Ludya, who sat nibbling dry bread and cheese beside him. "More ancient than the cities that will soon throw open their gates to welcome us, more ancient than the human race itself! Older even than these plains, and the hills that border them, and the ancient mountains that birthed the hills!" As the youth grew excited, his voice cracked and rasped more frequently than before. "When the first creature raised itself out the primordial slime, our faith was here. Its strength remains with us to this day!"

"An elder faith indeed," Conan said, gazing at him thoughtfully. If only he could get a blade next to the lad's throat, he could use him as a hostage with which to stand off the guards. But he must avoid the fellow's magicks. "Does your religion have many shrines and temples?"

"Temples!" Lar obviously found the question comical, for it sent him into a silent spasm of laughter lasting for long moments. Conan, disturbed and irritated by this rambunctious behavior, took a long swig of wine while the boy composed himself. "Indeed," he gasped, "the ancients reared strongholds of our religion in the southern desert: lofty fanes and tombs that grace an ancient land called Stygia. But the real temples of our faith" -here his face contorted again in a grin as he raised his fingertips to his golden chaplet and removed it, scratching his scalp-"why, the oldest temples are here, at the sides of our heads!" His words ended in a falsetto squeak as he stepped to his cart to place the golden ornament out of sight among his possessions.

"For you see, Baron, the worship of our great G.o.d lurks unbeknownst in every mortal's brain." Starting in to preach enthusiastically, Lar returned to the fireside. "You may not remember, but the old legends tell it: the serpent is father to the man! In dim past eons, the transformation was made, but the old wisdom still remains. Human hide and hair are but a flimsy integument laid over the gleaming scales of Set's children!"

"What do you mean? That men were first begotten by snakes?" Conan laid aside his wineskin, perplexed and annoyed by the precocious mouthings in the lad's quaint, cracking voice. "Why, that is sheerest folly! Wherever did you learn such rot?"

"I tell you, it is all within us! Brrr, this northern wind blows chill today." Lar stirred the fire with an iron poker as his guardians scurried to throw on more brushwood. "But don't you see, that is why it is so easy to win converts, and why our faith will inevitably triumph!" He turned to Conan, laughing once again, his face caught in the tight rictus of a grin before it smoothed back to handsome regularity. "All that we were is what we now are. The serpent-brain slumbers in us all. Bringing back the old faith is just a matter of waking it up!"

"Curse you, lad, you talk in riddles!" Primed with wine and disliking the trend of Lar's speech, Conan arose to his feet and moved cautiously near the youth as he stood facing the fire. The short bread knife was palmed invisibly in his oversized hand, yet he had not resolved certainly to use it. "Aii, boy, why do you stand so close to this inferno? You'll set your breeches ablaze! Now tell me, how can you possibly say-" His words choked off in mid-sentence as Lar pivoted back to him; for something inexplicable had occurred. The youth was grinning again, convulsively, from ear to ear, this time for no apparent reason, and his face had an odd look of having been scorched or blistered. As Conan watched, Lar's eyes filmed over whitely. His features began to shift eerily just beneath the surface of his face.

Then the youth's skin cracked and split apart, peeling back from a shiny underlying stratum. Dry and brittle, it curled away from his countenance to reveal diamond-shaped, glistening scales, tender and moist like those of a newborn serpent. The strange, violent contortions and grimaces of his features continued as the inner serpent-body squirmed and struggled to free itself of its mortal husk. Reaching up spasmodically to his head, the youth plucked and tore at the ragged remnants of his human" hair and scalp, groping with hands that were themselves blossoming and exfoliating into supple, blue-gray reptile appendages. Meanwhile, a thick, forked tongue flickered from his mouth, spitting out pink shreds of its former skin.

Ludya's full-throated scream vibrated in air at the hideous sight. As she paused for breath with which to renew her shrieks, Conan dropped his short, useless knife and stooped to s.n.a.t.c.h up the long iron poker, orange-tipped now from the fire's intense heat. Drawing bright curlicues against the sky, its unwieldy length rose and fell relentlessly. He struck again and again at the head of the newborn abomination, crushing and effacing the unholy thing even as it sank hissing and spluttering to earth.

An instant later one of snake-priest's bodyguards, the former hide trapper, came lumbering around the fire. Conan laid the poker across his jaw, knocking him into the flames, where he lay senseless, though his animal furs quickly began to blaze up. Hearing heavy footsteps behind him, Conan turned to see the other guard, the blacksmith, not rushing but staggering toward him.

Ludya, tear-eyed, stood by in a fighter's crouch that ill-suited her erotic raiment. She had struck at the guard with her curving dagger, and a bleeding wound creased the man's shoulder, which was unprotected by his brief leather vest. The cut was clearly not enough to disable him, yet he stumbled weakly, staring blankly ahead, with confusion and pain across his hamlike face. Faltering, he dropped to one knee, then silently flopped to his side on the trampled sod.

Conan watched the unmoving form warily. "Was that blade poisoned?" Ludya's pale, tear-stained face shook slowly in the negative. "Well then, the thrall's death must be caused by that of his master." He cast a glance out across the vacant plain. "Let us hope that Lar's lesser servants will likewise follow his example."

He turned to gaze down at the corpse of the prophet, simmering now at the edge of the fire. The ruined visage was no longer recognizable, either as reptile or as human.

Abruptly, within the ichor-stained folds of the corpse's purple tunic, something stirred, then wriggled out tadpole-like across the ground, seeking to escape. Deftly Conan speared it with the still-smoking tip of his poker and flicked it into the incandescent coals. Its wriggling grew momentarily frantic, then ceased in a hissing burst of steam.

"There may yet be dangers here." Conan moved close to the shivering Ludya and enfolded her in his arms, his eyes roving warily around the camp. "I hope Lar lied and that we are safe from old Set's power. But what has lain waiting so long to awaken can surely do so again. We must prevent the looting of this place, and make sure these remains are properly disposed of."

They set to work. Before long, while day still hung colorless over the plain, they finished hitching the chariot-team and drove the horses forward to find the battle.

CHAPTER 17.

Homecoming

"As I predicted, Barons: a swift, successful campaign-and now homeward!" Sitting with one leg c.o.c.ked along a broken fieldstone wall, Lord Sigmarck raised his cup to his lips. He drank deeply before looking again to his fellow warlords. "Our men acquitted themselves bravely, I think. They deserve a good carouse on their return, with wine and wenches aplenty."

"Haw! I suppose so-although the enemy proved less fierce than I was led to believe." Ottislav, bristling with furs even under the warm noon sun, cast a surly glance back along the tree-lined road where the columns of soldiers had fallen out of formation to rest and take refreshment. "Casualties were not so heavy this time out."

Conan, sitting along the wall with Ludya, shifted so abruptly at this remark that his armor clanked. "h.e.l.l's h.o.a.ry devils you say!" Scowling, he stared down at his depleted segment of the line, which took up little more than half the length of roadway it formerly covered. "I wish the deaths were shared out more evenly amongst our companies! My fighters of Dinander did not earn their victory so lightly," He turned his gaze ominously to the other warlords.

After a moment's disdainful silence, Ottislav answered up tolerantly, even soothingly. "Ah well, Baron" -neither he nor Sigmarck bothered any longer to use the name of Favian- "do not be too hard on yourself. 'Tis no surprise that a young, inexperienced commander should suffer heavy losses in the field while his seniors go unscathed. Even you will learn in time."

"Rascal!" Conan sprang to his feet, clutching his sword-hilt. "I hope time never teaches me to skulk behind the lines, shirking the enemy!"

"Now, now, Baron," Sigmarck interrupted, holding up a trim, well-manicured hand to signal restraint. "Do not forget your lordly dignity. And Ottislav, do not provoke the young warlord just now. Can you not see he is distraught over his recent losses? And rightly so." Perched on the wall, the slight, slender man regarded Conan with inscrutable calm. "In particular I offer you condolence on the death of your friend, Evadne; she was a handsome piece of woman."

Before Conan could find words scathing enough to reply, the brutish Ottislav chimed in again: "Haw! I would not mope so much about it if I were he, Sigmarck. He seems to have plenty of luck finding stray wenches along the way!"

If Conan's sword-hilt had been a human neck it would have snapped in the swiftly tightening grip of his fist. And yet, feeling Ludya's equally urgent grasp on his arm, and hearing her intense whisper in his ear, he checked himself.

"Stay, Conan, please! Do not start another war, for your weary army's sake!" At her tugging insistence, he shot his fellow barons a last withering glance and stalked away, his lover holding firmly to his arm.

Since leaving Lar's camp, Ludya had clothed herself more modestly in silks and laces, saved from her traveling kit. Her manner was more restrained than it had been in her days at the Manse; her judgments seemed to be cooler now, tempered by experience and hardship. Conan found her lovemaking, too, more deliberate, and less casually sensual. Yet she remained a dazzling spot of warmth and color amidst the faded greens of the countryside, and was a source of life and humor for the weary campaigners. Lightly she acknowledged the many appreciative nods and hails of the resting troopers, as she walked with Conan toward his chariot at the front of the column.

When, after Lar's death, they had finally rejoined the baronial army, the snake-cult was, for all intents, defeated. Of the hideous serpent-warriors, those the least human had collapsed uncannily and simultaneously on the death of their leader. Most of them fell into swift, unnatural decay, their mortal flesh apparently unable to bear the stress of the sorcerous changes worked upon it.

Other cultists, those whose reptile-stigmata were only superficial, simply lowered their weapons and wandered about dumbstruck. They were easily cut down by the Nemedians, who soon formed wide skirmish lines in which to sweep across the plain and flush out the demoralized foe.

Still other cult followers, unmarked by sorcery, seemed at the moment of Lar's death to regain a semblance of their former wit. They fought only feebly, usually in self-defense, and fled as circ.u.mstances permitted; apparently they sought nothing but a return to their northern farms. On several occasions Conan found himself brandishing his sword, threatening and intimidating his own Nemedian officers lest their companies butcher the pitiful refugees.

By the time the last cultists were dead or scattered, the clouds and smoke began to disperse, and the land came to resemble wholesome earth again. Conan marshaled the surviving troops of Dinander who, though hard-driven and weary, were mindful of their victory and of his pivotal leadership. Like him, they were openly disdainful of the other barons' forces. There had been little communication between the allies thus far on the march homeward and now, as Conan lashed his chariot-team forward, he swore to have even less in the future.

"But after all," Ludya was rea.s.suring him, "we should be in Dinander by dusk. If you can keep the peace until then, it may last a good many years. From what you tell me, the city's shaky new regime can ill afford another war."

"Aye, girl, you're right." Bunching the reins in one hand, Conan threw his free arm around her lush shoulders, squeezing her against him with a warmth he had never shown Evadne. "Of course there is no telling what awaits us ... or whether the wretched city still stands at all. But I swear to you, if there remains but one brick standing atop another, I will be lord of it!" He laughed l.u.s.tily, causing the nervous horses to flick their tails before him. "I am no longer a mock baron; I have powers I formerly lacked. Willingly or not, along with my gruel and my lessons in bowing and sc.r.a.ping, I have taken in the trick of rulership.

"Now I return to Dinander with an army and a victory at my back. I can see through the posturings of n.o.bles and rebels alike, and weave my way through their snares. I tell you, girl, I will stop these Nemedians from tormenting one another if I have to crack a few skulls to do it!"

Ludya joined him in laughter, their gaiety ringing out across the sunlit meadows. The soldiers behind them soon found the merriment infectious and struck up a spirited marching chant. Against its chorus the two lovers clung together in the chariot, laying out plans and speculations.

"And you, Ludya! I can provide for you grandly, once I am installed in the Manse. Most of the rub of playing baron before was in having n.o.body to talk to, no one to trust. But with you as my baroness. . . ."

"Conan, wait! I pray you, think before you speak." The young woman touched a red-tipped finger to her even redder lips in order to silence him. "Is that a wise promise to be making so soon?" She gazed up with a wide-eyed, earnest look. "Usually the bedmates of princes and barons are chosen out of political expediency-to weld kingdoms together, and beget t.i.tled heirs. Some such alliance may be required of you, to stabilize your own rule . . . such as a marriage to Calissa Einharson! Even if she is mad as you say, perhaps 'twould be a union in outward seeming only. I would be happy to live modestly and consort with you outside of public view. . . ." As she spoke, her hand crept discreetly up his armored leg to demonstrate her point.

"No, girl, do not speak that way! I killed Baldomer, Calissa's father. To wed me to the daughter ... that would be too much of an insult to her, mad or sane." He dismissed the notion with a bitter laugh. "Besides, when I am ruler, I will steer my own destiny as well as that of the province, rather than letting sly courtiers harness and manipulate me." He hugged her close to his side again. "No, Ludya, you are my choice. You are a jolly girl, simple and direct and kind. Strange to think-when you used to lie abed nights, scheming to wed a baron, that your best prospect lay snoring beside you!"

The marchers proceeded down from the hills, the afternoon about them growing warm and lazy, the valley spreading wider ahead until the walls of Dinander finally appeared over low trees. No menacing smokes loomed above the town, only the usual thin plumes arising from the shops of tanners, bakers and smiths. No strange armies roved the countryside, and the serfs laboring near the road knelt to touch their grimy palms respectfully to earth as the war-chariot rumbled past. Soon the broad river curved near to hand, with skiffs and coracles bobbing along its leisurely current.

Then the city loomed before them, the iron-bound timbers of the main gate set impressively tall in the dark, beetling expanse of stone wall. Today the gates stood closed, except for a small sally-port flanked by two munic.i.p.al guards. There was foot traffic pa.s.sing through the portal, and there seemed a goodly number of faces atop the parapet, including a group of officers at one side. Clearly the messengers Conan sent ahead had alerted the city of his arrival.

He heard the other barons' officers ordering their troops to a halt behind him. They stopped at a respectful distance from the battlements, well out of longbow range. But Conan kept his company marching onward in a show of confidence, straight up to the foot of the stone defensive ramp that ascended to the ma.s.sive doors. As he halted his troops with a raised hand, the portals began to part before them. Smoothly the doors swung wide, and cheers from the citizens thronging within rolled out to greet the returning army.

"See, my girl, we are welcome!" Conan pinched Ludya for luck, then raised his arm once again. He gave the signal to advance-but there came none of the expected clattering of arms, armor and harness. He jerked the reins to halt his chariot-team, looking behind to see the cause.

By some prearranged plan, the troops of Dinander remained stiffly in their formations. As he watched, they drew their swords, pointed them skyward and shouted one word, two beats, in salute.

"Co-nan!"

Then the soldiers clashed their blades against gleaming shields and breastplates, adding their metallic clangor to the cheers coming from within the city.

"Crom save you, dogs! Ulla love you too!" Feeling light-headed, freed of weighty doubts for the first time since he had been thrown into Dinander's jail, Conan turned back smiling toward Ludya and the city. "Did you hear, girl? Do you know what that means?" He hugged her crushingly to his chest. "They saluted me openly, in my own name! Now we have nothing to fear in Dinander." Again he raised his arm high; this time the marching column surged forward through the city gates with him.

The victory march was a bold spectacle, grander in every way than Baldomer's homecoming on his death's eve. Rumors and fears of the snake-cult's menace had grown fervid in past days, and the total victory against it was a source of great rejoicing. Additionally, it was the first holiday of the city's new reign, unfettered by the oppression and restraint that had so long worn at the people.

In consequence, the revels were wild, with l.u.s.ty excesses sanctioned by state and church alike. Harlots and debauched wives danced half-clothed for gold drams before taverns, while hardier male and female celebrants splashed naked together in the town's statuary fountains. Bands of drunken revelers linked arms and roamed the streets singing bawdy songs, while troups of folk-dancers stampeded their squares and roundels through narrow intersections and stately buildings.

To be sure, Conan's marching formations were greeted as often with tears of mourning as with tears of joy. The cost of the campaign in lives had been heavy, and widows and loved ones wailed to learn of those who would not be returning, or who lay maimed in the jolting supply wagons.

Nevertheless the overall effect of the merrymaking was seductive. The marchers were strewn with ripe grain, flower petals and knotted scarves, along with select articles of more-intimate women's apparel. From street to street their thirsts were tempted by wine, rum and hot kisses; wherever the parade was slowed by the crowds, many of its marchers were drawn aside by alluring hands.

Conan's officers were not such martinets as to keep their troops rigidly in order in the face of these inducements; rather, as they approached the Manse, the companies gradually dwindled and dispersed. Finally the warlord's chariot was accompanied by only a few wagons, the mounted guard officers from the gate, and a half-dozen surviving cavalry troopers who wanted to see their horses safe into the stable before they joined the wild carnival.

Conan had acquired a wine-flask along the march; now he plied it liberally to his own and Ludya's lips as he held the girl to his side. Yet he also tried to keep an ear c.o.c.ked to the conversation of the officers cantering close behind. "What say you, fellow?" he called back to the nearest one. "What is that you said about Sigmarck and Ottislav?"

"Oh, Milord." The helmeted officer leaned down from the saddle to make himself heard over the tumult. "I am told that the barons have not marched onward toward the border, but are making camp outside our city wall."

"They are?" Conan pondered this news briefly. "Well, the city gates have been closed to them, have they not?"

"Yes, sire. Our standing order is to admit no foreign military personnel."

"Good, then. Doubtless they will depart in the morning." Conan turned to Ludya. "When we reach the Manse, I must see about having refreshments sent out to the Crom-blighted rogues. They are no danger to us, since there are not nearly enough of them to storm the walls."

"No, I suppose not." Ludya shook her head in wine-dazed reflection. "Unless someone were to let them in."

The mobbing of the main thoroughfare went unabated down its length, across the wooden bridge and straight up to the Manse, whose gates stood wide. Even the courtyard beyond had a festive look, adorned to Conan's surprise with potted trees and plants. But the celebrants who loitered amongst them were fewer and less demonstrative, for here order was maintained by the gate guards and sentries. As the last of the campaigners turned their horses aside to the stable, Conan drove his chariot up near the broad front steps in the company of the mounted munic.i.p.al officers. He stepped out of the car, sweeping Ludya down to the cobbles beside him.

As they strode across the terrace, a courtly retinue came through the open doors of the Manse to greet them: Marshal Durwald, splendid in his newly enameled breastplate of the Red Dragons; gray old Lothian, frail and stooped in his courtly and costly attire; the sword-slinging priest of Ulla, flanked by other rebels brightly garbed in uniforms of the Reform Council; and in their midst, a tall, thin female.

She was clad in a long-sleeved, low-cut, slit-skirted gown neither more lavish nor more modest than the garb of most of the city's festive women, and her head was bound in a silken scarf; yet something about held Conan's eye- Then he recognized her, more from the six-bladed amulet dangling loosely in the hollow of her satin-sheathed b.r.e.a.s.t.s than from her face, which had grown pale and gaunt since last he set eyes on it. The woman was Calissa.

Even as his hand wandered to the hilt of his sword, mailed gloves clamped his arms. In another instant, blades were jabbed warningly to his throat and the small of his back, beneath his backplate. Even so, his armor might have enabled him to break loose and fight; but Conan could see that the stern-faced guard officers also held Ludya gasping at steelpoint. Of his own recently loyal troops, there were now only a handful in evidence. These watched his arrest with frank surprise, but without making a concerted rush to his defense.

"At long last the usurper is taken in hand." Addressing the company, Calissa's voice sounded less melodious than he remembered-worn down by prolonged screaming perhaps, or rusty with disuse. Her face wore a grim smile, and her eyes, though dark and hollow, glinted with keen intelligence.

"Here, then, is the false baron who was my family's treacherous bodyguard. And his painted plaything, our former kitchen-slave!" The n.o.blewoman's thinness became even more apparent as she walked close before the captured pair, looking them up and down with obvious distaste. "A shame that the slinking a.s.sa.s.sin, Evadne, is dead; I had an arrest order drawn up and waiting for her as well."

"I will fight rather than stand and bear your insults, Calissa." Conan shifted amidst the crowd of his captors with a surly, reckless strength that caused them to clutch him all the tighter. "As for Evadne, she died well, fighting for Dinander."

Calissa smiled grimly. "As did my father and my brother! A fitting recompense, then." She shrugged irritably, turning to stalk in another direction. "Very well, Cimmerian, I thank you for destroying the snake-cult-as any able commander might have done. But if you think that a single bit of good fortune buys you the city ... if you think Dinander will bow its head to a northern savage, a b.l.o.o.d.y-handed upstart! . . . Well, you shall have more leisure to think on it chained in the stoutest wardroom of the Manse!"

Throughout Calissa's angry posturings, the coalition of n.o.bles and rebels had stood behind her calmly, watching the scene with what seemed to be their entire approval. Conan scanned the faces in vain for any show of discontent, or for any rea.s.surance or signal to himself. As soon as the n.o.blewoman had recovered her faculties, they struck a bargain with her, he realized. After all, if Dinander could be convinced to accept a female ruler, the Einharson daughter was likely a safer figurehead than was a foreigner. As for her mystical fitness to rule-well, Conan had proven that himself, perhaps unwisely, when he strapped the ancient amulet around her neck to turn back the ancestral warrior-ghosts.

Sure now of her audience, Calissa apparently thought it a good occasion to make a speech; she moved to one side for a better view of the crowd of citizens gathering in the courtyard.

"This day was proclaimed a day of rejoicing, people of Dinander! Never forget it; now it can be doubly so. For as you see, a second and greater threat to our city has just been overcome." She raised a hand, pointing to Conan and Ludya pinioned at her side. "I promise you, this danger shall not be allowed to loom over us any longer!

"I thank Ulla for removing the illness that formerly afflicted me. A happy thing it is for our province that these n.o.ble counselors have consented to crown our justice with the splendor of tradition, pledging their loyalty to me as baroness of Dinander. Happier yet that during the recent military crisis, our neighboring barons sent couriers to keep us informed of the vile conspiracy that would have placed us all under the sway of a ruthless Cimmerian adventurer!

No, my people, the lesson of history is clear! My father and brother are dead, but their murderers must not rule Dinander! The reign of the b.l.o.o.d.y sword is ended!"

Having raised a sallow palm open and empty to the sky, she lowered it to her side. "Of course the foul hoax could scarcely have succeeded; Dinander would never accept a common foreign knave as its ruler. The king in Belverus would not have borne it! Our allied barons could not abide this pretender; even now they are camped before our gate, having pledged their aid in ousting him, had we need of it. Know you that if by some trick he had seized temporary sway, their siege would have been reinforced by a hundred companies. But now that matters are well in hand, you can expect to see our friends march away on the morrow."

Calissa paused in her oration, weaving perceptibly from fatigue before her audience. Yet in a moment she raised a hand to her breast and resumed with dogged determination: "By my ancestry as an Einharson I am your ruler, and by the power of this charm."

The n.o.blewoman's pale hand clutched the now unriveted chain of the six-pointed amulet, as if threatening to draw it off over her head, fling it aside and face the consequences.

"It is an old, unhallowed tradition," she went on, "and I despise it. ... But I am not free of it, nor are you. I a.s.sure you, I would use its power in an instant to protect Dinander from anarchy or foreign tyranny!"

She released the chain, letting the spiked ornament dangle freely against her chest again. Conan felt himself exhale his tension as, he sensed, the other watchers did. None, perhaps, was any more certain than he that the charm's removal from a living owner's neck would unleash the avenging Einharsons. But it was plain that none wanted to find out for sure. Meanwhile, the baroness was again pointing and declaiming, singling him out before her cowed listeners.

"You have seen this foreign opportunist enter our city in triumph, blithe in the expectation that we would surrender our freedom to him and the cheap scullion at his side. You have seen him brought into check by rightful authority-my own, with the backing of this council. Is there any, I ask, who would say a word for him?" She scanned the audience fiercely, her eyes burning with distilled menace. "I ask you, is there any here who doubts that a woman can rule Dinander? If so, challenge me now!"

The silence dragged on for long moments-so agonizingly long that Conan finally broke it himself, his half-choking rasp startling his tense captors. "Enough, Calissa! 'Tis clear that you are more ferocious than ever your father was!" He wrenched his shoulders to gain more breath, for the guards were tightening their hold on his arms and neck. "What revenge will you have on me, then? Is my blood to be poured out on these paves, to show that it is not blue enough for a lord of Dinander? And what of innocent Ludya, whom you once saved from death?"

As Calissa turned to Conan, swaying with exhaustion, a smile of triumph finally twisted her ghastly pale features. "I am not cruel, to deprive you of the womanly embraces you crave so much! Chain them together in their prison," she ordered, waving her hand in dismissal as she turned back to her counselors. "Then we can proceed with our celebration."

CHAPTER 18.

The Sword of Einhar