Part 19 (1/2)
”They're both wounded,” Aberius protested desperately. ”Like as not, neither will last an hour.”
”It's still a chance.” Conan let his voice swell. ”A chance for a king's treasure in gold and jewels. Who's for gold? Who's for the Red Hawk?” He risked unsheathing his sword and raising it overhead. ”Gold!
The Red Hawk!”
In an instant every man save Aberius was waving his weapon in the air.
”Gold!” they bellowed. ”Gold!” ”The Red Hawk!” ”Gold!”
Aberius twisted his thin mouth sourly. ”Gold!” ”Hawk!” His beady eyes glared murder at Conan.
”Good, then!” Conan shouted over their cries. ”Off with you, to rest and drink! Till dawn!”
”Dawn!” they roared. ”Gold!”
Conan waited until they were well on their way back to the fires, then returned to Karela. She stared at him as if stricken. He put out a hand to touch her, but she jerked her arm away and stalked toward her tent without a word. Conan stared after her in consternation.
”I said once you had a facile tongue,” Hordo said, sheathing his sword.
”You've more than that, Conan of Cimmeria. Belikes you'll be a general, someday. Mayhap even a king. If you live to get out of these mountains.
If any of us do.”
”What's the matter with her?” Conan demanded. ”I told her I did this for me, not her. I did not break the oath she demanded.”
”She thinks you try to supplant her,” Hordo replied slowly. ”As chief of the band.”
”That's foolis.h.!.+”
Hordo did not seem to hear. ”I hope she does not yet realize that what was done tonight can never be undone. Mitra grant her time before she must know that.”
”What are you muttering about, you one-eyed old ruffian?” Conan said.
”Did one of those blows tonight addle your brains?”
”You do not see it either, do you?” The bearded man's voice was sad.
”What has been shattered can be mended, but the cracks are always there, and those cracks will break again and again until there is no mending.”
”Once there's gold in their purses, they'll be as loyal as they ever were. On the morrow, Hordo, we must bury these creatures as well as our own dead. There must be no vultures aloft to warn whoever sent them out.”
”Of course.” Hordo sighed. ”Rest you well, Cimmerian, and pray you we live to rest another night.”
”Rest you well, Hordo.”
After the one-eyed bandit disappeared toward the camp fires, Conan peered toward Karela's pavilion, beneath the loom of the cliff. Her shadow moved on the striped walls. She was was.h.i.+ng herself. Then the lamps were extinguished.
Muttering curses under his breath Conan found a cloak and wrapped himself in it beneath the shelter of a boulder. Rest you well, indeed.
Women!
Imhep-Aton rose from his place on the mountainside above the bandit camp and turned into the darkness. When he reached a place where the shadows against the stone seemed to darken, he walked on, through the shadow-wall and into a large, well-lit cave. His mount and his packhorse were tethered at the rear of it. His blankets were spread by the fire where a rabbit roasted on a spit. Nearby sat the chest containing the necessities of his thaumaturgies.