Conan the Liberator

THE LIONS GATHER

Far south of Aquilonia, a slender war galley cleft the stormy waters of the Western Ocean. The ship, of Argossean lines, was headed shoreward, where the lights of Messantia glimmered through the twilight. A band of luminescent green along the western horizon marked the passing of the day; and overhead, the first stars of evening bejeweled the sapphire sky, then paled before the rising of the moon.

On the forecastle, leaning upon the rail above the bow, stood seven persons cloaked against chill bursts of spray that fountained as the bronzen ram rose and dipped, cleaving the waves asunder. One of the seven was Dexitheus, a calm-eyed, grave-faced man of mature years, dressed in the flowing robes of a priest of Mitra.

Beside him stood a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped nobleman with dark hair tinged with gray, who wore a silvered cuirass, on the breast of which the three leopards of Poitain were curiously worked in gold. This was Trocero, Count of Poitain, and his motif of three crimson leopards was repeated on the banner that fluttered from the foremast high above his head.

At Count Trocero’s elbow, a younger man of aristocratic bearing, elegantly clad in velvet beneath a silvered shirt of mail, fingered his small beard. Hp moved quickly, and his ready smile masked with gaiety the metal of a seasoned and skillful soldier. This was Prospero, a former general of the Aquilonian army. A stout and balding man, wearing neither sword nor armor and unmindful of the failing light, worked sums with a stylus on a set of waxed tablets, braced against the rail. Publius had been the royal treasurer of Aquilonia before his resignation in despairing protest against his monarch’s policies of unlimited taxation and unrestrained expenditure.

Nearby, two girls clutched the inconstant rail. One was Belesa of Korzetta, a noblewoman of Zingara, slender and exquisite and but recently come to womanhood. Her long black hair streamed in the sea-wind like a silken banner. Nestled against her in the curve of one arm, a pale, flaxen-haired child stared wide-eyed at the lights that rimmed the waterfront. An Ophirean slave, Tina had been rescued from a brutal master by the Lady Belesa, niece of the late Count Valenso. Mistress and slave, inseparable, had shared the moody count’s self-exile in the Pictish wilderness.

Above them towered a grim-faced man of gigantic stature. His smoldering eyes of volcanic blue and the black mane of coarse, straight hair that brushed his massive shoulders suggested the controlled ferocity of a lion in repose. He was a Cimmerian, and Conan was his name.

Conan's sea boots, tight breeches, and torn silken shirt disclosed his magnificent physique. These garments he had looted from the chests of the dead pirate admiral. Bloody Tranicos, where in a cave on a hill in Pictland, the coipses of Tranicos and his captains still sat around a table heaped with the treasure of a Stygian prince. The clothes, small for so large a man, were faded, ripped, and stained with dirt and blood; but no one looking at the towering Cimmerian and the heavy broadsword at his side would mistake him for a beggar.

"If we offer the treasure of Tranicos in the open marketplace,” mused Count Trocero, “King Milo may regard us with disfavor. Hitherto he has entreated us fairly; but when rumors of our hoard of rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and such-like trinkets set in gold do buzz about his ears, he may decree that the treasure shall escheat to the crown of Argos."

Prospero nodded. “Aye, Milo of Argos loves a well-filled treasury as well as any monarch. And if we approach the goldsmiths and moneylenders of Messantia, the secret will be shouted about the town within an hour’s time.”

"To whom, then, shall we sell the jewels?” asked Trocero.

“Ask our commander-in-chief,” Prospero laughed slyly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, General Conan, but did you not once have acquaintance with—ah—”

Conan shrugged. “You mean, was I not once a bloody pirate with a fence in every port? Aye, so I was; and that I might have once again become, had you not arrived in time to plant my feet on the road to respectability.” He spoke Aquilonian fluently but with a barbarous accent.

After a moment’s pause, Conan continued: "My plan is this. Publius shall go to the treasurer of Argos and recover the deposit advanced upon the usage of this galley, minus the proper fee. Meanwhile, I’ll take our treasure to a discreet dealer whom I knew in former days. Old Varro always gave me a fair price for plunder.”

“Men say,” quoth Prospero, “that the gems of Tranicos have greater worth than all the other jewels in all the world. Men such as he of whom you speak would give us but a fraction of their value.”

"Prepare for disappointment," said Publius. "The value of such baubles ever gains in the telling but shrinks in the selling.”

Conan grinned wolfishly. “I’ll get what I can, fear not. Remember I have often dealt beneath the counter. Besides, even a fraction of the treasure is enough to set swinging all the swords in Aquilonia" Conan looked back at the quarterdeck, where stood-the captain and the steersman.

"Ho there, Captain Zeno!” he roared in Argossean, "tell your rowers that if they put us ashore ere the taverns shutter for the night, it’s a silver penny apiece for them, above their promised wage! I see the lights of the pilot boat ahead.”

Conan turned back to his companions and lowered his voice. “Now, friends, we must guard our tongues as concerns our riches. A stray word, overheard, might cost us the wherewithal to buy the men we need. Forget it not!”

The harbor boat, a gig rowed by six burly Argosseans, approached the galley. In the bow a cloak-wrapped figure wagged a lantern to and fro, and the captain waved an answer to the signal. As Conan moved to go below and gather his possessions, Belesa laid a slender hand upon his arm. Her gentle eyes sought his face, and there was anguish in her voice.

“Do you still intend to send us to Zingara?” she asked.

“It is best to part thus. Lady. Wars and rebellions are no places for gentlewomen. From the gems I gave you, you should realize enough to live on, with enough to spare for your dowry. If you wish, I’ll see to converting them to coin. Now I have matters to attend to in my cabin.”

Wordlessly, Belesa handed Conan a small bag of soft leather, containing the rubies that Conan had taken from a chest in the cave of Tranicos. As he strode aft along the catwalk to his cabin in the poop, Belesa watched him go. All that was woman within her responded to the virility that emanated from him, like heat from a roaring blaze. Could she have had her unspoken wish, there would have been no need for a dowry. But, ever since Conan had rescued her and the girl Tina from the Picts, he had been to them no more than a friend and protector.

Conan, she realized with a twinge of regret, was wiser than she in such matters. He knew that a delicate, high-born lady, imbued with Zingaran ideals of womanly modesty and purity, could never adapt herself to the wild, rough life of an adventurer. Moreover, if he were slain or if he tired of her, she would become an outcast, for the princely houses of Zingara would never admit a barbarian mercenary’s drab into their marble halls.

With a small sigh, she touched the girl who nestled beside her. "Time to go below, Tina, and gather our belongings."

Amid shouts and hails, the slender galley inched up to the quay. Publius paid the harbor tax and rewarded the pilot. He settled his debt to Captain Zeno and his crew and, reminding him of the secrecy of the mission, bade the Argossean skipper a ceremonious farewell.

As the captain barked his orders, the sail was lowered to the deck and stowed beneath the catwalk; the oars were shipped amid oaths and clatter and placed under the benches. The crew—officers, sailors and rowers—streamed merrily ashore, where bright lights blazed in inns and taverns; and painted slatterns, beckoning from second-story windows, exchanged raillery and cheerful obscenities with the expectant mariners.

Men loitered about the waterfront street. Some lurched drunkenly along the roadway, while others snored in doorways or relieved themselves in the dark, mouths of alleys.

One among the loiterers was neither so drunk nor so bleary-eyed as he appeared. A lean, hatchet-faced Zingaran he was, who called himself Quesado. Limp blue-black ringlets framed his narrow face, and his heavy-lidded eyes gave him a deceptive look of sleepy indolence. In shabby garments of sober black, he lounged in a doorway as if time itself stood still; and when accosted by a pair of drunken mariners, he retorted with a well-worn jest that sent them chuckling on their way.

Quesado closely observed the galley as it tied up to the quay. He noted that, after the crew had roistered off, a small group of armed men accompanied by two women disembarked and paused as they reached the pier, until several loungers hurried up to proffer their services. Soon the curious party disappeared, followed by a line of porters with chests and sea bags slung across their shoulders or balanced on their heads.

When darkness had swallowed up the final porter, Quesado sauntered over to a wineshop, where several crewmen from the ship had gathered. He found a cozy place beside the fire, ordered wine, and eyed the seamen. Eventually he chose a muscular, sunburned Argossean rower, already in his cups, and struck up a conversation. He bought the youth a jack of ale and told a bawdy jest.

The rower laughed uproariously, and when he had ceased chuckling, the Zingaran said indifferently: “Aren’t you from that big galley moored at the third pier?"

The Argossean nodded, gulping down his ale.

“Merchant galley, isn’t she?”

The rower jerked back his tousled head and stared contemptuously. “Trust a damned foreigner not to know one ship from another!” he snorted. ”She’s a ship-o'-war, you spindle-shanked fool! That’s the Arianus, pride of King Milo’s navy.”

Quesado clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, gods, how stupid of me! She’s been abroad so long I scarce recognized her. But when she put in, was she not flying some device with lions on it?”

“Those be the crimson leopards of Poitain, my friend,” the oarsman said importantly. “And the Count of Poitain, no less, hired the ship and himself commanded her.”

“I can scarcely credit it!" exclaimed Quesado, acting much amazed. “Some weighty diplomatic mission, that royal warrant… "

The drunken rower, puffed up by the wind of his hearer’s rapt attention, rushed on: “We’ve been on the damndest voyage—a thousand leagues or more—and it’s a wonder we didn’t get our throats cut by the savage Picts—”

He broke off as a hard-faced officer from the Arianus clapped a heavy hand upon his shoulder.

"Hold your tongue, you babbling idiot!" snapped the mate, glancing suspiciously at the Zingaran. “The captain warned us to keep close-mouthed, especially with strangers. Now shut your gob!”

“Aye, aye," mumbled the rower. Avoiding Quesado’s eye, he buried his face in his jack of ale.

“It’s naught to me, mates," yawned Quesado with a careless shrug. “Little has happened in Messantia of late, so I but thought to nibble on some gossip.” He rose lazily to his feet, paid up, and sauntered out the door.

Outside, Quesado lost his air of sleepy idleness. He strode briskly along the pierside street until he reached a seedy roominghouse wherein he rented a chamber that overlooked the harbor. Moving like a thief in the night, he climbed the narrow stairs to his second-story room.

Swiftly he bolted the door behind him, drew tattered curtains across the dormer windows, and ht a candle stub from the glowing coals in a small iron brazier. Then he hunched over a rickety table, forming tiny letters with a fine-pointed quill on a slender strip of papyrus.

His message written, the Zingaran rolled up the bit of flattened reed and cleverly inserted it into a brazen cylinder no larger than a fingernail. Then he scrambled to his feet, thrust open a cage that leaned against the seaward wall, and brought out a fat, sleepy pigeon. To one of its feet he secured the tiny cylinder; and gliding to the window, he drew aside the drape, opened the pane, and tossed the bird out into the night. As it circled the harbor and vanished, Quesado smiled, knowing that his carrier pigeon would find a safe roost and set out on its long journey northward with the coming of the dawn.

In Tarantia, nine days later, Vibius Latro, chancellor to King Numedides and chief of his intelligence service, received the brass tube from the royal pigeon-keeper. He unrolled the fragile papyrus with careful fingers and held it in the narrow band of sunlight that slanted through his office window. He read:

The Count of Poitain, with a small entourage, has arrived from a distant port on a secret mission.

Q.

There is a destiny that hovers over kings, and signs and omens presage the fall of ancient dynasties and the doom of mighty realms. It did not require the sorceries of such as Thulandra Thuu to sense that the house of Numedides stood in grave peril. The signs of its impending fall were everywhere.

Messages came out of Messantia, traveling northward by dusty roads and by the unseen pathways of the air. To Poitain and the other feudal demesnes along the troubled and strife-torn borders of Aquilonia, these missives found their way; some even penetrated the palisaded camps and fortresses of the loyal Aquilonian army. For stationed there were swordsmen and pikemen, horsemen and archers who had served with Conan when he was an officer of King Numedides—men who had fought at Conan’s side in the great battle of Velitrium, and even before that, at Massacre Meadow, when Conan first broke the hosts of savage Picts—men of his old regiment, the Lions, who well remembered him. And like the beasts whose name they bore, they remained loyal to the leader of the pride. Others who barkened to the call were wearied of service to a royal maniac who shrugged aside the business of his kingdom to indulge his unnatural lusts and to pursue mad dreams of eternal life.

In the months after Conan’s arrival in Messantia, many Aquilonian veterans of the Pictish wars resigned or deserted from their units and drifted south to Argos. With them down the long and lonesome roads tramped Poitanians and Bossonians, Gundermen from the North, yeomen of the Tauran, petty nobles from Tarantia, impoverished knights from distant provinces, and many a penniless adventurer.

“Whence come they all?" marveled Pubhus as he stood with Conan near the large tent of the commander-in-chief, watching a band of ragtail knights ride into the rebel camp. Their horses were lean, their trappings ragged, their armor rusty, and they were caked with dust and dried mud. Some bore bandaged wounds.

“Your mad king has made many enemies,” grumbled Conan. “I get reports of knights whose lands he has seized, nobles whose wives or daughters he has outraged, sons of merchants whom he has stripped of their pelf—even common workmen and peasants, stout-hearted enough to take up arms against the royal madman. Those knights yonder are outlaws, driven into exile for speaking out against the tyrant."

"Tyranny oft breeds its own downfall,” said Publius. “How many have we now?”

“Over ten thousand, by yesterday’s reckoning.”

Publius whistled. “So many? We had better limit our recruits ere they devour all the coin in our treasury. Vast as is the sum that you obtained for the jewels of Tranicos, ‘t will melt like snow in the springtime if we enlist more men than we can afford to pay.”

Conan clapped the stout civilian on the back. “It’s your task as treasurer, good Publius, to make our purse outlast this feast of vultures. Only today I importuned King Milo for more camp space. Instead, he drenched me with a cataract of complaints. Our men crowd Messantia; they overtax the facilities of the city; they drive up prices; some commit crimes against the citizens. He wants us hence, either to a new camp or on our way to Aquilonia.”

Publius frowned. “Whilst our troops train, we must remain close to the city and the sea, for access to supplies. Ten thousand men grow exceeding hungry when drilled as you drill them. And ten thousand bellies require much food, or their owners grow surly and desert.”

Conan shrugged. “No help for it. Trocero and I ride forth on the morrow to scout for a new site. The next full moon should see us on the road to Aquilonia.”

“Who is that?”’ murmured Publius, indicating a soldier who, released from the morning’s drill, was sauntering by, close to the general’s tent. The man, clad in shabby black, had swilled a tankardful that afternoon; for his lean legs wobbled beneath him, and once he tripped over a stone that lay athwart his path. Sighting Conan and Publius, he swept off his battered cap, bowed so low that he quite unbalanced himself, recovered, and proceeded on his way.

Conan said; “A Zingaran who turned up at the recruiting tent a few days past. He seemed a mousey little fellow—no warrior—but he has proved a fair swordsman, an excellent horseman, and an artist with a throwing knife; so Prospero signed him on with all the rest. He called himself—I think it was Quesado.”

“Your reputation, like a lodestone, draws men from near and far,” said Publius.

“So I had better win this war," rephed Conan. “In the old days, if I lost a battle, I could slip away to lands that knew me not and start over again with nobody the wiser. That were not so easy now; too many men have heard of me.”

“‘Tis good news for the rest of us,” grinned Publius, “that fame robs leaders of the chance to flee.”

Conan said nothing. Parading through his memory marched the ardvious years since he had plunged out of the wintry North, a ragged, starveling youth. He had warred and wandered the length and breadth of the Thurian continent. Thief, pirate, bandit, primitive chieftain—all these he had been; and common soldier, too, rising to general and falling again with the ebb of Fortune. From the savage wilderness of Pictland to the steppes of Hyrkania, from the snows of Nordheim to the steaming jungles of Kush, his name and fame were legend. Hence warriors flocked from distant lands to serve beneath his banner.

Conan’s banner now proudly rode the breeze atop the central pole of the general’s tent. Its device, a golden hon rampant on a field of sable silk, was Conan's own design. Son of a Cimmerian blacksmith, Conan was not at all of armigerous blood; but he had gained his greatest recognition as commander of the Lion Regiment in the battle at Velitrium. Its ensign he had adopted as his own, knowing that soldiers need a flag to fight for. It was following this victory that King Numedides, holding the Cimmerian’s fame a threat to his own supremacy, had sought to trap and destroy his popular general, in whom he sensed a potential rival. Conan’s growing reputation for invincibility he envied; his magnetic leadership he feared.

After eluding the snare Numedides had set for him, thus forfeiting his command, the Cimmerian looked back upon his days with the Lions with fond nostalgia. And now the banner under which he had won his mightiest victories flew above his head again, a symbol of his past glories and a rallying point for his cause.

He would need even mightier victories in the months ahead, and the golden lion on a field of black was to him an auspicious omen. For Conan was not without his superstitions. Although he had brawled and swaggered over half the earth, exploring distant lands and the exotic lore of foreign peoples, and had gained wisdom in the ways of kings and priests, wizards and warriors, magnates and beggars, the primitive beliefs of his Cimmerian heritage still smoldered in the depths of his soul.

Meanwhile, the spy Quesado, having passed beyond the purlieu of the commander’s tent, miraculously regained his full sobriety. No longer staggering, he walked briskly along the rutted road toward the North Gate of Messantia.

The spy had prudently retained his waterfront room when he took up soldier’s quarters in the tent city outside the walls. And in that room, pushed under the rough-hewn door, he found a letter. It was unsigned, but Quesado knew the hand of Vibius Latro.

Having fed his pigeons, Quesado sat down to decipher the simple code that masked the meaning of the message. It seemed a jumble of domestic trivia; but, by marking every fourth word, Quesado learned that his master had sent him an accomplice. She was, the letter said, a woman of seductive beauty.

Quesado allowed himself a thin, discreet smile. Then he penned his usual report on a slender strip of papyrus and sent it winging north to far Tarantia.

While the army drilled, sweated, and increased in size, Conan bade farewell to the Lady Belesa and her youthful protegee. He saw their carriage go rattling off along the coastal road to Zingara, with a squad of sturdy guards riding before and behind. Hidden in the baggage, an iron-bound box enclosed sufficient gold to keep Belesa and Tina in comfort for many years, and Conan hoped that he would see no more of them.

Although the burly Cimmerian was sensible of Belesa’s charms, he intended at this point to become entangled with no woman, least of all with a delicate gentlewoman, for whom there was no place in the wardrooms of war. Later, should the rebellion triumph, he might require a royal marriage to seciure his throne. For thrones, however high their cost in common blood, must ofttimes be defended by the mystic power engendered by the blood of kings.

Still, Conan felt the pangs of lust no less than any active, virile man. Long had he been without a woman, and he showed his deprivation by curt words, sullen moods and stormy explosions of temper. At last Prospero, divining the cause of these black moods, ventured to suggest that Conan might do well to set his eyes upon the tavern trulls of Messantia.

“With luck and discernment. General,” he said, "you could find a bedmate to your fancy."

Prospero was unaware that his words buzzed like horseflies in the ears of a lank Zingaran mercenary, who huddled nearby with his back against a tent-stake, head bowed forward on his knees, apparently asleep.

Conan, equally unmindful, shrugged off his friend’s suggestion. But as the days passed, desire battled with his self-control. And with every passing night, his need waxed more compelling.

Day by day, the army grew. Archers from the Bossonian Marches, pikemen from Gunderland, light horse from Poitain, and men of high and low degree from all of Aquilonia streamed in. The drill field resounded to the shouts of commands, the tramp of infantry, the thunder of cavalry, the snap of bowstrings, and the whistle of arrows. Conan, Prospero, and Trocero labored ceaselessly to forge their raw recruits into a well-trained army. But whether this force, cobbled together from far-flung lands and never battle-tested, could withstand the crack troops of the hard-riding, hard-fighting, and victorious Amulius Procas, no man knew.

Meanwhile, Publius organized a rebel spy service. His agents penetrated far into Aquilonia. Some merely sought for news. Some spread reports of the depravity of King Numedides—reports which the rumormongers found needed no exaggeration. Some begged for monetary aid from nobles who, while sympathetic to the rebel cause, had not yet dared declare themselves in favor of rebellion.

Each day, at noon, Conan reviewed his troops. Then, in rotation, he took his midday meal in the mess tent of each company; for a good leader knows many of his men by name and strengthens their loyalty by personal contact. A few days after Prosperous talk about the public women of Messantia, Conan dined with a company of light cavalry. He sat among the common soldiers and traded bawdy jests as he shared their meat, bread, and bitter ale.

At the sound of a sibilant voice, suddenly upraised, Conan turned his head. Nearby, a narrow-faced Zingaran, whom Conan remembered having seen before, was orating with grandiloquent gestures. Conan left a joke caught in an endless pause and listened closely; for the fellow was talking about women, and Conan felt a stirring in his blood.

“There’s a certain dancing girl,” cried the Zingaran, "with hair as black as a raven’s wing and eyes of emerald green. And there is a witchery in her soft red lips and in her limber body, and her breasts are like ripe pomegranates!” Here he cupped the ambient air with mobile hands.

"Every night she dances for thrown coppers at the Inn of the Nine Swords and bares her swaying body to the eyes of men. But she is a rare one, this Alcina— a haughty, fastidious minx who denies to all men her embrace. She has not met the man who could arouse her passion—or so she claims.

“Of course,” added Ouesado, winking lewdly, "there are doubtless lusty warriors in this very tent who could woo and win that haughty lass. Why, our gallant general himself— “

At that instant Quesado caught Conan’s eye upon him. He broke off, bent his head, and said: “A thousand pardons, noble general! Your excellent beer so loosened my poor tongue that I forgot myself. Pray, ignore my indiscretion, I beg you, good my lord—”

“I’ll forget it,” growled Conan and turned back frowning to his food.

But that very evening, he asked his servants for the way to an inn called the Nine Swords. As he swing into the saddle and, with a single mounted groom for escort, pounded off toward the North Gate, Quesado, skulking in the shadows, smiled a small, complacent smile.

When dawn came laughing to the azure sky, a silver-throated trumpet heralded the arrival of an envoy from King Milo. Brave in embroidered tabard, the herald trotted into the rebel camp on a bay mare, brandishing aloft a sealed and beribboned scroll. The messenger sniffed disdainfully at the bustling drill ground, where a motley host was lining up for roll call. When he thundered his demand for escort to General Conan’s tent, one of Trocero’s men led the beast toward the center of the camp.

“This means trouble,” murmured Trocero to the priest Dexitheus as they gazed after the Argossean herald.

The lean, bald Mitran priest fingered his beads. "We should be used to trouble by now, my lord Count,” he replied. “And much more trouble lies ahead, as well you know.”

“You mean Numedides?” asked the count with a wry smile. “My good friend, for that kind of trouble we are ready. I speak of difficulties with the King of Argos. For all that he gave me leave to muster here, I feel that Milo grows uneasy with so many men, pledged to a foreign cause, encamped outside his capital. Me seems His Majesty begins to repent him of his offer of a comfortable venue for our camp.”

“Aye,” added Publius, as the stout paymaster strolled up to join the other two. “I doubt not that the stews and alleys of Messantia already crawl with spies from Tarantia. Numedides will put a subtle pressure on the King of Argos to persuade him to turn against us now."

“The king were a fool to do so,” mused Trocero, “with our army close by and lusting for a fight!'

Publius shrugged. "The monarch of Messantia has hitherto been our friend,” he said. “But kings are given to perfidy, and expediency rules the hearts of even the noblest of them. We must needs wait and see. … I wonder what ill news that haughty herald bore?”

Publius and Trocero strolled off to attend their duties, leaving Dexitheus absently fingering his prayer beads. When he had spoken of future troubles, he thought not only of the coming clash but also of another portent.

The night before, his slumbers had been roiled by a disturbing dream. Lord Mitra often granted his loyal suppliants foreknowledge of events through dreams, and Dexitheus wondered if his dream had been a prophecy.

In this dream, General Conan confronted the enemy on a battlefield, harking on his soldiers with brandished sword; but behind the giant Cimmerian lurked a shadowy form, slender and furtive. Naught could the sleeper discern of this stealthy presence save that in its hood-shadowed visage burned catlike eyes of emerald green, and that it ever stood at Conan s unprotected back.

Although the risen sun had warmed the mild spring morning, Dexitheus shivered. He did not like such dreams; they cast pebbles into the deep well of his serenity. Besides, no recruit in the rebel camp had eyes of such a brilliant green, or he would have noticed the oddity.

Along the dusty road back to Messantia cantered the herald, as messengers went forth to summon the leaders of the rebel host to council.

In his tent, the giant Cimmerian barely checked his anger as his squires strapped him into his harness for his morning exercise with arms. When Prospero, Trocero, Dexitheus, Publius, and the others were assembled, he spoke sharply, biting off his words.

“Briefly, friends,” he rumbled, “it is His Majesty’s pleasure that we withdraw north to the grassy plains, at least nine leagues from Messantia. King Milo feels our nearness to his capital endangers both his city and our cause. Some of our troops, quoth he, have been enjoying themselves a bit too rowdily of late, shattering the king’s peace and giving trouble to the civic guard."

"I feared as much," sighed Dexitheus. "Our warriors are much given to the pleasures of the goblet and the couch. Still and all, it asks too much of human nature to expect soldiers—especially a mixed crowd like ours—to behave with the meekness of hooded monks."

“True," said Trocero. “And luckily we are not unprepared to go. When shall we move, General?"

Conan buckled his sword belt with a savage gesture. His blue eyes glared lionlike beneath his square-cut black mane.

“He gives us ten days to be gone," he grunted, “but I am fain to move at once. Messantia has too many eyes and ears to please me, and too many of our soldiery have limber tongues, which a stoup of wine sets wagging. I’ll move, not nine leagues but ninety, from this nest of spies.

"So let’s be off, my lords. Cancel all leaves and drag our men out of the wineshops, by force if need be. This night I shall proceed with a picked troop to study the route and choose a new campsite. Trocero, you shall command until I rejoin the army.”

They saluted and left. All the rest of that day, soldiers were rounded up, provisions readied, and gear piled into wagons. Before the next morning’s sun had touched the gilded pinnacles of Messantia with its lances of light, tents were struck and companies formed for the line of march. While the ghosts of fog still floated on the lowlands, the army got under way—knight and yeoman, archer and pikeman, all well guarded by scouts and flankers before, behind, and on the sides.

Conan and his troop of Poitanian light horse had trotted off to northward, while darkness veiled the land. The barbarian general did not entirely trust King Milo’s friendship. Many considerations mold the acts of kings; and Numedides’ agents might have already persuaded the Argossean monarch to ally himself with the ruler of Aquilonia, rather than espouse the unpredictable fortunes of the rebels. Surely Argos knew that, if the insurrection failed, Aquilonia’s vengeance would be swift and devastating. And, if a king is bent upon destruction, an army is best attacked while on the march, with the men strung out and encumbered by their gear… .

So the Lions moved north. Company by company, the unseasoned army tramped the dusty road, splashed across the fords of shallow rivers, and snaked through the low Didymian Hills. No one ambushed, attacked, or harassed the marching men. Perhaps Conan’s suspicions of King Milo were unjustified; perhaps the army was too strong for the Argosseans to try conclusions with them. Or perhaps the king awaited a more felicitous moment to hurl his strength against the rebels. Whether he were friend or secret foe, Conan rejoiced in his precautions.

When his forces had covered the first day’s march without interference, Conan, cantering back from his chosen campsite, relaxed a little. They were now beyond the reach of the spies that infested the winding alleys of Messantia. His scouts and outriders traveled far and wide; if unfriendly eyes watched the army in the countryside, Conan looked to his scouts to sniff their owners out. None was discovered.

The giant Cimmerian trusted few men and those never lightly. His long years of war and outlawry had reinforced his feline wariness. Still, he knew these men who followed him, and his cause was theirs. Thus it never occurred to him that spies might be already in his camp and ill-wishers at his very back.

Two days later, the rebels forded the river Ajstar in Hypsonia and entered the Plain of Pallos. To the north loomed the Rabirian Mountains, a serrated line of purple peaks marching like giants into the sunset. The army made its camp at the edge of the plain, on a low, rounded hillock that would offer some protection when fortified around the top by ditch and palisade. Here, so long as supplies came regularly from Messantia or from nearby farms, the warriors could perfect their skills before crossing the Alimane into Poitain, the southernmost province of Aquilonia.

During the long day after their arrival, the grumbling soldiers labored with pick, shovel, and mattock to surround the camp with a protective rampart. Meanwhile a troop of light horse cantered back along the road by which they had come, to escort the plodding supply wagons.

But during the second watch of that night, a slender figure glided from the darkness of Conan’s tent into a pool of moonlight. It was robed and muffled in a long, full caftan of amber wool, which blended into the raw earth beneath its feet. This figure came upon another, shrouded in the shadow of a nearby tent.

The two exchanged a muttered word of recognition. Then slim, beringed fingers pressed a scrap of parchment into the other’s labor-grimed hands.

“On this map I have marked the passes that the rebels will take into Aquilonia,” said the girl in the silken, sibilant whisper of a purring cat. “Also the disposition of the regiments.”

"I'll send the word,” murmured the other. "Our master will see that it gets to Procas. You have done well, Lady Alcina.”

“There is much more to do, Quesado,” said the girl. “We must not be seen together.”

The Zingaran nodded and vanished into the darkest shadows. The dancer threw back her hood and looked up at the argent moon. Although she had just come from the lusty arms of Conan the Cimmerian, her moonlit features were icily unmoved. Like a mask carved from yellow ivory was that pallid oval face; and in the cool depths of her emerald eyes lurked traces of amusement, malice, and disdain.

That night, as the rebel army slept upon the Plain of Pallos in the embrace of the Rabirian Mountains, one recruit deserted. His absence was not discovered until roll call the next morning; and when it was, Trocero deemed it a matter of small moment. The man, a Zingaran named Quesado, was reputedly a lazy malingerer whose loss would be of little consequence.

Despite his feckless manner, Quesado was in truth anything but lazy. The most diligent of spies, he masked with seeming indolence his busy watching, listening, and compiling of terse but accurate reports. And that night, while the encampment slumbered, he stole a horse from the paddock, eluded the sentinels, and galloped northward hour after weary hour.

Ten days later, splashed with mud, covered with dust, and staggering with exhaustion, Quesado reached the great gates of Tarantia. The sight of the sigil he wore above his heart gained him swift access to Vibius Latro, Numedides’ chancellor.

The master of spies frowned over the map that Alcina had slipped into Quesado’s hand and that the Zingaran now handed to him. Sternly he asked:

“Why did you bring it yourself? You know you are needed with the rebel army.”

The Zingaran shrugged. “It was impossible to send it by carrier pigeon, my lord. When I joined that gaggle of rebels, I had to leave my birds in Messantia, under care of my replacement, Faduis the Kothian."

Vibius Latro stared coldly. "Then, why did you not take the map to Fadius, who could have flown it hither in the accustomed manner? You could have remained in that nest of traitors to follow the winds of change. I counted on your knife at Conan’s back.”

Quesado gestured helplessly. “When the lady Alcina obtained this copy of the map. Master, the army was already three days’ ride beyond Messantia. I could scarce request a six-day leave to go thither and return without arousing suspicion, whilst to go as a deserter would have meant searches and questions by the Argosseans. Nor could I rejoin the army once I had departed without leave. And pigeons do betimes get lost, or are slain by falcons or wildcats or hunters. For a document of such moment, I deemed it better to carry it myself.”

The chancellor grunted, pursing his lips. “Why, then, did you not bear it straightway to General Procas?”