Conan the Liberator

THE BLOODY ARROW

Each dawn the brazen trumpets routed the men from slumber to drill for hours upon the Plain of Pallos and, with the setting sun, dismissed them to their night’s repose; and still the army grew. And with the newcomers came news and gossip from Messantia. The moon had shrunk from a silver coin to a sickle of steel when the captains of the rebellion gathered in Conan’s tent for supper. After washing down their coarse campaign fare with drafts of weak green beer, the leaders of the host consulted.

“Daily,” mused Trocero, “it seems King Milo grows more restive/’

Publius nodded. “Aye, it pleases him not to have within his borders so great an armed force, under another’s leadership. Belike he fears that we shall turn upon him, as easier prey then the Aquilonian tyrant."

Dexitheus, priest of Mitra, smiled. “Kings are a suspicious lot at best, ever fearful for their crowns. King Milo is no different from the rest."

“Think you he’ll seek to attack us in the rear?" growled Conan.

The black-robed priest turned up a narrow hand. "Who can say? Even I, trained by my holy office to read the hearts of men, dare hazard no guess as to the lurk in King Milo’s mind. But I advise that we cross the Alimane, and soon.”

“The army is prepared,” said Prospero. "The men are trained and as ready to fight as ever they will be. It were well they were blooded soon, ere inaction dulls the edge of their fighting spirit.”

Conan nodded somberly. Experience had taught him that an army, over-trained and under-used, is often splintered into quarreling factions by those same forces of pride and militancy that its trainers have so painstakingly instilled. Or it rots, like overripe fruit.

"I agree, Prospero,” said the Cimmerian. “But an equal peril lies in too early a move. Surely Procas in Aquilonia has spies to tell him that we lodge in the mountains of northern Argos. And a general less shrewd than he would guess that we mean to cross the Alimane into Poitain, the most disaffected of all the provinces of Aquilonia. He needs but to mount a heavy guard at every ford and keep his Border Legion mobile, ready to march to any threatened crossing.”

Trocero swept back his graying hair with confident fingers. “All Poitain will rise to march with us; but my partisans keep silent, lest word reach the vigilant Procas in time to act.”

The others exchanged significant glances, wherein hope and skepticism mingled. Days before, messengers had left the rebel camp to enter Poitain in the guise of merchants, tinkers, and pedlars. Their mission was to urge Count Trocero’s Hegemen and supporters to prepare for forays and diversions, to confuse the royalists or to draw them off in futile pursuit of raiding bands. Once these agents had carried out their mission, a “Signal to move would reach the rebel army—a Poitanian arrow dipped in blood. Meanwhile, waiting for the message stretched nerves taut.

Prospero said: “I am less concerned about the rising of Poitain, which is as certain as aught can be world, than I am about the promised deputation from the northern barons. If we be not at Culario by the ninth day of the vernal month, they may withdraw, since planting time will be upon them.”

Conan grunted and drained his goblet. The northern lordlings, in smoldering revolt against Numedides, had vowed to support the rebels but would not evenly commit themselves to a rebellion stigmatized by failure. If the Lion banner were broken at the Alimane, or if the Poitanian revolt failed to take fire, no bond would tie these self-serving nobles to the rebel cause.

The barons’ caution was understandable; but uncertainty drove sharp spurs into the rebel leaders’ souls. If they must linger on the Plain of Pallos until the Poitanians sent their secret signal, would there be time to reach Culario on the appointed day? Despite the headstrong urgings of his barbaric nature, Conan counseled patience until the Poitanian signal came. But his officers remained uncertain or offered divers plans.

So the rebel leaders argued far into the night. Prospero wished to split the army into three contingents and hurl them all at once upon the three best fords: those of Mevano, Nogara, and Tunais.

Conan shook his head. “Procas will expect just that,” he said.

"What then?” Prospero frowned.

Conan spread the map and with a scarred forefinger pointed to the middle ford, Nogara. “We’ll feint here, with two or three companies only. You know tricks to convince the foe that our numbers are vaster than they truly are. We’ll set up empty tents, light extra campfires, and parade companies within view of the foe and then swing them out of sight behind a copse and around the circuit again. We’ll unlimber ballistas on the river bank to harass the crossing guards. Those screeching darts should entice Procas and his army thither in a hurry.

“You, Prospero, shall command the diversion,” Conan added. Learning that he would miss the main battle, the young commander began to object, but Conan silenced him: "Trocero, you and I shall take the remaining troops, half to Mevano and the balance to Tunais, and force the two crossings. With luck, we may catch Procas in a nutcracker."

“Perchance you’re right,” murmured Trocero. 'With oiu' Poitanians in revolt in Procas’s rear …”

“May the gods smile upon your plan, General,” said Publius, mopping his brow. “If not, all is lost!”

“Ah, gloomy one!” said Trocero. "War is a chancy trade, and we have no less to lose than you. Win or lose, we all must stand together.”

“Aye, even at the foot of the gallows,” muttered Publius.

Behind the partition in Conan’s tent, his mistress lay couched on a bed of furs, her slender body gleaming in the feeble light of a single candle, whose wavering flame reflected strangely in her emerald eyes and in the clouded depths of the small obsidian talisman that reposed in the scented valley of her breasts. She smiled a catlike smile.

Before dawn, Trocero was roused from his couch by the urgent hand of a sentry. The count yawned, stretched, blinked, and irritably struck the guard’s hand aside.

“Enough!” he barked. “I am awake, lout, though it scarcely seems light enough for roll call… .”

His face went blank and his voice died as he saw what the guard held out to him. It was a Poitanian arrow, coated from barb to feathers with dried blood.

'How came this here?" he asked. “And when?"

"A short time past, my lord Count, borne by a rider from the north," replied the guard.

"So! Summon my squires! Sound the alarm and bear the arrow forthwith to General Conan!" cried Trocero, heaving himself to his feet.

The guard saluted and left. Soon two squires, knuckling sleep from their eyes, hastened in to attire the count and buckle on his armor.

"Action at last, by Mitra, Ishtar, and Crom of the Cimmerians!" cried Trocero. “You there, minesterl Summon my captains to council! And you, boy, has Black Lady been fed and watered? See to her saddling, and quickly. Draw the girth tight! I've no wish for a cold bath in the waters of the Alimane!”

Before a ruby sun inflamed the forested crests of the Rabirian Mountains, the tents were struck, the sentries recalled, and the wains laden. By the time bright day had chased away the laggard morning mists, the army was on the march in three long columns, heading for Saxula Pass through the mountains and beyond it for Aquilonia and war.

The land grew rugged and the road tortuous. On either side rose barren rondures toothed with stony outcrops. These were the foothills of the Rabirians, which scurried westward following the stately tread of the adjacent mountains.

Hour after hour, warriors and camp servants trudged up the long slopes and down the further sides. The hot sun beat upon them as they manhandled heavy vehicles over steep rises, clustering about the wains like bees around a hive to push, heave, and pull.

On the downward slopes, each teamster belayed one. wheel with a length of chain, so that, unable to rotate, it served to brake the vehicle. Dust devils eddied skyward, besmudging the crystalline mountain air.

As they crested each rise, the main range receded miragelike before them. But, when the purple shadows of late afternoon fingered the eastern slope of every hill, the mountains opened out, like curtains drawn aside. They parted to disclose Saxula Pass, a deep cleft in the central ridge, as if made by a blow from an axe in the hand of an angry god.

As the army struggled upward toward the pass, Conan commanded a contingent of his scouts to clamber up the steep sides of the opening to make sure no ambush awaited his coming. The scouts signaled that all was clear, and the army tramped on through. The footfalls of men, the rattle of equipment, the drum of hooves, and the creak of axles reverberated from the rocky cliffs on either hand.

As the men emerged from the confines of the pass, the road wound downward, losing itself in the thick stands of cedar and pine that masked the northern slopes. In the distance, beyond the intermediate ranges, the men glimpsed the Alimane, coiling through the flatlands like a silvery serpent warmed by the last rays of the setting sun.

Down the winding slope they went, with wheels lashed to hold the wagons back. As the stars throbbed in the darkening sky, they reached a fork in the road beyond the pass. Here the army halted and set up camp. Conan flung his sentinels out wide, to guard against a night attack from the foe across the river. But nothing disturbed the weary troopers’ rest except the snarl of a prowling leopard, which fled at a sentry’s shout.

The following morning, Trocero and his contingent departed along the right branch of the fork, headed for the ford of Tunais. Conan and Prospero, with their forces, continued down the left branch until, shortly before noon, they reached another fork. Here Prospero with his small detachment bore to the right, for the central ford of Nogara. Conan, with the remaining horse and foot, continued westward to seek out the ford of Mevano.

Section by section, squad by squad, Conan's rebels filed down the narrow roads. They camped one more night in the hills and went on. As they descended the final range of foothills, between clumps of conifers they again caught glimpses of the broad Alimane, which separated Argos from Poitain. True, Argos claimed a tract of land on the northern side of the river—a tract extending to the junction of the Alimane with the Khorotas. But under Vilerus III the Aquilonians had overrun the area and, being the stronger, still retained possession.

As Conan’s division reached the flatlands, the Cimmerian ordered his men to speak but little, and only in low voices. As far as possible, they were to quiet the jingle of their gear. The wagons halted under heavy stands of trees, and the men pitched camp out of sight of the ford of Mevano. Scouts sent ahead reported no sign of any foe, but they brought back the unwelcome news that the river was in flood, rampant with the springtime melting of the highland snows.

Well before the dawn of a cloud-darkened day, Conan’s officers routed the men from their tents. Grumbling, the soldiers bolted an uncooked breakfast and fell into formation. Conan stalked about, snarling curses and threatening those who raised their voices or dropped their weapons. To his apprehensive ears, it seemed as if the clatter could be heard for leagues above the purl of the river. A better-trained force, he thought sourly, would move on cat’s paws.

To diminish the noise, commands were passed from captains to men by hand signals instead of by shouts and trumpet calls; and this caused some con' fusion. One company, signaled to march, cut through the ranks of another.

Fisticuffs erupted and noses bled before the officers ended the fracas.

A heavy overcast blanketed road and river as Conan’s troops neared the banks of the Alimane. Mounted on his black stallion Finy, Conan drew rein and peered through the curtaining drizzle toward the further bank. Beyond his horse’s hooves, the high water, brown with sediment, gurgled past.

Conan signaled to his aide Alaricus, a promising young Aquilonian captain. Alaricus maneuvered his horse close to that of his general.

"How deep, think you?" muttered Conan.

"More than knee-deep, General,” replied Alaricus. “Perhaps chest-high. Let me put my mount into it to see.”

"Try not to fall into a mudhole,” cautioned Conan.

The young captain urged his bay gelding into the swirling flood. The animal balked, then waded obediently toward the northern shore. By midstream, the murky water was curling over the toes of Alaricus’s boots; and when he looked back, Conan beckoned him.

"We shall have to chance it," growled the Cimmerian when the aide had rejoined him. “Pass the word for Dio’s light horse to make the first crossing and scout the farther woods. Then the foot shall go single file, each man grasping the belt of the man before him. Some of these clodhoppers would drown if they lost their footing whilst weighted with their gear.”

As sunless day paled the somber sky, the company of light horse splashed into the stream. Reaching the further bank. Captain Dio waved to indicate that the woods harbored no foe.

Conan had watched intently as the troopers’ horses sank into the swirling flume, noting the depth of the water. When it was plain that the river bed shoaled beyond midstream and that the other bank was clear, he signaled the first company of foot to cross. Soon two companies of pikemen and one of archers breasted the flood. Each soldier gripped the man in front, while the archers held aloft their bows to keep them dry.

Conan brought his stallion close to Alaricus, saying: "Tell the heavy horse to ford the stream, and then start the baggage train across, with Cerco’s company of foot to haul them out of mudholes. I’m going out to midstream.”

Fury stumbled into the river, gaskin-deep in the rushing brown water. When the charger flinched and whinnied, as if sensing unseen danger, Conan tightened his grip on the reins and forced the beast through the deepest part of the central channel.

His keen eyes searched the jade-green foliage along the northern shore, where a riot of flowering shrubs, their colors muted by the overcast, surrounded the boles of ancient trees. The road became a dark tunnel amid the new-leaved oaks, which seemed to bear the weight of the leaden sky. Here was ample room for concealment, thought Conan somberly. The light cavalry still waited, bunched into the small clearing where the road dipped into the river, although they should have searched far into the surrounding woods before the first foot soldiers reached the northern bank. Conan gestured angrily.

"Dio!” he roared from the midstream shallows. If any foe was present, he would long since-have observed the crossing, so Conan saw no point in keeping silence. "Spread out and beat the bushes! Move, damn your soul!"

The three companies of infantry scrambled out on the northern bank, muddy and dripping, while Dio’s horsemen broke into squads and pushed into the thickets on either side of the road. An army is at its most vulnerable when fording a stream, this Conan knew; and foreboding swelled in his barbaric heart.

He wheeled his beast about to survey the southern shore. The heavy cavalry was already knee-deep in the stream, and the leading wains of the baggage train were struggling through the flood. A couple had bogged down in the mud of the river bottom; soldiers, heaving on the wheels, manhandled them along.

A sudden cry ripped the heavy air. As Conan swung around, he caught a flicker of movement in the bushes at the junction of road and river. With a short bark of warning, Conan reined his steed, and an arrow meant for him flashed past his breast and, swift as a striking viper, buried itself in the neck of the young officer behind him. As the dying man slumped into the roiling water, Conan spurred his horse forward, bellowing orders. He must, he thought, command the troops in contact with the foe, whether they faced a paltry crossing guard or the full might of Procas’s army.

Suddenly Fury reared and staggered beneath the impact of another arrow. With a shriek, the animal fell to its knees, hurling Conan from the saddle. The Cimmerian gulped a swirl of muddy water and struggled to his feet, coughing curses. Another arrow struck his cuirass, glanced off, and tumbled into the torrent. All about him, the stagnant calm of the leaden day hung in tatters. Men howled war cries, screamed in fear and pain, and cursed the very gods above.

Blinking water from his stinging eyes, Conan perceived a triple line of archers and crossbowmen in the blue surcoats of the Border Legion. As one man, they had leaped from the lush foliage to rake the floundering riverbound rebels with a hail of arrows.

The screeching whistle of arrows mingled with the deeper thrum of crossbow bolts. Although the arbalesters could not shoot their ciunbersome weapons so fast as the longbowmen, their crossbows had the greater range, and their iron bolts could pierce the stoutest armor. Man after man fell, screaming or silent, as the muddy waters closed over their heads and rolled their bodies along the scoured shoals.

Wading shoreward, Conan searched out a trumpeter to call his milling men into battle formations. In the shallows he found one, a tow-headed Gunderman, staring dumbly at the carnage. Growling curses, Conan splashed toward the awestruck lout; but as he sought to seize the fellow’s jerkin, the Gunderman doubled up and pitched headfirst into the water, a bolt buried in his vitals. The trumpet fell from his flaccid grip and was tumbled out of reach by the current.

As Conan paused to catch his breath, glaring about like a cornered lion, an augmented clatter from the clearing riveted his attention. Aquilonian cavalry— armored lancers and swordsmen on sturdy mounts— thundered out of the woods and swept down upon the milling mass of rebel light horse and infantry. The smaller horses of the rebel scouts were brushed aside; the men on foot were ridden down and trampled. In a trice the north bank was cleared of rebels. Then, with clocklike precision, Procas’s armored squadrons opened out into a troop-wide rank of horsemen, which plunged into the water to assail those rebels who struggled in the deeps.

“To me!” roared Conan, brandishing his sword. “Form squares!”

But now the survivors of the debacle, who had been swept back into the river by the Aquilonian cavalry, thrashed through the water in panic flight, pushing aside or knocking over comrades who floundered northward. Through the turbulent current pounded Procas’s horse amid foimtains of spray. Behind the second line, a third line opened out, and then another and another. And from the flanks, Procas’s archers continued their barrage of missiles, to which the rebel archers, with unstrung bows, could not reply.

"General!" cried Alaricus. Conan looked around to see the young captain breasting the water toward him. “Save yourself! They’re broken here, but you can rally the men for a stand on the southern bank. Take my horse!”

Conan spat a curse at the fast-approaching line of armored horsemen. For an instant he hesitated, the thought of rushing among them single-handed, hewing right and left, flickering in his mind. But the idea was banished as soon as it appeared. In an earlier day, Conan might have essayed such a mad attack. Now he was a general, responsible for the lives of other men, and experience had tempered his youthful recklessness with caution. As Alaricus started to dismount, Conan seized the aide’s stirrup with his left hand, growling:

“Stay up there, lad! Go on, head for the south bank, Crom blast it!”

Alaricus spurred his horse, which struggled toward the Argossean shore. Conan, gripping the stirrup, accompanied him with long, half-leaping strides, amid the retreating mass of rebels, horsed and afoot, all plunging southward in confused and abject flight

Behind them rode the Aquilonians, spearing and swording the laggards as they fought the flood. Already the muddy waters of the Alimane ran red below the ford of Mevano. Only the fact that the pursuers, too, were hampered by the swirling stream saved Conan’s advance units from utter annihilation.

At length the fugitives reached a company of heavy cavalry that had broached the river behind the rebel infantry. The fleeing men pushed between the oncoming horses, yammering their terror. Thus beset, the frightened beasts reared and plunged until their riders, also, joined the retreat Behind them, mired in the river bottom, teamsters strove to turn their cumbersome supply wagons around or, in despair, abandoned them to leap into the water and splash back toward the southern shore. Coming upon the abandoned vehicles, the Aquilonians butchered the bellowing oxen and pressed on. Sodden corpses, rolled along by the current, wedged together into grisly human log jams. Wagons were overturned; their loads of tent canvas and poles, bundles of spears, and sheaves of arrows floated downstream on the relentless flood

Conan, shouting himself hoarse, struggled out on the south bank, where the remaining companies had awaited their turn to cross. He tried to rally them into defensive formations, but everywhere the rebel host was crumbling into formless clots of fleeing men. Throwing away pikes, shields, and helmets, they sought safety, running in all directions out of the shallows and across the flats that bordered the river. All discipline, so painfully inculcated during the preceding months, was lost in the terror of the moment

A few knots of men stood firm as the Aquilonian cavalry reached them and fought with stubborn ferocity, but they were ridden down and slain or scattered.

Conan found Publius in the crush and seized him by the shoulder, shouting in his ear. Unable to hear his commander above the uproar, the treasurer shrugged helplessly, pointing. At his feet lay the body of Conan’s aide, which Publius was shielding from the rough boots of the fleeing soldiery. Alaricus’ horse had disappeared.

With an angry bellow, Conan dispersed the crowd around him by striking about with the flat of his blade. Then he hoisted Alaricus to his shoulder and headed southward at a jog trot The stout Publius ran puffing beside him. Not far behind, the Aquilonian cavalry clambered out of the river to pursue the retreating rebels. They enveloped the line of wains drawn up along the shore, awaiting their turn to breast the flood.

Further inland, some of the teamsters managed to turn their clumsy carts and lashed their oxen into a shambling run back toward the safety of the hills.

The road south was black with fleeing men, while hundreds of others darted oflF across the meadows to lose themselves in the sheltering woods.

Since the day was young and the Aquilonian forces fresh, Conan's division faced annihilation at the hands of their well-mounted pursuers. But here occurred a check—not a great one, but enough to give the fugitives some small advantage. The Aquilonians who had surrounded the supply wagons, instead of pushing on, pulled up to loot the vehicles, despite the shouted commands of their officers. Hearing them, Conan panted:

"Publius! Where’s the pay chest?"

"I—know—not," gasped the treasurer. " 'Twas in one of the last wains, so perchance it escaped the wreck. I—can—run—no further. Go on, Conan.”

'Don t be a fool!” snarled Conan. “I need a man who can reckon sums, and my young mealsack here regains his wits.”

As Conan set down his burden, Alaricus evened his eyes and groaned. Conan, hastily examining him for wounds, found none. The captain, it transpired, had been stunned by a crossbow bolt, which merely grazed his head and dented his helmet. Conan hauled him to his feet.

"I've carried you, my lad,” said the Cimmerian. "Now ‘tis your turn to help me carry our fat friend.”

Soon the three set out again for the safety of the hills, Publius staggering between the other two with an arm about the neck of each. Rain began to fall, gently at first and then to torrents.

The winds of misfortune blew cold on Conan s head that night as he sat in a hollow of the Rabirian Mountains. The day was plainly lost, his men dispersed —those who had survived the battle and the bloody vengeance meted out by the royalist general and his searching parties. In a few hours, it seemed, their very cause had foundered, sunk in the muddy, bloodstained waters of the river Alimane.

Here in a rocky hollow, hidden amid oak and pine, Conan, Publius, and five score other rebels waited out the dark and hopeless night. The refugees were a mixed lot: renegade Aquilonian knights, staunch yeomen, armed outlaws, and soldiers of fortune. Some were hurt, though few mortally, and many hearts pounded drumbeats of despair.

The legions of Amulius Procas, Conan knew, were sniffing through the hills, bent on slaughtering every survivor. The victorious Aquilonian evidently meant to smash the rebellion for all time by dealing speedy death to every rebel he could catch. Conan grudgingly gave the veteran commander credit for his plan. Had Conan been in Amulius Procas’s place, he would have followed much the same course.

Simk in silent gloom, Conan fretted over the fate of Prospero and Trocero. Prospero was to have feinted at the ford of Nogara, drawing thither the bulk of Procas's troops, so that Conan and Trocero should have only minor contingents of crossing guards to contend with. Instead, Procas’s massed warriors had erupted out of concealment when Conan’s van, waist-deep in the Alimane, was at a hopeless disadvantage. Conan wondered how Procas had so cleverly divined the rebels’ plans.

Gathered around their fugitive leader, in the lonely dark, huddled men who had been soaked by rain and river. They dared not light a fire lest it become a beacon guiding forces for their destruction. The coughs and sneezes of the fugitives tolled the knell of their hopes. When someone cursed the weather, Conan growled: "Thank your gods for that rain! Had the day been fair, Procas would have butchered the lot of us. No fire!" he barked at a soldier who tried to strike a light with flint and steel. "Would you draw Procas’s hounds upon us? How many are we? Sound off, but softly. Count them, Publius."

Men responded "I here!” "Here!” while Publius kept track with his fingers. When the last "Here!" had been heard, he said:

"One hundred thirteen. General, not counting ourselves.”

Conan grunted. Brightly though the lust for revenge burned in his barbarian heart, it seemed impossible that such a paltry number could form the nucleus of another army. While he put up a bold front before his rebel remnant, the vulture of despondency clawed at his weary flesh.

He set out sentries, and during the night exhausted men, guided by these sentinels, stumbled into the hollow in ones and twos and threes. Toward midnight came Dexitheus, the priest of Mitra, limping along on an improvised crutch, leaning heavily on the arm of the sentry who guided him and wincing with the pain of a wrenched ankle.

Now there were nearly twice a hundred fugitives, some gravely wounded, gathered in the hollow. The Mitraist priest, despite the pain of his own injury, set to work to tend the wounded, drawing arrows from limbs and bandaging wounds for hours, until Conan brusquely commanded him to rest.

The camp was rude, its comforts primitive; and, Conan knew, the rebels had little chance of seeing another nightfall. But at least they were alive, most still bore arms, and many could put up a savage fight if Procas should discover their hiding place. And so, at last, Conan slept.

Dawn mounted a sky where clouds were breaking up and dwindling, leaving a clear blue vault. Conan was awakened by the subdued chatter of many armed men. The newcomers were Prospero and his diversionary detachment, five hundred strong.

"Prospero!” cried Conan, struggling to his feet to clasp his friend in a mighty embrace. Then he led the officer aside and spoke in a low voice, lest ill tidings should further depress the spirits of the men. "Thank Mitra! How went your day? How did you find us? What of Trocero?”

“One at a time, General,” said Prospero, catching his breath. “We found naught but a few crossing guards at Nogara, and they fled before us. For a whole day, we marched in circles, blew trumpets, and beat drums, but no royaUsts could we draw to the ford. Thinking this strange, I sent a galloper downstream to Tunais. He reported a hard fight there, with Trocero’s division in retreat. Then a fugitive from your command fell in with us and spoke of your disaster. So, not wishing my small force to be caught between the millstones of two enemy divisions, I fell back into the uplands. There, other runagates told us of the direction they had seen you take. Now what of you?”

Conan clenched his teeth to stifle his self-reproach. "I played the fool this time, Prospero, and led us into Procas’s jaws. I should have waited until Dio had probed the forest ere starting my lads across. It’s well that Dio fell at the first onslaught—had he not, I’d have made him wish he had. He and his men milled around like sheep for a snailish time ere pushing out to beat the undergrowth. But still, I was at fault to let impatience sway me. Procas had watchers in the trees, to signal the attack. Now all is lost.”

"Not so, Conan,” said Prospero. "As you are wont to say, naught is hopeless until the last man chews the dust or knuckles under; and in every war the gods throw boons and banes to either side. Let us fall back to the Plain of Pallos and our base camp. We may join Trocero along the way. We are now several hundred strong, and we shall count to thousands when we sweep up the other stragglers. A hundred gullies in these hills must shelter groups like ours.”

"Procas far outnumbers us." said Conan somberly, “and his well-formed forces carry high spirits from their victories. What can a few thousand, downcast by defeat, achieve against them? Besides, he will have seized the passes through the Rabirians, or at least the main pass at Saxula.”

”Doubtless," said Prospero, "But Procas’s troops are scattered wide, searching for fugitives. Our hungry pride of lions could one by one devour his packs of bloodhounds. In sooth, we came upon one such on our way hither—a squad of light horse—and slew the lot. Come, General! You of all men are the indomitable one—the man who never quits. You've built a band of brigands into an army and shaken thrones ere now; you can do the same again. So be of good cheer!"

Conan took a deep breath and squared his massive shoulders. "You're right, by Crom! I'll mewl no longer like a starving beldame. We’ve lost one engagement, but our cause remains whilst there be two of us to stand back to back and fight for it And we have this, at least."

He reached into the shadows and drew from a crevice in the rocks the Lion banner, the symbol of the rebellion. His standard bearer, though mortally wounded, had borne it to the hollow in the hills. After the man had succumbed, Conan had rolled up the banner and thrust it out of sight. Now he unfurled it in the pale light of dawn.

"It’s little enough to salvage from the rout of an army,” he rumbled, "But thrones have been won with less." And Conan smiled a grim, determined smile.