Conan the Liberator

THE PURPLE LOTUS

The smiling day revealed that Fate had not entirely forsaken the army of the rebellion. For the night had been heavily overcast, and in the gloom the weary warriors of Amulius Procas had failed to root out many scattered pockets of survivors, like that which Conan had gathered around him. Thus, as the morning sun rolled back its blanket of clouds, bands of heartsore rebels, who had either eluded the search parties or routed those they encountered, began to filter back across the Rabirian range.

Night was nigh when Conan and his remnant approached the pass of Saxula. Conan dispatched men ahead to scout, since he was convinced he would have to fight his way through. He snorted with surprise when the scouts reported back that there was no evidence of the Border Legion anywhere near the pass. There were signs—the ashes of campfires and other debris—that a force of Procas’s men had camped in the pass, but they were nowhere to be seen.

”CromI What means this?" Conan mused, staring up at the great notch in the ridge. "Unless Procas has sent his men on, deeper into Argos!"

“I think not,” said Publius. "That would mean open war with Milo. More likely, he ordered his men back across the Alimane before the court at Messantia could hear of his incursion. Then, if King Milo protests, Procas can aver that not one Aquilonian soldier remains on Argossean soil.”

"Let’s hope you are right!" said Conan. “Forward, men!"

By the next midday, Conan’s band had gathered up several full companies that had fled unscathed from the ambush at Mevano. But the rebels’ greatest prize was Count Trocero himself, camped on a hilltop with two hundred horse and foot Having built a rude palisade, the Count of Poitaia was prepared to hold his little fort against Procas and all his iron legions. Trocero emotionally embraced Conan and Prospero.

"Thank Mitra you live!” he cried. "I heard that you had fallen to an arrow and that your division fled southward like wintering wildfowl.”

"You hear many things about a battle, perhaps one tenth of them true,” said Conan. He told the tale of the ambush at Mevano and asked: 'How fared you at Tunais?”

“Procas smashed us as badly as he shattered you. I believe that he himself commanded. He laid his ambush on the south bank of the river and assailed us from both sides as we prepared to cross. I had not thought that he would dare so grossly to violate Argossean territory.”

“Amulius Procas is nobody’s fool,” said Conan, "nor does he scruple to snatch at a long chance when he must. But how came you hither? Through Saxula Pass?"

“Nay. When we approached it, a strong force of Procas’s men were there encamped. Luckily, one of my horsemen, a smuggler by trade, knew a narrow, little-used opening through which he led us. It was a dizzy climb, but we got through with the loss of but two beasts. Now, say you that Saxula Pass is open?”

"It was last night, at least,” said Conan. He looked around. ”Let’s go on, posthaste, back to our base camp oh the Plain of Pallos. My men together with yours make above a thousand fighters."

"A thousand scarce an army makes" grumbled Publius. " 'Tis but a remnant of the ten thousand who marched northward with us.”

“It’s a beginning,” said Conan, whose gloom of the night before had vanished with the light of day. “I can recall when our whole enterprise numbered only five stout hearts.”

As the renmant of the rebels marched, more bands that had escaped the slaughter joined the host, and individual survivors and small groups came straggling in. Conan kept glancing back with apprehension, expecting at any moment to see Procas’s whole Border Legion pour down the Rabirian Hills in hot pursuit. But Publius thought differently.

"Look you. General,” he said. "King Milo has not yet betrayed us or turned against us, or surely he would have come pounding at our rear whilst Procas engaged us in the van. Methinks not even the mad King of Aquilonia dare risk a full and open war with the sovereign state of Argos; the Argosseans are a hardy lot. Amulius Procas knows his politics; he would not have so long survived in Niunedides' service had he rashly affronted neighboring kingdoms. Once we regain our base camp and shore up our barricades, we should be safe for the moment The reserve supplies and the camp followers await us.”

Conan scowled. "Until Numedides bribes or bullies Milo into turning his hand against us.”

In a sense, Conan was right. For even at that hour, the agents of Aquilonia were closeted with King Milo and his councilmen. Chief among these agents was Quesado the Zingaran, who had reached Messantia with his party by a long, hard ride from Teurantia, swinging wide of the embattled armies.

Quesado, now resplendent in black velvet with boots of fine red Kordavan leather, had changed; and the change was not to his employer’s advantage. Hearing of the spy’s exploits in the service of Vibius Latro, a delighted King Numedides had insisted on promoting Quesado to the diplomatic corps. This proved a mistake.

The Zingaran had been an excellent spy, long trained to affect an miassuming, inconspicuous air. Now suddenly raised in pay and prestige, he let his facade of humility crumble, and the pompous pride and hauteur of a would-be Zingaran gentleman began to show through the gaps. Looking down his beak of a nose, he endeavored by thinly veiled threats to persuade King Milo and his councillors that it were wiser to court the favor of the King of Aquilonia than to support his raggle-taggle foes.

“My lord King and gentlemen,” said Quesado in a sharp, schoolmasterish voice, "surely you know that, if you choose to be no friend of my master, you must be counted amongst his enemies. And the longer you permit your realm to shelter our rebellious foes, the more you will be tainted with the poison of treason against my sovereign lord, the mighty King of Aquilonia."

King Milo’s broad face flushed with anger, and he sat up sharply. A heavy-set man of middle years, whose luxuriant gray beard overspread his chest, Milo gave the impression of stolid taciturnity, more like some honest peasant than the ruler of a rich and sophisticated realm. Slow to make up his mind, he could be exceedingly stubborn once he had reached his decision. Glaring at Quesado, he snapped:

“Argos is a free and sovereign state, sirrah! We have never been and, Mitra willing, never shall be subject to the King of Aquilonia. Treason means a misdeed of a subject against his overlord. Do you claim that fat Numedides is overlord of Argos?”

Quesado began to perspire; his bony forehead gleamed damply in the soft light that streamed in ribbons of azure, vert, and scarlet through the stained-glass windows of the council chamber.

“Such was not my intention. Your Majesty," he hastily apologized. More humbly, he pleaded: “But with all respect, sire, I must point out that my master can hardly overlook assistance given by a neighboring brother monarch to rebels against his divinely established Ruby Throne.”

"We have given them no help,” said Milo, glowering. "Your spies will have apprized you that their remnants are encamped upon the Plain of Pallos and, lacking supplies from Messantia, are desperately scouring the countryside for food. Their famed Bossonian archers employ their skill in pursuing ducks and deer. You say your General Procas’s victory was decisive? What, then, has mighty Aquilonia to fear from a gaggle of fugitives, reduced by starvation to mere banditry? We are told they have but a tithe of their original strength and that desertions further reduce their numbers day by day.”

"True, my lord King,” said Quesado, who had recovered his poise. "But, by the same token, what has cultured Argos to gain by sheltering such a band? Unable to assail their rightful ruler, they must needs maintain themselves by depredations against your own loyal subjects.”

Scowling, Milo lapsed into silence, for he had no convincing answer to Quesado’s argument. He could hardly say that he had given his word to an old friend. Count Trocero, to let the rebels use his land as a base for operations against a neighboring king. Moreover, he resented the Aquilonian envoy’s efforts to rush him into a decision. He liked to make up his own mind in his own time, without hectoring.

Lumbering to his feet, the king curtly adjourned the session: “We will consider the requests of our brother monarch, Ambassador Quesado. Our gentlemen shall inform you of our decision at our pleasure. You have our leave to withdraw.”

Lips curled in a false smile, Quesado bowed his way out, but venom ate at his heart. Fortune had favored the rebellious Cimmerian this time, he thought, but the next throw of the dice might have a different outcome. For though he knew it not, Conan nursed a viper in his bosom.

The Army of the Lion was in no wise so enfeebled or reduced to famine as Milo and Quesado believed. Now numbering over fifteen hundred, it daily rebuilt its strength and gathered supplies. The lean horses grazed on the long grass of the plain; the women camp followers, who had been left at the base camp when the army marched northward, nursed the wounded. Much of the baggage train had been salvaged, and ragged survivors continued to limp and straggle in, to swell the thin but resolute ranks of the rebellion. The forests whispered to the footfalls of hunters and rang to the axes of woodcutters, while in the camp, fletchers whittled spear and arrow shafts, and the anvils of blacksmiths clanged with the beat of hammers on point and blade.

Most encouraging was the tale that the rear guard, a thousand strong under the Aquilonian Baron Groder, had escaped the debacle at Timais and was wandering in the mountains to the east. To investigate, Conan sent Prospero with a troop of light horse to search for their lost comrades and guide them to the base. Dexitheus prayed to Mitra that this rumor might prove true, for the addition of Groder s force would nearly double their strength. Kingdoms had fallen ere this to fewer than three thousand determined warriors.

A full moon glared down upon the Plain of Pallos like the yellow eye of an angry god. A chill, uneasy wind rustled through the tall meadow grasses and plucked with ghostly fingers at the cloaks of sentries, who stood watch about the rebel camp.

In his candle-lit tent, Conan sat late over a flagon of ale, listening to his officers. Some, still downcast by their recent defeat, were reluctant to contemplate further conflicts at this time. Others, avid for revenge, urged an early assault, even with their present diminished might.

“Look you, General,” said Count Trocero. “Amulius Procas will never expect an attack so soon upon the heels of our disaster, so we shall take him by surprise. Once across the Alimane, we shall be joined by our Poitanian friends, who only await our coming to raise the province."

Conan’s savage soul incited him to heed his friend’s advice. To strike across the border now, at the very ebb of their fortunes, would wrest victory from defeat with a vengeance. He urgently needed a vigorous sally to mend the men’s morale. Already some were drifting away, deserting what they viewed as a hopeless cause. Unless he could shore up the dykes of loyalty with hopes of triumph, the leakage of the disaffected would soon become a flood, leaching his army away to nothing.

Yet the mighty Cimmerian had, dining his years of campaigning, grown wise in the ways of war. Experience cautioned him to rein in his eagerness, rather than commit his remaining strength—at least until Prospero returned with word of Baron Groder and his force. Once Conan knew he could count upon this powerful reinforcement, he could then determine whether the moment for assault was at hand.

Dismissing his commanders, Conan sought the warm arms and soft breasts of Alcina. The golden dancing girl had entranced him with her wily ways of assuaging his passions; but this night she laughingly eluded his embrace, to proffer a goblet of wine.

“Tis time, my lord, that you enjoyed a gentleman’s drink, instead of swilling bitter beer like any peasant,” she said. "I brought a flask of fine wine from Messantia for your especial pleasure."

“Crom and Mitra, girl, I've drunk enough this night! I thirst now for the wine of your lips, not for the pressings of the grape."

"It is but a gentle stimulant, lord, to augment your desires—and my enjoyment of them," she wheedled. Standing in the candle light in a length of sheer saffron silk, which did little to hide the lush lines of her body, she smiled seductively and thrust the goblet toward him, saying: "It contains spices from my homeland to rouse your senses. Will you not drink it, my lord, to please me?"

Looking eagerly upon the moon-pale oval of her face, Conan said: "I need no rousing when I smell the perfume of your hair. But give it to me; I'll drink to this night’s delights.”

He drank the wine in three great gulps, ignoring the faintly acrid taste of the spices, and slammed the goblet down. Then he reached for the delectable girl, whose wide-set eyes were fixed upon him.

But, when he sought to seize her in his arms, the tent reeled crazily about him, and a searing pain bloomed in his vitals. He snatched at the tent pole, missed, and fell heavily.

Alcina leaned over his supine body. In his blurring vision, her features melted into a mist, through which her green eyes burned like incandescent emeralds.

"Crom's blood, wench!" Conan gasped. "You've poisoned me!"

He struggled to rise, but it seemed to the Cimmerian that his body had turned to lead. Although the veins in his temples throbbed, his face purpled with effort, and his thews stood out along his limbs like ship’s cables, he could not regain his feet. He fell back, gulping air. Then his vision dimmed until he seemed to drift from the lamplit interior of the tent into a trancelike waking dream. He could neither speak nor stir.

“Conan!” the girl murmured, bending over him, but he made no reply. In a silken whisper, she said: "So much for you, barbarian pig! And soon your wretched remnant of an army will follow you back to the hells whence you and they once crawled!”

Calmly seating herself, she drew forth the amulet she bore between her breasts. A glance at the time candle on a taboret showed that half an hour must yet elapse before she could commune with her master. In sphhixlike silence she sat, unmoving, until the time approached. Then she focused her mind upon the obsidian fragment.

In far-off Tarantia, Thulandra Thuu, gazing into his magical mirror, gave a dry chuckle as he observed the quiescent form of the giant Cimmerian. Rising, he replaced the mirror in its cabinet, roused his servant, and sent him with a message to the king.

Hsiao found Numedides, unclothed, enjoying a massage by four handsome naked girls. Keeping his modest eyes fixed upon the marble floor, Hsiao bowed low and said:

"My master respectfully informs Your Majesty that the bandit rebel Conan is slain in Argos by my master's otherworldly powers."

With a grunt, Numedides sat up, pushing the girls away. “Eh? Dead, you say?"

"Aye, my lord King."

“Excellent news, excellent news." With a loud guffaw, Numedides slapped his bare thigh. "When I become a—but enough of that. What else?"

“My master asks your permission to send a message to General Amuhus Procas, informing him of this event and authorizing him to cross into Argos, to scatter the rebel remnants ere they can choose another leader.”

Numedides waved the Khitan away. “Begone, yellow dog, and tell your master to do as he thinks best. Now let us continue, girls.”

Thus, later that night, a courier set out along the far-flung road to General Procas’s headquarters on the Argossean frontier. The message, which bore the seal of King Numedides, would in less than a fortnight loose the fury of the Border Legion upon the leader-less men who followed the Lion banner.

In Conan’s tent, Alcina opened her traveling chest and dug out a page’s costume, into which she changed. Under the garments in the chest lay a small copper Alcina’s jewelry casket, which she opened by twisting the silver dragon that bestrode the lid. The casket contained a choice assortment of rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and other gem-encrusted finery. Alcina burrowed into the jewelry until she found a small oblong of copper, inscribed in Argossean. This token—a forgery provided by Quesado—entitled the bearer to change horses at the royal post stations. She made a quick selection of the jewelry, tucking the better pieces into her girdle, and filled the small purse depending from her belt with coins of gold and silver.

Then she extinguished the candle and boldly left the darkened tent. Demurely she addressed the sentry: "The general sleeps; but he has asked me to bear an urgent message to the court of Argos. Will you kindly order the grooms to saddle a horse, forthwith, and fetch it hither?"

The sentry called the corporal of the guard, who sent a man to comply with Alcina's request, while the girl waited silently at the entrance to the tent. The soldiers, who were used to the comings and goings of the general’s mistress and admired her splendid figure and easy ways, hastened to do her bidding.

When the horse was brought, she mounted swiftly and followed the sentry assigned to her beyond the limits of the camp. Then, at a spanking trot, she vanished into the moonlit distance.

Four days later, Alcina arrived in Messantia. She hastened to Quesado’s hideaway, where she found the spy's replacement, Fadius the Kothian, feeding Quesado’s carrier pigeons. She asked:

'T'rayj where is Quesado?"

"Have you not heard?” replied Fadius. "He's an ambassador now, too proud to spare time for the likes of us. He’s been here but once since he arrived on his embassy."

"Well, grandee or no grandee, I must see him’ at once. I bear news of the greatest import."

Grumbling, Fadius led Alcina to the hostel in Messantia where the Aquilonians lodged. Quesado’s servant was pulling off his master's boots and preparing him for bed when Alcina and Fadius burst in unannounced.

“Damn!" cried Quesado. "What sort of ill-bred rabble are you, to intrude on a gentleman retiring for the night!"

"You know well enough who we are,” said Alcina. "I came to tell you Conan is dead.”

Quesado paused with his mouth open, then closed it slowly. ‘Well!” he said at last "That casts a different light on many matters. Pull on my boots again, Narses. I must to the palace forthwith. What has befallen. Mistress Alcina?”

A little time later, Quesado presented himself at the palace with a peremptory demand to see the king. The Zingaran intended to urge an instant attack on Conan’s army by the forces of Argos. He felt sure that the rebels, demoralized by the fall of their leader, would crumble before any vigorous assault.

Fate, however, ordained that events should march to a different tune. Roused from slumber. King Mile flew into a rage at Quesado’s insolence in demanding a midnight audience.

"His Majesty,” reported the head page to Quesado, “commands that you depart instanter and return at a more seemly time. He suggests an hour before noon tomorrow.”

Quesado flushed with the anger of frustration. Looking down his nose, he said: "My good man, you do not seem to realize who and what I am.”

The page laughed, matching Quesado’s impudence with his own. “Aye, sir, we all know who you are—and what you were.” Derisive grins spread to the faces of the guards flanking the page, who continued: “Now pray depart hence, and speedily, on pain of my sovereign lord’s displeasiure!”

"Thou shall rue those words, varlet!" snarled Quesado, turning away. He tramped the cobbled streets to his former headquarters on the waterfront, where he found Fadius and Alcina awaiting him. There he prepared a furious dispatch to the King of Aquilonia, telling of Milo’s rebuff, and sent it on its way wired to the leg of a pigeon.

In a few days, the former spy’s report reached Vibius Latro, who brought it to his king’s attention. Numedides, seldom able to restrain his passions under the easiest of circimistances, read of the recalcitrance of the King of Argos toward his mighty neighbor and sent another courier post-haste to General Amulius Procas. This dispatch did more than authorize an incursion into Argos, as had the previous message. In exigent terms, it commanded the general at once to attack across the borders of Argos, with whatever force he needed, to stamp out the last embers of the rebellion.

Procas, a tough and canny old campaigner, winced at the royal command. On the night that followed his victorious battles on the Alimane, he had quickly withdrawn from Argossean territory the detachments he had sent across the river to harry the fleeing rebels. Those incursions could be excused on grounds of hot pursuit. But now, if he mounted a new invasion, the open violation of the border would almost certainly turn King Milo's sympathies from cautious neutrality into open hostility to the royal Aquilonian cause.

But the royal command admitted of no argument or refusal. If he wished his head to continue to ride his shoulders, Procas must attack, although every instinct in his soldierly bosom cried out against this hasty, ill-timed instruction.

Procas delayed his advance for several days, hoping that the king, on second thoughts, would counter-command his order. But no communication came, and Procas dared wait no longer. And so, on a bright spring morning, Amulius Procas crossed the Alimane in force. The river, which had subsided somewhat from its flood, offered no obstacle to his squadrons of glittering, panoplied knights, stolid mailed spearmen, and leather-coated archers. They splashed across and marched implacably up the winding road that led to Saxula Pass through the Rabirian range, and thence to the rebel camp on the Plain of Pallos.

Not until the morning after Alcina’s departure did Conan’s officers learn of the fall of their leader. They gathered round him, laid him on his bed, and searched him for wounds. Dexitheus, still limping on a walking stick, sniffed at the dregs in the goblet from which Conan had drunk Alcina’s potion.

"That drink," he said, "was laced with the juice of the purple lotus of Stygia. By rights, our general should be as dead as King Tuthamon; yet he lives, albeit no more than a living corpse with open eyes."

Publius flicked his fingers as he did mental sums and mused: "Perchance the poisoner used only so much of the drug as would suffice to slay an ordinary man, unmindful of Conan’s great size and strength.”

" 'Twas that green-eyed witch!” cried Trocero. "I've never trusted her, and her disappearance last night proclaims her guilt. Were she in my power, I'd burn her at the stake!”

Dexitheus turned on the count "Green eyes, quotha? A woman with green eyes?"

"Aye, as green as emeralds. But what of it? Surely you know Conan’s concubine, the fair Alcina.”

Dexitheus shook his head with a frown of foreboding. "I heard that our general had taken a dancing girl from the wineshops of Argos,” he murmured, "But I try to ignore such whoredoms among my sons, and Conan tactfully kept her out of my sight. Woe unto our cause! For the lord Mitra warned me in a dream to beware a green-eyed shadow hovering near our leader, although I knew not that the evil one already walked amongst us. Woe unto me, who failed to confide the warning to my comrades!”

“Enough of this,” said Pubhus. “Conan lives, and we can thank our gods that our fair poisoner is no arithmetician. Let none but his squires attend him or even enter the tent. We must tell the men that he is ill of a minor tisick, whilst we continue to rebuild our force. If he recovers, he recovers; but meanwhile you must take command, Trocero.”

The Poitanian count nodded somberly. "I'll do what I can, since I am second in command. You, Publius, must mend the nets of your spy system, so that we shall have warning of Procas’s moves. It’s time for morning roll call, so I must be off. I'll drill the lads as hard as Conan ever drilled them, aye and morel”

By the time Procas began his invasion, the Lions again had their watching eyes and listening ears abroad. Reports of the strength of the invaders reached the leaders of the rebel army, who had gathered in Conan's tent. Trocero, wearing the silvery badge of age and the lines of weariness but self-assured withal, asked Pubhus: "What know we of the numbers of the foe?”

Pubhus bent his head to work sums on his waxen tablets. When he raised his eyes, his expression showed alarm. "Thrice our strength and more,” he said heavily. "This is a black day, my friends. We can do little save make a final stand.”

“Be of good cheer!” said the count, slapping the stout treasurer on the back. "Thou’d never make a general, Publius; you’d assure the soldiers they were beaten before the fray began." He turned to Dexitheus. “How does our patient?"

“He regains some slight awareness, but as yet he cannot move. I now think he will live, praise Mitra."

'Well, if he cannot sit a horse when the battle trumpet blows, I must sit it for him. Have we any word of Prospero?"

Publius and Dexitheus shook their heads. Trocero shrugged, saying: “Then we must make do with what we have. The foe will close within striking distance on the morrow, and we must needs decide whether to fight or flee."

Down from the mountains streamed the armored cavalry and infantry of the Border Legion. A swirl of galloping scouts preceded them, and in their midst rode General Amulius Procas in his chariot. Drawn up to confront them, the rebels formed their battle lines in the midst of the plain.

The still air offered no respite from the myriad fears and silent prayers of the waiting men. The broad front of the superior Aquilonian force allowed Count Trocero no opportunity for clever flanking or enveloping moves. Yet, to retreat now would mean the instant dissolution of the rebel force. The count knew there could be no shrewdly timed withdrawal, with rear-guard actions to delay pursuit. Such a fighting retreat was only for well-trained, self-confident troops. These men, discouraged by their fortune on the Alimane, would simply flee, every man for himself, while the Aquilonian light horse rode down the fugitives, slaying and slaying until nightfall sheltered the survivors beneath its dragon wings.

Trocero, scanning the oncoming host from his command post on a hillock, presently signaled his groom to fetch his charger. He adjusted a strap on his armor and heaved himself into the saddle. To the few hundred horsemen who gathered around him, he said:

"You know our plan, my friends. 'Tis a slim chance, but our only one.”

For Trocero had decided that their only hope lay in a suicidal charge into the Aqulionian array, in a mad effort to reach Amulius Procas himself. He knew that the enemy commander, a stout man of middle years slowed by ancient wounds, found riding hard on his aging joints and preferred to travel by chariot. He knew, too, that the general’s charioteer would have difficulty in maneuvering the clumsy vehicle in the press of battle. Thus, if the rebel horse could by some miracle reach and slay the Aquilonian general, his troops might falter and break.

The outlook, as Trocero had said, was black, but the plan was the best he could devise. Meanwhile he strove to give his subordinates no sign of his discomfiture. He laughed and joked as if he faced certain victory instead of a forlorn attempt to vanquish thrice their number of the world’s best soldiery.

Once again, Destiny intervened on the side of the rebels, in the royal person of Milo, King of Argos. Even before the Aquilonian invasion began, an Argossean spy, killing three horses in his haste to reach Messantia, brought word to the court of Numedides’ command to violate the territory of Argos. Thus King Milo learned of the planned attack as soon as did the rebel commanders. Already affronted by the arrogance of Ambassador Quesado, the usually even-tempered Milo flew into a rage. At once he commanded the nearest division of his army to speed north on forced marches to intercept the invasion.

In a calmer moment, Milo might have temporized. Since he did not think that Numedides meant to seize a portion of his land, as the late King Vilerus had done, he had sound reasons for delaying any irrevocable action. But, by the time his temper had cooled, his troops were already on the march northward, and with his usual stubbornness the king refused to change his decision.

Amulius Procas had halted his army and was meticulously ordering his troops for an assault when a breathless scout galloped up to his chariot.

“General!” he cried, gasping for breath. “A great cloud of dust is rising from the southern road; it is as if another army approached!"

Procas made the scout repeat his message. Then, bluing the air with curses, he tugged off his helmet and hurled it with a clang to the floor of his chariot. It was as he had feared; King Milo had gotten wind of the invasion and was sending troops to block it. To his aides he barked:

“Tell the men to stand at ease, and see that they have water. Order the scouts to swing around the rebel army and probe to southward, to learn the numbers and composition of the approaching force. Pitch a tent, and call my high officers to a conference."

When, an hour later, the scouts reported that a thousand cavalry were on the march, Amulius Procas found himself caught on the horns of a dilemma. Without explicit orders from his king, he dared not provoke Argos into open warfare. Neither did he dare disobey a direct command from Numedides without some overriding reason.

True, Procas’s army could doubtless crush the rebels and chase Milo’s cavalry back to Messantia. But such an action would presage a major war, for which Aquilonia was ill-prepared. While his country was the larger and more populous kingdom, her king was, at least, eccentric; and his rule had gravely weakened mighty Aquilonia. The Argosseans, moreover, fighting with righteous indignation an invader on their native soil, might with the aid of a small rebel force, like that assembled beneath the Lion banner, tip the scales against Procas's homeland.

Neither could Procas retreat. Since his troops outnumbered the combined rebel and Argossean forces, King Numedides might readily read his withdrawal as an act of cowardice or treachery and shorten him by a head for his disobedience.

As the sun rode down the western sky, Procas, deep in discussion with his officers, still delayed his decision. At last he said:

" 'Tis too late to start an action this day. We shall withdraw to northward, where we have left the baggage train, and set up a fortified camp. Send a man to order the engineers to begin digging.”

Trocero, narrowly watching the royalists from his rise, had long since dismounted. Beside him stood Publius, munching on a fowl’s leg. At last the treasurer said:

"What in Mitra’s name is Procas doing? He had us where he wanted us, and now he pulls back and pitches camp. Is he mad? For aught he knows, we might slip away in the coming night, or steal past him to enter Aquilonia.”

Trocero shrugged. “Belike the report we had, of Argosseans approaching, has something to do with his actions. It remains to be seen whether these Argossean horsemen mean to help or harm us. We could be caught between the two forces and ground to powder, unless Procas counts on the Argosseans to do his dirty work for him.”

Even as the count spoke, hoofbeats summoned his glance southward across the plain. Soon a small party of mounted men cantered up the rise—a group of Argosseans, guided in by a rebel cavalryman. Two of these new arrivals dismounted with a clank of armor and strode forward. One was tall, lean, and leathery of visage, with the look of a professional soldier. His companion was younger and short of stature, with a wide-cheeked, snub-nosed face and bright, interested eyes. He wore a gilded cuirass and a purple cloak edged with scarlet, and purple-and-scarlet were the plumes that danced on the crest of his helm.

The lean veteran spoke first: “Hail, Count Trocero! I am Arcadio, senior captain of the Royal Guard, at your service, sir. May I present Prince Cassio of Argos, heir apparent to the throne? We desire a council with your general, Conan the Cimmerian.”

Nodding to the officer and making a slight bow to the Prince of Argos, Trocero said: “I remember you well. Prince Cassio, as a mischievous child and a harum-scarum youth. As for General Conan, I regret to say he is indisposed. But you may state the purpose of your visit to me as second-in-command.”

"Our purpose. Count Trocero,” said the prince, “is to thwart this Aquilonian violation of our territorial integrity. To that endeavor, my royal father has sent me hither with such force as could readily be mustered. I assume my officers and I may consider you and your followers as allies?”

Trocero smiled. "Thrice welcome. Prince Cassio! From your aspect, you have had a long and dusty ride. Will you and Captain Arcadio come to our command tent for refreshment, while your escort take their ease? Our wine has long since gone, but we still have ale.”

On the way back to the tent, Trocero spoke privately to Publius: “This explains Procas’s withdrawal when he all but had us in his jaws. He dare not attack for fear of starting an unauthorized war with Argos, and he dare not retreat lest he be branded a poltroon. So he camps where he is, awaiting— “

“Trocero!” A deep roar came from within the tent. “Who is it you are talking to, besides Publius? Fetch him in!”

"That's General Conan," said Trocero, dissembling his startlement. ”Will you step inside, gentlemen?”

They found Conan, in shirt and short breeches, propped up on his bunk. Under the ministrations of Dexitheus, he had recovered full consciousness, his mighty frame having thrown off the worst effects of a draft that would have doomed an ordinary man. While he could think and speak, he could do little else; for the residue of the poison still chained his brawny limbs. Unable to rise without help, he chafed at his confinement.

“Gods and devils!” he fumed. "Could I but stand and lift a sword, I'd show Procas how to cut and thrust! And who are these Argosseans?”

Trocero introduced Prince Cassio and Captain Arcadio and recounted Procas’s latest move. Conan snarled:

"This I will see for myself. Squires! Raise me to my feet. Procas may be shamming a withdrawal, the better to surprise us by a night attack.”

With an arm around the neck of each squire, Conan tottered to the entrance. The sun, impaled upon the peaks of the Rabirian Hills to westward, spilled dark shadows down the mountainsides. In the middle distance, the departing rays struck scarlet sparks from the armor of the Aquilonians as they labored to set up a camp. The tap of mallets on tent pegs came softly through the evening air.

“Will Procas seek a parley, think you?” asked Conan. The others shrugged.

“He has sent no message yet; he may never do so," said Trocero. “We must wait and see.”

“We’ve waited all day," growled Conan, “keeping our lads standing in harness in the sun. I, for one, would that something happened—anything, to end this dawdling."

“Methinks our general is about to have his wish," murmured Dexitheus, shading his eyes with his hand as he peered at the distant royalist camp. The others stared at him.

“What now, sir priest?” said Conan. ,

“Behold!” said Dexitheus, pointing.

“Ishtar!” breathed Captain Arcadio. "Fry my guts if they’re not running away!”

And so they were; if not running, they were at least beginning an orderly retreat. Trumpets sounded, thin and faraway. Instead of continuing to strengthen the fortification of their camp, the men of the Border Legion, antlike in the distance, were striking the tents they had just set up, loading the supply wagons, and streaming out, company by company, toward the pass in the Rabirian Hills. Conan and his comrades looked at one another in perplexity.

The cause of this withdrawal soon transpired. Marching briskly from the east, a fourth host came around the slope of a hill. More than fifteen hundred strong, as Trocero estimated them, the newcomers deployed and advanced on a broad front, ready for battle.

A rebel scout, lashing his horse up the slope, threw himself off his mount, saluted Conan, and gasped: "My lord general, they fly the leopards of Poitain and the arms of Baron Groder of Aquilonia!"

"Crom and Mitral” whispered Conan. Then his face cleared and his laughter echoed among the hills. For it was indeed Prospero with the rebel force that he had searched for in the east

"No wonder Procas runs!” said Trocero. "Now that we outnumber him, he can do so without arousing his sovereign’s ire. Hell tell Numedides that three armies would have surrounded him at once and overwhelmed him”

“General Conan,” said Dexitheus, “you must return to your bed to rest. We cannot afford to have you suffer a relapse.”

As the squires lowered Conan to his pallet, the Cimmerian whispered: "Prospero, Prospero! For this I will make you a knight of the throne, if ever Aquilonia be mine!”

In Fadius’ dingy room in Messantia, Alcina sat alone, holding her obsidian amulet before her and watching the alternate black-and-white bands of the time candle. Fadius was out prowling the nighted streets of the city; Alcina had brusquely ordered him forth so that she could privately commune with her master.

The flickering flame sank lower as the candle burned down through one of the black stripes in the wax. As the last of the sable band dissolved into molten wax and the flame wavered above a white band, the witch-dancer raised her talisman and focused her thoughts. Faintly, like words spoken in a dream, there came into her receptive mind the dry tones of Thulandra Thuu; while before her, barely visible in the dim-lit chamber, appeared a vision of the sorcerer himself, seated in his iron chair.

Thulandra Thuu’s speech rustled so softly through Aldna’s mind that it demanded rapt attention, together with a constant surveillance of the lips and the gestures of the vision, to grasp the magician’s message: "Thou have done well, my daughter. Has aught befallen in Messantia?”

She shook her head, and the ghostly whisper continued: Then I have another task for you. With the moon’s first light, you shall don your page’s garb, take horse, and follow the road north— "

Alcina gave a small cry of dismay. "Must I wear those ugly rags and plunge again into the wilderness, with ants and beetles for bedmates? I beg you, Master, let me stay here and be a woman yet a while!”

The sorcerer raised a sardonic eyebrow. "You prefer the fleshpots of Messantia?” he responded.

She nodded vigorously.

“That cannot be, alas. Your duties there are finished, and I need you to watch the Border Legion and its general. If you find the going rough, bear in mind the future glories I have promised you.

“The troops dispatched by the Argossean King should now have reached the Plain of Pallos. Ere the sun rises twice again, Amulius Procas will in all likelihood have concluded a retreat back across the Alimane into Poitain. He will, I predict, cross at the ford of Nogara; so set you forth, swinging wide of the armies, to approach this place from the north, traveling southward on the road from Culario. Then report to me again at the next favorable conjunction."

The murmuring voice fell silent and the filmy vision faded, leaving Alcina alone and brooding.

Then came a thunderous knock, and in lurched Fadius. The Kothian had spent more of his time and Vibius Latro’s money in a Messantian wineshop than was prudent Arms out, he staggered toward Alcina, babbling:

“Come, my little passion flower! I weary of sleeping on the bare floor, and 'tis time you accorded your comrade the same kindness you extend to barbarian bullies— "

Alcina leaped to her feet and backed away. “Have a care, Master Fadius!" she warned. “I take not kindly to presumption from such a one as you!”

“Come on, my pretty," mumbled Fadius. “I’ll not hurt you—"

Alcina's hand flicked to the bodice of her gown. As by magic, a slender dagger appeared in her jeweled hand. “Stand back!" she cried. “One prick of this, and you’re a dying spy!”

The threat penetrated Fadius’ sodden wits, and he recoiled from the blade. He knew the lightning speed with which the dancer-witch could move and stab. “But—but—my dear little—"

“Get out!” said Alcina. “And come not back until you're sober!”

Cursing under his breath, Fadius went. In the chamber, among the cages of roosting pigeons, Alcina rummaged in her chest for the garments in which she would set out upon the morrow.