Conan the Invincible (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 1)

Conan growled deep in his throat. “You should have slit the coward’s throat.”

“Nay. He has too many uses in him for that. I sent him to find the rest of the band, and to tell them to make camp. Can I but puzzle out how these canyons go, we’ll be back to them soon.”

“This is my band, Conan!” Karela suddenly snapped. “I comand here! The Red Hawk!”

“Then if you think Aberius should escape his cowardice,” Conan replied gruffly, “let him. But I’ll not change my mind on it.”

She tried to jerk her horse around to face him, but her single rein made the big black take a dancing sidestep instead. The auburn-haired bandit made a sound that in another woman Conan would have called a sob of frustration. But of course such was unlikely from her.

“You fool barbarian!” she cried. “What right had you to send me—me!—to safety? Giving my reins to this one-eyed buffoon! Whipping my horse as if I were some favored slave girl who must be kept from danger!”

“That’s what you’re angry about?” Conan said incredulously. “With but one rein left, you were easy meat for the next hillman’s blade.”

“You made that decision, did you? It was not yours to make. I choose when and where I fight, and how much risk I’ll face. I!”

“You’re the most ungrateful person at having your life saved that I’ve ever met,” Conan grumbled.

Karela shook her fist at him, and her voice rose to an enraged howl. “I do not need you to save my life! I do not want you to save my life! Of all men, you least! Swear to me you will never again lift a hand to save my life or my freedom. Swear it, Cimmerian!”

“I swear it!” he answered hotly. “By Crom, I swear it!”

Karela nodded shortly and got her horse moving again with violent kicks and much tugging at her one rein. The bare brown rock through which they rode, layered in places with much faded colors, fitted Conan’s mood well. Hordo dropped back to ride beside the muscular youth.

“Once I liked you not at all, Conan,” the one-eyed man said in a voice that would not carry forward to Karela. “Now, I like you well, but still I say this. Leave us.”

Conan cast a sour eye at him. “If there be leaving to do, you do it. And her, with the rest of her band. I have a seeking here, remember?”

“She’ll not turn aside, despite hillmen, or soldiers, or demons themselves. That’s the trouble, or what comes of it. That, and this oath, and a score of things more. Emotion rules her head, now, and not the other way round, as always before. I fear what this means.”

“I did not ask for the oath,” Conan replied. “If you think her temper runs away with her, speak to her, not me.”

The bearded bandit’s hands gripped his reins till his knuckles were white. “I do like you, Conan, but bring you harm to her, and I will carve you as a Kethan carves stone.” He booted his horse ahead, and the three traveled once more in heavy silence.

Long shadows stretched across the mountain valleys by the time they found the bandit camp, among huge boulders at the base of a sheer cliff. Despite the crisp coldness of the air, the scattered fires were small, and placed among the boulders so as to lessen the chance of being seen. Karela’s red-striped pavilion stood almost against the towering rock wall.

“I’ll see you in my tent, Conan,” the red-haired woman said. Without waiting for an answer, she galloped to the pavilion, gave her horse into a bandit’s care, and disappeared inside.

As Conan dismounted, he found a knot of bandits gathering about Hordo and him. Aberius was among them, though not in the forefront.

“Ho, Aberius,” the Cimmerian said. “I’m glad to see you well. I thought you might have been injured in holding the trail open for us.” Some of the rough-faced men snickered. Aberius bared his teeth in what might have been meant to be a grin, but his eyes were those of a rat in a box. He said nothing.

“The hillmen are taken care of, then?” a Kothian with one ear asked. “And the soldiers?”

“Slitting each other’s weazands,” Hordo chuckled. “They’re no more concern to us, not in this world.”

“And I’ve no concern for the next,” the Kothian laughed. Most of the others joined in. Conan noted Aberius did not.

“On the morrow, Aberius,” Conan said, “you’ll take up the trail again, and in a day or two we’ll have the treasure.”

The pinch-faced brigand had started at the sound of his name. Now he licked his lips before answering. “It cannot be. The trail is lost.” He flinched as the other bandits turned to stare at him. “It’s lost, I say.”

“But only for the moment,” Conan said. “Isn’t that right? We’ll go back to that valley where the hillmen were camped, and you’ll pick it up again.”

“I tell you it isn’t so simple.” Aberius shifted his shoulders and tugged nervously at his dented iron breastplate. “While on the trail I can tell a rock disturbed by a horse from one that merely fell. Now I’m away from the trail. If I go back, they’ll both look the same.”

“Fool!” someone snarled. “You’ve lost us the treasure.”

“All this way for naught,” another cried.