“Bandits!”
“My goods!”
Vendhyan soldiers shoved the merchants aside, beating at them with the butts of their lances. “Go back to your tents!” was their cry. “We seek spies! Go back to your tents, and you will not be harmed! Anyone outside will be arrested!”
Spies, Conan thought. He had found his fight, but there was yet a trickle of his previous anger remaining, a trickle growing stronger. Moments before, escape from the encampment had been paramount in his mind. Now he thought he would first visit the man who considered all foreigners spies.
Like a hunting leopard, the big Cimmerian flowed from shadow to shadow, blending with the dark. Curious eyes were easily avoided, for there were few abroad now. No one moved between the tents save soldiers, announcing their coming with creak of harness and clink of armor and curses that they must search when they would be sleeping. Silently Conan moved into deeper shadows as the Vendhyans appeared, watching with a feral grin as they marched or rode past him, sometimes within arm’s reach, yet always unseeing.
Karim Singh’s tent glowed with light within, and two fires blazed high before the canopied entrance. The fires made the dim light filtered through golden silk at the rear seem almost as dark as the surrounding light. A score of Vendhyan cavalry sat their horses like statues in a ring about the tent, facing outward, ten paces at least separating each man from the next.
Like statues they were in truth, or else thought they guarded against attack by an army, for on his belly Conan crawled unseen between two at the rear of the tent. As he prepared to slit an entrance in the back wall of the tent with his dagger, voices from inside stopped him.
“Leave us,” commanded Karim Singh.
Conan opened a small slit only, parting it with his fingers. A last Vendhyan soldier was bowing himself from the silk-walled chamber within. Karim Singh stood in the middle of the chamber, a cavalryman’s sword in his hand, and before him knelt a Vendhyan bound hand and foot. The kneeling man wore the robes of a merchant, though they hardly seemed consistent with his hard face and the long scar that crossed his nose and cheek.
“You are called Sabah?” the wazam asked in an easy tone.
“I am Amaur, Excellency, an honest merchant,” the kneeling man said, “and even you have no right to simply seize my goods without cause.” The harsh, rasping voice made Conan stiffen in memory. The rider in the dunes. He would listen for a while before killing Karim Singh.
The wazam set the point of his sword against the other’s throat. “You are called Sabah?”
“My name is Amaur, Excellency. I know no one called—” The kneeling man gasped as the point pressed closer, bringing a trickle of blood.
“An honest merchant?” Karim Singh laughed softly. As he spoke, he increased the pressure of the blade. The kneeling man leaned back but the sword point followed. “Within the bales of silk you carry were found chests sealed with lead. You are a smuggler, at least. Who are the chests destined for?”
With a cry, the prisoner toppled. From his back he stared with bulging eyes. The sword still was at his throat and there was no farther he could go to escape it. The hardness of his face had become a mask of fear. “I…I cannot say, Excellency. Before Asura, I swear it!”
“You will say or you will face Asura shortly. Or, more likely, Katar.” The wazam’s voice became conspiratorial. “I know the name, Amaur. I know. But I must hear it from your lips if you would live. Speak, Amaur, and live.”
“Excellency, he…he will kill me. Or worse!”
“I will kill you, Amaur. This sword is at your throat, here, and he is far away. Speak!”
“N…Naipal!” the man sobbed. “Naipal, Excellency!”
“Good,” Karim Singh said soothingly. But he did not move the sword. “You see how easy it was. Now. Why? Tell me why he wants these chests.”
“I cannot, Excellency.” Tears rolled down Amaur’s cheeks now and he shook with weeping. “Before Asura, before Katar, I would tell you if I could, but I know nothing! We were to meet the ship, kill all on board and bring the chests to Ayodhya. Perhaps Sabah knew more, but he is dead. I swear, Excellency! I speak truly, I swear!”
“I believe you,” Karim Singh sighed. “It is a pity.” And he leaned on the sword.
Amaur’s attempt to scream became a bubbling gurgle as steel slid through his throat. Karim Singh stared at him as though fascinated by the blood welling up in his mouth and the convulsions that wracked his bound form. Abruptly the wazam released the sword. It remained upright, its point thrust through man and carpets into the ground, shaking with Amaur’s final twitching.
“Guards!” Karim Singh called, and Conan lowered the dagger with which he had been about to lengthen the slit. “Guards!”
Half a score of Vendhyans rushed into the chamber with drawn blades. Staring at the sight that greeted them, they hastily sheathed their weapons.
“The other spies,” the wazam said. “The giant, in particular. He has been taken? He cannot be mistaken, for his size and his eyes set him apart.”
“No, Excellency,” one of the soldiers replied deferentially. “Four of that party are dead, but not the giant. We seek the others.”
“So he is still out there.” Karim Singh spoke as though to himself. “He seemed a stark man. A slayer born. He will seek me now.” He shook himsel
f and glared at the soldiers as if angered that they had overheard. “He must be found! A thousand pieces of gold to the man who finds him. All of you, and ten others, will remain with me until he is dead or in chains. And he who does not die stopping the barbarian from reaching me will die wishing that he had. Have someone dispose of this,” he added with a nod toward Amaur’s corpse.
The wazam strode from the chamber then, the guards clustering about him, and Conan sagged where he crouched outside. Against a score of guards he might not even reach Karim Singh before he was cut down. He had known men who embraced a brave but useless death; he was not one of them. Death was an old acquaintance to him and had been long before he found himself with Patil’s poison in his blood. Death was neither to be feared nor sought, and when he met it, the meeting would not be without purpose. Besides, he now had a name, Naipal, the man who had begun all of this. That was another who must die as well as Karim Singh.