“No man ever had to save the Red Hawk,” her lieutenant growled. “She’s better than any man, with sword or brains. See you remember it.”
Karela laughed sweetly. “Of course I am, good Conan. If anything happens to you, it will be at the hands of these good men, not mine. Hordo, let’s take him to camp. You can decide what to do with him at leisure.”
The scar-faced man shouted orders, and quickly a rope was passed around Conan, under his arms. The bandits scrambled to their saddles, Hordo himself clutching the rope tied to Conan, and they started off at a trot, the horses’ hooves spraying dirt and gravel in Conan’s face.
Conan gritted his teeth as he was dragged. With his arms behind him, he was forced to skid along on his belly. Sharp rocks gashed his chest, and hardpacked clay scraped off patches of skin as large as his hand.
When the horses skidded to a halt, Conan spat out a mouthful of dirt and sucked in air. He ached in every muscle, and small trickles of blood still oozed from those scrapes that dust had not clotted. He was far from sure that whatever they had planned for him would be better than being dragged to death.
“Hordo,” Karela exclaimed in delight, “you have my tent up.”
She leaped from the saddle and darted into a red-striped pavilion. It was the only tent in the camp lying in a hollow between two tall, U-shaped hills. Rumpled bedrolls lay scattered around half-a-dozen burned-out fires. Some of the men ran to stir these up, while others dug out stone jars of kil, raw distilled wine, and passed them around with raucous la
ughter.
Conan rolled onto his side as Hordo dismounted beside him. “You’re a bandit,” the big Cimmerian panted. “How would you like a chance at a king’s treasure?”
Hordo did not even look at him. “Get those stakes in,” he shouted. “I want him pegged out now.”
“Five pendants,” Conan said, “and a jewel-encrusted casket. Gifts from Yildiz to Tiridates.” He hated letting these men know what he was after — at best he would have a hard time remaining alive to claim a share of what he thought of as his own —but otherwise he might not live to collect even a share.
“Stir your stumps,” the bearded outlaw shouted. “You can drink later.”
“Ten thousand pieces of gold,” Conan said. “That’s what one man is willing to pay for the pendants alone. Someone else might pay more. And then there’s the casket.”
For the first time since arriving in the hollow Hordo turned to Conan, his one eye glaring. “The Red Hawk wants you dead. She’s done good by us, so what she wants is what I want.”
A score of bandits, laughing and already halfdrunk, came to lift Conan and bear him to a cleared space where they had driven four stakes into the hard ground. Despite his struggles they were too many, and he soon found himself spread-eagled on his back, wet rawhide straps leading from his wrists and ankles to the stakes. The rawhide would shrink in the heat of the sun, stretching his joints to the breaking point.
“Why doesn’t Hordo want you to have a chance at ten thousand pieces of gold?” Conan shouted. Every man but Hordo froze where he stood, the laughter dying in their throats.
With a curse the scar-faced brigand jumped forward. Conan tried to jerk his head aside, but lights flared before his eyes as the big man’s foot caught him. “Shut your lying mouth!” Hordo snarled.
Aberius lifted his head to stare cold-eyed at the Red Hawk’s lieutenant, a ferret confronting a mastiff. “What’s he talking about, Hordo?”
Conan shook his head to clear it. “A king’s treasure. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“You shut,” Hordo began, but Aberius cut him off.
“Let him talk,” the pinch-faced brigand said dangerously, and other voices echoed him. Hordo glared about him, but said nothing.
Conan allowed himself a brief smile. A bit longer, and these cut-throats would turn him loose and bind Hordo and Karela in his place. But he did not intend to let them actually steal the pendants he had worked so hard for. “Five pendants,” he said, “and a golden casket encrusted with gems were stolen from Tiridates’ very palace not half a fortnight gone. I’m on the track of those trifles. One man’s already offered me ten thousand pieces of gold for the pendants alone, but what one man offers another will top. The casket will bring as much again, or more.”
The men encircling him licked their lips greedily, and shuffled closer. “What makes them worth so much?” Aberius asked shrewdly. “I never heard of pendants worth ten thousand gold pieces.”
Conan managed a chuckle. “But these were gifts from King Yildiz to King Tiridates, gems that no man has ever seen before. And the same on the casket,” he embroidered.
Abruptly Karela burst through the close-packed circle of men, and they edged back from the rage on her face. Gone were the makeshift garments she had acquired at the Well of the Kings. Silver filigreed breastplates of gold barely contained her ivory breasts, and a girdle of pearls a finger wide hung low on her hips. Red thigh boots covered her legs, and the tulwar at her side had a sapphire the size of a pigeon’s egg on the pommel.
“The dog lies,” she snarled. The men took another step back, but there was raw greed on their faces. “He seeks no gemstones, but a slave girl. He told me so himself. He’s naught but a muscle-bound slave catcher for some besotted fool in Shadizar. Tell them you lie, Conan!”
“I speak the truth.” Or some of it, he thought.
She whirled on him, knuckles white on the hilt of her sword. “Spawn of a maggot! Admit you lie, or I’ll have you flayed alive.”
“You’ve broken half your oath,” he said calmly. “Uncivil words.”
“Derketo take you!” With a howl of rage she planted the toe of one red boot solidly in his ribs. He could not contain a grunt of pain. “Think of something lingering, Hordo,” she commanded. “He’ll admit his lies soon enough then.” Suddenly she spun on her heel, drawing her sword till a handbreadth of razor-sharp blue steel showed above the worked leather scabbard. “Unless one of you has a mind to challenge my orders?”