Conan the Defender (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 2)

Then her destination, and Hordo’s, penetrated. “Why Aquilonia?” Conan asked him.

The one-eyed man passed him a folded sheet of parchment and said, “I heard a rumor she went east. There’s something in there for you, as well.”

Conan opened the sheet and read.

Hordo, my most faithful hound,

When you receive this I will be gone from Nemedia with all my goods and servants. Do not follow. I will not again be so pleased to find you on my trail. Yet I wish you well. Tell the Cimmerian I am not finished with him.

Karela

Below the signature, in red ink, was the outline of a hawk.

“But you follow anyway,” Conan said, handing back the sheet.

“Of course,” Hordo replied. Carefully he tucked the letter into his pouch. “But why this talk of going to Ophir now? Garian will make you a lord, next.”

“I remembered that blind soothsayer in the Gored Ox,” the Cimmerian said.

“That old fool? I told you to see one of my astrologers.”

“But he was right,” Conan said quietly. “A woman of sapphires and gold. Sularia. A woman of emeralds and ruby. Karela. They’d both have watched me die, for exactly the reasons he named. The rest was right, as well. And do you remember how he ended?”

“How?” Hordo asked.

“Save a throne, save a king, kill a king or die. Whatever comes, whatever is, mark well your time to fly. He also said to beware the gratitude of kings. I’m taking him to heart, if a little late.”

The one-eyed man snorted, looking about him at the marble columns and alabaster walls. “I see little enough to beware of in this gratitude.”

“Kings are absolute rulers,” Conan told him, “and feeling grateful makes them feel less absolute. On that I’ll wager. And the best way to get rid of that feeling is to get rid of the man to whom he must be grateful. Do you see now?”

“You sound like a philosopher,” Hordo grumbled.

Conan threw back his head and laughed. “All the gods forbid.”

“Captain,” Machaon said, entering from the back, “the company is mounted, every man with a sack of loot at his saddle. Though I never heard of a man ordering his own palace looted before.”

Conan met Hordo’s gaze levelly. “Take whatever you want, old friend, but do not tarry overlong.” He held out his hand, and the other grasped it, a custom they had picked up in the east.

“Fare you well, Conan of Cimmeria,” Hordo said gruffly. “Take a pull at the Hellhorn for me, an you get there before me.”

“Fare you well, Hordo of Zamora. And you the same, if you’re first.”

The Cimmerian did not look again at Ariane as he strode from the hall. She had made her choice.

Behind the palace the Free-Company waited, the score that survived, mounted and armed. Conan swung into his saddle.

A strange end, he thought, riding away from proffered riches in this fashion. And two women, either of whom he would have been pleased to have ride with him, but neither of whom wanted him. That was a strange thing for him in itself. Still, he reminded himself, there would be women aplenty in Ophir, and the rumors of trouble meant there would be blade-fee for a Free-Company.

“We ride for Ophir,” he commanded, and galloped out of the gates at the head of his company. He did not look back.