“Conan! Look out!” Akeba shouted from the entrance.
Conan threw himself into a diving roll, striking something that bounced away with a clatter of brass, and came up in a wary crouch with his sword at the ready. Just as he picked out the shadow of what could have been a man, something hummed from the entrance and struck it. Stiffly the dim shape toppled to the ground with a thud.
“It’s a man,” Akeba said uncertainly. “At least, I think it’s a man. But it did not fall as a man falls.”
Conan felt around him for what he had knocked over. It was a lamp, with only half the oil spilled. Fumbling flint and steel from his pouch, he lit the wick. The lamp cast its light on the body he had stumbled over.
Samarra lay on her back, dead eyes staring up at the roof of the yurt. Blended determination and resignation were frozen on her features.
“She knew,” Conan murmured. “She said if I entered the Blasted Lands many would die.”
With a sigh he moved the light to the shape that had fallen so strangely. Akeba’s arrow stood out from the neck of a yellow-skinned man in black robes, his almond eyes wide with disbelief. Conan prodded the body with his sword, and started in surprise. The corpse was as hard as stone.
“At least she took her murderer with her,” Conan growled. “And avenged your Zorelle.”
“’Tis not he, though he is very like,” Akeba said. “I will remember to my tomb the face of the man who killed my daughter, and this is not he.”
Conan shifted the light again, back to Samarra. “I could have saved her,” he said sadly, though he had no idea of how. “Had she told me … Yasbet!”
Leaping to his feet, he searched furiously through the other curtained compartments of the yurt. The structure was a charnel house. Slaves, male and female alike, lay in tangled heaps of cold flesh. None bore a wound, any more than did Samarra, but the face of each was twisted in horror. Nowhere did he find Yasbet.
When he returned to Akeba, Conan was sick to his stomach. Many would die if he entered the Blasted Lands. Samarra had said there were many branchings of the future. Could she not have found one to avoid this?
“Jhandar sent more than this one to follow us,” he told the Turanian. “Yasbet is gone, and the others are dead. All of them.”
Before Akeba could speak, Tamur stuck his head into the yurt. “There are stirrings … .” His eyes lit on Samarra’s body in the pool of lamp light. “Kaavan One-Father protect us! This is the cause! We will all be gelded, flayed alive, impaled—”
“What are you talking about?” Conan demanded. “The cause of what?”
“The yurts of the other shamans,” Tamur replied excitedly. “Men are gathering there, even though none like to venture into the night this close to the Blasted Lands.”
Akeba grunted. “They must have sensed the death of one of their own.”
“But they’ll not find us standing over the bodies,” Conan said, pinching the lamp wick between his fingers. The dark seemed deeper once that small light was gone. He started for the door flap.
Outside, Sharak leaned on his staff and peered toward the distant torches that were beginning to move toward Samarra’s yurt. The mutters of the men carrying those lights made a constant, angry hum. The old astrologer jumped when Conan touched his shoulder. “Do we return to the Blasted Lands, Conan, we must do it now. This lot will take it unkindly, our wandering their camp at night.”
“Yasbet is gone,” Conan told him quietly, “taken or slain. Samarra is dead.” Sharak gasped. Conan turned away, and Sharak, after one quick glance at the approaching torches, fell silently in behind the others.
As four shadows they made they made their way between the dark yurts, out onto the plain, and hurried toward their camp, ignoring as best they could the rising tumult behind them. Then a great shout rose, a cry of rage from a hundred throats.
Akeba quickened his pace to come abreast of Conan. “They have found her,” the Turanian said, “but may not think we slew her.”
“We are strangers,” Conan laughed mirthlessly. “What would your soldiers do if a princess of Aghrapur were murdered, and there were outlanders close to hand?”
The Turanian sucked air between his teeth. “Mitra send us time to get to our horses.”
Wit
h no more words the four men broke into a run, Conan and Akeba covering the ground with distance-eating strides. Tamur ran awkwardly, but with surprising speed. Even Sharak kept up, wheezing and puffing, and finding breath to complain of his years.
“Awake!” Tamur cried as they ran into their dark camp. The fires had burned low. “To your horses!” Nomads rolled instantly from their blankets, booted and clothed, seized their weapons, and stared at him blankly. “We must flee!” Tamur shouted to them. “We stand outside the laws!” Leaping as if pricked, they darted for the horses. Tamur turned to Conan, shaking his head. “We shall not escape. We ride reedy coastal stock. Those who pursue will be astride war mounts. Our animals will drop before dawn, while theirs can maintain a steady pace all the way to the sea.”
“The pack horses,” Conan said. “Will they carry men?”
Tamur nodded. “But we have enough mounts for everyone.”
“What if,” Conan said slowly, “when our horses are about to fall, we change to horses that, if tired somewhat from running, have at least not carried a man? And when those are ready to fall … .” He looked at the others questioningly. He had heard of this in a tavern, and tavern tales were not always overly filled with truth. “We have several extra mounts for each man. Even these war mounts cannot outrun them all, can they?”