Marique pointed her quirt at Tamara. “Two of you, fetch her. We are to be away.”
Rough hands jerked her up. They tossed her over the shoulders of one beast and tied her into place. Until Marique leaned down to sniff her hair, Tamara did not know upon which beast she had been placed. The witch’s sibilant whisper chilled her.
“You are now mine. I shall deliver you to my father. You will make him great.” Marique chuckled lightly. “And you shall make me greater.”
Tamara tried to reply, but her tongue had become a dead thing. She could only listen as Marique dispatched a half dozen of her riders to kill Conan. “Bring me the barbarian’s head; I have a use for it. If you return without it, I will find an unpleasant use for yours.”
TAMARA’S ABSENCE REGISTERED in Conan’s consciousness the second he came awake. It, however, was not the reason he’d wakened. Something was amiss. He felt it. He’d heard something and he did not need to identify it before he filled his hand with steel and rolled to a crouch in the shelter’s corner. Another man, naked save for the shadow that cloaked him, might have felt vulnerable. While Conan would have preferred to have pulled on his mail and his boots, his current condition did not inspire fear—as it would not have inspired fear in a tiger setting itself to hunt.
Only the distant surf broke the silence. All the jungle creatures remained quiet. Anticipation grew like storm clouds on the horizon. That he was being hunted Conan did not doubt. That meant that Tamara was in danger; but her safety was not his primary concern. To do anything to help her, he had to survive; and survival, for Conan, meant killing his enemies as quickly as possible.
In the darkness beneath a vine-screened window, the Cimmerian grinned. Who would Khalar Zym have sent to kill him? His best troops—at least, the best of those yet alive? Proud men, city-bred men whose sense of confidence came from the superiority of numbers and the livery they wore. Driven by fear or visions of profit. They had the confidence of hunters, the arrogance of civilization.
Their caution betrayed them. One man crept up to the window beneath which Conan crouched. He used a dagger to move a leaf aside so he could spy the shelter’s interior. Conan waited until the blade stopped moving, then stabbed his sword up and back. The point hit. Something popped, something cracked, then the Cimmerian hauled forward on the blade. He pulled the man—transfixed through the eye—in by that window, and left him thrashing his life out on the dark floor.
The other assassins came for the doorway, knowing only that their fellow had disappeared within. They’d not seen enough to decide if he had plunged in after their prey, or something sinister had befallen him. The first two burst in, one ducking low, the other leaping, so that any cut intended to bisect a man would miss both.
But before they had reached the doorway, the Cimmerian had gone out through the window. His first slash cut a man’s spine at his pelvis, leaving him to scream in terror as he collapsed, the lower half of his body dead. The barbarian’s second cut carved deep into a thigh, hamstringing an assassin and severing an artery. He spun down over his companion, shouting in panic, and Conan vanished into the jungle.
He did not go far, and though he secreted himself in a thicket, ignoring the painful caress of thorns and nettles; his concealment was not intended as defense. Conan had hunted in jungles before, and had been hunted by men far more used to these conditions than Khalar Zym’s assassins. A legion of Picts would have made less noise than the trio of men pursuing him. Savage tribes throughout the Black Kingdoms had sought Conan through rain forests and savannas, coming closer to discovering him than did these civilized men.
Had it been in his nature, the Cimmerian might have pitied them, but the wolf does not pity the sheep. The lion does not wonder if an antelope is loved or will be mourned. These were the concerns of civilized men, thoughts they used to insulate themselves from reality. For civilization was but a slender mask concealing savagery. Though desperation and a desire to live might strip it away, and while these assassins might choose to abandon it, Conan, the hunter, would not give them that chance.
Remaining low within the brush, Conan waited for one of them to slip past. The Cimmerian stabbed out, slicing through the back of the man’s boot, severing the tendon. Going down to a knee, the man thrust blindly into the thicket. Conan grabbed his wrist and dragged him deeper, where the man struggled against thorns while the barbarian opened his throat.
He did not stop to imagine the others’ reactions to what they heard, or their reactions when they discovered the body. Had he any strategem in mind, he might have chosen to climb a tree and leap down upon them. Any of that, all of that, smacked of trickery; and trickery was what the hunted used. All Conan really needed was to keep moving, restlessly and relentlessly.
So he did, pausing only briefly to listen for his prey. One made far too much noise in an obvious ruse to attract him. Conan circled higher and around. A hunter wanted higher ground, and Conan found the assassin waiting.
The distraction masked the dying man’s sigh. Conan had approached from the left, and as the man spread branches to peer through, the Cimmerian thrust deep into his armpit. He felt the man’s life flee through tremors communicated by the steel linking them. He laid the man down, sliding his sword from him, then again moved through the jungle and back to the shelter.
There he tugged off the thigh-stuck man’s helmet and grabbed a handful of greasy hair. Looming large, he yanked back. “Scream for your friend.”
The wounded soldier needed no more encouragement. “He’s here, he’s here!”
A careful crashing sounded through the brush. Conan released the soldier and moved down to a sandy circle. He waved the last assassin toward him. “It is done.”
The man approached, his blade held high and back in the manner of sword schools scattered across Hyboria. He stamp-feinted, kicking a sand plume at Conan. When the barbarian did not give ground, the soldier lowered his stance, brought his blade forward, and the two of them locked eyes.
Something his grandfather had told him returned unbidden. “Some men believe that being skilled at swordplay is the same as being skilled at killing.” Conan let his sword’s tip waver and descend, imparting a tremble as if fear trickled through his belly. Then he lowered his sword and stood fully upright. “Prove you’re a man, or die playing children’s games.”
Whether stung by his words or provoked by Conan’s abandoning his guard, the soldier attacked. He slashed toward the left, his blade poised to slice open the Cimmerian’s belly. Though that cut had not even tasted flesh, he began to shift so the return would take Conan’s head off cleanly.
But faster than the man could have imagined, Conan shifted his sword from right hand to left and effortlessly blocked the cut at his middle. He lunged forward, catching the man’s throat in his right hand. He lifted him up, letting him dangle, then tightened his hand. Steely fingers crushed the man’s windpipe. Conan tossed him to the ground and listened to the strangled whistle he made while struggling to draw breath.
Conan killed the other two, then got himself dressed. He dragged the other bodies from the jungle and severed all of their heads. He pitched the bodies down into the rock-warded bay, then bound the heads together by their hair and dragged them along the path Tamara’s tracks had taken. He crouched where she had fallen, fingering a piece of bronze machinery and the sliver of a wing.
That Khalar Zym had taken Tamara had been obvious, but the tiny piece of machinery meant that the daughter wanted him to know of her hand in the abduction. Why Marique had done this really didn’t matter—far more noble creatures were wont to mark their territory. Her motives did not concern him. He would not be distracted by them. His mission had not changed. He was to kill Khalar Zym and destroy the Mask of Acheron—and did not particularly scruple over the order of accomplishing those tasks. That Marique might also need to die had always been a possibility, but Conan saw no reason to assign her any priority.
He stacked the heads into a pyramid and stuffed the small machine part into the mouth of the uppermost head. He faced it toward the northwest. When the girl did not return to the ship, Artus would send out scouts. They would find the skulls and read the signs as easily as Conan did. Without the girl to convey to Hyrkania, the pirate would set himself to the task of warning others about Khalar Zym.
Conan took a moment to study the trail Tamara’s kidnappers had taken. He’d not seen spoor like that before, and the distance between individual tracks suggested strides two or three times as long as those of a horse. Keeping to the coastal road and cutting inland, they’d reach Khor Kalba quickly enough—and far more quickly than
