Conan the Liberator

SWORDS ACROSS THE ALIMANE

For several months, the friends of Count Trocero had done their work, and well. In marketplace and roadside inn, in village and hamlet, in town and city, the whisper winged across the province of Poitain: "The Liberator comes!"

Such was the title given to Conan by Count Troceros partisans, men who remembered trembling tales of the giant Cimmerian from years gone by. They had heard how he thrust and cut amidst the silvery flood of Thunder River to break the will of the savage Picts, lest they swarm in their thousands across the border to loot and slay and ravish the Bossonian Marches. Poitanians who knew these stories now looked to the indomitable figure of Conan to wrest them from the clutches of their bloody tyrant.

For weeks, archers and yeomen and men-at-arms had filtered southward, ever southward, toward the Alimane. In the villages, men muttered over mugs of ale, their shaggy heads bent close together, of the invasion to come.

Now, at last, the Liberator neared. The moment loomed to free Poitain and, in good time, all of Aquilonia, prostrate now beneath the heavy heel of mad Numedides. The word so eagerly awaited had arrived in an oiled-silk envelope, stamped with the seal of their beloved count. And they were ready.

Chilled by the raw and foggy night, the sentinel, a youth from Gunderland, sneezed as he stamped his booted feet and slapped his shoulders. Sentry-go was a tedious tour of duty in the best of times, but on a damp night during a cold snap, it could be cursed uncomfortable.

If only he had not foolishly let himself be caught blowing kisses in the ear of the captain’s mistress, thought the Gunderman gloomily, he might even now be carousing in the cheerful warmth of the sergeant’s mess with his luckier comrades. What need, after all, to guard the main gate to the barracks of Culario on such a night as this? Did the commandant think an army was stealing upon the base from Koth, or Nemedia, or even far Vanaheim?

Wistfully he told himself, had he enjoyed the fortune of a landed sire and birth into the gentry, he would now be an officer, swanking in satin and gilded steel at the officers’ ball. So deep was he in dreams that he failed to remark a slight scuffle of feet behind him on the cobblestones. He was aware of nothing untoward until a leathern thong settled about his plump throat, drew quickly tight, and strangled him.

The officer’s ball throbbed with merriment. Chandeliers blazed with the light of a thousand candles, which sparkled and shimmered in the silvered pier glasses. Splendid in parade uniforms, junior officers vied for the favors of the local belles, who fluttered prettily, giggling at the honeyed whispers of their partners, while their mothers watched benignly from rows of gilded chairs along the plastered walls.

The party was past its peak. The royal governor, Sir Conradin, had made his requisite appearance to open the festivities and long since had departed in,his carriage. Senior Captain Armandius, commandant of the Culario garrison, yawned and nodded over a goblet of Poitain's choicest vintage. From his red velvet seat, he stared down sourly upon the dancers, thinking that all this prancing, bowing, and circling was a pastime fit for children only. In another hour, he decided, it would not seem remiss to take his leave. His thoughts turned to his dark-eyed Zingaran mistress, who doubtless waited impatiently for him. He smiled sleepily, picturing her soft lips and other charms. And then he dozed.

A servant first smelled smoke and thrust open the front door, to see a pile of burning brush stacked high against the walls of the officers’ barracks. He bawled an alarm.

In the space of a few breaths, the king’s officers swarmed out of the burning building, like bees smoked out of their hive by honey-seeking boys. The men and their ladies, furious or bewildered, found the courtyard already full—crowded by silent, somber men with grim eyes in their work-worn faces and naked steel in their sun-browned hands.

Alas for the officers; they wore only their daggers, more ornamental than useful, and so stood little chance against the well-armed rebels. Within the hour, Culario was free; and the banner of the Count of Poitain, with its crimson leopards, flew beside a strange new flag that bore the blazon of a golden lion on a sable field.

In a private room in Culario’s best-regarded inn, the royal governor sat gaming with his crony, the Aquilonian tax assessor for the southern region. Both were deep in their cups, and consistent losses had rendered the governor surly and short tempered. Still, having escaped from the officers’ ball. Sir Conradin preferred to shun his home for yet a while, knowing that his wife would accord him an unpleasant welcome. The presence of the sentry stationed in the doorway so fanned his irritation that he brusquely commanded the soldier to stand out of sight beyond the entrance to the inn.

“Give a man some privacy,” he grumbled.

“Especially when he’s losing, eh?” teased the assessor. He guessed that the sentry would not have to brave the clammy mists for long, for Sir Conradin’s purse was nearly empty.

Continuing their game, engrossed in the dance of ivory cubes and the whimsical twists of fortune,-neither player noticed a dull thud and the sound of a falling body beyond the heavy wooden portal.

An instant later, booted feet kicked open the door of the inn; and a fierce-eyed mob of rustics, armed with clubs and rakes and scythes as well as more conventional weapons, burst in to drag the gamesters from their table to the crude gallows newly set in the center of the market square.

The men of the Border Legion received their first warning that the province seethed with insurrection when an officer of the guard, yawning as he strolled about the perimeter of the camp to assure himself that every sentry stood alert and at his post, discovered one such sentinel slumbering in the shadow of a baggage wain.

With an oath, the captain sent his booted toe thudding against the shirker’s ribs. When this failed to arouse the sleeper, the officer squatted to examine the man. A feeling of dampness on his fingers caused him to snatch away his hand; and he stared incredulously at the stain that darkened it and at the welling gash that bridged the fellow’s throat. Then he straightened bis back and filled his lungs to bellow an alarm, just in time to take an arrow through the heart.

Fog drifted across the rippling waters of the Alimane, to twist and coil around the boles of trees and the tents of sleeping men. Fog also swirled about the edges of the camp, where dark and somber forests stood knee deep in purple gloom. The ghostly tendrils wreathed the trunks of immemorial oaks, and through the coils there drifted a wraithlike host of crouching figures in drab clothing, with knives in their hands and strung bows draped across their shoulders. These shadowy figures breasted the curtaining fog, going from tent to tent, entering softly, and emerging moments later with blood upon the blades of their silent knives.

As these intruders stole among the sleeping men, other dark figures struggled through the clutching waters of the Alimane. These, too, were armed.

Ascalante, Count of Thune, was roused from heavy slumber by a shapeless cry as of a man in agony. The cry was followed by a score of shouts, and then the horns of chaos blared across the camp. For a moment, the Aquilonian adventurer thought himself immersed in bloody dreams. Then there sounded through the dripping night the screams of men in mortal combat, the shrieks of the injured, the gurgle of the dying, the tramp of many feet, the hiss of arrows, and the clangor of steel.

Cursing, the count sprang half-naked from his cot, flung wide the tent flap, and stared out upon a scene of roaring carnage. Burning tents cast a lurid light across a phantasmagoria of indescribable confusion. Corpses lay tossed about and trampled in the slimy mud, like toys discarded by the careless hands of children. Half-clothed Aquilonian soldiers fought with the frenzy of despair against mail-suited men armed with spear, sword, and axe, and others who plied longbows at such close range that every arrow thudded home. Royalist captains and sergeants strove heroically to force their pikemen into formation and to arm those who had issued unprepared from their shelters.

Then a terrible figure loomed up before the tent wherein the Count of Thune stood frozen with astonishment and horror. It was Gromel, the burly Bossonian, from whose thick lips poured a steady stream of curses. Ascalante blinked at him in amazement. The officer was clad in nothing but a loin cloth and a knee-length coat of mail. That mail was rent and hacked in at least a dozen places, baring Gromel’s mightily muscled torso, which seemed to the fastidious count to be incarnadined with gore.

"Are we betrayed?” gasped Ascalante, clutching at Gromel's blood-encrusted sword arm.

Gromel shook off the grasping hand and spat blood. “Betrayed or surprised, or both—by the slimy guts of Nergal!” growled the Bossonian. "The province has risen. Our sentries are slain; our horses chased into the woods. The road north is blocked. The rebels have snaked across the river, unseen in these accursed fogs. Most of the sentries have had their throats cut by the countryfolk. We've caught between the two forces and helpless to fight back.”

“What’s to be done, then?” whispered Ascalante.

“Flee for your life, man,” spat Gromel. “Or surrender, as I intend to do. Here, help me to bind up these wounds, ere I bleed to death.”

First, hidden by the fog, Conan had led his pike-men across the ford of Nogara. Once the fight had started, Trocero, Prospero, and Pallantides followed with the archers and mounted troops. Before a wan moon broke through the deep-piled clouds, the Count of Poitain found himself engaged in a pitched battle; for enough of the Legionnaires had gathered to make a wall of shields, behind which their long spears bristled like a giant thorn bush. Trocero led his armored knights against this barrier of interlocking shields and, after several unsuccessful tries, broke through. Then the slaughter began.

The Numedidean camp was a makeshift affair, strung out along the northern bank of the Alimane and backed against the forest. Its elongated shape made it difficult to defend. As a rule, Aquilonian soldiers built square encampments, walled with earthworks or palisades of logs. Neither of these defenses was practicable in the present case, and thus the camp of the Border Legion was vulnerable. The conformation of the land, together with the complete surprise effected by the Army of Liberation (as it came to be called) tipped the balance in favor of the rebels, even though the Legionnaires still outnumbered the combined forces of Conan and the revolting Poitanians.

Besides, the morale of the Legion had declined, so that Aquilonia’s finest soldiers for once failed to deserve their reputation. Ascalante had reported to his officers that their former chief, Amulius Procas, died by his own hand, despondent over his sorry showing in the Argossean incursion. The soldiers of the Legion could scarcely credit this canard. They knew and loved their old general, for all his strict discipline and crusty ways.

To the officers and men, Ascalante seemed a fop and a poseur. True, the Count of Thune had some experience with the military, but in garrison duty only and on quiet frontiers. And also true, any general stepping up to greatness over battle-hardened senior officers needs time to cool the hot breath of rancor in those whom he commands. But the languid ways and courtly airs of the new arrival did little to conciliate his staff; and their discontent was wordlessly transmitted to the soldiers of the line.

The attack was well planned. When the Poitanian peasants had spilled the blood of the sentries, fired the tents, and driven off the horses from their makeshift corral, the sleeping troops, roused at last to their peril, formed ranks to challenge their attackers along the northern boundary of the camp. But when they were simultaneously battered from the south by Conan's unexpected forces, their lines of defense crumbled, and the song of swords became a deathly clamor.

General Ascalante was nowhere to be found. Descrying a horse, the courtier had flung himself astride the unsaddled beast and, lacking spurs, had lashed the animal into motion with a length of branch torn from a nearby tree. He eluded the Poitanian foresters by a hair’s breadth and galloped off into the night.

A cunning opportunist like Gromel might curry favor with the victors by surrendering himself and his contingent; but for Ascalante it was quite another matter. He had a noble’s pride. Besides, the count divined what Thulandra Thuu would do when he learned of the debacle. The sorcerer had expected his appointee to hold the rebels south of the Alimane—a task not too difficult under ordinary circumstances for a commander with a modicum of military training. But the magician's arts had somehow failed to warn him of the uprising of the Poitanians—an event that would have daunted an officer more seasoned than the Coimt of Thune. And now his camp was charred and cindered, and defeat was imminent. Ascalante, thus, could only quit the lieu and put as much distance as he could between himself and both the crafty rebel leader and the dark, lean necromancer in Tarantia.

Throughout the moonless night, the Count of Thune thundered through a tunnel of tall trees, and dawn found him nine leagues east of the site of the disaster. Spurred by the thought of Thulandra’s incalculable wrath, he pushed ahead as fast as he dared go on his exhausted mount. There were places in the eastern deserts where, he hoped, even the vengeful sorcerer would never find him.

But as the hours passed, Ascalante conceived a fierce and abiding hatred of Conan the Cimmerian, on whom he laid the blame for his defeat and flight. In his heart the Count of Thune vowed someday in like manner to repay the Liberator.

Toward dawn Conan bestrode the Border Legion’s ruined camp, receiving information from his captains. Hundreds of Legionnaires lay dead or dying, and hundreds more had sought the safety of the forest, whence Trocero's partisans were now dislodging them. But a full regiment of royalist soldiery, seven hundred strong, had come over to Conan's cause, having been persuaded by circumstance and a Bossonian officer named Gromel. The surrender of these troops— Poitanians and Bossonians, with a sprinkling of Gundermen and a few score other Aquilonians among them—pleased the Cimmerian mightily; for seasoned, well-trained professionals would bolster his fighting strength and stiffen the resolve of his motley followers.

A shrewd judge of men, Conan suspected Gromel, whom he had briefly known along the Pictish frontier, of being both a formidable fighter and a wily opportunist; but opportunism is forgivable when it serves one’s turn. And so he congratulated the burly captain on his change of heart and appointed him an officer in the Army of Liberation.

Squads of weary men labored to strip the dead of usable equipment and stack the corpses in a funeral pyre, when Prospero strode up. His armor, splashed with dried blood, was ruddy in the roseate light of dawn, and he seemed in rare good humor.

“What word?” asked Conan gruffly.

“Nothing but good. General,” grinned the other. "We have captured their entire baggage train, with supplies and weapons enough for twice our strength.”

“Good work!” grunted Conan. “What of the enemy’s horses?”

“The foresters have rounded up the beasts they let run free, so we have mounts again. And we have taken several thousand prisoners, who threw down their arms when they saw their cause was hopeless. Pallantides fain would know what he's to do with them."

“Offer them enlistment in our forces. If they refuse, let them go where they will. Unarmed men can harm us not," said Conan indifferently. “If we do win this war, we shall need all the good will we can muster. Tell Pallantides to let each choose his course.”

"Very well, General; what other orders?" asked Prospero.

“We ride this morn for Culario. Trocero’s partisans report there’s not a royalist still under arms between here and the town, which waits to welcome us."

“Then we shall have an easy march to Tarantia,” grinned Prospero.

“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” Conan replied, narrowing his lids. “It will be days before news of the royalist rout arrives in Bossonia and Gunderland and the garrisons there head south to intercept us. But they will come in time.”

“Aye. Under Count Ulric of Raman, I’ll wager,” said Prospero. Then, as Trocero joined his fellow officers, he added: “What is your guess, my lord Count?"

“Ulric, I have no doubt,” said Trocero. “A pity we missed owe meeting with the northern barons. They would have held him back for quite a while."

Conan shrugged his massive shoulders. “Prepare the men to move by noon. I'll take a look at Pallantides’ prisoners."

A short while later, Conan stalked down the line of disarmed royalist soldiery, stopping now and then to ask a sharp question: “You wish to serve in the Army of Liberation? Why?"

In the course of this inspection, his eye caught the reflected sparkle of the morning sun on the hairy chest of a ragged prisoner. Looking more closely, he perceived that the light bounced off a small half-circle of obsidian, hung on a slender chain around the man’s burly neck. For an instant Conan stared, struggling to remember where it was that he had seen the trinket. Taking the object between thumb and forefinger, he asked the soldier with a hidden snarl:

"Where did you get this bauble?”

“May it please you, General, I picked it up in General Procas’s tent the morning after the general was—after he died. I thought it might be an amulet to bring me luck.”

Conan studied the man through narrowed lids. “It surely brought no luck to General Procas. Give it to me."

The soldier hastily stripped off the ornament and, trembling, handed it to Conan. At that moment Trocero approached, and Conan, holding up the object to his gaze, muttered: “I know where I have seen this thing before. The dancer Alcina wore it around her neck.”

Trocero’s eyebrows rose. "Aha! then that explains—”

“Later,” said Conan. And nodding to the prisoner, he continued his inspection.

As the level shafts of the morning sun inflamed the clouds that lingered in the eastern sky, Conan’s baggage train and rear guard lumbered across the Alimane; and soon thereafter the Army of Liberation began its march across Poitain to Culario and thence toward great Tarantia and the palace of its kings. To tread the soil of Aquilonia after so many months of scaling crags in a lost and hostile land heartened the rebel warriors. Bone-weary as they were after a night of slaughter, they bellowed a marching song as they threaded their way north among the towering Poitanian oaks.

Ahead, swifter than the wiad, flew the glad tidings: The Liberator comes! From farm and hamlet to town and city, it winged its way—a mere whisper at first, but swelling as it went into a mighty shout—a cry that monarchs dread, presaging as it does the toppling of a throne or the downfall of a dynasty.

Conan and his officers, pacing the van on fine horseflesh, were jubilant. The progress through Count Trocero’s desmene would be, as it were, on eagles’ wings. The nearest royalist forces, unapprized of their arrival, lay several hundred leagues away. And since Amulius Procas was in his grave, they had no enemy to fear until they reached the very gates of fair Tarantia. There they would find the city portals locked and barred against them, this they knew; and the Black Dragons, the monarch’s household guard, in harness to defend their king and capital. But because the people stood behind them and a throne lay before, they would hack down all defenses and trample every foe.

In this the rebels were mistaken. One foe remained of whom they knew but little. This was the sorcerer Thulandra Thuu.

In his purple-pendant oratory, lighted by corpse-tallow candles, Thulandra Thuu brooded on his sable throne. He stared into his obsidian mirror, seeking by sheer intensity of purpose to wrest from the opaque pane bright visions of persons and events in distant places. At length, with a small sigh, he settled back and rested his tired eyes. Then, frowning, he once again studied the sheet of parchment on which, in his spidery hand, were inscribed the astrological aspects he deemed conducive to communication by this occult means. He peered at the gilded crystal water clock and found no error of day or hour to explain his unsuccess. Whatever the cause, Alcina had failed to commune with him at the appointed time, now and for many days gone by.

A knock disturbed his melancholy meditation. "Enter!" said Thulandra Thuu through lips livid with frustration.

The drapery parted, and Hsiao stood on the marble threshold. Bowing, the Khitan intoned in his quavering voice: "Master, the Lady Alcina would confer with you.”

"Alcina!” The sharpness of the sorcerers tone betrayed his agitation. "Show her in at once!"

The hangings fell together silently, then parted once again. Alcina staggered in. Her page’s garb, tattered and torn, was gray with dust and caked with sun-dried mud. Her black hair formed a tangled web around a face stiff with soil and apprehension. She dragged weary feet, scarce able to support her drooping frame. The beautiful girl, who had gallantly set off for Messantia, now seemed a worn woman in the winter of her years.

“Alcina!” cried the wizard. “Whence come you? What brings you here?”

In a scarcely audible whisper, she replied: “Master, may I sit? I am fordone.”

“Be seated, then.” As Alcina sank down upon a marble bench and closed her eyes, Thulandra Thuu projected his siblant voice across the echoing chamber: 'Hsiao! Wine for Mistress Alcina.' Now, good wench, relate all that has befallen you.”

The girl drew a sobbing breath. "I have been eight days on the road, scarce halting to snatch a cat nap and a bite to eat.”

“Ah, so! And wherefore?”

“I came to say—to tell you—that Amulius Procas is dead— "

”Good!” said Thulandra Thuu, pinwheels of light dancing in his hooded eyes.

"—but Conan lives!”

At this astounding information, the sorcerer for the second time that day lost his composure. “Set and Kali!" he cried. “How did that happen? Out with it, girl; out with it!"

Before answering, Alcina paused to sip from the cup of saffron wine that Hsiao handed her. Then, haltingly, she recounted her adventures in the camp of the Border Legion—how she stabbed Procas; how she learned that Conan lived; and how she escaped the guard.

“And so,” she concluded, “fearing that you knew not of the barbarian's miraculous survival, I deemed it my duty to report to you forthwith.”

Brows drawn in a ferocious frown, the sorcerer contemplated Alcina with his hypnotic gaze. Then he purred with the controlled rage of an angry feline: “Instead of undertaking this weary journey, why did you not withdraw a prudent distance from the Legion’s camp, and commune with me at the appropriate hour by means of your fragment of yonder mirror?”

“I could not. Master.” Alcina wrung her hands distractedly.

“Wherefore not?” Thulandra Thuu’s voice suddenly jabbed like a thrown knife. “Have you mislaid the table of positions of the planets, with which I did supply you?”

“Nay, my lord; it’s worse than that. I lost my fragment of the mirror—I lost my talisman!”

Lips drawn back in a snarl, Thulandra uttered an ophidian hiss. “By Nergal’s demons!” he grated. “You little fool! What devil of carelessness possessed you? Are you mad? Or did you set your silly heart on some lusty lout, like unto a she-cat in heat? For this I will punish you in ways unknown to mortal men! I will not only flog your body but flay your very soul! You shall live the pains of all your previous lives, from the first bit of protoplasmal slime up through the worm, the fish, and the ape! You shall beg me for death, but—”

“Pray, Master, do but listenI” cried Alcina, falling to her knees. "You know men’s lusts mean naught to me, save as I rouse them in your service.” Weeping, she told of the death struggle in the dark with Amuhus Procas and of her later discovery of the loss of the talisman.

Thulandra Thuu bit his lip to master his rising wrath. “I see,” he said at length. “But when striking for great prizes, one cannot afford mistakes. Had your dagger traveled true, Procas would not have lingered long enough to seize your amulet.”

"I knew not that he wore a shirt of mail beneath his tunic. Can you not cut another fragment from the master mirror?^

"I could, but the enchantment of the fragment for transmitting distant messages is such a tedious process that the war were over ere it was completed.” Thulandra Thuu stroked his sharp chin. “Did you make certain of Procas’s death?”

“Yes. I felt his pulse and listened for his heart beat”

“Aye. But you did not so with the Cimmerian! That was the greater error.”

Alcina made a gesture of despair. "I served him with sufficient poison to have slain two ordinary men; but betwixt his great size and the unnatural vitality that propelled him… .” She drooped abjectly at her master's feet and let her voice trail off.

Thulandra Thuu rose; and towering above the trembling girl, pointed a skinny forefinger toward heaven. “Father Set, can none of my servants carry out my simplest demand?” Then, turning his sudden anger on the huddled girl, he added; “Little idiot, would you feed a boarhound on a lapdog’s rations?”

“Master, you warned me not, and who am I to calculate the grains of lotus venom needed for a giant?” Alcina’s voice rose and fury rode upon it. “You sit in comfort in your palace, whilst this poor servant courses the countryside in good and evil weather, risking her skin to do your desperate deeds. And not a kindly word have you to offer her!”

Thulandra Thuu spread his arms wide, palms upturned in a gesture of forgiveness. ‘'Now, now, my dear Alcina, let us speak no ill of one another. When allies part, the enemy wins the battle by default. If I ask you to poison another of my foes, I'll send along a clerk skilled in reckoning to calculate the dose."

He seated himself with a thin and rueful smile. “Truly, the gods must laugh like fiends at the irony of it. Having sent Amulius Procas to whatever nether world the Fates decreed, I earnestly wish that the old ruffian were alive again; for on none but him can I rely to defeat the barbarian and his rebel following.

"I thought that Ascalante and Gromel could together thwart the insurgents’ efforts to cross the Alimane; and so they could have, were not Conan in command. Now I must find an abler general for the Border Legion. This needs some thinking on. Count Ulric of Raman has the Army of the North in Gunderland, watching the Cimmerians. An able conmiander, he; but the moon must wax and wane ere he receives an order and rides the length of Aquilonia. Prince Numitor lies closer on the Pictish frontier, but— "

Hsiao’s tactful knock echoed like a tiny brazen bell. Entering, he said: “A pigeon-borne dispatch from Messantia, Master, newly received by Vibius Latro." Bowing, he handed the small scroll to the wizard.

Thulandra Thuu rose and held the scroll close to one of the huge candles, and reading, pressed his lips together until his mouth became a thin slit in his dusky face. At last he said:

“Well, Mistress Alcina, it seems the gods of my far distant island are careless of the welfare of their favored child.”

“What has befallen now?” asked Alcina, rising to her feet.

“Prince Cassio, quoth Fadius, has sent a messenger from the Rabirian Mountains back to his sire in Messantia. Conan, it seems, fully recovered from an illness that struck him down, has crossed the Alimane and, with the aid of Poitanian lords and peasants, has utterly destroyed the Border Legion. Senior Captain Gromel and his men have deserted to the rebels; Ascalante may have fled, for neither he nor his exanimate body can be found.”

The wizard crumpled the missive and glared at Alcina; and the eyes he fixed upon her burned red with a rage such as she had never seen in any living eyes. He snarled: “Betimes you tempt me, wench, to snuff out your miserable life, as a man extinguishes a lighted candle. I have a silent spell that turns mine enemy into a petty pile of ashes, with never a flame nor a plume of smoke— “

Alcina shrank away and crossed her arms upon her breast, but there was no escape from the sorcerers hypnotic stare. Her body burned as from the licking tongues of flame that lapped the open door of a furnace. The magical emanations pierced her inmost being, and she closed her eyes as if to shut out the cruel radiations. When she opened them once more, she threw up her hands to ward off a blow and shrieked hysterically.

Where the sorcerer had stood, now reared a monstrous serpent. From its upraised head, swaying on a level with her own, slit-pupiled eyes poured maleficent rays into her soul, while a reptilian stench inflamed her nostrils. The scaly jaws gaped wide, revealing a pair of dagger-pointed fangs as the great head lunged toward her. Flinching, she blinked again; and when she ventured to open her eyes, it was Thulandra Thuu who stood before her.

With a crooked smile on his narrow face, the wizard said: “Fear not, girl; I do not wantonly blunt my tools whilst they still possess a cutting edge.”

Still shuddering, Alcina recovered herself enough to ask: “Did—did you in truth take the form of a serpent, Master, or did you but cast an image of reality upon me?”

Thulandra Thuu evaded her question. "I did but remind you which of us is master here and which apprentice.”

Alcina was content to change the subject. Pointing to the crumpled parchment, she asked: “How came Fadius by Prince Cassio’s information?”

“Milo of Argos declared a public celebration, and the reason was no secret. It is plain which side the old fool favors. And one item more: Milo ordered that clodpate Quesado banished from his kingdom, and our would-be diplomat was last seen traveling with an escort of Milo’s household guard along the road to Aquilonia. I shall urge Vibius Latro to set the fellow working as a collector of offal; he is good for nothing else.

“And now, perhaps, our meddlesome mad king will leave affairs of state to me and confine himself to his besotted pleasures. I must ponder my next move in this board game with Fate, wherein a kingdom is the prize. And so, Alcina, you have my leave to go. Hsiao will provide you with food, drink, a much-needed bath, and woman's raiment.”

The league-long glittering river that was the Army of Liberation wound around tree-crowned hills, past fields and steads, and up to the gates of Culario. Conan, in the lead, reined in his black stallion at the sight of the gaping opening. From the gate towers flapped flags bearing the crimson leopards of Poitain; but the black heraldic eagle of Aquilonia was nowhere to be seen. Inside the city walls people lined both sides of the narrow street. In Conan’s agile mind stirred the barbarian’s suspicion of the trickery of civilized men.

Turning to Trocero, who rode a white gelding at his side, Conan muttered: “You re certain it’s not a royalist trap they’ve set for us?”

“My head on it!” replied the count fervently. “I know my people well.”

Conan studied the scene before him and rasped: '‘Methinks I’d best not look too much the conqueror. Wait a little.”

He unbuckled the chin strap of his helmet, pulled off the headpiece, and hung it on the pommel of his saddle. Then he dismounted with a clank of armor and strode toward the gate on foot, leading his horse.

Thus entered unpretentiously into Culario, nodding gravely to the citizens ranked on either side. Petals of fragrant flowers showered upon him; cheers resounded down the winding corridor. Following him on horseback, Prospero pulled to Trocero and whispered in his comrade’s ear: “Were we not fools the other night to wonder who should succeed Numedides?”

Count Trocero replied with a wry smile and a shrug of his iron-clad shoulders as he raised a hand in salutation to his fond and loyal subjects.

In his sanctum, Thulandra Thuu bent over a map, unrolled upon a taboret with weights of precious metals holding its edges down. He addressed himself to Alcina, now well-rested from her journey and resplendent in a flowing robe of yellow satin, which cling to her fine-molded body and glorified her raven hair.

“One of Latro’s spies reports that Conan and his army are in Culario, resting from their battle and forced march. In time they will strike north, following the Khorotas to Tarantia.” He pointed with a long, well-pared fingernail “The place to stop them is at the Imirian Escarpment in Poitain, which lies athwart their path. The only force that has both weight and time enough to accomplish such a task is Prince Numitor’s Royal Frontiersmen, based at Fort Thandara in the Westermarck of Bossonia.”

Alcina peered at the map and said: “Then should you not order Prince Numitor to march southeast with all dispatch, taking all but a small garrison?"

The wizard chuckled drily. “We shall make a general of you yet, good wench. The rider bearing that message in his pouch set off ere dawn.” Thulandra Thuu then measured off distances with his fingers, rotating his hand as if it were a draftsman’s compass. “But, as you see, if Conan marches within the next two days, Numitor can in no way reach the escarpment in advance of him. We must cause him to delay.”

'Yes, Master, but how?'

"I am not unacquainted with weather magic and can control the spirits of the air. I shall contrive a scheme to hold the Cimmerian in Culario. Fetch hither yonder powders and potions, girl, and we shall test the power of my wizardry.”

Conan stood on the city wall beside the newly elected mayor of Culario. The day had been fair when they began their promenade; but now they gazed at an indigo sky across which clouds of leaden gray rolled in endless procession.

“I like it not, sir,” said the mayor. "The summer has been wet, and this looks like the start of another spell. Too much rain can be as bad for the crops as none at all. And here it comes!” he finished, wiping a large drop from his forehead.

As the two men descended the spiral stair that wound around the tower, an agitated Prospero confronted them. ”General!” he cried. “You slipped away from your bodyguard again!”

“By Crom, I like to get off by myself sometimes!" growled Conan. "I need no nursemaid looking after me."

"It is the price of power, General,” said Prospero. “More than our leader, you've become our symbol and our inspiration. We must guard you as we would our banner or another sacred relic; for if the enemy could strike you down, his fight were three-fourths won. I assure you, spies of Vibius Latro lurk in Culario, watching for a chance to slip a poison into your wine or a poniard between your ribs.”

“Those vermin!” snorted Conan.

"Aye, but you can die from such a creature's sting as readily as any common man. Thus, General, we have no choice but to cosset you as carefully as a newborn prince. These trifling inconveniences you must learn to endure.”

Conan heaved a gusty sigh. "There's much to be said for the life of a footloose wanderer, such as once I was. Let’s back to the governors palace ere this cloudburst wash us all away."

Conan and Prosper© strode swiftly over the cobblestones, the stout mayor panting to keep pace. Overhead, a meandering crack of violet light cleft the sky, and thunder crashed like the roll of a thousand drums. The rain came down in sheets.