Conan: Road of Kings (6 page)

“I like this one,” Conan decided. It was a fine weapon—a straight, wide, single-edged blade, with basket hilt and a complex guard of loops and shells. The watering was extremely delicate, and the layers seemed of infinite number.

“That is a splendid broadsword, isn’t it,” Mordermi agreed. “I’d be curious to know its history—the hilt isn’t original. I’m certain. I’d consider carrying that one myself perhaps, but the hilt is a bit clumsy for my hand, and a rapier is a more versatile weapon than the broadsword, I find. It’s a lighter, more nimble blade—gives you a long reach in fencing, with the edge for the slash and the point for the thrust. Tradition still demands the hand-and-a-half sword for duelling, but in time I predict you’ll see the rapier supplant the bastard sword, and the slash give way to the thrust.”

“There’s not enough stopping power to a thrust from one of those narrow blades,” Conan disagreed. “I’ve seen a drunken Æsir mercenary take a rapier thrust through the heart, then go on to cut his slayer in half and kill two of his friends, before he stumbled over a bench and died. Split a man’s skull, and if he doesn’t fall, walk around and see what he’s leaning against. You can have your fine techniques and rapier thrusts. Give me a strong blade with a good edge, and I’ll cut my way out of any scrap.”

“Of course,” Mordermi’s tone held just enough sarcasm that Conan didn’t miss it this time. “Well, I’m sure you made a believer out of Captain Rinnova though, didn’t you? Do you want to try it?”

Mordermi drew his sword.

“Just to be certain you like the balance,” he grinned. “First blood?”

Although Conan disliked the sham bloodletting that civilized men considered well-bred virility, the proposal was innocent enough. Conan wished he could read the lambent moods that flickered behind the veil of Mordermi’s eyes.

Mordermi guarded himself, waiting politely for Conan to initiate the play. Conan, feeling foolish, made an awkward thrust that Mordermi easily evaded. There was nothing awkward to Mordermi’s riposte, and Conan caught the rapier point upon his guard at the final instant.

Angered, Conan flung aside Mordermi’s blade, rotated his wrist for an upward slash in the same movement. At the last moment he realized the swordtip would inflict a crippling wound to his friend’s brachial plexus; he turned the point just as it touched the armpit, and Mordermi shivered away in the split second that Conan’s hesitation had given him.

The slash would have inflicted permanent injury; shaken, Conan reminded himself that this was only a game. Mordermi felt no such qualms; before Conan could recover, his blade slashed for the Cimmerian’s face. Conan parried desperately, but Mordermi was faster. Their blades rang together, sprang away. Conan felt a tug alongside his jaw. Already his broadsword, following the instinctive movement of his swordarm, was again engaged with Mordermi’s blade as the other sought to withdraw. The heavier blade caught the rapier near its hilt, snagged the elaborate guard, and the force of Conan’s blow ripped the hilt from Mordermi’s hand.

“Conan!”

Sandokazi’s scream snapped him to awareness. His broadsword was raised for a killing blow. Mordermi was spinning to reach for his rapier—seemingly suspended in midair.

Conan froze. The rapier struck the floor, bounded upward. Mordermi caught it up.

“You’re bleeding,” Mordermi said calmly.

Conan touched his jaw. There was warm wetness from the shallow cut there.

“What madness is this?” Sandokazi demanded. “I heard the clash of steel…”

“Sorry,” Conan muttered sheepishly, looking at the blood on his fingers. “I’m not used to doing this for sport.”

“I should have known better than to relax my guard,” Mordermi said easily. “No matter. The exercise was instructive.”

“Mitra, what were you two…?”

“Conan wanted to try the balance of his broadsword, and I was curious to test the swordarm that mastered Rinnova,” Mordermi told her. “Conan has a theory…”

“That was a slash you used,” Conan protested, remembering.

“As I said, a rapier is a versatile weapon,” Mordermi shrugged. “You should have seen this, ’Kazi. Conan wields that broadsword as if it were an extension of his arm and no heavier than his finger.”

“And you call Santiddio scatterbrained!” Sandokazi shook her head. “I think I’ll catch up with my brother and listen to him exchange verbal barbs with his rivals. No blood to clean up afterward.”

“Oh, don’t bet on that,” Mordermi murmured, as she stalked away. “Even Santiddio and Avvinti must eventually exhaust their repartee.”

“If I were this Avvinti, I wouldn’t want Sandokazi behind my back if it came to swordplay,” Conan mused. “She showed no remorse this morning when she rode over the trampled bodies on the Dancing Floor. That rescue must have cost the lives of as many bystanders as combatants.”

“None of the Esanti blood ever let very much stand in the way of what they desired. You know, it was her idea to create a diversion with burning haywagons.” He examined the slash on Conan’s jaw. “I’ve cut myself worse shaving.”

“The Esanti blood?” Conan queried, thinking Mordermi’s tone was edged with disappointment.

“Yes, Santiddio and Sandokazi are of the Esanti line—very high born, didn’t you know? But I forget you are new to Kordava. The Esantis were one of the finest houses of Zingara. All that’s gone now, of course, and only the three of them remain.”

He added: “You’ll want a dagger as well. See if any you find here will suit you.”

Conan eagerly looked over the row of knives that Mordermi indicated, thinking that there were weapons and armor here to equip a small army, should Santiddio’s comrades decide to back their words with steel. “You say there are three of them left of their house. Does the one hold title, while Santiddio and Sandokazi live as outcasts?”

“There is no title, no estate any longer. Only Santiddio and his sisters—they’re triplets, did you know that? They were little more than children when their father offended King Rimanendo. I’m still not sure whether it was because the count was withholding more than his share of the royal taxes he collected from his tenants—as Rimanendo charged—or because he refused to levy the full burden of Rimanendo’s taxes upon his people—as Santiddio claims. Little matter. He was beheaded, his lands and wealth given over to another of Rimanendo’s henchmen. I forget what happened to the rest of the household—it wasn’t anything to dwell upon.

“But a triple birth is a rare thing; I know of none other in our lifetime in Zingara. Three is a sacred number, and they were spared if for no better reason than the awe of the common folk; a plain soldier is slower to defile the handiwork of his gods than is the officer who commands him. Through sympathizers of their father, they lived. Santiddio and Sandokazi eventually found their way to the Pit, as have so many. Loyal friends kept them in enough money to eke out an existence; Sandokazi dances, Santiddio draws from a portion of the funds collected by the White Rose.”

Conan found a heavy-bladed kidney dagger to his liking. “And the third one?”

“That’s Destandasi. She … well, she fell in with a different crowd, so to speak. She too was sickened by the corrupt tyranny of Rimanendo’s rule, but while Santiddio and Sandokazi turned their energies toward social reform, Destandasi turned her back upon modern society. She entered the mysteries of Jhebbal Sag. I believe she is priestess in a grove sacred to Jhebbal Sag, somewhere beyond the Black River. There has been little or no communication obviously over the years. A sorceress—particularly one of that ancient cult—has little concern with the social and political upheavals of the modern world, for all that her brother and sister have been swept up in its tide.”

“Destandasi,” Conan wondered, fitting the dagger to his belt. “She is the twin of Sandokazi?”

“And of Santiddio,” laughed Mordermi. “Very aloof is Destandasi.”

Five

Night Visitors

At the first whisper of sound, Conan was fully awake. His eyes slitted in the darkness of his chamber, and his fist closed upon the hilt of his dagger.

Mordermi had given over to him one of the rooms of the mansion. Conan had made up a pallet amidst the bales and piles of plundered goods from whence he could watch the door. It was the soft
snick
of the well-oiled bolt that had awakened him after only a few hours of sleep.

Someone had quickly cracked open the door and slipped past, of that Conan was certain—even though the door was again closed, and the room in total darkness. Unable to see, the intruder was waiting to orient himself within the cluttered storeroom. Silently, Conan slid from beneath his blanket and crept toward the almost indiscernible sound of soft breathing.

As he stealthily closed with the unseen visitor, Conan suddenly relaxed his tense grip upon the kidney dagger. To his nostrils came the piquant fragrance of perfume and sweat. Conan swept out his arm and gathered in a startled female form.

Sandokazi gave an involuntary yelp of surprise, then subsided in his embrace. The quick brush of his arms made it plain to Conan that the woman carried no weapon.

“I might have gutted you,” Conan reproached her.

“Mitra! Are you a cat that you can see in the dark?”

“I heard your breathing, smelled your perfume.” Conan wondered that he had to explain the obvious. “I thought I’d locked that door.”

“Anyone can pick these locks,” Sandokazi replied in the same tone. “But then, who would steal from Mordermi?”

“Indeed.”

Sandokazi wore only a thin shift. Conan, who wore rather less, was keenly aware of the warm body that pressed against his own bare flesh.

“I danced until very late tonight,” Sandokazi told him. “The others are all drunk and snoring after celebrating Santiddio’s escape.”

Conan, who had left the festivities earlier that evening, was not slow to comprehend. Perhaps had he not lingered along the way to his quarters with his convivial bath attendant. Conan’s response now would have been different. The Cimmerian acted according to his savage code of honor—a code not overly governed by temperance—and the voluptuous figure that embraced him in the darkness was as tempting as any succubus.

“I told you I wouldn’t forget what you did for my brother,” Sandokazi whispered, her fingers teasing.

“You are Mordermi’s woman,” Conan reminded her with an effort.

“Mordermi need not know. He has not been my first lover, nor will he be my last. I’m no austere maiden like my sainted sister.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Conan protested, knowing that if matters went any further his passions would override his ethics. “Mordermi is my host and my friend. I’ll not cuckold him in his own house.”

“Such piety!” Sandokazi scoffed. “Who would have believed it in a barbarian mercenary! My touch tells me that you’re not one of those who will only ride another stallion. Surely you’re not afraid of Mordermi?”

Anger thickened Conan’s tone. “No doubt it’s strange to you that I have not become sufficiently civilized to roll in the hay with a friend’s woman. In Cimmeria our customs are somewhat archaic.”

“Well then, this isn’t Cimmeria, is it,” Sandokazi teased. “Surely now, a man of your class hasn’t paused to propose marriage to every wench he’s tumbled!”

“Not to a slut,” Conan snarled. Anger was now overruling the lust he felt for her. “But if I care for a woman, then I make her my woman, and I’d kill any man who tried to steal my woman. Mordermi feels the same, if I’m any judge of men. If I take you for my own, it would mean a fight. I’m not ready to kill a friend over any woman.”

“Oh, so!” Sandokazi drew away, her own temper aroused now. “Santiddio was right—you are an altruist. Well, my possessive Cimmerian! I wasn’t offering to become your barbarian hutmate in some stinking mountain village—I was offering you a night’s pleasure! I was curious to learn whether there was a man underneath all that pretty muscle! Instead, all I find is one great hulking fool!”

As Sandokazi haughtily slipped from his grasp and made for the door, Conan almost agreed with her pronouncement. He was not accustomed to thinking through his actions, and only the fact that betrayal of a friend was abhorrent to his every instinct prevented him from seizing her and throwing her willing flesh down against his pallet. Instead, he let her go to the door.

After the total darkness of Conan’s chamber, the gloom of the corridor beyond made a bright bar of light as the door opened. Sandokazi’s bare tread had been soundless, so that the man outside the door was outlined in the band of light. Although taken unawares, he recovered instantly, and the knife in his hand gleamed balefully as he stabbed downward.

No less startled herself, Sandokazi screamed piercingly. The intruder’s arm wavered involuntarily—he hadn’t expected a woman—and that hesitation was enough for Sandokazi to writhe under the blow. With a dancer’s litheness, she rolled into the hallway—taking a shallow cut as the blade sliced the shoulder of her shift. She screamed again.

The assailant whirled, still discomfited by the unexpected turn of events—uncertain whether to silence her or to attack the man he thought to find asleep here. Conan, lunging out of the darkness, struck first. Seizing the man’s knife arm, he drove the kidney dagger into the intruder’s belly, tearing upward in a gutting stroke that sheared into breastbone. The man’s bellow of pain melted into a dull groan, as he sank from Conan’s grasp and spilled onto the floor.

Sandokazi stopped screaming, and looked at Conan with glowing eyes.

By now other cries of alarm resounded throughout the mansion. Men came running into the hallway, blades bright in the light of the torches they carried. Mordermi was among them. There was question in his face, as he and his men took in the tableau.

Sandokazi did not hesitate. “I was about to retire, when I saw someone slinking along the hallway. His manner was suspicious; I followed him, and when he paused before Conan’s door, I knew him to be an assassin. I screamed a warning to Conan; the assassin struck at me, and then Conan grappled with the man and killed him.”

She drew down the slashed shoulder of her shift, examined the cut there. It bled freely, but was little more than a scratch. Conan had better sense than to contradict her story.