“Can you drive a team?”
“What? Of course.”
“Good.” Conan glanced back as two of Khalar Zym’s men came riding fast. He made to hand her the reins through the slit. “Here. Drive.”
“What? No. Wait.” The viewport snapped shut.
Before Conan could muster a curse at womankind’s fickle frailty, the carriage’s door swung open. A slender woman, her long hair flying, arced from the interior, her hands anchored on the door. Her feet came up, then she twisted in the air and landed beside him, a smile blossoming on her lips. She snatched the reins from his hands. “Do you wish me to do more than just drive?”
“Try not to die.” Conan jumped from the seat to the carriage’s roof, drawing off his cloak. He whipped it toward the nearest of Khalar Zym’s riders, and then launched himself in its wake. The cloak wrapped the man in darkness, then Conan tackled him, dragging him from the saddle. They landed hard, the soldier breaking Conan’s fall and a half-dozen ribs in the process, then the barbarian rolled free, drawing his sword in one flowing motion.
The second rider slashed at the Cimmerian. Conan ducked the blow and struck. His cut caught the rider just above his greave, shattering bone and slicing sinew. The lower half of the man’s leg came off, arterial blood pulsing hot and red, while the rider slumped to the left and fell. His foot caught in the stirrup, so his mount raced off, bucking and snorting, struggling to free itself from the dead thing dragging beside it.
Conan turned and kicked the first rider in the head before he could rise. He ran for that man’s horse, which had trotted to a stop, and gained the saddle easily. He reined around and quickly took stock of the battle.
The wagon’s defenders had given as good as they got. Their efforts cut the pursuit in half. Four of the defenders lay dead, and two clung to saddles despite being pierced by arrows. One of Khalar Zym’s men went after them, while the other two started down the road after the wagon.
Conan trotted his horse over to block their path.
One of them raised a spear as he reined up. “Delay us and you incur the wrath of Khalar Zym!”
“I will slay him as easily as I slay you.” Conan stabbed his bloody sword forward and kicked his horse in the ribs. The beast leaped forward, then sped toward the enemy. Conan knew better than to charge two armored men, especially when one had a spear and could pluck him from the saddle. But because they had the advantage of numbers, and could easily call their confederates to their aid, if he did not carry the battle to them and quickly, they would regain their wits and trap him.
He raced at them and then, at the last moment, shifted his sword from right hand to left and cut his horse to the right. This forced the spearman to raise his point past his horse’s head to keep it on target. By the time it came down, however, Conan had swept past. His sword whipped in. The spearman’s shield came up, and Conan’s blade sparked from the iron boss. The blade still caught the man in the forehead, denting his helmet instead of cleaving his skull in half.
He spun away, shield flying, spear falling. Conan reined his horse about hard and drove at the swordsman, who’d begun to turn left before he ran into his partner’s horse. Conan came around on his right. The man twisted in the saddle, futilely trying to parry Conan’s blade. The Cimmerian simply lowered his hand, letting the other man’s blade flash past, then stabbed up through his armpit and ripped the blade free.
Conan looked toward where the last of Khalar Zym’s men had ridden, but dust obscured his view. Then a black horse with an empty saddle rode free. Conan allowed himself to believe the last attacker dead, so he kicked his horse into a gallop. He gained ground quickly along the road and came around a bend just as, two hundred yards further on, Khalar Zym’s hunched lieutenant leaped from his saddle onto the coach’s roof.
The barbarian wanted to shout a warning, but the girl would never hear it.
And what could she do?
He urged the horse on faster, riding low in the saddle.
If I cut across the dry lake bed there . . .
But even that would have been of no use because Khalar Zym’s minion crept closer and closer. Even if his horse sprouted wings, Conan never could have gotten there in time to save her.
He snarled.
Then Khalar Zym shall atone for your death as well.
The girl must have heard something, for she quickly cast a glance behind her. Without hesitation, her left foot came up and around, catching the minion square in the chest. He straightened up, arms milling to regain balance. He succeeded, a triumphant expression lighting his hideous face, then the wagon hit a bump and he flew into the air.
He came down heavily, bouncing once, but managed to catch hold of a cleat at the roof’s rear. His other hand came up, his fingers crashing through the roof. He dragged himself up, slithering on his belly. Inch by inch he pulled himself after her.
The girl looked back again. She shook her head, then squatted. She tugged at something, then came up again and displayed a steel shaft. She taunted the man with it, then blithely tossed it away.
Before Conan could be certain what she had done, two things happened. The woman leaped forward, onto the back of one of the horses. The wagon slowed as the horses sped on. The wagon’s tongue lanced down, stabbing into the road. Before it splintered, it caused the front wheels to turn sharply left and the wagon hurtled from the roadway.
Of the man on its roof Conan saw nothing until the first bounce. Wheels and bits thereof sailed in every direction. The man arced high into the air as the carriage box started tumbling across the lake bed. It flew to pieces, instantly reduced to jagged fragments. It scattered itself along a twenty-yard path, and the man rolled to the middle of it.
Conan guided the horse toward him and dismounted quickly. Khalar Zym’s man took one look at him and scrambled to his feet. He began to run in a shuffling gait, his path haphazard. Conan bent, picked up an iron wheel rim, and hurled it, tangling the man’s legs and dropping him to the cracked gray ground.
The minion had rolled to his back and held his hands up as Conan approached. “Mercy, sir, mercy.”
The Cimmerian stared down at him, seeing, now twisted in fear, a face he’d last seen warped by triumph and lit by the forge’s fire. He pressed the tip of his blade to the man’s throat. “You have one chance. Where is Khalar Zym?”
The man hesitated before he answered. Conan knew that hesitation well—civilized men always stopped to concoct lies. “If you seek Khalar Zym, then you can be a very rich man. I can guarantee you that.”
Conan’s eyes narrowed. “Should I believe your lies, or just backtrail you? I think I am better at tracking.”
“Wait, don’t kill him.”
Conan looked up as the woman approached. “I don’t need him. My mission ends where his began.”
“Your mission is to take me to Hyrkania.”
Conan glanced up toward the sun, then looked at her again. It was a bit early in the day for her to be heat-addled, and she didn’t have the look of a congenital idiot. “I do not know you.”
“My master knew you. He had a vision. He said a man would come to take me to Hyrkania.”
The Cimmerian thought for a moment. He’d believed Lucius was likely lying when he said Khalar Zym was seeking a woman in the Red Waste. Still, Zym’s men had been chasing her. The idea that her master had had a vision smacked of sorcery to him, but so did Khalar Zym and the entire Red Waste. “So you are the one Khalar Zym seeks?”
She frowned. “Who’s Khalar Zym?”
The minion sucked at his teeth. “Yes, Master, this is the one Khalar Zym wants. He’ll pay well for her return. You can be as we are, as we, his faithful, will be. You can be a god, too.”
The woman folded her arms over her chest. “I have no knowledge of this Khalar Zym. I just know that Master Fassir said you would take me Hyrkania.”
“No, Master, you cannot do that.” The ugly man gingerly pushed Conan’s sword out of line with his throat. “Khalar Zym is not to be thwarted. If you do not submit, he shall chase you to the end of the earth. He will hound you from Khitai to the Black Kingdoms, and even to the frozen plains of Cimmeria. You must believe me.”
“I do believe you, little man.” Conan stabbed his sword into the earth and crouched. He held his hands before the minion’s face, revealing chain scars traced with dirt and blood. “I remember the last time he was there. I’ve come to remind him of it, then to ensure that’s the last thought that ever travels through his mind.”
CHAPTER 21
SO USED WAS
she to the ritual that Marique could have made quick work of unbuckling her father’s armor. The well-worn leather straps were compliant conspirators in what she did, but she did not move with haste. Beneath the armor, beneath the boiled-leather shell, she could feel her father’s warmth. She relished it, and took great joy in being of service to him, no matter how tiny that service might be.
Someday he will understand the true significance of all I do for him.
At the moment, however, in his grand cabin aboard the land ship, her father’s attention remained focused on one thing: the Mask of Acheron. Unforgivably ancient, the golden brown of aged ivory, with a serpent-scale texture and tentacles arrayed as if rays of the sun, the mask lay between his hands, at once terrible and hideous, yet possessed of a beauty born of its potential. His thumbs caressed the cheeks as he might have caressed a lover’s flesh.
As he caressed my mother’s face
.
Marique removed the armor’s back plate and set it aside. She started working on the next layer of buckles, beginning at the top.
“The prize is near, Father. You possess the mask, and soon you shall have the blood to fill it.”
“Yes, very soon.” His fingers played over the forehead. “It was your mother’s dream to wear the mask. Magick flowed in her blood, as it does in yours. She yearned for the power, she sought the secrets of Acheron’s forgotten sorcery. Without her and her work, we would not be on this brink.”
Marique hesitated, letting a single finger caress the silken undertunic her father wore beneath the armor. His scent rose from within the shell, filling her head, warming her heart. She longed to press her cheek to his back, to linger in his presence. She drew strength from him. She hoped for a second or two of his attention, thinking that would be enough to sustain her forever, and yet knowing it would be but a drop in a vast ocean of desire.
Khalar Zym glanced back over his shoulder. “Imagine, Marique . . .”
“Yes, Father . . .”
“Imagine the secrets she will bring back with her from the realms of the dead.” His voice grew from a reverent whisper to a bold declaration. “She will have spent her time well, you know. She will have pierced mysteries that have confounded necromancer and philosopher alike. Even sorcerers who were born prior to the fall of Acheron will bow before her wisdom, the wisdom of a woman who dared venture to a realm that frightens them all.”
“Yes, Father . . .” Marique worked at the next buckle.
Does he not remember that I was there? He remembers her death as he needs to. Before the monks it was a foul crime. Now it becomes a bold sacrifice that launched her on a quest for lore arcane and obscure. Her mistakes, her foolishness, is what led her to her death. Is it sane to assume she will return any the wiser?
Her father drew the mask in toward his own face. The girl felt certain that if it had lips, he would have kissed it. He stared into the empty eyeholes. “Oh, Marique, can you feel it? Can you feel the future? With my beloved Maliva at my side, I shall be invincible! Nations may call forth legions to destroy us, but I shall harvest them as if they were sheaves of wheat. I shall trample on kingdoms, I shall reave empires. All history shall begin with me and dwell forever with my beloved and me.”
“Yes, Father, I believe this.” Her fingers stopped. “But, as you have taught me, as my mother taught me, prophecy and magick, these are subtle and delicate things. Must we not plan further?”
Khalar Zym turned halfway around, shifting the mask so both it and he stared at her. “What are you suggesting?”
“Father, Remo went after the girl hours ago. What if he does not return with her?”
Her father laughed coldly. “Remo will bring her, or send word where I can find her. He would rather die than disappoint me, and will sooner soar on invisible wings than fail me. Put your mind at ease, Marique.”
“I wish I could, Father.” She turned from him, stepping beyond his immediate reach. She bowed her head as a penitent might when begging for mercy. “It is just, I wonder . . .”
“What, girl, tell me . . .”
“The ritual, Father, what if it fails?”
“Fails? It is not possible.” Her father strode across the cabin and replaced the mask in its setting atop a standard. “Your mother, Marique, she uncovered the ritual. She translated the lore herself. She knew what she was doing, and went to her death confident that through it we would bring her back. The ritual will not fail . . .”
“But, Father, if it does . . .”
Khalar Zym’s eyes blazed hotly. “It will
not!
Maliva
will
return.”
Marique turned and sank to her knees before her father, throwing back her chin to expose her throat. Tears, hot, desperate tears, rolled down her cheeks. “My powers are growing, Father. I have my mother’s blood—your beloved’s blood—flowing through me. I have learned much, Father. I have studied all my mother studied, and more.”
Khalar Zym raised a hand. “Insolent child, do not presume you know more than your mother!”
Marique cast her gaze to her father’s boots. “Father, I have only ever desired to be a worthy heir to you and my mother. Thus my diligence in studies. I have uncovered secrets, as she did.” She reached out and took his other hand and kissed it gently. “Even now, to prove my love to you, Father, I could, I
would,
make them all kneel before you as I kneel.”