"My head is not the one most likely to be struck here, my friend."
"—on a rock?" Farad went on, unperturbed and keeping his face totally blank. "So we rolled dice for the honor of going with you."
"Using your dice, of course?" Conan said. He could not help smiling, moved by Farad's evident determination.
"Of course. I am not one to leave too much to chance."
"Then let us be off. I could have subdued you if I needed to go alone. Both of us together cannot subdue Khezal and his Greencloaks if they learn of our plan."
Conan leaped off the far side of the rock, Farad followed him, and side by side they walked into the storm.
The storm above must have been scouring the desert and blinding or choking any traveler unfortunate enough to lack shelter. Before Conan and Farad had covered half the distance to the other band's outposts, they had to veil all of their faces but their eyes to breathe freely.
Conan had heard of tribes in Khitai who had the art of making masks of the bladders of certain fish, transparent yet strong enough to keep out the sandstorms of their deserts. The Cimmerian did not wish himself in Khitai—curiosity was joining his oath to Khezal and his men, to drive him onward along the trail of this quest—but he vowed that if ever he returned to Khitai, he would pay those tribesmen a visit.
Meanwhile, he was desert-wise enough to know how to study the ground about him without ever facing directly into the wind, and how to shield his eyes with his fingers when he had no choice. At least today there need be no fear of sun-dazzle!
The ground grew more rugged toward the end of the valley. Even without a sandstorm, a line of sentries would have needed to be close together to guard one another's flanks. As it was, the Girumgi sentries were a good spear-toss apart, and one at least seemed to have scant notion of a sentry's duties.
He wore a Girumgi headdress, two long daggers thrust into his belt, and a waist pouch. He also wore an expression of total disgust at being out here alone amid the blowing sand.
The man furthermore spent much of his time in the shelter of a rock, which prevented both sand from reaching him and his eyes from reaching much of anything. When he did stand in the open, he looked more toward his rear than his front. It was as if he expected enemies to leap from his own camp, not from the valley before him.
Conan was prepared to snatch another prisoner, but Farad saw the sentry's weaknesses as swiftly as the Cimmerian, and struck faster. Crouching low enough to be hidden behind a waist-high rock, Farad crawled to within arm's length of the sentry without being detected. Then the man heard or saw something amiss, his eyes widened—then they widened further as Farad's flung dagger sank into the man's bare throat.
Conan crouched beside the fallen man, as windblown sand covered the pool of blood. "I wanted to capture him silently."
"I was silent. More so than you were, reproaching me."
Conan forced himself to remember that free speech to a chief was one of the most sacred rights of the free Afghuli warrior. The man to fear was he who would not speak plainly to your face, as he was likely enough planning to thrust something sharper than words into your back.
"We must go forward, then. This time, I strike first."
"Of course, Conan. It is with stupid sentries as it is with willing women—there are usually enough to go around."
Conan and Farad slipped through the hole they'd made in the sentry line almost all the way to the main camp. Unfortunately, by the time they were close enough to recognize tribal colors, the storm was blowing so thickly that their sand-scoured eyes could barely tell rocks from huddled humans.
There were also too many of those huddled humans to make it safe to snatch a prisoner. Even the scrape of dagger on leather sheath might be enough to alert five of the prisoner's comrades and bring on a battle royal at the worst possible moment.
Nothing would come of that except their deaths, leaving the Afghulis without leadership. Conan did not trust even Khezal enough to believe his comrades would then escape harm.
They crept in a wide half-circle around the dead sentry. His rock shelter had almost vanished in the brown murk as the wind shifted and more of the storm blew into the valley. Conan thought he saw human figures moving around the rock, but could not be sure.
He hoped they were at least human if they were there at all. A sandstorm in unknown country was something to make a man believe in beings from the netherworld breaking loose and wandering about, seeking to work ill.
Not long afterwards, Conan knew there had been someone watching from the dead sentry's post—and that the watcher had seen him and Farad.
Someone was following them.
It was hard to be certain at first, and no one with eyes or ears less keen than the Cimmerian's could have learned of the pursuer at all. Even deeper within the valley, the sand and dust were swirling thicker, and the wind howled like the mourning cries of demons.
But Conan's ears picked out the clang of steel on stone, the rattle of dislodged rocks, and once, the sound of breathing. Twice he went to ground and saw something moving, as the one behind failed to do the same in time to escape Conan's sharp eye.
At last Conan motioned to Farad, and whispered in the Afghuli's ear that their luck might be changing. They had snatched no prisoner from the enemy's ranks, but perhaps one might be about to crawl right into their arms.
"Your arms, I suppose," Farad said.
"One of us had best be free to run, if this goes amiss," Conan said.
"You need not whip a willing mule," Farad said sourly. "Good hunting, my chief." He crawled left as Conan slipped off to the right and went to ground.
Shrewdly Farad ceased to make much effort to conceal himself. This brought the pursuit in turn out of hiding—three robed men, none of them wearing any tribal markings Conan could recognize. The smallest of the three seemed to be the leader, although the others seemed ready to argue with their orders. At last all three seemed of one mind, and set off in a stalking pursuit of Farad.
This brought the leftmost man so close to Conan that he could have reached out and touched him. This was precisely what he did, with a fist descending like a club on the back of the man's neck. He jerked forward and his chin slammed into rock hard enough to stun him.
Conan quickly bound the man's hands with strips of his garments, then made sure that he was breathing. Two score paces of crawling brought him to the rear of the second man, the small one who led.
It also brought him into view of the third man on the right, just as a flurry of wind left clear air between them. The man's wordless cry gave the alarm, but he then made a fatal mistake by trying to roll over and unsling his bow.
That gave Conan time to close with the smallest man and seize him. The man struck at Conan with a dagger that seemed to be his sole weapon but was sharp enough to add to the Cimmerian's collection of wounds. He also kicked and screeched in a high-pitched voice that made Conan think he might have captured a eunuch or a youth.
None of this kept Conan from taking a firm grip on his captive. Farad, meanwhile, was disposing of the archer. The Afghuli was so determined on a silent kill that he gave the man enough time to have raised the alarm. Fortunately the sight of Farad looming over him seemed to strike the man mute. He tried to change weapons from bow to tulwar, and in the middle of the change Farad's sandal sank into the pit of his stomach. Both weapons fell to the sand and the man fell on top of them.
Farad looked down at his victim. "Do we need him?"
"No," Conan said, as he finished binding and gagging his own captive. "I doubt you'll even be needing to bind him. It will be evening before he can draw a painless breath again."