Conan's captive was in better fettle. While he could neither speak nor struggle, so thoroughly was he gagged and bound, his large kohl-rimmed eyes glared eloquently.
"Game little cockerel, this one," Farad said, prodding the man in the ribs. "And look at the quality of the robe and the belt. A chief's son, I'd wager."
Conan was looking at the robe and the belt, but he was also looking at what seemed to be under them. He knelt and ran a hand across the captive's shoulders, then down across one shoulder blade to the chest.
"Ha!" the Cimmerian said. "You'd lose that wager."
"Eh?" Farad said, bemused at his chief's behavior.
"It's a chief's daughter."
"Eh," Farad said again, this time with an unmistakable leer.
Conan shook his head. "She's a good hostage as long as she's unharmed and not a moment longer. A hostage is worth ten women, where we are."
"Tell that to men who haven't seen a woman for months," Farad said. "I've little taste for fighting the Greencloaks over this one."
The woman did not seem to understand the Afghuli speech the two men were using, but the tones carried enough meaning. Her eyes were very wide, and her breath came quick.
Conan hoisted her over one massive shoulder and patted her lightly on the rump. "Don't worry, lass," he said, in Turanian. "You were game enough to earn a warrior's treatment besides being a good hostage. Anyone who comes to you will do it over my dead body."
"I stand by my chief with my blood and my steel."
Farad said. Although he spoke in Afghuli, the woman caught his tone and seemed to relax.
Then Conan stepped out, in a long ground-eating hillman's stride, with Farad guarding the rear. By the time they heard someone raising the alarm, they were nearly back to their own camp.
The name of the woman—barely that, for she admitted to no more than nineteen summers and looked younger—was Bethina. She was sister to Doiran, heir to the chieftainship of the Ekinari and blood-brother to the chief of the Girumgi. She was riding with a mixed band of Girumgi and Ekinari to bring safely home those Girumgi who had escaped the battle in the South.
All this she told willingly after they reached the camp—and after Conan and Farad saved her life.
They brought her in, unbound her feet, and removed her gag. Before they could do more, a man sprang from the dust, knife upraised to stab.
Conan replied with a foot upraised in the man's path. He stumbled over the tree-thick leg and went sprawling. Farad's foot came down on his wrist; he squealed and the knife fell from limp fingers.
Farad snatched up the dagger, freed the girl's hands, and gave her the blade. Conan nodded.
"Just be careful who you use it on, girl," he said. "I've not got so much blood that I can afford to lose it to friends."
She actually grinned, then held up the blade in a way that showed experience in fighting with steel.
She was just in time. A semicircle of Greencloaks had gathered around them. Conan and Farad shifted, so that they as well as the girl had their backs to a stout rock. Conan looked upward, saw more Greencloaks climbing atop the rock to attack from above, and decided that he would be leaving Turan with his honor intact but his hide somewhat otherwise.
"Hold!"
Khezal had a surprisingly robust voice for one of his modest stature and lean build. It rose above the cry of the wind and halted the Greencloaks above and below where they stood.
"Now, what is this brawling?" Khezal said, stepping forward.
He listened while both sides told their tale. At least he had not lost authority over his men. Conan had no illusions what would have happened otherwise.
"The Greencloaks do not harm another's prisoner," he said at last. "Milgun, ask Captain Conan's pardon."
"Captain—?" the man practically spat.
"Milgun," Khezal said. He did not need to say more, let alone draw steel. His eyes finished the work of his voice.
Milgun made a clumsy obeisance. "Your pardon, Conan," he said.
"Now, Conan," Khezal said. "Milgun lost a brother to the Girumgi last year. Anyone who rides with them is no friend to him."
"I—not enemy to Greencloaks," Bethina said haltingly.
"Your brother rides with the Girumgi and you (obscenity) your brother!" someone shouted.
The fragile peace nearly dissolved then and there. Bethina bared her teeth, reminding Conan of a Cim-merian wildcat defending her cubs. Conan was sorry if it embarrassed Khezal, but he was resolved to feed steel to the next man who shouted.
All saw that resolve on the Cimmerian's grim countenance and held their peace.
"Bethina," Khezal said, in a tribal dialect that Conan barely understood. "You say you are not an enemy to the Greencloaks. Yet your brother does ride with the Girumgi, who have certainly shed our blood, and not long since.
"Tell us more."
"I—have not—not the right words," Bethina stammered.
"I will put your words into the speech of my people," Khezal said.
"And I will have the first man who brawls," Conan said.
The silence of the camp was broken only by the wind, until Bethina began to speak.
Twelve
Bethina's brother Doiran was deeper in intrigues than had been suspected, or so it seemed from her story. He had at first sworn blood-brotherhood to the chief of the Girumgi to assure his succession among the Ekinari, if his father died prematurely.
Old Irigas did not die prematurely. Indeed, he had not yet died at all. But he was all but bedridden, and seldom spoke of anything save long-dead wives and long-ago battles.
"He will die in peace," Bethina said through Khezal, "but his legacy to his people is a son who will lead them to war."
The Girumgi were always ready to try conclusions with Turan, and listening to their hotheaded younger warriors had done no good work on Doiran's judgment. However, he was too shrewd to trust only to one set of allies.
Khoraja had a long rivalry with Turan, if the fox could be said to have a rivalry with the elephant. Any time in the last century, if Turan had wished to turn Khoraja into a satrapy or even a desert, it could have done so. The price would have been great, in blood and treasure and also in new enemies for Turan, but it could have been done.
The ironhanded young Yezdigerd seemed more likely than his sire to attempt the overthrow of Khoraja, so the Khorajans were looking to their defenses. They were intriguing with the desert tribes, and they had found ready ears (and open palms) among Doiran and his followers in the ranks of the Ekinari.
It was then that Bethina spoke for herself.
"Many Ekinari—friends to Turan. Or not friends— honest men. Think Khoraja—use us like—like toys. I, Bethina—for these I speak."
No one seemed ready to believe than any desert tribesmen could be true friends to anyone, let alone Turan. But it was possible to believe that they did not care to be cat's paws for Khoraja. The shrewdness, if not the honesty, of the tribesmen had been a proverb in Turan for nearly as long as the empire had borne that name.
"The tribesmen aren't fools," Milgun admitted. "The Ekinari least of all. Lady, maybe I did not think."
As Milgun was widely believed incapable of chewing nuts and walking at the same time, this drew laughter. But it was the healthy kind, and presently the men dispersed, to look to their mounts and gear, so as to be ready to ride out when the storm abated.
At last Bethina, Farad, Khezal, and Conan were alone. Khezal kept looking back down the valley, as if expecting a solid wall of furious warriors to sprout from the sand at any moment.
"Best we be ready to fight or flee, if the lady's friends come for her," he said.
"Oh, I do not think that will happen, or at least not soon enough to fear," Bethina said. Suddenly she spoke flawless Turanian, with the tones of a noblewoman.