The Lady withdrew the questing spell and rose from the table. Something was amiss, and she intended to seek answers (at least at first) without casting any more spells.
Sixteen
The Mist did not distinguish between friend and enemy. Those were distinctions too subtle for it.
But it could tell what lived from what did not live. It could also tell what life it could feed on, and what life it could not.
In the time since it first fed of its own will, it had also learned to tell those who helped it to feed from those who would hinder it. It saw the second kind, not as enemies, but as more food.
Waiting for a night attack by a formidable foe, high in thin cold mountain air, after a long day of marching and fighting and with a wounded wrist throbbing none too gently, is no man's idea of pleasure. Not even the most hardened of Cimmerian warriors.
Not even Conan's.
However, he had not expected this quest to bring much pleasure. If he and his Afghulis left Turan with a whole skin and some of their jewels, that would be enough.
Oh, and to be sure, it would be as well if this Lady of the Mists and her magical menaces were also put down. But Conan was beginning to wonder if the Lady was only a tale.
Here they were in her mountains, and according to Omyela (speaking through Bethina), so close to the valley that a child could have walked the distance in half a morning. All they had seen were humans, and not the most formidable sort of humans either. Even Omyela could not say for certain that the Lady's magic was still potent—although Conan knew that some kinds of spells were shields against detection. Dangerous ones, more often than not, commanded by potent sorcerers—and the Lady was one, if she was anything at all, Conan stretched cramped muscles. He lay on his bier, playing the "dead chief by night as he had by day. Just after the light vanished, he'd slipped off the bier to relieve himself and snatch bean-bread and sausage from his pack, while Farad took his place. Then it was back to playing his own corpse, while a string of "mourners" marched around the bier, making the din demanded by custom.
Conan only hoped that they didn't keep the sentries from hearing the noise of the approaching attack.
A lull in the mourning, and then soft footsteps approaching. He had heard them before, and recognized Bethina's pace. Before she had been with Farad, but now she was alone.
The footsteps halted. Conan heard soft breathing, smelled warm woman (not recently bathed, but then who among them had for some days?), then felt tears fall on his face.
"Ha, lass," he whispered. "I'm not dead yet."
"I know. I would weep for you, though, if you were."
"Even though you're going to wed Farad?"
"Even so."
"Well, then, be sure that he tells you about his three wives and seventeen children back in Afghuli-stan. He—"
Conan felt a cold sharp point at his throat. "Conan, you are jesting, are you not?"
It took some effort to command his voice. "Yes. Farad has no wife, and not much in Afghulistan to draw him back. What he says, you can believe."
"I am grateful." Suddenly the point was withdrawn and warm arms fell around his neck. "I am also frightened. When will they come?"
"Easy there, Bethina. I know it's hard, waiting for an enemy you know is out there to spring on you. But we're on our own ground. They're stumbling around in the dark, wondering if they will have any warning or if they're about to fall into a trap.
"Believe me, I've done both, and we have the easier work tonight."
"I can almost believe you. I will believe you, if you hold me."
"Farad—"
"I told him where I was going, when he went out to the sentries. He blessed me."
"Not me?" Conan scoffed. "The ungrateful hound! I bring him from a flea-ridden hut to the embraces of—"
"Hssst!" Bethina said, in a very different manner. Conan put his arm around her but was silent.
Then they both heard it—a high, wailing cry that might have been an abandoned babe. But it was many times too loud and seemed to come from both the rock of the mountains and the stars in the sky at once.
Muhbaras heard the sound, too, and his first thought was that one of the raiders' sentries was blowing a whistle to give the alarm. Then it swelled until it was almost painful to hear, and he ceased to believe that it could be natural.
What he wanted to believe was that the Lady of the Mists was calling on her powers to aid him. What he feared was that magic was on the march tonight, without the Lady's leave.
He did not know to what god he could lawfully pray, for the victory of one who had delved into matters forbidden by those same gods. He also wondered if he could pray for his own victory, seeing that he was bound by the most ancient of human ties to that same delver into the forbidden.
Since Muhbaras did not know how to pray, he did not do so. Instead he devoted all his attention to keeping on his feet as he led his men down across the scree-strewn slope. A stone turning under somebody's feet could do worse than give the alarm. It could tumble a man, so that he took others off their feet until the whole raiding party slid downhill like a living avalanche, to end up helpless amid the rubble while their enemies cut their throats.
Mountains were no place for moving fast at night, and here the bandits had the advantage over their lowlander comrades. They knew ground was supposed to be rubble-strewn and slanting, and their feet found safe paths without demanding direction from their wits or senses.
Muhbaras's eyes had long since accustomed themselves to the darkness, although his night-sight was not of the keenest. He saw that he himself was running almost straight at the dead chief's bier, and that some of the men on his flanks were well ahead of him.
He could almost be grateful to the terrible cry in the night. It had to be drawing all his enemies' attention, and completely drowning out the footfalls of his men. They would strike by surprise, and that alone might give them the edge.
Muhbaras put out of his mind the thought that the magic unloosed in the night might make meaningless the difference between victor and vanquished. It was disloyal to his Lady, it might unman him, and it might even be untrue.
Conan waited until the last moment of the attackers' approach. He had plenty of warning, not only from the sentries (who gave ground before the onrush without engaging) but from the "mourners" around him.
Among them was Bethina, who was keeping her courage and her wits about her for all that she was plainly fearful of what might befall Farad out on the sentry line. She moaned and wailed quite convincingly, and in between the moans gave Conan the numbers of the enemy. When the number reached fifty and grew no higher, Conan heaved a gusty sigh.
That was odds of no more than two to one, and ensured a battle rather than a massacre. But he trusted his men; when the fight was over there should be little between them and the Valley of the Mists.
Little of human contriving, that is.
Conan moved enough to see the sentries pelting past the archers climbing on the piled stones, to give themselves clear shots over the heads of their friends into the ranks of their foes. The clatter of onrushing feet on stones was now louder than the wailing in the sky.
Then the first of the enemy burst out of the night. A lean man in ragged robes, he leapt clean over Conan's bier, to meet Bethina's dagger full in his chest.
His death-cry made all other sounds seem like a hush. Conan rolled off the other side of the bier, drawing both dagger and broadsword in a single motion as he came to his feet. Both blades found living flesh as they were drawn, and two enemies crumpled before Conan had taken three steps from the bier.
A third man stared at the Cimmerian, gibbering like a bee-stung ape.