“The army is prepared,” said Prospero. "The men are trained and as ready to fight as ever they will be. It were well they were blooded soon, ere inaction dulls the edge of their fighting spirit.”
Conan nodded somberly. Experience had taught him that an army, over-trained and under-used, is often splintered into quarreling factions by those same forces of pride and militancy that its trainers have so painstakingly instilled. Or it rots, like overripe fruit.
"I agree, Prospero,” said the Cimmerian. “But an equal peril lies in too early a move. Surely Procas in Aquilonia has spies to tell him that we lodge in the mountains of northern Argos. And a general less shrewd than he would guess that we mean to cross the Alimane into Poitain, the most disaffected of all the provinces of Aquilonia. He needs but to mount a heavy guard at every ford and keep his Border Legion mobile, ready to march to any threatened crossing.”
Trocero swept back his graying hair with confident fingers. “All Poitain will rise to march with us; but my partisans keep silent, lest word reach the vigilant Procas in time to act.”
The others exchanged significant glances, wherein hope and skepticism mingled. Days before, messengers had left the rebel camp to enter Poitain in the guise of merchants, tinkers, and pedlars. Their mission was to urge Count Trocero’s Hegemen and supporters to prepare for forays and diversions, to confuse the royalists or to draw them off in futile pursuit of raiding bands. Once these agents had carried out their mission, a “Signal to move would reach the rebel army—a Poitanian arrow dipped in blood. Meanwhile, waiting for the message stretched nerves taut.
Prospero said: “I am less concerned about the rising of Poitain, which is as certain as aught can be world, than I am about the promised deputation from the northern barons. If we be not at Culario by the ninth day of the vernal month, they may withdraw, since planting time will be upon them.”
Conan grunted and drained his goblet. The northern lordlings, in smoldering revolt against Numedides, had vowed to support the rebels but would not evenly commit themselves to a rebellion stigmatized by failure. If the Lion banner were broken at the Alimane, or if the Poitanian revolt failed to take fire, no bond would tie these self-serving nobles to the rebel cause.
The barons’ caution was understandable; but uncertainty drove sharp spurs into the rebel leaders’ souls. If they must linger on the Plain of Pallos until the Poitanians sent their secret signal, would there be time to reach Culario on the appointed day? Despite the headstrong urgings of his barbaric nature, Conan counseled patience until the Poitanian signal came. But his officers remained uncertain or offered divers plans.
So the rebel leaders argued far into the night. Prospero wished to split the army into three contingents and hurl them all at once upon the three best fords: those of Mevano, Nogara, and Tunais.
Conan shook his head. “Procas will expect just that,” he said.
"What then?” Prospero frowned.
Conan spread the map and with a scarred forefinger pointed to the middle ford, Nogara. “We’ll feint here, with two or three companies only. You know tricks to convince the foe that our numbers are vaster than they truly are. We’ll set up empty tents, light extra campfires, and parade companies within view of the foe and then swing them out of sight behind a copse and around the circuit again. We’ll unlimber ballistas on the river bank to harass the crossing guards. Those screeching darts should entice Procas and his army thither in a hurry.
“You, Prospero, shall command the diversion,” Conan added. Learning that he would miss the main battle, the young commander began to object, but Conan silenced him: "Trocero, you and I shall take the remaining troops, half to Mevano and the balance to Tunais, and force the two crossings. With luck, we may catch Procas in a nutcracker."
“Perchance you’re right,” murmured Trocero. 'With oiu' Poitanians in revolt in Procas’s rear …”
“May the gods smile upon your plan, General,” said Publius, mopping his brow. “If not, all is lost!”
“Ah, gloomy one!” said Trocero. "War is a chancy trade, and we have no less to lose than you. Win or lose, we all must stand together.”
“Aye, even at the foot of the gallows,” muttered Publius.
Behind the partition in Conan’s tent, his mistress lay couched on a bed of furs, her slender body gleaming in the feeble light of a single candle, whose wavering flame reflected strangely in her emerald eyes and in the clouded depths of the small obsidian talisman that reposed in the scented valley of her breasts. She smiled a catlike smile.
Before dawn, Trocero was roused from his couch by the urgent hand of a sentry. The count yawned, stretched, blinked, and irritably struck the guard’s hand aside.
“Enough!” he barked. “I am awake, lout, though it scarcely seems light enough for roll call… .”
His face went blank and his voice died as he saw what the guard held out to him. It was a Poitanian arrow, coated from barb to feathers with dried blood.
'How came this here?" he asked. “And when?"
"A short time past, my lord Count, borne by a rider from the north," replied the guard.
"So! Summon my squires! Sound the alarm and bear the arrow forthwith to General Conan!" cried Trocero, heaving himself to his feet.
The guard saluted and left. Soon two squires, knuckling sleep from their eyes, hastened in to attire the count and buckle on his armor.
"Action at last, by Mitra, Ishtar, and Crom of the Cimmerians!" cried Trocero. “You there, minesterl Summon my captains to council! And you, boy, has Black Lady been fed and watered? See to her saddling, and quickly. Draw the girth tight! I've no wish for a cold bath in the waters of the Alimane!”
Before a ruby sun inflamed the forested crests of the Rabirian Mountains, the tents were struck, the sentries recalled, and the wains laden. By the time bright day had chased away the laggard morning mists, the army was on the march in three long columns, heading for Saxula Pass through the mountains and beyond it for Aquilonia and war.
The land grew rugged and the road tortuous. On either side rose barren rondures toothed with stony outcrops. These were the foothills of the Rabirians, which scurried westward following the stately tread of the adjacent mountains.
Hour after hour, warriors and camp servants trudged up the long slopes and down the further sides. The hot sun beat upon them as they manhandled heavy vehicles over steep rises, clustering about the wains like bees around a hive to push, heave, and pull.
On the downward slopes, each teamster belayed one. wheel with a length of chain, so that, unable to rotate, it served to brake the vehicle. Dust devils eddied skyward, besmudging the crystalline mountain air.
As they crested each rise, the main range receded miragelike before them. But, when the purple shadows of late afternoon fingered the eastern slope of every hill, the mountains opened out, like curtains drawn aside. They parted to disclose Saxula Pass, a deep cleft in the central ridge, as if made by a blow from an axe in the hand of an angry god.
As the army struggled upward toward the pass, Conan commanded a contingent of his scouts to clamber up the steep sides of the opening to make sure no ambush awaited his coming. The scouts signaled that all was clear, and the army tramped on through. The footfalls of men, the rattle of equipment, the drum of hooves, and the creak of axles reverberated from the rocky cliffs on either hand.
As the men emerged from the confines of the pass, the road wound downward, losing itself in the thick stands of cedar and pine that masked the northern slopes. In the distance, beyond the intermediate ranges, the men glimpsed the Alimane, coiling through the flatlands like a silvery serpent warmed by the last rays of the setting sun.
Down the winding slope they went, with wheels lashed to hold the wagons back. As the stars throbbed in the darkening sky, they reached a fork in the road beyond the pass. Here the army halted and set up camp. Conan flung his sentinels out wide, to guard against a night attack from the foe across the river. But nothing disturbed the weary troopers’ rest except the snarl of a prowling leopard, which fled at a sentry’s shout.