As Conan paused to catch his breath, glaring about like a cornered lion, an augmented clatter from the clearing riveted his attention. Aquilonian cavalry— armored lancers and swordsmen on sturdy mounts— thundered out of the woods and swept down upon the milling mass of rebel light horse and infantry. The smaller horses of the rebel scouts were brushed aside; the men on foot were ridden down and trampled. In a trice the north bank was cleared of rebels. Then, with clocklike precision, Procas’s armored squadrons opened out into a troop-wide rank of horsemen, which plunged into the water to assail those rebels who struggled in the deeps.
“To me!” roared Conan, brandishing his sword. “Form squares!”
But now the survivors of the debacle, who had been swept back into the river by the Aquilonian cavalry, thrashed through the water in panic flight, pushing aside or knocking over comrades who floundered northward. Through the turbulent current pounded Procas’s horse amid foimtains of spray. Behind the second line, a third line opened out, and then another and another. And from the flanks, Procas’s archers continued their barrage of missiles, to which the rebel archers, with unstrung bows, could not reply.
"General!" cried Alaricus. Conan looked around to see the young captain breasting the water toward him. “Save yourself! They’re broken here, but you can rally the men for a stand on the southern bank. Take my horse!”
Conan spat a curse at the fast-approaching line of armored horsemen. For an instant he hesitated, the thought of rushing among them single-handed, hewing right and left, flickering in his mind. But the idea was banished as soon as it appeared. In an earlier day, Conan might have essayed such a mad attack. Now he was a general, responsible for the lives of other men, and experience had tempered his youthful recklessness with caution. As Alaricus started to dismount, Conan seized the aide’s stirrup with his left hand, growling:
“Stay up there, lad! Go on, head for the south bank, Crom blast it!”
Alaricus spurred his horse, which struggled toward the Argossean shore. Conan, gripping the stirrup, accompanied him with long, half-leaping strides, amid the retreating mass of rebels, horsed and afoot, all plunging southward in confused and abject flight
Behind them rode the Aquilonians, spearing and swording the laggards as they fought the flood. Already the muddy waters of the Alimane ran red below the ford of Mevano. Only the fact that the pursuers, too, were hampered by the swirling stream saved Conan’s advance units from utter annihilation.
At length the fugitives reached a company of heavy cavalry that had broached the river behind the rebel infantry. The fleeing men pushed between the oncoming horses, yammering their terror. Thus beset, the frightened beasts reared and plunged until their riders, also, joined the retreat Behind them, mired in the river bottom, teamsters strove to turn their cumbersome supply wagons around or, in despair, abandoned them to leap into the water and splash back toward the southern shore. Coming upon the abandoned vehicles, the Aquilonians butchered the bellowing oxen and pressed on. Sodden corpses, rolled along by the current, wedged together into grisly human log jams. Wagons were overturned; their loads of tent canvas and poles, bundles of spears, and sheaves of arrows floated downstream on the relentless flood
Conan, shouting himself hoarse, struggled out on the south bank, where the remaining companies had awaited their turn to cross. He tried to rally them into defensive formations, but everywhere the rebel host was crumbling into formless clots of fleeing men. Throwing away pikes, shields, and helmets, they sought safety, running in all directions out of the shallows and across the flats that bordered the river. All discipline, so painfully inculcated during the preceding months, was lost in the terror of the moment
A few knots of men stood firm as the Aquilonian cavalry reached them and fought with stubborn ferocity, but they were ridden down and slain or scattered.
Conan found Publius in the crush and seized him by the shoulder, shouting in his ear. Unable to hear his commander above the uproar, the treasurer shrugged helplessly, pointing. At his feet lay the body of Conan’s aide, which Publius was shielding from the rough boots of the fleeing soldiery. Alaricus’ horse had disappeared.
With an angry bellow, Conan dispersed the crowd around him by striking about with the flat of his blade. Then he hoisted Alaricus to his shoulder and headed southward at a jog trot The stout Publius ran puffing beside him. Not far behind, the Aquilonian cavalry clambered out of the river to pursue the retreating rebels. They enveloped the line of wains drawn up along the shore, awaiting their turn to breast the flood.
Further inland, some of the teamsters managed to turn their clumsy carts and lashed their oxen into a shambling run back toward the safety of the hills.
The road south was black with fleeing men, while hundreds of others darted oflF across the meadows to lose themselves in the sheltering woods.
Since the day was young and the Aquilonian forces fresh, Conan's division faced annihilation at the hands of their well-mounted pursuers. But here occurred a check—not a great one, but enough to give the fugitives some small advantage. The Aquilonians who had surrounded the supply wagons, instead of pushing on, pulled up to loot the vehicles, despite the shouted commands of their officers. Hearing them, Conan panted:
"Publius! Where’s the pay chest?"
"I—know—not," gasped the treasurer. " 'Twas in one of the last wains, so perchance it escaped the wreck. I—can—run—no further. Go on, Conan.”
'Don t be a fool!” snarled Conan. “I need a man who can reckon sums, and my young mealsack here regains his wits.”
As Conan set down his burden, Alaricus evened his eyes and groaned. Conan, hastily examining him for wounds, found none. The captain, it transpired, had been stunned by a crossbow bolt, which merely grazed his head and dented his helmet. Conan hauled him to his feet.
"I've carried you, my lad,” said the Cimmerian. "Now ‘tis your turn to help me carry our fat friend.”
Soon the three set out again for the safety of the hills, Publius staggering between the other two with an arm about the neck of each. Rain began to fall, gently at first and then to torrents.
The winds of misfortune blew cold on Conan s head that night as he sat in a hollow of the Rabirian Mountains. The day was plainly lost, his men dispersed —those who had survived the battle and the bloody vengeance meted out by the royalist general and his searching parties. In a few hours, it seemed, their very cause had foundered, sunk in the muddy, bloodstained waters of the river Alimane.
Here in a rocky hollow, hidden amid oak and pine, Conan, Publius, and five score other rebels waited out the dark and hopeless night. The refugees were a mixed lot: renegade Aquilonian knights, staunch yeomen, armed outlaws, and soldiers of fortune. Some were hurt, though few mortally, and many hearts pounded drumbeats of despair.
The legions of Amulius Procas, Conan knew, were sniffing through the hills, bent on slaughtering every survivor. The victorious Aquilonian evidently meant to smash the rebellion for all time by dealing speedy death to every rebel he could catch. Conan grudgingly gave the veteran commander credit for his plan. Had Conan been in Amulius Procas’s place, he would have followed much the same course.
Simk in silent gloom, Conan fretted over the fate of Prospero and Trocero. Prospero was to have feinted at the ford of Nogara, drawing thither the bulk of Procas's troops, so that Conan and Trocero should have only minor contingents of crossing guards to contend with. Instead, Procas’s massed warriors had erupted out of concealment when Conan’s van, waist-deep in the Alimane, was at a hopeless disadvantage. Conan wondered how Procas had so cleverly divined the rebels’ plans.