Gathered around their fugitive leader, in the lonely dark, huddled men who had been soaked by rain and river. They dared not light a fire lest it become a beacon guiding forces for their destruction. The coughs and sneezes of the fugitives tolled the knell of their hopes. When someone cursed the weather, Conan growled: "Thank your gods for that rain! Had the day been fair, Procas would have butchered the lot of us. No fire!" he barked at a soldier who tried to strike a light with flint and steel. "Would you draw Procas’s hounds upon us? How many are we? Sound off, but softly. Count them, Publius."
Men responded "I here!” "Here!” while Publius kept track with his fingers. When the last "Here!" had been heard, he said:
"One hundred thirteen. General, not counting ourselves.”
Conan grunted. Brightly though the lust for revenge burned in his barbarian heart, it seemed impossible that such a paltry number could form the nucleus of another army. While he put up a bold front before his rebel remnant, the vulture of despondency clawed at his weary flesh.
He set out sentries, and during the night exhausted men, guided by these sentinels, stumbled into the hollow in ones and twos and threes. Toward midnight came Dexitheus, the priest of Mitra, limping along on an improvised crutch, leaning heavily on the arm of the sentry who guided him and wincing with the pain of a wrenched ankle.
Now there were nearly twice a hundred fugitives, some gravely wounded, gathered in the hollow. The Mitraist priest, despite the pain of his own injury, set to work to tend the wounded, drawing arrows from limbs and bandaging wounds for hours, until Conan brusquely commanded him to rest.
The camp was rude, its comforts primitive; and, Conan knew, the rebels had little chance of seeing another nightfall. But at least they were alive, most still bore arms, and many could put up a savage fight if Procas should discover their hiding place. And so, at last, Conan slept.
Dawn mounted a sky where clouds were breaking up and dwindling, leaving a clear blue vault. Conan was awakened by the subdued chatter of many armed men. The newcomers were Prospero and his diversionary detachment, five hundred strong.
"Prospero!” cried Conan, struggling to his feet to clasp his friend in a mighty embrace. Then he led the officer aside and spoke in a low voice, lest ill tidings should further depress the spirits of the men. "Thank Mitra! How went your day? How did you find us? What of Trocero?”
“One at a time, General,” said Prospero, catching his breath. “We found naught but a few crossing guards at Nogara, and they fled before us. For a whole day, we marched in circles, blew trumpets, and beat drums, but no royaUsts could we draw to the ford. Thinking this strange, I sent a galloper downstream to Tunais. He reported a hard fight there, with Trocero’s division in retreat. Then a fugitive from your command fell in with us and spoke of your disaster. So, not wishing my small force to be caught between the millstones of two enemy divisions, I fell back into the uplands. There, other runagates told us of the direction they had seen you take. Now what of you?”
Conan clenched his teeth to stifle his self-reproach. "I played the fool this time, Prospero, and led us into Procas’s jaws. I should have waited until Dio had probed the forest ere starting my lads across. It’s well that Dio fell at the first onslaught—had he not, I’d have made him wish he had. He and his men milled around like sheep for a snailish time ere pushing out to beat the undergrowth. But still, I was at fault to let impatience sway me. Procas had watchers in the trees, to signal the attack. Now all is lost.”
"Not so, Conan,” said Prospero. "As you are wont to say, naught is hopeless until the last man chews the dust or knuckles under; and in every war the gods throw boons and banes to either side. Let us fall back to the Plain of Pallos and our base camp. We may join Trocero along the way. We are now several hundred strong, and we shall count to thousands when we sweep up the other stragglers. A hundred gullies in these hills must shelter groups like ours.”
"Procas far outnumbers us." said Conan somberly, “and his well-formed forces carry high spirits from their victories. What can a few thousand, downcast by defeat, achieve against them? Besides, he will have seized the passes through the Rabirians, or at least the main pass at Saxula.”
”Doubtless," said Prospero, "But Procas’s troops are scattered wide, searching for fugitives. Our hungry pride of lions could one by one devour his packs of bloodhounds. In sooth, we came upon one such on our way hither—a squad of light horse—and slew the lot. Come, General! You of all men are the indomitable one—the man who never quits. You've built a band of brigands into an army and shaken thrones ere now; you can do the same again. So be of good cheer!"
Conan took a deep breath and squared his massive shoulders. "You're right, by Crom! I'll mewl no longer like a starving beldame. We’ve lost one engagement, but our cause remains whilst there be two of us to stand back to back and fight for it And we have this, at least."
He reached into the shadows and drew from a crevice in the rocks the Lion banner, the symbol of the rebellion. His standard bearer, though mortally wounded, had borne it to the hollow in the hills. After the man had succumbed, Conan had rolled up the banner and thrust it out of sight. Now he unfurled it in the pale light of dawn.
"It’s little enough to salvage from the rout of an army,” he rumbled, "But thrones have been won with less." And Conan smiled a grim, determined smile.
THE PURPLE LOTUS
The smiling day revealed that Fate had not entirely forsaken the army of the rebellion. For the night had been heavily overcast, and in the gloom the weary warriors of Amulius Procas had failed to root out many scattered pockets of survivors, like that which Conan had gathered around him. Thus, as the morning sun rolled back its blanket of clouds, bands of heartsore rebels, who had either eluded the search parties or routed those they encountered, began to filter back across the Rabirian range.
Night was nigh when Conan and his remnant approached the pass of Saxula. Conan dispatched men ahead to scout, since he was convinced he would have to fight his way through. He snorted with surprise when the scouts reported back that there was no evidence of the Border Legion anywhere near the pass. There were signs—the ashes of campfires and other debris—that a force of Procas’s men had camped in the pass, but they were nowhere to be seen.
”CromI What means this?" Conan mused, staring up at the great notch in the ridge. "Unless Procas has sent his men on, deeper into Argos!"
“I think not,” said Publius. "That would mean open war with Milo. More likely, he ordered his men back across the Alimane before the court at Messantia could hear of his incursion. Then, if King Milo protests, Procas can aver that not one Aquilonian soldier remains on Argossean soil.”
"Let’s hope you are right!" said Conan. “Forward, men!"
By the next midday, Conan’s band had gathered up several full companies that had fled unscathed from the ambush at Mevano. But the rebels’ greatest prize was Count Trocero himself, camped on a hilltop with two hundred horse and foot Having built a rude palisade, the Count of Poitaia was prepared to hold his little fort against Procas and all his iron legions. Trocero emotionally embraced Conan and Prospero.
"Thank Mitra you live!” he cried. "I heard that you had fallen to an arrow and that your division fled southward like wintering wildfowl.”