“Gods and devils!” he fumed. "Could I but stand and lift a sword, I'd show Procas how to cut and thrust! And who are these Argosseans?”
Trocero introduced Prince Cassio and Captain Arcadio and recounted Procas’s latest move. Conan snarled:
"This I will see for myself. Squires! Raise me to my feet. Procas may be shamming a withdrawal, the better to surprise us by a night attack.”
With an arm around the neck of each squire, Conan tottered to the entrance. The sun, impaled upon the peaks of the Rabirian Hills to westward, spilled dark shadows down the mountainsides. In the middle distance, the departing rays struck scarlet sparks from the armor of the Aquilonians as they labored to set up a camp. The tap of mallets on tent pegs came softly through the evening air.
“Will Procas seek a parley, think you?” asked Conan. The others shrugged.
“He has sent no message yet; he may never do so," said Trocero. “We must wait and see.”
“We’ve waited all day," growled Conan, “keeping our lads standing in harness in the sun. I, for one, would that something happened—anything, to end this dawdling."
“Methinks our general is about to have his wish," murmured Dexitheus, shading his eyes with his hand as he peered at the distant royalist camp. The others stared at him.
“What now, sir priest?” said Conan. ,
“Behold!” said Dexitheus, pointing.
“Ishtar!” breathed Captain Arcadio. "Fry my guts if they’re not running away!”
And so they were; if not running, they were at least beginning an orderly retreat. Trumpets sounded, thin and faraway. Instead of continuing to strengthen the fortification of their camp, the men of the Border Legion, antlike in the distance, were striking the tents they had just set up, loading the supply wagons, and streaming out, company by company, toward the pass in the Rabirian Hills. Conan and his comrades looked at one another in perplexity.
The cause of this withdrawal soon transpired. Marching briskly from the east, a fourth host came around the slope of a hill. More than fifteen hundred strong, as Trocero estimated them, the newcomers deployed and advanced on a broad front, ready for battle.
A rebel scout, lashing his horse up the slope, threw himself off his mount, saluted Conan, and gasped: "My lord general, they fly the leopards of Poitain and the arms of Baron Groder of Aquilonia!"
"Crom and Mitral” whispered Conan. Then his face cleared and his laughter echoed among the hills. For it was indeed Prospero with the rebel force that he had searched for in the east
"No wonder Procas runs!” said Trocero. "Now that we outnumber him, he can do so without arousing his sovereign’s ire. Hell tell Numedides that three armies would have surrounded him at once and overwhelmed him”
“General Conan,” said Dexitheus, “you must return to your bed to rest. We cannot afford to have you suffer a relapse.”
As the squires lowered Conan to his pallet, the Cimmerian whispered: "Prospero, Prospero! For this I will make you a knight of the throne, if ever Aquilonia be mine!”
In Fadius’ dingy room in Messantia, Alcina sat alone, holding her obsidian amulet before her and watching the alternate black-and-white bands of the time candle. Fadius was out prowling the nighted streets of the city; Alcina had brusquely ordered him forth so that she could privately commune with her master.
The flickering flame sank lower as the candle burned down through one of the black stripes in the wax. As the last of the sable band dissolved into molten wax and the flame wavered above a white band, the witch-dancer raised her talisman and focused her thoughts. Faintly, like words spoken in a dream, there came into her receptive mind the dry tones of Thulandra Thuu; while before her, barely visible in the dim-lit chamber, appeared a vision of the sorcerer himself, seated in his iron chair.
Thulandra Thuu’s speech rustled so softly through Aldna’s mind that it demanded rapt attention, together with a constant surveillance of the lips and the gestures of the vision, to grasp the magician’s message: "Thou have done well, my daughter. Has aught befallen in Messantia?”
She shook her head, and the ghostly whisper continued: Then I have another task for you. With the moon’s first light, you shall don your page’s garb, take horse, and follow the road north— "
Alcina gave a small cry of dismay. "Must I wear those ugly rags and plunge again into the wilderness, with ants and beetles for bedmates? I beg you, Master, let me stay here and be a woman yet a while!”
The sorcerer raised a sardonic eyebrow. "You prefer the fleshpots of Messantia?” he responded.
She nodded vigorously.
“That cannot be, alas. Your duties there are finished, and I need you to watch the Border Legion and its general. If you find the going rough, bear in mind the future glories I have promised you.
“The troops dispatched by the Argossean King should now have reached the Plain of Pallos. Ere the sun rises twice again, Amulius Procas will in all likelihood have concluded a retreat back across the Alimane into Poitain. He will, I predict, cross at the ford of Nogara; so set you forth, swinging wide of the armies, to approach this place from the north, traveling southward on the road from Culario. Then report to me again at the next favorable conjunction."
The murmuring voice fell silent and the filmy vision faded, leaving Alcina alone and brooding.
Then came a thunderous knock, and in lurched Fadius. The Kothian had spent more of his time and Vibius Latro’s money in a Messantian wineshop than was prudent Arms out, he staggered toward Alcina, babbling:
“Come, my little passion flower! I weary of sleeping on the bare floor, and 'tis time you accorded your comrade the same kindness you extend to barbarian bullies— "
Alcina leaped to her feet and backed away. “Have a care, Master Fadius!" she warned. “I take not kindly to presumption from such a one as you!”
“Come on, my pretty," mumbled Fadius. “I’ll not hurt you—"
Alcina's hand flicked to the bodice of her gown. As by magic, a slender dagger appeared in her jeweled hand. “Stand back!" she cried. “One prick of this, and you’re a dying spy!”
The threat penetrated Fadius’ sodden wits, and he recoiled from the blade. He knew the lightning speed with which the dancer-witch could move and stab. “But—but—my dear little—"
“Get out!” said Alcina. “And come not back until you're sober!”
Cursing under his breath, Fadius went. In the chamber, among the cages of roosting pigeons, Alcina rummaged in her chest for the garments in which she would set out upon the morrow.
THE CHAMBER OF SPHINXES
Between sunset and midnight, the men of Argos, rank upon rank, marched into camp amid ruffles of drums and rebel cheers. Salted Messantian meat, coarse barley bread, and flagons of ale from the rebels' dwindling stores were handed round to Baron Groder’s starveling regiment and Prosperous weary troop. Horses were watered, hobbled, and turned out to pasture on the lush grass, as the rebels and their new allies lit campfires and settled down to their evening repast. Soon the fitful glow of fires scattered about the Plain of Pallos rivaled the twinkling stars upon the plain of heaven; and the shouts and laughter of four thousand men, wafted northward on the evening breeze, crashed like the dissonant chords of a dirge on the ears of Procas’s retreating regulars.
In the command tent. Prince Cassio, Captain Arcadio, and the rebel leaders gathered near Conan’s bed to share a frugal meal and draft the morrows plans.