“Well all after them at dawn!” cried Trocero.
"Nay," the young prince replied. “The instructions from my royal father are explicit. Only if General Procas leads his forces further into our territory are we to join battle with him. The long hopes our presence will deter Procas from such rashness; and so it seems, since the Aquilonians are now in flight”
Conan said nothing, but the volcanic blaze in his blue eyes betrayed his angry disappointment The prince glanced at him, half in awe and half in sympathy.
"I comprehend your feelings. General Conan," he said gently. “But you must understand our position, too. We do not wish to war with Aquilonia, which outnumbers us two to one. Indeed we have risked enough already, giving haven to your force within our borders.”
With a hand that trembled from effort, Conan grasped his cup of ale and brought it slowly to his lips. Sweat beaded his forehead, as if the flagon weighed half a hundredweight. He spilled some of the contents, drank the rest, and let the empty vessel fall to the floor.
"Then let us pursue Procas on our own,” urged Trocero. "We can harry him back across the Alimane; and every man we fell will be one fewer to oppose us when we raise Poitain. If the survivors stand to make a battle of it—well, victory lies ever on the laps of the fickle gods.”
Conan was tempted. Every belligerent instinct in his barbaric soul enticed him to send his men in headlong pursuit of the royalists, to worry them like a pack of hounds, to pick them off by ones and twos all the way back beyond the Alimane. The Rabirian range seemed designed by Destiny for just the sort of action he could wage against the outnumbering invaders. Cloven into a thousand gullies and ravines, those wrinkled hills and soaring peaks begged him to ambush every fleeing soldier.
But should Procas’s troops turn to make a stand. Fate might not grant her pardon to Conan's rebels. They were poor in provisions and weak in weaponry even now; and the regiment that Prospero had rescued were worn and weary, on gaunt, shambling mounts, after days of hiding out and foraging in the field. Moreover, a general who cannot ride a horse or wield a sword cannot greatly inspire his followers to deeds of dash and daring. Enfeebled as he still was by Alcina’s poison, Conan knew full well that he had no choice except to remain in camp or to travel in a litter as a spectator at the fray.
As night slipped into misty dawn and trumpets sounded the reveille, Conan, supported by two squires, looked out across the waking camp and pondered his position. He must not let Procas get back to Aquilonia unscathed. At the same time, to overcome the mighty Border Legion, he must devise some unexpected manner of warfare—some innovation to give advantage to his lesser numbers. He required a force that was mobile and swiftly maneuverable, yet able to strike the foe from a distance.
As Conan stared at the mustering men, his brooding gaze alighted upon a single Bossonian, who flung himself upon a horse and galloped toward the palisaded gate. He must bear a message to the sentries at the circumference of the camp, Conan mused, and that message must be urgent; for the fellow had not bothered to remove the unstrung bow that hung slantwise across his shoulders nor to discard the heavy quiver of arrows that slapped against his thigh.
Years of service with the King of Turan flooded Conans memory. In that army, mounted archers formed the largest single contingent: men who could shoot their double-curved bows of horn and sinew from the back of a galloping steed as accurately as most men could shoot with feet firmly fixed upon the ground. Such a skill his Bossonian archers could not master without a decade of practice; and besides, the Bossonian longbow was much too cumbersome to be handled from horseback.
Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, Conan saw a host of mounted archers pursuing the fleeing foe until, coming within range, they dismounted to loose shaft after deadly shaft, before spurring away when at last the goaded enemy turned to engage their tormentors. Conan’s explosive roar of laughter startled his camp servants, who gaped like yokels at a circus while Captain Alaricus ran to waken the physician-priest.
When Dexitheus, clad in scanty clothing, rushed to Conan's tent, Conan grinned at his bewilderment.
“No,” he chuckled, “the purple lotus has not addled my wits, my friend. But the lord Mitra, or Crom, or some such blessed god has given me an inspiration. Send someone posthaste to bid the Argossean leaders hither.”
When Prince Cassio and Captain Arcadio, already armed and armored, plodded up the slope to the headquarters tent, Conan roared a greeting, adding: "You say King Milo forbids you to attack the retreating Aquilonians. Does the royal that encompass your horses, too?”
“Our horses. General?” repeated Arcadio blankly.
Conan nodded impatiently. “Aye, your beasts. Quickly, Captain, an answer, if you will. Our steeds—the few we have—are underfed, as you can see by counting their poor ribs. But yours are fresh and of an excellent breed. Lend us five hundred mounts, and well forswear the service of a single Argossean soldier to send Amulius Procas home with his tail between his legs.”
As Conan outlined his plan. Prince Cassio grinned. More and ever more he liked this grim-visaged barbarian from the North, who made war in ways as ingenious as implausible.
“Lend him five hundred horses, Arcadio,” he said. "The king, my father, said naught of that.”
The Argossean officer clanked off to issue orders. And presently, below them on the flat where the Bossonian archers lined up for morning roll call, ten score Argossean wranglers led saddled horses into the field behind them. Trocero and Prospero converged upon the startled and disordered foot soldiers and by their authority restored them to disciplined ranks.
"Fetch me my stallion and strap me to the saddle,” growled Conan. "I must explain my plan to those who’ll carry it out.”
“General!" cried Dexitheus. “You should not, in your present state—”
“Spare me your cautions. Reverence. For a month the men have seen me not and doubtless wonder if I’m still alive.”
As Conan’s squires, with many helping hands, strained to boost Conan’s massive body into the saddle, the Cimmerian chafed at the sluggishness that chained his mighty limbs. His blue eyes blazed with the fire of inconquerable will, and his broad brows drew together with the fury of his effort to drive vitality back into his flaccid thews. Strive as he would, the blood flowed but feebly through his numbed flesh; for Alcina had concocted the deadly draft with consummate care.
At length his squires strapped Conan to his saddle, he raving oaths the while and calling upon his somber Northern gods to avenge this foul indignity. And though the palsy shook his burly body, his eyes, seething with elemental fury, commanded every upturned face to show him neither courtesy nor pity, but only the respect that was his due.
All this Prince Cassio watched, held spellbound by amazement. Back in Messantia, the courtiers had sneered at Conan as a savage, an untutored barbarian whom the Aquilonian rebel nobles had unaccountably chosen to manage their revolt. Now the prince sensed the primal power of the man, his deep reservoirs of elemental vigor. He perceived the Cimmerian’s driving purpose, his originality of thought, his dynamic presence—qualities that transformed nobles and common soldiers alike into willing captives of his personality. This man, thought Cassio, was created to command—was born to be a king.
Supported by a mounted squire on either side, Conan paced his charger slowly down the ranks toward the battalion of Bossonian archers. Although his face contorted with the effort, he managed to raise a hand in greeting as he passed row upon row of loyal followers. The men burst into frantic cheers.
Half a league to the north, a pair of royalist scouts, left behind to watch the rebel army, were breaking fast along the road that led to Saxula Pass. The cheers came faintly to their ears, and they exchanged glances of alarm.