Alcina decided to return to the capital and chance her master's wrath. Besides, being both beautiful and shrewd, she had a way with men, no matter what their station. Smiling, she slept, prepared to set forth with the coming of the light.
Toward dawn, an Aquilonian captain approached the general’s tent to have him sign the orders of the day. The two sentries of the night before, wearily anticipating the conclusion of their tour of duty, saluted their superior before one stepped forward to open the tent flap and usher the captain in.
But General Procas would sign no further orders, save perchance in hell. He sprawled face-down in a pool of his congealing blood, clasping in his hand the stump of the slim-bladed poniard that had stilled the voice of Aquilonia's mightiest warrior.
The two soldiers turned over the corpse and stared at it. Procas’s iron-gray hair, now dappled with dried blood, lay in disorder, partly masking his dormant features.
"I shall never believe our general took his own life,” whispered the captain, deeply moved. “It was not his way.”
"Nor I, sir,” said the sentry. "What man determined to kill himself would plunge a dagger into a shirt of mail? It must have been that woman.”
“Woman? What woman?” barked the captain.
"The green-eyed one I led here late last night She said she brought a message from the king. See, there is one of her footprints.” The soldier pointed to an outline of a small, booted foot etched in dried mud upon the carpet. "We begged the general to let us stay during the interview, but he ordered us out regardless.”
“What became of the woman?"
The sentry turned up helpless hands. “Gone, I know not how. I assure you, sir, that she did not pass us on her way out. Sergius and I were wide awake and at our posts from the time we left the general till you came just now for orders. You can ask the watch."
“Hm," said the captain. “Only a devil can vanish from the midst of an armed and guarded camp of war."
"Then perhaps the devil is a woman, sir," muttered the sentry, biting his lip. “Look there on the rug: a half-moon of rock-glass, black as the depths of hell!"
The captain toed the bit of obsidian, then kicked it aside impatiently. “Some forbidding amulet, such as the superstitous wear. Devil or no, we must not stand here babbling. You guard the general’s body, whilst I call up a squad to search the camp and the surounding hills. Sergius, fetch me a trumpeter! If I ever catch that she-devil…"
Alone in the tent, the sentry furtively searched among the shadows on the rug and found the amulet. He examined his find, tied the broken ends of chain together, and slipped it over his head. If the ornament was not much to look at, it might at least bring him good luck. Somebody must have thought so, and a soldier needs all the good fortune that the gods bestow.
Conan leaned above the rim of a great rock and studied the disposition of the royalist troops, still encamped along the northern bank of the Alimane. Only the day before, something unsettling had occurred among them; for there had been much shouting and noisy confusion. But from his eyrie not even the keen-eyed Cimmerian could discern the nature of the disturbance.
Keeping his eyes fixed on the scene across the river, Conan accepted a joint of cold meat from his squire and gnawed on it with a lusty appetite. He felt full of renewed vigor, now that he had shaken off the lingering effects of the poisoned wine; and the days of harrying the Border Legion home had much appeased his rage over the lost battle amid the waters of the Alimane, where so many of his faithful followers had perished in the swirling flood.
Years had passed since the Cimmerian adventurer had last fought a guerilla war—striking from the shadows, ambushing stragglers, hounding a stronger force from the seciuity of darkness. Then he had commanded a brigand band in the Zuagir desert Pleased he was that the skills were still with him, trammeled in his memory, razor-sharp in spite of long disuse.
Still, now that the enemy had crossed the Alimane and were encamped upon the further bank, the problems of the war he fought had changed again—and, thought the impatient Cimmerian, changed for the worse.
The hosts beneath the Lion banner could not ford the Alimane so long as the royalists stood ready to repel each assault. For such an attack to succeed in the face of vigorous resistance would require, as in scaling the wall of a fortress, overwhelming numbers; and these the rebels did not have. Nor could they rely upon guerilla tactics and the novel employment of mounted archers. Moreover, their supplies were running low.
Conan scowled as he moodily munched the cold meat. At least, he reflected, the troops of Amulius Procas displayed no inclination to recross the river to do battle. And for the twentieth time he pondered the nature of the event that, the day before, had so disturbed the orderly calm of the enemy camp.
The Border Legion had enlarged the open space on the further side of the river, where the Culario road met the water; they had felled trees, extending the clearing up and down the stream to make room for their camp. Beyond the camp, the forest, was a wall of monotonous green, now that the springtime flowers on tree and shrub had faded. As Conan watched, a party of mounted men entered the encampment, and the song of trumpets foretold a visitation of some moment.
Conan shaded his eyes, frowned at the distant camp, and turned to his squire. "Go fetch Melias the scout, and quickly."
The squire trotted off, soon to return with a lean and leathery oldster. Conan glanced up, his face warm with greeting. Melias had served with Conan years before on the Pictish frontier. His eye was keener than any hawk's, and his moccasined feet slipped through dry underbrush as silently as a serpent.
"Who is it enters yonder camp, old man?" Conan inquired, nodding toward the royalist encampment
The scout stared fixedly at the party moving down the company street At length he said: "A general officer—afield rank, at any rate, from the size of his escort And of the nobility, too, from his blazonry.”
Conan dispatched his page to fetch Dexitheus, who made a hobby of unraveling heraldic symbols. As the scout described the insignia embroidered on the newcomer's surcoat, the priest-physician rubbed his nose with a slow finger, as if to stimulate his memory.
“Methinks," he said at last, "that is the coat of arms of the Count of Thune."
Conan shrugged irritably. "The name is not unfamihar to me, but I am sure I have never met the man. What know you of him?"
Dexitheus pondered. "Thune is an eastern county of Aquilonia. But I have not encountered the present holder of the title. I recall some rumor—perhaps a year ago—of a scandal in connection with his accession; but further details I fail to recollect"
Back at the rebel camp, Conan sought out the other leaders, to query them about the new arrival. But they could tell him little more than he already knew about the Count of Thune, save that the man had served as an officer on the peaceful eastern frontiers, with, so far as they knew, neither fabulous heroism nor crushing disgrace to his name.
By midafternoon, Melias reported that the troops of the Border Legion were ranked in parade formation and that, presently, the Count of Thune appeared and began to read aloud from documents bearing impressive seals and ribbons. Prospero and an aide slipped out of camp and, screened by foliage along the river bank, listened to the proceedings. Since a royalist sergeant repeated every phrase of the proclamation in a stentorian voice, which carried across the water, the astounded rebels learned that their adversary had died by his own hand and that Ascalante, Count of Thune, had been appointed in his place to command the Border Legion. This startling news they relayed with all dispatch to the other rebel chiefs.