Toward dawn Conan bestrode the Border Legion’s ruined camp, receiving information from his captains. Hundreds of Legionnaires lay dead or dying, and hundreds more had sought the safety of the forest, whence Trocero's partisans were now dislodging them. But a full regiment of royalist soldiery, seven hundred strong, had come over to Conan's cause, having been persuaded by circumstance and a Bossonian officer named Gromel. The surrender of these troops— Poitanians and Bossonians, with a sprinkling of Gundermen and a few score other Aquilonians among them—pleased the Cimmerian mightily; for seasoned, well-trained professionals would bolster his fighting strength and stiffen the resolve of his motley followers.
A shrewd judge of men, Conan suspected Gromel, whom he had briefly known along the Pictish frontier, of being both a formidable fighter and a wily opportunist; but opportunism is forgivable when it serves one’s turn. And so he congratulated the burly captain on his change of heart and appointed him an officer in the Army of Liberation.
Squads of weary men labored to strip the dead of usable equipment and stack the corpses in a funeral pyre, when Prospero strode up. His armor, splashed with dried blood, was ruddy in the roseate light of dawn, and he seemed in rare good humor.
“What word?” asked Conan gruffly.
“Nothing but good. General,” grinned the other. "We have captured their entire baggage train, with supplies and weapons enough for twice our strength.”
“Good work!” grunted Conan. “What of the enemy’s horses?”
“The foresters have rounded up the beasts they let run free, so we have mounts again. And we have taken several thousand prisoners, who threw down their arms when they saw their cause was hopeless. Pallantides fain would know what he's to do with them."
“Offer them enlistment in our forces. If they refuse, let them go where they will. Unarmed men can harm us not," said Conan indifferently. “If we do win this war, we shall need all the good will we can muster. Tell Pallantides to let each choose his course.”
"Very well, General; what other orders?" asked Prospero.
“We ride this morn for Culario. Trocero’s partisans report there’s not a royalist still under arms between here and the town, which waits to welcome us."
“Then we shall have an easy march to Tarantia,” grinned Prospero.
“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” Conan replied, narrowing his lids. “It will be days before news of the royalist rout arrives in Bossonia and Gunderland and the garrisons there head south to intercept us. But they will come in time.”
“Aye. Under Count Ulric of Raman, I’ll wager,” said Prospero. Then, as Trocero joined his fellow officers, he added: “What is your guess, my lord Count?"
“Ulric, I have no doubt,” said Trocero. “A pity we missed owe meeting with the northern barons. They would have held him back for quite a while."
Conan shrugged his massive shoulders. “Prepare the men to move by noon. I'll take a look at Pallantides’ prisoners."
A short while later, Conan stalked down the line of disarmed royalist soldiery, stopping now and then to ask a sharp question: “You wish to serve in the Army of Liberation? Why?"
In the course of this inspection, his eye caught the reflected sparkle of the morning sun on the hairy chest of a ragged prisoner. Looking more closely, he perceived that the light bounced off a small half-circle of obsidian, hung on a slender chain around the man’s burly neck. For an instant Conan stared, struggling to remember where it was that he had seen the trinket. Taking the object between thumb and forefinger, he asked the soldier with a hidden snarclass="underline"
"Where did you get this bauble?”
“May it please you, General, I picked it up in General Procas’s tent the morning after the general was—after he died. I thought it might be an amulet to bring me luck.”
Conan studied the man through narrowed lids. “It surely brought no luck to General Procas. Give it to me."
The soldier hastily stripped off the ornament and, trembling, handed it to Conan. At that moment Trocero approached, and Conan, holding up the object to his gaze, muttered: “I know where I have seen this thing before. The dancer Alcina wore it around her neck.”
Trocero’s eyebrows rose. "Aha! then that explains—”
“Later,” said Conan. And nodding to the prisoner, he continued his inspection.
As the level shafts of the morning sun inflamed the clouds that lingered in the eastern sky, Conan’s baggage train and rear guard lumbered across the Alimane; and soon thereafter the Army of Liberation began its march across Poitain to Culario and thence toward great Tarantia and the palace of its kings. To tread the soil of Aquilonia after so many months of scaling crags in a lost and hostile land heartened the rebel warriors. Bone-weary as they were after a night of slaughter, they bellowed a marching song as they threaded their way north among the towering Poitanian oaks.
Ahead, swifter than the wiad, flew the glad tidings: The Liberator comes! From farm and hamlet to town and city, it winged its way—a mere whisper at first, but swelling as it went into a mighty shout—a cry that monarchs dread, presaging as it does the toppling of a throne or the downfall of a dynasty.
Conan and his officers, pacing the van on fine horseflesh, were jubilant. The progress through Count Trocero’s desmene would be, as it were, on eagles’ wings. The nearest royalist forces, unapprized of their arrival, lay several hundred leagues away. And since Amulius Procas was in his grave, they had no enemy to fear until they reached the very gates of fair Tarantia. There they would find the city portals locked and barred against them, this they knew; and the Black Dragons, the monarch’s household guard, in harness to defend their king and capital. But because the people stood behind them and a throne lay before, they would hack down all defenses and trample every foe.
In this the rebels were mistaken. One foe remained of whom they knew but little. This was the sorcerer Thulandra Thuu.
In his purple-pendant oratory, lighted by corpse-tallow candles, Thulandra Thuu brooded on his sable throne. He stared into his obsidian mirror, seeking by sheer intensity of purpose to wrest from the opaque pane bright visions of persons and events in distant places. At length, with a small sigh, he settled back and rested his tired eyes. Then, frowning, he once again studied the sheet of parchment on which, in his spidery hand, were inscribed the astrological aspects he deemed conducive to communication by this occult means. He peered at the gilded crystal water clock and found no error of day or hour to explain his unsuccess. Whatever the cause, Alcina had failed to commune with him at the appointed time, now and for many days gone by.
A knock disturbed his melancholy meditation. "Enter!" said Thulandra Thuu through lips livid with frustration.
The drapery parted, and Hsiao stood on the marble threshold. Bowing, the Khitan intoned in his quavering voice: "Master, the Lady Alcina would confer with you.”
"Alcina!” The sharpness of the sorcerers tone betrayed his agitation. "Show her in at once!"
The hangings fell together silently, then parted once again. Alcina staggered in. Her page’s garb, tattered and torn, was gray with dust and caked with sun-dried mud. Her black hair formed a tangled web around a face stiff with soil and apprehension. She dragged weary feet, scarce able to support her drooping frame. The beautiful girl, who had gallantly set off for Messantia, now seemed a worn woman in the winter of her years.
“Alcina!” cried the wizard. “Whence come you? What brings you here?”
In a scarcely audible whisper, she replied: “Master, may I sit? I am fordone.”
“Be seated, then.” As Alcina sank down upon a marble bench and closed her eyes, Thulandra Thuu projected his siblant voice across the echoing chamber: 'Hsiao! Wine for Mistress Alcina.' Now, good wench, relate all that has befallen you.”