It would be so easy to stand here or even lie down. So easy to let Raihna the traitoress perish, and live on, satisfying Illyana's desire and his every night and sometimes every day. Satisfying a queen and leading her armies was enough for any man.
Was it not so?
"I know you," Conan growled. "Whatever you are, I know you. You don't know me."
He twisted desperately. One after another, his limbs came free. The cold remained, but now he could move his feet. As if through a frozen marsh, he lurched toward Raihna.
She could move only her eyes, but now they turned toward him. She tried to lift an arm. As her hand came above her waist, her face contorted in pain.
The Jewels might have nothing left but vengeance, but they would have that. Or was it Illyana?
"Bora!" Conan shouted. Or tried to shout. It was as if one of the Transformed was gripping him by the throat. He tore at the air in front of his face, but the grip was stronger than he was after a night's fighting.
Conan felt his neck beginning to twist and strain. He fought harder, and the twisting stopped. He even sucked in one deep treath before the grip tightened further.
How long Conan stood grappling with the invisible, he never knew. He knew only that in one moment he was on the brink of having his windpipe crushed. In the next moment the spring began bubbling and seething, spewing foul steam—and the death grip eased.
Conan still felt as if he was wading through a deep stream against a swift current. Compared with what had gone before, it was easy to overcome it, easier still to reach Raihna. The pain still racked her, but she let herself be drawn after him, one torturous step at a time.
At every moment Conan expected the Jewels to return to their vengeance and complete it. Instead the steam from the spring only rose higher, until no water flowed and the gap in the rock looked near-kin to a volcano.
At last Conan felt his limbs moving with their normal ease. All his wounds were bleeding again as he drew Raihna out of the magic. She fell against him, clad only in sword and Bora's sling.
"Run!" Conan shouted. It was an order to both of them. For Raihna it was also to gain her attention. Her eyes were vacant and her mouth slack. It seemed as if it would not take much for her to collapse and die with her mistress, letting the Jewels have their vengeance after all. Conan swore to unknown powers that he would not let this happen, if he had to carry her all the way to Fort Zheman.
Raihna had a warrior's will to abandon no fight until she was dead. Her first steps were stumbling, as if the ground was hot. The next steps were cautious, as if she could not altogether command her limbs. Then Bora took her other arm and with support on both sides she broke into a clumsy run.
They plunged down the hill to the bottom of the next valley, then began climbing the opposite slope. Conan did not know where they were going, or how long they could keep running. He only knew that he wanted as much distance as possible between him and whatever the Jewels were brewing up. Otherwise they might take their vengeance purely by chance!
Behind Conan, steam hissed and the grind and clash of moving rocks joined it. He did not dare turn around to be sure, but it also seemed that a green glow was spreading across the land.
They reached the crest of the hill with barely a single breath left between them. Conan contrived to stand, holding his comrades upright. He could not have done that and also kept running, not to save himself from all the Transformed at once.
It was then that he finally heard Illyana scream. He had never heard such a sound from a human throat. He had never imagined that a human throat could make such a sound. He did not enjoy knowing that it could.
Then the whole landscape turned green and the ground underfoot heaved.
"Down!"
Conan hurled himself and his comrades down the far slope of the hill. They rolled halfway to the foot, bruising and gouging already battered skins. What little remained of Conan's garments remained behind, as did Raihna's dagger.
Unable at last to rise, they lay and saw a vast cloud of smoke towering into the sky. It swirled and writhed and flashed lightning. Dreadful shapes in gray and green seemed to form themselves in the cloud, then vanish. The sound was as if the whole world was tearing itself apart, and the shaking of the ground made Conan wonder if this hill too was about to dissolve in magic-spawned chaos.
The shuddering of the ground and the thunder in the sky died away. Only the smoke cloud remained, now raining fragments of rock. As Conan sat up and began to count his limbs, a fragment the size of a man's head plummeted down barely ten paces away.
Raihna flinched, then looked down at herself.
"Conan, if you are going to embrace me in this state, let us seek a—a—ahhhhh!"
All her breath left her in a long wail. Then she began sobbing with more strength than Conan had thought she had in her.
Bora discreetly withdrew. When Raihna's weeping was done, he returned, wearing only his loincloth and carrying his trousers in his hand.
"Raihna, if you want some garb, I'll trade you this for my sling."
Raihna managed a smile. "Thank you, Bora. But I think it would be better cut up into strips and bound around our feet. We have some walking to do."
"Yes, and the sooner we start the better," Conan growled. Another rock crashing to earth nearby gave point to his remarks. "I think my sword has a better edge than my—Crom!"
A bladeless hilt rattled to the ground from Conan's scabbard. Raihna clutched at her own belt, to find both dagger and sword gone.
"The Jewels' magic has a long arm, it would seem," she said at last. "Well, Bora, I was right about your sling being free of magic. Would you care to try it?"
Conan reached into his boot and drew his spare dagger. "Illyana didn't touch this either." He stood. "Now, my friends, I am starting for Fort Zheman. I don't propose to stand around here gaping until a rock cracks my skull."
"At your command, Captain," Bora said formally. He offered a hand to Raihna. "My lady?"
The Bossonian woman rose, and together they turned away from the smoke cloud that marked the grave of Lady Illyana, briefly mistress of the Jewels of Kurag.
Twenty-three
"So THERE YOU were, deep in the Ibars Mountains, with one pair of trousers, a dagger, and a sling among the three of you. How did you contrive a way out?" Mishrak sounded more amused than suspicious.
"We found help," Conan said. "Not that they wanted to help us, but we persuaded them."
"Them?"
"Four bandits," Raihna put in. "They were holding a mother and daughter captive. The women were from a village destroyed by the Transformed. They fled the wrong way in the darkness and ran into the bandits."
"They must have been grateful for your help," Mishrak said.
"They helped us too," Conan added. "Bora and I crept close to the camp. Raihna stayed back, then stood up. Clothed as she was not, she made a fine sight. Two of the bandits ran out to win this prize.
"Bora killed one with his sling. I took the other with my dagger. One of the others ran at me but I knocked him down with a stone and Raihna kicked his ribs in.
The mother hit the last one with a stick of firewood. Then she pushed him face down into the campfire, to finish him off."
The delicate faces of Mishrak's guardswomen showed grim satisfaction at that last detail.
"And then?"