“And if we do not slay him,” Conan said grimly, “then still we must flee. Or would you ever be sitting with your back to a wall for protection, ever looking across your shoulder for his next attack?”
And more attacks there would be, the Cimmerian was sure. Whatever Antimides’ reason for wanting to seize Synelle, he could only be seeking Conan’s death to still his tongue. The attacks would continue until Conan was dead, or Antimides was.
“I didn’t say we should not kill him,” Narus sighed. “I simply said we must flee afterwards.”
“If we must flee in any case,” Taurianus demanded, “why should we then take this risk? Let the lord live, and let us be gone from Ianthe with all our blood in us.” The lanky man looked more glum even than Narus, and the dark hair that straggled from under his helm was damp with anxious sweat.
“You’ll never make a captain, Ophirean,” the gaunt-faced mercenary replied. “A Free-Company lives by its name, and dies by it, as well. Can we be attacked with impunity, then the company is as dead as if we have all had our weazands slit, and we are no better than vagabonds and beggars.”
Taurianus muttered under his breath, but spoke no more complaints aloud.
“There is Antimides’ palace,” Machaon said abuptly. He frowned suspiciously at the sprawling, golden-domed edifice of marble and alabaster. “I see no guards. I do not like this, Cimmerian.”
Antimides’ palace was second in size within Ianthe only to the royal palace itself, a massive structure of columns and terraces and spired towers, with broad, deep steps leading up from the street. There were no guards in sight on those steps, and one of the great bronze doors stood ajar.
A trap perhaps, Conan thought. Had Antimides learned of his failure already? Was he inside with his guards gathered close about him for protection? Such would be a foolish move, sure to have been protested by any competent captain. Yet a lord with Antimides’ arrogance might well have bludgeoned his guard commander into complacent compliance long since.
He turned in his saddle, studying the men behind. The seven besides Machaon and Narus who had crossed the border from Nemedia with him were there. They had followed him far, and loyally.
Long and hard had he labored to build this company, and to keep it, yet fairness made him say, “What numbers we face inside I do not know. Does any man wish to leave, now is the time.”
“Speak not foolishness,” Machaon said. Taurianus opened his mouth, then closed it again without speaking.
Conan nodded. “Four men to hold the horses,” he ordered as he dismounted.
With steady, purposeful tread they climbed the white marble steps, drawing swords as they did. Conan stepped through the open door, its broad bronze face scribed hugely with the arms of Antimides’ house, and found himself in a long, domeceilinged hall, with grand, alabaster stairs sweeping up to a columned balcony that encircled the hall.
A buxom serving girl in plain green robes that left her pretty legs bare to the tops of her thighs dashed out of a door to one side of the hall, a large, weighty bag over her shoulders. A scream bubbled out of her when she saw the armed and armored men invading the palace. Dropping the bag, she sped wailing back the way she had come.
Narus thoughtfully eyed the array of golden goblets and silver plate that had spilled out of the bag. “A guess as to what happens here?”
“Antimides fleeing our righteous wrath?” Machaon hazarded hopefully.
“We cannot afford let him escape us,” Conan said. He did not believe the count would flee, but there was strangeness here that worried him. “Spread out. Find him.”
They scattered in all directions, but warily, swords at the ready. Too many battles had they faced, too many traps had been sprung around them, for complacency. The continued survival of a mercenary lay in his readiness to give battle on an instant. Any instant.
A lord’s chambers would be above, the Cimmerian thought. He took the curving stairs upward.
Room by room he searched, finding no one, living or dead. Everywhere there were signs of hasty flight, and of a desire to carry away everything of value. Marks where tapestries had been pulled from the walls and carpets taken up. Tables overturned, whatever they had borne gone. Golden lamps wrenched halfway from brackets that had resisted being pried from the walls. Oddly, every mirror he saw was starred with long cracks.
Then he pushed open a door with his sword, and looked into a room that seemed untouched. Furniture stood upright, golden bowls and
silver vases in place, and tapestries depicting heroic scenes of Ophir’s past hung from the walls. The one mirror in the room was cracked, however, as the others were. An intricately carved chair was set before it, the high back to the door, but the voluminous, gold-embroidered green silk sleeve of a man’s robe hung over one gilded wooden arm.
With the strides of a great hunting cat the giant Cimmerian crossed the room, presented his sword to the throat of the man seated there. “Now, Antimides—” Conan’s words died abruptly, and the hairs on the back of his neck stirred.
Count Antimides sat with eyes bulging from an empurpled face and blackened tongue protruding between teeth clenched and bared in a rictus of agony. The links of a golden chain were buried in the swollen flesh of his neck, and his own hands clutched the ends of that chain, seeming even in the iron grip of death to strain at drawing it tighter.
“Crom!” Conan muttered. He would not believe that fear of his vengeance had been enough to make Antimides sit before a mirror and watch as he strangled himself. The Cimmerian had met sorcery often enough before to know the smell of it.
“Conan! Where are you?”
“In here!” he replied to the shout from the hall.
Machaon and Narus entered with a slender, frightened youth in filthy rags that had been fine satin robes not long past. His wrists bore the bloody marks of manacles; the palor of his skin and the thinness of his face spoke of long days in darkness and missed meals.
“Look what we found chained below,” the tattooed man said.