15-Conan the Invincible by Robert Jordan

Author:Robert Jordan [Jordan, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780099703914
Publisher: Legend
Published: 1996-08-15T05:00:00+00:00

Hordo started forward angrily, but Karela put a hand on his arm. He stopped, but his glare promised reckonings another time. Karela faced the gathering calmly, hand on hip and sword point planted firmly on the ground.

"Not hurt too badly, eh, Aberius?" she said with a sudden smile. The weaselfaced man seemed taken aback. He had a scratch down his cheek, and a piece of rag about his left arm. "And you, Talbor," she went on before anyone could speak. "Not as hard a night's work as you've had. Remember when we took that slaver's caravan from Zamboula, only they'd doubled the guard for fear of those quarry slaves they had bound for Ketha? I mind carrying you away from that across my saddle, with an arrow through you, and-"

"That's of no matter now," Aberius snapped. Hordo lurched forward, snarling, but Karela stopped him with a gesture. Aberius seemed to relax at that, and his smile became more satisfied. "No matter at all, now," he repeated smugly.

"Then what is of matter?" she asked.

Aberius blinked. "Has the Red Hawk suddenly lost her vision?" A few of the men behind him laughed; the others looked grim. "More than a third of our number dead, and not a coin in anyone's purse to see for it. We were going to steal some pendants from a few pilgrims. Now we've followed them all the way into these accursed mountains, and might follow to Vendhya with naught to show for it. Hillmen. Soldiers.

Now, demons. It's time to go back to the plains, back to what we know."

"I decide when to turn back!" Karela's voice was suddenly a whip, lashing them. "I took you from the mud, robbing wayfarers for a few coppers, and made you feared by every caravan that leaves Shadizar, or Zamboula, or Aghrapur itself? I found you scavengers, and made you men! I put gold in your purses, and the swagger in your walks that make men step wide of you and women wriggle close! I am the Red Hawk, and I say we go on, and take this treasure that was stolen from a king!"

"You've led us long," Aberius said. "Karela." The familiarity of the name brought a gasp from the red-haired woman, and a growl from Hordo. Suddenly she seemed only a woman. A naked woman.

Aberius licked his lips. Lecherous lights appeared in the eyes of the men behind him.

Karela took a step back. Conan could read every emotion that fled across her face. Rage. Shame.

Frustration. And finally the determination to sell her life dearly. She took a firmer grip on her tulwar.

Hordo had unobtrusively slipped his blade from its sheath.

If he had half a brain, Conan told himself, he would slip away now. After all, he owed her nothing. There was the oath not to save her, too. Before the brigands knew what was happening, he could be gone into the night, with one of the prisoners to guide him to the pendants. And Velita. With a sigh, he stepped forward.

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