Conan the Defender by Robert Jordan

Author:Robert Jordan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

XII

On the wide marble steps of the Temple of Mitra, a startled man dropped a cage of doves as the Free-Company made its way down the narrow, winding street. So surprised was he to see mounted and armed men in the Temple District that he watched them open-mouthed, not even noticing that his cage had broken and his intended sacrifices were beating aloft on white wings.

Hordo's saddle creaked as he leaned forward and whispered fiercely to Conan. "This is madness! 'Twill be luck if we are not met atop the hill by the whole of the Golden Leopards!"

Conan shook his head without answering. He knew full well that approaching the Royal Palace unannounced with two score armed men was far from the proper way to appeal for entry into the King's service. He knew, too, that there was no time for more usual methods, such as bribery, and that left only enlistment in the Nemedian army. Or this.

In truth, it was not the Golden Leopards who troubled him so much as the young rebels. Desperate, believing he had betrayed them or was on the way to do so, they might try almost anything. And these winding streets that climbed the hill to the Royal Palace were a prime place for ambush.

Those streets were a remnant of ancient times, for once in the dim pact what would become the Royal Palace had been a hilltop fortress, about which a village had risen, a village which over the centuries had grown into Belverus. But long after the hilltop fortress had become the Royal Palace of Nemedia, long after the rude village huts had been replaced by columned temples of alabaster and marble and polished granite, the serpentine streets remained.

The Palace itself retained much of the fortress about it, although its battlements were now of lustrous white marble, and towers of porphyry and greenstone rose within. The portcullises were of iron beneath their gilt, and drawbridges spanned a drymoat bottomed with spikes. Round about it all a sward of grass, close cropped as if in a landscaped garden, yet holding not the smallest growth that might shelter a stealthy approach, separated the Palace from the Temple District that encircled the hill below.

At the edge of the greensward Conan halted the company. "Wait here," he commanded.

"Gladly," Hordo muttered.

Alone, Conan rode forward, his big black stallion prancing slightly. Two pikemen in golden cloaks guarded the drawbridge, and a man in the crested helmet of an officer stepped out from the barbican as the big Cimmerian drew rein.

"What seek you here?" the officer demanded. He eyed the rest of the Free-Company thoughtfully, but they were distant and few in number.

"I wish to enter my company in the service of King Garian," Conan replied. "I have trained them in a method of fighting new to Nemedia, and to the western world."

The officer smiled in mockery. "Never yet have I heard of a Free-Company without some supposedly secret art of war. What is yours?"

"I will demonstrate," Conan said. "It is better in the showing.

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