Conan the Magnificent by Robert Jordan

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

XII

Amid the lengthening shadows of mid-afternoon, some semblance of normality had returned to the hunter’s camp. The fires were out, and those carts that could not be salvaged had been pushed to the bottom of the hill, along with supplies too badly burned for use. Most of the wounded were on their feet, if not ready for another battle, and the rest soon would be. The dead-including now the two most seriously wounded-had been buried in a row on the hillside, with cairns of stones laid atop their graves to keep the wolves from them. Zamoran dead, at least, had been treated so. Vultures and ravens squawked and contended beyond the next hill, where the corpses of hillmen had been dragged.

Sentries were set now not only about the hilltop camp itself, but on the hills surrounding. Those distant watchers, mounted so they could bring an alarm in time to be useful, had been Conan’s idea. When he put the notion forward Jondra ignored it, and Arvaneus scorned it, but the sentries were placed, if without acknowledgement to the Cimmerian.

It was not for pique, however, that Conan stalked through the camp with a face like a thunder head. He cared nothing who got credit for the sentries, so long as they were placed. But all day Jondra had avoided him. She had hurried about checking the wounded, checking the meals the cook prepared, meddling in a score of tasks she would normally have dismissed once she ordered them done. All in the camp save Conan she had kept at the run. And every particle of it, he knew, was to keep from talk with him.

Tamira trotted by in her short white tunic, intently balancing a flagon of wine and a goblet on a tray, and Conan caught her arm. “I can’t stop now,” she said distractedly. “She wants this right away, and the way she’s been today I have no wish to be slow.” Suddenly the slender thief chuckled. “Perhaps it would have been better for us all if you hadn’t slept alone last night.”

“Never mind that,” Conan growled. “It’s time for leaving, Tamira.

Tomorrow will see us in the mountains.”

“Is that what you said to Jondra to anger her so?” Her face tightened.

“Did you ask her to go back with you, too?”

“Fool girl, will you listen? A hunting trophy is no reason to risk death at the hands of hillmen, nor are those gems.”

“What of Jondra?” she said suspiciously. “She won’t turn back.”

“If I can’t talk her into it, I will go without her. Will you come?”

Tamira bit her full underlip and studied his face from beneath her lashes. Finally, she nodded. “I will. It must be in the night, though, while she sleeps. She’ll not let me leave her service, if she knows of it. What would she do without a handmaiden to shout at? But what of your own interest in the rubies, Cimmerian?”

“I no longer have any interest,” he replied.

“No longer have,” Tamira began, then broke off with a disbelieving shake of her head.

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