Free The Sword of Skelos by Andrew Offutt Page B

favored by that same khan.

VII
ISPARANA OF ZAMBOULA
    “Easy, Ironhead; we are out now, boys. Even as you said, Conan! All the way through that haunted pass and no sign of ghost or sand-lich. I apologize for doubting. Why man, you are a hero! This is a full day and more off the journey from Zamboula up into Zamora!”
    Conan nodded, rocking with the movements of his horse. He felt heroic, conveniently forgetting that sheer rashness and illogical stubbornness had sent him riding through that pass of death two months before. He had put out of mind the fact that only luck or some other whimsical god had kept him from being merely another victim of the ghost that had so long haunted the gorge slicing through the Dragon Hills.
    “First,” he said, “travelers will have to be assured that the pass is safe. I believe it best that we just keep the knowledge to ourselves, Khassek. Zamboulans might ask too many questions.”
    Riding just ahead and left of him, the Iranistani nodded. “I understand. The amulet. I would feel much more comforted if you showed it me, Conan.”
    Conan’s throat spat up a short laugh that reminded the other man of a lion’s cough. “And I’d feel more comfortable if I could believe that you are content for both of us to fetch it to your… employer, Khass! You saw me go off into the sands to dig it up. We have it.”
    “Conan, I like you. You are a fighter, and you have some sense, and I think you are an honest lad. In—”
    “If I had more sense I’d doubtless be less honest,” Conan said, his face darkening at the word “lad.”
    “I do not believe it. In any case, I know my lord. I know that he will reward us both. I have no reason to wish you ill, or try to gain the amulet from you. Even were we enemies, I should prefer to cross the desert with you than alone!”
    Abruptly Conan laughed. “I can think of one who wishes me ill
and
has reason to try to gain the amulet of me… preferably off my corpse!”
    “That Zamboulan woman.”
    “Aye!”
    “You believe that she was wearing the amulet when Hisarr Zul made it melt into a blob of yellow metal.”
    “With three gems imbedded in it. I’d not have expected her to take it off. Poor Isparana! A good thief, and so clever—and so good to look upon too, Khass.”
    “A nice reward for her thievery, I’m thinking,” Khassek said, ignoring the fact that he, sent to steal the amulet for one other than its owner, rode in the company of a thief. “And you did not have her.”
    “No.”
    “Tsk. And now that pretty bosom of hers may be burn-scarred.”
    “It may.”
    “You do not, ah, sound too… sorrowful, my friend.”
    The horses paced south, leaving the Gorge of the Sand-lich and the Dragon Hills behind them. Their two pack horses plodded along in their wake, surely insulted to be turned from riding beasts into sumpter animals, every second day. Only Conan’s fine mount seemed to recognize its unimaginative name; Khassek called “Ironhead” whichever horse he rode at the time. At least that was what he told Conan was the meaning of the Iranistani word by which he called the animal.
    “She tried to kill me, Khass. Twice. And then again, come to think: three times! And left me for dead or to be slain by those Khawarizmi slavers. After I had saved her from them, mind! It was only because she so treacherously struck me down that we both put in years trudging along in their slave coffle.”
    “Years!”
    “So it seemed,” the Cimmerian growled. “A day without freedom is a year, to a Cimmerian.”
    “Conan… about the Eye. Since Hisarr combined its components to destroy the copy—he must have seen the original.” Khassek adjusted the crotch of his baggy trousers. “At the time, I mean.”
    “That was my mission for him,” Conan said. “He had placed a time limit on me; I had to take the Eye back to him. Of course he saw it. He just did not get it.”
    “I weep for him. But in that case… Conan… it seems strange to me