≡ Chapter 4
They came in waves, day after day, wild, screaming Picts and Titus’ Shemite and Kushite mercenaries, again and again attacking the Aquilonian host and paying a horrible price for each attack.
The battlefield was inches deep in blood and gore, bodies and parts of bodies littering the borderland between the Pictish Wilderness and the Bossonian Marches, hundreds, thousands of men from four different races locked in a desperate conflict, and the more of the enemy the Aquilonians slew, the more that came howling from the wilderness, eyes red and a blood lust in their murderous hearts.
King Conan the Second, wounded by a Shemitish arrow in the side, was fuming as his doctors ministered to his wounds inside the royal pavilion.
“Damn you for a fool, man, hurry up with that dressing!” he growled. “My men fight and die while I hide in my tent with a scratch on my belly!”
“Tis no scratch, my king,” replied the healer, applying a salve and binding the wound with fresh bandages. “It is deep and may have nicked an organ. It were better if the king were to stay away from the battle…”
“Just tend the wound and be quick about, or I’ll split your skull for you! By Crom, I’ll not sit by and allow some weakling little ninnyhammer to keep me from this battle!”
“I am only looking after the concerns of the kingdom sire,” whined the little physician, piqued. “We cannot afford to have you slain.”
“You just minister to the wounds of my men, healer, and allow me to see to the affairs of my kingdom.”
“As you say, sire,” said the doctor as he tied the final knots of the bandages.
Conn rose and was re-dressing when the tent flap opened and one of the king’s adjutants entered, a look of panic on his face.
“Sire! A runner from Tarantia.”
“Well, show him in!” snapped Conn.
The adjutant disappeared then re-emerged with a young man of no more than twenty, haggard and covered in sweat. He staggered to the king and fell on his knees, drinking in great gasps of breath. Conn immediately ordered wine and sat the lad on a stool.
“Togreth, is it not?” inquired the king. “Son of Count Sadreth? Here drink this,” he said, handing the boy a flagon of wine.
Togreth gulped the wine greedily, emptying the flagon and handing it back to his king. Catching his breath, he spoke hurriedly.
“My liege, the castle has been attacked!”
Conn quieted the clamor that arose in the tent with a sharp wave of his hand.
“Attacked? When?”
“Yesterday morning, my king. I killed a horse riding here overnight and ran the rest of the way to bring you the news. Oh, my lord, they have taken the Princess!”
Conn leaped to his feet, dragging the boy up with him, holding him by the shoulders and shaking him.
“What did you say? Taken Radegund? Who has taken her?”
“I know not, my king,” the youth sobbed. “A great cat with huge fangs attacked us in the courtyard where we trained. We fought it, but it shrugged off our arrows and lances like they were mosquitoes! It slew many recruits, then it attacked the veterans and slaughtered them! I charged the beast with a pike and it swatted me aside as though I were one of it kits. I swooned and when I awoke a few minutes later, the beast was gone. Then I heard screaming from the castle. I investigated and found one of the ladies in waiting inside Princess Radegund’s bed chamber crying and clinging to a scroll.” With shaking hands he held out a sheet of parchment and offered it to the king.
Conn snatched it from his trembling fingers and read it. Instantly the tent filled with a palpable feeling of tense energy.
Looking to his adjutant with blazing eyes, Conn growled, “Go find my brother and bring him here. NOW!”
As the adjutant tore through the tent flap to do his king’s bidding, Conn fumed and cursed so that those still in the tent with him paled and watched their feet rather than meet his terrible gaze.
Several minutes passed before the tent once again opened and Taurus, sweating and bleeding from several wounds, entered.
“What is it brother? I left my comrades in the midst of battle.”
Conn turned to the others in the tent. “Leave us! I would speak with my brother alone.”
The several aides and healers hurriedly exited the tent and left the two siblings alone. Conn handed Taurus the scroll. “Read it,” he barked.
Taurus unrolled the parchment and read. “ ‘To the spawn of Conan: Know that I, Sagayetha, have your bitch sister and will feed her to the Wailing Tree if you do not surrender at once and leave these lands to us, their rightful owners. I give you one week to decide’ ”. He met his brother’s gaze. “Crom’s devils! Radegund!”
“That’s right brother. While we spend ourselves fighting here, that devil has taken our sister hostage and no doubt has her right now in some stinking jackal’s den. Surrender! I’ll have his head on pike first!”
“What in Mitra’s name is the Wailing Tree?”
“Only the gods know, but I’ll wager it isn’t somewhere we want our sister.”
Taurus paced excitedly back and forth. “I’ll go after her!” he exclaimed. “I’ll bring her back and the witch’s head for your pike to boot!”
“No, Taurus,” Conn said, holding up a hand, “I’ll not have both my siblings in the hands of that dog. I’ll go.”
“But you are needed here, to command the army! I know you think me too young, but I’m just as capable…”
“It isn’t that brother,” said Conn, “I know you can handle yourself, but if I fail, then it is left to you to rule Aquilonia. Besides, we both know I am better equipped for this task than you.”
Taurus started to argue further, but the truth of his brother’s words stopped him short. If either of them had a chance to rescue Radegund, it was Conn and not he. Still, it chafed him to be left behind.
“What then am I to do then? Sit here and hide like a woman?”
“No, and if you’ll quiet down and listen I’ll tell you my plan.”
An hour later, the Picts once again came storming out of the forest and attacked.
Under withering fire from the Shemite archers, Conn’s host held their ground the best they could against the seemingly tireless force amassed against them as Titus’ mercenaries charged their center, crashing like a wave of human destruction against the rampart of the Aquilonian host.
The fighting was fierce and bloody, men screaming and dieing, holding the bloody stumps of arms or legs, or dealing death with sword, pike, axe and knife. Here an Aquilonian disemboweled a Pictish chieftain too proud to wear the armor supplied to him by Titus; there a Kushite mercenary cut the throat of a young captain, who died gurgling on his knees in the mud and blood.
Then suddenly into the center of the melee appeared a giant figure, bedecked in the royal armor, launching himself into the fray, axe in hand. He crashed headlong into the knot of struggling warriors, sending men from both sides flying as though they were tenpins. Then, before he could land a blow, a Kushite mercenary rose up in front of him and smote him a tremendous blow on the head with his flail, cracking his helmet, blood geysering from the rend in the top, his skull crushed. As the Kushite raised his arm in victory, he was feathered with a dozen Bossonian arrows and died instantly as the giant corpse was borne from the field.
The Picts, having witnessed the king fall, rose a shout and redoubled their efforts, feeling victory at hand, but at the last instant were driven back by a volley from the Bossonian archers, known throughout the Hyborian world as the deadliest alive. Hundreds of Picts fell before, still howling their victory cry, they fell back into the forest and disappeared.
Back in the royal pavilion, Taurus and the Royal physician helped to lay the body on a divan. Everyone was ordered from the tent leaving only Taurus and the physician who knelt to remove the ruined helmet from the king’s head.
“Leave him,” ordered Taurus, “I will tend to my brother myself.”
Bowing respectfully, the old healer backed his way out of the tent.
Ensuring that he was indeed alone, Taurus opened the back flap of the tent and in through it stepped Conn, dressed in traveling clothes and very much alive.
Their plan had worked to perfection. They had picked out from the ranks of the prisoners a Kushite large enough to fit into the king’s harness, then gagged him and threw him into the fray, hoping that when the Kushite was slain it would appear the king himself had been slain.
No doubt the Picts believed it, as they could still be heard in the deep of the forest celebrating their victory; as to whether either Titus or Sagayetha had swallowed the bait remained to be seen.
Though pleased that their ruse had been successful, the two monarchs knew that this was only the first phase of their plan and that should any other phase go awry, it would mean the death of their sister.
“Well, brother,” said the king, “now begins the next part of our plan. I will go and seek out the High Priest of Asura and from him learn the truth about this Wailing Tree. If they have Radegund anywhere, it will be wherever this tree is or close by it.”
“I still wish you’d let me at least accompany you,” complained Taurus. “She’s my sister as well, you know.”
“I know, brother, I know, but with everyone believing me slain, they will look to you to lead them now. But you must stick to our agreement for the plan to work. You must appear to be willing to negotiate with Titus and his Pict shaman, get them to believe you have no stomach for war, that…”
“That I’m a coward, right, I understand perfectly. But the bad part is that all of our people will believe it as well. Could we not at least let the generals know so that they can keep the men in line?”
“No, Taurus, no one must know but you, I, Hadrathus and General Amalric. They were father’s friends and allies when he ascended to the throne and are the only ones we can trust with this secret. Amalric will stick by you and keep the generals off of you until the time is right. Then we spring the trap. But first I must find and rescue our sister, otherwise all is for naught.”
Taurus nodded his assent. “When will you leave?” he asked.
“At first light,” Conn replied. “The sooner the better.”
