Abruptly two score golden-cloaked soldiers appeared ahead.

"For Garian!" Conan called, not slowing. "Death to Alba.n.u.s and Vegentius!"

"Kill them!" came the reply. "For Vegentius!"

The two groups ran together roaring, swords swinging.

Conan ripped the throat from the first man he faced without even crossing swords, and then he was like a machine, blade rising and falling and rising again bloodier than before. The way was forward. He hacked his way through, like a peasant through a field of wheat, chopping and moving forward, leaving b.l.o.o.d.y human stubble behind.

And then he was clear of the melee. He did not pause to see how his companions fared against those who had survived his blade. The numbers were on the Free-Company's side, now, and he yet had to find Ariane. Of Garian he cared not one way or the other.

Straight to the throne room he ran. The guards that normally stood at the great carven doors were gone, drawn into the fighting that sounded now in every corridor. The door that usually was opened by three men, Conan pushed open unaided.

The great columned chamber stood empty, the Dragon Throne guarding it with a malignant glare.

The King's apartments, Conan thought. He set out still at a run, and those who faced him died. He no longer waited to call out the challenge. Any who wore the golden cloak and did not flee were the enemy. Few fled, and he regretted killing them only for the delay it caused him. Ariane. They slowed him finding Ariane.

Karela stalked the Palace halls like a panther. She was alone, now.

After the first fight she had searched among the bodies for Conan, uncertain whether she wanted to find him or not. There had not been long to look, for other soldiers loyal to Vegentius had appeared, and the fighting that followed had carried all who still stood away from that spot. She had seen Garian laying about him, and Hordo desperately trying to fight his way to her side. The one-eyed man had been like death incarnate, yet she was glad he had not been able to follow. There was that she had to do of which her faithful hound would not approve.

Suddenly there was a man before her, blood from a scalp wound trickling down his too-handsome face. The sword in his hand was stained as well, and from the way he moved he knew how to use it.

"A wench with a sword," he laughed. "Best you throw it down and run, else I might think you intend to use it."

She recognized him then. "You run, Demetrio. I have no wish to soil my blade with your blood." She had no quarrel with him, but he stood between her and where she wanted to go.

His laugh turned into a snarl. "b.i.t.c.h!" He lunged, expecting an easy kill.

With ease she beat aside his overconfident attack and slashed him across the chest with her riposte. Shaken, he leaped back. She followed, never allowing him to set himself for the attack again. Their blades flashed intricate silver patterns in the air between them, ringing almost continually. He was good, she admitted, but she was better. He died with a look of incredulous horror on his face.

Stepping over his body-she hurried on, until at last she came to the chambers she sought. Carefully she pushed the door open with her blade.

Sularia, in the blue velvet robes of a n.o.blewoman, faced her, frowning.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Some lord's leman? Don't you know enough not to enter my apartments without permission? Well, as you're here, what word of the fighting?" Her eye fell on the b.l.o.o.d.y sword in Karela's hand, and she gasped.

"You sent a friend of mine to the lowest of Zandru's h.e.l.ls," Karela said quietly. With measured paces she stepped into the room. The blonde backed away before her.

"Who are you? I know none who are friends of your sort. Leave my chambers immediately, or I'll have you flogged."

Karela laughed grimly. "Jelanna would not know your sort, either, but you know of her. As for me, I do not expect you to recognize the Lady Tiana without her veils."

"You're mad!" Sularia said, a quaver in her voice. Her back was almost to the wall.

Karela let her sword drop as she continued her advance. "I need no sword for you," she said softly. "A sword is for an equal."

From beneath her robes Sularia drew a dagger, its blade as wide as a man's finger and no more than twice as long. "Fool," she laughed. "If you truly are Tiana, I'll give you reason to wear your veils." And she lunged for Karela's eyes.

The auburn-haired woman moved nothing but a single hand, which darted to close over the hand that held the dagger. Sularia's blue eyes widened in disbelief as her lunge was stopped by a grip made steel by long hours with a sword. Karela knotted her other hand in those blonde tresses, tight enough to force the woman to meet her hard emerald gaze.

Slowly she twisted, forcing the dagger and the hand that held it alike to turn.

"Despite it all," she whispered to the blonde, "you might have lived had not you put your s.l.u.ttish hands on him." With all her strength she drove the dagger home in Sularia's heart.

Letting the dead woman fall, Karela retrieved her sword and wiped the blade contemptuously on a wall hanging. There was still the Cimmerian.

Her mind whirling with a thousand thoughts of what she would do to him when she found him, she stalked from the room. Almost she had been ready to let him live, but Sularia had brought it all flooding back, all the thousand humiliations she had suffered because of him. That he had lain with such as Sularia was the worst humiliation of all, though when she questioned that strange thought her mind skittered away from answering.

Then, from a colonnaded gallery, she saw him in a courtyard below, lost in thought. No doubt he still wondered how to find this precious Ariane of his. Her beautiful face twisted in a savage snarl. From the corner of her eye she caught a movement below, and her breath suddenly would not come. Vegentius had entered the courtyard, and Conan had not moved.

Slowly, like a murderer in the night, the big soldier, as big as Conan, crept forward, ensanguined sword upraised. His red-crested helmet and chain mail looked untouched, though that b.l.o.o.d.y blade was proof he had seen fighting. At any moment he would strike, and she would see Conan die. Tears ran down her face. Tears of joy, she told herself. It would give her much joy to see the Cimmerian meet his death. Much joy.

"Conan!" she screamed. "Behind you!"

Conan listened to the approaching footsteps, footsteps that grew less wary by the second. The Cimmerian's hand already rested on his sword hilt. He did not know who it was that crept toward him, save that by his actions he was an enemy. Whoever he was, a few steps more and the surpriser would be the one surprised. Just one step more.

"Conan!" a scream rang out. "Behind you!"

Cursing his lost advantage the Cimmerian threw himself forward, tucking his shoulder under as he hit the flagstones, drawing his scimitar as he rolled to his feet. He found himself facing a very surprised Vegentius.

A quick glance upward showed him the source of the shout, Karela, half hanging over the stone rail of a gallery two stories above the courtyard. He knew it had to be his imagination, yet in that brief look he could have sworn that she was crying. It did not matter, in any case. He must concern himself with the man he faced.

Vegentius wore a grin as if what was to come were the greatest wish of his life. "Long have I wanted to face you with steel, barbar," he said.

His face yet bore the yellowing bruises of their last encounter.

"That is why you try to sneak up behind me?" Conan sneered.

"Die, barbar!" the big soldier thundered, launching a towering overhead blow with his sword.

Conan's blade rose to meet it with a clang, and immediately he moved from defense to offense. Almost without moving their feet the two men faced each other, blades ringing like hammer and anvil. But it was always Conan's blade that was the hammer, always he attacking, always Vegentius parrying, ever more desperately. It was time to end, the Cimmerian thought. With a mighty swing, he struck. Blood fountained from the headless trunk of the Commander of the Golden Leopards. As the body toppled, Conan was already turning to look for Karela. The gallery was empty.

Still, he could not suppress a complacent smile at the thought that she did not hate him as much as she pretended. Else why had she cried out?

He looked around as Hordo hurried into the courtyard.

"Vegentius?" the one-eyed man asked, looking at the headless body. "I saw Alba.n.u.s," he went on when Conan nodded. "And Ariane and the imposter. But when I got to where I saw them, they were gone. I think they were headed for the old part of the Palace." He hesitated. "Have you seen Karela, Cimmerian? I can't find her, and I do not want to lose her again."

Conan pointed out the gallery where Karela had stood. "Find her if you can, Hordo. I've another woman to seek."

Hordo nodded, and the two men parted in opposite directions.

Conan wished the bearded man luck, though he suspected Karela had disappeared once more. But his own concern was still Ariane. He could not imagine why Alba.n.u.s would go into the ancient portion of the Palace, unless it was to escape by way of one of the secret pa.s.sages.

If Jelanna knew some of them, it seemed reasonable that the hawk-faced lord might also.

Yet the Cimmerian did not think he could find even the one he had escaped through, lost as it was in that maze of pitch-dark corridors.

There was only the wolf pit to hope for. And hoping against hope Conan ran.

He thanked every G.o.d he could think of that he encountered no Golden Leopards as he sped through the Palace, into the rough stone corridor he remembered so well. He could afford not the slightest delay if he was to reach the wolf pit before Alba.n.u.s departed. If Alba.n.u.s had gone to the wolf pit. If Ariane was still alive. He refused to admit any of those ifs. They would be there. They had to be.

Almost to the pit, he heard Alba.n.u.s' voice reverberating from that domed ceiling. The Cimmerian allowed himself one brief sigh of relief before entering the chamber, his eyes like blue steel.