Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza by Roland Green Read Free Book Online Page B

sodden and sorry for ourselves,” Lysinka replied. “Also, for once we can move without fear of being heard by men or scented by beasts.”
    “There is that,” Fergis said. He raised both fists, thumbs upward, the band’s salute to their chieftain. Then he turned away to begin the work of routing the laggards out of their blankets.
    Many days’ travelling to the south and west of Lysinka’s hill camp, the sun shone on a rocky hillside not far from Shamar. At the foot of the hill lay the camp of the Thanza Rangers, but their work that day lay far above, toward the bare, sun-scorched crest of the hill.
    The recruiting notice for the Thanza Rangers had asked for a thousand men. Conan had not as yet concerned himself with counting heads, but he would not have wagered a puddle of spilt beer that the camp held more than two hundred.
    At least nine out of ten of these were more or less fit to fight. Or at least they would be, by the time Tharmis Rog was done with them.
    “Fighters or corpses, that’s what you’ll be,” the master-at-arms had told the first men into the camp, and each new band as they came. “If you won’t shape yourself aright, you’ll die in the Thanzas. Die hard, too, and slow.
    “If / kill you here, though, at least it’ll be quick and your bones will lie where the gods can find them. Unless you desert, and if I catch you after that, you’ll wish the bandits had flayed you alive or thrown you into a pit of quillpigs.
    “Do you understand, you miserable whoresons?” Conan remembered a muttered chorus of assent. Then Tharmis Rog had bellowed:
    “Was that men talking or piglets squealing? When I ask a question, I want to hear the answer.”
    The next time and ever since, the “Yes” and the “Aye” had raised echoes.
    Rog himself was raising echoes today, as he taught the Thanza Rangers to climb hills in something that one could almost call a line of battle. Conan did not think much of his teaching, but then Rog was plainly enough no hillman.
    From his position well uphill from most of the line, Conan could see the better part of his comrades making heavy weather of the climb. Some had already dropped parts of their loads—and their hides would smoke for that, when Rog saw it. The master-at-arms was old enough to be grandfather to some of the recruits, but could best any two of them without working up a sweat.
    The Cimmerian was the one exception to that rule. Thus far, the two big men had carefully avoided facing one another. This could not last forever, but both knew that when the fight did come what little discipline the Thanza Rangers had might be shaken to its shallow roots.
    It would have helped had they possessed a more seasoned captain or at least one who remained in the camp. But “recruiting duty” kept Klarnides in Shamar, close to its comforts and far from the camp where people were beginning to remark on his absence. There were also rumours of other captains being appointed to the Rangers, even less war-seasoned than Klarnides.
    This was no great matter to Conan. It there were no ways for soldiers to work around fumbling or foolish captains, he would have been dead 'half a dozen times over. Klarnides was at worst a louse in one’s breeches. Tharmis Rog might prove a wild boar.
    Certainly he sounded like one now. He was bellowing curses to one slight youth, who looked even less fitted for soldiering than Klarnides.
    “By Erlik’s brazen tool! Do I have to come up there and run my sword all the way up to your teeth before you climb?” And much more in like vein.
    Conan strode back and forth across the slope with a tollman’s confidence, pointing out easy and hard ground whenever he could whisper, sometimes only using a gesture or his sword. His evident experience with soldiering had given him an under-captaincy with command over thirty men, but Rog did not care to see Conan dealing with anyone beyond that thirty.
    Today, the Cimmerian would have gladly fed Rog and what he