The Sword of Skelos by Andrew Offutt

retained and consolidated his power, and gained more!
    “Balad is hardly without support,” she said, arching her brows while lowering her lashes heavy with kohl applied to perfumed salve. “And his… talkative supporters, up in Aghrapur, the capital.”
    She always referred to that city not only by its name, but as “Aghrapur, the capital,” and Zafra knew that she lusted for it; the seat of Empire. “Add ‘of Turan, of which our Zamboula is a satrapy,’” he said, “and I shall wring your lovely neck.”
    Smiling lazily, deliberately disarranging what clothing she wore, she said it.
    “Ah witch,” Zafra said, “witch!” And on the instant he decided to raise a wart on her cheek. Just a little one, to give her something to think about.
    “What better consort for a mage,” she said, smiling lazily, “mage; intimate of demons!”
    “Hardly. Now look you, Chia—”
    She stretched, lithely postured for him with a rippling of magnificent tigerine musculature beneath amber skin taut as the head of drum. “Call me Tigress, Zafra, Tiger!”
    “
He
calls you that, Chia. Listen, or I shall show you some of my powers! Do you know that I have but to do this and that, and you will drop to your knees, to your belly, to grovel and crawl like a snake?”
    She gripped the edge of a table lined with aludels and athanors, and jars and phials of strange content. She arched her back, thrust out her backside, and wagged her hips while she stared cat-eyed at him.
    “Oh? Would you like that? Would you like me so, mage? I will do it, if you but ask, my sorcerous love! No need to waste your spells!”

    He clenched his fists, wondering if she mocked him, or feared him and was covering—or was serious. “Ah!” he burst out exasperatedly. “And pain… suppose I give you pain so that you beg for surcease and to hear my commands?”
    She bared her bosom and ran her tongue over her lips, slowly. “Would you like to give me pain and see me writhe, my sorcerous lover? Beat me!”
    “Chia.”
    Zafra’s eyes had gone flat and serpentish; his voice was as fiat, and laden now with warning behind which there was menace. She knew he’d had enough of her teasing. She spoke softly and sweetly.
    “My love?”
    “I must go and tell the Khan that his agent Isparana wends toward Zamboula, in company with him who has the Eye that our besotted lord so desperately wants. I shall suggest that he consider dispatching a… honor guard, to meet and escort them to us.”
    “How fortunate he is to have you, ever looking out for him! Why do you not remove Balad for him?”
    “I have told him that I am at work on it, and that Balad is protected by great spells. Now—you must be still, Chia, and quiet, Chia, while I pass through that door. For if you do not, you ruin us both.”
    “I shall be as quiet as a little naked mouse,” she said, and stripped with only a few swift movements, and lay on the floor in a pose of wanton abandon. Strung on a tiny chain of gold, a tiger-eye winked on her belly.
    Grinding his teeth, Zafra went to the tall paneled door, to report to his khan.
What a magnificent animal
, the mage thought, his face composed and his eyes flat and hard.
How long, I wonder, before I have to rid this world of her
?

IX
DEATH AMID THE DUNES
    There were six of the green-robed men with the darker scarves across their lower faces, and their leader fastened the gaze of burning eyes on Conan’s and told him that all they wanted was Isparana.
    “I do not understand,” Conan said, while he decided what to do. “My sister is not for sale.”
    “We do not want to
buy
her, mule-brain!” the man in the green robe said, and two of his comrades laughed.
    “Oh,” Conan said. “Isparana, these men want to use you a bit. You do not mind, do you? Also, you had best slip the lead of the pack-horses off your saddle.” He hoped that she would assume the unspoken words:
and be ready to ride fast and unencumbered
.
    The eyes above the dark green