The Silent Enemy Read Free Page A

accompanied him on each of those journeys. In addition, there were the constant gatherings in Conan’s own court, where countless ambassadors and the like curried favor . . . when they were not trying to go behind the king’s back.
    These were just a few of the duties that had fallen to Nermesa. True, there were others who handled similar tasks, but it had eventually become clear to the son of Bolontes that he was constantly given the most complicated ones.
    It had been General Pallantides who had finally told him why. With his dark—some said Ophirian—complexion, long black hair, vulpine features, and narrow, knowing brown eyes, the general stood out even among King Conan’s inner circle. Pallantides wore proudly his silver armor with the hissing wyrm of ebony embossed upon the breastplate. A rich, purple cape with silver threading draped over his muscular shoulders nearly to the floor. That the commander of the Black Dragons had a slight limp made some perhaps think he had slowed down, but Nermesa had seen Pallantides in action and, even with the injury—the remnants of a deadlier one earned while fighting to save the king and Aquilonia—the general moved more swiftly than expert soldiers fifteen years younger.
    Pallantides had taken him aside little more than a month past—just after Nermesa had returned from the king’s latest trip of state—and had whispered, “His majesty sees great things in you, young Klandes. To be fair, he sees in you an Aquilonian version of himself . . . a man of honor and trust, with a strong, determined sword arm. Whenever he desires someone to act in his name it’s always you who is first mentioned.”
    “I—I don’t know what to say.”
    “Say you will not someday hate him for it,” the general went on solemnly. “For it is your life that he chooses to risk.”
    Nermesa had not even had to hesitate. “I am a Black Dragon. I swore to serve my monarch and the realm. I’ve faith that King Conan sends me on these missions because he feels it absolutely necessary.”
    “Yes, but he also needs to remember that you are human, after all. The queen, in point of fact, has reminded him again that there are others in your life besides him .” General Pallantides had shaken his head. “You deserve time with them, too.”
    Nermesa knew that his superior had mostly been speaking of Telaria. Still, despite Queen Zenobia’s words to her husband, there came yet more missions that only Nermesa could seem to handle.
    Now at last, however, Nermesa had been granted a leave from his duties. In fact, King Conan had all but ordered him to put his personal life back in order once he completed one last simple mission. Conan had papers that needed to reach Count Trocero secretly. Their contents were not revealed even to Nermesa, but their importance was emphasized. They could not be entrusted to a normal courier. The king needed their bearer to be someone he trusted utterly not only to deliver them, but to return with equally important answers from the lord of Poitain.
    King Conan was a mountain of a man, a former mercenary and, if rumors held true, freebooter and thief. Born in the cold climes of Cimmeria to the far north, he was what many of the elder families of Aquilonia termed a “barbarian.” Yet he had proven a more caring, more thoughtful monarch than many of the blue-blooded ones of the past, especially the very despot that he had overthrown, Namedides.
    “I swear by Crom,” the dour giant had rumbled after he had explained the knight’s mission, “that you’ll be granted the time you need once this is done. No more tasks, no more long journeys.” The man who had likely traveled more of the known world than most had shrugged his massive shoulders. He eyed Nermesa from under his square-cut, black mane. “There comes a time when that must end and one should stay put and make a new life for himself. I know .”
    And so, with the promise of finally being able to arrange matters for