Conan the Barbarian

CHAPTER 27

THUMP!

The Cimmerian came instantly awake catlike, and reached for his sword. It had not been a loud sound, or one particularly pernicious, but it had been out of place. He slid from his bunk and on bare feet padded his way up the stairs to the main deck, and again up to the wheel deck.

The helmsman had vanished, and save for water splashed between the wheel and taffrail, nothing appeared out of order. Bare steel in hand, the barbarian ran to aft rail and looked down, expecting to see the man’s body floating on the placid surface. He saw half of it, and only by the dint of its being silhouetted against a massive, malevolent golden eye.

What in the name of Crom! He turned back and already dark forms swarmed the main deck. Kushites with spears and shields, Khalar Zym’s light infantry with leather armor and swords, and even a few archers who climbed into the ratlines. A knot of men ran directly toward the companionway leading belowdecks.

Conan hammered the ship’s alarm bell with his sword’s pommel. “To arms! Rise now, or die in your berths!”

He vaulted from the wheel deck to the main and cleaved one man from shoulder to hip with a slash. Conan then spun and threw himself feetfirst down the companionway. He caught a man in the back, between the shoulders, and pitched him forward into the others. Conan landed heavily on the stairs and lost hold of his sword, while the others crashed below him. It didn’t matter. In the ship’s close quarters, a sword would be useless, whereas the dagger he plucked from a downed warrior’s belt would answer very well.

A bass voice barked a command. “Get the girl to a boat!”

From the shadows rose the Kushite general Conan recalled from his village. Snarling, the man rushed at him, reaching out with thick-fingered hands. Conan dodged left, letting the dagger in his right hand trail. The edge scored a line along Ukafa’s leather breastplate, but the larger man spun away before Conan could shift his wrist and draw blood.

The Kushite drew his own knife and crouched. “I have killed lions with this blade, Cimmerian.”

“And in the Black Kingdoms, I was known as Amra.” Conan relished the way recognition widened the man’s eyes. “But this lion is not yours to kill.”

The two of them moved through the mid-deck, cutting around pillars, tucking hammocks hung from rafters. The sailors who had slept there had fled to the main deck. From the sound of it, a massive battle raged. Bodies slammed to the deck above, reverberating like thunder in dark depths. Here and there blood seeped down, invisible in the shadows, though its scent overrode the stink of sweat and bilgewater.

Ukafa lunged. Conan twisted, spinning inside the man’s thrust. The Cimmerian forced Ukafa’s arm against a stanchion. Something snapped and the Kushite’s dagger sailed free, but the larger man entangled his fingers in Conan’s hair and whirled him away. Conan flew across the deck and slammed into a post, wrapping around it then spinning off again, his knife vanished.

He came to rest against a bulkhead for an eyeblink, then twisted. Ukafa’s kick snapped planking. Conan kicked to the side, catching the Kushite’s planted leg, and spilled him to the deck. In a heartbeat he pounced on Ukafa’s back and struck him three times, each a mighty blow, to the side of his head and face.

Roaring, Ukafa heaved himself from the deck and slammed Conan into the deck above. He lowered himself to do it again, so the Cimmerian slipped back, jamming both feet against the giant’s right heel. Ukafa began to fall. Conan grabbed his right wrist, twisting it to snap another bone, then flung the Kushite through a bulkhead.

Ukafa came up, eyes tight with rage, fists balled. He limped forward, lips peeled back, revealing filed teeth. “I should have slain you in Cimmeria.”

“Not even then could you have managed it.” Conan took a half step toward him. “This lion is your last.”

The Kushite drove at him, arcing in punch after punch. Conan ducked the lefts and blocked the rights, driving his elbow into the man’s broken forearm. The armor made it impossible for any blows to damage his body, so Conan concentrated on his head. Stiff right hands slowed Ukafa’s advance. Left hooks twisted past slow rights to batter his head around. As the man sought to bull-rush him, Conan gave ground, then stopped and drove the Kushite back.

Had another man—a civilized man—been watching, he would have told the tale of the fight simply, and imparted to the Cimmerian a variety of motives. He might suggest, for example, that breaking Ukafa’s arm was related, in some small way, to an injury the giant had done to Conan’s father. And the way Conan drew the man on, then beat him back, would be attributed to the Cimmerian’s desire to teach Ukafa a lesson, to prove who was the better man.

But this was not a battle of civilized men. It was barbarian against barbarian. Conan’s vision had long since drowned in a sea of blood red. He did not think, he felt, he knew. If he withdrew, it was only because he wished to deny Ukafa the benefit of momentum. If he struck and drove forward, it was to exploit weakness. Instinct and survival drove him, pride prodded him. Here in the darkness belowdecks, in the underworld of the Hornet, Death looked to sup, and Conan refused to be consumed.

Finally, after Conan ducked a blow and delivered two in return, the Kushite slumped against a post. He clung to it to remain upright, for to fall was to die. Conan lashed out with a foot, snapping the man’s head into the post. The Kushite collapsed, and then, in the darkness, Conan found his knife and harvested the man’s head.

“Conan!” Tamara appeared before him out of the shadows. She bore a poniard dripping blood. “Two of them came for me. They’ll come for no others.”

The Cimmerian looked up. “There’s more that need killing.” He stalked off in search of his sword and found it at the stairs. Then he ascended into battle with Tamara in his shadow. Khalar Zym’s men had forced the Hornet’s crew back toward the forecastle, Artus at their center. Kushites closed on them with spears raised. Archers in the ratlines drew back arrows.

And Conan laughed. “You did not wait for me, Artus.”

“I’ve just played the good host at this party, Conan, awaiting you, the guest of honor.”

Conan bounded across the deck, sword singing and reaping lives. From one of Khalar Zym’s dead archers, Tamara appropriated a bow and arrows. She skewered her counterparts, leaving them hanging tangled in rigging before they could twist around and find her. And the Hornet’s crew, with Artus’s sword flashing at their forefront, cut a swath through Khalar Zym’s men.

Several went over the side, scrambling for strange boats that, to Conan, most closely resembled clamshells. Each could carry two dozen or more people, and the first survivors to reach them sought to pull the halves closed. Leather gaskets appeared to make them watertight, though as later experimentation proved, the wood burned easily enough. Still, the Cimmerian saw neither sail nor oar, so had no idea how the invaders had traveled to the Hornet.

Artus, fresh from helping the rest of the crew toss bodies to the circling sharks, could shed no light upon the mystery of the burning clamshells. “Save for being small, and lacking any propulsion or steering mechanism, they appear to be quite nice.”

“I wonder.” Conan returned to the wheel deck and looked over the aft rail. Aside from five sharks circling the ship, he saw nothing. Is it a trick of the light? He hoped it was. He much preferred believing that sorcery had propelled the little boats than that they had been dragged along by a creature with eyes the size of a shield.

The Zingaran shaded his eyes with a hand. “Sorcery to track the girl and get the boats here?”

“Probably.”

Artus beckoned Conan into his cabin and pointed to a map spread out on a table. “Cove up the coast, near that other set of ruins we’ve explored. We’ll be there in a couple hours. We can take on water and leave with the morning tide. From there, you can find a village, steal a horse, and head to Asgalun. We’ll make our way to—”

Conan held a hand up. “Don’t tell me. Don’t decide yourself. Just as you sail along, throw dice and let them decide.”

“A wise plan.” Artus nodded. “And I know, even if he were to capture you, you’d tell him nothing.”

“Not whilst alive, but his daughter has something of the necromancer about her.”

“And we will alert people as we go that Khalar Zym would make himself emperor. Most won’t care, and some will hire on with him. Let’s hope that those who opposed him in the past will rise again.”

Conan smiled. “And you’ll take good care of the woman, yes? You’ll be as good a friend to her as you have been to me?”

“I shall guard her life as if it were my very own.”

“Thank you, Artus.” Conan studied the map again, measuring the distance to Asgalun and then to Khor Kalba. A handful of days to make the trip . . .

“Have you given a thought, my friend, as to where I shall meet you again?”

“Hyrkania, Artus.” The Cimmerian tapped the map with a blood-encrusted finger. “And if you need me sooner, I shall find you.”

Conan left his friend and descended into the ship. He paused in his cabin to set aside his weapons. He intended to clean them and oil them, whetting away nicks and burrs. Before he could gather his tools to work, however, he caught scent of something odd. He moved along the companionway and stopped beside the opening to Tamara’s berth.

She knelt, naked, before a low, makeshift altar. Two sticks of incense burned on it. Three gold coins had been arranged in a triangle. A small bit of cheese had been set at the triangle’s center. A small bowl with bloody water and a damp cloth sat on the deck beside her left knee. The lamplight washed her hair and back in gold, from her shoulders to the flare of her hips.

She reached out and drew the incense smoke over her. Conan knew the scent well: myrrh. It overrode the stench of death. She bowed her head so smoke billowed over it. Spreading her arms, her palms facing the sky, she prayed in low tones.

“Mitra grant that my actions have been right and pleasing to you. I took life to save life, I imprisoned evil in death so others could be free. Judge not my companions by their actions, but by the content of their hearts, as they help me do thy will.”

Her head remained lowered, but cocked slightly, as if she were listening for a reply. Conan remained still and held his breath, lest she detect his presence. Though she betrayed no sign of knowing he was there, he felt certain that she did. Despite that feeling, he could not drag himself away.

“Mitra, I beg thee for the strength to overcome any taint of my blood, from my actions or the sins of ancestors aeons past. Confirm me in my purpose. Point me to peace in your service.”

The sincerity of her words surprised Conan. His own god, Crom, invited no such intimacy. He pitched infants into the world screaming and waited their recitation of their life after they died. He expected them to make the most of his gifts, and their failure was of no interest to him. Similarly Conan had dealt with many men—be they commoners, kings, or high priests—who professed devotion to gods and then, in turn, blasphemed in preference to worship, claimed all glory to themselves, and placed all blame for adversity on the gods. As he had come to discover was the case with most civilized men, they paid lip service to the gods, and relied on selfish motives to govern their behavior.

Tamara’s voice rose just a bit, her throat tightening. “With your gentle wisdom, bless this man who protects me. Lift his burden of pain, as you do mine. As it is your will, abide by my wishes. I am yours forever, heart and soul.”

She drew her hands toward her body and wrapped her arms around her middle. Then she began rocking forward and back. The myrrh smoke swirled around her, fragrant threads creating a ghostly cocoon.

Conan watched until the incense burned to nothing and she ceased moving. Were it not for her chest rising and falling, he might have thought her dead. He entered her cabin silently and scooped her up in his arms. He laid her on her bunk and checked that none of the blood she’d washed off had been hers. He wrapped her in a blanket, then stole back to his cabin.

As she had found peace in her prayers, so Conan found it in caring for his weapons. He washed and oiled them, scraping away all tarnish and rust. He wiped them clean of oil, then held each blade over a lamp’s flame. Soot blackened the steel so no reflected moonlight would reveal it. He similarly blackened a cloth so he could darken his face as needed, then opened his sea chest, pulled out a mail surcoat, and repeated the process with it.

He prepared his weapons for war with the same sincere devotion Tamara had showed in her prayers. Not because Conan worshipped war, but because he had been born to it. It occurred to him, with a degree of grim satisfaction, that as long as wars raged, and men like Khalar Zym sought to elevate themselves over others, he would never truly be alone. War might be a fell companion, but it was one he knew well. And as long as I know it better than my enemies do, I shall not fall.