He walked up the gangplank with a wary eye, for the crews of such vessels invariably had a strong dislike for strangers. Two sun-blackened and queued seamen, stripped to the waist, watched him with dark unblinking eyes as he stepped down onto the deck.
“Where is your captain?” he began, when a surreptitious step behind made him whirl.
His hand darted out to catch a dagger-wielding arm, and he found himself staring into a sharp-nosed face beneath a dirty red-striped head scarf. It was the Iranistani whose companions he had been forced to kill his first day in Aghrapur. And if he was a crew member, then as like as not the other two had been as well. The Iranistani opened his mouth, but Conan did not wait to hear what he had to say. Grabbing the man’s belt with his free hand, Conan took a running step and threw him screaming over the rail into the harbor. Sharp-nose hit the garbage-strewn water with a thunderous splash and, beating the water furiously, set out away from the ship without a backward glance.
“Hannuman’s Stones!” roared a bull-necked man, climbing onto the deck from below. Bald except for a thin black fringe, he wore a full beard fanning across his broad chest. His beady eyes lit on Conan. “Are you the cause of all the shouting up here?”
“Are you the captain?” Conan asked.
“I am. Muktar, by name. Now what in the name of Erlik’s Throne is this all about?”
“I came aboard to hire your ship,” Conan said levelly, “and one of your crew tried to put a dagger in my back. I threw him into the harbor.”
“You threw him into the … .” The captain’s bellow trailed off, and the went on in a quieter, if suspicious, tone. “You want to hire Foam Dancer? For what?”
“A trading voyage to Hyrkania.”
“A trader! You?” Muktar roared with laughter, slapping his stout thighs.
Conan ground his teeth, waiting for the man to finish. The night before he, Akeba and Tamur had settled on the trading story. Never a trusting people, the Hyrkanians had become less tolerant of strangers since Jhandar, but traders were still permitted. Conan thought wryly of Davinia’s gold. When the cost of trade goods, necessary for the disguise, was added to the hiring of this vessel, there would not be enough left for a good night of drinking.
At last Muktar’s mirth ran its course. His belly shook a last time, and cupidity lit his eyes. “Well, the fishing has been very good of late. I don’t think I could give it up for so long for less than, say, fifty gold pieces.”
“Twenty,” Conan countered.
“Out of the question. You’ve already cost me a crewman. He didn’t drown, did he? An he did, the authorities will make me haul him out of the harbor and pay for his burial. Forty gold pieces, and I consider it cheap.”
Conan sighed. He had little time to waste. If Tamur was right, they had to be gone from Aghrapur by nightfall. “I’ll split the difference with you,” he offered. “Thirty gold pieces, and that is my final offer. If you do not like it, I’ll find another vessel.”
“There isn’t another in port can put you ashore on a Hyrkanian beach,” the captain sneered.
“Tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, there will be.” Conan shrugged unconcernedly.
“Very well,” Muktar muttered sourly. “Thirty gold pieces.”
“Done,” Conan said, heading for the side. “We sail as soon as the goods are aboard. The tides will not matter to this shallow draft.”
“I thought there was no hurry,” the bearded man protested.
“Nor is there,” Conan said smoothly. “Neither is there any need to waste time.” Inside, he wondered if they would get everything done. There simply was no time to waste.
“Speak on,” Jhandar commanded, and paced the bare marble floor of his antechamber while he listened.
“Yes, Great Lord,” the young man said, bowing. “A man was found in one of the harbor taverns, an Iranistani who claimed to have fought one who must be the man Conan. This Iranistani was a sailor on a smuggler, Foam Dancer, and it seems that this ship sailed only a few hours past bearing among its passengers a number of Hyrkanians, a huge blue-eyed barbarian, and a girl matching the description of the initiate who disappeared the night of the Hyrkanians’ attack.” He paused, awaiting praise for having ferreted out so much so quickly.
“The destination, fool,” Jhandar demanded. “Where was the ship bound?”
“Why, Hyrkania, or so it is said, Great Lord.”
Jhandar squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his temples with his fingers. “And you did not think this important enough to tell me without being asked?”
“But, Great Lord,” the disciple faltered, “since they have fled … that is … .”
“Whatever you discover, you will tell me,” the necromancer snapped. “It is not for you to decide what is important and what is not. Is there aught else you have omitted?”
“No, Great Lord. Nothing.”
“Then leave me!”
The shaven-headed young man backed from Jhandar’s presence, but the mage had already dismissed him from his mind. He who had once been known as Baalsham moved to a window. From there he could see Davinia reclining in the shade of a tree in the gardens below, a slave stirring a breeze for her with a fan of white ostrich plumes. He had never known a woman like her before. She was disturbing. And fascinating.
“I but listen at corners, Great Lord,” Che Fan said behind him, “yet I know that already there is talk because she is not treated as the rest.”
Jhandar suppressed a start and glanced over his shoulder at the two Khitans. Never in all the years they had followed him had he gotten used to the silence with which they moved. “If wagging tongues cannot be kept still,” he said, “I will see that there are no tongues to wag.”
Che Fan bowed. “Forgive me, Great Lord, if I spoke out of my place.”
“There are more important matters afoot,” Jhandar said. “The barbarian has sailed for Hyrkania. He would not have done so were he merely fleeing. Therefore he must be seeking something, some weapon, to use against me.”
“But there is nothing, Great Lord,” Suitai protested. “All was destroyed.”
“Are you certain of that?” Jhandar asked drily.
“Certain enough to risk all of my plans? I am not. I intend to secure the fastest galley in Aghrapur, and the two of you will sail on the next tide. Kill this Conan, and bring me whatever it is he seeks.”
“As you command, Great Lord,” the Khitans murmured together.
All would be well, Jhandar told himself. He had come too far to fail now. Too far.
XIV
Gray seas rolled under Foam Dancer’s pitching bow, and a mist of foam carried across her deck. The triangular sail stood taut against the sky, where a pale yellow sun had sunk halfway from zenith to western horizon. At the stern a seaman, shorter than Conan but broader, leaned his not inconsiderable weight against the steering oar, but the rest of the crew for the most part lay sprawled among the bales of trade goods.
Conan stood easily, one hand gripping a stay. He was no sailor, but his time among the smugglers of Sultanapur had at least taught his stomach to weather the constant motion of a ship.
Akeba was not so fortunate. He straightened from bending over the rail—as he had done often since the vessel left Aghrapur—and said thickly, “A horse does not move so. Does it never stop?”
“Never,” Conan said. But at a groan from the other he relented. “Sometimes it will be less, and in any case you will become used to it. Look at the Hyrkanians. They’ve made but a single voyage, yet show no illness.”
Tamur and the other nomads squatted some distance in front of the single tail mast, their quiet murmurs melding with the creak of timbers and cording. They passed among themselves clay wine jugs and chunks of ripe white cheese, barely interrupting their talk to fill their mouths.
“I do not want to look at them,” Akeba said, biting off each word. “I swear before Mitra that I know not which smells worse, rotted fish or mare’s milk cheese.”
Nearby, in the waist of the ship, a few of the sailors listened to Sharak. “ …Thus did I strike with my staff of power,” he gestured violently with his walking staff, “slaying three of the demons in the Blue Bull. Great were their lamentations and cries for mercy, but for such foulhearted creatures as they I would know no mercy. Many more would I have transmuted to harmless smoke, blown away on the breeze, but they fled before me, back to their infernal regions, casting balls of fire to hinder my pursuit, as I … .”
“Did he truly manage to harm one of the creatures?” Conan asked Akeba. “He has boasted of that staff for years, but never have I seen more from it than support for a tired back.”
“I know not,” Akeba said. He was making a visible effort to ignore his stomach, but his dark face bore a greenish pallor. “I saw him at the first, leaping about like a Farthii fire-dancer and flailing with his stick at whatever moved, then not again till we had fled to the street. Of the fire, however, I do know. ’Twas Ferian. He threw a lamp at one of the demons, harming the creature not at all, but scattering burning oil across a wall.”
“And burned down his own tavern,” Conan chuckled. “How it will pain him to build anew, though I little doubt he has the gold to do it ten times over.”
Muktar, making his way aft from the necessary —a plank held out from the bow on a frame—paused by Conan. His beady eyes rolled to the sky, then to the Cimmerian’s face. “Fog,” he said, then chewed his thought a moment before adding, “by sunset. The Vilayet is treacherous.” Clamping his mouth shut as though he had said more than he intended, he moved on toward the stern in a walk that would have seemed rolling on land, but here exactly compensated for the motion of the deck.
Conan grimly watched him go. “The further we sail from Aghrapur, the less he talks and the less I trust him.”
“He wants the other half of his gold that you hold back. Besides, with the Hyrkanians we outnumber his crew.”
Mention of the gold was unfortunate. After he paid the captain, Conan would have exactly eight pieces of gold in his pouch. In other times it would have seemed a tidy sum, but not so soon after having had a hundred. He found himself hoping to make a profit on the trade goods, and yet thoughts of profits and trading left a taste in his mouth as if he had been eating the Hyrkanians’ ripest cheese.
“Mayhap,” he said sourly. “Yet he would feed us to the fish and return to his smuggling, were he able. He—What’s the matter, man?”
Eyes bulging, Akeba swallowed rapidly, and with force. “Feed us to—” With a groan he doubled over the rail again, retching loudly and emptily. There was naught left in him to come up.
Yasbet came hurrying from the stern, casting frowns over her shoulder as she picked her way quickly among coiled ropes and wicker hampers of provisions. “I do not like this Captain Muktar,” she announced to Conan. “He leers at me as if he would see me naked on a slave block.”
Conan had declared her saffron robe unsuited for a sea voyage, and she had shown no reluctance to rid herself of that reminder of the cult. Now she wore a short leather jerkin, laced halfway up the front, over a gray wool tunic, with trousers of the same material and knee-high red boots. It was a man’s garb, but the way the coarse wool clung to her form left no doubt there was a woman inside.
“You’ve no need to fear,” Conan said firmly. Perhaps he should have a talk with Muktar in private. With his fists. And the captain was not the only one. His icy gaze caught the leering glances of a dozen sailors directed at her.
“I’ve no fear of anything so long as you are with me,” she said, and innocently pressed a full breast against his arm. At least, he thought it was innocently. “But what is the matter with Akeba, Conan?” She herself had showed no effects from the roughest seas.
“He’s ill.”
“I am so sorry. Perhaps if I brought him some soup?”
“Erlik take the woman,” Akeba moaned faintly.
“I think not just now,” Conan laughed. Taking Yasbet’s arm he led her away from the heaving form on the rail and seated her on an upturned keg before him. His face was serious now.
“Why look you so glum, Conan?” she asked.
“An there is trouble,” he said quietly, “here or ashore, stay close to me, or to Akeba if you cannot get to me. Sick or not, he’ll protect you. Does the worst come, Sharak will help you escape. He is no fighter, but no man lives so long as he without learning to survive.”
A small frown creased her forehead. When he was done, she exclaimed, “Why do you speak as if you might not be with me?”
“No man knows what comes, girl, and I would see you safe.”
“I thought so,” she said with a warmth and happiness he did not understand. “I wished it to be so.”
“As a last resort, trust Tamur, but only if there is no other way.” He thought the nomad was the best of the lot, the least likely to betray a trust, but it was best not to test him too far. As the ancient saying held, he who took a Hyrkanian friend should pay his burial fee beforetime. “Put no trust in any of the rest, though, not even if it means you must find your way alone.”
“But you will be here to protect me,” she smiled. “I know it.”
Conan growled, at a loss to make her listen. By bringing her along, for all he had done it for the best, he had exposed her to danger as great as Jhandar’s, if different in kind. How could he bring that home to her? If only she were capable of her own protection. Her own … .
Rummaging in the bales of trade goods, the Cimmerian dug out a Nemedian sica, its short blade unsharpened. The Hyrkanian nomads liked proof that a sword came to them fresh from the forge, such proof as would be given by watching the first edge put on blunt steel.
He flipped the shortsword in the air, catching it by the blade, and thrust the hilt at Yasbet. She stared at it wonderingly.
“Take it, girl,” he said.
Hesitantly she put a hand to the leather-wrapped hilt. He released his grip, and she gasped, almost dropping the weapon. “’Tis heavy,” she said, half-laughing.
“You’ve likely worn heavier necklaces, girl. You’ll be used to the weight in your hand before we reach Hyrkania.”
“Used to it?”
Her yelp of consternation brought chortles and hoots from three nearby sailors. The Hyrkanians looked up, still eating; Tamur’s face split into an open grin.
Conan ignored them as best he could, firmly putting down the thought of hurling one or two over the side as a lesson for the others. “The broadsword is too heavy,” he said, glowering at the girl. “Tulwar and yataghan are lighter, but there is no time to teach the use of either before we land. And learn the blade you will.”
She stared at him silently with wide, liquid eyes, clutching the sword to her breasts with both hands.
Raucous laughter rolled down the deck, and Muktar followed close behind the sound of his merriment. “A woman! You intend to teach a woman the sword?”
Conan bit back an oath, and contended himself with growling, “Anyone can learn the sword.”
“Will you teach children next? This one,” Muktar crowed to his crew, “will teach sheep to conquer the world.” Their mirth rose with his, and their comments became ribald.
Conan ground his teeth, his anger flashing to the heat of a blade in the smith-fire. This fat, lecherous ape called itself a man? “A gold piece says in the tenth part of a glass I can teach her to defeat any of these goats who follow you!”
Muktar tugged at his beard, the smile now twisting his mouth into an emblem of hatred. “A gold piece?” he sneered. “I’d wager five on the ship’s cook.”
“Five,” Conan snapped. “Done!”
“Talk to her, then, barbar.” The captain’s voice was suddenly oily and treacherous. “Talk to the wench, and we’ll see if she can uphold your boasting.”
Already Conan was wishing his words unsaid, but the gods, as usual in such cases, did not listen. He drew Yasbet aside and adjusted her hands on the sword hilt.
“Hold i
t so, girl.” Her hand was unresisting—and gripped with as much strength as bread dough, or so it seemed to him. She had not taken her eyes from his face. “Mitra blast your hide, girl,” he growled. “Clasp the hilt as you would a hand.”
“You truly believe that I can do this,” she said suddenly. There was wonder in her voice, and on her face. “You believe that I can learn to use a sword. And defeat a man.”
“I’d not have wagered on you, else,” he muttered, then sighed. “I have known women who handled a blade as well as any man, and better than most. ’Tis not a weapon of brute muscle, as is an axe. The need is for endurance, and agility and quickness of hand. Only a fool denies a woman can be agile, or quick.”
“But—to defeat a man!” she breathed. “I have never even held a sword before.” Abruptly she frowned at the blade. “This will not cut. Swords are supposed to cut. Even I know that.”
Conan mouthed a silent prayer. “I chose it for that reason, for practice. Now it will serve you better than another. The point can still draw blood, but you’ll not kill this sailor by accident, so I’ll not have to kill Muktar.”
“I see,” she said, nodding happily. Her face firmed, and she started past him, but he seized her arm.
“Not yet, wench,” he laughed softly. “First listen. These smugglers are deadly with a knife, especially in the dark, but they are no warriors in the daylight.” He paused for that to sink in, then added. “That being so, were this a true fight, he would likely kill you in the space of three breaths.”
Dismay painted her face. “Then how—”
“By remembering that you can run. By encouraging his contempt for you, and using it.”
“I will not,” she protested hotly. “I have as much pride as any man, including you.”
“But no skill, as yet. You must win by trickery, and by surprise, for now. Skill will come later. Strike only when he is off balance. At all other times, run. Throw whatever comes to hand, at his head or at his feet, but never at his sword for those objects he will easily knock aside. Let him think that you are panicked. Scream if you wish, but do not let the screaming seize you.”