Conan the Barbarian (13 page)

One of the females, a doe-eyed beauty with long golden locks and longer legs, peered up at him. “But . . . but your crew has gathered all the food and water. They have taken the loot and left us defenseless. Where would you have us go?”

Conan surveyed the desolate coastline in the sun’s dying light. “You are right. You men, go there, take that fruit, that bread, and two carts for water casks. That will see you back to Zingara.”

The slave at whom he pointed frowned. “But, Master, that’s hardly enough for our number.”

“I know.” Conan smiled. “That’s why the women will come with us.”

THICK AND CLOYING,
smoke swirled through the Messantian alehouse’s dark reaches. Equal parts the tang of human sweat, the empty promises of opium, and the sharp scent of spilled ale, the heavy air muted laughter and dulled the flash of bright eyes. Women swirled, smoky tendrils caressing them, as they danced free from one pirate’s embrace and into that of another. Hungers of all manner would be sated there, thirsts quenched, hearts inflamed, in a celebration of life and victory.

Two men remained detached. Navarus languished in a hanging cage once reserved for house slaves. He still wore his finery and clutched his parasol. He struggled to maintain his dignity while the women he had enjoyed on the road taunted him and tempted him. Pirates ridiculed him, tossing him grapes and scraps of meat with the same carelessness—but less frequency—that they tossed the same to cautious curs slinking between tables. Navarus made no attempt to gather the food with which he was pelted, but occasionally plucked a morsel from a fold in his robe.

Opposite him, in a darkened corner, Conan sat cloaked in shadow. He’d drunk enough ale to soften his grim expression—but had not softened it enough to tempt women to join him. He watched the others abandon all pretense of civilization, not descending into the savagery they would attribute to a barbarian such as himself, but regressing into childhood while coveting adult pleasures. It was not that the Cimmerian could not understand their abandon, or that he’d not seen barbarian tribesmen from Nordheim to the Black Kingdoms similarly indulge themselves. He had on countless occasions, and yet those celebrations had been different.

They are honest
.

Those who did not lay claim to the veneer of civilization felt no need to justify letting it slip away. Plunder was for the strong, and there was no vice in taking it. Women were for the strong, and taking them ensured pleasure and the future. The strong earned the right to these things through courage and cunning, speed and daring and skill. Barbarians knew this and respected it. While there were still the craven who might scheme, a strong arm and a sharp mind would see through their subterfuge and put an end to their plotting.

But Conan did not look upon the
Hornet
’s crew with contempt—instead it was the mild amusement of an adult watching children at play. Though the caravan’s guards had largely run off, heading back toward Zingara, the crew had worked hard and some had died. And the slave women, now freed, celebrated that freedom by sharing that which would have been taken from them. Slavery had reduced them to little more than beasts. Liberation had granted them their humanity again, and the desire to celebrate that resurrection should have surprised no one.

Artus rose from his place at the centermost table, nearly spilling two half-naked women to the floor, and spread his arms wide. “Is there no one who can best me? Are there no more arms to wrestle?”

Across from where he had been seated, a burly pirate sidled away, one shoulder lower than the other. He grabbed a tankard of ale and downed it quickly while a shipmate grabbed his wrist and yanked his shoulder back into the socket. The pirate roared, spewing froth to the rafters, then joined the other in laughing at his predicament.

Artus pointed at Conan. “Come, Cimmerian. Show these others what it is to be a man.”

Conan shook his head. Artus needed no other opponents. He did not need to prove himself to those assembled. The second someone offered him a tankard, or one of the women began to nibble on his ear, he’d pursue other delights. Thus had Artus always been—at least for as long as Conan had known him.

The Zingaran shook his head, his long locks slithering back and forth across his broad shoulders. “Has the time away from ice and snow softened you, northerner?”

The Cimmerian sat forward. He knew what Artus was doing, trying to draw him out. Not in the way of men who have something to prove, but in the way of men seeking to save a friend. Conan had always been content to sit quietly and keep his own counsel, but to Artus’s mind, he had been doing that far too much since his return.

Is he right?
Conan could not answer that question. He truly felt no different than he had before. Still, there were times when the quiet did press in on him, when a sense of something missing stole over him. It did not make him feel weak, but unbalanced, as if at any moment he could fall and fall forever.
That
was not something that he’d known before he’d met Bêlit and before he lost her; and it was nothing upon which he wished to dwell.

So he rose and stretched, massive muscles twisting beneath flesh darkened by the southern sun. Pirates looked up, muzzles dripping sour ale. Most impressed, more fearful, and a few with smiles proud and confident. Women also stared, half-lidded eyes studying him and the fluidity with which he moved. They’d all seen ample evidence of his power and skill in combat, and wondered if he had talents of similar magnitude in other areas of life.

Artus laughed aloud and snagged two ale mugs from a passing wench. “The lion emerges from his den to learn a lesson.”

Conan raised an eyebrow.

The Zingaran bowed as if he were a noble and slid around the table. He offered Conan the seat that would afford the Cimmerian an easy view of the alehouse doors. The Cimmerian sat and rested his right elbow on the ale-soaked table. One of the women, tall and slender, perched herself on his left thigh, her folded hands capping his shoulder.

Artus took up the spot opposite. “Shall we wager, Conan?”

All around them the clink of coins newly won and the whispering of odds being offered and taken encouraged that idea. “I have nothing to wager.”

Artus reached out and caught a giggling girl around the waist. He pulled her into his lap. “Mine against yours, winner take both?”

Conan glanced at the woman on his thigh. He caught the hint of a smile before she cast her eyes downward. “A fair bet.”

The two men joined hands and eyed each other. Artus smiled cautiously. “Are you ready, barbarian?”

Conan grunted.

Muscles bunched as the two men strove against each other. Artus started hard, aiming for the lightning-fast victory he favored, but Conan met him strength for strength. The Cimmerian felt his muscles knot, the burn up and down his arm. He did not grit his teeth as others might do, but he did lock his jaw and his eyes narrowed. His lips pressed into a flat line, he exerted himself.

Bit by bit their quivering hands shifted position. Artus’s initial burst of strength had forced Conan’s hand down slightly. Conan brought them back even, then steadily pressured Artus’s hand toward the tabletop.

Artus’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. He pushed, winning an inch. Some men cheered; others groaned. The women shifted in anticipation. Gold coins rustled and clinked, but then Artus’s hand began to sink again.

Conan guessed his friend’s intent. Artus
had
matched his strength against that of many men that evening. He was bound to be fatigued. The smart money was against his winning. If he lost, no one would think it unreasonable. Conan would take the prize and in that night’s enjoyment might be drawn further back from the abyss.

Conan laughed. “You’re done, Zingaran!” He broke eye contact with Artus and took a long lick up the throat of the woman clinging to him. “Better she know me than disappointment.”

As well as Artus knew Conan, Conan knew Artus. The man’s dark eyes flashed dangerously. He bellowed angrily, then heaved mightily. Conan’s hand slammed down hard enough to slosh ale from tankards. Artus roared, victorious, and rising, thrust both fists in the air.

Then he realized, as he caught Conan’s smile, what had happened. His eyes tightened and he pointed a finger at the Cimmerian. “You always were the clever one.”

Conan worked his right arm around and massaged his biceps. “And you the strong one.”

Artus sat back down and invited both women to join him. “When I first met Conan, he was just a scrawny little rat, picking pockets in Zamora. But even so, it was he who stole the Elephant’s Heart and slew the sorcerer, Yara.”

The woman Conan had lost to Artus stared at him with open admiration. “That was you?”

Conan drank, then wiped foam on the back of his hand. “Go, Artus, you’ve won your prize. Enjoy.”

Artus stood. “I won’t forget this, barbarian.”

“Just make sure
they
won’t, Zingaran.” Conan smiled and looked around. “Who’s next?”

The pirates roared laughter to answer his question, but none came to take him up on his offer. Then a small man in a tattered robe and eye patch ducked through the crowd and sat opposite the Cimmerian, his head bowed. Had it not been for the heavy clink of chains linking the manacles on the man’s wrists, Conan would have shoved him away.

The Cimmerian looked around the room. A half-dozen men entered in leather armor, wearing an ensign that Conan did not recognize. They were not of the Messantian Guard or any Argosian company, yet they carried themselves as if they had that much authority or more. Out of place in the alehouse, they became objects of interest, but Conan’s interest in them faded as their captain entered.

Something struck the Cimmerian as familiar about the incredibly corpulent man. He didn’t immediately recognize the face because of the odd mask that covered the man’s nose—or what should have been his nose. He realized he’d not seen this man per se, but the man he had once been, only slightly less bulky, and still possessed of a nose.

A nose I took
.

The captain pointed toward the crowd and waved his men in to search while he himself retreated back into the night. As the soldiers began to cut through the crowd, the man opposite Conan made to get up. The Cimmerian clamped his hand over the smaller man’s, causing that man’s single eye to widen with panic.

“They’ll take us both to the mines if you don’t let go.”

“Who are they? Who is the man without a nose?”

“He’s an Aquilonian. Lucan, something . . .”

“Lucius?”

“Yes, yes, I think that’s it.” His other hand grabbed Conan’s. “Please, let me go.”

“He oversees mines?”

“Lead mines, north of Messantia.” The smaller man quaked. “Please. The reward for my capture is small, but I will repay you that and more if you let me go.”

Conan did not release him. “I have business with Lucius.”

The guards had fanned out through the crowd and approached the table where Conan sat with the smaller man. The pirates drew back, fingering their weapons. Conan shook his head, leaving many of them puzzled.

A guard laid the flat of an Aquilonian short sword on the small man’s shoulder. “This one is ours. Release him.”

Conan looked up, aware that three of guardsmen had taken up positions behind him. “A reward.”

The man behind Conan laid a heavy hand on the Cimmerian’s neck. “You’ve earned ten lashes. Care for more?”

Conan stood abruptly, smashing the back of his head into a guardsman’s face. Bones cracked and blood gushed from a shattered nose. The guard opposite the table lunged with his short sword. Conan twisted to the right. His left hand fell on the guard’s wrist and plunged the sword into the belly of another guardsman. The barbarian jacked his elbow back into the face of the man who had tried to stab him, then backhanded a fist to the side of another guardsman’s face.

He turned to face the last two of the guards, a bloodied short sword now in his hands. “I captured him. He said your captain would pay a reward. Will you cheat me of it as these men would have?”

The guards’ new leader cleared his throat. “That would not be my intention.”

Conan sneered. “Your men are weak. Your master should have more men like me.” He deliberately slowed his speech and thickened his accent. He recalled the lesson of Venarium, and allowed the Aquilonian to think him nothing more than a stupid savage. He even pounded a fist against his chest to emphasize that impression. “He should make me your captain.”

The Aquilonian held up open hands. “I think you are quite right, Vanirman. I’ve placed you, haven’t I?”

Conan grunted.

“Well then, with a sign of good faith, I would take you to our master. I’m certain he will hire you immediately. Provided you prove good faith.”

The Cimmerian frowned heavily. “Good faith?”

The guard nodded, pointing toward the moaning men on the floor. “Your capacity for violence speaks well of you, but this also demands caution.”

Conan nodded slowly, as if considering the words. Then, smiling, he stabbed the short sword into a rafter. “Good faith.”

“But you never used the sword on any of these men.” The Aquilonian sighed. “Such a boon you would be to our master, yet you would not be allowed to approach if believed a danger. If there was a way . . .”

The Cimmerian narrowed his eyes. “Your master pays well?”

“Very.”

Conan crouched and came up with a pair of manacles pulled from the belt of a moaning man. He snapped one end around one wrist, held the other out to the Aquilonian. “Take me to this master who pays well. In good faith.”

The Aquilonian smiled. “A wise decision, Vanirman, very wise indeed.”

“STUPID BARBARIAN. HAD
to hold on to me for a reward.” The one-eyed man spat in the dust. “Only reward you’re getting will be steel in your belly. And you are just too stupid to understand that, aren’t you?”