Conan The Freelance (13 page)

Kleg did not know the answers to his questions, nor was he interested in waiting here to find out. That hideous monster gobbling up Pili as if they were sweetmeats did not look to be something with which you could reason.

Kleg ran toward the docks, trusting to speed instead of stealth now. If he could but reach the water, he would be safe!

Another thought thrust itself into his consciousness all of a moment. If He Who Creates had sent the beast after him, could not He have also sent others? Things that could even now be waiting in the Sargasso for Kleg?

The running selkie slowed, coming to a stop.

Uh-oh. He could have gone forever without that thought.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps in this case what he did not know would hurt him. Perhaps it would eat him.

Kleg turned and walked into an alleyway between a smith’s shop and a half-fallen temple. Before he ran pell-mell to the water and threw himself into a set of jaws like those destroying the inn, perhaps he had better think on this for a while.

Rage enveloped Thayla. Her trap was falling apart before her eyes! Someone had given the alarm! The essence of her attack was off, the surprise gone, and even now, the Tree Folk scooted up a dune ahead of her soldiers, largely untouched. Where were the three who were supposed to be at the summit of that hill?

There one of them was-Gods, he was flying down the hill, falling, rolling, and what was-oh, no, it was that barbarian human! He stood there at the crest, waving his sword and yelling. Now he was charging downward, and the Tree Folk were turning to join him.

In the dark, bodies fell, Pili and human; there came the hard clatter of spears, the screams of wounded. And Conan laid about with that sword, chopping her troops down as a Pili clears brush, back and forth, back and forth, by the great Green Dragon.

It was a rout. More Pili were down than men, and whatever advantage the Pili might have had fled like the sand before a windstorm. Another of her troops dropped, cut nearly in half by that berserk man she had taken to her bed. Yet another ate a spear thrown by one of the tree dwellers. Her warriors were the ones being slaughtered, not the men, and Thayla watched in horror as it happened.

It came to her as Conan chased the last of her troops that she herself was in danger. Might not they look for other Pill?

Thayla slid down from her perch on the dune. Best not to be found if they looked.

As she hurried to find a place to hide, the Queen of the Pili was filled with a bitter blend of fear and loathing and anger.

Now what was she going to do?

Conan chased the fleeing Pili and caught him after a short sprint. The heavy iron sword sang a song of death in the night as it chopped the Pili’s head from his shoulders. The lizard man collapsed, spouting crimson into the thirsty sands.

The Cimmerian turned, his own blood coursing rapidly within him, searching for more opponents.

Alas, there were no more Pili to be slain.

“Conan, are you unharmed?”

He looked up to see Cheen scurrying toward him.

“Aye. What of the others?”

The two of them began a check of the Tree Folk. They had lost five of their party to Pili spears. A. quick count showed nearly a dozen of the lizard men were now corpses.

“Should we search for others?” Hok said to his sister.

“I think not,” Cheen said. “Our goal is ahead and I would not delay here. What say you, Conan?”

The Cimmerian was busy with his honing stone, touching up the blade of his sword. As he polished out a nick on the edge with the stone, he nodded at Cheen. “Aye, let us continue onward. II is unlikely that we will be troubled by such as these again.” He waved the sharpened sword at the bodies on the sand. “Before the queen realizes we have slain her troops, we will be well out of their territory.”

After a quick burial of their dead and attention to the wounds of the living, the group departed the scene of the battle.

Swirling through. the quiet halls, Dimma felt within him a sense of frustration. He had done all he could do, he reasoned. His Prime selkie would die before failing, he had sent as much help as was like to be useful, and all he could do now was wait. After five hundred years, a few days was nothing, and yet Dimma could feel the end of his torture almost as if he had flesh and was feeling the touch of a woman. Were he solid, he could venture forth himself, could brave any winds, could go and see for himself what was transpiring. Alas, in his current form, even a stray breeze would drive him before it as a shepherd does lambs, and there was nothing h,. could do about it, despite his most powerful magicks.

It enraged hire, his helplessness, and he intended to revenge himself upon the world when he again wore the flesh. That he should suffer so for hundreds of years needed payment, and the payment would be in rivers of blood and mountains of bone. Those who had taken their bodies for granted would suffer because he, Dimma, had not been able to enjoy that simple pleasure. Not until his rage was spent would he be content to rest and think about what he would do next.

Now, how would he begin? Well, a plague to kill all the inhabitants of Koth, where a dying wizard’s curse had infected Dimma, that would be a good start.

The Mist Mage felt better, thinking about an orgy of destruction. Soon, it would be.

Soon.

Kleg found himself on the horns of a dilemma. On the one side, the village contained Pili who wanted to drink his life and steal the talisman he had stolen, so he had to get to the waters of the lake and the safety of the Sargasso. On the other side of the problem, there was at least one monster after him, and perhaps others, and he was uncertain as to their intent. He Who Creates had motives beyond understanding by a selkie, and the waters might well prove more dangerous than the village.

Kleg leaned against the rough wooden wall of the smith’s shop and pondered the problem. Which was it to be? The demons he knew? Or the demons he did not? One thing for certain, he needed to choose soon. That thing might find him again, or the Pili might. Or both unhappy events might come to pass. His chances of surviving such an encounter were slim at best.

Come on, Kleg. Which is it to be?

The Queen of the Pili was not one to be discouraged easily. Even though all but one of her troops had been slain-that one spared only because he had been knocked unconscious and was therefore thought dead-Thayla had no intention of giving up the chase. The party of Tree Folk had also lost nearly half its strength, had been reduced to five, not counting Conan and the boy. Seven against two was a situation that precluded direct attack by the smaller number, but despite that, Thayla intended somehow to prevail.

How she was going to see Conan dead was unknown, but some opportunity would arise, of that she was certain.

She and her single trooper, an unseasoned youth called Blad, stayed well back of the Tree Folk as they neared the edge of the desert.

Once they were in the greener land that lay ahead, they could move closer to the others. Perhaps they could pick them off one by one, lowering the odds slowly. Something would occur to her, sooner or later.

Kleg decided. Whatever the possible dangers in the lake of his birth, he would be much better equipped to deal with them in his Changed form. That thing back in the inn was larger and more fearsome than a selkie in the water, but given its shape, it could not possibly be as fast. And while there were smaller denizens who could give a swimming selkie pause, there were not many. Better he should be twice his present size and armed with a mouthful of teeth and muscular speed than to be caught here on the shore with nothing but a dagger and these puny land legs. He did not have to take the most direct route to the castle, after all. There were a thousand pathways through the weed.

So be it.

The decision made, Kleg immediately felt better. He worked his way toward the docks, moving in the shadows, taking great care not to be seen. Once he reached the water, it would be but a short swim to the edge of the Sargasso. Yes, this was the wiser decision, to be sure.

As he drew nearer to his goal, Kleg slipped the belt and pouch from his waist, rebuckled the belt, and put it over his head and around his neck. The material of the belt was of some special elastic substance that would easily stretch to accommodate the much-thicker body he wore as a Changed selkie. He Who Creates was nothing if not thorough.

Only a few feet from the water, Kleg patted the pouch around his neck. How light the talisman was; he could hardly tell anything was within the thick leather container. He shook the pouch and listened for the rattle he had grown used to the last few days.

The talisman did not rattle.

Kleg’s action only served to cause the flap of the case to gape open. How could that be? He had tied it most securely!

With a sensation of sinking panic, Kleg reached into the leather pouch and groped for the talisman.

And found that it was gone.

The crowd standing on the narrow street in front of the Wooden Fish received a great surprise when, all of a moment, a monster burst through the front door, destroying the portal and bringing half the wall down in the process.

Standing to one side of the gathering was a gnarled man, of boylike stature, named Seihman. He had been strong and adventurous once, but now he was known as Seihman of the swine, for that was his work these days, to care for the boars and sows owned by one of the village’s richer men. Hardly a glorious function, but it kept him in food and wine-mostly wine-and was certainly better than starving-or worse, dying of thirst.

When the hideous beast broke through the wall of the inn, Seihman’s reaction matched that of the rest of the curious: he turned to flee. Around him, the crowd broke like a fat raindrop striking a smooth stone. Seihman, whose best years were long past, ran for all he was worth, trying to watch the demon or whatever at the same time. His initial burst of speed was quite remarkable in that it was unmatched by any younger man on the street; alas, Seihman managed only three such quick bounds before he stepped upon something hard and roundish, tripped, and fell flat on his back.

The crowd vanished like smoke in a high wind, and Seihman found himself sprawled alone on the street altogether too close to a creature large enough to swallow him in one gulp, had it a mind to do so.

“Mitra, spare me!”

Seihman had not spent a copper or a moment in one of Mitra’s temples in twenty winters, but he inwardly swore to make amends for this lack if only the Divine One would see fit to allow him this one small favor.

The beast, as ugly a thing as Seihman had ever beheld, glanced without apparent interest at the fallen man, then turned and trotted off down the street toward the lake.

Seihman managed to sit up. “Oh, blessings on you, Divine Mitra! I am in your debt!”

As the monster ambled away from him, Seihman chanced to look down to see what had tripped him.

What was this here odd-looking eye-shaped thing? Some kind of pit, much larger than any he had ever seen, though. A seed?

Seihman gingerly picked up the Seed and hefted it in one hand. Maybe it had some value? Standing, he put the Seed inside his ragged tunic, where it rested warmly against the skin of his aged belly. He would take it by Old Talow, the vegetable merchant. Maybe Talow might recognize it, and who knowed? Maybe he would even buy it. Could be it might be worth a mug of cheap wine, maybe.

Before the curious could return, Seihman shuffled off toward his lodging behind the swine pens. He began to spin a story in his mind to tell his friend the goatherd over a mug of wine when next they met: Aye, I did see the thing what wrecked the Wooden Fish. Come right at me, it did, but I stood my ground all alone and stared it down, and it turned tail and runned off.

Well. It was almost true.

Dawn broke cloudless, splashing the land next to the river with pale and cool sunshine.

The recent rains had washed out most of the tracks of the fleeing selkies, but when Conan and the Tree Folk reached the bank of a rushing river, they found ample evidence of the fishmen.

Lying on the shore were five or six dead selkies, of two versions: one like those Conan had seen at the trees, only these were bloated and purple and covered with buzzing flies. The other version of selkie was a great fish twice the size of a man, with an underslung jaw full of teeth and a smooth, tapering body with long fins and tail. These also were swollen in death, fly-blown, and two of the corpses had small spears lodged in them. The air stank of poison, and this was confirmed by the fact that no scavengers had been at the meat and fish. The flies, too stupid to know better, ate and died by the hundreds.

“Hie, look here!” Hok called.

Conan moved to where the boy stood. Hok pointed down at tracks in the drying mud. Conan recognized them from his time in the desert. Pili.

Well. It took no genius to understand what had happened here. The Pili and the selkies had fought, and it seemed that the Pili had gotten at least a few of the fishmen.

Cheen came to stand next to Conan. “There are some dead Pili farther downstream,” she said.

“And it looks as if there are more Pili tracks on the other side of the river, though it’s hard to say from here,” the Cimmerian said.

“You have good eyes,” Cheen said.

“We should make a raft and cross. There, on the opposite side, someone else has already done so.” He pointed at a wooden platform beached slightly downstream.

Cheen said, “Aye, that has the look of our construction. Tair is still ahead of us.”

“Best we move to catch him.”

“You do not think there are any more like these in the water, do you?” She pointed at one of the great fish, then shuddered.

“Likely not. No reason for them to stay, if any survived.”

They set about building a raft, a chore that took not as long as Conan would have supposed. The Tree Folk were very good with wood and vine, and in a matter of hours, they were done.

The crossing was uneventful.

“Another day’s travel and we should arrive at a village on the shore of the Sargasso lake,” Cheen said as they disembarked from the raft. “So I have been told. I have never been there myself.”