Conan of the Red Brotherhood

by Leonard Carpenter

  The two riders followed along a high wall, whose polished-marble face silhouetted their cloaked forms in dim, reflected starlight. The wall led them to a gate, a double grating of forged iron. Its black, beaten spear-points thrust some way above the taller rider’s head, pointing up toward unwinking stars. There was no gate house, and the small, open kiosk flanking the inner side of the entry was, on close inspection, vacant. The gate’s latch was a long bar that extended inside the kiosk, out of sight.

  Reining to a near stop, the two edged their mounts alongside the gate, whose dark recess served to conceal them from view at any great distance. They whispered there a moment, with heads bent together; then the taller rider handed his reins to his companion. Standing in the stirrups, he set a foot in the seat of the saddle and climbed to the upper crossbar of the gate.

  “I will return this way,” his voice murmured, resonant though muted. “Wait here, but do not stay beyond moon-rise.”

  Instead of trying to climb across the spear-points, he hooked a leg inside the iron trellis, reached up and grasped one of the poles two-handed just beneath its flattened blade. Straining, with the faintest creak of metal but without any groan or exhalation, he bent the shaft horizontal. After stretching his shoulders under his cloak, he reached up once again and with a slow, patient effort, bent a second bar similarly. Drawing himself up and stepping through the gap he had made, he dropped catlike to earth on the far side. There, like a stray shadow flitting, he disappeared toward the yellow-lit windows of the villa beyond.

  The place was a low, spreading structure. Enlarged over the years in varying architectural styles, it had been spared by its outer wall from having to sustain the blank, inward-facing, fortress-like design of a town manor. Instead, terraces opened upon outlying courtyards. They shed their light outward through ornate grille-work, slatted wooden screens and, on the upper story only, thin, gauzy draperies hanging listless in the mild, still night.

  Framed within one such opening, seated in the glare of bright oil lamps that lit her hammered-silver dressing mirror, a delicate beauty sat combing out her long, dark hair. What she may have thought of the image reflected in the burnished metal was unguessable, for her face, as she worked, maintained a haughty immobility.

  There was in it, to be sure, a cast of stem, dispassionate evaluation. Perhaps she weighed the cost to her beauty of countless leagues on the open sea, or searched about the eyes for the latest track of maturing years. Perhaps she disliked the healthy colour that outdoor living had imparted to her flesh. For she was copper-hued, even to the rounded undersides of her half-exposed breasts, even to her inner thighs where they peeked from beneath her brief robe. Her face in the mirror affected a slight frown from moment to moment; but that may only have been annoyance at momentary tangles in the dark cataract of her long, gracefully flowing hair.

  Her judgements, if damning, would have been laughably harsh in view of the haunting beauty of her face. But any such thoughts were lost as her sparkling blue eyes widened, flicking toward a face that appeared behind hers in the mirror’s hazy upper edge.

  “Olivia, do not cry out.” Conan glided noiselessly forward to lay a hand on her half-draped shoulder. “I have horses waiting outside. Throw on something to disguise yourself and we’ll be gone. ’ ’

  The woman turned and gazed up at him, where he towered over her low-backed chair in his long, loose cloak. “You have come then, Captain, to take me home to the sea?” “Aye.” Striding to the single door, which stood closed, pressing his ear to the panel, Conan answered just above a whisper. “We have a hoaxing to pull off here, and other friends to rescue. Then we sail, back across the Vilayet. Fear not, you’ll be safe among the brothers even if I stay ashore.” “You want to resume our pirate life together?”

  “Yes, Olivia. Our future knows no limit!” Latching the gilded hook on the door, he moved along the wall to a tall, ornately carved and inlaid wardrobe. “Knulf, that traitor, is dead. I mean to take his place and lead the Brotherhood— but boldly, and to a purpose! New trade routes are opening up, and with our islanders resolved to stand against Turan and Hyrkania both, why, wealth and power will drop into our hands like ripe fruit!” He pulled open the wardrobe and rummaged roughly inside, dragging forth a long, dark dress and beaded shawl. “Here, this will do. Although—” he patted a sword-hilt beneath his robe “—you may have to slit the dress to spread your legs over a saddle.”

  “What makes you think I want to go with you?” Olivia had made no move to rise; she still sat poised, scantly robed before her make-up table.

  “What? Why, now is the best time to go, to avoid the harbour sentries and join the fleet. I could take you from the wharf in a day or two, maybe, but there would most likely be blood-letting.” Taking a dagger from the table before the mirror, he commenced a deed of butchery on the costly garment.

  “Conan, do you really think I want to go and live in squalor among lecherous half-wits, to share again your flirtations with death and other women?” His obtuseness had evidently angered her, for she pivoted impatiently in her chair, her colour rising.

  “Why, it is the life you chose to share with me,” Conan muttered, looking hurt. “I saw to it that you never lacked for anything—”

  “Nay, nothing but privacy, safety, and dignity!” She shook her head in exasperation. “Certainly I chose it over death by ravishment, or slow starvation in a swamp! But is a woman never permitted to seek anything better?” She waved a hand, indicating the chamber around her and its lavish contents. “Can you not see, I would be mad to leave what I have here—the wealth, the ease, the security—”

  “You would trade the freedom of the seas for this perfumed cage?” Conan sniffed the air, growing visibly irritated, but raised a hand for silence. “Quiet, or we’ll rouse the household. I cannot bide here long.” He threw the knife and mutilated dress onto the cluttered vanity, turned from her, and strode away past the broad, silk-lined bed to the terrace window. Parting the curtains with the back of one hand, he gazed out intently through the aperture for a moment, then turned back to the woman. “Make your choice, Olivia! What you have here is nothing to what I can give you.”

  Arising from her chair, she faced him unashamed. “I made my choice in Djafur. I thought you, too, had already cho-

  sen.

  After another swift glance through the window, he let go the drapery and moved back toward her. “Come, my girl! Remember your oath—to sail with me on blue seas or red.” He reached out to gather her up in an embrace.

  “You mean to win me back with pats and kisses?” she asked impassively, her face still frozen at close quarters.

  “Win you... or lose you!” Lifting her to him, he forced a kiss on her mouth. The moment stretched, extended; her fisted, red-nailed hands began to unclasp against his shoulders. Then footsteps slammed on the terrace outside, and a crash sounded at the door.

  “Here, guards!” a deep, triumphant voice rang out, “I knew he would come to us! Pirate, harm her at your peril! She is mine, and I take better care of her than you took of my poor dead cousin!”

  “Khalid Abdal!” Conan backed toward the wall, dragging Olivia with him while he wrenched the scimitar from beneath his cloak. “I heard it was you, but I did not believe it!”

  “Believe and surrender, brigand!” The tall Turanian strode in through the doorway, letting two burly Imperial guards crowd in at his back. Stopping in the centre of the room, he nodded at two others who pushed in from the terrace. “To struggle against me is useless. Anyway, the emperor would have you alive and unmarked.”

  “So you set me a trap.” Looking to Olivia, Conan let go her hand. “And you, Olivia, served as bait!”

  “And if I did?” the woman asked, her complexion burning as she stepped haughtily away from him. “Would it have taken any less to free me from you? Does it make the least bit of difference?”

  “Aye, it might have saved your new boyfriend’s life!” Growling this, Conan sprang at the nobleman, his
scimitar swinging high to clang off the sabre raised in Khalid Abdal’s fist.

  “Back off! Hold, I say!” The Turanian's words were hurled not at Conan, but at the cudgel-bearing guards who crowded forward to menace the fugitive. “Let me fight. I will not have to maim him to beat him!” Duelling in the elegant Imperial style, Khalid matched his attacker lunge for lunge, stroke for stroke. He gave ground but slowly, with parries and ripostes that rang deafeningly in the confined space.

  What the Cimmerian may have lacked in finesse he made up in strength, swinging the heavy scimitar as if it were a much lighter weapon. He gave no sign of tiring—least of all when, raising his blade to fend off a thrust, he pressed his enemy’s blade clear on up to the ceiling, driving the sabre’s point smartly into a gilded rafter. There the weapon stuck and hung, far out of reach of the disarmed Khalid, who was bowled back onto the silk-covered bed.

  “Now, knave!” Recovering from his rush, Conan drew in his sword for a savage thrust. He launched it—straight at Olivia, who darted in from the side to fling her body across Khalid’s and shield him. Conan’s strength was fierce in attack, but also in restraint, as proven when he stayed the thrust. The point of the tulwar barely dimpled the sheer fabric of his former shipmate’s robe, briefly imprinting a second navel next to her real one.

  An instant later, the Imperial thugs swept in from either side, disarming Conan and wrestling him to the floor. They fought him down, grunting and cursing; then they produced ropes and commenced the slow, hazardous process of binding him.

  Khalid Abdal, meanwhile, disengaged himself from his wife. After muttering embarrassed thanks to her, he knelt down beside Conan in a most firm and businesslike way. Knotting both hands in the Cimmerian’s mane, he forced his captive’s head up and held it immobile.

  “You fight well, pirate—better than I do, with a gentleman’s training.” He shook his head almost in regret. “I would, if I could, permit you a gentleman’s death. But it is not to be.”

  Olivia, meanwhile, had gone to the window and parted the curtain. “Your guide has taken alarm,” she told Conan flatly. “The one who led you here... she is leaving.”

  She peered out the window after the faint noise of retreating hoofbeats. “What, only two horses? Would you have had me ride with her, then?” She let the curtain fall, emotionless. “Or would she have ridden in your lap?”

  XV

  The Naval Garrison

  By dawn’s first light, Conan found himself roped astride a cavalry mount lacking pommel and stirrups, bound tightly enough around the arms and chest that he could scarcely breathe. So intent was he on maintaining his balance, to avoid hanging askew in the saddle or being dragged along the ground, that he had little chance to work at loosening his bonds.

  Lucky it was that the hour was so early. Few Turanians were abroad in the streets of Aghrapur, and there was only minor turmoil as he was paraded from the gentry gate down toward the waterfront. Had there been more watchers alert enough to guess that he was one of the captives fated for execution on the morrow, it would have brought chaos. In view of his paltry escort of a half-dozen rural cavalry, and the eager anticipation displayed by the few townsfolk abroad, he might never have finished the ride.

  As it happened, he was not mobbed or spontaneously tom to bits. The soldiers’ watchful closeness prevented any chamber pots from being emptied on his head, though there were some near misses. Only a few of the stones, melons, and scraps of offal that were hurled at him struck their mark. And from unshuttered windows and roadside stoops, along with jibes and taunts, there came the occasional odd whistle or cheer. These reminded him that felons and pirates were not universally despised or misunderstood, not even here in the seat of empire.

  The riders entered the grandest part of Imperial Aghrapur just as the morning’s commerce was getting under way. Scuffing at a forced pace past the markets, the great temples, and the lofty bastions of palace and fort, they came at last to the naval fortress, which extended the citadel eastward along the river front. Once they reached the high, clanking portcullis in the curtain wall, the public clamour fell behind. Inside there was, if anything, more bustle, but of a disciplined and military nature, obviously focused on preparations for the great festival to be held.

  Conan, hog-trussed and ill-mounted as he was, could not help but marvel at the vastness of the Navy Yards. Here among heaps of lumber and the spools of cordage lay the bones and sinews of great Turan, formidable enough to reach across the sea and snatch wealth and slaves from a dozen far-flung lands. All these forests of oars and masts, the throngs of toiling conscripts and mountains of naval stores, amounted to sheer power, a heady and dangerous concentration of it. Not for the first time, Conan wondered if he, a rebel, had been foolish to venture so near the wellsprings of tyranny.

  The cavalry troopers, stopping occasionally to display written orders and justify their presence to strutting naval officers, cantered past a row of roofed launching sheds that were cordoned by Admiralty guards. They skirted the main wharf, where a work gang busily furnished a broad pavilion with tables, benches, and a cushioned dais. Conan felt a pang to see, out in the harbour amid barges, galleys, and sailships, his own modest assortment of pirate vessels bobbing at anchor. From this vantage point, they looked feeble and tiny; framed by snouts of catapults and the armoured beaks of docked biremes, they seemed to dawdle in the very jaws of empire.

  Ahead rose the hulking stone pile of the Naval Garrison. Of all the landmarks hereabouts, Conan had studied this one the most carefully, going by accounts from pirates who had escaped the Imperials, and by his own distant recollections of the port from his service in the Turanian Army. He had scanned the building from the harbour, and the landward view filled in his mental picture of the place: a broad, squarish fortress, furnished with lookout towers and catapults on its crenellated roof and seaward terraces. Port officials occupied the upper story, looking out over the harbour through broad-arched windows, with soldier quartered beneath. The lowest levels, surrounded by defensive walls and a slimy moat, were used as a prison to house naval offenders and captives brought in from far ports.

  Crossing from the stone wharves by means of a thumping wooden ramp into the metal-toothed gateway of the garrison, the cavalry troop finally dismounted. Conan was dragged off his horse by a pair of them, his head roughly scraping the cobbles before he could get his rope-tangled feet underneath him. The pair and their captain marched him in through narrow, constricted defences, past a dozen armed sentries, to an inner courtyard. There they turned him over to Admiralty officials.

  “Cut those preposterous ropes off him,” an officious, moustached lieutenant in a red-plumbed turban declared. “We have no need of them here, and Admiralty guards do not maltreat their prisoners.”

  “This is bloody Amra himself, pirate terror of the Vilayet,” the cavalry captain warned. “He would just as soon slit your throat as dine on candied figs.”

  “If I throw him into the dungeon bound up like this, his fellow prisoners will very likely kick him to death or drown him.” The lieutenant watched his subordinate draw a knife and set to work on Conan’s bonds. “We need him healthy for tomorrow’s execution.”

  “A ringleader like this one will stir up trouble with his former cronies,” the captain said, preparing to leave. “I advise you to put him in a separate cell.”

  “Not much chance of that,” the lieutenant muttered to the departing cavalryman’s back. “With all the burnings and torments planned for the naval show, our jail is crammed with ill-doers from every part of the empire.” Breathing deep drafts of stale courtyard air, Conan flexed his cramped, sore shoulders. He silently thanked Crom for his good luck. Having been ill-handled, he was minded to crack some heads and break for freedom here and now. Yet he knew that would be foolhardy; it would endanger everything.

  As things stood, he told himself, all he had lost by being taken prisoner was his own blood price from the Turanian crown. Barring further ill luck, Philiope mu
st have made it back to the pirate fleet by dawn. Drissa and the others would have been instructed to say that he had escaped them the night before, and to continue negotiations over the gems alone. For him to break free again and return to the pirates, so that they could sell him in turn to Yildiz, to be sent back here... no, it would never be believed. Better to accept his luck and watch for routes of escape.

  The Admiralty guards conducted him down a ramp to a barred, rust-blistered portal that creaked inward at their approach. They ushered him inside, where, to his surprise, the door clanged shut, locking out his captors. As his eyes strove to adjust to the dark, a cudgel smote him on the back of the head, filling up his vision with bursting stars. A hard foot drove into the small of his back, sending him staggering down a damp, sloping corridor pervaded by an atrocious stench.

  “Get along there, fellow. Keep moving! Do nothing clever... unless you want more of this!” The club struck again, shocking him above the ear; in the deepening blackness and rancid, eye-watering stink, it was impossible to sense what direction the blows were coming from. Conan had a vague impression of at least two forms pressing behind him, kicking and shoving relentlessly to keep him off balance. He half-turned, dizzily, to resist; then his brain partly cleared, and he remembered that he wished to be thrown into the dungeon. He gave ground, though reluctantly, another blow from the cudgel helping him along.