"There's plenty of liniment," he said gruffly.
"It smells. And it stings. Besides, I cannot rub it on my back. Perhaps if you-"
"Enough rest," he said, motioning her back to the bale.
"Slaver," she muttered, but her shortsword resumed its whacking against leather.
Well over half their voyage was done. The coast of Hyrkania was now a dark line on the eastern horizon, though they had yet a way north to sail. Every day since placing the sica in her hands he had forced Yasbet to practice, exercising from gray dawn to purple dusk. He had dragged her from her blankets, poured buckets of water over her head when she whined of the midday heat, and threatened keelhauling when she begged to stop her work. He had tended and bandaged blisters on her small hands, as well, and to his surprise those blisters seemed at once a mark of pride to her and a spur.
Akeba dropped down beside him, eyeing Yasbet with respect. "She learns. An you teach so well, and to a woman, there is need of you in the army, to rain the many recruits we take of late."
"She has no ideas of swordplay to unlearn," Conan replied. "Also, she does exactly as I say"
"Exactly?" Akeba laughed, lifting an eyebrow. At the look on Conan's face he pulled his countenance into an expression of exaggerated blandness.
"Does your stomach still trouble you?" the youthful Cimmerian asked hopefully.
"My head and my legs now ignore the pitching," Akeba replied with a fixed grin.
Conan gave him a doubtful look. "Then perhaps you would like some well-aged mussels. Muktar has a keg of the ripest-"
"No, thank you, Conan," the Turanian said in haste, a certain tautness around his mouth. As though eager to change the subject, he added, "I have not noticed Bayan about today. You did not drop him over the side, did you?"
The Cimmerian's mouth tightened. "I overheard him discussing his plans for Yasbet, and I spoke to him about it."
"In friendly fashion, I trust. 'Tis you who mutters that these sea rats would welcome an excuse to slit our throats."
"In friendly fashion," Conan agreed. "He is nursing his bruises in his blankets this day."
"Good," the Turanian said grimly. "She is of an age with Zorelle."
"A tasty morsel, that girl," Sharak said, sitting down on Conan's other side. "Were I but twenty years younger I would take her from you, Cimmerian."
Yasbet's sword clanged on the deck, drawing all three men's eyes. She glared at them furiously. "I am no trained ape or dancing bear that you three may squat like farm louts and be entertained by me!"
She stalked away, then back to snatch up the sica-her eyes daring them to speak, as she did-and marched down the deck to disappear within her small tent before the mast.
"Your wench begins to develop a temper, Conan," Sharak said, staring after her. "Perhaps you have made a mistake in teaching her to use a weapon."
Akeba nodded with mock gravity. "She is no longer the shy and retiring maiden that once she was, Cimmerian, thanks to you. Of course, I realize that she is no longer a maiden at all, also thanks to you, but at least you could gentle her before she begins challenging us all to mortal combat."
"How can you talk so?" Conan protested. "But moments gone you likened her to your own daughter."
"Aye," Akeba said gravely, his laughter gone. "I was much concerned with Zorelle's virtue while she lived. I see things differently now. Now she is dead, I hope that she had what joy she could of her life."
"I have not touched her," Conan muttered reluctantly, and bridled at their disbelieving stares. "I rescued her. She's innocent and alone, with none to protect her but me. Mitra's Mercies! As well ask a huntsman to pen a gazelle fawn and slay it there for sport."
Sharak hooted with laughter. "The tiger and the gazelle. But which of you is which? Which hunter, which prey? The wench has you marked, Cimmerian."
"'Tis true," Akeba said. He essayed a slight smile. "The girl is among those aboard this vessel who think her your wench. Zandru's Nine Hells, do you think to be a holyman?"
"I may let the pair of you swim the rest of the way," Conan growled. "I tell you...." His words trailed off as Muktar loomed over the three men.
The bull-necked man tugged at his beard, spread fan-shaped across his chest, and eyed Conan with speculation. "We are followed," he said finally. "A galley."
Conan rose smoothly to his feet and strode to the stern, Akeba and Sharak scrambling in his wake.
Muktar followed more slowly.
"I see nothing but water," the Turanian sergeant complained, shading his eyes. Sharak muttered agreement, squinting furiously.
Conan saw the follower, though, seeming no more than a chip on the water in the distance, but with the faint sweep of motion at its sides that told of long oars straining for speed.
"Pirates?" Conan asked. Although there were many such on the Vilayet Sea, he did not truly believe those who followed were numbered among them.
Muktar shrugged. "Perhaps." He did not sound as if he believed it either.
"What else could they be?" Akeba demanded.
Muktar glanced sideways at Conan, but did not speak.
"I still see nothing," Sharak put in.
"How soon before they come up on us?" Conan said.
"Near dark," Muktar replied. He looked at the gray-green water, its long swells feathering whitely in the wind, then peered at the sky, where pale gray clouds were layered against the afternoon blue. "We may have a storm before, though. The Vilayet is a treacherous bitch."
The Cimmerian's eyes locked on the approaching ship, one huge fist thumping the rail as he thought. How to fight the battle that must come, and win? How?
"If we have a storm," the old astrologer said, "then we will hide from them in it."
"If it comes," Conan told him.
"I have counted their oarstroke," Muktar said abruptly, "and they will kill slaves if they do not slacken it.
Yet I do not believe they will. No one cares enough about Hyrkanians to chase them with such vigor.
And Foam Dancer is a small ship, not a dromond loaded to the gunnels with ivory and spices. It must be you three, or the wench. Have you the crown of Turan hidden in your bales? Is your jade a princess stolen from her father? Why do they follow so?"
"We are traders," Conan said levelly. "And you have been paid to carry us to Hyrkania and back to Turan."
"I've gotten no coin for the last."
"You will get your gold. Unless you let pirates take our trade goods. And your ship. Then all you'll receive is a slaver's manacles, an you survive."
Motioning the others to follow, the big Cimmerian left Muktar muttering into his beard and peering at the ship behind.
In the waist of the ship Conan took a place by the rail where he, too, could watch the galley. It seemed larger, now. Tamur joined them.
"It follows us," Conan said quietly.
"Baalsham," the Hyrkanian snarled at the same instant that Akeba, nodding, said, "Jhandar."
Sharak shook his staff at the galley with surprising fierceness. "Let him send his demons. I am ready for them."
Tamur's dark eyes shone. "This time we will carve him as a haunch of beef if he has a thousand demons."
Conan met Akeba's gaze. It seemed more likely that those on Foam Dancer would be meat on a spit.
"How many men does such a vessel carry?" the Turanian asked. "I know little of naval matters."
Conan's own knowledge of the sea was limited to his short time with the smugglers in Sultanapur, but he had been pursued by such vessels before. "There are two banks of oars to a side, but the oar-slaves will not be used to fight. A vessel of that size might carry five score besides the crew."
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the rigging lines humming in the rising wind. Then Sharak said hollowly, "So many? This adventuring begins to seem ill-suited for a man of my years."
"By the One-Father, I shall die happy," Tamur said, "an I know Baalsham goes with me into the long night."
Akeba shook
his head bleakly. "He will not be on this ship. Such men send others to do their killing. But at least we shall find blood enough to pay our ferryman's fee, eh, Cimmerian?"
"It will be a glorious fight in which to die," Tamur agreed.
"I do not intend to die yet," the Cimmerian said grimly.
"The storm," Sharak said, his words holding a new excitement. "The storm will hide us." The clouds were thicker now, and darker, obscuring the lowering sun.
"Mayhap," Conan replied. "But we will not depend on that."
The god of the icy peaks and wind-ravaged crags of Conan's Cimmerian homeland was Crom, Dark Lord of the Mound, who gave a man life and will, and nothing more. It was given to each man to carry his own fate in his hands and his heart and his head.
Conan strode aft to Muktar, who still stood gazing at the galley. The bronze glint of its ram could be seen plainly now, knifing through gray swells. "Will they reach us before night falls?" Conan asked the captain.
"Or before the storm breaks?"
"The storm may never break," Muktar muttered. "On the Vilayet lightning may come from a sky where the sun was bright an instant before, or clouds may darken for days, then lift without a drop of rain. Do you lose me my ship, Cimmerian, I'll see your corpse."
"It was in my mind you were a sea captain," Conan taunted, "not an old woman wanting only to play with her grandchildren." He waited for Muktar's neck to swell with anger and his face empurple, then went on.
"Listen. We may all be saved. For as long as we are able, we must run before them. Then...."
As Conan spoke the dark color slowly left Muktar's face. Once he blanched, and tried to stop the Cimmerian's flow of words, but Conan would not pause for the other's objections. He pressed on, and after a time Muktar began to listen intently, then to nod.
"It may work," he said finally. "By Dagon's Golden Tail, it may just work. See to your nomads, Cimmerian." Whirling with more agility that would have seemed possible, the bulky captain roared, "To me, you whoreson dogs! To me, and listen to how I'll save your worthless hides still another time!"
"What in Mitra's name is that all about?" Akeba asked when Conan was back at the rail.
As Muktar's voice rose and fell in waves, haranguing the crew in the stern, Conan told his companions what he planned.
A grin appeared on Sharak's thin face, and he broke into a little dance. "We have them. We have them.
What a grand adventure!"
Tamur's smile was wolfish. "Whether we escape or die, this will be a thing to be told around the campfires. Come, Turanian, and show us if any remnant of Hyrkanian blood remains in you." With a wry shake of his head Akeba followed Tamur to join the other nomads.
It was done then, Conan thought. Nothing remained but... Yasbet. Even as her name came into his head, she was there before him. Her soft round eyes caressed his face.
"I heard," she said. "Where is my place in this?"
"I will make you a place in the midst of the bales," he told her, "where you will be safe. From archers or slingers, at least."
"I will not hide." Her eyes flashed, suddenly no longer soft. "You've taught me much, but not to be a coward!"
"You'll hide if I must bind you hand and foot. But if it comes to that, I promise you'll not sit without wincing for a tenday. Give me your sword," he added abruptly.
"My sword? No!"
She clutched the hilt protectively, but he snatched the blade from her and started down the deck. She followed in silence, hurt, tear-filled eyes seeming to fill her face.
In front of the mast the ship's grindstone, where the crew sharpened axes and swords alike, was fastened securely to the planking. Working the foot treadle, Conan set the edge of the blunt sica to the spinning stone. Sparks showered from the metal. With his free hand he dripped oil from a clay jug onto the wheel.
The heat must not grow too great, or the temper of the blade would be ruined.
Yasbet scrubbed a hand across her cheek, damp with tears. "I thought that you meant to... that you...."
"You are no woman warrior," he said gruffly. "Not in these few days. But you may have need to defend yourself, an the worst comes."
"Then you will not make me," she began, but he quelled her with an icy glance. The blood of battle was rising in him, driving out what small softness he had within. When steel was bared, the slightest remnant of gentleness could slay the one who bore it. Fiery sparks fountained from steel that was no harder than him who sharpened it.
Chapter XVI
About Foam Dancer's deck men rushed, readying the parts of Conan's plan. The clouds darkened above as if dusk had come two turns of the glass before its time, and wind strummed the rigging like a lute, yet no moisture fell on the deck save spume from wave shattering on the bow.
Bit by bit the galley closed the distance, a deadly bronze-beaked centipede skittering across the water, seemingly unimpeded by the rising waves through which Foam Dancer now labored, wallowing heavily from trough to trough. Foam Dancer seemed a sluggish water beetle, waiting to die.
"They busy themselves in the bows!" Muktar bellowed suddenly.
Conan finished tying the line around Yasbet's waist where she lay between stacked bales, themselves lashed firmly to the deck. "You've no fear of being washed overboard now," he told her, "no matter how violent the storm becomes."
"It's the catapult!" Muktar cried.
Conan started to turn away, but Yasbet seized his hand, pressing her lips to his callused palm. "I shall be waiting for you," she murmured, "when the battle is done." She tugged his hand lower, and he found his fingers inside her leather jerkin, a swelling breast nestled in his hand.
With an oath he pulled his hand free, though not without reluctance. "There is no time for that now," he said roughly. Did she not realize how difficult it was for him already, he wondered, protecting a wench he longed to ravish?
"They prepare to fire!" Muktar shouted, and Conan put Yasbet from his mind.
"Now!" the young Cimmerian cried. "Cut!"
In the stern Muktar raced to the steering oar, roughly shoving aside the burly steersman to seize the thick wooden shaft himself. In the bow two scruffy smugglers drew curved swords and chopped. Lines parted with loud snaps, and the bundles of extra sailcloth Conan had put over the side were loosed. The sleek vessel leaped forward, all but jumping from wave-top to wave-top.
Almost beneath her stern a stone fell, half-a-man-weight of granite, raising a fountain that drenched Muktar.
"Now, Muktar!" Conan shouted. Snatching an oilskin bag, he ran aft. "I said now! The rest of you watch the pots!"
The deck was dotted with scores of covered clay pots, scavenged from every corner of the ship. Some hissed as foaming water swirled around them and ran across the planking.
Cursing at the top of his lungs, Muktar heaved at the steersman's oar, its massive thickness bowing from the strain. Slowly Foam Dancer responded, coming around. The crew dashed to run out long sweeps, stroking and backing desperately to aid the turn.
This was the point that had made Muktar's face pale when Conan told him of it. Turned broadside to the line of waves, the vessel heeled over, further, further, till her rail lay nearly on the surface. Faces twisted with fear, the smugglers worked their oars with feverish intensity. Akeba, Sharak, and the Hyrkanians scrambled to keep the clay containers from toppling or washing over the side. For a froth-peaked gray mountain of water now rolled over the rail, till it seemed that men waded in shallows.
Among those laboring men Conan's eyes suddenly lit on Yasbet, free of her bonds, struggling among the rest of the pots. His curses were borne away by the wind, and there was no time to do anything about her.
Sluggishly but certainly Foam Dancer's bow came into the waves, and the vessel lifted. She did not ride easily, as she had before-there was likely water enough below decks to float a launch-but still she crested that first wave and raced on. Back toward the galley.
On the other ship, the catapult arm stood upright. If anoth
er stone had been launched, the splash of its fall had been lost in the rough seas. On the galley's decks, seeing their intended prey turn back on them, men raced about like ants in a crushed anthill. But not so many men as Conan had feared, unless they kept others below. Most of those he could make out wore the twinned queues of sailors.
"We've lost half the pots!" Akeba shouted over the howling wind. "Gone into the sea!"
"Then ready what we have!" Conan bellowed back. "In full haste!" The Hyrkanians took up oilskin sacks, like that Conan carried.
Those on the other ship, apparently believing their quarry intended to come to grips, had now provided themselves with weapons. Swords, spears and axes bristled along the galley's rail. In its bow, men labored to winch down the catapults arm for another shot, but too late, Conan knew; Foam Dancer was now too close.
Undoing the strings that held the mouth of his sack, Conan drew out its dry contents: a quiver of arrows, each with rags tied behind the head, and a short, recurved bow. Near him a Hyrkanian, already holding his bow, knocked the top from a clay crock. Within coals glowed dully, hissing from the spray that fell inside the container. A few quick puffs fanned them to crackling flame, and into that fire Conan thrust an arrow. The cloth tied to it burst into flame.
In one swift motion the big Cimmerian turned, nocked, drew and released. The fire arrow flew straight up to the galley, lodging in a mast. His was the signal. A shower of fire arrows followed, peppering the galley.
Conan fired again and again as the two ships drew closer. Though now the galley tried to veer away, Foam Dancer gave chase. On the galley men rushed with buckets of sand to extinguish points of flame, but two blossomed for each that died. Tendrils of fire snaked up tarred ropes, and a great square sail was suddenly aflame, the conflagration whipped by shrieking wind.
"Closer!" Conan called to Muktar. "Close under the stern!"
The bull-necked man muttered, but Foam Dancer curved away from her pursuit, crossing the galley's wake a short spear-throw from its stern.
Hastily Conan capped the pot of coals, edging it into the oilskin bag with ginger respect for its blistering heat. Once the sack whirled about his head, twice, and then it arced toward the galley, dropping to its deck unnoticed by men frantically cutting away the flaming sail.
The Conan Compendium Page 247
