You're no longer―gkkkhhhh!"
Conan lifted Moti to the top of the bar, picked up the maul, and held the handle in front of the innkeeper's nose.
"Moti, my former friend and host, you have two choices. I can ram this up your arse sideways and leave you that way to explain tonight's matters to the watch.
I can also leave you intact and help explain them, in return for a few favors."
Moti licked his lips. "Favors?"
"Your best room free whenever I want it, with food and wine as well. Not the best wine, I'll allow, but enough for me and any company I keep. Oh, yes―and any woman I entertain doesn't have to pay you a single brass piece!"
Moti squalled as if he were already being impaled. Conan's frown and the women's giggles silenced him. He tried to throw up his hands in disgust, but they were shaking too hard to make the gesture convincing.
"Well?"
"As you wish, miner of my name and destroyer of my house. May you have much joy in it, before Lord Houma's men burn it over your head."
"Lord Houma may have fewer but wiser men if he tries that," Conan said. "Now, I want a room tonight, and food and wine for―" He looked at the women.
"One," with a nod to Pyla.
"Two," smiling at Zaria.
Thebia grinned and put her hands behind her back. Her young breasts rose, quivering. Conan pointed at her bandaged thigh. "You want to be the third, with that? Oh, very well. I'm no great hand at arguing with women."
"Just as well, then, that our northern friend took herself off," Pyla said.
"Otherwise, she might be joining us. I much doubt that even a Cimmerian can do justice to four!"
Two
"THAT'S A BOW in your hands, you son of a cull!" Conan snapped. "It's not a snake. It won't bite you. Even if it did, that's not half of what I'll do to you if you don't string it now!"
The gangling youth turned the color of the dust underfoot. He looked at the cerulean sky overhead, as if imploring the gods for mercy. Conan drew breath for more advice. The youth swallowed, gripped the bow, and managed to string it, gracelessly but without dropping it again.
One by one, Conan took his recruits through the art of stringing the powerful curved Turanian horsebow. Certainly, some were destined to be midden-sweepers.
Others already knew everything that Conan proposed to teach them.
He would not ask how they had learned the bow. Among the mercenaries of Turan, the life of a soldier began the day he took the copper coin of enlistment. What he had been before, no one asked. It was a custom that Conan thought wise, and not only because his own past would not have borne the weight of too much curiosity.
At last Conan spat into the dust and scowled at the men. "Why the gods addled your wits, making you think you could be soldiers, they only know. I don't. So I have to do what King Yildiz pays me for. That's turning you into soldiers, whether you like it or not. Sergeant Garsim! Take them on a run, ten times around the range!"
"You heard the Captain," shouted Garsim, in a voice that could have been heard in King Yildiz's palace. "Run!" He flourished his stick until it whistled, then fell in behind the recruits with a wink to Conan. Although Garsim could have
been grandfather to some of the recruits, he could easily outrun any of them.
As the recruits vanished through the gate, Conan sensed someone behind him.
Before he could turn, he heard Khadjar's voice.
"You talk to those men as though you have heard your own words from others."
"I have. Captain. Sergeant Nikar said much the same when he was teaching me archery."
"So old Nikar was your instructor? I thought I saw his touch in your draw. What happened to him, by the way?"
"He went home on leave, and never reached it. A band of robbers disappeared that same month. I'd wager Nikar won a fine escort."
"Would you wager on your archery against mine? Five arrows a turn, three turns?"
"Well, Captain―"
"Come, come, oh defender of dancing girls. Did I not hear of your winning free hospitality at the Red Falcon two nights ago? Your purse should be ready to burst with the weight of unspent coin!"
Conan was ready to burst with curiosity, as to how the Captain had learned so much so soon. He only said, "It was no dancing girl I defended, at least at the start. It was a northern woman, and a fine fighter if a trifle overmatched against four."
Khadjar laughed. "Most would be, save yourself. I trust the lady was grateful?"
"Not so a man would notice it," Conan said. He grinned. "The dancing girls were, though. So grateful that I much doubt I am fit to shoot against you."
"Conan, you say a mere three dancing girls have drained your strength? Go back
to your hills, then, for Turan is making you old before your time!"
"Take a bow, Captain. Then we shall see who may call whom 'old'."
"As you―Mitra! Who let her in?"
Conan whirled at Khadjar's words. The woman from the Red Falcon was striding toward them from the gate. She walked as she had that night, although the gate guards were openly stripping her with their eyes. If her wound hurt, none could have told it from her gait She wore the same cut of tunic and trousers, in fine blue linen with vines and trees embroidered in red at the wrists and throat. She also wore a well-sheathed broadsword and a dagger just too short to be called a second sword. A headdress of white silk in the Turanian manner shielded her northern fairness from the sun.
"You look as if you know the wench, Conan," Khadjar said "No wench she, Captain. That's the woman from the Red Falcon."
"Oho! Well and good. You learn what brought her here. I shall learn why those camels' bastards at the gate let her in!"
Conan unstrung his bow and waited impassively for the woman's arrival. By the time she was within speaking distance, Khadjar was shouting at the guards.
"He will learn that I showed them this," the woman said calmly. Dark against her freckled palm and long fingers lay an ancient gold coin, cast in the reign of King Ibram two centuries ago. Over Ibram's fork-bearded face were stamped three letters in the Zamoran script.
Such stamped coins were the mark of Mishrak, lord of King Yildiz's spies, and
those who went about his business. It did not occur to Conan to doubt the sign, curious as it might be for this woman to be carrying it. Those who disobeyed the command of Mishrak were wise to be far from Aghrapur by sunrise of the next day.
"So Mishrak sent you. Why?"
"To bring you, Captain Conan."
"To bring me where?"
"To Mishrak, of course."
"I see your tongue is as well guarded as ever."
"Give me one reason why it should be otherwise."
Perhaps this woman knew little, which would be much like Mishrak. The spy lord never told any of his servants enough to let them piece together any of his secrets. Whether she knew much of little, she would clearly tell Conan nothing.
At this moment Khadjar returned, in an evil temper. A look at the coin did nothing to soothe him. He growled like a winter-waked bear and jerked a hand toward the gate.
"Go, Conan. Neither of us is the kind of fool to quarrel with Mishrak. I'll have Garsim finish the day's drill."
"As you wish, Captain. Now, woman, if you'll let me wash and arm myself―"
"Arm yourself as you wish, Captain Conan. Otherwise, Mishrak says that you will lack nothing if you make haste."
"Nothing?" Conan said with a laugh. His eyes ran lightly over a figure that lacked only garb fit to display it properly. Or perhaps lacking all garb would display it best?
The woman blushed. "Nothing that his hospitality can supply."
"I will not be long." No longer than it would take to don mail under his clothes and secrete a few daggers in unexpected places, at any rate.
"Mishrak lies in the Saddlemakers' Quarter," the woman said, as she led Conan out the gate. The Cimmerian was a head and more taller, but found the pace she set no child's play to
match. Hillfolk blood in her, perhaps?
In the Coopers' Square Conan started to turn south. The woman planted herself by the fountain, ignoring a cartload of staves that all but ran her down.
"Captain, the Saddlemakers lie to the north."
"Anyone would think you were no stranger to Aghrapur."
"Anyone who thinks would know that a stranger can learn if she meets those willing to teach."
"Then teach me what you learned," Conan growled. The Saddlemakers' Quarter did in truth lie to the north. He'd hoped to lead the woman some distance by devious routes, where none could easily follow or lay ambushes.
If she would not follow where he led, though, there was nothing to do but follow where she led. Otherwise he'd earn her wrath, lose her guidance, fail Mishrak, and thereby earn a wrath more to be feared than any in Turan save perhaps that of King Yildiz.
Besides, any ambush was most likely to come within the rat's warren of the quarter itself. Conan trusted to his sword and mail to make that ambush a most unhappy affair for any who took part, beginning with the woman herself.
"One moment," the woman said. She lifted her headdress, drank from the fountain, then darted into the nearest alley.
Alleys and byways and reeking dark flights of stairs where Conan had to stoop were their road deeper and deeper into the quarter. Conan followed three paces behind and to the right, hand on the hilt of his sword. Eyes and ears searched for signs of danger, meeting only the din of fifty saddlemakers' shops hard at work. Turning leather and wood and metal into saddles made one din. Masters roaring at their apprentices made a second.
Another turn. Conan had a good view now of the woman's dagger. The pommel was a silver-washed iron apple, and the quillions were double, set at right angles to each other. He resolved to ask the woman to show him the dagger's use, if the laws and customs of steel ever allowed.
They came forty paces from the last turn when the attackers swarmed out of an alley to the left and a window to the right.
Conan counted six opponents as his sword leaped into his hand. One was the guard who'd fled the Red Falcon. Odds enough to make the best careful, unless the woman was better than she'd been that night Right now she seemed struck witless by fear as the three from the alley closed.
At least she was no foe, if a poor friend. Conan cut down the odds a trifle by hamstringing the last man out of the window. The man dropped farther and harder than he'd planned, going to hands and knees. A Cimmerian boot in the belly lifted him like a dog, hurling him against a comrade. The second man was rising when a Cimmerian broadsword split his skull from crown to the bridge of his
nose.
A scream danced off the stones. The guard reeled back, blood streaming from blinded eyes. The same blood dripped from the woman's dagger. Conan grinned as he realized the woman's craft. She'd feigned fear, to draw the three men close.
There she had two blades against their three, one more agile than any of theirs.
Two more men darted from the alley. The woman had the wall to guard her left and two opponents at her front. The newcomers ran to take her from the right. Conan faced the last man from the window.
Taking his opponent's measure, Conan feinted high. He took the man's riposte on his mail, then followed the same line again. The second cut tore into the side of the man's neck. His half-severed head lolled on his shoulders. He reeled backwards into his comrades, drenching them in his blood.
They were men of stout nerve, casting the dying man aside without breaking stride. This took just long enough for Conan's sword to fall like an executioner's ax. The righthand man gaped as his swordarm dangled ruined and bloody. Conan freed his sword and gave ground with a backward leap that took him clean over the fallen men behind him.
He landed in a half-crouch. The cut aimed by an upright opponent whistled over his head. His own cut took the man's right leg off just below the knee. The man contrived one more desperate slash, then toppled.
With time at last to think of the woman, Conan saw she needed little thought and hardly more help. She'd thrust one opponent through the throat. He sat against the wall, fingers laced around his neck. As Conan watched, the fingers unlaced
and the eyes rolled up in the pale face.
The woman no longer used her dagger as a weapon. Instead she'd made it into invisible, swift-moving armor, catching every cut on the quillions. Her opponent wore mail, so her own slashes had shredded his coat but not his flesh.
"Mine!" she shouted, as fierce as if Conan were another foe.
"Yours," Conan replied. That pride demanded more than a nod. So did those sharp, ready, deadly-swift blades.
The woman stepped back, freeing her dagger and her opponent's sword. Doubtless she expected an attack. Instead he turned and plunged into the alley. In a moment he was only the fading sound of pounding feet.
"Gods, woman! Why did you do that? You think he'd have done as much for you?"
"I suppose not. There's still time to remedy matters, if you choose."
"Chase a man through this maze when he may have been born here? Every time you open your mouth, more of your wits seem to fly out of it!"
"If you're afraid―" She blanched at Conan's face, as she had not at the ambush.
"Forgive me. Truly. I merely thought to give him an honorable end, not butcher him like a hog." *
"Shake off your whims about honor, woman, if you want to live long in Turan.
Mishrak will tell you that, if you won't listen to me."
"He did. But―Master Barathres taught me well. Gratitude to him, old habit―they will make me think of honor when perhaps I should not." For the first time a smile lit her whole face. "You are not so free of honor yourself. Else why did you take my part at the Red Falcon?"
"I hate to have a quiet night's drinking spoiled. Besides, I took your part only after I saw that Moti was too afraid of that lordling's kin to lift a finger for you. That's the first time I had to brawl at the Red Falcon. If it isn't the last, Moti will pay more than he did that night!"
"What did he pay, if you think it fit to tell me?"
No woman likes to hear of a man's exploits in bedding others. Learning that lesson had nearly cost Conan his manhood. "He paid dearly enough, but I'd rather tell you when we've put a few streets between us and our late friends. The man you let flee may be summoning help."
"I pray not."
"Pray all you wish, but the sooner Mishrak's door closes behind us, the better."
The woman nodded, grimaced at the nicks in her dagger, then sheathed it. Conan knelt, to examine the bodies, frowning as he recognized another. The man whose leg he'd slashed off was a soldier in Captain Itzhak's company. He'd seen the man at the Red Falcon once or twice, gambling and losing. Had he hired out his sword to pay his debts, or did his secret lie deeper than that?
Well, the woman was leading him to the man in all Turan most likely to know, if least likely to tell. She was already turning down the alley, sword in hand.
Conan followed, considering that this was twice he'd fought shoulder to shoulder with the woman without knowing her name.
Three
"WHO SEEKS ENTRANCE to this House?" said a soft voice. It seemed to come from the air above the great iron gate in the whitewashed stone wall.
"Captain Conan and she who was sent for him," the woman replied.
They waited, while the owner of that voice studied them. At last Conan heard a series of clangs like a blacksmith at work, then a faint scrape of metal on metal as the gate slid open.
"You may enter this house," came the voice again.
Entry was through a gateway more deserving of the name of tunnel. The walls of Mishrak's house were two men thick and solid stone every finger of the way.
Conan counted four arrow slits and two dropholes in the walls and ceiling. At the far end lay another gate, this one of Vendhyan teak, lavishly carved with dragons and tigers in the Khitan style.
Beyond the second gate they entered a guardroom. Two of
the guards were black, one of Vanaheim, and the last clearly a native of Shem. None but the Shemite was as small as Conan, and that one wore enough knives to let out the blood of six men before his own flowed.
The four exchanged looks, then elaborate gestures. Conan judged them all to be mutes. At last one of the blacks nodded and pointed to a door in the far wall, plated in mirror-bright silver. It swung open, as if the black had cast a spell on it.
A distaste for sorcery lay deep within all Cimmerians, and Conan was no exception. Moreover, his experience with the breed of magic-wielders had taught
him that magic ate at a man's honor and judgment faster than gold. Most of that breed he'd met had ended in seeking to rule all who would obey them and ruin all who would not. Being little inclined to be ruled or ruined at another's whims, Conan could hardly be other than a foe of such wizards.
Reason told him that if Mishrak had magic at his command, he would hardly need the guards. The lord of spies clearly had other resources, beginning with a house built like a fortress.
How like a fortress, Conan began to learn as he and the woman penetrated deeper into it. Their route seemed to have as many turns and windings as the Saddlemakers' Quarter. At every turn was some display of splendor―Aquilonian tapestries, Vendhyan statues of dancing gods, rich ebony carvings of asps.
Conan's danger-sharpened senses picked out spy holes in the tapestries, the sharpened daggers held ready in the hands of the gods, the live asps nesting among the carved ones.
From time to time they passed iron-bound doors set in deep recesses. Conan pitied any man foolish enough to think they offered a safer way to the heart of Mishrak's kingdom. They would lead any stranger nowhere except to death―and probably not a quick one.
At last the way grew straight. No longer was the floor alone tiled. Walls and ceiling shone with gilded mosaic work or dripped with tapestries done in cloth of silver and the finest silk. They ended in another guardroom, with an open arch beyond it and the sounds of splashing water and a flute.
"Who conies?" demanded the chief guard.
The Conan Compendium Page 291
