Conan cursed and shouted for Raihna, neither of which he expected to do much good. Something that Illyana could do, on the other hand―"Put a spell on him, can't you?" he roared. "Or what good is your magic?"
"Better than you would dare to believe, Cimmerian!" Illyana shouted. A lucky parry held one knife away from her left breast. She gripped the man's other arm and held on with desperate strength.
Conan knew that neither her strength nor her desperation would be enough for long. If either failed before he could deal with this opponent―"Then if it's so cursed good!―"
"It―is―not swifter―than―uhhh!" as the man tore his arm free. Illyana drove her knee up toward his groin but he shifted his footing so that she only struck his hip. A moment later one hand was wound in her hair while the other raised a knife toward her throat.
In that same moment Conan's sword found his opponent's life. Shoulder and chest poured blood onto already-stained robes. The man neither cried out nor fell.
Instead he lurched toward Conan, still a barrier between him and Illyana, who had only a few heartbeats of life left to her.
As the knife blade touched Illyana's throat, a loop of iron chain tightened around the knife wielder's foot.
He kicked to clear his foot, sending himself off balance. The chain tightened again, pulling him away from Illyana. He threw out an arm to save himself― and Conan's sword came down on that arm. Severed arm and knife wielder fell to the deck at the same time.
Illyana stood, gripping the post with one hand. The other she held to her throat, stroking it as if she could scarcely believe it was not gaping from ear to ear. Her dagger lay unheeded on the deck. Conan picked it up and handed it to her.
"Don't ever let loose of your steel until the last enemy's dead!"
She swallowed and licked full lips. Her face would have made fresh milk look brightly colored, and a vein pulsed in the side of her long neck. She swallowed again, then sagged forward into Conan's arms.
It was not fainting. She babbled words that would have made no sense even in a language Conan understood and gripped him with arms seemingly turned to iron.
Conan freed his sword arm and put the other around her, holding her as he might have held a puppy or a kitten.
Under the sorceress was enough woman to crave a man's touch when she needed
assurance. Conan would leave matters there. To steal her maidenhood would be the kind of theft he had always disdained even as a new-fledged thief in Zamora. It was still not unpleasant to find in Illyana more kinship with ordinary folk than he'd ever expected to find in a sorceress.
"Come," he said at last. "Embracing men is like dropping your steel. Best save it until we've heard from our last enemy." Gently he pushed her away, then followed the chain around the dead man's leg to the edge of the deck and looked down.
One of the slaves stood on tiptoe, staring over the edge of the deck. There had been just enough slack in the chain that held him to his sweep to let him use it as a weapon.
"My friend," Conan said. "I don't know if you've earned yourself freedom or impalement." From the slave's gaunt face and lash-marked back, it seemed unlikely that he cared greatly.
The eyes in the gaunt face were still steady. So was the voice. "The master was plotting, and I owed him nothing. You be the judge of your debt to me, you and your woman."
"I'm not―" Illyana began indignantly, then found the strength to laugh. She was still laughing when Raihna appeared, wiping blood from her sword.
"The two you left me are both down, Conan. One may live to answer questions if you have any. Oh, our friend speaks the truth about the master. He was to join the fight, too, but lost his courage at the last moment."
"Where is he?"
"Clinging for his life to the end of the skiff's line," Raihna said with a wicked grin. "The two hands threw him overboard and cut it loose. They were still well short of the bank when it sank under them. One of them could swim. I saw him clambering up the bank."
Conan wished sunstroke, snakebite, and thirst upon the treacherous hand and strode aft. The master was no longer pale, but red as if scalded with the effort of hanging to the line.
"For the love of the gods, don't let me drown!" he wheezed. "I can't swim."
"The gods don't love traitors and neither do I," Conan said. "Nor does Lord Mishrak."
The master nearly lost his grip on the line. "You serve Mishrak!"
"I can make him interested in you or not, as I choose. It lies in your hands."
"Then have mercy! To name me to Mishrak―would you slay me and all my kin?"
"I'd see you drown without blinking," Conan said brusquely. "Your kin may be worth more. Tell me what you know about these knifeman and I may hold my tongue."
For a man nearly at his last gasp, the master managed to tell a great deal in a short time. It appeared that the knifeman were indeed Lord Houma's. The master had never heard of Master Eremius or the Jewels of Kurag, nor did Conan choose to inform him.
At last the master began to repeat himself. Conan decided that there was little more to be heard worth the danger of losing the man to the river.
He reached down, heaved the man aboard, then shook him over the side like a wet
dog. When he finally set the master down, the man's knees buckled. Conan tied his hands behind his back with his own belt.
"You swore―" the master began.
"I didn't swear a thing. You don't need hands to give orders. All you need is a tongue you had best shape to something like respect. Or I may kick you overboard and not trouble Mishrak with the work of learning any more from you."
The master turned pale again and sat mute as a stone, watching Conan turn forward and stride away.
It was a while before they could bring the ferry to a safe landing on the far bank of the Shimak. The master could barely speak at all. The peddler and his boy seemed concerned only that their mule was unhurt.
"Demons take you!" Conan swore at their fifth refusal to help handle the ferry.
"Will it help your precious pet if he dies of thirst or drowns in the rapids?"
"When we know Lotus is well, then you can call on us," the peddler said. "Until then, leave us."
"Please, lady," the boy added, addressing Illyana. "If you can do magic, can you do a healing on Lotus? We couldn't pay very much, but we'd miss him a lot."
Conan wrestled notions of spanking the boy or throwing the mule overboard. It helped that Illyana was smiling at the boy.
"My magic isn't the kind that can help animals," she said. "But my sister was raised around horses. Perhaps she can help you."
Conan strode away with a curse, as Raihna knelt to take the mule's left hind
foot in both hands.
It was Massouf, the slave who'd saved Illyana, who finally brought them to safety. Freed from his chains with a key Conan found in the master's purse (along with a good sum in gold that he decided the master had no further use for), Massouf put his comrades to some sort of regular stroke. With Conan to lend strength if not skill to the steering oar, they eventually crunched ashore some ways downstream.
"We're in your debt once more," Illyana said, as she emerged from behind a boulder in clean garb. "You already have your freedom. Is there more we can give? We are not ill-provided with gold―"
"Best not say that too loudly, my lady," Massouf said. "Even the rocks may have ears. But if you have gold to spare―" For the first time he seemed to lose his self-assurance, so unlike a slave's.
"If you have gold, I beg you to take it to the house of Kimon in Gala and buy the slave girl Dessa. They will ask much for her, comely as she is. But if you free her, I will be your slave if I can repay you no other way."
"What was she to you?" Raihna said. "We are not unwilling―"
"We were betrothed, when―what made us both slaves came about. It was ordered that we be sold separately, and each serve as hostage for the other. Otherwise, we would long since have fled or died together."
&n
bsp; Conan heard an echo of his own thoughts as a slave in the young man's words.
"What made you turn against your master this time? If Dessa is still a slave―"
"If you perished, Captain, I would not long outlive you. All the slaves would
have been impaled as rebels. That is the law. With no hold over Dessa, Kimon might have sold her to Vendhya, or slain her outright." He straightened. "I had nothing to lose by aiding you."
"Mishrak didn't send us out here to rescue slave girls," Conan growled.
"He didn't send you out here to be rescued by slaves, either," Massouf said cheerfully. "But that's been your fate. Take it as a sign from the gods, Captain."
"You may take this as a sign to hold your tongue," Conan said, raising one massive fist. "I'm a good deal closer than the gods, too. Never fear. We'll pay a visit to Gala and free your Dessa. We'll even pay for her out of your master's gold." Conan hefted the master's purse. "If Kimon thinks this isn't enough, I'll show him reason to change his mind.
"But don't think you can jaunt along with us beyond Gala! Or I'll send your name to Mishrak, for keeping us from going about his business!"
Seven
THEY RODE INTO Gala as sunset flamed in the west. The Three Coins, where Dessa had worked, lay shuttered and silent, its garden a rank tangle of weeds.
Inquiries of passing villagers took them to the Horned Wolf at the far end of the village. Illyana's nostrils flared in distaste as she contemplated the second inn.
"Is that the best we can hope for?"
"That depends, mistress," Conan said. Tales of the battle at the ferry might well have reached Gala already. It still seemed best to continue their masquerade until they knew it was useless.
"On what?"
"On how comfortable you find sleeping in open fields among sheep turds. The Horned Wolf may offer only lice-ridden straw, but―"
"You lie! Not the smallest louse ever found a home in my inn!"
A broad, florid face topped by a haystack of gray hair thrust itself out the nearest window. The woman shook her fist at Conan and drew in breath for another accusation.
"Mistress," Conan said, in a chill voice. "Perhaps the sheep will offer better hospitality. Turds and all, they'll not call us liars."
Ruddiness turned to pallor at the prospect of losing a customer.
"Forgive me, my lord and ladies. I meant no insult, You'd have a cold hard bed with the sheep. I swear I can offer better than that."
"We're neither lords nor ladies," Raihna snapped. "We're honest merchants, who know what a thing's worth. We can also recognize lice when we see them. Now, what are your prices?"
Conan let Raihna do the bargaining, with accustomed skill. He used the time to study the village, with an eye to where the houses might let foes wait in ambush. He also took a moment to counsel Massouf to stop fidgeting.
"You'll make the whole village remember you without freeing Dessa a moment
sooner. She'll not thank you if that keeps her captive."
From Massouf's horror-stricken gape, this was clearly a new idea. Conan's curses were silent; they owed Massouf too much.
At last Raihna struck a bargain that Conan suspected was nothing of the kind, from the glee on the old woman's face. Louse-ridden straw still offered more comfort than stones. Perhaps the woman also knew where Dessa was.
They ate their own food but drank the inn's wine, near kin to vinegar. Two women brought it, both looking old enough to be Pyla's mother.
At last Conan felt he could cease insulting his stomach without insulting their hostess.
"Goodwife," he called. "The last time I was here I stayed at the Three Coins.
They had a fine dancing girl who went by the name of Dessa. She wore rose scent and precious little else. It would be worth much, to see her dance again."
"Ah, you'll have to guest with Lord Achmai. Not that he's much of a lord, but he does have the Hold. He'd long had his eye on Dessa too. When Master Kimon died, he left so many debts that his kin were glad to sell all they could. Dessa went up to the Hold, and Mitra only knows what happened to her then."
Conan ignored strangled noises from Massouf. "What's this 'Hold'? I saw no such thing, the last time."
"Oh, perhaps you did. But it was only a ruin then. Achmai's put it to rights.
Even in the old days it couldn't have been half so fine. Lord Achmai struts around now, like he was one of the Seventeen Attendants."
Conan made some ill-natured sounds of his own. This part of Turan was dotted
with the old forts of the robber lords who'd infested the countryside before the early kings put them down. From time to time some lordling would bribe a governor to let him move back into one of them.
Doubtless Achmai would overreach himself one day. Then Mughra Khan would descend on the Hold with an army and an executioner. That would help neither Dessa nor those who wished to rescue her tonight.
"Well, I shall see if Lord Achmai's hospitality is worth having," Conan said, feigning doubts. "Who knows? If he's open-handed, perhaps I'll come back to serve him when my mistress and her sister are safe with their kin."
"Oh, he'll not refuse a fine stout young soldier like yourself," the innkeeper said. She giggled lewdly.
"Nor will the women he keeps, I'll wager. Half the men in his service are old enough to be father to such as you."
"How can you stand here talking, when Mitra only knows what Dessa may be suffering?" Massouf shouted. "Mistress, you owe me―ukkkh!"
A massive Cimmerian hand closed on the neck of Massouf's tunic. An equally massive arm lifted him until his feet were kicking futilely in the air two hands above the floor.
With a harsh ripping, the filthy tunic gave way. Massouf thumped in a heap on the floor. He glared at Conan but the look on the Cimmerian's face froze the words on his lips.
"Outside!" Conan snarled. Massouf regained his feet and bolted as if the inn had caught fire. The women followed at a more dignified pace.
Conan said only the smallest part of what he wanted to say, nor did he raise his voice. He still left Massouf looking much like a recruit caught stealing. At last the young man fell to his knees, not to beg mercy but because his legs would no longer support him.
Illyana turned her gaze from the sable sky above to Conan. "I wonder now about the wisdom of trying to rescue Dessa."
Massouf leaped up, with a choking cry. "Lady, for the love of all the gods―!"
"Leave the gods in peace, and us as well," Illyana snapped. "Because I say I wonder about something, does not mean I will not do it. I use my wits before I use my tongue. Do not think that I have as little honor as you have discretion!"
"What will you do if I think otherwise?" Massouf said uneasily. "Turn me into a frog?"
"Turn you into something useless to Dessa or any other woman, more likely,"
Illyana said. Her smile grew wicked. "If you spend less of your few wits on women, you will have more to spend on other matters.
"Now be silent. You can hardly help us rescue your Dessa. Have the goodness not to hinder us. Now, I must seek something in my baggage. I shall return as swiftly as I can."
Conan much doubted that anything short of stuffing Massouf into a sack would silence him. Nonetheless, he and Raihna took places where they could see each other, Massouf, and all approaches to Horned Wolf. They would also have a quick and safe way to the stables.
The last glimmers of light died in the village and the west. Even the cries of the night birds fell silent, as one by one they found their nests. In the stables a horse stamped restlessly; another whickered softly.
"Raihna,?"
"You fear for Illyana?"
"She's been inside a good while. Our innkeeper may have decided to settle matters herself."
"Her and what army, Conan? I've seen only lads and women inside. Illyana's no fool. If she's to be taken, it will need more than our hostess―"
The inn door creaked open and a woman appeared. She moved with the gliding
step of an accomplished dancer and the sway of a woman who knows everything about exciting men. She was of Illyana's height but a trifle less slender in those places where it mattered, fairer of skin and with hair that fell in a crimson cascade over freckled shoulders. Conan could see all the freckles, for the woman wore only a brief silk garment that covered her from breasts to loins.
Massouf stared as if he had indeed become a frog. At last he closed his mouth and stepped forward, reaching for the woman. Her hand leaped toward his, then batted it playfully aside.
"Come, come, Massouf. Have you forgotten Dessa so swiftly?"
Massouf swallowed. "I have not. But if she is in the Hold, perhaps I should.
Will you help me forget her? I have―"
"Massouf, my friend," the woman said again. "I will do better than that. I will help her escape from Lord Achmai and all his old soldiers. She deserves a―"
"By Crom!" Conan growled. He'd finally recognized the voice and set aside the evidence of his eyes. "Mistress Illyana, or have my ears been spelled as well as my eyes?"
"Ah, Conan, I thought you would not be long in seeing through the glamouring. I do not imagine that Lord Achmai or his men will be as keen of ear or wits.''
"Very likely not," Conan said. "But what good is that going to do us?"
"Conan, we do not know what we face in the Hold. I much doubt that even you could snatch Dessa from within it unaided."
'That doesn't mean your help will be better than none. If I had Raihna's―"
"Oh, we both will. I will go with you and use this glamouring. When Achmai and his men are thoroughly bemused, you will seek and rescue Dessa. Raihna and Massouf will await us outside, to help us if we need it and cover our retreat."
Raihna had her mouth open to protest, but Massouf silenced her by falling on his knees before Illyana. He threw his arms around her waist and pressed his face into her supple belly.
"Mistress, oh, mistress, forgive me that I doubted you! Forgive me―"
"I will forgive you much and that swiftly if you stop blubbering and stand like a man. Dessa will need one when she is free, not a whimpering child." Slowly Massouf obeyed.
The Conan Compendium Page 295
