Babrak nodded dubiously, his eyes straying inevitably back across the room. "Yes, that is so."
"Then tell me, disciple." Conan spoke slowly and reasoningly. "If you never sample the delights of paradise, how are you to reckon their true value in the next world? How can they spur you to full zeal in serving your god?" His questions drew no immediate response from the youth's poised lips or his unblinking, distracted eyes. "If you obey the holy laws too narrowly, will your feet not be the less swift for it, your sword less keen in defense of the faith? Should you not first savor the bounties promised by Tarim, so that you can hold paradise clearly in view forever after?"
This argument Babrak obviously found compelling, for he turned his eyes to Conan with a light of comprehension in them. That was enough―indeed, more than enough for his two friends. At the first hint of assent in the youth's manner, they were on their feet, linking their arms in his, shoving aside the flimsy straw table and marching him across the room toward the wicker throne and its resplendent occupant.
"Greetings, your ladyship." Juma was first to address the stately woman, speaking Turanian with a formal salute and exaggerated bow―without, however, unlinking his arm from that of the half-resisting Babrak. "Ma'am, we could not help noticing… our friend, here, wishes to express his admiration for your exquisite grooming and most refined bearing."
At this, the woman did not answer; she merely shifted her gaze to her other two besiegers. Her dark-red lips pursed demurely, neither frowning nor smiling. Upon her brow there may have been faint lines of maturity; but if so, they were carefully smoothed and powdered over. Her eyes, dark-rimmed and almond-shaped, had a force of penetration, and her face held austere symmetry in its Eastern cast. Furthermore, to Conan's critical inspection, the glimpses of cleavage and ankle-trim that her dress allowed gave sufficiently lush promise.
"Truly, milady," the Cimmerian said to cover Babrak's embarrassed silence, "for us battered fighters, the sight of such beauty is enough to fire our blood and… send us back to war boldly, to cleave and rend the enemy!"
Unused to polite conversation, he looked aside at Babrak for help. But the lad stood silent with downcast eyes, visibly blushing.
"Of course, madam," Juma volunteered again, "there is no telling what miracle of rejuvenation a soldier might gain from a longer sojourn within the compass of your charms." He flashed a near-wink at Conan, who stood marveling at the Kushite's unguessed power of flattery.
The mysterious woman too blinked. "Sirs, you are very kind and… very bold to address me thus." At the firmness of her voice, pitched clearly in gracefully accented Turanian, Conan felt Babrak at his side brace up slightly and renew his furtive stare at the exotic woman.
"Happily for you," she continued with narrowed eyelids, "I am not averse to taking company this evening." This statement may have been meant less for Babrak and his companions than for the several scowling Venji cooks and servants who had moved near on both sides of the counter; at their mistress's discreet glance, they began to ease away. "But I beg you, sirs"―her lips pursed in a smile whose seductive curve was experienced―"the attentions of all three of you warriors are far too kind for my humble self." She glanced from Conan to Juma with exquisitely polite disinterest. "I would hope to entertain one of you, no more."
"Why, then, that would be our young friend here," Juma said unhesitatingly, shoving Babrak forward. "For though we are a loyal band, traveling under one another's protection"―this with a glance around at the servants still lurking within earshot―"we desire most of all that each of us enjoy an agreeable tour of leave! We would not stand in each other's way. Is that not so, friend?" He nudged the mute Babrak.
"Mmm-ah, yes. It is." The Turanian's croak barely evolved into speech, after which he stood dumb and gaping within the woman's spell.
"Very good," she said, having waited in vain for further words to complement the youth's frank gaze. "That leaves only the question of price."
Juma nodded, taking this too in stride. "No doubt we can arrive at a sum that is not too excessive."
"No matter, I am not impoverished," the woman said levelry. "How much do you require?"
At this, it was Juma's turn to gape. Conan's sense of insult was for once slow to blossom; but he saw Babrak stiffen in consternation.
"Madam, you mistake me! I am not…! That is, I meant…" Anger and embarrassment warred in the youth, ennobling his features even as he stood tongue-tied in their midst.
"No, be not wrathful, trooper! Compose yourself. There will be no price." The woman, calm in the face of his turbulence, renewed the force of her attraction with the faintest of smiles. "I merely intended a jest, to bring you to life and… to let us be as equals."
Babrak stood uncertain; but Juma, as always, came to his aid. "Only a jest, a mere misunderstanding! Here, now, you see―all this beauty, and wit too! Your taste is impeccable, fellow!" Moving closer, the Kushite deftly pushed Babrak down into a chair brought forward by one of the manservants. "There, take a seat and become better acquainted! We shall watch for you later, here or back at the inn. My heartiest congratulations, and may you both have a festive night!"
Withdrawing to their table, Conan and Babrak watched ongoing events in the tavern, which swiftly became uninteresting. Babrak and his patroness conversed earnestly, leaning ever closer together, ignoring their drinks. When the woman arose to lead their friend through a bead-curtained doorway at the back of the house, it came as no surprise.
They had switched to drinking kvass, a sour beer which, while more palatable than the fermented mare's milk kumiss, made their minds reel less drolly. Nevertheless, the effects were cumulative, and the ripening evening brought more life into the establishment, which had begun to seem sedate. The obligatory chiming and tweeting struck up somewhere in back, with twanging added in for good measure. War followers, both Turanian and Venji, crawled through the place in search of pleasure and profit. Past the troopers' table paraded a string of underfed whores of assorted sexes and talents; enthusiastic offers of lotus distillates to be chewed, sucked, inhaled, sipped, or smeared in shallow gashes on the skin; and one grinning merchant offering strings of shriveled, blackened human ears for sale as proof of the buyer's fictitious prowess in jungle combat.
Many of these panderers were tripped or booted out of the two foreigners' sight, and all were subjected to insults of increasing coarseness and hilarity. Retaliation was discouraged by the subtly favored treatment the two now received from the tavern's staff, as well as by their size and obvious roughness. Yet oddly enough, chaos, when it did come, erupted around someone even larger and more rugged than themselves.
Juma and Conan recognized Orvad, the giant northern trooper, when he lumbered in to slouch over the bar. They did not hail him because they had no need of his dull wit to furnish amusement this gala night, and because to both men he was an unpleasant reminder of the garrison duty they had temporarily escaped. Perhaps they should have foreseen something; yet his bellow of outrage from across the room came as a surprise.
They looked up to see Orvad's gap-toothed mouth twisting in a snarl, his bushy eyebrows meeting above his beady eyes in anger, one hand fumbling amid the straggling black hairs at the side of his head, retracing a too-well-remembered vacancy; then he seized hold of his foe.
It was the unlucky vendor of ears, a wiry middle-aged man. They saw him lifted above the crowd's shoulders, shaken and twisted in air, then slammed neck-first against a stout wooden pillar where it supported the ceiling. Severed ears sprinkled the tavern like a light snowfall. Orvad immediately became the center of a knot of struggling bodies, a shouting swarm that fought itself in the process of sorting itself out between attackers and escapers. With a swift, mutual nod of agreement, Conan and Juma rushed to their fellow trooper's aid.
In deference to their friend Babrak and his kind hostess, they did not draw knives. That meant dodging the blades wielded by panicked fugitives, or else fending them off with raised stools. Conan quickly le
arned the reason for the wicker furniture: it could not effectively be used to club an opponent to death. Shouldering into the core of brawlers who were busy fighting Orvad and one another, he was forced to hurl men aside or smite at them with his fists. And these slight Venjis refused to stand solidly before a blow as a northerner would; instead they staggered back scarcely harmed, dodged aside, or tried to cling to his fists. In all, he found it unsatisfying, like battling children in a room full of cushions.
Orvad was more successful, hurling foes bodily against walls and ceiling, using unconsious ones as clubs to smite down others. In fact, he was rapidly clearing the room, and scarcely in need of help from two more veterans nearly his own size. Seeing this as they fought their way to his side, Juma and Conan exchanged fresh glances of assent. Promptly they undertook the more difficult task of calming the giant.
This was hazardous because Orvad, never very submissive to reason in his daily life, was far beyond it now. Their friendly grips on his shoulders
he shook off with savage jabs of his elbows, sending them staggering and gasping like two of his lesser foes. To Conan's exhortations, shouted earnestly in his face, he responded with a bear hug, roaring and gnashing his teeth in an effort to bite off the Cimmerian's nose. Fortunately, an earthenware kumiss-jar applied to the back of his neck by Juma had a timely soothing effect. Blows and kicks to his midsection and nether regions produced further calm, as did elbow-strokes to his temples, once he bent low enough for that method of persuasion to be possible.
In time, crouching and moaning, he grew placid enough to be led to a bench near the door; or at any rate he seemed so. Unfortunately, before Conan and Juma could force him to sit, he fell prey to another bout of unreason, flinging his rescuers over tables and bolting out the doorway like a bull fleeing the slaughter-pen.
His friends picked themselves up from a plank floor awash in stale drink and blood, mutually dismissing the idea of pursuit. They eyed the Venjis remaining in the place, unsure whether to expect profuse thanks or a fresh assault; but the servants were busy dragging out bodies and righting furniture as if nothing had happened. The two troopers finished their kvass, taking time enough to show their unconcern and allow Orvad a healthy lead; then they departed.
"Otumbe and Ijo!" Juma stopped just outside the light of the tavern entry. "That Orvad is a mountain of muscle! And he knows some nasty tricks." The black man rubbed his neck with one big hand as he glanced up and down the lane for signs of danger. "If only there was a brain driving it all, he could be as considerable a fighter as you, Conan, or I!"
His grin flashed bright in the alley shadows.
"Ahum. I am less a man than I was an hour ago." Conan shifted ungracefully on the cobblestones, cautious of the pain plucking at the deepest fibers of his thigh. "Methinks it was too soon to use my leg as a bludgeon on that hulking moron's scalp! Crom, it pains so much, I misdoubt I can hide it!"
"Here, let me bear some of your weight." Juma moved to the Cimmerian's affected side, offering his shoulder. "Go ahead, lean as heavily as you want. Pretend you are drunk―if you need to pretend!" They started back toward the main street, managing a fairly swift gait between the two of them. "The best thing for you now is your bed at the inn―a quiet, solitary bed if I have anything to say about it!"
"Nay, the night is only begun." Conan's speech was punctuated by soft gasps in the same rhythm as his steps. "I was craving just another pitcher or two, to lighten the pain―"
"Another pitcher! Precisely what I had in mind!" The unexpected voice and shadow loomed ahead of them so suddenly in the darkness, they had to stumble to a halt to avert a collision. "I would gladly buy the drink, just to gain a chance of talking with the hero Conan and his boon friend, Sergeant Juma." The speech was in native Turanian, firm and hearty without any noticeable slur of intoxication.
"I think you have the advantage, fellow," Juma answered guardedly, edging back and aside from Conan to clear their weapon-arms. "Do we know you?"
"Know me? Not by face or name, I would think… only as a fellow fighter in a holy cause. And as one whose offered drink it might profit you to imbibe."
As the stranger spoke, Conan strained his eyes to make out some detail of the silhouette that diminished the wedge of light from the street ahead.
He swore he recalled this murky stretch of alley as being lit by an oil lamp when first they passed here. Could it have burned out, or its owner removed it? He remembered branchings of the way as well, which now seemed subtly confirmed by alley echoes and the faint loom of light overhead. The Turanian had almost certainly intercepted them from a side-passage; yet his prompt recognition of them could hardly be explained by keen eyesight.
"Well, man…" Juma's voice was ragged with the last shreds of his patience. "If you have a name, speak it, and pray that it is not on the long roll of my enemies! Be warned, I find it hard to believe that any well-wisher would detain us in this dark, treacherous place."
Over Juma's sharp utterances, Conan thought he detected faint sounds in the darkness. The scrape of a weapon, perhaps… or the grinding of broken glass underfoot: a shattered lamp-chimney? The noise seemed to come from behind, though Conan was certain that no shape had moved in the faint tavern-light at their backs.
"Well, fellow: as for a name, mine is Rabak." The shadow's voice rang loud and self-conscious in the darkness―drawling, perhaps to cover the
advance of unseen allies. "As for this place, I agree with you most heartily.
I would suggest that you accompany me to a more hospitable site down this side-avenue…"
Conan's eyes, sharpened by desperation, finally picked out a detail of the blocking figure he could recognize: a faint tracery of starlight reflected on steely metal unmasked by fabric. Silently Conan reached a hand aside to Juma, tracing the pattern on the trim, unarmored flesh of his friend's shirtwaist. A quick clasp of the Kushite's hand over his wrist told him that the signal was recognized: a tight, coiled circle of wire, emblem of the Imperial shock troops known as Red Garrotes.
"… a house where heroes like yourselves are known and welcomed… yes, even coddled a bit," the unseen trooper proclaimed at undue length. "I have a proposition that would be well worth talking about―"
"Rather, talk about it with your ancestors in Hell!" Conan's sword leaped into his hand, then lashed forth into the deeper darkness. An agile side-twist by his target did not prevent the stranger from taking half the blade through his abdomen. His dying scream heralded an onrush of feet from several sides; swiftly Conan shook the collapsing victim off his blade, turning to face the half-seen attackers.
"Juma, we are circled! Backs together!" As he spoke, Conan heard the hiss of steel, a crunch, and a moan as the Kushite's sword came into play.
An instant later a rushing body caromed into his, spinning him half around; he realized he had lost track of his friend in the clatter and stamp of warring feet. He struck out among shadows, meeting elusive resistance at best, and at once began pulling his strokes for fear of hitting the Kushite. His favored tactic of a howling charge was ruled out by his leg, which wobbled weakly beneath him from the strain of the paltry fighting done so far. His recent pain was gone, washed out of his veins by the heady wine of combat.
"Juma, I am here! Do not call out!" He knew that his friend may have been stalking foes in the dark, a tactic for which his black skin suited him well. But his own outcry brought such a rush of attackers that he vowed not to repeat it. A blade came slashing down at neck-level, too sudden to duck and almost too swift to parry; then a muffled shape struck him, bearing his weapon aside and down. Finally something whipped over his head from behind, scraping his nose and chin painfully―a wire loop.
Luckily it encircled one wrist as well as his neck; even so it drew cruelly
tight at once.
By Crom, at least these phantoms were known enemies! Stabbing and hacking one assailant back out of his way, he turned the point of his yataghan up to saw at the garrote, risking cuts to h
is own face and his imprisoned arm. His sword failed to sever the wire; however, a desperate backward thrust pierced its owner's hand or face, eliciting a yelping cry.
The noose slipped free, but at once more bodies struck Conan's, driving him back against a hard stone wall and bearing down on his limbs with their ruthless weight.
He felt a ragged groan escaping his throat as his unsteady leg twisted beneath him and gave way. He toppled, feeling a shock to his head that turned blackness into blossomings of vivid color.
And yet paralytic, pain-burdened consciousness clung to him, sharpened by the prick of a cold, razor-edged knife at his throat. Someone had unmasked a lamp; now its yellow beams wavered demonically on a constellation of gloating faces that hovered close before his eyes. Most were twisted in spiteful, cynical leers, the scarred, leathern visages of jungle and gutter killers―garroters and street toughs.
He felt the steel bite his neck more deeply and lovingly. Then he saw one impassive face, the largest of them all, rolling ponderously in denial like a vast planet. It was―dimly, impossibly―a countenance he recognized: that of Sool, the hulking torturer oft seen at Fort Sikander.
From beneath the vast face, a round, massive hand drifted forward to ease the pressure of the blade against Conan's neck.
As he watched helpless, the thick, frowning lips parted to form sounds―two deep, resonant words only: "Phang Loon."
Chapter 9
Castle of the Warlord
Reality was a single throbbing note, pulsing faintly at first, then expanding rapidly to a vast, unimaginable volume. Abruptly it burst and flew apart into flocks of scattering echoes. Some of the shards tangibly grazed Conan's head, flurrying past him and fluttering around his ears like soft-bristled bats.
Groaning, enmired in silky, yielding cushions, Conan raised his arms to ward off the disturbance. Groggily he blinked open his sleep-encrusted eyes. Before him in an arching, lacquered frame hung a brazen gong, man-high and still shimmering with concentric waves of diminishing sound. Before it stood the stocky torturer Sool, just setting down a pair of velvet-covered hammers. He turned. Acknowledging Conan's stare with a tight, contemptuous smile, he folded his arms and waited in silent attendance beside the reverberating gong.
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