Temoten spared a brief glance at the lady's hulking escorts before returning his gaze to enough gold to keep him living in comfort for the better part of a year.
"Only a very great fool, indeed," he breathed. "To nine hells with it.
Let's go. What right do the stinking Stygians have to command a free Shemite anyway?"
"None at all, I should think," smiled Zelandra. "Now where can we find your ferryboat?"
The boat was moored to a rotting dock behind Temoten's one-room hut on the outskirts of Aswana. It was a once-elegant vessel of sturdy cedar about twenty-four feet from stem to stern. A single, slim mast rose above the deck, bearing a furled sail of faded yellow. A tattered ox-hide canopy mounted just ahead of the long steering oar offered the craft's only shelter from the sun. When Heng Shih came around the corner of Temoten's hut and saw the boat for the first time, he touched Zelandra's shoulder and communicated with her in a swift passage of sign language.
"My friends," called Lady Zelandra, "Heng Shih points out that there is no room in the ferry for our mounts."
Conan, pulling the saddle and saddlebags from his horse, spoke up: "That's just as well, milady. Camels are a superior mount for desert travel, anyway. Perhaps you and Heng Shih would take the horses into the city and sell them."
Zelandra raised dark eyebrows. "Are you leading this company now, barbarian?"
"No offense intended, milady, but we could use the gold earned from their sale to purchase camels in Bel-Phar."
"That sounds suitable," said the sorceress reluctantly, "but I am scarcely a bargain-mongering trader."
"You bargained me into this expedition easily enough. Just have Heng Shih stare at them if they try to swindle you. I'll wager that you'll get an excellent price."
"Very well. Temoten, is there a worthy dealer in horseflesh in the city?"
The ferryman, standing on the dock, nodded vigorously.
"Yes, mistress, my late wife's cousin, Nephtah, deals in horses and mules. You will find him at the northeast corner of the market square.
Tell him that I sent you and he will treat you as his family."
The remaining saddles and packs were removed from the horses. Zelandra and Heng Shih mounted up, leading the string of riderless animals behind them. The Khitan looked back over his heavy shoulder and fixed his narrowed eyes upon the Cimmerian, who was busily loading saddlebags and provisions onto the boat. Conan heaped the stuff on the worn, red-painted planks of the deck beneath the ox-hide canopy as Zelandra and her bodyguard rode slowly out of sight.
Temoten leaned on one of the dock's cracked pilings, studiously examining the dirty fingernails of his left hand and making no effort to assist the Cimmerian.
"So, Outlander, you seem to know your way around a boat."
Conan stacked a packed saddlebag atop the pile he had built beneath the canopy. "I have some acquaintance with such things," he said quietly.
"Then you can steer, raise a sail, and the like?"
"I see that this craft would be difficult to run single-handed, Temoten. Do not fear, I shall help you get us across the river."
The ferryman looked disgruntled, but kept his silence, staring off into the reedy shallows. Neesa struggled down the sagging dock under the weight of a double waterskin, which Conan took from her and heaved into the boat. She then leapt nimbly onto the rear deck, catching the haft of the steering oar. Clinging to it for support, she leaned out over the vessel's side, gazing across the Styx with the wind in her thick, black hair.
In a moment Conan joined her. The broad, sunstruck river stretched away, flecked with distant skiffs full of fishermen plying their trade.
The air blowing in off the water was fresh and invigorating.
"It's beautiful," said Neesa dreamily. "I've never seen the Styx before. I haven't even been out of Akkharia since I was a child."
"Crom," said Conan in a strangely gentle tone, "that's no way to live.
You have but one life and one world to live it in. Surely you should experience both as well as you are able. Ymir's beard, I'd go mad if I were cooped up in a single city all my life."
Neesa looked up at him, her black eyes afire with honesty. "I know it's wrong to say it, Conan, but this journey seems the finest thing I have ever done. All of my life I have been grateful to Lady Zelandra for her shelter from the world, and now I find that I am enjoying myself on a voyage made in the shadow of her death."
Conan turned his grim face to the wind. "All journeys are made in the shadow of death," he said simply. "Live now, and know that you will struggle with death when it comes."
The woman stepped into Conan's arms, pressing her lush body against him with feverish intensity. The barbarian, taken aback by her fervency, cupped a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his. Tears glimmered in her dark eyes.
"Kiss me," she whispered, and Conan crushed her mouth beneath his own, drawing her into an even closer embrace. After a moment one iron arm encircled her waist as the other swept under her knees and lifted her free of the deck. The kiss broke as the Cimmerian carried her to the canopy that covered their belongings. Neesa saw that he had built a hollow in the center of the pile and spread a blanket therein.
"Oh," she said huskily, "you think of everything." Conan ducked beneath the canopy and gently placed her in the hidden nest of blankets.
"Why do you think I sent those two to town?" he asked, but he gave her no chance to answer.
Out on the dock, Temoten looked from the boat back to his dirty fingernails. With a wistful sigh he turned toward his hut and went inside, looking for a drink.
Chapter Eighteen
-
The boat surged through the water, foam purling along its prow. The Styx shone a rich blue beneath the clear sky of afternoon. Small fishing boats made from bundles of papyrus reeds traveled in pairs, trolling nets between them. The busy fishermen paid little heed to Temoten's ferry; yet the ferryman seemed to grow markedly less nervous once they left the fishing boats behind and sailed out beyond the river's midpoint. The patched sail bellied full as Temoten leaned into the steering oar. Beside him, on the rear deck, Conan and Heng Shih relaxed, the barbarian sprawling along the gunwale and the Khitan sitting cross-legged, his face to the sun. Beneath the flapping ox-hide canopy, Lady Zelandra and Neesa sat in, the shade and conversed in low tones.
The trio on the rear deck traveled in silence for some time. Temoten's curious gaze returned repeatedly to Heng Shih, sitting shirtless beside him, his yellow skin gleaming with perspiration.
"Does your friend speak at all?" the ferryman finally asked Conan, who grinned and stretched like a cat in the sunshine. Heng Shih did not open his eyes.
"He is a mute, though he speaks to Lady Zelandra with hand-language."
"What¦" Temoten paused, then screwed up his courage. "What manner of man is he?"
Conan thought that he saw Heng Shih's eyes glimmer beneath slitted lids. "A Khitan from the distant east."
"I have never seen his like. Are all men of that country so big and fat?"
Now Conan was certain that Heng Shih's eyes drew open a crack. "Not at all," said the Cimmerian dryly. "He is truly exceptional in that regard."
Temoten said nothing for a time, clinging to the steering oar and looking off to the hazy outline of the far shore. Conan could sense further questions troubling the ferryman and was not surprised when a few moments later Temoten spoke again.
"Why are you in such a hurry to cross the Styx, Conan? And why pay me so much to take you? Are you fugitives? Does the Lady Zelandra flee enemies, perhaps?" The words came quickly until Temoten bit them off.
"Not that it is any of my concern," he added, shamefaced.
"Temoten," said Conan seriously, "Heng Shih is a Khitan and Khitans are cannibals. They eat the curious."
At this Heng Shih opened his eyes and squinted at the barbarian; then he turned to the ferryman. Looking up at him, the Khitan slowly and ominously licked his lips.
"My apologie
s, friends," stammered Temoten.
The remainder of the crossing was made in silence. Conan napped, a bronzed arm thrown over his eyes, until he was prodded awake by Temoten, who needed help to furl the sail.
The city of Bel-Phar was even smaller than Aswana. Its waterfront lay somnolently along a raised foundation of mammoth stone blocks. The Stygians were fond of cyclopean architecture; and it was a rare city of Stygia that did not show some evidence of this fondness. The stained and eroded stone docks of Bel-Phar thrust out into the eternally passing Styx. Papyrus boats of all sizes, and even a few luxurious wooden dhows, were moored in clusters about them. The center of the waterfront appeared to be an open bazaar full of milling people and animals. Temoten wrenched the tiller about, steering his ferry left and to the east.
"Fewer people around the eastern docks," he said half to himself.
"Conan, can you¦"
But the big Cimmerian was already moving toward the prow of the boat, bending to catch up a long, wooden pole that lay along the starboard gunwale. Heng Shih lifted the pole on the boat's port side and Temoten nodded his disheveled gray head in approval.
The sun had begun its slow fall to the west and shadows appeared in the white city before them. The rolling Styx had gradually dimmed from transparent blue to a murky violet. The docks hove closer as the ferryman steered his vessel to their eastern extremity.
Conan and Heng Shih drove their poles against the oncoming dock, slowing their progress and letting the ferry slide smoothly into place beside a worn stair carved into a solid block of stone. Temoten scrambled forward, snatching a looped line and casting it neatly over a bronze stay set in the dock. The man was suddenly very animated.
"All right, then. Let's move. I've fulfilled my part of the bargain.
Let's see you off." He dragged a bulky pack from beneath the canopy and heaved it over a bony shoulder. With his eager assistance, Conan and Heng Shih soon had all their provisions piled upon the dock.
"We'll have to leave this here and go into the market for camels and water," said Conan. "Temoten, will you stay and watch over our belongings?"
"Stay?" burst out the ferryman incredulously. "I'm leaving as swiftly as I can push off."
"I'll stay," volunteered Neesa. "I feel somewhat poorly after the crossing anyway."
Lady Zelandra, Conan, and Heng Shih headed down the dock, leaving Neesa perched atop the heap of baggage. Temoten hesitated at the top of the stone stair.
"Farewell, mistress," he called hesitantly. "Farewell, Conan and Heng Shih." Zelandra turned without breaking stride and waved.
"A good wind to you," shouted Conan, raising a hand. Heng Shih did not even look back.
Bel-Phar's entire waterfront was paved with wide plates of stone.
Though the buildings were almost identical to those of Aswana, the atmosphere of the city was much more subdued. The quiet warehouses at the base of the dock were soon replaced by open shops and then the central market itself. The market was busy, if not overly crowded; but its customers seemed warier and less outgoing than their counterparts across the Styx. A stable of camels was located shortly, and Lady Zelandra was immediately joined in friendly argument with its wizened, one-eyed proprietor. Conan, who had been prepared to do the bartering, found himself standing to one side while the sorceress examined the proffered beasts and made derisive comments about each one in turn in fluent Stygian. The little proprietor rose to the occasion, rubbing his hands together with unconcealed delight and chattering pained protests of her harsh judgments. It seemed to Conan that this was set to go on for some time, so he cast his eyes about for a likely tavern.
Out of the moving throng of the marketplace Neesa came running. There was such urgency in her movements that Conan froze. She stumbled to a halt before him, her bosom rising and falling as she panted.
"Temoten," she gasped. "Stygian soldiers hailed him just as he was casting off. I walked right past them as they came down the dock. They didn't seem angry, but called out that they needed to see his ferryman's seal. Conan, their captain has a kind of bow
"How many?" said the barbarian in a low voice. His blue eyes kindled with a dangerous light.
"Five, I think. Six?" She lifted ivory hands helplessly. The Cimmerian pushed past her, stepping swiftly into the crowd. A voice rose behind him.
"Conan, no!" It was Lady Zelandra. But he was already running heedlessly through the market toward the docks. People either dodged or were thrust from the path of the tall outlander, who leapt over a vegetable cart in his headlong haste. Protesting outcries rang out in his wake but slowed him not at all.
At the foot of the dock six saddled camels waited restlessly. Out on the dock itself stood six Stygian soldiers of the border patrol, arrayed in gray silk and burnished mail. A pair were at the dock's far end, appraising Temoten's ferry. One of these rubbed a stubbled chin thoughtfully, as if gauging the craft's value. Two other soldiers were closer, bent over and arrogantly rummaging in the pile of provisions on the dock. The last two were closest, accosting Temoten. The taller of this pair wore the gilded gorget of an officer and was berating the ferryman scornfully. A small crossbow hung at the officer's belt. The other was a shirtless hulk of a man who brandished a heavy-bladed sword before Temoten's terrified eyes with sadistic relish.
Temoten made feeble protests, his lean frame trembling visibly. The tall officer seized the front of the ferryman's scruffy tunic in a mailed fist and jerked him forcibly to his knees. Temoten struggled to rise, and the captain abruptly drove a knee into his unprotected midsection, doubling the ferryman up in agony.
The officer stepped back and nodded perfunctorily to the shirtless soldier with the naked sword. The executioner flexed the thick muscles of his arms, raised the blade above his head and heard the sound of rapid footfalls behind him.
A length of silver steel sprang from the center of his bare breast. It caught the sun, throwing it back into his goggling eyes, then disappeared in a gout of bright blood. As the executioner sank down dying, Conan vaulted the body, whirling his stained broadsword, about his head.
The officer scrabbled desperately for his belted scimitar as the Cimmerian bore down upon him with terrible swiftness. He drove a booted foot into the captain's belly with lithe savagery, knocking the man from his feet and sending him skidding over the stones to the dock's edge.
The remaining soldiers scarcely had time to perceive the fate of their companions before the barbarian was among them like a wind hot from the mouth of hell. The first of the two men riffling through the heap of baggage managed to turn and get his sword half drawn before being cut down by a blow that split helmet and head. The other soldier among the packs got his blade free and lunged at Conan as the Cimmerian wheeled from his second kill. The Stygian's hasty, vicious thrust was hammered aside with such force that the sword was nearly torn from his grip.
Conan's return stroke was a blur of speed, bursting his foe's mail at the shoulder, shearing through the collarbone and lodging in the spine.
The barbarian yanked on the hilt, but found that his blade was stuck fast in the sagging body.
Seeing his weapon entrapped in the corpse of their comrade, the last two soldiers advanced toward Conan from their position at the dock's end. As they moved to attack him from two sides, the Cimmerian acted.
Gripping his hilt with both hands, the barbarian hoisted the dead man bodily over his head and hurled him off of his sword with a convulsive heave of his mighty shoulders. The torn corpse flopped on the stone at the soldiers' feet.
"Come join him in hell," snarled Conan in Stygian, his eyes aflame with unfettered bloodlust.
The soldiers were of two minds about this. The stout soldier on the left leapt over the bloody body of his fellow and engaged Conan, while his more gangly companion hesitated a moment before dodging around the combatants and sprinting away down the dock. If the fighter was dismayed by his erstwhile comrade's desertion, he didn't show it. He carried the fight to the barbarian, sending a
whistling series of expertly aimed blows at the Cimmerian's head and torso. The strident clangor of steel on steel rang out over the calm river. Their blades flickered and clashed in a dire but elegant dance of death. The Stygian rallied, driving Conan back among the scattered packs with a flurry of skillful cuts and slashes. The heel of the barbarian's boot trod upon the corner of a saddlebag, and he staggered, seeming to lose his balance. His arms shot out to steady himself, and his foe lunged in.
The stumble was a ruse. Conan abruptly dropped to one knee and brought his blade forward point-first. The Stygian's killing thrust drove him directly onto Conan's sword. The man was transfixed, his own blade passing harmlessly beside the barbarian's head.
For a suspended instant the tableau held; then the impaled soldier dropped his sword to clatter loudly on the stone, and Conan sensed movement behind him. Wrenching his weapon free of the, falling body, Conan spun about to see the Stygian captain advancing upon him with a small crossbow held cocked in shaking hands.
"Are you a demon?" choked the ashen-faced officer. "A bolt from my crossbow will send you back, to hell!"
As his fingers tightened on the crossbow's trigger, Conan dove headlong to the side, rolling over packs and saddlebags and sliding into a crouch.
But the captain had not fired. He pointed the crossbow steadily at the Cimmerian's breast. The barbarian's fingers sank into the cool leather of a waterskin. He gripped it, his mind in a split-second debate as to whether he should shield himself with the waterskin or hurl it at his foe.
"You're damned fast," said the officer, "but now
The Stygian's head shot from his shoulders on a jet of liquid scarlet.
It sailed through the summer air like a child's thrown ball, falling into the Styx with a hollow splash. The headless body stood in place for a moment, then collapsed bonelessly. Heng Shih stood behind the corpse. Bending ponderously, he wiped his flare-bladed scimitar upon the captain's silken breeches.
The Conan Compendium Page 437
