So the down-at-heels young nobles of Villagro's following got a surprise when they swarmed in on Conan, expecting to feint the loutish barbarian out of position and skewer him as easily as impaling an apple with a dagger. Despite Conan's size and the weight of his blade, he easily thwarted their attacks. He countered their most subtle one-twos, doubles, binds., and coupes and stretched them, one after another, lifeless or gravely wounded on the bloody pave.
Appalled, the young bluebloods fell back be-fore this astounding giant who fought like a tiger and a tornado rolled into one.
Then a tall, slim figure in black velvet thrust its way through the press, and Black Zarono faced Conan sword to sword. Conan bled from several small cuts but wielded his blade as lightly as ever.
Zarono was no coward, but a ruthless, hard-bitten fighter. A dastard he was, but nobody had questioned his courage and lived. On the other hand, he was a shrewd, calculating man with an eye to the main chance. Had he thought more clearly, he would perhaps have refrained from facing Conan personally. But he was filled with a blazing hatred of Conan, who had thwarted him several times and whom he perversely blamed for the fall of his patron Villagro and the precarious state of his own fortunes. He had itched for revenge ever since that scuffle in the Nine Drawn Swords, when Conan's fist had all but knocked the head from his shoulders.
Zarono had no illusions about the gratitude that he could expect from Thoth-Amon, should the Stygian make good his claim to the Zingaran throne. All the posts of real power and wealth would doubtless go to Stygian priests of Set.
But Thoth-Amon would probably condescend to allow Zarono some employment to live by; whereas, if the partisans of the old dynasty won, Zarono could look forward to nothing better than the ax and block.
Zarono's rapier―a heavier blade than most of the slender court swords wielded by Zarono's partisans ―clanged against Conan's cutlass. Zarono made a dexterous pass at Conan, but the Cimmerian beat it off. Conan in turn feinted and aimed a fierce downward cut at Zarono's head; Zarono slipped to one side, and the cutlass skittered off his blade with a rasp of steel.
All around swirled the battle. More men had fallen, until the chamber had become a shambles. The numbers of Zarono's partisans began to tell. The loyalists were separated into two groups and driven back, one to the foot of the stairs down which Conan had come; the other, with the tottering old long in their midst, back into a corner.
And still Conan and Zarono fought on. Zarono began to realize that his lust for battle with his personal enemy had led him into an error. For, while his skill as a swordsman equaled Conan's, his arm did not have quite the Cimmerian's incredible strength and tireless dexterity. He began to tire, but fury and rancor kept him grimly at his task. He would slay the giant barbarian or die trying.
Meanwhile Thoth-Amon, imperturbable as ever, stepped down from the dais.
Avoiding the knots of fighters, he walked calmly across the blood-wet, corpse-littered floor to where the Cobra Crown lay unheeded on the marble.
Several times he passed within easy reach of one or another of Conan's partisans, but none ever sought to strike at him. It was as if he were invisible to them.
The fact was that, while they could see him plainly, he used his mental powers to deprive them of all will to harm him. So preoccupied was he with thus psychically guarding his own person that he had no attention left over to try to seize control of the minds of Conan and other leaders of the opposing faction.
Nor could he, without his magical apparatus and without the quiet and solitude required for major magical works, perform any great thau-maturgies. Having discharged his green ray, he would not be able to use it again for hours.
Thoth-Amon indifferently passed the sprawled body of Menkara, slain by a chance thrust from an unknown hand. Reaching the Crown, the great Stygian stooped and picked it up. It was still hot to the touch, but Thoth-Amon grasped it firmly without sign of pain or damage. He turned it over, quickly examining it. Then, with a guttural curse, he tossed it aside as one would discard a useless bauble.
At that instant, another chorus of shouts came from above. The rest of Conan's crew, with Zeltran and Sigurd at their head, poured down the stairs, brandishing pikes and cutlasses. When Conan had set out with Ninus to the palace, he had sent Sigurd back to the ship, with instructions, obtained from Ninus, to enable the other Wastrels to follow him and to gain access to the palace by the secret tunnel known to Ninus.
These reinforcements instantly changed the aspect of the battle. The loyalists who had been driven back to the base of the stairs now pushed out again. The front of the Stygian party crumbled before the thrust. Conan and Zarono were borne along in the rush, losing contact.
Not yet resigned to giving up his battle with Conan, Zarono elbowed and struggled to keep his feet. As the press opened out, he felt a powerful grip on his sword arm. He tried to shake it off before he realized that it was Thoth-Amon who gripped him.
"It is time to cut our losses," shouted the Stygian over the din. "The Crown is ruined―burnt out."
"Let me gol" cried Zarono angrily. "We still have a good chance, and 111 kill that swine yet!"
"The gods have ordained that Conan shall win this time."
"How do know you?"
Thoth-Amon shrugged. "I know many things. I go; stay or follow, as you please."
The Stygian turned away and started for the doorway. Zarono half-reluctantly foDowed him.
"Holdl" bellowed Conan's voice. "You two dogs shan't get away so easily!"
Struggling out of a tangle of fighters, Conan rushed toward the departing pair, streaming blood from minor wounds and whirling his bloody cutlass.
Thoth-Amon raised an eyebrow. "Barbarian, you begin to weary me." The Stygian pointed the middle finger of his left hand―the one that bore a massive copper ring in the form of a serpent holding its tail in i its mouth―toward a tapestry that hung between two of the narrow windows. "N' ghokh-ghaa nafayak fthangugl Vgoh nyekhl"
The tapestry seemed to come alive. It rippled, billowed, and tore loose from its attachments with a ripping sound. Like some colossal bat, it swooped out from the wall over the heads of the battlers. Arriving directly over Conan, it dropped straight down, enveloping him in its folds.
"Now hasten, if you would not be shortened by a head," said Thoth-Amon to Zarono.
Seconds later, when Conan had struggled and slashed his way out from beneath the tapestry, Thoth-Amon and Zarono had vanished. All around, their followers, deserted by their leaders, were throwing down their weapons in surrender.
Cutlass in hand, Conan raced out the doorway and through the vestibule to the main entrance. He arrived to hear the galloping hoofbeats of the fugitives dwindling away to silence.
The dawn wind blew fresh and lusty. Salt spray rode upon it, and it stretched taut the booming sails of the Wastrel as she cleared the harbor of Kordava and pointed her prow to the open sea.
On the quarterdeck, newly cropped and shaven and clad in new gear, from plumed hat to shiny jackboots, Conan filled his lungs with a gusty sigh of contentment.
Enough of these stinking magical spells, this battling with insubstantial shadows! Give him a stout ship and a crew of hearty cutthroats, a sword at his side, and a treasure to win, and he had all he wanted of the joys of the earth.
"By the teats of Ishtar and the privates of Nergal, shipmate, but I still think ye be stark, staring mad!" grumbled Sigurd the Vanr.
"Why? Because I wouldn't let Chabela marry me?" Conan grinned.
The redbearded Northman nodded. "She's a fine, round, bouncing lass, who'd bear you strong sons; and the throne of Zingara is yours for the asking. Surely, after all the excitement, old King Ferdrugo will not last much longer. Then the lass will inherit crown and kingdom and all!"
"Ill be no queen's consort, thank you," growled Conan. "I had my fill of that life in Gamburu, having no choice in the matter. And Nzinga was a lusty, strapping wench, not a silly, romantical child half my age. Besides, Ferd
rugo may last longer than you think. Now that his wits are no longer befuddled by Stygian spells, he looks ten years younger and goes about his business in proper kingly fashion. The first thing he did was to annul that mad proclamation, abdicating and wedding Chabela to Thoth-Amon.
"As for Chabela―well, I like the child; I even love her in a fatherly sort of way. Betwixt you and me, I might even have taken up her offer, if I hadn't had an advance view of my fate."
-How so?"
" Twas during the days following the battle, when my cuts were healing. I dined several times with the long and his daughter, and Chabela filled my ears with her plans for making me over. My speech, my dress, my table manners, my ideas of pleasure―all were to be changed. I was to become the perfect Zingaran gentleman, waving a scented handkerchief before my nose whilst I watched the royal ballet troupe go through its gyrations.
"Now, I may not be so wise as Godrigo, the king's pet philosopher; but I know what I like. Nay, Sigurd, 111 win myself a throne some day, Crom willing; but 'twill most likely be at the point of a sword, not as a wedding gift.
"Meanwhile, Ferdrugo has been generous to a fault. He gave me the Cobra Crown, which I have earning usuary with Julio the goldsmith; that's where this new rigging and the new equipment for the lads came from. Conan chuckled. "Here I am, not yet forty, and already I'm becoming a penny-pinching money-grubber! I'd better be about the proper business of a buccaneer ere it's too late, and I turn into a potbellied miser.
"Kingdom-saving is no proper work for honest rogues like us, and doubtless there'll be plenty of fat-bellied merchantment sailing from Argos and Shem.
Leave off your mooning over my refusal of the offer of a moonstruck girl, and let's think of business. Come look at the charts in my cabin." He raised his voice. "Master ZeltranI Join us in the cabin, if you please."
Conan strode away. For a moment, the big read-beard stared after him open-mouthed. Then he lifted his hands in a shrug of despair and followed his captain.
"By Llyr's green beard and Thor's hammer," he groaned, "but there be just no arguing with a Cimmerian!'
The rigging creaked, the bow wave soughed, and the gulls squealed as the Wastrel sailed southward, bearing Conan to new adventures.
Red Nails
Chapter 1 The Skull on the Crag
The woman on the horse reined in her weary steed. It stood with its legs wide-braced, its head drooping, as if it found even the weight of the gold-tassled, red-leather bridle too heavy. The woman drew a booted foot out of the silver stirrup and swung down from the gilt-worked saddle. She made the reins fast to the fork of a sapling, and turned about, hands on her hips, to survey her surroundings.
They were not inviting. Giant trees hemmed in the small pool where her horse had just drunk. Clumps of undergrowth limited the vision that quested under the somber twilight of the lofty arches formed by intertwining branches. The woman shivered with a twitch of her magnificent shoulders, and then cursed.
She was tall, full-bosomed and large-limbed, with compact shoulders. Her whole figure reflected an unusual strength, without detracting from the femininity of her appearance. She was all woman, in spite of her bearing and her garments. The latter were incongruous, a view of her present environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches, which ceased a hand's breadth short of her knees, and were upheld by a wide silken sash worn as a girdle. Flaring-topped boots of soft leather came almost to her knees, and a low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved silk shirt completed her costume. On one shapely hip she wore a straight double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden hair, cut square at her shoulders, was confined by a band of crimson satin.
Against the background of somber, primitive forest she posed with an unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place.
She should have been posed against a background of sea-clouds, painted masts and wheeling gulls. There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes. And that was as it should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, whose deeds are celebrated in song and ballad wherever seafarers gather.
She strove to pierce the sullen green roof of the arched branches and see the sky which presumably lay about it, but presently gave it up with a muttered oath.
Leaving her horse tied she strode off toward the east, glancing back toward the pool from time to time in order to fix her route in her mind. The silence of the forest depressed her. No birds sang in the lofty boughs, nor did any rustling in the bushes indicate the presence of any small animals. For leagues she had traveled in a realm of brooding stillness, broken only by the sounds of her own flight.
She had slaked her thirst at the pool, but she felt the gnawings of hunger and began looking about for some of the fruit on which she had sustained herself since exhausting the food she had brought in her saddlebags.
Ahead of her, presently, she saw an outcropping of dark, flint-like rock that sloped upward into what looked like a rugged crag rising among the trees. Its summit was lost to view amidst a cloud of encircling leaves. Perhaps its peak rose above the tree-tops, and from it she could see what lay beyond - if, indeed, anything lay beyond but more of this apparently illimitable forest through which she had ridden for so many days.
A narrow ridge formed a natural ramp that led up the steep face of the crag. After she had ascended some fifty feet she came to the belt of leaves that surrounded the rock. The trunks of the trees did not crowd close to the crag, but the ends of their lower branches extended about it, veiling it with their foliage. She groped on in leafy obscurity, not able to see either above or below her; but presently she glimpsed blue sky, and a moment later came out in the clear, hot sunlight and saw the forest roof stretching away under her feet.
She was standing on a broad shelf which was about even with the tree-tops, and from it rose a spire-like jut that was the ultimate peak of the crag she had climbed. But something else caught her attention in the litter of blown dead leaves which carpeted the shelf. She kicked them aside and looked down on the skeleton of a man. She ran an experienced eye over the bleached frame, but saw no broken bones nor any sign of violence. The man must have died a natural death; though why he should have climbed a tall crag to die she could not imagine.
She scrambled up to the summit of the spire and looked toward the horizons. The forest roof - which looked like a floor from her vantage-point - was just as impenetrable as from below. She could not even see the pool by which she had left her horse. She glanced northward, in the direction from which she had come. She saw only the rolling green ocean stretching away and away, with only a vague blue line in the distance to hint of the hill-range she had crossed days before, to plunge into this leafy waste.
West and east the view was the same; though the blue hipline was lacking in those directions. But when she turned her eyes southward she stiffened and caught her breath. A mile away in that direction the forest thinned out and ceased abruptly, giving way to a cactus-dotted plain. And in the midst of that plain rose the walls and towers of a city. Valeria swore in amazement. This passed belief. She would not have been surprised to sight human habitations of another sort - the beehive-shaped huts of the black people, or the cliff-dwellings of the mysterious brown race which legends declared inhabited some country of this unexplored region. But it was a startling experience to come upon a walled city here so many long weeks" march from the nearest outposts of any sort of civilization.
Her hands tiring from clinging to the spire-like pinnacle, she let herself down on the shelf, frowning in indecision. She had come far - from the camp of the mercenaries by the border town of Sukhmet amidst the level grasslands, where desperate adventurers of many races guard the Stygian frontier against the raids that come up like a red wave from Darfar. Her flight had been blind, into a country of which she was wholly ignorant. And now she wavered between an urge to ride directly to that city in the plain, and the instinct of caution which prompted her to skirt it widely and continue her solitary fligh
t.
Her thoughts were scattered by the rustling of the leaves below her. She wheeled cat-like, snatched at her sword; and then she froze motionless, staring wide-eyed at the man before her.
He was almost a giant in stature, muscles rippling smoothly under his skin which the sun had burned brown. His garb was similar to hers, except that he wore a broad leather belt instead of a girdle. Broadsword and poniard hung from this belt.
"Conan, the Cimmerian!" ejaculated the woman. "What are you doing on my trail?"
He grinned hardly, and his fierce blue eyes burned with a light any woman could understand as they ran over her magnificent figure, lingering on the swell of her splendid breasts beneath the light shirt, and the clear white flesh displayed between breeches and boot-tops.
"Don't you know?" he laughed. "Haven't I made my admiration for you plain ever since I first saw you?"
"A stallion could have made it no plainer," she answered disdainfully. "But I never expected to encounter you so far from the ale-barrels and meat-pots of Sukhmet. Did you really follow me from Zarallo's camp, or were you whipped forth for a rogue?"
He laughed at her insolence and flexed his mighty biceps.
"You know Zarallo didn't have enough knaves to whip me out of camp," he grinned. "Of course I followed you. Lucky thing for you, too, wench! When you knifed that Stygian officer, you forfeited Zarallo's favor and protection, and you outlawed yourself with the Stygians."
"I know it," she replied sullenly. "But what else could I do? You know what my provocation was."
"Sure," he agreed. "If I'd been there, I'd have knifed him myself. But if a woman must live in the war-camps of men, she can expect such things."
Valeria stamped her booted foot and swore.
"Why won't men let me live a man's life?"
"That's obvious!" Again his eager eyes devoured her. "But you were wise to run away. The Stygians would have had you skinned. That officer's brother followed you; faster than you thought, I don't doubt. He wasn't far behind you when I caught up with him. His horse was better than yours. He'd have caught you and cut your throat within a few more miles."
The Conan Compendium Page 589
