'Do you seek a ship, gentlemen?' he said in a purring voice. The Northman rumbled-with suspicion, but the catlike stranger, whose face was still concealed in his hood, placed both gloved hands upon the table, clear of any weapons.
`I could not but help overhear some of your talk' the intruder said smoothly. 'Pray forgive this intrusion, but if you will spare me a few moments, I think we can discuss business to our mutual advantage.'
Sigurd eyed him dubiously but grunted with curiosity. Conan fixed the man with a level, noncommittal stare. 'Speak up, then,' he growled. 'Say your piece.'
The other nodded with a polite half-bow. 'Unless I misunderstood the little I overheard, I believe that both of you are old seamen, now thinking of taking ship and resuming a career out of the - ah - Pirate Isles? No, fear not.' He raised a placating hand. 'I am no spying informer, no police agent - but I may be able to finance you in the purchase of a suitable vessel.'
Swift as a striking serpent, the stranger's lean hand vanished into his cloak and reappeared to spill a handful of glittering stones on the wine-ringed wood between them. Winking up in the ruddy firelight lay a princeling's ransom in sapphires blue as the southern seas, emeralds like cat's eyes glowing in the dark, topazes and zircons as yellow as a Khitan's skin, and rubies as scarlet as fresh-spilt blood.
Conan, unimpressed, fixed the stranger with a suspicious glare. 'First,' he growled, 'I want to know who in Crom's name you are. Curse it, I take no gift from a man who hides his face even here in an Argossean inn, with King Ariostro's guardsmen on every street, making the city so safe a juicy wench can walk the length of the waterfront unmolested!'
With a smile in his purring voice, the stranger replied: `I thank you for the implied compliment, seaman! I hide my face here for good reason, as Argos-folk know my features all too well.'
'Well then, your name!' rumbled Conan. 'Or I'll pitch you across the room as I did that fat-arsed bully.'
'Gladly, to put you at your ease,' the other laughed. Drawing himself up a little, he said softly: 'Know, sailor, that I am Ariostro, king of Argos!'
Conan grunted with astonishment. The stranger drew off one of his gloves and extended the bare hand. The ancient royal seal ring of the Argossean monarchy blazed in the firelight with the brilliance of the huge diamond in which the royal sigil was cut.
CHAPTER FOUR
SCARLET TORTAGE
Black waves break on the wet, black shore
In a thunder of shattering spray -
But what care we if the storm gods roar,
And lash at the pane and claw at the door.,
And we sail at the break of day ?
A lone gull cries like a poor, damned soul
That the waves have washed away -
But what care we if the cold seas roll?
There's ale in the cup and wine in the bowl,
And the dawn is hours away!
- Barachan pirate chant
Tortage roared defiance to the stars. In a cup of rocky cliffs, the pirate port blazed with light and resounded with roaring song, for the Red Brotherhood was in. Tall caracks and slim caravels bobbed at their moorings along the stone quays and wooden piers or lay at anchor in the harbor. Every alehouse, wine shop, inn, and brothel did a roaring business, when half the freebooters of the Western Sea swaggered through the cobbled alleys of red Tortage with pouches bursting with gold, bellies bulging with beer and ale, and hearts inflamed by lust and truculence.
Wine-shop signs, blazoned with skulls, torches, crossed scimitars, dragons, gryphons, crowned heads, and other devices swung creakingly in the stiff sea wind. Surf boomed as it broke at the foot of the cliffs that loomed against the stars above the little town.
Salt spray exploded against the docks, and the whistling wind carried its warm, salt splatter through the crooked streets that wound past low, flat-roofed houses, walled with whitewashed stucco, with iron grilles over their windows. The wind made the fronds of the palm trees lash like fly whisks against the dancing stars above.
For two hundred years and more, the little town in the cliff-walled cove had been the capital of a pirate empire that scourged the seas between Pictland and Rush. Here no law ruled but the rude and simple pact of the Brotherhood. Beyond that,, the only law was the fist, the knife, the sword, and the skill of the battler.
Tonight the pirate city was ablaze with roaring mirth and song. Duels over some slight, real or fancied, exploded in the streets. Rings of shouting men gathered about the cursing duellists, who fought to the death over an accidental shove, a trivial insult, or the favors of some red-lipped, hip-swinging wench. This was a night to remember. The ships were in, their holds gorged with treasure - the loot of the merchant fleets of the southern seas. And Amra the Lion had returned!
Thirty years had not yet buried his portentous name in forgetfulness. On the contrary, the passage of time had only added fresh luster to the legends of his swashbuckling days, in the wild times of Belit, the Shemitish she-pirate, and Red Ortho, and grim Zaporavo of Zingara. In those distant days, when Vilerus and then Numedides had reigned in Aquilonia, Conan had come among them - first as Belit's partner in command of a bloodthirsty crew of black corsairs; then, years later, as a pirate of the Barachas and a leader of Zingaran buccaneers.
For several years off and on, his ships - the galley Tigress, the caravel Red Lion, and the carack Wastrel -had sailed the seas, returning heavy-laden with treasure.
For a time Amra, as some called him, or Conan, as he was known to others, had stood tall among the captains of the Red Brotherhood. But then he had vanished into the little-known lands of the interior and was heard of on the Main no more. Tales and legends spread from these inland realms of a wild, unconquerable warrior-king named Conan, but few of his old seafaring comrades -even those who had known Conan by that name - recognized, in the inland monarch, the Cimmerian pirate of former days. Thus Amra became a myth of that fading past.
But now he stood among them, towering up into the flaring orange light of torches, with the salt sea wind tugging at his gray mane and iron-hued beard. Torchlight winked and sparkled on the coat of chain mail that clothed his massive arms and torso. His great black cloak streamed behind him, billowing like the wings of some gigantic bird of prey.
Conan stood atop a stone bench in the midst of the' port city's main square, and his voice rose like a trumpet above the murmur of the throng. It filled their lawless hearts with echoes of splendid deeds and epic battles of long ago and the promise of stupendous enterprises yet to come. For Amra the Lion had swaggered out of the mists of legend to recruit a crew for some unknown venture into the Western Sea. Into that wind-lashed waste of waters, no ship had ventured in the memory of man. Who but Amra would dare to dream of so fantastic an adventure ?
They stood gaping as his words intoxicated them, for the wild and lawless magic of his own heroic sprint was as contagious as fire in tinder. Gold and gems he promised them, wealth and glory, and the fame of a great adventure into the Unknown, among new seas, forgotten isles, and strange peoples. They should venture into the deeps of nameless seas, whence they would emerge, not as lawless of legend would beguile soft wenches and win immortal fame in songs and epics for aeons to come.
And there at anchor rode Amra's ship - a stout, deep-bellied carack called the Red Lion, like Amra's caravel of former times.
Conan did not reveal all the story. He did not tell them of King Ariostro of Argos, whose gems had purchased the mighty vessel. And why frighten them away with tales of the Red Shadows and the weird apparition of Epemitreus, the long-dead prophet?
For, just as the Terror had carried away hundreds of Conan's subjects, so the mysterious curse had struck at the citizens of Argos. Ariostro's court magicians and seers had read the omens of the stars. They had opened certain long-undisturbed books of magical lore and told their king that the Red Shadows struck from some unknown realm beyond the mysterious Western Ocean.
Ship after ship had the shrewd and able king of
Argos launched into the Western Sea, but none had ever returned with a clue to the mystery. At length, even his navy grew nervous at the hint of further ventures into the unknown West, But still the Red Shadows struck and slew, and the kingdom hovered on the edge of mutiny and rebellion.
So, venturing into the streets of Messantia in disguise, King Ariostro had searched for reckless master mariners whom he might persuade to undertake the adventure. For this last desperate gamble, he had found the men he sought in Conan the Cimmerian - whose identity he quickly divined, although he was too discreet to betray the fact - and Sigurd Redbeard, the bluff and hearty old sea rover from distant Vanaheim. With his gems,, they had bought the powerful carack and were now come into port to enlist a crew of lawless rogues from among the Barachan pirates.
Some of the faces among the throng were known to Conan from his pirate days of old, and to them he spoke out boldly. One gigantic, grinning black from the southern jungles caught his eye. He thrust out an arm toward the majestic Kushite, whose bare arms gleamed like oiled ebony in the orange light of the blown torches, and whose bulbous mass of kinky black hair was streaked with gray.
'You know me, Yasunga!' he thundered. 'You were but a lad when I roved the black coast, years and years ago by the side of your bold mistress, Belit. What of you ? Will you join my venture?'
Yasunga threw up his long, black arms with a shout of joy. `Ya Amra! Amra!' he roared, drunken with old memories.
'Back, you black dog!' snarled a voice in chill, deadly tones, as a sum, deadly form thrust itself in front of the black and pushed him back into the crowd. The man turned to fix Conan with coldly venomous eyes.
Conan looked down at the newcomer with narrowing eyes., taking in the lean, sallow face with inky brows and thin lips, the slim, sinewy body in a breastplate of polished, gold-inlaid steel over black velvet, the diamonds flashing at earlobe and wrist, where a lean, strong hand jutted from amidst foaming lace to fondle the wen-worn hilt of a long cut-and-thrust rapier.
In a soft voice, whose lisping accents marked him for a Zingaran, the black-clad, sallow man addressed the crowd: 'Back to your kennels, dogs! Do you listen to the wild dreams of this crazy old fool, who has come out of nowhere to lure you with wild promises on a harebrained quest into the unknown? Mayhap this be the same Amra of whose deeds we have heard - and mayhap not. What matters it? Amra or no, this deluded old wolf has come amongst us to disrupt the Brotherhood. What care we for adventures and glory? We are practical men, earning our living from the sea, and to the eleven scarlet Hells with dream-befuddled heroes!'
He glared contemptuously at Conan. 'And seek not to lure my navigator, Yasunga, into your mad schemes, gray dog. I taught him the lore of sun and stars - and by Mitra, he stays with me: Black Alvaro, of the Falcon of Zingara! So up anchor and take your rotten carack back to whatever port of dreams you hale from. We have no room for your sort here.'
Alvaro had half turned to stride away through the muttering throng, when Conan's deep bellow of laughter stiffened him. Conan spat loudly.
'Old gray-dog is it, you girl-faced, fancy-clad, soft-gutted whelp of a nameless Kordavan gutter slut? I was a captain of the Coast when you were still puking up your mother's thin, sour milk. I was pouring half the gold of a dozen cities into the alleys of Tortage when you were still fondling boys in the back of a Zingaran whorehouse. If you've not guts for an honest venture, then slink back to your fetid kennel - but there are others here with more manhood in one hand than you have in your yellow-bellied body. I speak to them, not you. And, yes, I'm old - but I still know a trick or two, which I shall be pleased to show you if you like!'
Black Alvaro whirled with a curse, his rapier rasping out and glittering in the glare of the torches like a needle of fire. Whooping, the crowd formed a ring.
Conan tossed aside his bellying black cloak and drew his heavy Aquilonian broadsword. But, even before the blade cleared the scabbard or he could step down from the bench on which he stood3 Alvaro lunged with a dancer's grace.
The steel needle flicked out at Conan's unarmored face, but with one booted foot he kicked the lancing blade aside and sprang down from the bench. His sword sang from its worn leather sheath and rang like a bell as it met the Zingaran blade. Steel music clashed in the windy silence as the two combatants circled, advanced, retreated, cut, parried, and thrust. The torches sent their billowing shadows crawling over the walls of the nearest houses.
Men sucked in their breaths, for Alvaro of the Falcon was accounted the deadliest blade among the Isles - and Amra, gray with years, was an unknown adversary. They measured his towering bulk and mighty limbs against the lean, silken grace of the Zingaran and cast bets at wildly fluctuating odds.
Alvaro soon found that his singing blade could never quite dodge past Conan's guard. The great broadsword, made for smashing armor, seemed-ill-chosen for a fencing match against the lighter blade; it should have been slow and unwieldy. But in Conan's leathery hand it danced as lightly as a willow wand. Nor did the fiercely grinning old Cimmerian seem to tire from the heft of it. His arm seemed as tireless and rigid as an iron bar.
Sweat glistened on Alvaro's brow beneath his flying black ringlets. Sweat beaded his thin lips and trickled down his hollow cheeks. He knew that if blade ever met blade with full impact, his rapier would be shattered into flying fragments.
But Conan was not even trying to bring the full weight of his longsword to bear. Instead, with incredible ease, he wove a glittering wall of flying steel before him, through which the flashing point of the Zingaran's light blade could not gain entry. From time to time, Conan's grin broadened into deep laughter. He was playing with the agile but wearying Zingaran, and the chilling thought went through Alvaro that at any time the Cimmerian could beat his rapier aside and cut him down.
The crowd hung breathlessly on the ringing play of shimmering steel. Gradually they came to sense the same fact. Yasunga, the giant Kushite who had known Amra long before, started a chant, which soon rose from hundreds of throats, until it seemed to the gasping, sweating Alvaro that the square shook with its throbbing thunder: 'Am-ral Am-ra, Am-ral'
The pulsing cry rose and rose until it boomed like the pounding of the waves. The driving rhythm shook the little Zingaran's normally icy nerve. With one hand, Alvaro fumbled behind him, beneath his short mantle of black velvet. There, thrust through his girdle, a slim, wavy-bladed Shemite dagger was thrust for use on such occasions as this. His fingers drew the blade from its slender scabbard and palmed the hilt, so that the wary blade lay against his forearm.
Then he disengaged and sprang back several paces. He stood panting and disheveled, while Conan's flashing blade slowed to a halt.
'Had enough, black swine of Zingara?' the old wolf growled.
The dirk flashed in the torchlight as it whirled through the dark air toward Conan's bare throat. Without appearance of haste, Conan's left hand reached up and caught the dagger by its hilt, snatching it out of the air as it flew.
This amazing feat brought a roar from the throng. They had heard that the hillmen of fabulous eastern lands played the deadly game of plucking flying knives from the air, but never had they seen it done. None knew of the long years Conan had spent on the bleak steppes of Hyrkania, and amidst the coasts and isles of the Vilayet Sea, and in the towering Himelian Mountains, as nomad chief, pirate on an inland sea, and mercenary warrior. In those years he had mastered the use of the deadly Hyrkanian bow, the keen Zuagir tulwar, the dismembering Zhaibar knife, and other Eastern weaponry.
The shock of the deed glazed Alvaro's eyes with horror. The air seemed to stifle him. He tore open the lace collar above his cuirass and stood uncertainly, as if he knew not what to do next. Tension grew taut as a bowstring.
Then - Conan gave him back his knife. It flashed through the air and sank to the hilt in Alvaro's bare throat. For a moment the Zingaran stood on wavering legs, with his face as pale as a dish of curds and blood trickling down over his gleaming cuirass. Then he fell with a clan
g to the cobbles.
Conan tossed his great sword up, caught it again, and sheathed it. The crowd went wild with a thunderous cry: 'Am-ra! Am-ra! Am-ra!'
CHAPTER FIVE
THE BLACK KRAKEN
The Kraken lives, that anciently arose
from seething primal slime,
In lands long since submerged by time,
Beneath the gray, endragoned sea.
-- The Visions of Epemitreus
The Red Lion was three days out from the Barachan Isles when her people sighted the green galley.
It was dawn of the third day. Naked to the waist, with his heavy broadsword hanging at his side, Conan stood on the poop deck drinking deep of the clean salt wind. Spray had stiffened his mane and beard with salt. A sunrise of golden flame drenched the east with light and set the long, thin clouds afire. The brisk northeasterly trade wind sang in the carack's rigging and bellied out the broad sails above.
'Ho, Amra! Up with the dawn, eh?' boomed a deep voice. Conan turned to see Sigurd standing spraddle-legged at the rail, roaring with good humor. The wind ruffled his naming bush of beard and stung his apple-red cheeks to an even ruddier hue. It spread the wings of his billowing crimson cloak, which had once adorned the back of a pompous Zingaran admiral.
Conan grinned at the spectacle the bluff old Northman made. The golden thread that covered his cloak with embroidered arabesques was worn and tarnished, and several of the big, ornate ivory buttons were missing. A sash of many dashing colors, which bristled with the usual half -dozen jeweled dirks, bludgeons, and a huge scimitar with a notched blade, girdled Sigurd's massive belly. Under the vast cloak, the old Vanr wore a patched, torn white blouse, spotted with wine stains and gravy. It was open to the navel, and through the opening bristled the silver-shot red fur that thatched the Northman's chest. A gaudy scarlet kerchief was wound about his bald head, and glittering hoops of gold wobbled from each ear.
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