Conan and the Emerald Lotus Part 4

A woman stood stiffly in the hallway, looking at him.

"Hush!" Conan lowered his sword and lifted a finger to his lips. "I mean you no-"

The woman quickly reached a hand behind her dark nimbus of hair, then whipped the hand forward with all the strength of her arm and shoulders. A dagger shot toward Conan as swiftly and directly as a hurled dart.

"Crom!" The barbarian twisted his upper body so that the blade nicked his flapping sleeve in pa.s.sing rather than burying itself between his ribs. The dagger sank almost half its length into the wooden wall five paces behind him.

Conan lunged forward, covering the distance between himself and the woman in two great bounds. An outstretched forearm struck her across the collarbone, knocking her from her feet and sending her sprawling gracelessly on her back. The Cimmerian's sword made a short, blurred arc that stopped a hairsbreadth from her exposed neck. Cold, sharpened steel lay upon her pulsing throat.

"Hush," said Conan grimly.

"Miserable thief!" hissed the woman. "d.a.m.ned a.s.sa.s.sin! Kill me and be done with it!"

The barbarian raised his brows. Here was a beautiful woman. And unafraid. Her thick hair spilled upon the carpet, an ebony cloud surrounding a fine-boned face now sneering in defiance. Her pale eyes shone in the gloom like polished opals.

"I have no wish to harm you or anyone else in this house." Conan stepped back, keeping his sword leveled at the p.r.o.ne woman, but removing it from her throat. She sat up, twisting full lips with disdain.

"You're mad, then."

"No. I am not here of my own choosing. My life is in the balance. If you will aid me, I will be swiftly gone." Conan's hand went to the eldritch amulet wired at his throat. The dark-haired woman drew long legs up beneath her and regarded him steadily.

"I should scream. I am not afraid to die."

"Then why are you whispering?"

She was silent a moment.

"What is it that you seek?" she asked suddenly, her voice slightly louder and more animated than before. "Are you alone? How can I help you?" Her gaze flickered from Conan's face to a point somewhere over his right shoulder. From behind him came the almost inaudible creaking of a floorboard.

Conan spun about and received a blow to the head so savage that it tore off his helmet and sent him reeling blindly across the hall. His shoulder hit the wall with a crash that seemed to shake the building.

Stinging blood sluiced hotly into his left eye. Snarling, the barbarian lashed his sword to the left and right, but the blade met no resistance. He blinked, shaking the blood from his face.

Across the hall stood a giant of a man, naked to the waist. The taper's light gleamed upon his skin, casting yellow highlights over heavy arms and a wide, hairless chest that descended into a broad, firm paunch.

The man's head was shaved and his features were those of a pure-blooded KM tan. In his hands was a short wooden club, its head adorned with iron studs. The man was silent, but he brandished the club with casual purpose, slanted eyes glittering coldly.

Conan struck with furious speed, taking the offensive with such suddenness that the giant Khitan was nearly impaled upon his sword.

With an agile twist of his brawny body, the Khitan battered the barbarian's blade aside so that it sc.r.a.ped its length along the wooden bludgeon, throwing splinters. Unable to halt his headlong thrust, Conan's body slammed into that of his foe. They grappled, and the Khitan sought to seize his sword arm. With an explosive grunt, Conan tore free of the powerful grip and drove his mallet-like left fist home against the side of his enemy's face. Despite the unexpectedness of the move, the Khitan managed to react, attempting to roll with the blow. If he had not, it might well have broken his neck. Even the reduced impact drove him to one knee and started blood streaming from his lips.

As the Cimmerian's sword shot up for the death stroke, a tremendous blow struck the back of his skull. Vision ablaze with flying yellow sparks, Conan went down, his blade thumping on the carpet. In an exhibition of almost superhuman vitality, the barbarian writhed painfully onto his back. Through a thickening haze he saw the dark-haired woman, gaping at him, clutching a st.u.r.dy chair. Two of its legs were splintered stumps. The stinging sweet taste of Shakar's potion crept into the back of his throat like bile. Conan tried to rise and felt a sick vertigo, a drugged dizziness that' rose from within to smother him in cloying darkness. He reached for his sword, put his hand on the hilt, and pa.s.sed out.

Chapter Six.

There was stale straw in his mouth. The floor where he lay was strewn with the mildewed stuff. With effort, Conan spat, pushed himself into a sitting position, spat again, and leaned back against a dank stone wall. Though his head throbbed like a blacksmith's anvil, he put his hands first to his throat.

Shakar's lethal amulet was still in place, still promising searing, lingering death. Conan probed his battered skull with tentative fingers. Drying blood matted his hair over two conspicuously swollen lumps. He pressed his fingertips around them and winced, but found no evidence of serious damage. Satisfied, he cast his eyes about his prison.

It was a narrow, windowless slot of a cell, a little longer than the p.r.o.ne body of a tall man and barely wide enough for two men to stand abreast. The door was a heavily barred iron grate, scaled with flakes of red rust.

Conan wondered how long he had until morning. A hollowness opened deep in his belly. To be incinerated by magic while locked in a cage like a helpless animal was no way for a warrior to die.

He saw that the iron bars of the grate were far too thick for bending and that the hinges were set too deeply in stone to be wrenched free.

The barbarian rose slowly to his feet, staring at the bars and clenching his fists until the tendons stood out across the backs of his hands. Conan's will for freedom was as elemental as that of a penned wolf. No matter if it would avail him nothing, he would tear at the bars of his prison until the amulet burnt through his throat.

The Cimmerian's nostrils flared as he stepped to the door of his prison, peering through the holes in the encrusted grate into the dimness beyond.

"Who's there?" he growled.

Scarcely visible in the darkened corridor outside his cell was the lissome figure of the woman he had encountered in the halls of the mansion above. She shrank away from the grate, one pale hand at her throat.

"How did you know I was here?" she stammered.

"You wear a scent in your hair. It is out of place in this pit."

The woman fumbled awkwardly at her belt for a moment, then there was a bright spark of flint on steel. A small, golden flame began guttering from an oil lamp that she thrust forward with one hand.

"What is your name?" she asked in a stronger voice.

"Conan," he replied.

The mellow light revealed the woman in full, her skin gleaming dusky ivory. Dark leggings clung to shapely legs.

A simple brown tunic was belted tightly around her trim waist and fell open at her throat.

"Let me out," rumbled the Cimmerian. In spite of the situation, his eyes were drawn to her beauty, captured by the loose fall of her lush black hair and the elegant oval of her face.

"A curious name." Her gaze seemed to pierce the cell's iron door, moving over the Cimmerian with a restless curiosity.

"If you do not set me free before dawn, it will be the name of a dead man," Conan said.

"Then you have a few hours of life remaining. Who are you, thief?" The barbarian heaved an exasperated sigh and gripped the bars of his prison with both hands.

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian."

"What kind of a thief breaks into the home of an accomplished sorceress and yet scruples to kill one who discovers him therein?" The tiny flame of the oil lamp was mirrored in her eyes.

"Listen to me, woman. This amulet around my neck was placed there by Shakar the Keshanian. He charged me with breaking into this house and stealing a small silver chest. If I do not return with the chest by sunrise, his amulet will slay me with h.e.l.lfire. Set me free and I swear by Crom to do nothing to harm anyone in this house. I will return to Shakar without your silver box and seek to persuade him to remove the amulet at sword's point."

The woman's brow furrowed with interest and skepticism. She held the oil lamp aloft to better study Shakar's amulet, while Conan, dappled by the grate's shadow, stared back intently and awaited a response.

"Silver box," she murmured. "And what does Shakar the Keshanian want with milady's silver box?"

"Hanuman devour all silver boxes!" exploded the Cimmerian. "I neither know nor care what mad designs the Keshanian has upon Zelandra's belongings. I only know that the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's sorcerous toy will spell my death unless I can make him take it off. Set me free! Did I not spare you when you lay at my feet with a blade at your throat?"

The woman was silent, staring at him expressionlessly through the iron door. Conan wondered how long she had been standing outside his cell before he noticed her.

The woman reached a hand behind her head and pulled a throwing dagger from its sheath at her nape. She hefted it, flipping the knife in a glittering pinwheel and catching it again by the hilt.

"I am Neesa, scribe and bodyguard to Lady Zelandra. I can throw this dagger with some skill."