Conan of the Isles Part 2

- 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 l.u.s.t 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 pa.s.sage of time had only added fresh l.u.s.ter 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 ma.s.sive 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 ident.i.ty 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 Kus.h.i.te, whose bare arms gleamed like oiled ebony in the orange light of the blown torches, and whose bulbous ma.s.s 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 h.e.l.ls 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 s.l.u.t? 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 wh.o.r.ehouse. 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 Kus.h.i.te 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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 Hyr-kania, 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 cuira.s.s 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 cuira.s.s. Then he fell with a clang 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 p.o.o.p 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 b.u.t.tons 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 ma.s.sive 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.

'Hah! By HeimdaTs horn and Tanifs veil, 'tis a morning for the very G.o.ds, eh, Lion?' he said.' 'Tis like wine to me thirsty guts to be at sea again with a good deck under me heels and a crew of rascally cutthroats ready at call to fill the nine seas with blood!'

'Aye,' growled Conan. 'It is a stout ship the king of Argos' gems got us, and as staunch a crew of rogues as ever I shipped with in the old days.'

He peered down into the waist, where the crew scrubbed the deck and performed other sailorly ch.o.r.es. The legends that burned with lurid light around the name of Amra the Lion had brought a full complement of seasoned sea-thieves, eager to share the glory and loot of Amra's venture into the dim West. They were a motley lot, the throng of men that milled and toiled in the waist with half-naked brown bodies, smelling of tar and sour wine, but the very cream of the pirates of the Barachas.

The largest group was composed of Argosseans, men of medium height and st.u.r.dy build, with brown or tawny hair. Mixed with these were a number of olive-skinned, black-browed Zingaran renegades. There were men of Ophir and Koth. There were a few swarthy, hook-nosed Shemites with blue-black hair and beards, and even a huge, brown-skinned, hawk-faced Stygian or two. There was a stocky, fair-haired Zaporoskan - Yakov, the bow-master. There was a black giant from jungled Kush, with the sunlight gleaming on his glossy hide - Yasunga, the navigator. There was a powerful, brown-skinned man with a curly black beard - Goram Singh of Vendhya, a land so far to the east and so little known that many Westerners thought it a mere fable. But, white or brown or black, they were veteran seamen all.

Sigurd fixed Conan with a keen blue eye. 'Now, what's the plan, mate? Fine words and resounding promises of glittering loot, but what is it we look for in the Western Ocean, and whither are we bound? So far we've seen naught but a few whales.'

Conan shrugged. 'Crom knows, not I! But I've heard men talk of lost continents and fabulous isles beyond the sunset. And from the hints the shade of Epemitreus let fall, and the counsels of King Ariostro's pack of glib-tongued star-watchers, I gather we just keep on the westward and watch for anything unlikely and odd. Devil take me, Northman, I hope we find the source of the Terror soon! This taste of sea life makes me hungry for a trifle of action. Peace is beautiful, but . . .' Conan eased his broadsword out of its scabbard and cut the air with a swish that could be heard above the sough of the wind.

Redbeard laughed with a deep chuckle that shook his paunch. He c.o.c.ked a tufted eyebrow at the glowering Cimmerian.

'Ho ho, mate!' he snorted. 'So that's the way the wind lies, is it? Ye're still the cunning, black-hearted rascal I knew of old. When we've fought this shadowy foe, as we promised, shall we turn about for a bit of honest roguery? There were fat merchantmen tied up in Messantia's harbor, and 'twould be a fine joke to loot Argos's ships with the very ship their king furnished, would it not?'

Conan smiled a grim, cynical smile and clapped Sigurd on the shoulder. 'Same thieving old walrus, you are! No, I like not the taste of that.'

'Don't tell me that, after all these years, ye've turned honest!'

Conan uttered a bark of laughter. 'Not I! But being a king does spoil a man's taste for the pettier forms of thievery. Besides., Ariostro has never given me trouble, so why should I trouble him? Conn will have enough problems, guarding his frontiers against the neighboring kingdoms, without my stirring them up.'

'Then - do ye mean to take a crack at the Stygians, as I was for doing when we met in Messantia? They're a fell and hardy lot; but with this crew we might just--'

Conan shook his head. 'Not that, even. After all, I've been a pirate captain, and a b.l.o.o.d.y successful one, several times over. Why should I climb that same ladder once more?'

'Well, then,' growled Sigurd impatiently, 'what in all the flaming h.e.l.ls is it ye mean? Out with it, man!'

Conan flung out a long arm, and a gnarled forefinger stabbed toward the bow. 'Away to westward, mate, there's something we know naught about. The Red Shadows are pan of it, too.' A deep laugh rumbled in Oman's chest. 'You can't imagine me as a scholar, now can you?'

'It were easier to think of one of Ariostro's pretty little dancing girls as a b.l.o.o.d.y-handed pirate.'

'Well, I can read a few different scripts. And in the royal library at Tarantia I found tales of the Cataclysm, when the ocean gulped down Atlantis, eight thousand years ago. They tell, these tales, how thousands of Atlan-teans fled to the Mainland - or Thuria, as they used to call it. And in the iron-bound Book of Skelos it said: "Others fled from sinking Atlantis to westward, and it is said that thither they came upon another continent, over against the Thurian continent and bounding the Western Ocean on the farther side. But what befell these refugees I know not, for with the destruction of Atlantis the track-less ocean became too wide for the ships of those days to maintain a regular commerce betwixt the lands we know and the unknown western land." That is all, but it may very well be connected with our present mission.' 'Well?' said Sigurd. 'I've heard tales like that, too.' 'Well, if there be a land of mighty sorcery ahead of us, it will also be a land of wealth and power, ripe for enterprising rascals like us to pluck. Why fool around with the loot of a few ships when, with some luck and some guts, we can take an empire!'

Sigurd sighed and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hairy hands. "Ah, Amra, I might have knowed ye'd have some scheme in your thick skull, madder and wilder than anything any ordinary man could think up! 'Tis a fine old wolf ye are, my word upon it! Though they feed us to dragons when we get there, I'll ship with you as far as the sunset itself, by all the G.o.ds!'

He broke off to peer suspiciously at the sun. With a snort of anger, he waddled to the nearer of the quarter rudders, where a one-eyed Shemitish ruffian stood to the watch.

'Avast, ye hooknosed dogl Be ye blind or stinking drunk?' he roared, cuffing the startled seaman aside and seizing the tiller in capable paws. 'We're riding half a point off the course ye set last night, Amra! Curse and rot these lazy pigs - the sc.u.m of the Barachas,, by the bowels of Ahriman and the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Ishtar!' He squinted ferociously at the sun and thrust the tiller over with a practiced heave. The Red Lion heeled slightly, responding like a well-trained steed.

Then a cry came ringing down from above. 'Sail ho!' Conan sprang to the rail and raked the gray, misty seas with keen eyes. But he could see nothing.

'Whither away?' he boomed through cupped hands.

The reply floated down from the lookout at the foretop: 'Point and a half off the port bow!'

'I see her!' The old Northman was again at Conan's side, puffing like an asthmatic walrus having shoved the one-eyed sailor back to the tiller. There she be - and by all the G.o.ds, she looks like a galley!'

Conan shaded his eyes with one hand and followed Sigurd's pointing finger. There, looming out of the coiling morning haze, were two slender, bare masts. When the Red Lion rose on the long swell, those on her p.o.o.p deck could glimpse the long, low hull of a galley beneath this rigging.

'Now what in the scarlet h.e.l.ls of the Stygian Set-worshippers,' rumbled Conan, 'is a galley doing out here? We must be fairly close to land. No skipper with all his wits would sail far out into the Western Ocean in such a craft. If the long swells didn't swamp her, the crew would collapse from lack of food and water and from not having a place to lie down.'

The galley was now closer, so that they could see the sleek lines of her low, sea-green hull. White foam flashed along her sides, and Conan saw the twinkle of sunlight on dripping water from her double bank of oars - a bireme, with a high, curved prow carved of bra.s.s into the likeness of a dragon's head. Below this figurehead, level with the waterline, a long, viciously pointed bronze ram, green with verdigris and spotted with barnacles, cut through the waves.

'Hm, that's cursed odd, Amra!' grumbled Sigurd. 'She flies no banner. Well, you said we were to look for oddities.'

Conan shrugged. 'What's that painted on her bow?'

Sigurd peered. 'Looks like a black cloud with a red center, or is it a black starfish ?'

Conan glowered on the strange green galley. 'Well, she's no merchantman but a war galley, with that ram in her stem and double banks of oars. Let's let her pa.s.s; she'd give us hard knocks and no loot..,'

Still, he thought, it was strange to find such a ship hovering about these untraveled waters. Could it be that which they sought? Throwing back his gray mane, Conan called out to the watchman on the foretop.

'Ahoy there! Can you make out the marking on her prow?'

'Aye, Captain. Tis a black thing like a devilfish, with a fringe of tentacles around a burning eye--'

Conan's voice rose in a mighty bellow: 'Helmsman! Two points to port; head straight for that galley. All hands on deck! Swords, pikes, and defenses! Stand by to trim sail. Archers, to the forecastle deck, with your gear! Yasunga, make up a boarding party. Hop to it, swabs! Here's the fight you've been spoiling for.'

Sigurd peered at him, baffled. 'What in the name of Mitra?''

'The sign of the Black Kraken, you red dog of Vana-heim! Does that mean naught to you? Stir your befuddled wits!' growled Conan.

Sigurd followed Conan about the p.o.o.p and halted when the Cimmerian did to let the cabin boy lace him into his coat of mail and settle the horned helmet on his head. The Northman's brow was knotted in thought. Then his frown relaxed, but his face paled.

'Do ye mean,' he said slowly, 'that old tale about the emblem of the Witch Kings of Atlantis ?'

'I do. Now get your cuira.s.s on, before they spill those fat guts of yours all over the deck.'

'G.o.ds of the sea!' said Sigurd, turning slowly away. 'The Kraken of the Atlanteans, that should all have been decently drowned eight thousand years agone . . . Crom, Badb,andlshtar! Canitbe?'

Although she was clearly no merchantman bearing loot, the green galley turned and fled before the Red Lion on the morning wind. On each of her two masts, a high-peaked, triangular sail bloomed and filled with the following breeze. The Red Lion followed close upon her foaming track.

Conan had clambered into the rigging and clung with one bronzed hand while the other shaded his eyes.

'Odd - cursed odd!' he muttered. 'All oars in motion, yet I'm d.a.m.ned for a Stygian if I can see a single oarsman on the benches. She seems bare of fighting men as well; none on her p.o.o.p or forecastle deck, and not a hand aloft in her rigging.'