Conan the Freelance Part 23

"Ah! At last!"

But whatever else the Pili would have said or done to Kleg at that moment was lost in the sound of the east wall being rent. A fat lamp flew and splashed burning fuel over men and rude furniture as the wall splintered inward. Men screamed and scrambled to run. The building shook as if swatted by a giant's hand, and the froglike monster of which the drunk next to Kleg spoke burst through the wood as if indeed the wall were no stronger than the web of a garden spider.

The swinekeeper, who, in his tale, was now chasing this same creature through the streets of the village, took one look at the snorting apparition that had just chewed through the wall and fainted dead away.

The three Pili could not stand against the panic of thirty men. The lizards were swept through the doorway by the stampede. The dry wood began to burn where the fat lay upon it.

Kleg grabbed up the unconscious swinekeeper and carried the man after the others. He spared a glance backward . . . to see that the monster was right behind him. He ran harder, dodging and twisting through the dingy alleys of the village.

Chapter SIXTEEN.

Time and weather had not treated the palisade surrounding the village particularly well. Perhaps climbing the wall would have seemed difficult to an ordinary man, but Conan found the task relatively simple. Rot had invaded many spots, and digging the punk from the decayed areas produced more than adequate hand and footholds. Where the wood had resisted one enemy, others could be found: wormholes, bird attacks, termites, all contributed to Conan's ease of ascent. They might as well have hung a ladder over the parapet. If these people depended upon their wall as the major deterrent against outsiders, then they were living in a fool's realm.

For all his skill as a Cimmerian, Conan moved slowly compared to the Tree Folk. They swarmed up the wall as might ants, moving as quickly and certainly as a man hurrying down a wide garden path.

Once over the wall, Conan rejoined the others.

"Now what?" Cheen asked.

"Now we go hunting for selkies," Conan said. "Small groups, no more than two or three, so as not to attract attention."

"I shall go with you," Cheen said.

"Very well. Should any of the couples discover our quarry, best they send for help."

After the remainder of the Tree Folk divided up, they started into the strangely quiet village.

Conan led Cheen down an alley, moving toward what he thought the center of the small town. Now, were he a selkie, where would he be?

The answer to that was plain: in the water and on my way back to the magician who had sent me. Still, the obvious was not always the answer. Had the selkies attained the water and the mat of weed, then pursuit was likely ended, according to what Cheen said. Conan did not wish to be another of the men who ventured to the wizard's castle and failed to return. The life of the trees hung in the balance, but when he compared it to his own life, the Cimmerian youth was pragmatic. There were other trees, albeit none so large, that Cheen and her kind could learn to inhabit. As far as he knew, there was only one Conan of Cimmeria, and he meant to keep that one alive.

He stopped and sniffed the air.

"What is it?" Cheen asked.

"Something is burning."

"Aye, probably a hundred fireplaces and five times that many grease lamps and tapers," she said. "The stench is quite obvious."

"No, it is more than that. And listen."

Cheen c.o.c.ked her head to one side. "I hear only the wind from the lake, and some night bird-wait. Voices."

Conan nodded. Aye, voices, and under that, the crackle of a fire, a fairly big one.

He looked up at the low clouds, casting his gaze back and forth. "There," he said, pointing.

A faint orange flicker danced on the clouds.

"What is it?"

"The clouds reflect the fire. Let us go and see what fuels it."

He led Cheen unerringly toward the source of the fire.

When the Cimmerian and the woman from the trees arrived, the conflagration had already drawn a sizable crowd. A hundred or more people stood about, watching the building burn. As Conan drew to a halt, he saw the flames leap to the roof of the structure next to the one already burning. A collective gasp arose from the crowd, followed by a babble of excited voices.

A line of a dozen men bearing sloshing buckets appeared. One by one, the men darted toward the flames and hurled the contents of their containers at the burning buildings. It was to little avail, Conan saw. The heat was too great for the firefighters to approach too closely, and probably half the water splashed short, landing on the street. What fluid reached the flames had little, if any, effect.

The firefighters ran off to fetch more water.

Standing a few feet away, a ma-n dressed in a goatherder's fleece and smelling of his charges talked to no one in particular.

"Mitra strike me down if I lie, but old Seihman 'uz right. Knocked a hole right in the wall, the beast did, an' it be a monster right enough!" The goatherder shook his head. "Ye ne'er see'd nothin' like it! I leaves to visit the night chamber and when I gets back, there be a room full o' lizard men, fishmen, and monsters eatin' right through the stinkin' walls!"

Conan shifted a few steps to face the old man.

"Fishmen, you say?"

"Aye, one o' 'em, anyways. Sittin' right there big as you please next to old Seihman himself and drinkin' wine when the thing come through the wall! s.n.a.t.c.hed up old Seihman and run off."

"To where?"

The goatherder glanced up from his drunken gaze at Conan's chest. "Mitra, you're a big 'un, ain'tcha?"

"The fishman, where did he go?"

The goatherder shook his head. "Dunno. Like to got trampled, I 'uz too busy to see wheres they got to."

"How long ago?"

"Since the fire. Not long."

Conan turned away from the man and looked at Cheen. "Like as not our quarry," he said.

"What of the beast of which he spoke?" Cheen asked.

Conan shrugged. "What of it? No concern of ours. We should look for the fishmen. There cannot be too many selkies around here carrying old men. He should not be too hard to find. Come."

As the pair turned away, the fire spread to another building. The crowd gasped.

"My queen, the men are leaving!"

Thayla was thus roused from a light sleep. "What?"

"They move toward the village," Blad said.