Conan The Valiant Part 12

Raihna dismounted to gentle them, leaving Conan to tend to her mount.

Illyana remained mounted, eyes cast on something only she could see.

Without looking closely, a man might have thought her half-witted.

After looking closely, no man would care to do so again.

She rode as well as Raihna had promised and made little extra work, for all that she did less than her share of what there was. No one called sorcerer was easy company for Conan, but Illyana was more endurable than most.

It did not hurt that she was comelier than most sorcerers Conan had met! She dressed as though unaware of it, but a handsome woman lay under those baggy traveling gowns and embroidered trousers.

A handsome woman, whose magic required that she remain a maiden even though of an age to have marriageable daughters. It was wisdom for her to be companioned by another woman-who was no maiden.

Indeed, Raihna was enough woman for any man. After a single night with Raihna, Conan could hardly think of Illyana as a woman without some effort. Doubtless this was Raihna's intent, but Conan hardly cared.

Three hundred paces away, the ferry left the far bank and began its return across the Shimak. To describe the craft as bargelike would have insulted any barge Conan had ever seen in Aghrapur's teeming port.

Amidships a platform allowed human pa.s.sengers to stand clear of their beasts and baggage. On either side slaves manned long sweeps, two on each.

Behind Conan other travelers a.s.sembled-a peasant family loaded with baskets, a solitary peddler with his mule and slave" boy, a half-dozen soldiers under a scar-faced sergeant. The peasants hardly looked able to buy a loaf of bread, let alone ferry pa.s.sage, but perhaps they would trade some of their baskets.

The ferry crept across the river until what pa.s.sed for its bow scrunched into the gravel by the pier. Conan sprang on to the pier, which creaked under his weight.

"Come along, ladies. We were first at the landing, but that won't count for much if we're slow off the mark!"

Raihna needed little urging. She helped her mistress dismount, then led the three riding mounts on to the ferry. It had two gangplanks, and the one for beasts was stout enough to support elephants, let alone horses.

Conan stood on the pier until Raihna had loaded and tethered all five animals. No one sought to push past him, nor did he need to draw his sword to accomplish this. The thickness of the arms crossed on the broad chest and the unblinking stare of the ice-blue eyes under the black brows were enough to daunt even the soldiers.

Illyana sat down on the platform under the canopy. Conan and Raihna stood in the open. The soldiers and the peddler watched Raihna appreciatively.

Conan hoped they would confine themselves to watching. He and the women were traveling in the guise of a merchant's widow, her younger sister, and the merchant's former captain of caravan guards. That deception would hardly survive Raihna's shedding the blood of even the most importunate fellow-traveler.

The peasants and the peddler joined Conan's party aboard the ferry. Two deckhands heaved the animals' gangplank aboard. Then the soldiers tramped onto the pier, leading their mounts. The ferrymaster gasped in horror and turned paler than the muddy river.

"By the G.o.ds, no! Not all of you! The ferry cannot bear the weight. The gangplank still less. Sergeant, I beg you!"

"I give no ear to beggars," the sergeant growled. "Forward, men!"

Conan sprang off the platform. The planks of the deck groaned as if a catapult stone had struck. He strode to the edge of the deck and put his foot on one end of the pa.s.senger gangplank. The sergeant put his foot on the other end. He was only a trifle shorter than Conan, and quite as broad.

"Sergeant, the ferrymaster knows what he can carry and what he can't."

"Well and good. You can get off. Just you and the livestock, though.

Not the ladies. My men and I will take care of them. Won't we, lads?"

A robust, lewd chorus of agreement drowned out sulphurous Cimmerian curses. Conan spread his arms wide.

"Sergeant, how well can you swim?"

"Eh?"

"Perhaps you should take a swimming lesson or two, before you try overloading a ferry."

Conan leaped, soaring half his own height into the air. He came down on the gangplank. He was out of swordreach of the sergeant, but that mattered not at all.

The gangplank writhed like a serpent. The sergeant staggered, fighting for balance, then lost the fight. With a mighty splash he plunged headfirst into the river. It was shallow enough that he landed with his legs waving frantically in the air.

Conan pushed the pa.s.senger gangplank clear of the ferry, to discourage the soldiers from taking a hand. Then he bent, grasped the sergeant by both ankles, and swung him back and forth until he coughed up all the water he had swallowed.

When the coughs gave way to curses, Conan set the sergeant down. "You need more lessons, sergeant. No doubt of that. My lady's younger sister will be glad to teach you, if you've a mind to be polite to her.

Swimming only, mind you, and nothing else-"

More curses, this time on "the lady's younger sister" as well as Conan.

The Cimmerian frowned.

"Sergeant, if I can't mend your manners with water, I'll try steel the next time. Meanwhile, do you want to cross with us or do your men need you to change their smallclothes-?"

The sergeant threw out a final curse, then lurched off the deck into the water. This time he managed to land on his feet. Finally too breathless to curse, he splashed to the pier. His soldiers helped him up, glaring at Conan all the while.

"Ferrymaster, I think we'd best push off," Conan said.

The ferrymaster, even paler than before, nodded vigorously. He waved to the drummer amidships, who raised his mallet and began pounding out a beat for the slaves. Gravel sc.r.a.ped and growled under the ferry, then she was once more afloat and underway.

Compared to the ferry, a snail had wings. In the time needed to reach the middle of the river, Conan could have eaten dinner and washed it down with ale worth savoring.

The ferrymaster stood on the platform, eyes roaming between the slaves and the receding bank with its cursing soldiers. Instead of fading, his pallor seemed to be growing on him. Had he taken a fever?

"Hi, ha, ho, hey!"

Frantic shouts erupted from aft Conan whirled, to see half of one of the steering oars vanish over the side. A deckhand made to strip and swim after it, but it vanished before he could leap.

"Vendhyan teak," the ferrymaster said, as if the words were a curse.

"Heavy as iron and sinks like it too. An ill-favored day, this one. We must turn about in midstream and make our bow our stern. I hope you are in no great haste, you and your ladies."

Nothing in those words made other than good sense. They still rang strangely on the Cimmerian's ears. Since he could put no name to that strangeness, he watched the ferrymaster hurry aft, calling to the hands.

"How long do we spend out here because some sailor was fumble-fingered?" Illyana snapped.

"As long as it takes to turn this drunken sow of a ferry," Conan said.

"How long that will be, the G.o.ds know. Maybe the ferrymaster, too. Best not look at me. I'm no sailor."

"Perhaps. But can you at least ask the master?"

"As you wish, my lady."

Conan turned to head aft, where the master and two hands were now wrestling with the ferry's light skiff. Raihna put a hand on his arm in what to all eyes would seem a gesture of affection. Her whisper was fierce but unheard by anyone else, including her mistress.

"Be careful, Conan. I would go with you, but Illyana's back needs guarding more than yours."

"That's the truth. But who from?"