Conan of the Red Brotherhood Read online

  His energetic hugs squeezed laughter out of his houris, and it was echoed by a fresh chortle of hilarity from his own round belly. “Nay, boy, by all means, go on with your naval dabbling. You may continue to offer the prize. Just see to it that I and your little mothers here are given a good seat at dockside to view the results.”

  Yezdigerd said no more. With a stiff nod, he turned away, pushing through the Imperial cordon and resuming his hard, forceful stride along the wharf. His bodyguards could not guess his destination, but kept pace in silence; from the sullen scowl on his face, they knew better than to trouble him with questions and risk the full force of his wrath.

  IX

  Homevoyaging

  “The fog is lifting,” came the lookout’s cry aloft. “Land ho, dead to port—it looks to be the Dragon’s Beak.”

  “Curse the gods!” Captain Ivanos raised a thick, scarred hand to shade his eyes against the brightening blue-grey, studying the distinctive shape of the rocky headland. “That means we have drifted far south seeking those rogues.”

  “All the better.” Ferdinald’s quiet growl came from the tiller, where he presided as sailing-master. “We are of little use to Amra, if we know not where he is, or he us. It would not go well for us if we ran afoul of those Imperial oarships alone—or even the penteconter— undercrewed as we are.”

  Ivanos turned on him, scowling. “Was it not your plan, and our captain’s, for us to follow at a distance and throw in with him on the attack? Now you have steered to southward. What if the Brothers are embattled, needing our aid?” He shook his head ponderously, running thick fingers through his bushy beard. “Do you want to be the one to explain our absence to Amra, if it costs him a victory?” “The plan did not allow for a fog. I admit it.” Ferdinald shrugged. “Such is seafaring on this tepid Vilayet. Becalmed and befogged, we could do nothing—and Amra would like it no better if we lost the Hyacinth for him, and his women in the bargain.” He nodded meaningfully toward Olivia, who appeared on the ladder at the break of the poop, with the captive girl Philiope climbing up behind her. “Our safest course is to return to the shelter of the Aetolian Isles. Cruising here alone, we are prey to Imperials and shore pirates, or to any well-armed merchant that happens by.”

  “We can out sail the Imperials... you can, or so you have boasted in the past.” Ivanos shook his head, his scowl stubbornly set. “I order you to turn northward and find the Vixen, as we were told to do.”

  “Nay, Ivanos!” Olivia, clad in short-hemmed silk pantaloons, light sandals, and a flimsy blouse suited to the warmth of the just-emerging sun, halted opposite the bearded pirates. She did not often parade on deck in such scanty garb, and her figure caught the men’s attention; it rivalled that of the younger, leaner Philiope, who came up at her side, dressed in one of her short-trimmed gowns.

  The effect of Olivia’s winsome womanliness, though, was somewhat spoiled by the triple-bolted crossbow cradled loosely under one arm, its cable cranked back and ready. “Lay your course for Djafur,” she told the steersman. “The time is past when we could help Conan on his treasure-hunt.”

  “With all fitting respect, Olivia—” Ivanos spoke evenly, appearing to ignore the hair-sprung weapon the maid of Ophir carried “—I am Conan’s lieutenant. He made me captain, and I ought to decide what course this ship sails—”

  “If you are Conan’s captain, then you are mine as well!” Olivia showed no restraint, not troubling to keep the rancour from her voice. “Know you, I am Conan’s consort... his mistress... aye, even his master at times! If an error is made, I can account to him better than you or any raffish pirate. I say go south.”

  “But what if Amra seeks us?” Philiope’s voice, soft and reedy compared to Olivia’s, betrayed genuine concern. “What if he puts himself at risk while searching? We should stay nearby, whatever the danger—”

  “What are you snouting into this for?” Olivia jerked her head impatiently aside at the younger woman, without altering the downward slant of her crossbow. “You, a prisoner, whose only wish is to escape from us and see all pirates destroyed! Am I supposed to heed you?”

  “Oh, but I do not feel that way!” Philiope stopped, flustered. “I mean, I am under Captain Amra’s protection. I care for his safety—”

  “Why should you?” Olivia demanded. “You are a hostage, with a cash value if delivered intact, nothing more! Why claim a right to speak in this matter? Are you telling us you are something other than a captive noblewoman, to be bartered away at the first opportunity?” Olivia’s eyes, from beneath her wind-tossed raven tresses, bore in darkly on the girl.

  “No,” Philiope answered at last, her brown eyes darting restlessly as if trapped.

  “Well then, southward it is! We are through rattling about on Conan’s tether, discommoded and endangered to no purpose... for this voyage, anyway. Agreed?” She fixed Ivanos with her look until he yielded a grudging nod. “Remember,” she told him, “if the Hyacinth changes course, I will know by the cant of the deck, just as well as any peg-footed sailor!” Seizing hold of Philiope’s wrist, she strode back toward the cabin hatch.

  Ferdinald, leaning on the tiller, spoke idly to Ivanos as they watched the two depart. “Methinks we ought to change this cog’s name—Hyacinth scarcely befits a fierce pirate cruiser.”

  “Nay, fellow.” The other pirate shook his head. “’Tis ill luck of the worst sort to change a ship’s birth-name. So it is rumoured among men of the Vilayet at least, who will not fight their best on an ill-omened ship.” Ivanos spat in disgust, watching the two women descend the ladder and disappear. “Anyway, Hyacinth is a pretty name. I am not sure our new captainess would permit any change!”

  “Ahoy, there, lookout! Avast singing out depths. We are well out of the river shallows now. But stay in the bows with your line ready and your eyeballs peeled. Reefs lurk in this fog!”

  “Aye, Captain,” the muted cry drifted back astern.

  Steering the captured penteconter. Conan found it worrisome to bellow orders at crewmen he could not see. The accursed fog stifled not only vision, but hearing. Their exit from the delta of Yldrys, the Hyrkanian river of death, had been swift and triumphal—with the dark currents hurrying them seaward, a man atop the mast to confirm their best course, and the cask of strange gems lashed to the stem rail, where even now Conan kept his foot propped on it. But when they left the coast and its perils behind, it had been to plunge into the looming fog bank, which had never lifted from the chill offshore waters. The wall of cottony greyness had been welcoming in a way, with its promise of concealment—in particular from the enemy warship they assumed to be waiting offshore. Yet the fog was dank and windless, a drain to the spirit... and it had its own peculiar dangers.

  “Pipe up sharper, Yorkin. Your notes do not carry.” Conan thumped a heel on the deck to get the weary old flutist’s attention. “I can feel the for’ard oars lagging— but keep your pace slow, lest we drive ourselves onto a shoal.”

  “Captain, what is that sound? Do you hear it?”

  “Avast rowing.” The question had risen from several pirates along the starboard side; now in the cessation of oars, flute, and his own voice, Conan pinpointed the noise to starboard: a soft, rhythmic rushing, like surf washing across a beach—but faster, and drawing near.

  “Rowers, oars ready, now stroke! Ram speed, do not idle! Yorkin, a tune!”

  Under the wild, orgiastic lashing of the bone flute, the penteconter lurched forward; the taut, trim craft gained speed in a swift series of jerks that might have thrown Conan off his feet, had he not had been savagely plying the tiller. Meanwhile, out of the featureless mist to starboard, a menace quietly took shape: the high, recurved prow of an Imperial dromon, its oar-banks flexing like triple wings amid showering spray, its toothed beak drooling foam across the racing wave-tops.

  For an instant it was there; then it was gone away astern, a dwindling surf-beat lost in the fog. The Cimmerian might have thought it a dream or a ghost-ship, had he not felt t
he fluke of his steering-sweep thwack hard against several of the fast-driven oars of the Imperial’s upper starboard bank. Some of Conan’s forward rowers may not even have seen the vessel rush past, but to him, the image memory was still sharp and vivid: in particular, the tall, dark-clad figure standing like a statue in the enemy’s bows, with only his smirking face turning after the escaping prey.

  “By gad, it was the dromon, charging us at ram speed!” “But no drumbeat, nor a chant... do they always row that fast?”

  “How did they find us in this fog? By our piping?”

  “It was by your smell, Rufias! Bathe yourself and do us all a favour.”

  “Enough, you rogues! Quiet, lest they find us again! Yorkin, pipe a low, steady pace.”

  Conan let the oarsmen do their work, using his sweep to steer a course that he hoped would leave the enemy ship behind. Not that they could be found again by any reasonable chance, groping in this murky porridge of a fog. By the time the larger vessel could slow and turn, heavy and overmanned as it must be, the penteconter would be as remote and hard to find as if it had never been seen. Their near encounter with death must have been ill luck, a fluke, Conan told himself. Still, he remembered that menacing figure in the dromon’s bow, waiting so patiently, and watching so quietly.

  Even if found, the penteconter should easily be able to outrun the dromon. The fog perforce slowed Conan’s pace, for safety’s sake; so must it hamper the clumsier pursuer all the more. Even supposing the ship’s helmsmen had some preternatural knowledge of the reefs in these strange waters... why, they could not see in any case. Conan might have considered turning the tables and ramming the dromon himself, if finding the target were not a virtual impossibility.

  “Captain, I hear surging water away to port.”

  Conan’s ears, too, had caught the sound, though this time it was slower and less rhythmic than before. Either the dromon had matched their course and slowed its pace-listening, perhaps—or else the sound was white-water breaking over a reef. Conan let the oars stroke to the muffled flute and kept his rudder straight, straining to tell whether the noise moved closer or farther away.

  “Captain, astern!”

  “Crom! How has he found us?”

  The oarsmen, facing rearward, were quicker to sense it than their captain; but true enough, there at the faint rim of awareness was a thrashing noise that quickly built toward full-stroke, and the beginnings of a shape: the dromon’s thin, feral prow. This time it came on less suddenly, because the penteconter’s motion bore directly away. But the threat was, if anything, greater, since the smaller vessel could not dart sideways. The big ship’s speed and momentum were more than great enough to smash in the smaller one’s stem, and a turning manoeuvre would slow the penteconter even further and make it vulnerable to a side-on ram.

  “Starboard oars double-speed, ready, stroke! Port oars full speed, every second stroke!” Conan’s fog-damp mane threw off heavy droplets as he swivelled his head between his rowers and the menace astern. “Turn her to port, lads! We make for the reef!”

  “What, for the reef? Our captain is mad!”

  “He would run us to death on the rocks rather than lose his treasure!”

  “Silence, dogs, and obey!” Conan’s own roar and the mad wheedling of the bone flute belied any need for silence. “Remember, this bucket has a shallow draft!”

  The penteconter was indeed a superb vessel, as light and tautly strung as any minstrel’s lute. It rode steady on the waves, responding smartly to the strokes of the tiller and gaining speed smoothly into its forced turn. A pity to lose such a fine craft, Conan told himself as he watched the bronze-fanged warship loom steadily nearer, adjusting course to drive into the little ship’s port stem quarter.

  “Reefs ahead, Captain!” came the cry from for’ard. “Shoaling waters off the port bow!”

  The lookout, situated farther away from the mad flute and the dromon’s churning oars, could likely hear breakers that Conan could not. Even so, someone else must have heard, or seen. No sooner had the cry rung out than Conan’s wish bore fruit; the Imperial ship began to sheer aside, the line of its keel shifting away to starboard, finally well astern of its prey.

  “They are standing off the chase!”

  “Aye, to watch us eat rocks! They are no fools.” “White-water to starboard, Conan! Reefs dead ahead!” “Quiet! Back oars. Slow her, but do not let her drift. Keep up enough speed for steerage way!” This was the touchiest part, manoeuvring. a stiletto-thin craft into dead greyness, barely able to see the mainmast, swaddled and blindfolded by fog. Conan feathered his steering-sweep lightly to gauge the vessel’s speed. “Enough! Ship oars and stand ready to fend off hazards!”

  Thanks be to Crom, the befogged sea was slack and torpid, a sloshing morass. At least they would not be hurled wholesale onto the rocks. Yet even so, the craft’s uneasy pitching and the squat, ugly waves betold dangerous shallows.

  “Shoaling water ahead, Captain! There are reefs to port and starboard alike! We drift to port.”

  “Tell me, lookout, is there a pass?” The crew lay silent, listening to the exchange.

  “No, Captain, none I can see. We are in a box.”

  Aye, Conan thought... with the Imperial warship waiting for them to try to turn out of it. No need to question whether their enemies could find them in the fog. The dromon, or its sorcerous master, seemed to have little difficulty in doing that. A one-sided contest, in truth. He fishtailed his steering-oar to maintain speed.

  “Lookout, what is the bottom here? Is it rough?”

  “Sand, sir, or weed, I cannot tell. It is level here but shallow ahead, no more than a handspan.”

  “Well enough, then. Rowers, quarter-speed forward! Be ready to stand up and pole—or, if need be, to climb out and wade! These seas are not heavy, and we can manhandle a light tub like this over the shoal without breaking her back. Here is our best chance to escape this foul trap! Conan reeled, staggering almost to his knees as the keel grounded with a series of hard, shuddering scrapes. “Ship oars! Briskly now, dogs, and overside, before we batter ourselves to pieces on this rock!” So saying, he leaped overboard into frigid, waist-deep water.

  After long minutes of wet, chilly work, the penteconter was afloat again, the pirates dragging themselves in over the side-wales. Only one man was lost in the fog, having fallen into a hole, and another’s foot had been crushed under the keel. The light hull took a pounding, yet sustained little damage. Pirates moaned and swore, wringing out their shirt-tails as Conan climbed dripping onto the poop.

  “Now to oars, dog-brothers, and row! Yorkin, pipe up the pace at double-speed. Ready, stroke!”

  “What, double-speed among these reefs? You must be mad!”

  “Row, I say, and thrice-curse the reefs to Tartarus! Our best chance to escape the Imperials is with speed!”

  “Fetch me the awl, wench... there, from the basket.” Looking up from her work, Olivia waved an impatient hand at a kit of sail maker’s tools swaying on a hook on the forward bulkhead.

  “I do not want you to call me that.” Receiving no reply, Philiope at length arose from her chair and rummaged in the basket. Turning and manoeuvring. a little uncertainly across the cabin’s rolling deck, she brought the tool to the central table, where Olivia worked at trimming a broad leather belt. The servant offered the awl to her, wooden handle first; but the seated woman did not take it, so she lay it down on the broad, cluttered table. “You might find your work easier if you did not keep that dart-shooter in your lap every moment.”

  “Nay, wench.” The piratess did not deign to look up at her, but adjusted the angle of the triple arbalest across her knees. “I intend to carry it even nearer to me from now on. That is why am making this belt, to hang it safe at my side.”

  “But what is safe about it? It looks as if it could go off at any moment, without the least warning. Those sharp metal bolts might easily kill someone.”

  Olivia laughed harshly. “That is what makes me
feel secure! Here on a ship crewed by fools, lechers, and cutthroats, such is a woman’s only safety.” She took up the blunt, richly engraved bowstock and waved it in the air, taking no special pains to avoid pointing it at Philiope. “It is a fine weapon, I thank you for it. If you or your late mistress had had the courage to use it when that cabin door flew open, you might not be here now.”

  “I would be dead, most likely—not that you would mind!” It was Philiope’s turn to laugh, and she did so, bitterly. “’Twas a gift to Milady from her cousin Khalid Abdal, given to defend her purity. He is a hard, relentless fighter, but she was not. Instead, she used me for protection.”

  “A poor choice, it seems, since your mistress now sleeps with the sharks.” Olivia made the observation coldly, without a glance.

  “I did what I could,” the noble maid answered in a hurt tone, “for Milady, and for myself. A woman treads a harsh path in these domains of almighty Tarim... whether it be over stony deserts or tumbling waves.” As she spoke, she steadied herself against the edge of the table. “My poor mistress was delicate and nervous, alas... ill-suited for the strain of an eastern lord’s household, much less the grosser upheavals that fate can bring.” “The fortunes of women are no kinder in the western kingdoms,” Olivia observed with some bitterness. “I, a princess of Ophir, know it only too well.”

  “And yet,” Philiope said, “here among the sea-rovers... with such a man as Amra, such a leader... there is hope at least, a promise of betterment.”

  “Do you mean my husband Conan’s fond, drunken dreams of glittering wealth? Impossible treasures to be wrested from the slopping bilge of some rat-infested merchant scow?” Olivia kept her eyes on her work while stubbornly shaking her head. “If you believe that, you are as much a fool as I ever was!”

  “Why, no, not mere wealth.” Philiope leaned forward in the swaying cabin, her hands on the unsteady tabletop, and spoke earnestly. “Amra dreams of greater things, too—of gaining political sway—of welding these pirates and fisher-tribes into an island empire, and rearing up a sea-palace at Djafur—”