Conan of the Red Brotherhood Read online

“Nay, I do not think so.” The Cimmerian shook his head in mock dubiety. “When I ply new and dangerous seas, I like to keep a firm grip on my helm.” Santhindrissa regarded him with a smirk. “True, these waters may prove stormy at times.” She shifted restlessly in her seat again, her eyes on him as she stretched her sinewy, small-breasted frame inside the black-leather halter. “Even so, if you want to dip your oar, I would urge you to try.”

  Accepting her invitation, he arose from his keg and crossed to the bench where she sat. She watched as he did so, unsurprised. Settling close beside her, his bare thigh brushing hers, Conan raised a hand and stroked her sun-warm, muscular shoulder. She reached up to where he touched her, clasped his hand, and raked sharp fingernails across the back of it, drawing blood.

  “Hmm.” Scarcely feeling the pain, and caring nothing for the gaze of the watching rowers, Conan did not withdraw his hand. “You play rough, Captain,” he observed.

  “I do.” As his face nuzzled close for a kiss, she swung her fist up, smiting him hard on the cheek. He pressed numbly forward to claim his reward; but after the briefest instant, she pushed violently free, elbowing him smartly in the chest.

  “What is it, then? You are not in the mood just now?”

  “I am, I am...” She murmured the words invitingly with her lips half-open, a flush playing upon her cheeks.

  Since she retreated no farther, Conan slid toward her on the bench, raising both arms to take her in an embrace. Of a sudden, with an expert flick of her wrist, the whip came lashing up from her side, searing the flesh all down his arm and wrapping around to sting his shoulder like an adder’s fang.

  “Crom, woman!” With a lightning twist, he wrenched the quirt out of her grasp and hurled it far overside. “You tease me, tempt and invite me, but you do not make it easy—”

  “’Twas never easy—never for a woman!” Now Santhindrissa lashed as fiercely at him with her sea-captain’s voice as she had with her whip. “Why, I ask you, should a man suffer any less in his lust than a woman does in its aftermath?—splitting open in childbirth, shrieking in pain?” Her voice was made suddenly harsher by the rasping of steel as she drew her cutlass out of its sheath. “For a woman, ever it has meant the risk of servitude, the risk of death! For a man, on this ship, it means the same!”

  Whirling the cutlass high overhead, she slashed its gleaming blade at his neck. Conan, stooping low to wrench his stolen dagger out of the deck planking, dove into a roll beneath the whistling stroke. He came up crouching, holding the knife out at chest-height; it was serviceable, but not heavy enough to turn away the curved sword.

  In a flash, Drissa was on him, thrusting her point at his crotch. He fended with the dagger, springing aside and kicking with his bare leg at her sword-arm: a close miss. He danced away into the middle of the deck, and she stalked after.

  “What do you want, Drissa?” he challenged her. “To kiss me or kill me?” He circled warily. “Is this all part of a she-pirate’s love play?”

  “Aye, it is,” she assured him. “I will kill you if you give me the chance. But I would rather only wound you.” As she spoke, she pressed confidently toward him, forcing him back. “A small wound, especially one in a non-essential part of the male body, would not much interfere with your service at the oars. As to my womanly favours—” she lowered her hand and clasped one sinewy thigh suggestively “—you will not enjoy them, I promise, unless you best me in this fight!”

  Santhindrissa’s crew, to Conan’s surprise, kept their oars stroking smoothly to the slow, steady chiming. He knew it would be easy for the women to take up arms and swarm astern if their captain was harmed. Scattered yells and sounds of encouragement came from the upper benches; obviously, the she-pirates had seen this type of contest before; obviously, they enjoyed it. The male rowers said nothing, though every eye on the lower benches was fixed on the quarterdeck.

  Tormentress's captain attacked viciously, leaping and thrusting to try to trap her victim in the narrowing angle of the stem rails. Her stabs and upward-looping slashes at Conan’s loins were particularly deft; they forced him to shift his centre of gravity continuously, suggesting to him that most of her fighting experience had been against men. After circling away for some moments, Conan saw an opening and lunged at his opponent, pressing to get past her guard.

  But it was a false weakness; her cutlass was swifter, propelled by a hard, wiry shoulder, and Conan had to jump away from a slash that fanned the skin of his midsection. Drissa’s blade, too, was devilish quick in turning; Conan’s dagger-feint at her exposed arm left him open to a returning slash, under which he dove and rolled away across the deck. Tumbling against the keg that had been his chair, he grunted and sprawled aside, unable to spring back to his feet.

  “Kiyee!” With a birdlike, triumphant cry, Santhindrissa sprang after him, swinging her cutlass high overhead. The blade arched down, to strike home with a moist crunch, spattering both fighters with rich red droplets... bright Zamoran wine from the cask that Conan had raised up in his defence. The steel blade stuck between the shattered barrel staves, giving the Cimmerian his chance; hurling aside cask, dagger, and sword, he tumbled forward and tackled his adversary’s bare, slat-hard midriff.

  The fight then grew desperate. Knees, fists, and elbows battered the Cimmerian, ever thrusting toward his softer and more central parts. His opponent writhed in his grip like a hairless she-panther, fiercely agile and eager to fray at his unguarded limbs with ravening teeth and nails. Though slimmer, she was almost his equal in height and reach; it became a duel of desperate resourcefulness and leverage versus bulky, concentrated power. In one tumultuous instant, the woman flung herself atop him and threw on a headlock, stifling him in the heady taste of wine, sweat, and sea-spray; then he regained control, slowly and deliberately matching knee to knee, arm to arm, and face to dodging, foully cursing face. A fumbling, groping search revealed no hidden weapons... and even leather garments, so it seemed, could be tom loose.

  Meanwhile, the ship wallowed oarless in the waves. Shouts, cries, and thrashings came from the rowers’ benches, with the male voices in particular sounding lusty and frenzied. Conan expected armed women to come and beat him or chain him to the mast at any moment, yet he concentrated on the struggle, determined to make the captain of the Tormentress fulfil her promise.

  On a balmy island eve well before moonrise—when Djafur’s harbour lay dark and still, and only the hardiest gamblers continued their expense of wine and lamp-oil at the Red Hand Inn—Captain Drissa’s ship Tormentress hove into port. Her gorgon-prow slid silent over the waves, the oars slapping softly in the windless lagoon.

  Even so, the ship was marked and recognized by Captain Knulf’s night-watch before entering the harbour. Pirate guards were mustered up from sport or sleep to arm themselves and troop out onto the pier, and light, fast boats were righted on the beach and readied for quick launch in case of a skirmish. Even the commissioner himself was roused from his slumbers, though he showed no sign of girding up and venturing forth from his chamber. His pursuit of the fair Turanian captive had been single-minded, keeping him up through weary hours of cajoling and fighting. Only in the last night or two had a dogged silence from the chamber hinted that he had won his way.

  “What is it, an attack?” Knulf grumbled through the crack in his barred doorway.

  “Most likely not, sir,” his lieutenant said. “’Tis the galley Tormentress, with but sixty or so armed women. There is little they can do against our night guard.”

  “Good, then. Go deal with them. A man who cannot handle a mere fistful of women is a sorry sculp!”

  On the dock, a reflector lamp was fired up and its beam directed at the approaching ship. The vessel showed no particular readiness for combat, with both banks of oars stroking evenly and the tall, lean captainess steering astern; the only thing about it that seemed unusual was the bundle hanging suspended from one sailless yardarm. At hailing distance, the bireme feathered oars, gliding in at an oblique, cautious
angle to the pier.

  “Ahoy the Tormentress. Stand off and parley in the name of the Imperial commissioner!” Jalaf Shah’s accents were already as stuffy and officious as any Turanian tariff inspector’s. “What is your business here? And why do you come at night?”

  “Our business is your business, Jalaf,” came Santhindrissa’s shouted response, “trading and salvage! We come by night to keep from attracting any Turanian warships that may be cruising in your Imperial waters. But on this night we bring an item of trade that should fetch a handsome price from your commander—namely, the rebel pirate Conan!”

  Indeed, as the ship glided near, it became obvious that the parcel at the end of the yard was a human figure, suspended motionless by wrists and ankles in a scrap of netting, looking tattered and bloody, yet trim-built and shoulder-heavy enough to be none other than the fugitive captain.

  “Do not expect much, Drissa!” In Jalaf Shah, as in any Easterner, the camel-trader ran even deeper than the pirate. “If he is dead or near-dead, Captain Knulf may not want him. Our profit from selling him to Turan would be scant at best, and he must have enough life in him to withstand that journey.”

  “Well, then, no matter. I will cut him loose and give him to the sharks.” Santhindrissa motioned to a rower in the waist, who raised a cutlass over the rope tied to the yardarm.

  “Nay, wait! Even his head may be worth something, and I need to make certain it is he, after all. I will offer you a dozen guilders out of my own pocket. ’Tis a ridiculous sum, but we do owe you our thanks for bringing him back.”

  “A ridiculous sum, to be sure,” Santhindrissa countered. “Three hundred guilders would be fairer.”

  “What!” The lieutenant choked, but managed to convert his consternation to laughter. “Ah, I see, you jest! Our absolute top price would be fifty guilders. For that much, I would have to consult with my captain, of course.”

  “Two fifty, not a coin less!” The bargaining continued as the bireme drifted closer to the pier, carried in by the softly lapping waves. At Santhindrissa’s command, the rowers on the landward side stepped their oars to a vertical position, making a glistening fence against the silver-foiled lamplight; between the palings, the female pirates posed and loitered, idly flirting with the men on the dock. The guards kept their lamps playing along the ship’s side to light the women and detect any hostile intent; a few busied themselves with hurling clamshells and offal at the hunched, dangling figure, trying to rouse it to life.

  “Hark, Lieutenant, something comes!” One of the pirates near the end of the pier spoke up uncertainly and was barely heard.

  “If I offer more than a hundred guilders for that sorry, flayed carcass,” Jalaf Shah was expounding, “my captain will have me suffer a like fate... yes, what is it, fellow? By Bel-Dagoth, to arms! We are attacked!”

  The guards, long distracted by Santhindrissa’s galley, turned in alarm to find a dozen smaller vessels luffing up and bumping against the unlit side of the pier. Dhows and feluccas of the sea-tribes they were, their sails blackened with soot, their crews darkened likewise, except for the glint of clenched teeth and staring eyeballs as they hurled their grappling-hooks and swarmed overside to assault the pirates. In moments the dock was a frenzy of shouts, screams, and sword-clashings as the fierce, nimble men of the isles forced the defenders back toward the inn.

  Then a second alarm was raised as the Tormentress finally bore into the pier, her side-wales bruising against the pilings. Oars, raised high at port, swung down to trip and belabour the defenders, while the pirate women drew steel and stormed the wharf, keening a blood-chilling war cry.

  The defenders, unready and desperate, battled on both flanks—when in their midst yet another menace erupted. The dangling body of Conan, borne in overhead at the end of the Tormentress's yardarm, came suddenly to life and twisted free of its bonds. Swinging down heels-over-head, the half-naked figure turned in mid-air, thudding feet-first onto the broad dock with a cutlass raised and swinging. Before him, pirates scattered or sprawled to the timbers in a bloody spray. The dock-guards’ withdrawal toward shore became a blind rout, with Conan, Drissa, and the sea-chieftains leading a frenzied rush at their heels.

  Ashore, meanwhile, more stealthy boats had disgorged crews; fires and skirmishings flared up and down the beach, even along the street frontage of the town. A half-hearted effort had been made to fortify the inn—but now, before the swarming rush of pirates and invaders, the low palisade barring approach from the pier was broken down and trampled.

  Arriving at the Red Hand’s kitchen entry, Conan was able to kick one of the door panels wide, bowling over the sculleryman who tried to close it. Inside, two fleeing pirates turned to fight, but only briefly... until their bloody carcasses were flung back lifeless, one across the fish-cutting table, the other into the flaming hearth. The press of attackers from behind thrust Conan relentlessly onward amid a chaos of shouts, clanking pots, and flashing cutlery; shouting a challenge, he came at last to the tavern’s inner stair. “Knulf, you blackguard, show yourself and die like a man! Philiope, if you yet live, I come for you!”

  Clearing one spiritless defender from the stairs with a slash across the shoulder, and two more with a fierce look and a snarl, he mounted swiftly toward the top. The upper landing was cramped, never built to allow room for swordplay. Yet it would have to serve—for as Conan strode onto the level, the inn-master’s door swung open. From it emerged the Vanirman; he bore the heavy scimitar propped on one shoulder, meanwhile stuffing a yellow silk shirt-tail into a red silken sash with his free hand. Pushing the door shut behind him, he squinted to see who called.

  “Amra, you misbegotten cur!” he roared. “I go just now to buy back your miserable head. How much killing do you take, anyway?” Raising the scimitar two-handed, Knulf advanced with a surprisingly light step. “Has no one ever told you,” he added, launching the weapon in a powerful swing, “that it does not befit a common pirate to live too long?”

  The blow missed Conan’s head, shearing instead a fist-sized chunk of hard oak from the baluster. Conan, swinging from a crouch, struck back; but his blade was countered by the scimitar’s edge in a parry showing amazing agility on Knulf’s part. Then came another whizzing slash, striking yet another splinter from the woodwork. Conan dodged and countered, his movement cramped by the nearness of the stair and rail.

  “Thus, and thus!” the stout captain cried, hewing a tight, deadly rune-shape with his heavy sword. “Have you never fought in close quarters? I have killed Vendhyans in the hold of a Zaporoskan river barge. Never will you find a tighter, smellier coffin than that!” Lunging with a quick step, he beat at Conan’s cutlass with a ringing blow, forcing his enemy back onto the stair. “You are too oversized and clumpish to fight on shipboard or in civilized haunts,” the Vanir taunted. “You should’ve stuck to your Cimmerian crags and glaciers!”

  “I would fight better if I had my own sword, traitorous thief!” Stabbing in under Knulf’s guard, Conan menaced his thin-booted ankles and drove him back from the stair-top. “I will have it yet—” he snarled, surging forward to retake the stair-steps he had lost “—and with it my ships, my women, and your steaming entrails!”

  “You may get the sword first.” Darting forward as if springing a trap, feinting as busily as a spider in a blinding steel web, the stout captain launched a new flurry of tight, two-handed blows. One of them, angled with sly skill, drove Conan’s sword aside against a door jamb; the lighter blade snapped off near the hilt with the impact of the cutlass’s heavy, curved point.

  Conan, rendered all but weaponless, did the instinctive thing: he hurled himself forward inside the sweep of the cutlass, to seize hold of his enemy and inflict damage at close range. The Vanirman was bear-tough, with scarcely enough fat to cover his slabbed muscle. Even so, the blows of Conan’s fist, knees, forehead, and ringed hand guard were enough to bear him backward against his chamber door, though he hammered the while at the hard Cimmerian skull with his own hilt
.

  “Whelp, rascal! You think you can best me in a grapple? Before I was called Knulf Shipbreaker, they knew me as Knulf Mancrusher. Ah... ah... arh-ugh!"

  Conan felt the massive body stiffen in his grip; then the stocky Imperial commissioner lurched and stumbled forward. As he did so, he left exposed a double hands-breadth of pointed, red-dripping steel, standing out from a crack in the door jamb.

  “Who is there? Philiope?” Even as the Vanirman sagged to his knees, Conan wrenched the scimitar from his slackening hands and raised it overhead. “Get clear of the door, girl!” Striking near the latch with the stout weapon, he chopped away splinters until the panel flew open—revealing the captive maid, who flew into his arms, sobbing.

  “Amra, oh, Amra! He told me you were captured, slain, eaten by sharks! A thousand lies! I knew you would come back... but I feared for your life at his hands.” She shivered in his clutch. “He was such a brute. When I saw that silk shirt pressed against the door, I knew Ishtar had given me my chance! I struck...” She pressed her face against Conan’s chest in a torrent of sobs.

  “Knulf was a villain among thieves.” Holding Philiope close, Conan eyed the fallen captain, who lay motionless in the hall, his back covered by a spreading crimson stain. “Now you are free, do not worry,” he told her. “I will find Olivia and rescue her, too.”

  “Do—do you really intend to do that?” She pulled back from him, her face composing itself through her tears.

  “Why should you ask me? Do you know aught of her fate?”

  “She went to Turan. I did not think—she may not want to come back.” Philiope shook her head, turning her face away in sorrowful uncertainty.

  “What is the matter, my lass? Was there trouble between you?” Conan quested after her elusive gaze, tugging her chin toward him with two fingers. “Did Olivia use you harshly in my absence?”

  Philiope kept her face averted for a moment, then met his look sternly, her tear-stained features set in a solemn frown. “Nothing that a woman might do to me could equal what that pig did,” she told him at last, indicating the body in the hall. “I bear Olivia no grudge.”