Chapter 36
Conan stood frozen, the girl clinging to him in a frenzy of terror. The clamor rose to a crescendo of madness, and then the Cimmerian turned and went swiftly toward the rim of the plateau, with its fringe of moon-limned trees. Olivia's legs were trembling so that she could not walk; so he carried her, and her heart calmed its frantic pounding as she nestled into his cradling arms.
They pa.s.sed under the shadowy forest, but the cl.u.s.ters of blackness held no terrors, the rifts of silver discovered no grisly shape. Night-birds murmured slumberously. The yells of slaughter dwindled behind them, masked in the distance to a confused jumble of sound. Somewhere a parrot called, like an eery echo: "Yagkoolan yok tha, xuthalla!" So they came to the tree- fringed water's edge and saw the galley lying at anchor, her sail s.h.i.+ning white in the moonlight. Already the stars were paling for dawn.
In the ghastly whiteness of dawn a handful of tattered, blood-stained figures staggered through the trees and out on to the narrow beach. There were forty-four of them, and they were a cowed and demoralized band. With panting haste they plunged into the water and began to wade toward the galley, when a stern challenge brought them up standing.
Etched against the whitening sky they saw Conan the Cimmerian standing in the bows, sword
204.in hand, his black mane tossing in the dawn wind.
"Stand!" he ordered. "Come no nearer. What would you have, dogs?"
"Let us come aboard!" croaked a hairy rogue, fingering a b.l.o.o.d.y stump of ear. "We'd be gone from this devil's island."
"The first man who tries to climb over the side, I'll split his skull," promised Conan.
They were forty-four to one, but he held the whip-hand. The fight had been hammered out of them.
"Let us come aboard, good Conan," whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods. "We have been so mauled, bitten, scratched, and rended, and are so weary from fighting and running, that not one of us can lift a sword."
"Where is that dog Aratus?" demanded Conan.
"Dead, with the others! It was devils fell upon us! They were rending us to pieces before we could awake a dozen good rovers died in their sleep. The ruins were full of flame-eyed shadows, with tearing fangs and sharp talons."
"Aye!" put in another corsair. "They were the demons of the isle, which took the forms of molten images, to befool us. Ishtar! We lay down to sleep among them. We are no cowards.
We fought them as long as mortal man may strive against the powers of darkness. Then we broke away and left them tearing at the corpses like jackals. But surely they'll pursue us."
"Aye, let us come aboard!" clamored a lean Shemite. "Let us come in peace, or we must come sword in hand, and though we be so weary you will doubtless slay many of us, yet you can not prevail against us many."
"Then I'll knock a hole in the planks and sink her," answered Conan grimly. A frantic
"Dogs! Must I aid my enemies? Shall I let you come aboard and cut out my heart?"
"Nay, nay!" they cried eagerly. "Friends friends, Conan. We are thy comrades, lad! We be all l.u.s.ty rogues together. We hate the king of Turan, not each other."
Their gaze hung on his brown frowning face.
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"Then if I am one of the Brotherhood," he grunted, "the laws of the Trade apply to me; andsince I killed your chief in fair fight, then I am your captain!
There was no dissent. The pirates were too cowed and battered to have any thought except a desire to get away from that island of fear. Conan's gaze sought out the blood-stained figure of the Corinthian."How, Ivanos!" he challenged. "You took my part, once. Will you uphold my claims again?
"."Aye, by Mitra!" The pirate, sensing the trend of feeling, was eager to ingratiate himself with the Cimmerian. "He is right, lads; he is our lawful captain!
A medley of acquiescence rose, lacking enthusiasm perhaps, but with sincerity accentuated bythe feel of the silent woods behind them which might mask creeping ebony devils with red eyes and dripping talons.
"Swear by the hilt," Conan demanded.
Forty-four sword-hilts were lifted toward him, and forty-four voices blended in the corsair's oath of allegiance.Conan grinned and sheathed his sword. "Come aboard, my bold swashbucklers, and take the oars.
He turned and lifted Olivia to her feet, from where she had crouched s.h.i.+elded by the gunwales.
"And what of me, sir?" she asked."What would you?" he countered, watching her narrowly.
"To go with you, wherever your path may lie!" she cried, throwing her white arms about his bronzed neck.The pirates, clambering over the rail, gasped in amazement."To sail a road of blood and slaughter?" he questioned. "This keel will stain the blue waves crimson wherever it plows.
"Aye, to sail with you on blue seas or red," she answered pa.s.sionately. "You are a barbarian,and I am an outcast, denied by my people. We are both pariahs, wanderers of the earth. Oh, take me with you!"
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With a gusty laugh he lifted her to his fierce lips.
"I'll make you Queen of the Blue Sea! Cast off there, dogs! We'll scorch King Yildiz's pantaloons yet, by Crom!"
207.
Xuthal of the Dusk
Xuthal of the Dusk
The desert s.h.i.+mmered in the heat waves. Conan the Cimmerian stared out over the aching desolation and involuntarily drew the back of his powerful hand over his blackened lips. He stood like a bronze image in the sand, apparently impervious to the murderous sun, though his only garment was a silk loin-cloth, girdled by a wide gold-buckled belt from which hung a saber and a broad-bladed poniard. On his clean-cut limbs were evidences of scarcely healed wounds.
At his feet rested a girl, one white arm clasping his knee, against which her blond head drooped. Her white skin contrasted with his hard bronzed limbs; her short silken tunic, low- necked and sleeveless, girdled at the waist, emphasized rather than concealed her lithe figure.
Conan shook his head, blinking. The sun's glare half blinded him. He lifted a small canteen from his belt and shook it, scowling at the faint splas.h.i.+ng within.
The girl moved wearily, whimpering.
"Oh, Conan, we shall die here! I am so thirsty!"
The Cimmerian growled wordlessly, glaring truculently at the surrounding waste, with outthrust jaw, and blue eyes smoldering savagely from under his black tousled mane, as if the desert were a tangible enemy.
He stooped and put the canteen to the girl's lips.
"Drink till I tell you to stop, Natala," he commanded.
She drank with little panting gasps, and he did not check her. Only when the canteen was empty did she realize that he had deliberately allowed her to drink all their water supply, little enough that it was.
Tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, Conan," she wailed, wringing her hands, "why did you let me drink it all? I did not know now there is none for you!"
"Hush," he growled. "Don't waste your strength in weeping."
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Straightening, he threw the canteen from him.
"Why did you do that?" she whispered.
He did not reply, standing motionless and immobile, his fingers closing slowly about the hilt of his saber. He was not looking at the girl; his fierce eyes seemed to plumb the mysterious purple hazes of the distance.
Endowed with all the barbarian's ferocious love of life and instinct to live, Conan the Cimmerian yet knew that he had reached the end of his trail. He had not come to the limits of his endurance, but he knew another day under the merciless sun in those waterless wastes would bring him down. As for the girl, she had suffered enough. Better a quick painless sword- stroke than the lingering agony that faced him. Her thirst was temporarily quenched; it was a false mercy to let her suffer until delirium and death brought relief. Slowly he slid the saber from its sheath.
He halted suddenly, stiffening. Far out on the desert to the south, something glimmered through the heat waves.