Conan the Barbarian

CHAPTER 25

CONAN STOOD ON the main deck a day later, the sword in his hand whistling through the air. He’d lost his sword at the Shaipur outpost. The Hornet’s armory boasted a fine selection of weapons plundered from the world over. As sailors were wont to do, they wagered on which they thought the Cimmerian might choose.

He tried a half dozen, almost instantly rejecting anything saberlike that resembled Khalar Zym’s sword. While the sabers were fine weapons, and curved cutlasses worked well aboard ship, both served best when the fighting allowed for grand slashes. He wanted more reach than afforded by an Aquilonian short sword. The closest blade they had to the one he lost needed a new grip. Finally he settled on a long sword, which gained in length what it surrendered in width. Had this been my blade at Shaipur, I might have spitted him.

Conan studied the blade once more, then turned to face Artus. “Raise an edge on it, open the toe of my scabbard so it fits, and I am set.”

Artus smiled and accepted a small pouch of gold coins from the first mate. “I thought that might be it.”

“And ’twas your teeth that gnawed the grip on the broadsword.”

The Zingaran shrugged. “Tang was weak and cross hilt too small.”

“True.” Conan smiled. “Artus, I had him. So very close.”

“The gods were not amused enough.” The corsair’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain you’re well enough to go after him?”

Conan spread his arms wide, stretching massive chest muscles. “I will be fine by the time the gods are amused enough to blow us to the coast. I swear, Artus, you are as bad as Tamara.”

“I care for you as a brother, Conan. She cares as well.” Artus smiled easily. “You saved her life.”

“And she mine.” Conan shook his head. “You must promise me she will be safe, Artus.”

“I will not disappoint you. Still . . .”

“Yes?”

“There is no reason you cannot get her to Hyrkania and await Khalar Zym there.” Artus held a hand up. “No, Conan, do not try to convince me this is the only way. He needs her. He will pursue her.”

The Cimmerian shook his head. “I am not one to lie in wait, Artus, you know that.”

“True, but if a brother may point out the obvious to a brother, you seem to run faster from her than toward him.”

Conan growled at Artus, but before he could say anything, Tamara appeared from belowdecks, adorned in bright red and blue silks. She wore a broad smile.

The Cimmerian snapped at her. “You look like a harlot.”

Her eyes flashed. “Yes, and apparently I’m the only woman you have met who isn’t one!”

Conan stared at her for a heartbeat, then turned away, his new sword singing through the air. One sailor laughed and the Cimmerian spun, looking at him over a yard of steel. “Artus, give her leather and armor. She handles herself better in a fight than you scum. Keep civil tongues in your heads and you may live long enough to see the proof.”

TAMARA LOOKED AFTER the withdrawing barbarian, then to Artus. “I don’t understand.”

Artus perched himself on the rail as Conan climbed up to the wheel deck and disappeared from sight. “Most people look at him, a northern barbarian, and they think he’s simple. And ’tis true that strong currents run through him. When action’s demanded, he’s the man who acts instead of thinking . . . but he’s cunning, too. I’ve seen that over my time with him, and it’s that time, going on a decade here and there, that maybe lets me see.”

She pressed a hand to her throat. “Then perhaps you can enlighten me. The Conan I’ve seen has the constitution of a bull and the disposition of a mule. He’s fearsome in combat and yet capable of . . . Khalar Zym’s aide, the one we captured, Conan snapped his neck as if it was nothing.”

“From the barbarian point of view, the man was already dead. After all, had he been any sort of warrior, he never would have surrendered. He would have died on the battlefield.” Artus shrugged. “And his willingness to bargain, this unmanned him further. The man, I’m sure, thought he could pull the wool over Conan’s eyes. Not the first to make that mistake, and certainly not the last—though all of them tend to share the same fate.”

She glanced up toward the wheel deck but could not see Conan. “So, he is a man who kills, and that is all?”

“You know that is not true, woman. Conan is a man of great passions. Wine and women, plunder and adventure; these are passions of his. But he is fiercely loyal. You’ve saved his life. He shall never forget that, and never let harm come to you. Know that as well as you know the sun rises in the east.”

Tamara nodded. Conan was completely unlike the people she had known growing up. In the monastery, their training allowed them to channel their emotions into constructive things. While they did develop martial skills, they studied them to defend themselves and others. Conan’s passions flowed in the entirely opposite direction. Master Fassir was a creature or order, but Conan . . .

The instant she sought to contrast them, she immediately saw that which they shared. Master Fassir, too, had his passions. He loved the people of the monastery. In taking her in, he had proved his love for the people of the world. Master Fassir had dedicated his life to thwarting Khalar Zym in one way, and so Conan, in another, was devoting himself to the same task.

Tamara reached out and caught Artus’s forearm. “You are his friend, Artus. Tell me, his life, is it one that makes him happy?”

The Zingaran scratched at his chin. “He is one who may not have been born to ever be happy. Where others first taste mother’s milk, he had her blood. Born on a battlefield was he, and never quite so happy is he except when fighting.”

“Never?”

Artus sighed. “Conan and I are not joined at the hip, little one. There are times he is away. When he returns, perhaps he is less melancholy. It is not the way of men to ask after these things.”

“That is foolish.” She turned toward the stairs, but Artus caught a handful of silks and restrained her. “Let me go.”

“No, Tamara. You seek to mend that which cannot be mended. Not now.” The corsair laughed easily. “Get yourself below. Get yourself into proper dress, battle dress. If that won’t bring a smile to his face, I sincerely doubt there is anything else that will.”

IN THE DEEPEST depths of Khor Kalba, restless waves splashed up through a massive iron grate filling a cylindrical cavern’s floor. Shadows obscured the upper reaches. Chains attached to cages filled with skeletons or skeletally slender prisoners hung down from the darkness. The other ends attached to massive cleats, allowing attendants to raise and lower cages as required.

The iron had been worked in a pattern that recalled the arms of a squid. Marique had liked it from the first because of its tantalizing symmetry. Her father had seen it as an omen confirming the rightness of his choice of Khor Kalba. He seemed to have forgotten that it was Marique who had discovered that the current construction had been built over Acheronian ruins. And, indeed, nearby excavations had unearthed much which increased her knowledge of necromantic lore.

Marique picked her way along a haphazard path like a child wandering through a garden. She chose carefully the runes upon which she stepped, and how hard she stepped on them. The sounds her boots made, the cadence of her steps, and the very notes produced by each individual rune wove a powerful magick.

Finally she reached the center point. From the small sack on her belt she withdrew the limp body of a cat—one of many feral creatures infesting Khor Kalba. She’d lured it with cheese, then snapped its neck. She disemboweled it, read the liver, then packed it up with a small bit of the cloth bearing the monk’s blood and another missive that Marique had written herself. She looked down through the hole centermost in the grate, then dropped the cat and watched as it disappeared into the depths.

A minute, perhaps two, passed, then the water became greatly agitated. It splashed up through the grate, though it never touched Marique. Then it settled, several feet lower than it had been, and she walked from the center uncaring what tune her steps played.

Her father awaited her at the edge. “Well?”

“It is done. Your troops shall reach their ship unseen, and the girl will soon be yours.”

CONAN STOOD AT the aft rail, staring at the sea. He felt the breeze and heard the gulls. The tang, their cries, took him back to the Tigress and the time he had spent with Bêlit. He had tried very hard to avoid those memories, but he could not. Though Tamara and Bêlit could not have been more different, when he had wakened from his fever to discover Tamara tending him, he had at first thought she was Bêlit.

I wanted her to have been Bêlit.

He shook his head, but his father’s words came to him. “When you find that one woman, Conan, the one who fires your heart, who makes you feel alive and makes you want to be a better man than you are, never let her go.” But he had. He’d lost her to an ancient evil, and though he knew himself to have been lucky to have survived at all, guilt restrained him like an anchor chain.

Artus appeared on his left at the rail. “She means well, Conan.”

The Cimmerian growled.

“Let me rephrase: she means you no harm.” The corsair faced him, leaning on the rail. “I actually think she wishes you well.”

Conan nodded. “I was sharp with her.”

“Were words a sword, there would have been no healing that wound. It is not my place to ask . . .”

“No, it’s not.”

“So I shall just tell, then. You forget, Cimmerian, I knew you when you were a sneak thief, and not a very good one. You made up in audacity what you lacked in skill, and the only reason fences did not turn you over to the city guard is that you’d take a tenth of what you could have gotten for the wares you sold them.”

“If this is meant to cheer me, you are failing, brother.”

“It is meant to remind you, brother, that I have seen the youth you were, and the man you have become. No, don’t give me that look. I don’t presume to know what goes on in that thick skull of yours, and I don’t pretend to know what adventures you’ve had outside my company.” Artus spat into the sea. “I do wish I knew of your previous life as a corsair, for it was there you changed. Not unexpected, the loss of carefree youth . . . but something replaced it.”

The Cimmerian stared at the distant horizon. “I was born to battle. Courage and cunning are what Crom gives us, and I have made the most of them. Of comrades and companions I have had legions. Most have died. Many I have mourned. A few, however . . .” One . . .

Artus remained silent, letting the distant crash of surf on shore devour Conan’s words. In that one act the Zingaran revealed that he was a true friend, and likely knew the Cimmerian better than anyone else alive.

Conan looked sidelong at him, then finally turned to face him. “I have no fear of death, Artus. I cannot think of a time when my death concerned me. But I wonder, sometimes, if Death uses me as bait, much as I used the girl. Does Death allow me to survive so that others will follow me into his realm? My friends do not live long. Survive another year and you will have known me longer than did my father. And my mother, well . . .”

Artus rested scarred hands on Conan’s shoulders. “I am your brother, Conan. I’ll see you into a grave or the other way around. It does not matter. If I follow you, it is not because I believe you will make me immune to Death’s touch, but because you open the way to adventure. Already, Conan, men sing of you, and of those who you have known.”

Conan nodded. The Song of Bêlit had become popular in Shem and he’d even heard it sung once in Messantia. “There are more pleasant ways to become immortal.”

“Are there?” Artus laughed and pointed off toward Khor Kalba to the north. “Immortality is what Khalar Zym desires, and his way is none too pleasant. His way is decidedly unpleasant for those who stand between him and his goal. Most men would never dare oppose him because they fear for their lives. But if they do not oppose him, they do not have a life.”

“So you have told me.”

“So, perhaps now you will listen.”

Conan nodded. “I will.”

“Good.” Artus ran a hand over his jaw. “One thing about those we leave behind, Conan. We never know what they would want, but we can be sure what they would hate.”

“Yes?”

“For their death to become our death. They live in our memories.” Artus smiled. “Our lives make them more vital. Your glory is their glory, your victory is their victory. Live as they would have lived, live as they would have desired you to live, and you will be worthy of their lives forever.”

The Cimmerian nodded. “Over the years, Artus, you have become much wiser.”

“No, Conan, I’ve always been this wise.” The Zingaran’s laughter rose to the stars. “It’s just taken you this long to realize it.”