Conan the Buccaneer

Chapter Twenty: RED BLOOD AND COLD STEEL

For three heartbeats, this startling event held all the living persons in the chamber in a state of frozen shock. Thoth-Amon was the first to recover his wits.

"Menkara! Zarono!" he bellowed. "Come here!" As the priest of Set and the buccaneer approached, the latter with his rapier in hand, the Stygian wizard said: "Collect your men and Villagro's partisans! Strike hard and fast! If you do not, your heads will answer for it! With Conan on the king's side, you have no chance of making your peace with the old regime!"

"Where are your spells?" snarled Zarono. "Why don't you sweep our foes away with a wave of your hand?"

"I will do what I can; but magic, too, has its limitations. To your arms!"

"You are right," said Zarono, spinning on his heel. "Men!" he shouted. "The duke is dead, but the prince of Stygia lives! If our swords put him on the throne, we shall all be lords! To me!"

"All loyal Zingarans to me!" roared Conan. "Strike for your king and your princess, and save Zingara from the rule of that devil from the Stygian hells!"

There was a general movement as the two parties sorted themselves out. Most of Villagro's partisans streamed toward Zarono, while most of the noblemen and officials clustered around Conan and his seamen. Some, uncertain which side to take or merely timid, slipped out of the hall.

It was soon to be seen that Zarono's party was the larger. While some palace guards joined Conan's faction, a larger number of men-at-arms, being Villagro's henchmen, sided with Zarono. All these soldiers were in half-armor, which gave them an advantage in battle.

"You are outnumbered!" shouted Thoth-Amon, from the dais. "Surrender, and you will be allowed to flee with your lives!"

Conan responded with a loud, impolite suggestion to Thoth-Amon, as to what to do with his proposal.

"Out swords for Thoth-Amon, king of Zingara!" cried Zarono, rushing upon the nearest man of Conan's party.

Swords began to clash here and there. In a glittering rush, the two factions surged together. The rasp and chime of sword against sword resounded. The hall was alive with struggling, shouting, fighting men. Sword clanged against sword, helmet, cuirass, and buckler. Here a man fell, weltering in his blood; there another. Wounds began to stream crimson, and screams of agony rose from men wounded to death.

Conan grinned recklessly, white teeth flashing in his bronzed, heavy-featured face. The time for words was over. Although the years had taught him a measure of caution and responsibility, beneath his veneer of maturity there was still nothing that the grim barbarian relished more than a good free-for-all, and this looked to be the most glorious fight that had come his way in many a moon.

He leaped from the stairway, where he had stood, and came down on the nearest of Zarono's men. He bowled the man over and descended upon him with his boot-heels with such force as to snap the fellow's spine. Landing like a cat on all fours, Conan kicked the next man in the belly and thrust his sword between the ribs of the man who bent to assist his fallen comrade.

He plunged on, moving as lithely as a striking panther, despite his size, and cutting down the Zingarans like ripe wheat. He towered over the Zingarans, who were on the average a small people, the light swords with which they tried to parry the blows of his huge cutlass snapped at the impact, and men fell before him with a head or an arm shorn off. Behind him raged his buccaneers, swinging their cutlasses.

Most of the Zingarans on both sides were skilled swordsmen, scions of a people that had raised sword-play to a fine art. But Conan, though a barbarian born and bred, had made a life-long career of fighting and had studied it with the concentration of a connoisseur. While wintering in Kordava, he had employed his spare time in taking lessons in the refined Zingaran arts of swordplay from the great Master Valerio, whose fencing academy was reputed to turn out the finest swordsmen in several kingdoms.

So the down-at-heels young nobles of Villagro's following got a surprise when they swarmed in on Conan, expecting to feint the loutish barbarian out of position and skewer him as easily as impaling an apple with a dagger. Despite Conan's size and the weight of his blade, he easily thwarted their attacks. He countered their most subtle one-twos, doubles, binds., and coupes and stretched them, one after another, lifeless or gravely wounded on the bloody pave.

Appalled, the young bluebloods fell back before this astounding giant who fought like a tiger and a tornado rolled into one. Then a tall, slim figure in black velvet thrust its way through the press, and Black Zarono faced Conan sword to sword. Conan bled from several small cuts but wielded his blade as lightly as ever.

Zarono was no coward, but a ruthless, hard-bitten fighter. A dastard he was, but nobody had questioned his courage and lived. On the other hand, he was a shrewd, calculating man with an eye to the main chance. Had he thought more clearly, he would perhaps have refrained from facing Conan personally. But he was filled with a blazing hatred of Conan, who had thwarted him several times and whom he perversely blamed for the fall of his patron Villagro and the precarious state of his own fortunes. He had itched for revenge ever since that scuffle in the Nine Drawn Swords, when Conan's fist had all but knocked the head from his shoulders.

Zarono had no illusions about the gratitude that he could expect from Thoth-Amon, should the Stygian make good his claim to the Zingaran throne. All the posts of real power and wealth would doubtless go to Stygian priests of Set.

But Thoth-Amon would probably condescend to allow Zarono some employment to live by; whereas, if the partisans of the old dynasty won, Zarono could look forward to nothing better than the ax and block.

Zarono's rapier —a heavier blade than most of the slender court swords wielded by Zarono's partisans—clanged against Conan's cutlass. Zarono made a dexterous pass at Conan, but the Cimmerian beat it off. Conan in turn feinted and aimed a fierce downward cut at Zarono's head; Zarono slipped to one side, and the cutlass skittered off his blade with a rasp of steel.

All around swirled the battle. More men had fallen, until the chamber had become a shambles. The numbers of Zarono's partisans began to tell. The loyalists were separated into two groups and driven back, one to the foot of the stairs down which Conan had come; the other, with the tottering old long in their midst, back into a corner.

And still Conan and Zarono fought on. Zarono began to realize that his lust for battle with his personal enemy had led him into an error. For, while his skill as a swordsman equaled Conan's, his arm did not have quite the Cimmerian's incredible strength and tireless dexterity. He began to tire, but fury and rancor kept him grimly at his task. He would slay the giant barbarian or die trying.

Meanwhile Thoth-Amon, imperturbable as ever, stepped down from the dais.

Avoiding the knots of fighters, he walked calmly across the blood-wet, corpse-littered floor to where the Cobra Crown lay unheeded on the marble.

Several times he passed within easy reach of one or another of Conan's partisans, but none ever sought to strike at him. It was as if he were invisible to them.

The fact was that, while they could see him plainly, he used his mental powers to deprive them of all will to harm him. So preoccupied was he with thus psychically guarding his own person that he had no attention left over to try to seize control of the minds of Conan and other leaders of the opposing faction.

Nor could he, without his magical apparatus and without the quiet and solitude required for major magical works, perform any great thaumaturgies. Having discharged his green ray, he would not be able to use it again for hours.

Thoth-Amon indifferently passed the sprawled body of Menkara, slain by a chance thrust from an unknown hand. Reaching the Crown, the great Stygian stooped and picked it up. It was still hot to the touch, but Thoth-Amon grasped it firmly without sign of pain or damage. He turned it over, quickly examining it. Then, with a guttural curse, he tossed it aside as one would discard a useless bauble.

At that instant, another chorus of shouts came from above. The rest of Conan's crew, with Zeltran and Sigurd at their head, poured down the stairs, brandishing pikes and cutlasses. When Conan had set out with Ninus to the palace, he had sent Sigurd back to the ship, with instructions, obtained from Ninus, to enable the other Wastrels to follow him and to gain access to the palace by the secret tunnel known to Ninus.

These reinforcements instantly changed the aspect of the battle. The loyalists who had been driven back to the base of the stairs now pushed out again. The front of the Stygian party crumbled before the thrust. Conan and Zarono were borne along in the rush, losing contact.

Not yet resigned to giving up his battle with Conan, Zarono elbowed and struggled to keep his feet. As the press opened out, he felt a powerful grip on his sword arm. He tried to shake it off before he realized that it was Thoth-Amon who gripped him.

"It is time to cut our losses," shouted the Stygian over the din. "The Crown is ruined … burnt out."

"Let me go!" cried Zarono angrily. "We still have a good chance, and I'll kill that swine yet!"

"The gods have ordained that Conan shall win this time."

"How do know you?"

Thoth-Amon shrugged. "I know many things. I go; stay or follow, as you please."

The Stygian turned away and started for the doorway. Zarono half-reluctantly followed him.

"Hold!" bellowed Conan's voice. "You two dogs shan't get away so easily!"

Struggling out of a tangle of fighters, Conan rushed toward the departing pair, streaming blood from minor wounds and whirling his bloody cutlass.

Thoth-Amon raised an eyebrow. "Barbarian, you begin to weary me." The Stygian pointed the middle finger of his left hand —the one that bore a massive copper ring in the form of a serpent holding its tail in i its mouth— toward a tapestry that hung between two of the narrow windows. "N' ghokh-ghaa nafayak fthangugl Vgoh nyekhl"

The tapestry seemed to come alive. It rippled, billowed, and tore loose from its attachments with a ripping sound. Like some colossal bat, it swooped out from the wall over the heads of the battlers. Arriving directly over Conan, it dropped straight down, enveloping him in its folds.

"Now hasten, if you would not be shortened by a head," said Thoth-Amon to Zarono.

Seconds later, when Conan had struggled and slashed his way out from beneath the tapestry, Thoth-Amon and Zarono had vanished. All around, their followers, deserted by their leaders, were throwing down their weapons in surrender.

Cutlass in hand, Conan raced out the doorway and through the vestibule to the main entrance. He arrived to hear the galloping hoofbeats of the fugitives dwindling away to silence.

* * *

The dawn wind blew fresh and lusty. Salt spray rode upon it, and it stretched taut the booming sails of the Wastrel as she cleared the harbor of Kordava and pointed her prow to the open sea.

On the quarterdeck, newly cropped and shaven and clad in new gear, from plumed hat to shiny jackboots, Conan filled his lungs with a gusty sigh of contentment. Enough of these stinking magical spells, this battling with insubstantial shadows! Give him a stout ship and a crew of hearty cutthroats, a sword at his side, and a treasure to win, and he had all he wanted of the joys of the earth.

"By the teats of Ishtar and the privates of Nergal, shipmate, but I still think ye be stark, staring mad!" grumbled Sigurd the Vanir.

"Why? Because I wouldn't let Chabela marry me?" Conan grinned.

The red-bearded Northman nodded. "She's a fine, round, bouncing lass, who'd bear you strong sons; and the throne of Zingara is yours for the asking. Surely, after all the excitement, old King Ferdrugo will not last much longer. Then the lass will inherit crown and kingdom and all!"

"I'll be no queen's consort, thank you," growled Conan. "I had my fill of that life in Gamburu, having no choice in the matter. And Nzinga was a lusty, strapping wench, not a silly, romantic child half my age. Besides, Ferdrugo may last longer than you think. Now that his wits are no longer befuddled by Stygian spells, he looks ten years younger and goes about his business in proper kingly fashion. The first thing he did was to annul that mad proclamation, abdicating and wedding Chabela to Thoth-Amon. As for Chabela … well, I like the child; I even love her in a fatherly sort of way. Betwixt you and me, I might even have taken up her offer, if I hadn't had an advance view of my fate."

''How so?"

" 'Twas during the days following the battle, when my cuts were healing. I dined several times with the King and his daughter, and Chabela filled my ears with her plans for making me over. My speech, my dress, my table manners, my ideas of pleasure … all were to be changed. I was to become the perfect Zingaran gentleman, waving a scented handkerchief before my nose whilst I watched the royal ballet troupe go through its gyrations. Now, I may not be so wise as Godrigo, the king's pet philosopher; but I know what I like. Nay, Sigurd, I'll win myself a throne some day, Crom willing; but 'twill most likely be at the point of a sword, not as a wedding gift.''

"Meanwhile, Ferdrugo has been generous to a fault. He gave me the Cobra Crown, which I have earning usuary with Julio the goldsmith; that's where this new rigging and the new equipment for the lads came from. Conan chuckled. "Here I am, not yet forty, and already I'm becoming a penny-pinching money-grubber! I'd better be about the proper business of a buccaneer ere it's too late, and I turn into a potbellied miser. Kingdom-saving is no proper work for honest rogues like us, and doubtless there'll be plenty of fat-bellied merchantment sailing from Argos and Shem. Leave off your mooning over my refusal of the offer of a moonstruck girl, and let's think of business. Come look at the charts in my cabin." He raised his voice. "Master Zeltran! Join us in the cabin, if you please."

Conan strode away. For a moment, the big read-beard stared after him open-mouthed. Then he lifted his hands in a shrug of despair and followed his captain.

"By Llyr's green beard and Thor's hammer," he groaned, "but there be just no arguing with a Cimmerian!''

The rigging creaked, the bow wave soughed, and the gulls squealed as the Wastrel sailed southward, bearing Conan to new adventures.

The end.