Conan the Usurper

FIVE:A Man from the Wilderness

The storm had spent its fury; dawn broke in a clear, blue, rain-washed sky.

Bright-hued birds lifted a swelling chorus from the trees, on whose broad leaves beads of water sparkled like diamonds, quivering in the gentle morning breeze.

At a small stream that wound over the sands to join the sea, hidden beyond a fringe of trees and shrubs, a man bent to lave his hands and face. He performed his ablutions after the manner of his kind, grunting lustily and splashing like a buffalo. But in the midst of these splashings, he suddenly lifted his head, his tawny hair dripping and water running in rivulets over his brawny shoulders.

For a second he crouched in a listening attitude, then was on his feet facing inland, sword in hand, all in one motion. Then he froze, glaring wide-mouthed.

A man even bigger than himself was striding toward him over the sands, making no attempt at stealth. The pirate’s eyes widened as he stared at the close-fitting silk breeches, the high flaring-topped boots, the wide-skirted coat, and the headgear of a hundred years ago. There was a broad cutlass in the stranger’s hand and unmistakable purpose in his approach.

The pirate went pale as recognition blazed in his eyes. “You!” he ejaculated unbelievingly. “By Mitra, you …”

Oaths streamed from his lips as he heaved up his cutlass. The birds rose in flaming showers from the trees as the clang of steel interrupted their song. Blue sparks flew from the hacking blades, and the sand grated and ground under the stamping boot heels. Then the clash of steel ended in a chopping crunch, and one man went to his knees with a choking gasp. The hilt escaped his nerveless hand; he slid full-length on the sand, which reddened with his blood. With a dying effort, he fumbled at his girdle and drew something from it, tried to lift it to his mouth, then stiffened convulsively and went limp.

The conqueror bent and ruthlessly tore the stiffening fingers from the object they crumpled in their desperate grasp.

Zarono and Valenso stood on the beach, staring at the driftwood that their men were gathering …spars, pieces of mast, broken timbers. So savagely had the storm hammered Zarono’s ship against the low cliffs that most of the salvage was matchwood. A short distance behind them stood Belesa, listening to their conversation with one arm around Tina. Belesa was pale and listless, apathetic to whatever Fate held in store for her. She heard what the men said, but with little interest She was crushed by the realization that she was but a pawn in the game, however it was to be played out …whether it was to be a wretched life, dragged out on that desolate coast, or a return effected somehow to some civilized land.

Zarono cursed venomously, but Valenso seemed dazed. “This is not the time of year for storms from the west,” muttered the count, staring with haggard eyes at the men dragging the wreckage up on the beach. “It was not chance that brought that storm out of the deep to splinter the ship in which I meant to escape. Escape? I am caught like a rat in a trap, as it was meant. Nay, we are all trapped rats …”

“I know not whereof you speak,” snarled Zarono, giving a vicious yank at his moustache. “I’ve been unable to get any sense out of you since that flaxen-haired slut upset you so last night with her tale of black men coming out of the sea. But I do know that I’ll not spend my life on this cursed coast. Ten of my men went to Hell in the ship, but I have a hundred and sixty more. You have a hundred. There are tools in your fort and plenty of trees in yonder forest. We’ll build a ship. I’ll set men to cutting down trees as soon as they get this drift out of reach of the waves.”

“It will take months,” muttered Valenso.

“Well, how better to employ our time? We’re here, and unless we build a ship we shall never get away. We shall have to rig up some kind of sawmill, but I’ve never encountered anything yet that balked me for long. I hope the storm smashed that Argossean dog Strombanni to bits! While we’re building the ship, we’ll hunt for old Tranicos’s loot.”

“We shall never complete your ship,” said Valenso somberly.

Zarono turned on him angrily. “Will you talk sense? Who is this accursed black man?”

“Accursed indeed,” said Valenso, staring seaward. “A shadow of mine own red-stained past, risen up to hound me to Hell. Because of him, I fled Zingara, hoping to lose my trail in the great ocean. But I should have known he would smell me out at last.”

“If such a man came ashore, he must be hiding in the woods,” groaned Zarono. “We’ll rake the forest and hunt him out.”

Valenso laughed harshly. “Seek rather for a shadow that drifts before a cloud that hides the moon; grope in the dark for an asp; follow a mist that steals out of the swamp at midnight.”

Zarono cast him an uncertain look, obviously doubting his sanity. “Who is this man? Have done with ambiguity.”

“The shadow of my own mad cruelty and ambition; a horror come out of the lost ages …no man of common flesh and blood, but a …”

“Sail ho!” bawled the lookout on the northern point.

Zarono wheeled, and his voice slashed the wind. “Do you know her?”

“Aye!” the reply came back faintly. “ ’’Tis the Red Hand”

Zarono cursed like a wild man. “Strombanni! The devils take care of their own! How could he ride out that blow?” The buccaneer’s voice rose to a yell that carried up and down the strand. “Back to the fort, you dogs!”

Before the Red Hand, somewhat battered in appearance, nosed around the point, the beach was bare of human life, the palisade bristling with helmets and scarf-bound heads. The buccaneers accepted the alliance with the easy adaptability of adventurers, and the count’s henchmen with the apathy of serfs.

Zarono ground his teeth as a longboat swung leisurely in to the beach, and he sighted the tawny head of his rival in the bow. The boat grounded, and Strombanni started toward the fort alone.

Some distance away, he halted and shouted in a bul ’s bellow that carried clearly in the still morning: “Ahoy, the fort! I would parley!”

“Well, why in Hell don’t you?” snarled Zarono.

“The last time I approached under a flag of truce, an arrow broke on my brisket!” roared the pirate.

“You asked for it,” said Valenso. “I gave you a fair warning to get away from us.”

“Well, I want a promise that it shan’t happen again!”

“You have my promise!” called Zarono with a sardonic smile.

“Damn your promise, you Zingaran dog! I want Valenso’s word.”

A measure of dignity remained to the count There was an edge of authority to his voice as he answered: “Advance, but keep your men back. You shall not be shot at.”

“That’s enough for me,” said Strombanni instantly. “Whatever a Korzetta’s sins, you can trust his word.”

He strode forward and halted under the gate, laughing at the hate-darkened visage Zarono thrust over at him.

“Well, Zarono,” he taunted, “you are a ship shorter than you were when last I saw you! But you Zingarans were never sailors.”

“How did you save your ship, you Messantian gutter-scum?” snarled the buccaneer.

“There’s a cove some miles to the north, protected by a high-ridged arm of land, which broke the force of the gale,” answered Strombanni. “I was anchored behind it. My anchors dragged, but they held me off the shore.”

Zarono scowled blackly; Valenso said nothing. The count had not known of this cove, for he had done scant exploring of his domain. Fear of the Pict, lack of curiosity, and the need to drive his people to their work had kept him and his men near the fort

“I come to make a trade,” said Strombanni easily.

“We’ve naught to trade with you save sword-strokes,” growled Zarono.

“I think otherwise,” grinned Sfaombanni, thin-lipped. “You showed your intentions when you murdered Galacus, my first mate, and robbed him. Until this morning, I supposed that Valenso had Tranicos’s treasure. But, if either of you had had it you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of following me and killing my mate to get the map.”

“The map?” Zarono ejaculated, stiffening.

“Oh, dissemble not with me!” laughed Strombanni, but anger blazed blue in his eyes. “I know you have it. Picts don’t wear boots!”

“But’ began the count, nonplussed; then he fell silent as Zarono nudged him.

“And if we have the map,” said Zarono, “what have you to trade that we might require?”

“Let me come into the fort,” suggested Strombanni. “There we can talk.”

He was not so obvious as to glance at the men peering at them from along the wall, but his listeners understood. Strombanni had a ship. That fact would figure in any bargain or battle. But, regardless of who commanded it, it would carry just so many. Whoever sailed away in it, some would be left behind. A wave of tense speculation ran along the silent throng at the palisade.

“Your men shall stay where they are,” warned Zarono, indicating the boat drawn up on the beach and the ship anchored out in the bay.

“Aye. But think not to seize me and hold me for a hostage!” He laughed grimly.

“I want Valenso’s word that I shall be allowed to leave the fort alive and unhurt within the hour, whether we come to terms or not.”

“You have my pledge,” answered the count

“All right, then. Open that gate and let’s talk plainly.” The gate opened and closed; the leaders vanished from sight. The common men of both parties resumed their silent surveillance of each other: the men on the palisade, the men squatting beside their boat, with a broad stretch of sand between; and, beyond a strip of blue water, the carack with steel caps glinting along her raft.

On the broad stair, above the great hall, Belesa and Tina crouched, ignored by the men below. These sat about the broad table: Valenso, Galbro, Zarono, and Strombanni. But for them, the hall was empty.

Strombanni gulped his wine and set the empty goblet on the table. The frankness suggested by his bluff countenance was belied by the dancing light of cruelty and treachery in his wide eyes. But he spoke bluntly enough.

“We all want the treasure old Tranicos hid somewhere near this bay,” he said abruptly. “Each has something the others need. Valenso has laborers, supplies, and a stockade to shelter us from the Picts. You, Zarono, have my map. I have a ship.”

“What I should like to know,” remarked Zarono, “is this: If you’ve had that map all these years, why came you not after the loot sooner?”

“I had it not. It was that dog, Zingelito, who knifed the old miser in the dark and stole the map. But he had neither ship nor crew, and it took him more than a year to get them. When he did come after the treasure, the Picts prevented his landing, and his men mutinied and made him sail back to Zingara. One of them stole the map from him and recently sold it to me.”

“That was why Zingelito recognized the bay,” muttered Valenso.

“Did that dog lead you here, count?” asked Strombanni. “I might have guessed it. Where is he?”

“Doubtless in Hell, since he was once a buccaneer. The Picts slew him, evidently while he was searching the woods for the treasure.”

“Good!” approved Strombanni heartily. “Well, I don’t knew how you knew my mate was carrying the map. I trusted him, and the men trusted him more than they did me, so I let him keep it. But this morning he wandered inland with some of the others and got separated from them. We found him sworded to death near the beach, and the map gone. The men were ready to accuse me of killing him, but I showed the fools the tracks left by his slayer and proved to them that my feet wouldn’t fit them. And I knew it wasn’t any one of the crew, because none of them wears boots that make a track of that sort. And Picts wear no boots at all. So it had to be a Zingaran. Well, you have the map, but you have not the treasure. If you had it, you wouldn’t have let me inside the stockade. I have you penned up in this fort. You can’t get out to look for the loot, and even if you did get it you have no ship to get away in. Now, here’s my proposal: Zarono, give me the map. And you, Valenso, give me fresh meat and other supplies. My men are nigh to scurvy after the long voyage. In return I’ll take you three men, the Lady Belesa, and her girl, and set you ashore within reach of some Zingaran port …or I’ll put Zarono ashore near some buccaneer rendezvous if he prefers, since doubtless a noose awaits him in Zingara. And, to clinch the bargain, I’ll give each of you a handsome share in the treasure.”

The buccaneer tugged meditatively at his mustache. He knew that Strombanni would not keep any such pact, if made.

Nor did Zarono even consider agreeing to his proposal. To refuse bluntly, however, would be to force the issue to a clash of arms. He sought his agile brain for a plan to outwit the pirate. He wanted Strombanni’s ship as avidly as he desired the lost treasure.

“What’s to prevent us from holding you captive and forcing your men to give us your ship in exchange for you?” he asked.

Strombanni laughed. “Think you I’m a fool? My men have orders to heave up the anchors and sail hence if I do not appear within the hour, or if they suspect treachery. They’d not give you the ship if you skinned me alive on the beach. Besides, I have the count’s word.”

“My pledge is not straw,” said Valenso somberly. “Have done with threats, Zarono.”

Zarono did not reply. His mind was wholly absorbed in the problems of getting possession of Strombanni’s ship and of continuing the parley without betraying the fact that he did not have the map. He wondered who in Mitra’s name did have the map.

“Let me take my men away with me on your ship when we sail,” he said. “I cannot desert my faithful followers…”

Strombanni snorted. “Why don’t you ask for my cutlass to slit my gullet with? Desert your faithful …bah! You’d desert your brother to the Devil if you could gain anything by it No! You shall not bring enough men aboard to give you a chance to mutiny and take my ship.”

“Give us a day to think it over,” urged Zarono, fighting for time.

Strombanni’s heavy fist banged on the table, making the wine dance in the goblets. “No, by Mitra! Give me my answer now!”

Zarono was on his feet, his black rage submerging his craftiness. “You Barachan dog! I’ll give you your answer …in your guts…”

He tore aside his cloak and caught at his sword hilt. Strombanni heaved up with a roar, his chair crashing backward to the floor. Valenso sprang up, spreading his arms between them as they faced each other across the board with jutting jaws close together, blades half drawn, and faces convulsed. “Gentlemen, have done! Zarono, he has my pledge …”

“The foul fiends gnaw your pledge!” snarled Zarono.

“Stand from between us, my lord,” growled the pirate, his voice thick with lust for killing. “Your word was that I should not be treacherously entreated. It shall be considered no violation of your pledge for this dog and me to cross swords in equal play.”

“Well spoken, Strom!” said a deep, powerful voice behind them, vibrant with grim amusement. All wheeled and glared open-mouthed. Up on the stair, Belesa started up with an involuntary exclamation.

A man strode out of the hangings that masked the chamber door and advanced toward the table without haste or hesitation. Instantly he dominated the group, and all felt the situation subtly charged with a new, dynamic atmosphere.

The stranger was taller and more powerfully built than either of the freebooters, yet for all his size he moved with pantherish suppleness in his high, flaring-topped boots. His thighs were cased in close-fitting breeches of white silk. His wide-skirted, sky-blue coat was open to reveal an open-necked, white silken shirt beneath, and the scarlet sash that girded his waist. His coat was adorned with acorn-shaped silver buttons, gilt-worked cuffs and pocket flaps, and a satin collar. A lacquered hat completed a costume obsolete by nearly a hundred years. A heavy cutlass hung at the wearer’s hip.

“Conan!” ejaculated both freebooters together, and Valenso and Galbro caught their breath at that name.

“Who else?” The giant strode up to the table, laughing sardonically at their amazement.

“What …what do you here?” stuttered the senescal. “How came you here, uninvited and unannounced?”

“I climbed the palisade on the east side while you fools were arguing at the gate,” Conan answered, speaking Zingaran with a barbarous accent. “Every man in the fort was craning his neck westward. I entered the manor while Strombanni was being let in at the gate. Every since, I’ve been in that chamber there, eavesdropping.”

“I thought you were dead,” said Zarono slowly. “Three years ago, the shattered hull of your ship was sighted off a reefy coast, and you were heard of on the Main no more.”

“I didn’t drown with my crew,” answered Conan. “’Twill take a bigger ocean than that one to drown me. I swam ashore and tried a spell of mercenarying among the black kingdoms; and since then I’ve been soldiering for the king of Aquilonia. You might say I have become respectable,” he grinned wolfishly, “or at least that I had until a recent difference with that ass Numedides. And now to business, fellow thieves.”

Up on the stair, Tina was clutching Belesa in her excitement and staring through the balustrade with all her eyes. “Conan! My lady, it is Conan! Look! Oh, look!”

Belesa was looking, as though she beheld a legendary character in the flesh. Who of all the sea-folk had not heard the wild, bloody tales told of Conan, the wild rover who had once been a captain of the Barachan pirates, and one of the greatest scourges of the sea? A score of ballads celebrated his ferocious, audacious exploits. The man could not be ignored; irresistibly he had stalked into the scene, to form another, dominant element in the tangled plot. And, in the midst of her frightened fascination, Belesa’s feminine instinct prompted the speculation as to Conan’s attitude toward her. Would it be like Strombanni’s brutal indifference or Zarono’s violent desire?

Valenso was recovering from the shock of finding a stranger within his very hall. He knew that Conan was a Cimmerian, born and bred in the wastes of the far north, and therefore not amenable to the physical limitations that controlled civilized men. It was not so strange that he had been able to enter the fort undetected, but Valenso flinched at the reflection that other barbarians might duplicate that feat …the dark, silent Picts, for instance.

“What would you here?” he demanded. “Did you come from the sea?”

“I came from the woods.” The Cimmerian jerked his head toward the east

“You have been living with the Picts?” Valenso asked coldly.

A momentary anger flickered in the giant’s eyes. “Even a Zingaran ought to know there’s never been peace between Picts and Cimmerians, and never will be,” he retorted with an oath. “Our feud with them is older than the world. If you’d said that to one of my wilder brothers, you’d have found yourself with a split head. But I’ve lived among you civilized men long enough to understand your ignorance and lack of common courtesy …the churlishness that demands his business of a man who appears at your door out of a thousand-mile wilderness. Never mind that.” He turned to the two freebooters, who stood staring glumly at him. “From what I overheard,” quoth he, “I gather there is some dissension over a map.”

“That is none of your affair,” growled Strombanni.

“Is this it?” Conan grinned wickedly and drew from his pocket a crumpled object …a square of parchment, marked with crimson lines.

Strombanni started violently, paling. “My map!” he ejaculated. “Where did you get it?”

“From your mate, Galacus, when I kiled him,” answered Conan with grim enjoyment.

“You dog!” raved Strombanni, turning on Zarono. “You never had the map! You lied …”

“I never said I had it,” snarled Zarono. “You deceived yourself. Be not a fool. Conan is alone; if he had a crew he’d already have cut our throats. We’ll take the map from him …”

“You’ll never touch it!” Conan laughed fiercely.

Both men sprang at him, cursing. Stepping back, he crumpled the parchment and cast it into the glowing coals of the fireplace. With an incoherent bellow, Strombanni lunged past him, to be met with a buffet under the ear that stretched him half-senseless on the floor. Zarono whipped out his sword, but before he could thrust, Conan’s cutlass beat it out of his hand.

Zarono staggered against the table with all Hell in his eyes. Strombanni dragged himself erect with his eyes glazed and blood dripping from his bruised ear.

Conan leaned slightly over the table, his outstretched cutlass just touching the breast of Count Valenso.

“Don’t call for your soldiers, Count,” said the Cimmerian softly. “Not a sound out of you …or from you, either, dog-face!” he said to Galbro, who showed no intention of braving his wrath. “The map’s burned to ashes, and it’ll do no good to spill blood. Sit down, all of you.”

Strombanni hesitated, made an abortive gesture toward his hilt, then shrugged his shoulders and sank sullenly into a chair. The others followed suit. Conan remained standing, towering over the table, while his enemies watched him with eyes full of bitter hate.

“You were bargaining,” he said. “Thats all I’ve come to do.”

“And what have you to trade?” sneered Zarono.

“Only the treasure of Tranicos.”

“What?” All four men were on their feet, leaning toward him.

“Sit down!” roared Conan, banging his broad blade on the table.

They sank back, tense and white with excitement. Conan grinned in huge enjoyment of the sensation his words had caused and continued:

“Yes! I found the treasure before I got the map. That’s why I burned the map. I need it not, and nobody shall ever find it unless I show him where it is.”

They stared at him with murder in their eyes.

“You’re lying,” said Zarono without conviction. “You’ve told us one lie already. You said you came from the woods, yet you say you haven’t been living with the Picts. All men know this country is a wilderness, inhabited only by savages. The nearest outposts of civilization are the Aquilonian settlements on Thunder River, hundreds of miles to eastward.”

“That’s where I came from,” replied Conan imperturbably. “I believe I’m the first white man to cross the Pictish Wilderness. When I fled from Aquilonia into Pictland, I blundered into a party of Picts and slew one, but a stone from a sling knocked me senseless during the melee and the dogs took me alive. They were Wolf-men, and they traded me to the Eagle clan in return for a chief of theirs the Eagles had captured. The Eagles carried me nearly a hundred miles westward, to burn me in their chief village; but I killed their war-chief and three or four others one night and broke away. I could not turn back, since they were behind me and kept herding me westward. A few days ago, I shook them off; and, by Crom, the place where I took refuge turned out to be the treasure trove of old Tranicos! I found it all: chests of garments and weapons …that’s where I got these clothes and this blade …heaps of coins and gems and golden ornaments, and —in the midst of all— the jewels of Tothmekri gleaming like frozen star-light! And old Tranicos and his eleven captains sitting about an ebony table and staring at the hoard, as they’ve stared for a hundred years!”

“What?”

“Aye!” he laughed. “Tranicos died in the midst of his treasure, and all with him! Their bodies had not rotted or shriveled. They sit there in their high boots and skirted coats and lacquered hats, with their wineglasses in their stiff hands, just as they have sat for a century!”

“That’s an unchancy thing!” muttered Strombanni uneasily, but Zarono snarled:

“What boots it? ’Tis the treasure we want. Go on, Conan.”

Conan seated himself at the board, filled a goblet, and quaffed it before he answered.

“The first wine I’ve drunk since I left Aquilonia, by Crom! Those cursed Eagles hunted me so closely through the forest that I had hardly time to munch the nuts and roots I found. Sometimes I caught frogs and ate them raw because I dared not light a fire.”

His impatient hearers informed him profanely that they were not interested in his dietary adventures prior to finding the treasure.

He grinned insolently and resumed: “Well, after I stumbled on to the trove, I lay up and rested a few days, and made snares to catch rabbits, and let my wounds heal. I saw smoke against the western sky but thought it some Pictish village on the beach. I lay close, but as it happens the loot’s hidden in a place the Picts shun. If any spied on me, they didn’t show themselves. Last night I started westward, intending to strike the beach some miles north of the spot where I’d seen the smoke. I wasn’t far from the shore when that storm hit. I took shelter under a lee of rock and waited until it had blown itself out. Then I climbed a tree to look for Picts, and from it I saw Strom’s carack at anchor and his men coming in to shore. I was making my way toward his camp on the beach when I met Galacus. I shoved a sword through him, because there was an old feud between us.”

“What had he done to you?” asked Strombanni.

“Oh, stole a wench of mine years ago. I shouldn’t have known he had a map, had he not tried to eat it ere he died. I recognized it for what it was, of course, and was consideling what use I could make of it, when the rest of you dogs came up and found the body. I was lying in a thicket not a dozen yards from you while you were arguing with your men over the matter. I judged the time wasn’t ripe for me to show myself!” He laughed at the rage and chagrin displayed in Strombanni’s face. “Well, while I lay there listening to your talk, I got the drift of the situation and learned, from things you let fall, that Zorono and Valenso were a few miles south on the beach. So when I heard you say that Zarono must have done the killing and taken the map, and that you meant to go and parley with him, seeking an opportunity to murder him and get it back …”

“Dog!” snarled Zarono.

Although livid, Strombanni laughed mirthlessly. “Do you think I’d play fair with a treacherous cur like you? Go on, Conan.”

The Cimmerian grinned. It was evident that he was deliberately fanning the fires of hate between the two men.

“Nothing much, then. I came straight through the woods while you tacked along the coast and raised the fort before you did. Your guess that the storm had destroyed Zarono’s ship was a good one …but then, you knew the configuration of this bay. Well, there’s the story. I have the treasure, Strom has a ship, Valenso has supplies. By Crom, Zarono, I see not where you fit into the scheme, but to avoid strife I’ll include you. My proposal is simple enough. We’ll split the treasure four ways. Strom and I shall sail away with our shares aboard the Red Hand. You and Valenso take yours and remain lords of the wilderness, or build a ship out of tree trunks, as you wish.”

Valenso branched and Zarono swore, while Strombanni grinned quietly.

“Are you fool enough to go aboard the Red Hand alone with Strombanni?” snarled Zarono. “He’ll cut your throat before you’re out of sight of land!”

Conan laughed with genuine enjoyment. “This is like the problem of the wolf, the sheep, and the cabbage,” he admitted. “How to get them across the river without their devouring one another!”

“And that appeals to your Cimmerian sense of humor!” complained Zarono.

“I will not stay here!” cried Valenso, a wild gleam in his dark eyes. “Treasure or no treasure, I must go!”

Conan gave him a slit-eyed glance of speculation. “Well then,” said he, “how about this plan: We divide the loot as I suggested. Then Strombanni sails away with Zarono, Valenso, and such members of the count’s household as he may select, leaving me in command of the fort, and the rest of Valenso’s men, and all of Zarono’s. I’ll build my own ship.”

Zarono looked sick. “I have the choice of remaining here in exile, or abandoning my crew and going alone on the Red Hand to have my throat cut?”

Conan’s laughter rang gustily through the hall, and he smote Zarono jovially on the back, ignoring the black murder in the buccaneer’s glare. “That’s; it, Zarono!” quoth he. “Stay here while Strom and I sail away, or sail away with Strombanni, leaving your men with me.”

“I’d rather have Zarono,” said Strombanni frankly. “You’d turn my own men against me, Conan, and cut my throat before I raised the Barachans.”

Sweat dripped from Zarono’s livid face. “Neither I, nor the count, nor his niece will ever reach the land alive if we ship with that devil,” said he. “You are both in my power in this hall. My men surround it. What’s to prevent my cutting you both down?”

“Not a thing,” Conan admitted cheerfully, “except the fact that if you do, Strombanni’s men will sail away and leave you stranded on this coast, where the Picts will presently cut all your throats; and the fact that with me dead you’d never find the treasure; and the fact that I’ll split your skull down to your chin if you try to summon your men.”

Conan laughed as he spoke, as if at some whimsical situation; but even Belesa sensed that he meant what he said. His naked cutlass lay across his knees, and Zarono’s sword was under the table, out of the buccaneer’s reach. Galbro was not a fighting man, and Valenso seemed incapable of decision or action.

“Aye!” said Strombanni with an oath. “You’d find the two of us no easy prey. I’m agreeable to Conan’s proposal. What say you, Valenso?”

“I must leave this coast!” whispered Valenso, staring blankly. “I must hasten …I must go …go far…quickly!”

Strombanni frowned, puzzled at the count’s strange manner, and turned to Zarono, grinning wickedly. “And you, Zarono?”

“What can I say?” snarled Zarono. “Let me take my three officers and forty men aboard the Red Hand, and the bargain’s made.”

“The officers and thirty men!”

“Very well.”

“Done!”

There was no shaking of hands or ceremonial drinking of wine to seal the pact.

The two captains glared at each other like hungry wolves. The count plucked his mustache with a trembling hand, rapt in his own somber thoughts. Conan stretched like a great cat, drank wine, and grinned on the assemblage, but it was the sinister grin of a stalking tiger.

Belesa sensed the murderous purposes that reigned there, the treacherous intent that dominated each man’s mind. Not one had any intention of keeping his part of the pact, Valenso possibly excluded. Each of the freebooters intended to possess both the ship and the entire treasure. None would be satisfied with less.

But how? What was going on in each crafty mind? Belesa felt oppressed and stifled by the atmosphere of hatred and treachery. The Cimmerian, for all his ferocious frankness, was no less subtle than the others …and even fiercer. His domination of the situation was not physical alone, although his gigantic shoulders and massive limbs seemed too big for even the great hall. There was an iron vitality about the man that overshadowed even the hard vigor of the other freebooters.

“Lead us to the treasure!” Zarono demanded.

“Wait a bit,” answered Conan. “We must keep our power evenly balanced, so that one cannot take advantage of the others. We’ll work it thus: Strom’s men shall come ashore, all but a half-dozen or so, and camp on the beach. Zarono’s men shall come out of the fort and likewise camp on the strand, within easy sight of them. Then each crew can watch the other, to see that nobody slips after us who go for the treasure, to ambush either of us. Those left aboard the Red Hand shall take her out into the bay, out of reach of either party. Valenso’s men shall stay in the fort but leave the gate open. Will you come with us, Count?”

“Go into that forest?” Valenso shuddered and drew his cloak about his shoulders. “Not for all the gold of Tranicos!”

“All right. ’Twill take about thirty men to carry the loot. We’ll take fifteen from each crew and start as soon as we can.”

Belesa, keenly alert to every angle of the drama being played out beneath her, saw Zarono and Strombanni shoot furtive glances at each other, then quickly lower their gaze as they lifted their glasses, to hide the murky intent in their eyes. She perceived the fatal weakness in Conan’s plan and wondered how he could have overlooked it. Perhaps he was too arrogantly confident in his personal prowess. But she knew that he would never come out of that forest alive. Once the treasure was in their grasp, the others would form a rogue’s alliance long enough to rid themselves of the man both hated. She shuddered, staring morbidly at the man she knew to be doomed. Strange to see that powerful fighting man sitting there, laughing and swilling wine, in full prime and power, and to know that he was already doomed to a bloody death.

The whole situation was pregnant with dark and bloody portents. Zarono would trick and kill Strombanni if he could, and she knew that Strombanni had already marked Zarono for death and, doubtless, her uncle and herself also. If Zarono won the final battle of cruel wits, their lives were safe …but, looking at the buccaneer as he sat there chewing his mustache, with all the stark evil of his nature showing naked in his dark face, she could not decide which was more abhorrent …death or Zarono.

“How far is it?” demanded Strombanni.

“If we start within the hour, we can be back before midnight,” answered Conan.

He emptied his goblet, rose, adjusted his girdle, and glanced at the count.

“Valenso,” he said, “are you mad, to kill a Pict in his hunting paint?”

Valenso started. “What do you mean?”

“Do you mean to say you don’t know that your men killed a Pict hunter in the woods last night?”

The count shook his head. “None of my men was in the woods last night.”

“Well, somebody was,” grunted the Cimmerian, fumbling in a pocket. “I saw his head nailed to a tree near the edge of the forest. He wasn’t painted for war. I found no boot tracks, from which I judged that it had been nailed up there before the storm. But there were plenty of other signs …moccasin tracks on the wet ground. Picts have been there and seen that head. They were men of some other clan, or they’d have taken it down. If they happen to be at peace with the clan the dead man belonged to, they’ll mate tracks to his village to tell his tribe.”

“Perhaps they slew him,” suggested Valenso.

“No, they didn’t. But they know who did, for the same reason that I know. This chain was knotted about the stump of the severed neck. You must have been utterly mad, to identify your handiwork like that.”

He drew forth something and tossed it on the table before the count, who lurched up, choking, as his hand flew to his throat. It was the gold seal-chain that he had habitually worn about his neck.

“I recognized the Korzetta seal,” said Conan. “The presence of that chain alone would tell any Pict it was the work of a foreigner.”

Valenso did not reply. He sat staring at the chain as if at a venomous serpent Conan scowled at him and glanced questioningly at the others. Zarono made a quick gesture to indicate that the count was not quite right in the head. Conan sheathed his cutlass and donned his lacquered hat

“All right; let’s go,” he said.

The captains gulped down their wine and rose, hitching at their sword belts.

Zarono laid a hand on Valenso’s arm and shook him slightly. The count started and stared about him, then followed the others out like a man in a daze, the chain dangling from his fingers. But not all left the hall.

Forgotten on the stair, Belesa and Tina, peeping between the balusters, saw Galbro fall behind the others, loitering until the heavy door closed after them.

Then he hurried to the fireplace and raked carefully at the smoldering coals.

He sank to his knees and peered closely at something for a long space. Then he straightened and, with a furtive air, stole out of the hall by another door.

Tina whispered: “What did Galbro find in the fire?”

Belesa shook her head; then, obeying the promptings of her curiosity, rose and went down to the empty hall.

An instant later, she was kneeling where the senescal had knelt, and she saw what he had seen.

It was the charred remnant of the map that Conan had thrown into the fire. It was ready to crumble at a touch, but faint lines and bits of writing were still discernible upon it. She could not read the writing, but she could trace the outlines of what seemed to be the picture of a hill or crag, surrounded by marks evidently representing dense trees. She could make nothing of it; but, from Galbro’s actions, she believed that he recognized it as portraying some scene or topographical feature familiar to him. She knew the senescal had penetrated inland further than any other man of the settlement.