“There now, you can go in and join the rest.” He heard the rasping, grating screech of another portal near at hand, saw the low archway, and ducked as he was propelled toward it. He staggered through—but he did not expect to find that beneath the wetness of the floor, there was no footing. He fell in with a splash, gasping and choking in a waist-deep cistern of chill, putrescent water.
“Who is it this time?” a voice grumbled nearby amid the scattered laughter. “Another qat-smuggler from far-off Akif?”
Coughing amid the hoots and guffaws, Conan found his voice. “It is Amra of the Red Brotherhood. Who wants to know?”
“What, Amra, the Vilayet pirate? Amra the Scourge of the Western Sea?” The ensuing cheers and outcries, though sustained by the echoes in the place, nevertheless sounded feeble and tubercular. The loudest, heartiest ones came from the doorway he had just passed through. Peering up, he saw a closed, crusted iron grille and a face leering through it—a round moon-face, poxy and self-satisfied, grinning at his captive. “Welcome, great Amra! How lucky we are to have such an honoured guest!” “Away, stenchard!” As Conan slung filthy water up at the grille, the face withdrew. Turning to his questioner, he continued in a low voice, “My pirate fleet waits at anchor in the harbour, and I do not plan to be here tomorrow.” “Huh!” The fellow, a hulking, swarthy-bearded Shemite, laughed bitterly. “None of us did, that is certain! But come... if you are indeed Amra, there are men of your crew among us. They will recognize you.” Beckoning to the newcomer with a careful, convict’s gesture, he led him away through the waist-deep water. “I am Vulpus, by the way, a river pirate by trade.”
The naval fortress, Vulpus explained, had sunk into the Ilbars river mud from the weight of its stone vaultings and buttresses. Thus the dungeons always were submerged to varying depths, depending on the season. Usually the water level was no higher than this; only rarely, during a spring flood or a winter torrent, did it rise to the ceiling and drown the occupants.
Over the course of years, the central corridor had been filled in with stones to provide easier access to the cells. The dungeons themselves had not been raised, since the only light and ventilation inside them came through stone grilles that were wholly or partially submerged. Throughout the place there were a few ledges and perches where inmates could remain dry; these were reserved for the fiercest and most respected felons. The hardship was intense, but temporary, due to overcrowding, which would soon be alleviated by death. For now, the prisoners suffered abominably from ague, chills, and festering bites.
“Rats, you mean?” Conan asked as he waded toward the shallower end of the vault.
“No, crabs.” Vulpus pointed to an oozing gash on one hairy arm. “At night they creep in from the harbour and try to eat us. In all this wetness, the pincer-wounds become inflamed and will not heal. Fortunately for us, the crabs themselves make tasty eating.”
Among the dregs and flotsam of the jail were Yorkin, Ivanos, Ferdinald, and the rest of the captured brothers. Also present were pirates from the South Vilayet, provincial brigands, naval mutineers, and local cutthroats and smugglers. Conan’s men had heard of the pirate fleet’s arrival, and were cheered by his presence. Yet they had hoped to be bought or traded out of prison, not joined by their leader; after rotting for weeks in this hole, they could hardly join in Conan’s blithe expectation of escape. Others placed hope in the idea of outside help, such as a rescue by Conan’s fleet; he took care not to disabuse them of this false notion.
“We are going to die tomorrow, most all of us,” Vulpus declared on behalf of the common prisoners. “If you mean to leave here, take us with you. We will fight for you. We have nothing to lose.”
Conan had hoped for this, yet he made no promises. “What of those Admiralty guards? They are tough monkeys. How many of them are there?”
“Guards, what guards?” Vulpus puzzled. “No self-respecting Admiralty guard ever comes down here. Oh, you mean Rondo and his crew—they are not staff, they are inmates like ourselves, trusties!” He laughed, snorted, and spat into the ubiquitous pond, that here was less than knee-deep. “There are six in all, counting the ringleader himself.”
“A real scum-eater, that one,” Conan avowed. “What is his crime?”
“Better to ask what crime is not his!” Vulpus hawked again, but this time thought better of spitting. “The warders allow him the key and the run of the place. Rondo chooses only his former cronies as helpers.”
The prison was in the form of three separate galleries around three sides of the fort, connected by the raised, U-shaped central corridor. Some of Conan’s men were in the other cells, and he, in his role as Amra the pirate leader, insisted that they be told of his arrival.
Communication between the rooms was possible only by tapping on the thinnest part of the stone wall. Since Conan was not in the central gallery, there were further delays while messages were relayed to and from the farthest room, also by tapping. Consequently, the necessary work of planning and debating took up the rest of the morning.
The day’s meal arrived, shoved in through the grilled door in a deep, hollow trencher that could be floated the length of the gallery. Luckily, the food was repellently familiar and unappetizing, a pasty gruel of sour grain, with formless lumps of fish and gourd embedded in it. So it was not all taken by the strongest inmates; a good part remained for the weak and desperate.
The convicts filled in and elaborated the gruesome picture Knulf had painted of the torments set for the morrow. A long and varied set of executions was planned to follow the naval trials—impalings, burnings in floating hulks, and so forth, culminating in the dismemberment of dreaded Amra and a few others. The city, by all reports, was in a fever of anticipation.
“And what of this sea-contest?” Conan asked. “I heard that the first try-out was a failure, in spite of all the devilments and fiendish inventions Yildiz’s wizards could muster.”
His cell mates apprised him of current gossip about events at the Navy Yard, gained mostly during clean-up and burial details outside the dungeon. The reputation of the contestants, the unfolding mystery of their planned efforts, and the play of rival forces at court were included in the speculation. Conan, having run afoul of the sorcerer Crotalus., and having equalled his rare feat of navigation, could well see how much was at stake.
“Of course you have heard,” Vulpus told him, “that on trial-day all the wizards will be set loose against the pirate fleet, to wipe it out. That, anyway, is the rumour that is lately abroad. I assume you are prepared for it.”
“Oh, aye, yes.” Conan, wholly surprised by this news, judged it wise to conceal his ignorance. “With any luck we will be at sea by then.”
“For myself,” Vulpus resumed, “I cannot relish spending my life on board a ship. River pirating was a freebooting trade, with short voyages and few men to a boat, at most. Our rowdies came and went freely—we split our loot evenly, and spent it as we pleased. But all the seafarers I meet tell of long bouts of toil and hardship, and fierce punishments. You pirate chiefs sound like even worse tyrants than navy and merchant captains, or old Yildiz himself. Why should a free thief follow such a trade, I ask you?”
“Never was a man slower than I to bend his neck to tyranny.” Conan, with an earnest wish to survive prison and a sea-captain’s thirst to recruit men, chose his words carefully. “Aye, even so, there is much to be said for a ship’s routine—for the creed of the Red Brotherhood, and for following a strong leader. Why, I myself, years agone, was but a lowly trooper in Emperor Yildiz’s army. I passed through his tutelage and learned from it, to the point where I now seek to rival him.” He had gradually broadened his speech to the inmates around him. “By yielding to mastery and bearing up under it, you too might rise to become a master of men. I ask no more of any sailor under my command than that.”
The nearby convicts nodded, seeming inspired by Conan’s words. Shortly afterward, he helped Vulpus float the empty food trough back down the gallery, to return it to the trusties. Bu
t without preamble, while Vulpus pounded on the gate grille, a mob of unsavoury, long-bearded inmates flung themselves upon Conan and forced him underwater, doing their best to drown him.
“Scoundrel! Devil!” they shouted as they kicked and pummelled, forcing him under murky splashes. “You pirate scum are the bane of honest smugglers! Our shipload of qat from Vendhya was burned by you ignorant louts— else we could have bought our way out of this hole! Die, sea-thief! Perish in foul muck!”
“Warder! Warder!” Vulpus rattled the grille, shouting for aid. “There is a riot, come quickly! The Riverbottom Rogues are murdering the pirate Amra!”
The moon-face of the guard Rondo appeared beyond the grille, twisted in a cynical smirk. Then, as Conan fought his way to the surface by hurling two of his attackers against a wall, only to be forced back down again by the rest of them, a cloud of doubt passed over the trusty’s brow. Turning, he shouted gruffly to his helpers.
“Here, lads! The warden wants that villain Amra alive! There will be the devil to pay if he dies. Come and break some skulls!” Slamming his key into the rusty lock, the warder wrenched open the grille and let in three cudgel-bearing men.
In an instant, the rioters turned on the guards. Conan and the smugglers sprang alike from the water, lunging to grapple with them, while Vulpus forced himself halfway through the open gate and huddled there, resisting a fury of kicking and clubbing by Rondo. More inmates, by prearrangement, swarmed out through the door. In moments the trusties were down, splashing and gurgling for help, their clubs flailing overhead in vengeful hands. Conan rushed the door, pushing up through it into the corridor, with Vulpus acting as an involuntary shield.
“Now, swine!” Brushing the Shemite aside, Conan laid hold of Rondo’s cudgel in mid-swing and snatched it away like a twig. As the warder turned to bolt, Conan caught him by the collar and dragged him up against a wall. “Where is the key?”
“Where is it? Right here, Cap’n, sir!” Rondo reached to a lanyard at his belt and offered his captor a rusty iron key.
“Only one key?” Conan seized it, wrenching the thong loose from the trusty’s clothing. They were being surrounded by a crowd of soggy, angry escapees from the dungeon. “Does this fit that door as well?” He nodded toward the upper ramp, where the gate was visible only as a small square of cross-barred light at the end of the corridor.
“Why no, Cap’n, I have no key to that door.” Rondo shook his head, sweat running visibly down his round face in the dimness.
“Vulpus, does the wretch lie?” Conan demanded over his shoulder. “I thought you said he carried the key.” “Aye, to the cells, to be sure,” the Shemite said, massaging his battered shoulders. “But in truth, I doubt the Admiralty would give the outer key to Rondo.”
“Nay, Cap’n, they would never trust me with a key to the outside! I an’ my boys would’ve been long gone!” “Why, you—” Conan clapped a hand on the warder’s neck and began to twist. Then, at the pathetic look of the man, he flung him aside. “All right, live, if you can stand to!” He turned to the others. “What if we begin to kill him slowly? Will they try to intervene?”
There was little hope of that, according to the convicts. When Conan went to peer out of the grille, he saw two armed Admiralty guards against the glare, standing well up near the archway at the top of the ramp.
“Sounds as if there is some trouble below,” one of the men called down good-naturedly. “Never worry, you are not bothering us.”
“They want to escape, no doubt,” the other observed. ‘ ‘What is your hurry, anyway? You will be let out tomorrow! ’’ The naval troops seemed unlikely to fall for the same trick that had fooled Rondo. And the inmates, after ransacking the trusties’ barren cots in the wardroom, still had nothing, no implements or steel weapons. Releasing the wet, clamouring prisoners from the other cells, they nevertheless found themselves trapped in the dank basement, lacking even material with which to build a fire of any size. They could not get a purchase on the steel door, which was set snugly in its stone jamb, and they had nothing to use as a battering-ram.
“We have two hundred good men, even so,” Conan pointed out. “And we have the underpinnings of this fort to play with! By Bel-Dagoth, we will bring the place tumbling down about their ears!”
And so the convicts set about trying to undermine the Naval Garrison. Taking chains, which they had a fair amount of, they looped them around a pillar in the wardroom. By tying on blankets and lengths of thong from the cots, Conan made places for as many strong men as he could. The tow line extended out along the arched corridor—which, they hoped, would protect most of them from the ceiling’s collapse.
Yet the stone blocks, pinned in place by the whole massive weight of the fortress above, refused to move. Instead, the crudely forged iron links stretched and parted, sending the convicts down in a bruising, cursing heap. Angered now, they embarked on the even more dangerous course of looping and doubling chains, thongs, and blankets around two adjacent pillars. By twisting this makeshift binding in the middle with cudgels and cot-rails, they endeavoured to draw the two columns together and topple one of them. Their initial effort caused a section of stone to grate and shift in its place, to frenzied cheering. But the pillar came slowly; the inmates were soon again hampered by weak materials and lack of leverage, and their labours. dragged on through the afternoon without further result.
At dusk, a delegation of three Admiralty officers came down to the main gate to parley through the grille. Conan was summoned as spokesman for the prisoners, with Vulpus as his second and a crowd of inmates listening in. The harbour master—judging so by his ermine cape—was present, and possibly the dungeon warden as well. But the speaker of the naval party was the dapper, plumed lieutenant who had received Conan into the fortress that morning.
“Come now, Captain Amra,” the man said, not troubling with introductions. “It is pointless of you to raise a stir all night! We want you men fresh and well-rested for the festivities tomorrow. Is it not possible to come to some kind of agreement?”
“That depends.” Conan scowled through the grating. “What are you ready to offer that will make any difference?”
“Why—” after a glance to his superiors, the lieutenant clasped his hands before him “—the most attractive thing possible to a man in your position: an easy death. If you persuade your henchmen to weather the night quietly, without rattling the foundations and raising any more turmoil, my superiors have authorized me to promise that you will be killed cleanly tomorrow... by hanging, instead of the more elaborate punishment that had been planned.
“Mmm.” Conan kept his scowl immobile as befit a shrewd bargainer. “But if I keep my men quiet through the night, there is nothing to guarantee that you will live up to your promise. I cannot trust mere words. What can you offer me right now? Besides,” he added, in response to prodding and whispers from behind him, “what is in it for them? Offer my men something.”
The naval lieutenant turned and conferred at some length with his superiors. After considerable head-bobbing in the torch-lit dusk, he turned back to the doorway. “If you must have it so, the Admiralty is prepared to make this most generous offer: If you all return to your cells, surrender the keys, and let us lock you in, we will moderate the punishment of any twenty prisoners you specify—at least ease it enough to guarantee them a swift, merciful death. In addition, we will let you, Amra the pirate, go free, and execute another convict in your place.”
At this, Conan could scarcely believe his ears, but the officer was not finished. “Of course, to conceal such an imposture from the mob when we have promised them Amra, we would have to exact certain guarantees from you. Cut out your tongue, for one thing—the tongue, yes— and lop off a hand. That would keep you from revealing our secret and resuming your piratical ways. But that could be done immediately, as you request—”
“Never,” Conan answered without hesitation. “I will not accept freedom if my shipmates and prison mates are not going
to share in it,” he told the officer, to cheers and eager thumps on the back. “Rather, I offer you this bargain: Free all these men now, and do what you want to me on the morrow. But they must be freed unharmed, and permitted to join the Red Brotherhood’s fleet in the harbour if they so wish.”
Conan spoke confidently; he judged that it would be a good deal easier for him to escape the Hyrkanians on his own than to drag a prisonful of unruly knaves along with him. “And the fleet must be allowed to sail, as soon as it wishes and without interference.”
Amid the howls of applause from inside the dungeon, the lieutenant gave a brief, cursory glance to his commanders and turned back to Conan. “I fear we have reached an impasse,” the moustached man declared. “Our proposals are too far apart to be settled in the time allowed. There is no point in talking further.”
“Aye,” Conan agreed. “So go about your business, and we will return to ours.”
On that note, the parley ended. Conan turned to face the universal goodwill and congratulations of his fellow convicts. The dungeon had grown even blacker than before, with lamps and oil growing scarce; most of the men loitered in the yellow-lit wardroom, taking turns in the reckless attack on the pillars. The chains and blankets were giving out fast, the stone having budged less than two fingers’ width. There was still planning to be done for a morning escape; but as hope faded, the convicts’ mood grew listless.
Two iron doors led into the dungeon, one at either end of the U-shaped corridor. During the late, unmeasured hours, Conan went discreetly to the second and lesser-used one, summoned by the pirate appointed to watch there. He had no difficulty slipping away from the dozing, dispirited crew; the lookout had, evidently, been bribed to bring him quietly. Beyond the small grating, outlined in moonlight from the courtyard above, he could make out two cloaked figures waiting in the ramp way.
“Yes?” he growled suspiciously. “What is it?”
“You are Amra... Conan, I mean?” From the soft, cultivated voice, the high, shaven brow, and the fragrance of perfumed oil wafting in through the grille, Conan judged the speaker to be a court eunuch.
Conan of the Red Brotherhood Page 21