"And the others?"
"Well, they are not so adept as I, certainly, but a wall of wood can hardly offer much challenge. The palisade is, after all, nothing more than a bunch of trees without limbs."
"Then we should find an unwatched spot and climb," Conan said. "When darkness is the deepest."
"Aye, a clever idea. We can drop a line for you once we are atop the wall."
"I think I can manage the climb on my own.
Aye, he thought, or die trying before allowing himself to be pulled up on a rope. The Tree Folk had no more fingers or toes than did Cimmerians, and if they could scale that wall, he would be cursed forever if he could not do the same.
"I shall send a scout to find a good place," Tair said. "Meanwhile, let us eat and speak of our adventures. I have much to say."
Conan grinned. Aye, he was certain of that fact. Never had he met a people so full of themselves. They had raised the standards of bragging, to be sure.
Thayla chewed on a hard root and grimaced at the taste and texture. There was some milky fluid in the thing that spurted into her mouth, producing a salty and slightly bitter tang. While sustaining, it was hardly part of a diet she would desire given choice. Still, one had to make do. There was no time to hunt meat and still maintain their watch on the Tree Folk and that accursed Conan.
Next to her under the cover of thick shrubbery, Blad smiled at her. Simpleton that he was, he required very little to make him happy. After crossing the river where so many of their kind had died, Thayla had gifted the young Pili with a treasure he had never thought to attain, and now he belonged to her, body and spirit. Males were so predictable it was laughable.
"They are settled, you say?"
"Aye, milady. They eat and talk among themselves."
Thayla digested this bit of information along with another bit of root. Whatever idea she had had about slaying the Tree Folk one at a time vanished when Conan and his group joined another, larger band of the accursed humans. There were nearly a score of them gathered together now, and a misstep on Blad's part would likely see him skewered. Not that such an idea greatly distressed her, since she thought of males as disposable-one Pili was as good as another; they all looked alike under the moon-but since Blad here was the only one she had, Thayla was loath to give him up-at least until she had a suitable replacement.
"We are near the village?" she said.
"Aye, my queen. A few minutes' walk."
What, she wondered, were the Tree Folk up to now? And where was that fool husband of hers? The village squatted on the edge of a vast lake, and he had to be inside the walls-unless he was in the water or somehow on the weed therein, neither of which she thought likely. So what was he doing in there?
"Go and watch the men," Thayla ordered. "Report back immediately if anything happens."
The smile vanished from Blad's face. Doubtless he had something other in mind than lying alone in the brush spying on their quarry. Thayla reached out and stroked his arm. She gave him a half-lidded look and a sultry smile. "I shall wait here for your return."
The grin blossomed again on Blad's face and he jumped up almost eagerly. "At once, my queen!"
After he was gone, Thayla shook her head. Truly males were driven by something other than their brains.
The thick of night found Kleg sitting unhappily in a rat-infested tavern near the docks. A sign outside proclaimed the tavern to be the Bright Hope. The name was a huge joke, for there was neither brightness nor hope within.
Kleg brooded over a wooden cup of kral under the flickering light of sputtering fat lamps. The rough, filthy room was filled with smoke and perhaps a score of low-caste men and half as many bottom-of-the-barrel trulls seeking to service them. The planks of the walls were warped and colored a dead gray, with torn fishnets draped here and there as an attempt at decorations. A vile place. Kleg was only in it because he thought it unlikely anyone would think to look for him here.
Kleg sipped at his drink. The crowd of men was a rough one, cutpurses, dock thugs, and the like, with a thin leavening of more upright citizens: at a table near the selkie, a goatherder and a swinekeeper drunkenly told each other tales in loud voices.
None of the riffraff bothered Kleg. It was well known that a selkie was no easy mark, being stronger than a man even on land and quick to anger if irritated. Small consolation.
". . . No, wait, let me tell ye about the time I slew a direwolf with naught else but my sling-"
"No, no, no, I heared that story a hundred times! Let me tell you o' the monster at the inn!"
The goatherder splashed wine down the front of his already-stained and stinking sheepskin jerkin. "Ah, go on with ye, it's lies ye be tellin'! "
"No, no, no! I was there, I tell you! It come right through the wall o' the Fish, tore the wood like it was a spider's web and come right at me! Big as a house"-Here the swinekeeper waved his mug of wine to emphasize the size of the thing about which he spoke, and sloshed a goodly portion of the wine into a high arc that ended on the dirt floor-"it were, and me standin' there in the street all alone, nothin' between it 'n' me, and I says to myself, by Mitra, my time is come, so's I might as well go out like a man. I stared it in the eye, I did, I dared it to come for me, and it see'd my face and turned away!"
"Aye, I'ud run were I sober and seeing you for the first time meself," the goatherder said. Amused at his own joke, the man laughed loudly, trailing off into a hoarse cackle.
"No! I faced 'im down, I did! The street were thick with folk and they every one of 'em ran like water bugs from a carp! But I stood my ground! I'ud show you, it ever comes back, the demon!"
This brought another round of raspy cackles.
Kleg was distracted by his plight, else he would have picked up on the substance of the conversation sooner. As it was, he realized the implications as the goatherder stood and made some comment about emptying his bladder; then stumbled off, weaving awkwardly through the clutter of the room.
If any of this were true, if this old man had been on the street when the monster broke out of the inn last eve, then maybe he had seen the talisman!
Kleg shook his head. It was a faint hope. Still, a faint hope was better than no hope at all.
The selkie stood and moved toward the old swinekeeper.
Even through his drunken haze, the man's face registered his fear as Kleg loomed over him.
"Eh?"
"I heard part of your story," Kleg said. "A man as brave as you deserves more than scorn. What are you drinking?"
"Why, dregwine, what else?"
Kleg waved at the serving woman, a white-haired slattern dressed in a shapeless rag whose original color had become hidden under layers of filth. "Ho, a bottle of your best for my brave friend here."
The swinekeeper's face lit up with besotted joy. "Why, that's kind o' you, milord! You bein' a selkie and all, not that I ever had any disrespect for your kind, you unnerstand."
Kleg nodded. "Tell of this adventure of yours of which I have heard so much talk."
"Much talk, eh? Ha, shows what that fool goatherd knows! Aye, milord, it were a terrible sight! Only last night it happened."
The wizened little man launched into a retelling of the story Kleg had overheard. He paused when the serving woman returned with the wine, poured until his cup overflowed, and drank half the new portion. "Aye, so there I were, all alone, facing the demon with naught but my courage ...."
A hush fell over the room, the conversations around stopping as if by a signal. Kleg glanced up from the old man's rambling, to see what had caused the sudden quiet.
Standing in the doorway, outlined by the fat lamps to either side of the entrance, was a Pili.
The swinekeeper was oblivious and had grown more heroic in his retelling his tale.
". . . so I moved toward it, figurin' to poke its eye out, maybe . . ."
The Pili could hardly see much in the smoky room, Kleg felt, but if he came in and allowed his eyes to adjust to the gloom, it would not
be long before he would be able to pick out the only selkie therein.
Kleg surreptitiously fingered his knife. One-on-one, he felt that he could hold his own, especially with surprise on his side.
The Pili strode into the room. No one spoke, save the drunken swinekeeper, who was lost in his own glory. Then a second Pili entered, followed by a third.
Uh-oh. This altered things.
"We are searching for one of the fishmen," the lead Pili said.
Fully half of the room's patrons turned to look at Kleg.
The Pili took note of the action, and his gaze followed the others to where Kleg sat.
"Ah! At last!"
But whatever else the Pili would have said or done to Kleg at that moment was lost in the sound of the east wall being rent. A fat lamp flew and splashed burning fuel over men and rude furniture as the wall splintered inward. Men screamed and scrambled to run. The building shook as if swatted by a giant's hand, and the froglike monster of which the drunk next to Kleg spoke burst through the wood as if indeed the wall were no stronger than the web of a garden spider.
The swinekeeper, who, in his tale, was now chasing this same creature through the streets of the village, took one look at the snorting apparition that had just chewed through the wall and fainted dead away.
The three Pili could not stand against the panic of thirty men. The lizards were swept through the doorway by the stampede. The dry wood began to burn where the fat lay upon it.
Kleg grabbed up the unconscious swinekeeper and carried the man after the others. He spared a glance backward . . . to see that the monster was right behind him. He ran harder, dodging and twisting through the dingy alleys of the village.
Chapter SIXTEEN
Time and weather had not treated the palisade surrounding the village particularly well. Perhaps climbing the wall would have seemed difficult to an ordinary man, but Conan found the task relatively simple. Rot had invaded many spots, and digging the punk from the decayed areas produced more than adequate hand and footholds. Where the wood had resisted one enemy, others could be found: wormholes, bird attacks, termites, all contributed to Conan's ease of ascent. They might as well have hung a ladder over the parapet. If these people depended upon their wall as the major deterrent against outsiders, then they were living in a fool's realm.
For all his skill as a Cimmerian, Conan moved slowly compared to the Tree Folk. They swarmed up the wall as might ants, moving as quickly and certainly as a man hurrying down a wide garden path.
Once over the wall, Conan rejoined the others.
"Now what?" Cheen asked.
"Now we go hunting for selkies," Conan said. "Small groups, no more than two or three, so as not to attract attention."
"I shall go with you," Cheen said.
"Very well. Should any of the couples discover our quarry, best they send for help."
After the remainder of the Tree Folk divided up, they started into the strangely quiet village.
Conan led Cheen down an alley, moving toward what he thought the center of the small town. Now, were he a selkie, where would he be?
The answer to that was plain: in the water and on my way back to the magician who had sent me. Still, the obvious was not always the answer. Had the selkies attained the water and the mat of weed, then pursuit was likely ended, according to what Cheen said. Conan did not wish to be another of the men who ventured to the wizard's castle and failed to return. The life of the trees hung in the balance, but when he compared it to his own life, the Cimmerian youth was pragmatic. There were other trees, albeit none so large, that Cheen and her kind could learn to inhabit. As far as he knew, there was only one Conan of Cimmeria, and he meant to keep that one alive.
He stopped and sniffed the air.
"What is it?" Cheen asked.
"Something is burning."
"Aye, probably a hundred fireplaces and five times that many grease lamps and tapers," she said. "The stench is quite obvious."
"No, it is more than that. And listen."
Cheen cocked her head to one side. "I hear only the wind from the lake, and some night bird-wait. Voices."
Conan nodded. Aye, voices, and under that, the crackle of a fire, a fairly big one.
He looked up at the low clouds, casting his gaze back and forth. "There," he said, pointing.
A faint orange flicker danced on the clouds.
"What is it?"
"The clouds reflect the fire. Let us go and see what fuels it."
He led Cheen unerringly toward the source of the fire.
When the Cimmerian and the woman from the trees arrived, the conflagration had already drawn a sizable crowd. A hundred or more people stood about, watching the building burn. As Conan drew to a halt, he saw the flames leap to the roof of the structure next to the one already burning. A collective gasp arose from the crowd, followed by a babble of excited voices.
A line of a dozen men bearing sloshing buckets appeared. One by one, the men darted toward the flames and hurled the contents of their containers at the burning buildings. It was to little avail, Conan saw. The heat was too great for the firefighters to approach too closely, and probably half the water splashed short, landing on the street. What fluid reached the flames had little, if any, effect.
The firefighters ran off to fetch more water.
Standing a few feet away, a ma-n dressed in a goatherder's fleece and smelling of his charges talked to no one in particular.
"Mitra strike me down if I lie, but old Seihman 'uz right. Knocked a hole right in the wall, the beast did, an' it be a monster right enough!" The goatherder shook his head. "Ye ne'er see'd nothin' like it! I leaves to visit the night chamber and when I gets back, there be a room full o' lizard men, fishmen, and monsters eatin' right through the stinkin' walls!"
Conan shifted a few steps to face the old man.
"Fishmen, you say?"
"Aye, one o' 'em, anyways. Sittin' right there big as you please next to old Seihman himself and drinkin' wine when the thing come through the wall! Snatched up old Seihman and run off."
"To where?"
The goatherder glanced up from his drunken gaze at Conan's chest. "Mitra, you're a big 'un, ain'tcha?"
"The fishman, where did he go?"
The goatherder shook his head. "Dunno. Like to got trampled, I 'uz too busy to see wheres they got to."
"How long ago?"
"Since the fire. Not long."
Conan turned away from the man and looked at Cheen. "Like as not our quarry," he said.
"What of the beast of which he spoke?" Cheen asked.
Conan shrugged. "What of it? No concern of ours. We should look for the fishmen. There cannot be too many selkies around here carrying old men. He should not be too hard to find. Come."
As the pair turned away, the fire spread to another building. The crowd gasped.
"My queen, the men are leaving!"
Thayla was thus roused from a light sleep. "What?"
"They move toward the village," Blad said.
"But you said the gate was guarded."
"So it is. They are not going toward the gate."
Thayla shook her head, trying to clear the dregs of slumber. "Show me."
She followed the young male toward the village. The trip was a short one, and she arrived in time to see the tree dwellers and Conan scaling the wall.
"They are audacious," she said.
"What are we to do now, milady?"
"Follow them. If they can climb it, so can we.
Indeed, it was so. While it took a considerable effort and no small amount of time, Thayla, aided by Blad, managed to surmount the wall, using finger and toeholds invisible from a distance.
By the time the two Pili had managed the task, the Tree Folk and Conan were not to be seen.
Thayla felt a moment of panic. If her husband still lived, it was very likely that he, too, was in this collection of detritus that passed for a human town, and it was not so large a place that the King
of the Pili might never bump into her barbarian lover. She had to find Conan before this happened and see him dispatched to meet with his gods. But where was he?
"Look, milady. Smoke."
Aye, there was a thick curl of dark smoke in the air, and beyond it, a flicker of red orange that could only be flame. Would not a fire draw Conan's attention as well?
"Let us go there," she said.
Kleg was in a panic as he ran, carrying the drunken old man who smelled of swine and had lapsed into unconsciousness. There could be no doubt that the monster that ate its way through the second building in which the selkie had been had come looking for him. How had it found him? Well, were it sent by He Who Creates, such a problem was no more than a trifle. This thought only confirmed Kleg's thoughts as to his master's relative omnipotence.
He had to find the talisman and he had to get back to the castle and he had to do both quickly. One could not dodge such enemies as the Pili and a magical beast forever in a village bounded by walls on three sides and water on the other-Hsst! What was this?
Kleg slid into a patch of dark shadow next to a bakery and stared at two figures in the narrow street just beyond. There was a man and a small boy, dressed in the style of the Tree Folk, standing under the fitful light of a dying torch. He could not be sure, but the boy looked familiar. Of course, they all looked alike to Kleg, but-could this not be the image of the boy he had traded to the Pili for passage?
No, he decided, it could not be. That particular boy would have been stew long ago, a morsel to be consumed quickly by the rapacious Pili.
No matter. What did matter was that the two were most certainly Tree Folk, and-how had they gotten here? Were their others of their kind? Yes, yes, there must be. And that they were after Kleg he doubted not a whit.
By the Black Depths! It was not enough to be chased by two kinds of enemy; now there were three!
Kleg sagged. It was most unfair.
He turned and sprinted into the nearby alleyway to avoid the tree dwellers. He had to get to a place where he could revive this smelly pig man and find out what he knew. If, Kleg worried, the old man knew anything useful at all.
The Conan Compendium Page 101