"The oil!" Conan shouted even as the sack fell. He seized another jar, this with its lid sealed in place with pitch, and threw it to smash aboard the galley. "Quickly, before the distance widens!"
More sealed pots flew toward the other vessel. Half fell into tossing water, but the rest landed on the galley's stern. The two ships diverged, but now the galley's burning sail was over the side, and her men were turning to Foam Dancer.
Conan pounded his fist on the rail. "Where is it?" he muttered. "Why has nothing-"
Flame exploded in the stern of the galley as spreading oil at last reached the coals that had burned out of the sack. Screams rose from the galley, and wild cheers from the men of Foam Dancer.
In that instant the rains came at last, a solid sheet of water that cut off all vision of the other ship. Wind that had howled now raged like a mad beast, and Muktar's vessel reeled to the hammer blows of waves that towered above her mast.
"Keep us sailing north!" Conan shouted. He had to put his mouth close to Muktar's ear to be heard, even so.
Straining at the steering oar, the bearded man shook his head. "You do not sail a storm of the Vilayet!"
he bellowed. "You survive it!"
And then the wind rose, ripping away even shouted words as they left the mouth, and talk was impossible.
The wind did not abate, nor did the furious waves. Gray mountains of water, their peaks whipped to violent white spray, hurled themselves at Foam Dancer as if the gods themselves, angered by her name, would prove that she could not dance with their displeasure. Those who had dared to pit this cockleshell against the unleashed might of the Vilayet could do naught but cling and wait.
After an endless age, the rains began to slacken and, at last, were gone. The wind that flogged choppy waves to whitecaps became no more than stiff, and whipped away the clouds to reveal a bright gibbous moon hung in a black velvet sky, its pale light half changing day for night. There was neither sight nor hint of the galley.
"The fire consumed it," Sharak gloated. "Or the storm."
"Perhaps," Conan answered doubtfully. An the fire had not been well caught, the storm would have extinguished it. And if Foam Dancer could ride that tempest, then the galley, if well handled, could have too. To Muktar, who had returned the steering oar to the steersman, he said, "Find the coast. We must find how far we've gone astray."
"By dawn," the bearded man announced confidently. He seemed to feel that the battle with the sea had been his alone; the victory had put even more swagger into his walk.
Yasbet, approaching, laid a hand on Conan's arm. "I must speak with you," she said softly.
"And I with you," he replied grimly. "What in Mitra's name did you mean by-"
But she was walking away, motioning for him to follow, stepping carefully among the night-shrouded shapes of men who had collapsed where they stood from exhaustion. Growling fearsome oaths under his breath, Conan stalked after her. She disappeared into the pale shadow of her sagging tent, its heavy fabric hanging low from the pounding of the storm. Furiously jerking aside the flap, he ducked inside, and had to kneel for lack of headroom.
"Why did you leave where I put you?" he demanded. "And how? I made that knot too firm for your fingers to pick. You could have been killed, you fool wench! And you told me you'd stay there. Promised it!"
She faced his anger, if not calmly at least unflinchingly. "Indeed your fingers wove a strong knot, but the sharp blade you gave me cut it nicely. As to why, you have taught me to defend myself. How could I do that lashed like a bundle for the laundress? And I did not promise. I said I would be waiting for you when the battle was done. Did I not better that? I came to find you."
"I remember a promise!" he thundered. "And you broke it!"
Disconcertingly, she smiled and said quietly, "Your cloak is wet through." Delicate fingers unfastened the bronze pin that held the garment, and soft arms snaked about his neck as she pushed the cloak from his shoulders. Sensuous lips brushed the line of his jaw, his ear.
"Stop that," he growled, pushing her away. "You'll not distract me from my purpose. Had I a switch to hand, you would think yourself better off in your amah's grasp."
With an exasperated sigh she leaned on one arm, frowning at him. "But you have no switch," she said. As he stared in amazement, she undid the laces of her jerkin and drew it over her head. Full, rounded breasts swung free, shimmering satin flesh that dried his throat. "Still," she went on, "your hand is hard, and your arm strong. I have no doubt it will suffice for your purpose, did you call it?" Boots and trousers joined the jerkin. Twisting on her knees to face away from him, she pressed her face to the deck.
Conan swallowed hard. Those lush buttocks of honeyed ivory would have brought sweat to the face of a statue, and he was all too painfully aware at that moment that he was flesh and blood. "Cover yourself, girl," he said hoarsely, "and stop this game. 'Tis dangerous, for I am no girl's toy."
"I play no game," she said, kneeling erect again, her knees touching his. She made no move toward her garments. "I know that all aboard this vessel think I am your... your leman." Her cheeks pinkened; that, more than her nudity, made him groan and squeeze his eyes shut. A brief look of triumph flitted across her face. "Have I not complained to you before," she said fiercely, "about protecting me when I did not want to be protected?"
Unclenching white-knuckled fists, he pulled her to him; she gasped as she was crushed against his chest.
"The toying is done, wench," he growled. "Say go, and I will go. But if you do not...." He toppled them both to the deck, her softness a cushion under him, his agate blue eyes gazing into here with unblinking intensity.
"I am no girl," she breathed, "but a woman. Stay." She wore a triumphant smile openly now.
Conan thought it strange, that smile, but she was indeed a woman, and his mind did not long remain on smiles.
Chapter XVII
From a rocky headland covered with twisted, stunted scrub, waves crashing at its base, Conan peered inland, watching for Tamur's return. The nomad had claimed that he would have horses for them all in three or four turns of the glass, but he had left at dawn, and the sun sat low in its journey toward the western horizon.
On a short stretch of muddy sand north of the headland Foam Dancer lay drawn up, heeling over slightly on her keel. An anchor had been carried up the beach to dunes covered with tall, sparse brown grass, its long cable holding the vessel against the waves that tugged at her stern. Cooking fires dotted the sand between the ship and the dunes. Yasbet's tent had been pitched well away from the blankets of the Hyrkanians and the sailors, scattered among their piles of driftwood.
As Conan turned back to his scanning, a plume of dust inland and to the south caught his eye. It could be Tamur, with the horses, or it could be... who? He wished he knew more about this land. At least the sentry he had set atop the highest of the dunes could see the dust, too. He glanced in that direction and bit back an oath. The man was gone! The dust was closer, horses plain at its base. Tamur? Or some other?
Making an effort to appear casual, he walked up the headland to where a steep downward slope led to the beach, dotted with wind-sculpted trees, their gnarled roots barely finding a grip in the rocky soil.
Between the dunes and the plain lay thickets of such growth. He half-slid down that slope, still making an effort to show no haste.
At the fires he leaned over Akeba, who sat cross-legged before a fire, honing his sword. "Horsemen approach," he said quietly. "I know not if it is Tamur or others. But the sentry is nowhere to be seen."
Stiffening, the Turanian slid his honing stone into his pouch and his curved blade into its scabbard. He had removed his distinctive tunic and spiral helmet, for the Turanian army was little loved on this side of the Vilayet. "I will take a walk in the dunes. You can see to matters here?" Conan nodded, and Akeba, taking up a spade as if answering a call of nature, strolled toward the dunes.
"Yasbet!" Conan called, and she appeared at the flap of her tent.
He motioned her to come to him.
She made a great show of buckling on her sword belt and adjusting its fit on her hips before making her way slowly across the sand. As soon as she was in arm's reach of him, he grabbed her shoulders and firmly sat her down in the protection of a large driftwood bole.
"Stay there," he said when she made to rise. Turning to the others, scattered among the campfires, he said, as quietly as he could and still be heard, "None of you move." Some turned their faces to him curiously, and Muktar got to his feet. "I said, don't move!" Conan snapped. Such was the tone of command in his voice that the bearded captain obeyed. Conan went on quickly. "Horsemen will be here any moment. I know not who. Be still!" A Hyrkanian drew back the hand he had stretch forth for his bow, and a sailor, who had risen with a look of running on his face, froze. "Besides this, the sentry has disappeared. Someone may be watching us. Choose your place of covet and when I give the word-not yet!-seize your weapons and be ready. Now!"
In an instant the beach seemed to become deserted as men rolled behind piles of driftwood. Conan snatched a bow and quiver, and dropped behind the bole with Yasbet. He raised himself enough to barely look over it, searching the dunes.
"Why did you see to my safety before telling the others?" Yasbet demanded crossly. "All my life I have been wrapped in swaddling. I will be coddled no longer."
"Are you the hero in a saga, then?" Was that the drumming of hooves he heard? Where in Zandru's Nine Hells was Akeba? "Are you impervious to steel and proof against arrows?"
"A heroine," she replied. "I will be a heroine, not a hero."
Conan snorted. "Sagas are fine for telling before a fire of a cold night, or for entertaining children, but we are made of flesh and blood. Steel can draw blood, and arrows pierce the flesh. Do I ever see you attempting to be a hero-or a heroine you'll think your bottom has suddenly become a drum. Be still, now."
Without taking his eyes from the dunes he felt the arrows in his quiver, checking the fletching.
"Will we die then, Conan, on this pitiful beach?" she asked.
"Of course not," he said quickly. "I'll take you back to Aghrapur and put pearls around your neck, if I don't return you to Fatima for a stubborn wench first." Of a certainty the sound of galloping horses was closer.
For a long moment she seemed to consider that. Then suddenly she shouted, "Conan of Cimmeria is my lover, and I his! I glory in sharing his blankets!"
Conan stared at her. "Crom, girl! I told you to be still!"
"If I am to die, I want the world to know what we share."
As Conan opened his mouth, the drumming abruptly became a thunder, and scores of horses burst over the dunes, spraying muddy sand beneath their hooves, roiling in a great circle on the beach. Conan nocked an arrow, then hesitated when he saw that many of the horses had no riders. Tamur appeared out of the shifting mass of riders.
"Do not loose!" Conan shouted, striding out to meet the Hyrkanian, who swung down from his horse as Conan approached. "Erlik take you, Tamur! You could have ended wearing more feathers than a goose, riding in that way."
"Did not Andar tell you who we were?" The scarred Hyrkanian said, frowning. "I saw you set him to watch."
"He was relieving himself," Akeba said disgustedly, joining them, "and did not bother to set another in his place." He was trailed by a narrowjawed Hyrkanian, greased mustaches framing his mouth and chin.
Tamur glared at the man, who shrugged and said, "What is there to watch for, Tamur? These scavenging dungrollers?" Andar jerked his head at the mounted men, who sat their small, shaggy horses in a loose circle about those they herded.
"You did not keep watch as you were told," Tamur grated. He turned and called to the other Hyrkanians,
"Does any here stand for this one?" None answered.
Alarm flashed onto Andar's face, and he grabbed for his yataghan. Tamur spun back to the mustached man, his blade flashing from its scabbard, striking. Andar fell, sword half-drawn, his nearly severed neck spurting blood into the sand.
Tamur kicked the still-jerking body. "Take this defiler of his mother's womb into the dunes and leave him with the offal he thought was more important than keeping watch."
Two of the Hyrkanians seized the dead man by his ankles and dragged him away. None of the others so much as twitched an eyebrow: Behind him Conan could hear Yasbet retching.
"At least you got the horses," Conan said.
"They look more like sheep," Akeba muttered.
Tamur gave the Turanian a pained look. "Perhaps, but they are the best mounts to be found on the coast.
Hark you now, Conan. These horse traders tell me they have seen other strangers. Give them what they ask for the mounts, and they will tell what they know."
"What they ask," Conan said drily. "They would not be blood kin of yours, would they, Tamur?"
The Hyrkanian looked astonished. "You are an outlander, Cimmerian, and ignorant, so I will not kill you.
They are the scavengers and dung-rollers Andar named them, living by digging roots and robbing the nests of seabirds. From time to time they loot a ship driven ashore by a storm." He thrust his blade into the sand to clean away Andar's blood. "They are no better than savages. Come, I will take you to their leader."
The men on the shaggy horses were a ragged lot, their sheepskin coats moth-eaten, their striped tunics threadbare and even filthier than when they were worn by seamen whose luckless vessels had ended on this coast. The leader was a stringy, weather-beaten man with one suspicious, darting eye and a sunken socket where the other had been. About his neck he wore a necklace of amethysts, half the gilding worn from the brass. It seemed one of those ships had carried a troll.
"This is Baotan," Tamur said, gesturing to the one-eyed man. "Baotan, this is Conan, a trader known in far lands and a warrior feared by many."
Baotan grunted and shifted his eye to Conan. "You want my horses, trader? For each horse, five blankets, a sword and an axe, plus a knife, a cloak, and five pieces of silver."
"Too much," Conan said.
Tamur groaned. For Conan's ear alone, he muttered, "Forget the trading, Cimmerian. 'Tis the means to destroy Baalsham we seek."
Conan ignored him. Poor traders were little respected, and a lack of respect would mean poor information, if not outright lies. "For every two horses, one blanket and one sword."
Baotan showed the stumps of yellowed teeth in a grin, and climbed down from his horse. "We talk," he said.
The talk, Baotan and Conan squatting by one of the campfires, was more leisurely than Conan would have liked, yet he had to maintain his pose as a trader. Tamur produced clay jugs of sour Hyrkanian beer and lumps of mare's milk cheese. The beer made Baotan's eyes light up, but the one-eyed man gave ground grudgingly, and often stopped bargaining entirely to talk of the weather or some incident in his camp.
At last, though, the bargain was struck. The sky was beginning to darken; men dragged in more driftwood to pile on the fires. For the pack horses they needed, one sword and one blanket. For the animals they would ride, one axe and one blanket. Plus a knife for every man with Baotan and two pieces of gold for the stringy man himself.
"Done," Conan said.
Baotan nodded and began to produce items from beneath his coat. A pouch. A small pair of tongs. What appeared to be a copy of a bulls horn, half-sized and molded in clay. Before Conan's astonished gaze, Baotan stuffed herbs from the pouch into the clay horn. With the tongs, the one-eyed man deftly plucked a coal from the fire and used it to puff the herbs to a smoldering burn. Conan's jaw dropped as the man drew deeply on the horn, inhaling the pungent smoke. Tilting back his head, Baotan expelled the smoke in a long stream toward the sky, then offered the horn to Conan.
Tamur leaned close to speak in his ear. "'Tis the way they seal a bargain. You must do the same. I told you they were savages."
Conan was prepared to believe it. Doubtfully he took the clay horn. The smoldering herbs smelled like a fire in a rubbish heap. Putting it to his
mouth, he inhaled, and barely suppressed a grimace. It tasted even worse than it smelled, and felt hot enough to blister his tongue. Fighting an urge to gag, he blew a stream of smoke toward the sky.
"They mix powdered dung with the herbs," Tamur said, grinning, "to insure even burning."
From across the fire Akeba laughed. "Would you like some aged mussels, Cimmerian?" he called, near to rolling on the sand.
Conan ground his teeth and handed the clay horn back to Baotan, who stuck the horn in his mouth and began to emit small puffs of smoke. The Cimmerian shook his head. He had seen many strange customs since leaving the mountains of his homeland, but, sorcery aside, this was certainly the strangest.
When his mouth no longer felt as if he were attempting to eat a coal from the fire-though the taste yet remained-Conan said, "Have you seen any other strangers on the coast? You understand that I must be concerned with other traders."
"Strangers," Baotan said through teeth clenched around the clay horn, "but no traders." Each word came out accompanied by a puff of smoke. "They bought horses, too. No trade goods. Silver." He grinned suddenly. "They paid too much."
"Not traders," Conan said, pretending to muse. "That is strange indeed."
"Strangers are strangers. Their boat was much charred at the back, and some of them suffered from burns."
The galley. It had survived both fire and storm after all. "Perhaps we might help these men," Conan said.
"How far off are they, and in which direction?"
Baotan waved a hand to the south. "Half a day. Maybe a day."
Far enough that they might not know Foam Dancer had also survived. But if that was so, why the horses? Perhaps there was something here that Jhandar feared. Conan felt excitement rising.
"Use our campfires this night," he said to Baotan. "Akeba, Tamur, we ride at first light."
The Conan Compendium Page 248