The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  '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 rail.

  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 lights 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 recognised 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 know 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 moustache. 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, of 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. Ever 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 civilised 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 civilised 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 killed 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. 'That's 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 bumed 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 civilisation 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 Wolfmen, 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 starlight! And old Tranicos and his eleven captains sitting about an ebon 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 recognised it for what it was, of course, and was considering 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 Zarono 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 humour!' 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.'