staff, now to conjure sense back into the captain instead of out of him. The man lurched to his knees, vomited, looked wildly about him for the image, then knelt and kissed the ground at Eremius's feet.
For the moment, it seemed to Eremius that the man had learned enough of fear.
"Go and send your men up to the valley mouth," Eremius said. "They are to hold it until the last of the Transformed are past. Then they are to fall in with the pack animals."
The human fighters were not as the Transformed, able to endure for days between their meals of flesh. They would need rations until the raiders reached inhabited farms. Pack horses would serve, their scents altered by magic so that they would not rouse the hunger of the Transformed.
"I go in obedience to the Master of the Jewel," the captain said. In spite of his fear, he vanished swiftly into the darkness. Or perhaps his fear gave wings to his feet. Eremius hardly cared, as long as he was obeyed.
Oh, for the day when he would hear "I go in obedience to the Master of the Jewels" from a soldier worthy of the name! A soldier such as High Captain Khadjar or even his obedient son Yakoub.
The thought that this day drew closer hardly consoled Eremius. To punish only an image of Illyana instead of the real woman reminded him of how far he had to go.
So be it. Only a fool feared to unroll the parchment, lest he miscast the spell!
Eremius cast his thoughts up and down the valley, in a silence more complete than the tomb's.
Come forth. Come forth at your Master's command. Come forth and seek prey.
The Transformed came forth. A carrion reek rode the wind ahead of them, thickening until the stench seemed a living, palpable entity. Eremius conjured a bubble of clean air around himself. As an afterthought he added the scent of Illyana's favorite bath oil to the air.
The Transformed filed past. They shambled, lurched, and seemed perpetually about to stumble. This was as Eremius wished it, when they were close to him.
Unleashed and ranging free, the Transformed could overtake a galloping horse.
Emerald light glowed on scales and red eyes. Here and there it shone on the spikes of a club slung from a crude rope belt or on a brass-bound cestus encasing a clawed hand. Even after the Transformation, the Transformed were not wholly alike. Some had the wits to chose and wield weapons. Others lacked the wits, or perhaps were too proud of their vast new strength.
At last the Transformed were gone into the night. Eremius chanted the words that would bind the spell of control into the staff. For some days to come, he would need no other magic, unless matters went awry. Even if they did, a single Jewel of Kurag was no mean weapon in the hands of a sorcerer such as Eremius. Those who doubted this might find themselves learning otherwise before long, although they would hardly live to profit by this lesson.
Six
To THE EAST, the foothills of the Ibars Mountains crept upward toward the blue
sky. Somewhere among them the Shimak River had its birth. In those hills it swelled from a freshet to a stream. Flowing onward, it turned from a stream to a river before it reached the plains of Turan. Here it was halfway to its junction with the Ilbars River. Already its width and depth demanded a ferry rather than a ford.
The ferry herald blew the signal on a brass-bound ivory horn the length of Conan's arm. Three times the harsh blast rolled across the turbid waters. Three times the pack animals rolled their eyes and pecked uneasily.
Raihna dismounted to gentle them, leaving Conan to tend to her mount. Illyana remained mounted, eyes cast on something only she could see. Without looking closely, a man might have thought her half-witted. After looking closely, no man would care to do so again.
She rode as well as Raihna had promised and made little extra work, for all that she did less than her share of what there was. No one called sorcerer was easy company for Conan, but Illyana was more endurable than most.
It did not hurt that she was comelier than most sorcerers Conan had met! She dressed as though unaware of it, but a handsome woman lay under those baggy traveling gowns and embroidered trousers.
A handsome woman, whose magic required that she remain a maiden even though of an age to have marriageable daughters. It was wisdom for her to be companioned by another woman―who was no maiden.
Indeed, Raihna was enough woman for any man. After a single night with Raihna, Conan could hardly think of Illyana as a woman without some effort. Doubtless
this was Raihna's intent, but Conan hardly cared.
Three hundred paces away, the ferry left the far bank and began its return across the Shimak. To describe the craft as bargelike would have insulted any barge Conan had ever seen in Aghrapur's teeming port. Amidships a platform allowed human passengers to stand clear of their beasts and baggage. On either side slaves manned long sweeps, two on each.
Behind Conan other travelers assembled―a peasant family loaded with baskets, a solitary peddler with his mule and slave" boy, a half-dozen soldiers under a scar-faced sergeant. The peasants hardly looked able to buy a loaf of bread, let alone ferry passage, but perhaps they would trade some of their baskets.
The ferry crept across the river until what passed for its bow scrunched into the gravel by the pier. Conan sprang on to the pier, which creaked under his weight.
"Come along, ladies. We were first at the landing, but that won't count for much if we're slow off the mark!"
Raihna needed little urging. She helped her mistress dismount, then led the three riding mounts on to the ferry. It had two gangplanks, and the one for beasts was stout enough to support elephants, let alone horses.
Conan stood on the pier until Raihna had loaded and tethered all five animals.
No one sought to push past him, nor did he need to draw his sword to accomplish this. The thickness of the arms crossed on the broad chest and the unblinking stare of the ice-blue eyes under the black brows were enough to daunt even the soldiers.
Illyana sat down on the platform under the canopy. Conan and Raihna stood in the open. The soldiers and the peddler watched Raihna appreciatively.
Conan hoped they would confine themselves to watching. He and the women were traveling in the guise of a merchant's widow, her younger sister, and the merchant's former captain of caravan guards. That deception would hardly survive Raihna's shedding the blood of even the most importunate fellow-traveler.
The peasants and the peddler joined Conan's party aboard the ferry. Two deckhands heaved the animals' gangplank aboard. Then the soldiers tramped onto the pier, leading their mounts. The ferrymaster gasped in horror and turned paler than the muddy river.
"By the gods, no! Not all of you! The ferry cannot bear the weight. The gangplank still less. Sergeant, I beg you!"
"I give no ear to beggars," the sergeant growled. "Forward, men!"
Conan sprang off the platform. The planks of the deck groaned as if a catapult stone had struck. He strode to the edge of the deck and put his foot on one end of the passenger gangplank. The sergeant put his foot on the other end. He was only a trifle shorter than Conan, and quite as broad.
"Sergeant, the ferrymaster knows what he can carry and what he can't."
"Well and good. You can get off. Just you and the livestock, though. Not the ladies. My men and I will take care of them. Won't we, lads?"
A robust, lewd chorus of agreement drowned out sulphurous Cimmerian curses.
Conan spread his arms wide.
"Sergeant, how well can you swim?"
"Eh?"
"Perhaps you should take a swimming lesson or two, before you try overloading a ferry."
Conan leaped, soaring half his own height into the air. He came down on the gangplank. He was out of swordreach of the sergeant, but that mattered not at all.
The gangplank writhed like a serpent. The sergeant staggered, fighting for balance, then lost the fight. With a mighty splash he plunged headfirst into the river. It was shallow enough that he landed with his legs waving frantically in the air.
&
nbsp; Conan pushed the passenger gangplank clear of the ferry, to discourage the soldiers from taking a hand. Then he bent, grasped the sergeant by both ankles, and swung him back and forth until he coughed up all the water he had swallowed.
When the coughs gave way to curses, Conan set the sergeant down. "You need more lessons, sergeant. No doubt of that. My lady's younger sister will be glad to teach you, if you've a mind to be polite to her. Swimming only, mind you, and nothing else―"
More curses, this time on "the lady's younger sister" as well as Conan. The Cimmerian frowned.
"Sergeant, if I can't mend your manners with water, I'll try steel the next time. Meanwhile, do you want to cross with us or do your men need you to change their smallclothes―?"
The sergeant threw out a final curse, then lurched off the deck into the water.
This time he managed to land on his feet. Finally too breathless to curse, he splashed to the pier. His soldiers helped him up, glaring at Conan all the while.
"Ferrymaster, I think we'd best push off," Conan said.
The ferrymaster, even paler than before, nodded vigorously. He waved to the drummer amidships, who raised his mallet and began pounding out a beat for the slaves. Gravel scraped and growled under the ferry, then she was once more afloat and underway.
Compared to the ferry, a snail had wings. In the time needed to reach the middle of the river, Conan could have eaten dinner and washed it down with ale worth savoring.
The ferrymaster stood on the platform, eyes roaming between the slaves and the receding bank with its cursing soldiers. Instead of fading, his pallor seemed to be growing on him. Had he taken a fever?
"Hi, ha, ho, hey!"
Frantic shouts erupted from aft Conan whirled, to see half of one of the steering oars vanish over the side. A deckhand made to strip and swim after it, but it vanished before he could leap.
"Vendhyan teak," the ferrymaster said, as if the words were a curse. "Heavy as iron and sinks like it too. An ill-favored day, this one. We must turn about in midstream and make our bow our stern. I hope you are in no great haste, you and your ladies."
Nothing in those words made other than good sense. They still rang strangely on the Cimmerian's ears. Since he could put no name to that strangeness, he watched the ferrymaster hurry aft, calling to the hands.
"How long do we spend out here because some sailor was fumble-fingered?" Illyana snapped.
"As long as it takes to turn this drunken sow of a ferry," Conan said. "How long that will be, the gods know. Maybe the ferrymaster, too. Best not look at me.
I'm no sailor."
"Perhaps. But can you at least ask the master?"
"As you wish, my lady."
Conan turned to head aft, where the master and two hands were now wrestling with the ferry's light skiff. Raihna put a hand on his arm in what to all eyes would seem a gesture of affection. Her whisper was fierce but unheard by anyone else, including her mistress.
"Be careful, Conan. I would go with you, but Illyana's back needs guarding more than yours."
"That's the truth. But who from?"
"I don't know. But what the master said―I've seldom heard a speech that smelled more of long practice. He spoke like an old beggar who's been asking for alms on the same temple steps for twenty years."
"Maybe this happens every third crossing," Conan grunted. "With this floating lumberpile, anything's possible."
"I need no reassurance!" Raihna's whisper was fiercer yet. "I need to know that
you're not a fool."
"Woman, you can warn me without insult. If the master's plotting anything, he's outnumbered."
"How so?"
"You're worth two of him, and as for me―" He shrugged. "You be the judge."
"You great Cimmerian oaf―" Raihna began. Then she laughed softly. "The gods be with you."
"With all of us, if the master has any friends aboard," Conan said. He was ruefully aware of the help the soldiers might have given. Well, only the gods had foreknowledge, and they only if the priests told the truth, which likely as not meant mat no one knew what lay before him!
Loosening his sword in its scabbard, Conan strode aft to join the master.
By the time Conan reached the stern, the two hands were lowering the skiff into the water. The master, paler than ever, stood watching them. Watching the master, Conan saw that his hand did not stray far from his dagger. Nor did his eyes stray far from the peasant family. In their turn the peasants had their eyes on the master, with the attention of a cat watching a bird's nest. Gone were the dull-witted stares with which they had come aboard.
Conan felt more than sweat creeping down his spine. Raihna had most likely seen clearly. Something was afoot.
The skiff splashed into the river. One of the hands set the oars into their locks, while the other held the line. The master turned to Conan.
"With two stout fellows at the oars, the skiff will turn us about in good time.
Then we can steer again, and seek a landing."
In the shallows by either bank the Shimak had hardly more current than a millpond. Here in midstream matters were otherwise. The ferry was already well downstream from the pier on the far side.
Not far downstream, Conan saw that the banks rose steep and high on either side.
A man landing there would have a fine scramble before he reached open ground. In that time he would be an easy target for archers on the river. Farther downstream still, if Conan remembered rightly, lay rapids, their fangs mostly drawn at this season of low water but not harmless to this ferry…
The second hand climbed into the skiff and took his oar. The master reached into the shadows beneath the platform. He came out with a stout purse in one hand. A hooded peasant woman stepped forward, hands raised as if to beg for alms.
Conan drew his sword and raised it hilt-first. He and Raihna had agreed on that signal to be ready for a fight but let others begin it. The master scurried for the edge of the deck, thrusting his purse into the bosom of his shirt as he ran.
At the edge of the deck he drew his dagger and leaped.
As he leaped, so did the peasant woman. The hood flew back, revealing a gap-toothed, hook-nosed brown face whose curling black beard no woman had ever grown. A long knife leaped from under the robes to slash at Conan.
It reached only where Conan would have been. A backward leap took him clear of danger. He tossed his sword. It came down with hilt cleaving to his hand as if it had grown there.
From over the side came the crunch of wood and shrill curses. Eager to escape, the master had leaped too swiftly and come down too heavily. One foot had gone straight through the bottom of the skiff.
"I hope you swim better than the sergeant," Conan shouted. Then it was time to think of his own opponents, three "peasants" advancing with the air of trained fighting men.
Not only trained but trained to fight together. Conan saw this in their movements and in that saw danger. Three men were not enough to overcome him swiftly, or indeed at all. They were doomed. They could also well take long enough dying to let their comrades reach Illyana and Raihna.
First of all, let us make this one and not two. Again Conan leaped backward, his sword cleaving the air to discourage too close a pursuit. He hoped for no more; a swordsman could hardly strike accurately without his feet firmly planted.
The arcing gray steel did its work. The three let Conan open the distance. One tried to close, drawing a second dagger. A desperate parry brought the dagger up as Conan's sword descended. The dagger flew with a clang and a clatter. A moment later the man sagged to his knees, clutching at his useless arm. Clear sight left his eyes as the blood left his body.
One of the man's comrades used his death well. He slipped past Conan to block the Cimmerian's passage forward. Another "peasant" joined the remaining man. If Conan tried to pass the first man, the other two would have time to come up behind him.
A sound stratagem, against any other man than Conan. They should have lear
ned
more about hillfolk before they tried to fight one, was his thought.
Conan leaped to the edge of the deck, then dropped onto the first sweep. The slaves' eyes grew round and their hands loosened their grip. The sweep slanted down and trailed, but Conan had already shifted his weight to the next one.
The man who'd thought to block Conan waited too long to believe what the Cimmerian had done. Raihna came leaping aft, like a shelion upon prey. Her sword split the man's skull and her dagger drove into his bowels. He collapsed without a sound, dead too swiftly even to foul himself. Conan heaved himself back aboard, to stand beside Raihna.
"Leave these to me," she cried. "Look to Illyana!"
Frantic braying and the drumming of hooves sounded on the far side of the ferry.
Hard on their heels came curses, then a shrill scream from Illyana.
Another cry hammered at Conan's ears as he pushed through the baggage and animals underneath the platform. He reached the open in time to see a "peasant"
leap overboard, frantic to flee the peddler's mule. The beast was thrashing about madly, panic-stricken out of what wits he had. In another moment the panic would spread through all the animals aboard. Then Conan and his ladies would have more than Lord Houma's hired swords to concern them.
Illyana was backed against one of the platform's supporting posts, facing three foes. In his mind Conan both cursed her for coming down from comparative safety and praised her courage. She held a long dagger, the twin of Raihna's, with a trained grip. Her slow movements would still have done little against even one opponent, had they been free to come at her. For Illyana, the mule was as good
as another guard. The men feared to come within reach of its hooves and teeth.
That fear gave Conan time he put to good use. One man died with his skull split before he knew a foe stood behind him. The second whirled, sword leaping up to guard. He was both subtle and strong. Conan knew that he had the edge on the man, but would have to take care.
The meeting of two expert swordsmen drove the maddened mule back. The last man found a gap and slipped through it. He had no sword, but his two knives danced with swift assurance against Illyana's clumsy parries. He might have been playing with her, seeking to put her in fear and see her cringe and sweat before taking her life.
The Conan Compendium Page 294