The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (great reads .TXT) 📗

That galley crept into the bay last

night. What its masters wish I do not know. So far they have neither

bought nor sold. I distrust those dark-skinned devils. Treachery had

its birth in that dusky land.”

 

“I’ve made them howl,” said Conan carelessly, turning from the window.

“In my galley manned by black corsairs I crept to the very bastions of

the sea-washed castles of black-walled Khemi by night, and burned the

galleons anchored there. And speaking of treachery, mine host, suppose

you taste these viands and sip a bit of this wine, just to show me

that your heart is on the right side.”

 

Public complied so readily that Conan’s suspicions were lulled, and

without further hesitation he sat down and devoured enough for three

men.

 

And while he ate, men moved through the markets and along the

waterfront, searching for a Zmgaran who had a jewel to sell or—who

sought for a ship to carry him to foreign ports. And a tall gaunt man

with a scar on his temple sat with his elbows on a wine-stained table

in a squalid cellar with a brass lantern hanging from a smoke-blackened beam overhead, and held converse with the desperate rogues

whose sinister countenances and ragged garments proclaimed their

profession.

 

And as the first stars blinked out, they shone on a strange band

spurring their mounts along the white road that led to Messantia from

the west. They were four men, tall, gaunt, dad in black, hooded robes,

and they did not speak. They forced their steeds mercilessly onward,

and those steeds were gaunt as themselves, and sweat-stained and weary

as if from long travel and far wandering.

 

Chapter 14: The Black Hand of Set

 

CONAN WOKE FROM a sound sleep as quickly and instantly as a cat. And

like a cat he was on his feet with his sword out before the man who

had touched him could so much as draw back.

 

“What word. Publio?” demanded Conan, recognizing his host. The gold

lamp burned low, casting a mellow glow over the thick tapestries and

the rich coverings of the couch whereon he had been reposing.

 

Publio, recovering from the start given him by the sudden action of

his awakening guest, replied: “The Zingaran has been located. He

arrived yesterday, at dawn. Only a few hours ago he sought to sell a

huge, strange jewel to a Shemitish merchant, but the Shemite would

have naught to do with it. Men say he turned pale beneath his black

beard at the sight of it, and closing his stall, fled as from a thing

accursed.”

 

“It must be Beloso,” muttered Conan, feeling the pulse in his temples

pounding with impatient eagerness. “Where is he now?”

 

“He sleeps in the house of Servio.”

 

“I know that dive of old,” grunted Conan. “I’d better hasten before

some of these waterfront thieves cut his throat for the jewel.”

 

He took up his cloak and flung it over his shoulders, then donned a

helmet Public had procured for him.

 

“Have my steed saddled and ready in the court,” said he. “I may return

in haste. I shall not forget this night’s work. Publio.”

 

A few moments later Publio, standing at a small outer door, watched

the king’s tall figure receding down the shadowy street.

 

“Farewell to you, corsair,” muttered the merchant. “This must be a

notable jewel, to be sought by a man who has just lost a kingdom. I

wish I had told my knaves to let him secure it before they did their

work. But then, something might have gone awry. Let Argos forget Amra,

and let my dealings with him be lost in the dust of the past. In the

alley behind the house of Servio-that is where Conan will cease to be

a peril to me.”

 

Servio’s house, a dingy, ill-famed den, was located close to the

wharves, facing the waterfront. It was a shambling building of stone

and heavy ship-beams, and a long narrow alley wandered up alongside

it. Conan made his way along the alley, and as he reached the house he

had an uneasy feeling that he was being spied upon. He stared hard

into the shadows of the squalid buildings, but saw nothing, though

once he caught the faint rasp of cloth or leather against flesh. But

that was nothing unusual. Thieves and beggars prowled these alleys all

night, and they were not likely to attack him, after one look at his

size and harness.

 

But suddenly a door opened in the wall ahead of him, and he slipped

into the shadow of an arch. A figure emerged from the open door and

moved along the alley, not furtively, but with a natural

noiselessness, like that of a jungle beast. Enough starlight filtered

into the alley to silhouette the man’s profile dimly as he passed the

doorway where Conan lurked. The stranger was a Stygian. There was no

mistaking that hawk-faced, shaven head, even in the starlight, nor the

mantle over the broad shoulders. He passed on down the alley in the

direction of the beach, and once Conan thought he must be carrying a

lantern among his garments, for he caught a flash of lambent light,

just as the man vanished.

 

But the Cimmerian forgot the stranger as he noticed that the door

through which he had emerged still stood open. Conan had intended

entering by the main entrance and forcing Servio to show him the room

where the Zingaran slept. But if he could get into the house without

attracting anyone’s attention, so much the better.

 

A few long strides brought him to the door, and as his hands fell on

the lock he stifled an involuntary grunt. His practised fingers,

skilled among the thieves of Zamora long ago, told him that the lock

had been forced, apparently by some terrific pressure from the outside

that had twisted and bent the heavy iron bolts, tearing the very

sockets loose from the jambs. How such damage could have been wrought

so violently without awakening everyone in the neighborhood Conan

could not imagine, but he felt sure that it had been done that night.

A broken lock, if discovered, would not go unmended in the house of

Servio, in this neighborhood of thieves and cutthroats.

 

Conan entered stealthily, poniard in hand, wondering how he was to

find the chamber of the Zingaran. Groping in total darkness he halted

suddenly. He sensed death in that room, as a wild beast senses it-not

as peril threatening him, but a dead thing, something freshly slain.

In the darkness his foot hit and recoiled from something heavy and

yielding. With a sudden premonition he groped along the wall until he

found the shelf that supported the brass lamp, with its flint, steel

and tinder beside it. A few seconds later a flickering, uncertain

light sprang up, and he stared narrowly about him.

 

A bunk built against the rough stone wall, a bare table and a bench

completed the furnishings of the squalid chamber. An inner door stood

closed and bolted. And on the hard-beaten dirt floor lay Beloso. On

his back he lay, with his head drawn back between his shoulders so

that he seemed to stare with his wide glassy eyes at the sooty beams

of the cobwebbed ceiling. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a

frozen grin of agony. His sword lay near him, still in its scabbard.

His shirt was torn open, and on his brown, muscular breast was the

print of a black hand, thumb and four fingers plainly distinct.

 

Conan glared in silence, feeling the short hairs bristle at the back

of his neck.

 

“Crom!” he muttered. “The black hand of Set!”

 

He had seen that mark of old, the death-mark of the black priests of

Set, the grim cult that ruled in dark Stygia. And suddenly he

remembered that curious flash he had seen emanating from the

mysterious Stygian who had emerged from this chamber.

 

“The Heart, by Crom!” he muttered. “He was carrying it under his

mantle. He stole it. He burst that door by his magic, and slew Beloso.

He was a priest of Set.”

 

A quick investigation confirmed at least part of his suspicions. The

jewel was not on the Zingaran’s body. An uneasy feeling rose in Conan

that this had not happened by chance, or without design; a conviction

that the mysterious Stygian galley had come into the harbor of

Messantia on a definite mission. How could the priests of Set know

that the Heart had come southward? Yet the thought was no more

fantastic than the necromancy that could slay an armed man by the

touch of an open, empty hand.

 

A stealthy footfall outside the door brought him round like a great

cat. With one motion he extinguished the lamp and drew his sword. His

ears told him that men were out there in the darkness, were closing in

on the doorway. As his eyes became accustomed to the sudden darkness,

he could make out dim figures ringing the entrance. He could not guess

their identity, but as always he took the initiative-leaping suddenly

forth from the doorway without awaiting the attack.

 

His unexpected movement took the skulkers by surprise. He sensed and

heard men close about him, saw a dim masked figure in the starlight

before him; then his sword crunched home, and he was fleeting away

down the alley before the slower-thinking and slower-acting attackers

could intercept him.

 

As he ran he heard, somewhere ahead of him, a faint creak of oar-locks, and he forgot the men behind him. A boat was moving out into

the bay! Gritting his teeth he increased his speed, but before he

reached the beach he heard the rasp and creak of ropes, and the grind

of the great sweep in its socket.

 

Thick clouds, rolling up from the sea, obscured the stars. In thick

darkness Conan came upon the strand, straining his eyes out across the

black restless water. Something was moving out there—a long, low,

black shape that receded in the darkness, gathering momentum as it

went. To his ears came the rhythmical clack of long oars. He ground

his teeth in helpless fury. It was the Stygian galley and she was

racing out to sea, bearing with her the jewel that meant to him the

throne of Aquilonia.

 

With a savage curse he took a step toward the waves that lapped

against the sands, catching at his hauberk and intending to rip it off

and swim after the vanishing ship. Then the crunch of a heel in the

sand brought him about. He had forgotten his pursuers.

 

Dark figures closed in on him with a rush of feet through the sands.

The first went down beneath the Cunmerian’s flailing sword, but the

others did not falter. Blades whickered dimly about him in the

darkness or rasped on his mail. Blood and entrails spilled over his

hand and someone screamed as he ripped murderously upward. A muttered

voice spurred on the attack, and that voice sounded vaguely familiar.

Conan plowed through the clinging, hacking shapes toward the voice. A

faint light gleaming momentarily through the drifting clouds showed

him a tall gaunt man with a great livid scar on his temple. Conan’s

sword sheared through his skull as through a ripe melon.

 

Then an ax, swung blindly in the dark, crashed on the king’s basinet,

filling his eyes with sparks of fire. He lurched and lunged, felt his

sword sink deep and heard a shriek of agony. Then he stumbled over a

corpse, and a bludgeon knocked the dented helmet from his head; the

next instant the club fell full on his unprotected skull.

 

The king of Aquilonia crumpled into the wet