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

sands. Over him wolfish

figures panted in the gloom.

 

“Strike off his head,” muttered one.

 

“Let him be,” grunted another. “Help me tie up my wounds before I

bleed to death. The tide will wash him into the bay. See, he fell at

the water’s edge. His skull’s split; no man could live after such

blows.”

 

“Help me strip him,” urged another. “His harness will fetch a few

pieces of silver. And haste. Tiberio is dead, and I hear seamen

singing as they reel along the strand. Let us be gone.”

 

There followed hurried activity in the darkness, and then the sound of

quickly receding footsteps. The tipsy singing of the seamen grew

louder.

 

In his chamber Publio, nervously pacing back and forth before a window

that overlooked the shadowed bay, whirled suddenly, his nerves

tingling. To the best of his knowledge the door had been bolted from

within; but now it stood open and four men filed into the chamber. At

the sight of them his flesh crawled. Many strange beings Publio had

seen in his lifetime, but none before like these. They were tall and

gaunt, black-robed, and their faces were dim yellow ovals in the

shadows of their coifs. He could not tell much about then: features

and was unreasoningly glad that he could not. Each bore a long,

curiously molded staff.

 

“Who are you?” he demanded, and his voice sounded brittle and hollow.

“What do you wish here?”

 

“Where is Conan, he who was king of Aquilonia?” demanded the tallest

of the four in a passionless monotone that made Public shudder. It was

like the hollow tone of a Khitan temple bell.

 

“I do not know what you mean,” stammered the merchant, his customary

poise shaken by the uncanny aspect of his visitors. “I know no such

man.”

 

“He has been here,” returned the other with no change of inflection.

“His horse is in the courtyard. Tell us where he is before we do you

an injury.”

 

“Gebal!” shouted Publio frantically, recoiling until he crouched

against the wall. “Gebal!”

 

The four Khitans watched him without emotion or change of expression.

 

“If you summon your slave he will die,” warned one of them, which only

served to terrify Publio more than ever.

 

“Gebal!” he screamed. “Where are you, curse you? Thieves are murdering

your master!”

 

Swift footsteps in the corridor outside, and Gebal burst into the

chamber-a Shemite, of medium height and mightily muscled build, his

curled blue-black beard bristling, and a short leaf-shaped sword in

his hand.

 

He stared in stupid amazement at the four invaders, unable to

understand their presence; dimly remembering that he had drowsed

unexplainably on the stair he was guarding and up which they must have

come. He had never slept on duty before. But his master was shrieking

with a note of hysteria in his voice, and the Shemite drove like a

bull at the strangers, his thickly muscled arm drawing back for the

disemboweling thrust. But the stroke was never dealt.

 

A black-sleeved arm shot out, extending the long staff. Its end but

touched the Shemite’s brawny breast and was instantly withdrawn. The

stroke was horribly like the dart and recovery of a serpent’s head.

 

Gebal halted short in his headlong plunge, as if he had encountered a

solid barrier. His bull head toppled forward on his breast, the sword

slipped from his fingers, and then he melted slowly to the floor. It

was as if all the bones of his frame had suddenly become flabby.

Publio turned sick.

 

“Do not shout again,” advised the tallest Khitan. “Your servants sleep

soundly, but if you awaken them they will die, and you with them.

Where is Conan?”

 

“He is gone to the house of Servio, near the waterfront, to search for

the Zingaran Beloso,” gasped Publio, all his power of resistance gone

out of him. The merchant did not lack courage; but these uncanny

visitants turned his marrow to water. He started convulsively at a

sudden noise of footsteps hurrying up the stair outside, loud in the

ominous stillness.

 

“Your servant?” asked the Khitan.

 

Publio shook his head mutely, his tongue frozen to his palate.

 

He could not speak.

 

One of the Khitans caught up a silken cover from a couch and threw it

over the corpse. Then they melted behind the tapestry, but before the

tallest man disappeared, he murmured: “Talk to this man who comes, and

send him away quickly. If you betray us, neither he nor you will live

to reach that door. Make no sign to show him that you are not alone.”

And lifting his staff suggestively, the yellow man faded behind the

hangings.

 

Public shuddered and choked down a desire to retch. It might have been

a trick of the light, but it seemed to him that occasionally those

staffs moved slightly of their own accord, as if possessed of an

unspeakable life of their own.

 

He pulled himself together with a mighty effort, and presented a

composed aspect to the ragged ruffian who burst into the chamber.

 

“We have done as you wished, my lord,” this man exclaimed. “The

barbarian lies dead on the sands at the water’s edge.”

 

Public felt a movement in the arras behind him, and almost burst from

fright. The man swept heedlessly on.

 

“Your secretary, Tiberio, is dead. The barbarian slew him, and four of

my companions. We bore their bodies to the rendezvous. There was

nothing of value on the barbarian except a few silver coins. Are there

any further orders?”

 

“None!” gasped Publio, white about the lips. “Go!”

 

The desperado bowed and hurried out, with a vague feeling that Publio

was both a man of weak stomach and few words.

 

The four Khitans came from behind the arras.

 

“Of whom did this man speak?” the taller demanded.

 

“Of a wandering stranger who did me an injury,” panted Public.

 

“You lie,” said the Khitan calmly. “He spoke of the king of Aquilonia.

I read it in your expression. Sit upon that divan and do not move or

speak. I will remain with you while my three companions go search for

the body.”

 

So Publio sat and shook with terror of the silent, inscrutable figure

which watched him, until the three Khitans filed back into the room,

with the news that Conan’s body did not lie upon the sands. Publio did

not know whether to be glad or sorry.

 

“We found the spot where the fight was fought,” they said. “Blood was

on the sand. But the king was gone.”

 

The fourth Khitan drew imaginary symbols upon the carpet with his

staff, which glistened scalily in the lamplight.

 

“Did you read naught from the sands?” he asked.

 

“Aye,” they answered. “The king lives, and he has gone southward in a

ship.”

 

The tall Khitan lifted his head and gazed at Publio, so that the

merchant broke into a profuse sweat.

 

“What do you wish of me?” he stuttered.

 

“A ship,” answered the Khitan. “A ship well manned for a very long

voyage.”

 

“For how long a voyage?” stammered Publio, never thinking of refusing.

 

“To the ends of the world, perhaps,” answered the Khitan, “or to the

molten seas of hell that lie beyond the sunrise.”

 

Chapter 15: The Return of the Corsair

 

CONAN’S FIRST SENSATION of returning consciousness was that of motion;

under him was no solidity, but a ceaseless heaving and plunging. Then

he heard wind humming through cords and spars, and knew he was aboard

a ship even before his blurred sight cleared. He heard a mutter of

voices and then a dash of water deluged him, jerking him sharply into

full animation. He heaved up with a sulfurous curse, braced his legs

and glared about him, with a burst of coarse guffaws in his ears and

the reek of unwashed bodies in his nostrils.

 

He was standing on the poopdeck of a long galley which was running

before the wind that whipped down from the north, her striped sail

bellying against the taut sheets. The sun was just rising, in a

dazzling blaze of gold and blue and green. To the left of the

shoreline was a dim purple shadow. To the right stretched the open

ocean. This much Conan saw at a glance that likewise included the ship

itself.

 

It was long and narrow, a typical trading-ship of the southern coasts,

high of poop and stern, with cabins at either extremity. Conan looked

down into the open waist, whence wafted that sickening abominable

odor. He knew it of old. It was the body-scent of the oarsmen, chained

to their benches. They were all negroes, forty men to each side, each

confined by a chain locked about his waist, with the other end welded

to a heavy ring set deep in the solid runway beam that ran between the

benches from stem to stem. The life of a slave aboard an Argossean

galley was a hell unfathomable. Most of these were Kushites, but some

thirty of the blacks who now rested on their idle oars and stared up

at the stranger with dull curiosity were from the far southern isles,

the homelands of the corsairs. Conan recognized them by their

straighter features and hah-, their rangier, cleaner-limbed build. And

he saw among them men who had followed him of old.

 

But all this he saw and recognized in one swift, all-embracing glance

as he rose, before he turned his attention to the figures about him.

Reeling momentarily on braced legs, his fists clenched wrathfully, he

glared at the figures clustered about him. The sailor who had drenched

him stood grinning, the empty bucket still poised in his hand, and

Conan cursed nun with venom, instinctively reaching for his hilt. Then

he discovered that he was weaponless and naked except for his short

leather breeks.

 

“What lousy tub is this?” he roared. “How did I come aboard here?”

 

The sailors laughed jeeringly-stocky, bearded Argosseans to a man-and

one, whose richer dress and air of command proclaimed him captain,

folded his arms and said domineeringly:

 

“We found you lying on the sands. Somebody had rapped you on the pate

and taken your clothes. Needing an extra man, we brought you aboard.”

 

“What ship is this?” Conan demanded.

 

“The Venturer, out of Messantia, with a cargo of mirrors, scarlet silk

cloaks, shields, gilded helmets and swords to trade to the Shemites

for copper and gold ore. I am Demetrio, captain of this vessel and

your master henceforward.”

 

“Then I’m headed in the direction I wanted to go, after all,” muttered

Conan, heedless of that last remark. They were racing southeastward,

following the long curve of the Argossean coast. These trading-ships

never ventured far from the shoreline. Somewhere ahead of him he knew

that low dark Stygian galley was speeding southward.

 

“Have you sighted a Stygian galley—” began Conan, but the beard of

the burly, brutal-faced captain bristled. He was not in the least

interested in any question his prisoner might wish to ask, and felt it

high time he reduced this independent wastrel to his proper place.

 

“Get for’ard!” he roared. ‘Tve wasted time enough with you! I’ve done

you the honor of having you brought to the poop to be revived, and

answered enough of your infernal questions. Get off this poop! You’ll

work your way aboard this galley—”

 

“I’ll buy your ship—” began Conan, before he remembered that he was a

penniless wanderer.

 

A roar of rough mirth greeted these words, and the captain turned

purple, thinking he sensed ridicule.

 

“You mutinous swine!” he bellowed, taking a threatening step forward,

while he closed on his knife at