Part 17 (1/2)

The Cimmerian's tousled black head appeared over the crest of the crag.

”Now listen closely: that's only a small band down there. I saw them sneaking through the brush when I laughed, awhile ago. Anyway, if there had been many of them, every man at the foot of the crag would be dead already. I think that's a band of fleet-footed young men sent ahead of the main war-party to cut us off from the beach. I'm certain a big war-band is heading in our direction from somewhere.

”They've thrown a cordon around the west side of the crag, but I don't think there are any on the east side. I'm going down on that side and get in the forest and work around behind them.

Meanwhile, you crawl down the path and join your men among the rocks. Tell them to sling their bows and draw their swords. When you hear me yell, rush for the trees on the west side of the clearing.”

”What of the treasure?”

”To h.e.l.l with the treasure! We'll be lucky if we get out of here with our heads on our shoulders.”

The black-maned head vanished. They listened for sounds to indicate that Conan had crawled to the almost sheer eastern wall and was working his way down, but they heard nothing. Nor was there any sound in the forest. No more arrows broke against the rocks where the sailors were hidden. But all knew that fierce black eyes were watching with murderous patience.

Gingerly Strom, Zarono and the boatswain started down the winding path. They were half way down when the black shafts began to whisper around them. The boatswain groaned and toppled limply down the slope, shot through the heart. Arrows s.h.i.+vered on the helmets and breastplates of the chiefs as they tumbled in frantic haste down the steep trail. They reached the foot in a scrambling rush and lay panting among the boulders, swearing breathlessly.

152.

”Is this more of Conan's trickery?” wondered Zarono profanely.

”We can trust him in this matter,” a.s.serted Strom. ”These barbarians live by their own particular code of honor, and Conan would never desert men of his own complection to be slaughtered by people of another race. He'll help us against the Picts, even though he plans to murder us himself hark!”

A blood-freezing yell knifed the silence. It came from the woods to the west, and simultaneously an object arched out of the trees, struck the ground and rolled bouncingly toward the rocks a severed human head, the hideously painted face frozen in a snarl of death.

”Conan's signal!” roared Strom, and the desperate freebooters rose like a wave from the rocks and rushed headlong toward the woods.

Arrows whirred out of the bushes, but their flight was hurried and erratic; only three men fell.

Then the wild men of the sea plunged through the fringe of foliage and fell on the naked painted figures that rose out of the gloom before them. There was a murderous instant of panting, ferocious effort, hand-to-hand, cutla.s.ses beating down war-axes, booted feet trampling naked bodies, and then bare feet were rattling through the bushes in headlong flight as the survivors of that brief carnage quit the fray, leaving seven still, painted figures stretched on the bloodstained leaves that littered the earth. Further back in the thickets sounded a thras.h.i.+ng and heaving, and then it ceased and Conan strode into view, his lacquered hat gone, his coat torn, his cutla.s.s dripping in his hand.

”What now?” panted Zarono. He knew the charge had succeeded only because Conan's unexpected attack on the rear of the Picts had demoralized the painted men, and prevented them from falling back before the rush. But he exploded into curses as Conan pa.s.sed his cutla.s.s through a buccaneer who writhed on the ground with a shattered hip.

”We can't carry him with us,” grunted Conan. ”It wouldn't be any kindness to leave him to be taken alive by the Picts. Come on!”

They crowded close at his heels as he trotted through the trees. Alone they would have sweated and blundered among the thickets for hours before they found the beach-trail if they had ever found it. The Cimmerian led them as unerringly as if he had been following a blazed path, and the rovers shouted with hysterical relief as they burst suddenly upon the trail that ran westward.

”Fool!” Conan clapped a hand on the shoulder of a pirate who started to break into a run, and hurled him back among his companions. ”You'll burst your heart and fall within a thousand yards. We're miles from the beach. Take an easy gait. We may have to sprint the last mile.

Save some of your wind for it. Come on, now.”

153.

He set off down the trail at a steady jog-trot; the seamen followed him, suiting their pace to his.

THE sun was touching the waves of the western ocean. Tina stood at the window from which Belesa had watched the storm.

”The setting sun turns the ocean to blood,” she said. ”The carack's sail is a white fleck on the crimson waters. The woods are already darkened with cl.u.s.tering shadows.”

”What of the seamen on the beach?” asked Belesa languidly. She reclined on a couch, her eyes closed, her hands clasped behind her head.

”Both camps are preparing their supper,” said Tina. ”They gather driftwood and build fires. I can hear them shouting to one another what is that?”

The sudden tenseness in the girl's tone brought Belesa upright on the couch. Tina grasped the window-sill, her face white.

”Listen! A howling, far off, like many wolves!”

”Wolves?” Belesa sprang up, fear clutching her heart. ”Wolves do not hunt in packs at this time of the year ”

”Oh, look!” shrilled the girl, pointing. ”Men are running out of the forest!”

In an instant Belesa was beside her, staring wide-eyed at the figures, small in the distance, streaming out of the woods.

”The sailors!” she gasped. ”Empty-handed! I see Zarono Strom ”

”Where is Conan?” whispered the girl.

Belesa shook her head.

”Listen! Oh, listen!” whimpered the child, clinging to her. ”The Picts!”

All in the fort could hear it now a vast ululation of mad exultation and blood-l.u.s.t, from the depths of the dark forest.

That sound spurred on the panting men reeling toward the palisade.

154.

”Hasten!” gasped Strom, his face a drawn mask of exhausted effort. ”They are almost at our heels. My s.h.i.+p ”

”She is too far out for us to reach,” panted Zarono. ”Make for the stockade. See, the men camped on the beach have seen us!” He waved his arms in breathless pantomime, but the men on the strand understood, and they recognized the significance of that wild howling, rising to a triumphant crescendo. The sailors abandoned their fires and cooking pots and fled for the stockade gate. They were pouring through it as the fugitives from the forest rounded the south angle and reeled into the gate, a heaving, frantic mob, half-dead from exhaustion. The gate was slammed with frenzied haste, and sailors began to climb the firing-ledge, to join the men-at- arms already there.

Belesa confronted Zarono.

”Where is Conan?”

The buccaneer jerked a thumb toward the blackening woods; his chest heaved; sweat poured down his face. ”Their scouts were at our heels before we gained the beach. He paused to slay a few and give us time to get away.”

He staggered away to take his place on the firing-ledge, whither Strom had already mounted.

Valenso stood there, a somber, cloak-wrapped figure, strangely silent and aloof. He was like a man bewitched.

”Look!” yelped a pirate, above the deafening howling of the yet unseen horde.

A man emerged from the forest and raced fleetly across the open belt.

”Conan!”

Zarono grinned wolfishly.

”We're safe in the stockade; we know where the treasure is. No reason why we shouldn't feather him with arrows now.”

”Nay!” Strom caught his arm. ”We'll need his sword! Look!”