Part 28 (2/2)
”So much for Tombalku! Whoever wins, we shall have to seek our fortunes elsewhere. I'm for the coast of Kush, where I have friends-and also enemies-and where I can pick up a s.h.i.+p for Argos. What of you?”
”I had not thought,” said Amalric.
”That's a shapely filly you have there,” said Conan with a grin. The light of the rising moon gleamed on his strong white teeth, s.h.i.+ning against his soot-blackened skin. ”You can't drag her over the whole wide world.”
Amalric felt himself bristle at the Cimmerian's tone. He drew closer to Lissa and slid an arm around her waist, meanwhile dropping his free hand toward his sword hilt. Conan's grin broadened.
”Fear not,” he said. ”I have never been so hard up for women that I've had to steal those of my friends. If you two come with me, you can beat your way back to Aquilonia.”
”I cannot return to Aquilonia,” said Amalric,
”Why not?”
”My father was slain in a broil with Count Terentius, who is in favor with King Vilerus. So all my father's kin had to flee the land, lest Terentius' agents hunt us down.”
”Oh, had you not heard?” said Conan. ”Vilerus died within a six-month; his nephew, Numedides, is now king. All the old king's hangers-on, they say, have been dismissed, and the exiles recalled. I got it from a Shemite trader. If I were you, I'd scurry home. The new king should find a worthy post for you. Take your little Lissa along and make her a countess or something. As for me, I'm for Kush and the blue sea.”
Amalric glanced back toward the red blaze that had been Tombalku.
”Conan,” he said, ”why did Askia destroy Sak.u.mbe instead of us, with whom he had a more immediate quarrel?”
Conan shrugged his huge shoulders. ”Perhaps he had fingernail parings and the like from Sak.u.mbe but not from us. So he worked what spells he could I have never understood wizardly minds.”
”And why did you take the time to kill Askia?”
Conan stared. ”Are you joking, Amalric? Me, leave a slain comrade unavenged? Sak.u.mbe, d.a.m.n his sweaty black hide, was a friend of mine.
Even if he got fat and lazy in his late years, he was a better man than most of the white men I have known.” The Cimmerian sighed gustily and shook his head, as a lion shakes his mane. ”Well, he's dead, and we're alive. If we want to go on being alive, we had better move on before Zehbeh sends a patrol out to hunt for us. Let's go!”
The three horses plodded down the western slope of the sandy ridge and broke into a brisk trot to westward.
The Pool of the Black One -------------------------.
Conan makes his way across the southern gra.s.slands of the black kingdoms. Here he is known of old, and Amra the Lion has no difficulty in making his way to the coast, which he had ravaged in his days with Belit But Belit is now only a memory on the Black Coast. The s.h.i.+p that eventually heaves in sight off the head-land where Conan sits whetting his sword is manned by pirates of the Baracka Isles, off the coast of Zingara. They, too, have heard of Conan and welcome his sword and experience. He is in his middle thirties when he joins the Barachan pirates, with whom he remains for a considerable time. To Conan, however, accustomed as he is to the tightly organized armies of the Hyborian kings, the organization of the Barachan bands appears so loose that there is small opportunity to rise to leaders.h.i.+p and its rewards.
Slipping out of an unusually tight spot in the pirate rendezvous at Tortage, he finds that the alternative to a slit throat lies in an attempt to swim the Western Ocean. This he does with complete confidence and perfect aplomb.
Into the west, unknown of man, s.h.i.+ps have sailed since the world began.
Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote, With dead hands fumbling his silken coat; And follow the s.h.i.+ps through the wind-blown wrack- Follow the s.h.i.+ps that come not back.
Chapter One.
Sancha, once of Kordava, yawned daintily, stretched her supple limbs luxuriously, and composed herself more comfortably on the ermine-fringed silk spread on the carack's p.o.o.p-deck. That the crew watched her with burning interest from waist and forecastle she was lazily aware, just as she was also aware that her short silk kirtle veiled little of her voluptuous contours from their eager eyes.
Wherefore she smiled insolently and prepared to s.n.a.t.c.h a few more winks before the sun, which was just thrusting his golden disk above the ocean, should dazzle her eyes.
But at that instant a sound reached her ears unlike the creaking of timbers, thrum of cordage, and lap of waves. She sat up, her gaze fixed on the rail, over which, to her amazement, a dripping figure clambered.
<script>