Part 4 (2/2)
Conan's own fight of two against one would have been easier if the three women of the Red Falcon hadn't gone on dancing. They had no one to dance for now, or at least none with eyes to spare for them save for Moti behind the bar and the drummer on his stool. Pyla and Zaria were now wholly nude. The kitchen girl Thebia was bare to the waist Her skirt slid farther down her thighs with each wriggle of her hips. They had been commanded to dance, and would do so until the command came to stop.
”Crom, women! Either give me room or give me help!”
Suddenly the girl's skirt slipped its moorings, slid to the floor, and tangled around her feet. She stumbled and would have fallen, save that she stumbled against the lordling. He thrust her back savagely, forgetting that his free hand now held a dagger. The keen edge scored a long, b.l.o.o.d.y furrow across her thigh.
She gave a high, shrill wail, clapping one hand to the wound while she cast the skirt wholly aside with the other. This drew the lordling's attention again, a mistake for which his guards paid dearly.
Conan closed with the first and slashed his arm off at the elbow. The second had the woman disarmed and was discovering that was only half the victory when Moti charged out from behind the bar. His maul swung, striking the guard with a glancing blow on the hip. That broke the guard's grip on the woman, freeing her to ram an elbow into his throat.
The guard reeled back, clear of another swing of the maul, fell backward over a chair, and crashed to the floor at the feet of the drummer. The drummer lifted one of his drums-Kus.h.i.+te ebony bound with bra.s.s-and slammed it down on the fallen man's head. He lay still.
”Now, son of more fathers than you could count with your shoes on-”
Conan began.
The lordling looked at Conan as he might have at a horde of demons, dropped his dagger, and bolted out the door. The northern woman stayed just long enough to retrieve her daggers, then also vanished into the night. Still nude, Pyla and Zaria set themselves to binding Thebia's wounds, then turned to the guards.
”No doubt the watch will catch him, if she does not,” Conan said.
Moti shook his head. He was now as pale as the Iranistani. The maul thudded to the floor, his hands suddenly unable to grip it.
Conan frowned. The expression had made new recruits tremble. Moti turned paler, if such was possible. ”Or is our departed friend in the green silk a royal prince or some such?”
”He-he is not far from that,” Moti stammered. ”He is the son of Lord Houma.”
That name was not altogether unknown to Conan. Houma was one of the Seventeen Attendants, a proven soldier and a great partisan of a larger army and an expanded Turanian empire.
”Then he needs to thrash some manners into that little c.o.c.kerel. That, or else geld him and sell him for a eunuch, to get some profit from him.”
”Conan, I had to be sure the matter was past settling peacefully. It-”
”It was past settling peacefully the moment they laid hands on that woman!” Conan growled. ”I'll say so to the watch and anyone else who'll listen, up to King Yildiz himself! If Thebia hadn't been attacked, I might be chasing Houma's pretty pimp of a son through the streets now, hoping to finish him off before the woman did!”
Moti drew in breath like a frog. ”That was no attack,” he said slowly.
”She deliberately drew that stroke, so that I would have to fight.
”By Hanuman's stones, girl, I'll have you out on the streets with a name to make you stay there! And you, Pyla! She'd never have thought of it without you. You're no longer-gkkkhhhh!”
Conan lifted Moti to the top of the bar, picked up the maul, and held the handle in front of the innkeeper's nose.
”Moti, my former friend and host, you have two choices. I can ram this up your a.r.s.e sideways and leave you that way to explain tonight's matters to the watch. I can also leave you intact and help explain them, in return for a few favors.”
Moti licked his lips. ”Favors?”
”Your best room free whenever I want it, with food and wine as well.
Not the best wine, I'll allow, but enough for me and any company I keep. Oh, yes-and any woman I entertain doesn't have to pay you a single bra.s.s piece!”
Moti squalled as if he were already being impaled. Conan's frown and the women's giggles silenced him. He tried to throw up his hands in disgust, but they were shaking too hard to make the gesture convincing.
”Well?”
<script>