Part 6 (1/2)

The woman blushed. ”Nothing that his hospitality can supply.”

”I will not be long.” No longer than it would take to don mail under his clothes and secrete a few daggers in unexpected places, at any rate.

”Mishrak lies in the Saddlemakers' Quarter,” the woman said, as she led Conan out the gate. The Cimmerian was a head and more taller, but found the pace she set no child's play to match. Hillfolk blood in her, perhaps?

In the Coopers' Square Conan started to turn south. The woman planted herself by the fountain, ignoring a cartload of staves that all but ran her down.

”Captain, the Saddlemakers lie to the north.”

”Anyone would think you were no stranger to Aghrapur.”

”Anyone who thinks would know that a stranger can learn if she meets those willing to teach.”

”Then teach me what you learned,” Conan growled. The Saddlemakers'

Quarter did in truth lie to the north. He'd hoped to lead the woman some distance by devious routes, where none could easily follow or lay ambushes.

If she would not follow where he led, though, there was nothing to do but follow where she led. Otherwise he'd earn her wrath, lose her guidance, fail Mishrak, and thereby earn a wrath more to be feared than any in Turan save perhaps that of King Yildiz.

Besides, any ambush was most likely to come within the rat's warren of the quarter itself. Conan trusted to his sword and mail to make that ambush a most unhappy affair for any who took part, beginning with the woman herself.

”One moment,” the woman said. She lifted her headdress, drank from the fountain, then darted into the nearest alley.

Alleys and byways and reeking dark flights of stairs where Conan had to stoop were their road deeper and deeper into the quarter. Conan followed three paces behind and to the right, hand on the hilt of his sword. Eyes and ears searched for signs of danger, meeting only the din of fifty saddlemakers' shops hard at work. Turning leather and wood and metal into saddles made one din. Masters roaring at their apprentices made a second.

Another turn. Conan had a good view now of the woman's dagger. The pommel was a silver-washed iron apple, and the quillions were double, set at right angles to each other. He resolved to ask the woman to show him the dagger's use, if the laws and customs of steel ever allowed.

They came forty paces from the last turn when the attackers swarmed out of an alley to the left and a window to the right.

Conan counted six opponents as his sword leaped into his hand. One was the guard who'd fled the Red Falcon. Odds enough to make the best careful, unless the woman was better than she'd been that night

Right now she seemed struck witless by fear as the three from the alley closed.

At least she was no foe, if a poor friend. Conan cut down the odds a trifle by hamstringing the last man out of the window. The man dropped farther and harder than he'd planned, going to hands and knees. A Cimmerian boot in the belly lifted him like a dog, hurling him against a comrade. The second man was rising when a Cimmerian broadsword split his skull from crown to the bridge of his nose.

A scream danced off the stones. The guard reeled back, blood streaming from blinded eyes. The same blood dripped from the woman's dagger.

Conan grinned as he realized the woman's craft. She'd feigned fear, to draw the three men close. There she had two blades against their three, one more agile than any of theirs.

Two more men darted from the alley. The woman had the wall to guard her left and two opponents at her front. The newcomers ran to take her from the right. Conan faced the last man from the window.

Taking his opponent's measure, Conan feinted high. He took the man's riposte on his mail, then followed the same line again. The second cut tore into the side of the man's neck. His half-severed head lolled on his shoulders. He reeled backwards into his comrades, drenching them in his blood.

They were men of stout nerve, casting the dying man aside without breaking stride. This took just long enough for Conan's sword to fall like an executioner's ax. The righthand man gaped as his swordarm dangled ruined and b.l.o.o.d.y. Conan freed his sword and gave ground with a backward leap that took him clean over the fallen men behind him.

He landed in a half-crouch. The cut aimed by an upright opponent whistled over his head. His own cut took the man's right leg off just below the knee. The man contrived one more desperate slash, then toppled.

With time at last to think of the woman, Conan saw she needed little thought and hardly more help. She'd thrust one opponent through the throat. He sat against the wall, fingers laced around his neck. As Conan watched, the fingers unlaced and the eyes rolled up in the pale face.

The woman no longer used her dagger as a weapon. Instead she'd made it into invisible, swift-moving armor, catching every cut on the quillions. Her opponent wore mail, so her own slashes had shredded his coat but not his flesh.