Part 14 (1/2)

”Come,” he said at last. ”Embracing men is like dropping your steel.

Best save it until we've heard from our last enemy.” Gently he pushed her away, then followed the chain around the dead man's leg to the edge of the deck and looked down.

One of the slaves stood on tiptoe, staring over the edge of the deck.

There had been just enough slack in the chain that held him to his sweep to let him use it as a weapon.

”My friend,” Conan said. ”I don't know if you've earned yourself freedom or impalement.” From the slave's gaunt face and lash-marked back, it seemed unlikely that he cared greatly.

The eyes in the gaunt face were still steady. So was the voice. ”The master was plotting, and I owed him nothing. You be the judge of your debt to me, you and your woman.”

”I'm not-” Illyana began indignantly, then found the strength to laugh.

She was still laughing when Raihna appeared, wiping blood from her sword.

”The two you left me are both down, Conan. One may live to answer questions if you have any. Oh, our friend speaks the truth about the master. He was to join the fight, too, but lost his courage at the last moment.”

”Where is he?”

”Clinging for his life to the end of the skiff's line,” Raihna said with a wicked grin. ”The two hands threw him overboard and cut it loose. They were still well short of the bank when it sank under them.

One of them could swim. I saw him clambering up the bank.”

Conan wished sunstroke, snakebite, and thirst upon the treacherous hand and strode aft. The master was no longer pale, but red as if scalded with the effort of hanging to the line.

”For the love of the G.o.ds, don't let me drown!” he wheezed. ”I can't swim.”

”The G.o.ds don't love traitors and neither do I,” Conan said. ”Nor does Lord Mishrak.”

The master nearly lost his grip on the line. ”You serve Mishrak!”

”I can make him interested in you or not, as I choose. It lies in your hands.”

”Then have mercy! To name me to Mishrak-would you slay me and all my kin?”

”I'd see you drown without blinking,” Conan said brusquely. ”Your kin may be worth more. Tell me what you know about these knifeman and I may hold my tongue.”

For a man nearly at his last gasp, the master managed to tell a great deal in a short time. It appeared that the knifeman were indeed Lord Houma's. The master had never heard of Master Eremius or the Jewels of Kurag, nor did Conan choose to inform him.

At last the master began to repeat himself. Conan decided that there was little more to be heard worth the danger of losing the man to the river.

He reached down, heaved the man aboard, then shook him over the side like a wet dog. When he finally set the master down, the man's knees buckled. Conan tied his hands behind his back with his own belt.

”You swore-” the master began.

”I didn't swear a thing. You don't need hands to give orders. All you need is a tongue you had best shape to something like respect. Or I may kick you overboard and not trouble Mishrak with the work of learning any more from you.”

The master turned pale again and sat mute as a stone, watching Conan turn forward and stride away.

It was a while before they could bring the ferry to a safe landing on the far bank of the s.h.i.+mak. The master could barely speak at all. The peddler and his boy seemed concerned only that their mule was unhurt.