Part 2 (1/2)

- Barachan pirate chant Tortage roared defiance to the stars In a cup of rocky cliffs, the pirate port blazed with light and resounded with roaring song, for the Red Brotherhood was in Tall caracks and sli the stone quays and wooden piers or lay at anchor in the harbor Every alehouse, wine shop, inn, and brothel did a roaring business, when half the freebooters of the Western Sea swaggered through the cobbled alleys of red Tortage with pouches bursting with gold, bellies bulging with beer and ale, and hearts inflans, blazoned with skulls, torches, crossed sciryphons, crowned heads, and other devices swung creakingly in the stiff sea wind Surf booainst the stars above the little town

Salt spray exploded against the docks, and the whistling wind carried its warh the crooked streets that wound past low, flat-roofed houses, walled ashed stucco, with iron grilles over their s The wind ainst the dancing stars above

For two hundred years and more, the little town in the cliff-walled cove had been the capital of a pirate eed the seas between Pictland and Rush Here no law ruled but the rude and simple pact of the Brotherhood Beyond that,, the only laas the fist, the knife, the sword, and the skill of the battler

Tonight the pirate city was ablaze with roaring ht, real or fancied, exploded in the streets Rings of shouting ht to the death over an accidental shove, a trivial insult, or the favors of soht to reed with treasure - the loot of the merchant fleets of the southern seas And Amra the Lion had returned!

Thirty years had not yet buried his portentous nae of tiends of his swashbuckling days, in the wild tiriara In those distant days, when Vilerus and then Nu them - first as Belit's partner in command of a bloodthirsty crew of black corsairs; then, years later, as a pirate of the Barachas and a leader of Zingaran buccaneers

For several years off and on, his shi+ps - the galley Tigress, the caravel Red Lion, and the carack Wastrel -had sailed the seas, returning heavy-laden with treasure

For a time Amra, as some called hi the captains of the Red Brotherhood But then he had vanished into the little-known lands of the interior and was heard of on the Main no ends spread fro na conized, in the inland monarch, the Cimmerian pirate of for past

But now he stood aht of torches, with the salt sea wind tugging at his gray ht winked and sparkled on the coat of chain reat black cloak streaantic bird of prey

Conan stood atop a stone bench in the midst of the' port city's main square, and his voice rose like a tru It filled their lawless hearts with echoes of splendid deeds and epic battles of long ago and the promise of stupendous enterprises yet to coend to recruit a crew for some unknown venture into the Western Sea Into that wind-lashed waste of waters, no shi+p had ventured in the memory of man Who but Amra would dare to drea as his words intoxicated theic of his own heroic sprint was as contagious as fire in tinder Gold and gereat adventure into the Unknown, ae peoples They should venture into the deeps of naend would beguile soft wenches and win is and epics for aeons to come

And there at anchor rode Amra's shi+p - a stout, deep-bellied carack called the Red Lion, like Amra's caravel of former times

Conan did not reveal all the story He did not tell thehty vessel And why frighten them aith tales of the Red Shadows and the weird apparition of Epe-dead prophet?

For, just as the Terror had carried away hundreds of Conan's subjects, so the os Ariostro's court icians and seers had read the o-undisturbed books ofthat the Red Shadows struck from some unknown realm beyond the mysterious Western Ocean

shi+p after shi+p had the shrewd and able king of Argos launched into the Western Sea, but none had ever returned with a clue to the rew nervous at the hint of further ventures into the unknown West, But still the Red Shadows struck and slew, and the kingdoe ofinto the streets of Messantia in disguise, King Ariostro had searched for reckless ht persuade to undertake the adventure For this last desperate gaht in Conan the Cih he was too discreet to betray the fact - and Sigurd Redbeard, the bluff and hearty old sea rover froht the powerful carack and were now co the Barachan pirates

So were known to Conan from his pirate days of old, and to the black froht his eye He thrust out an arleaht of the blown torches, and whose bulbous ray

'You know a!' he thundered 'You were but a lad when I roved the black coast, years and years ago by the side of your bold mistress, Belit What of you ? Will you join , black arms with a shout of joy 'Ya Amra! Amra!' he roared, drunken with old !' snarled a voice in chill, deadly tones, as a sum, deadly form thrust itself in front of the black and pushed him back into the crowd The man turned to fix Conan with coldly venomous eyes

Conan looked down at the newco in the lean, sallow face with inky brows and thin lips, the sliold-inlaid steel over black velvet, the dia hand jutted fro cut-and-thrust rapier

In a soft voice, whose lisping accents aran, the black-clad, sallow s! Do you listen to the wild dreams of this crazy old fool, who has come out of nowhere to lure you ild promises on a harebrained quest into the unknown? Mayhap this be the same Amra of whose deeds we have heard - and mayhap not What st us to disrupt the Brotherhood What care we for adventures and glory? We are practicalfrom the sea, and to the eleven scarlet hells with drealared contea, into your ht him the lore of sun and stars - and by Mitra, he stays with ara! So up anchor and take your rotten carack back to whatever port of dreams you hale from We have no room for your sort here'

Alvaro had half turned to stride away through the hter stiffened hiirl-faced, fancy-clad, soft-gutted whelp of a nautter slut? I was a captain of the Coast when you were still puking up your old of a dozen cities into the alleys of Tortage when you were still fondling boys in the back of a Zingaran whorehouse If you've not guts for an honest venture, then slink back to your fetid kennel - but there are others here with more manhood in one hand than you have in your yellow-bellied body I speak to them, not you And, yes, I'm old - but I still know a trick or thich I shall be pleased to show you if you like!'

Black Alvaro whirled with a curse, his rapier rasping out and glittering in the glare of the torches like a needle of fire Whooping, the crowd for black cloak and drew his heavy Aquilonian broadsword But, even before the blade cleared the scabbard or he could step down frorace

The steel needle flicked out at Conan's unar blade aside and sprang down fro fro like a bell as it aran blade Steel music clashed in the windy silence as the two combatants circled, advanced, retreated, cut, parried, and thrust The torches sent their billowing shadows crawling over the walls of the nearest houses

Men sucked in their breaths, for Alvaro of the Falcon was accounted the deadliest blade aray with years, was an unknown adversary They ainst the lean, silken grace of the Zingaran and cast bets at wildly fluctuating odds

Alvaro soon found that his singing blade could never quite dodge past Conan's guard The great broadsword,hter blade; it should have been slow and unwieldy But in Conan's leathery hand it danced as lightly as a and Nor did the fiercely grinning old Cimmerian seem to tire froid as an iron bar

Sweat glistened on Alvaro's brow beneath his flying black ringlets Sweat beaded his thin lips and trickled down his hollow cheeks He knew that if blade ever met blade with full i the full weight of his longsword to bear Instead, with incredible ease, he wove a glittering wall of flying steel before hiht blade could not gain entry Frohter He was playing with the agile but wearying Zingaran, and the chilling thought went through Alvaro that at any time the Cimmerian could beat his rapier aside and cut hi play of shi+ steel Gradually they caiant Kushi+te who had known A before, started a chant, which soon rose fro, sweating Alvaro that the square shook with its throbbing thunder: 'A cry rose and rose until it boo rhytharan's normally icy nerve With one hand, Alvaro fumbled behind him, beneath his short irdle, a slier was thrust for use on such occasions as this His fingers drew the blade from its slender scabbard and palainst his forear back several paces He stood panting and disheveled, while Conan's flashi+ng blade slowed to a halt

'Had enough, black swine of Zingara?' the old wolf growled

The dirk flashed in the torchlight as it whirled through the dark air toward Conan's bare throat Without appearance of haste, Conan's left hand reached up and caught the dagger by its hilt, snatching it out of the air as it flew

This a They had heard that the hilla knives from the air, but never had they seen it done None knew of the long years Conan had spent on the bleak steppes of Hyr-kania, and amidst the coasts and isles of the Vilayet Sea, and in the towering Himelian Mountains, as nomad chief, pirate on an inland sea, and mercenary warrior In those years he had ir tulwar, the dis Zhaibar knife, and other Eastern weaponry

The shock of the deed glazed Alvaro's eyes with horror The air seemed to stifle him He tore open the lace collar above his cuirass and stood uncertainly, as if he knew not what to do next Tension grew taut as a bowstring

Then - Conan gave hih the air and sank to the hilt in Alvaro's bare throat For a s, with his face as pale as a dish of curds and blood trickling down over his glea to the cobbles

Conan tossed his great sword up, caught it again, and sheathed it The croild with a thunderous cry: 'Am-ra! Am-ra! Am-ra!'

CHAPTER FIVE

THE BLACK KRAKEN

The Kraken lives, that anciently arose froed by tioned sea

-- The Visions of Epemitreus

The Red Lion was three days out froalley

It was dawn of the third day Naked to the waist, with his heavy broadsword hanging at his side, Conan stood on the poop deck drinking deep of the clean salt wind Spray had stiffened his olden fla, thin clouds afire The brisk northeasterly trade wind sang in the carack's rigging and bellied out the broad sails above