Part 5 (1/2)

'Aurd 'Another one, to port!'

Conan whirled with a sulphurous oath A second dragon-shi+p was bearing down upon the with the wind on her bea-sails helped the oars so that she moved much faster than the first shi+p had done

'Milo!' roared Conan 'Get that engine over to port!'

As the catapult crew struggled to lever their machine to the opposite side of the forecastle deck, the second dragon-shi+p quickly closed the distance Conan swore at his own stupidity in letting the sight of the blazing first shi+p so rivet his attention that he had not been aware, until he heard Sigurd's bellow, of the approach of the second 'Yakov!' he thundered 'Hold your shot until the doors open!'

This tion-shi+p did not open the doors to its boarding party so soon Instead, it gave out a hiss as of a thousand kettles Froue of liquid flaulf It struck the side and deck of the Red Lion In an instant, drops of the burning liquid were running hither and yon about the deck In a panic, the pirates ran back fro spots in their clothing The liquid gave off a dense, black suessed at once that this was a natural oil, like that which seeped out of the ground in the deserts of Iranistan and southern Turan

But he had no time to explain this to his men A second hiss, and another jet of liquid flame struck the foresail, which in an instant blazed up like a torch The catapult crew and the archers scattered, screa, as the sail flamed over their heads and showered the deck with bits of burning sailcloth

'Hard to starboard!' yelled Conan 'Trim sail to run with the wind on the starboard beaht destroy his mainsail and make the Red Lion a helpless hulk

But it was too late Again came the hiss and the jet, and theflame The Red Lion, shorn of all ular alley crashed down, driving their claws into the carack's deck The doors opened, the plank extended, and the second boarding party rushed to the deck of the Red Lion

These men had brown skins and slitted eyes, with knobby cheekbones and hawk noses They wore bird-hele glassy armor over leathern jerkins They carried curious weapons - swords with saw-toothed edges of crystal, hooked spears, and glassy globes held in slings There were other weapons, which Conan could not, in the first moment,party with a deadly hail of arrows, but the archers had become as demoralized as the rest of the pirates Conan roared and threatened from the poop, but still they milled and yammered witlessly in the waist A few arrohizzed into the boarders, but to little effect The shafts splintered against and glanced off the fragile-looking arue of the boarding plank rested upon the Red Lion's rail

Conan leaped down the ladder froreat broadsword in hand, to add his weight to the defenders Theparty, he no, bore curious equiplass helmets, to containers on their backs Itequipment of some sort But why?

The answer came just as he reached the s and shower his lobes, each about the size of an apple The globes burst with ashards Where each globe struck, a billowing cloud of pale vapor arose

More and lobes smashed and tinkled; as fast as the wind bleay the vapor, more of the uncannyabout in the waist, sag and slump to the deck, unconscious Down they went, man after man, until only a few still stood erect The deck looked like a shambles, save that the fallen , Then the boarding party swarmed down froing roar, Conan drove in a web of steel around him The crystalline arh glass, leather, flesh, and bone Li cries of pain calassy helh the loose ranks of the first boarders, leaving three foes recumbent on the deck behind hi hih to the rail where, with his back protected, he won a urd trading hty bloith two assailants Two h he did not seem to have been struck, the Northman dropped his scimitar and folded up on the deck, as had all the rest of the crew

There was a sweetish smell in Conan's nostrils, and the world swaiven back before hiainst the rail For three heartbeats, the Ciray-bearded lips bared in a silent snarl Then, over the heads of the foreh the air, to smash on the deck at his feet

Conan did not wait for the vapor to rise and drag hiainst the seh, scarred hands, whirled about his head like the vane of a windmill Crash!+ Crash!+ Two of the Antillians fell before his blade with heads or ribs crushed in And then Conan was through the press and out in the open again

He knew he could not fight the entire hostile crew single-handed Though he ht account for a few more, sooner or later they would surround hihting his liasps The smoke and the whiff of the pallid vapor he had inhaled h Every one of his creas non - a few slain by the enereat ht have been paralyzed by the problem of what to do next The shi+p was plainly lost Her deck swaron shi+p Her sails and rigging had vanished in flame and smoke; at that instant her fore yard, its sail consu it burned through A score of minor fires smouldered here and there about the deck, where pieces of burning saii, rope, or spar had ignited theon-shi+p, which had been set ablaze, had vanished except for a floating patch of wreckage

Conan saw that he could do hishimself be slain or captured If, on the other hand, he could escape, perhaps a chance would offer itself later

The decisiveness of Conan's barbarian heritage decided his next actions without his consciously having to think about theth, he bounded up the ladder to the poop deck Of the two steersmen at the quarter rudders, one had disappeared; the other lay dead, while over the body stood one of the boarders with a bloody saw-edged blade in his hand Conan rushed hihty thrust with both long arh the other's glass-plated h the man's body Doent the man

Then Conan dropped his bloody broadsword, doffed his horned hel any are! He bent and tore frolass hel apparatus that ith it As more Antillians stamped up the ladder to the poop deck, Conan ”settled the apparatus about his own head and shoulders

The eneht up his sword just in tihty slash smashed the helmet of the pikeman and the skull beneath it Before any others could close with hi, blue waters Carried down by the weight of his chain h in the heavens, had burned off the last re olden rays Two by two, the boarders picked up the recumbent forms of the unconscious crew plank into the dragon-shi+p Others busied the the theth, leaving a son-shi+p returned to their own vessel With a rattle of gear, the boarding plank withdrew; the grappling aron's breast closed The dragon shi+p backed water with oars and sails andher stern near the bow of the Red Lion Presently, with a creaking of ropes to tried ahead in the direction whence she had co the Red Lion behind her

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TERRORS OF THE SEA

Bedight with tentacle and fang, The e of Ahty splash Green waves closed over his head Weighted by the chain h and by the massive broadsword in his fist, he sank like a stone

The sea was cold; the h for its war of cold salt water on Conan's li his cuts and bruises, and the icy shock sent new vigor surging through his aching reen As the hull of the Red Lion rose above hi up, the old warrior sao hulls above hireenish silver A weird sight

His first i the water had been to strike out with his ar apparatus in the crystal helned, in some incomprehensible fashi+on, to enable him to breathe under water Furthermore, he could see the sea bottom not far beneath his booted heels At this point, close to the isles of Antillia, the ocean botto into an ebony abyss of lightless gloom, he would descend only a few fatho his instinct to swi water just enough to keep hi was another matter The helm came down to fit in saddle fashi+on over chest and back Two glass tubes curved away over either shoulder to a tanldike affair on his back between his shoulders The first tube entered the front of the helm on a level with his nostrils; the second, on a level with hisshowed that the wearer of the helmet was expected to wrap his lips around the lower tube, press his nostrils into the aperture of the upper, and then breathe in through the nostril tube and out through the other When he exhaled, a colu bubbles rose fro sound This unusual ot used to it by the ti position, on the sea bottom The bottom was covered with fine, soft sand, which rose in little clouds as he scraht position Around him, the water was clouded with puffs and swirls of slowly settling particles

Conan found that his vision through the crystal helood, except that beyond a few yards the water clouded and confused his gaze Although there was enough light clearly to s, the looh, since to follow the rising slope of the sea bottom he kneould lead him to shore So he set off in that direction, laboriously plodding through the soft sand, lurching fro apparatus ht of his ht It was gripped with an even pressure, which exerted itself against his entire body surface Thisthe difficulties of rotesquely slow strides, which lifted hirowths flourished on the sea bottoh an enchanted forest of weird plants, whose long, silky fronds undulated like glistening, htly colored fish darted about hiolden and purple and emerald and crimson and azure Towers of pink and white coral rose about hi through the coral growths, Conan e rocks, which lay this way and that and leaned against one another like the ruins of so to them Some were flower-like or star-shaped or covered with spines Sos and eyes on stalks; others thrust out branching, feathery appendages

Pulling hi the tuashed one of his fingers In tied on a level plateau and stood for a her now,, or else he had risen to a level quite near the surface, for the deep eiven way to a lucent chartreuse By this clearer luminance he could make out another upward slope, which aped the darkthe cave warily, Conan decided to give it a wide berth His experience with caves on dry land had often proved them to be tenanted - and tenanted by creatures forht, harmless little fishes dwelt in these liquid depths As he skirted the e of motion in the darkness within A spot of di platter, appeared, then another beside it And so toward him across the sea bottom It was like a shi+p's cable - or rather, like a tree trunk, covered with black, siven flexibility and animation The near end tapered to a slender whiplash, while toward the cave the tentacle thickened to the diameter of an old tree

As thefrom the sea bottom, he saw that its flat underside bore a double row of suckers, fro end to others the size of horses's hooves further in The thin end of the tentacle lifted from the sea botto this curious creature to see if it was edible

'Cro the tentacle as that of a creature of the kraken kind He sprang backward, ripping his sword from the scabbard

On dry land, such a leap would have taken his were different beneath the sea Conan found hi end over end Water leaked into his glassy helled in his ears as he revolved With his free hand, he beat at the water to right hi serpent, it lunged up and out and coiled around his thigh

Conan brought his sword down in a hty slash But the resistance of the water sent his stroke awry and robbed it of ashed the rubbery tentacle and rebounded frohtened, until his leg began to go nuainst the pressure of the water He struck again at the tentacle, only to have the water again weaken the blow

The grip on his leg grew crushi+ng; Conan becath in that coil With desperate certainty he knew that unless he broke the hold of the sea monster, the tentacle would pull hi circle of arue awaited their feast

The giant kraken was not yet fully aroused It toyed lazily with its victih But now Conan saw another tentacle lifting into view, and yet another behind it