Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

More curses, this time on "the lady's younger sister" as well as Conan. The Cimmerian frowned.

"Sergeant, if I can't mend your manners with water, I'll try steel the next time. Meanwhile, do you want to cross with us or do your men need you to change their smallclothes—?"

The sergeant threw out a final curse, then lurched off the deck into the water. This time he managed to land on his feet. Finally too breathless to curse, he splashed to the pier. His soldiers helped him up, glaring at Conan all the while.

"Ferrymaster, I think we'd best push off," Conan said.

The ferrymaster, even paler than before, nodded vigorously. He waved to the drummer amidships, who raised his mallet and began pounding out a beat for the slaves. Gravel scraped and growled under the ferry, then she was once more afloat and underway.

Compared to the ferry, a snail had wings. In the time needed to reach the middle of the river, Conan could have eaten dinner and washed it down with ale worth savoring.

The ferrymaster stood on the platform, eyes roaming between the slaves and the receding bank with its cursing soldiers. Instead of fading, his pallor seemed to be growing on him. Had he taken a fever?

"Hi, ha, ho, hey!"

Frantic shouts erupted from aft Conan whirled, to see half of one of the steering oars vanish over the side. A deckhand made to strip and swim after it, but it vanished before he could leap.

"Vendhyan teak," the ferrymaster said, as if the words were a curse. "Heavy as iron and sinks like it too. An ill-favored day, this one. We must turn about in midstream and make our bow our stern. I hope you are in no great haste, you and your ladies."

Nothing in those words made other than good sense. They still rang strangely on the Cimmerian's ears. Since he could put no name to that strangeness, he watched the ferrymaster hurry aft, calling to the hands.

"How long do we spend out here because some sailor was fumble-fingered?" Illyana snapped.

"As long as it takes to turn this drunken sow of a ferry," Conan said. "How long that will be, the gods know. Maybe the ferrymaster, too. Best not look at me. I'm no sailor."

"Perhaps. But can you at least ask the master?"

"As you wish, my lady."

Conan turned to head aft, where the master and two hands were now wrestling with the ferry's light skiff. Raihna put a hand on his arm in what to all eyes would seem a gesture of affection. Her whisper was fierce but unheard by anyone else, including her mistress.

"Be careful, Conan. I would go with you, but Illyana's back needs guarding more than yours."

"That's the truth. But who from?"

"I don't know. But what the master said—I've seldom heard a speech that smelled more of long practice. He spoke like an old beggar who's been asking for alms on the same temple steps for twenty years."

"Maybe this happens every third crossing," Conan grunted. "With this floating lumberpile, anything's possible."

"I need no reassurance!" Raihna's whisper was fiercer yet. "I need to know that you're not a fool."

"Woman, you can warn me without insult. If the master's plotting anything, he's outnumbered."

"How so?"

"You're worth two of him, and as for me—" He shrugged. "You be the judge."

"You great Cimmerian oaf—" Raihna began. Then she laughed softly. "The gods be with you."

"With all of us, if the master has any friends aboard," Conan said. He was ruefully aware of the help the soldiers might have given. Well, only the gods had foreknowledge, and they only if the priests told the truth, which likely as not meant mat no one knew what lay before him!

Loosening his sword in its scabbard, Conan strode aft to join the master.

By the time Conan reached the stern, the two hands were lowering the skiff into the water. The master, paler than ever, stood watching them. Watching the master, Conan saw that his hand did not stray far from his dagger. Nor did his eyes stray far from the peasant family. In their turn the peasants had their eyes on the master, with the attention of a cat watching a bird's nest. Gone were the dull-witted stares with which they had come aboard.

Conan felt more than sweat creeping down his spine. Raihna had most likely seen clearly. Something was afoot.

The skiff splashed into the river. One of the hands set the oars into their locks, while the other held the line. The master turned to Conan.

"With two stout fellows at the oars, the skiff will turn us about in good time. Then we can steer again, and seek a landing."

In the shallows by either bank the Shimak had hardly more current than a millpond. Here in midstream matters were otherwise. The ferry was already well downstream from the pier on the far side.

Not far downstream, Conan saw that the banks rose steep and high on either side. A man landing there would have a fine scramble before he reached open ground. In that time he would be an easy target for archers on the river. Farther downstream still, if Conan remembered rightly, lay rapids, their fangs mostly drawn at this season of low water but not harmless to this ferry…

The second hand climbed into the skiff and took his oar. The master reached into the shadows beneath the platform. He came out with a stout purse in one hand. A hooded peasant woman stepped forward, hands raised as if to beg for alms.

Conan drew his sword and raised it hilt-first. He and Raihna had agreed on that signal to be ready for a fight but let others begin it. The master scurried for the edge of the deck, thrusting his purse into the bosom of his shirt as he ran. At the edge of the deck he drew his dagger and leaped.

As he leaped, so did the peasant woman. The hood flew back, revealing a gap-toothed, hook-nosed brown face whose curling black beard no woman had ever grown. A long knife leaped from under the robes to slash at Conan.

It reached only where Conan would have been. A backward leap took him clear of danger. He tossed his sword. It came down with hilt cleaving to his hand as if it had grown there.

From over the side came the crunch of wood and shrill curses. Eager to escape, the master had leaped too swiftly and come down too heavily. One foot had gone straight through the bottom of the skiff.

"I hope you swim better than the sergeant," Conan shouted. Then it was time to think of his own opponents, three "peasants" advancing with the air of trained fighting men.

Not only trained but trained to fight together. Conan saw this in their movements and in that saw danger. Three men were not enough to overcome him swiftly, or indeed at all. They were doomed. They could also well take long enough dying to let their comrades reach Illyana and Raihna.

First of all, let us make this one and not two . Again Conan leaped backward, his sword cleaving the air to discourage too close a pursuit. He hoped for no more; a swordsman could hardly strike accurately without his feet firmly planted.

The arcing gray steel did its work. The three let Conan open the distance. One tried to close, drawing a second dagger. A desperate parry brought the dagger up as Conan's sword descended. The dagger flew with a clang and a clatter. A moment later the man sagged to his knees, clutching at his useless arm. Clear sight left his eyes as the blood left his body.

One of the man's comrades used his death well. He slipped past Conan to block the Cimmerian's passage forward. Another "peasant" joined the remaining man. If Conan tried to pass the first man, the other two would have time to come up behind him.

A sound stratagem, against any other man than Conan. They should have learned more about hillfolk before they tried to fight one , was his thought.

Conan leaped to the edge of the deck, then dropped onto the first sweep. The slaves' eyes grew round and their hands loosened their grip. The sweep slanted down and trailed, but Conan had already shifted his weight to the next one.