Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

The man who'd thought to block Conan waited too long to believe what the Cimmerian had done. Raihna came leaping aft, like a she-lion upon prey. Her sword split the man's skull and her dagger drove into his bowels. He collapsed without a sound, dead too swiftly even to foul himself. Conan heaved himself back aboard, to stand beside Raihna.

"Leave these to me," she cried. "Look to Illyana!"

Frantic braying and the drumming of hooves sounded on the far side of the ferry. Hard on their heels came curses, then a shrill scream from Illyana.

Another cry hammered at Conan's ears as he pushed through the baggage and animals underneath the platform. He reached the open in time to see a "peasant" leap overboard, frantic to flee the peddler's mule. The beast was thrashing about madly, panic-stricken out of what wits he had. In another moment the panic would spread through all the animals aboard. Then Conan and his ladies would have more than Lord Houma's hired swords to concern them.

Illyana was backed against one of the platform's supporting posts, facing three foes. In his mind Conan both cursed her for coming down from comparative safety and praised her courage. She held a long dagger, the twin of Raihna's, with a trained grip. Her slow movements would still have done little against even one opponent, had they been free to come at her. For Illyana, the mule was as good as another guard. The men feared to come within reach of its hooves and teeth.

That fear gave Conan time he put to good use. One man died with his skull split before he knew a foe stood behind him. The second whirled, sword leaping up to guard. He was both subtle and strong. Conan knew that he had the edge on the man, but would have to take care.

The meeting of two expert swordsmen drove the maddened mule back. The last man found a gap and slipped through it. He had no sword, but his two knives danced with swift assurance against Illyana's clumsy parries. He might have been playing with her, seeking to put her in fear and see her cringe and sweat before taking her life.

Conan cursed and shouted for Raihna, neither of which he expected to do much good. Something that Illyana could do, on the other hand—

"Put a spell on him, can't you?" he roared. "Or what good is your magic?"

"Better than you would dare to believe, Cimmerian!" Illyana shouted. A lucky parry held one knife away from her left breast. She gripped the man's other arm and held on with desperate strength.

Conan knew that neither her strength nor her desperation would be enough for long. If either failed before he could deal with this opponent—

"Then if it's so cursed good!—"

"It—is—not swifter—than— uhhh !" as the man tore his arm free. Illyana drove her knee up toward his groin but he shifted his footing so that she only struck his hip. A moment later one hand was wound in her hair while the other raised a knife toward her throat.

In that same moment Conan's sword found his opponent's life. Shoulder and chest poured blood onto already-stained robes. The man neither cried out nor fell. Instead he lurched toward Conan, still a barrier between him and Illyana, who had only a few heartbeats of life left to her.

As the knife blade touched Illyana's throat, a loop of iron chain tightened around the knife wielder's foot.

He kicked to clear his foot, sending himself off balance. The chain tightened again, pulling him away from Illyana. He threw out an arm to save himself— and Conan's sword came down on that arm. Severed arm and knife wielder fell to the deck at the same time.

Illyana stood, gripping the post with one hand. The other she held to her throat, stroking it as if she could scarcely believe it was not gaping from ear to ear. Her dagger lay unheeded on the deck. Conan picked it up and handed it to her.

"Don't ever let loose of your steel until the last enemy's dead!"

She swallowed and licked full lips. Her face would have made fresh milk look brightly colored, and a vein pulsed in the side of her long neck. She swallowed again, then sagged forward into Conan's arms.

It was not fainting. She babbled words that would have made no sense even in a language Conan understood and gripped him with arms seemingly turned to iron. Conan freed his sword arm and put the other around her, holding her as he might have held a puppy or a kitten.

Under the sorceress was enough woman to crave a man's touch when she needed assurance. Conan would leave matters there. To steal her maidenhood would be the kind of theft he had always disdained even as a new-fledged thief in Zamora. It was still not unpleasant to find in Illyana more kinship with ordinary folk than he'd ever expected to find in a sorceress.

"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 gods, don't let me drown!" he wheezed. "I can't swim."

"The gods 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.