Roland Green - Conan The Valiant

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

"Demons take you!" Conan swore at their fifth refusal to help handle the ferry. "Will it help your precious pet if he dies of thirst or drowns in the rapids?"

"When we know Lotus is well, then you can call on us," the peddler said. "Until then, leave us."

"Please, lady," the boy added, addressing Illyana. "If you can do magic, can you do a healing on Lotus? We couldn't pay very much, but we'd miss him a lot."

Conan wrestled notions of spanking the boy or throwing the mule overboard. It helped that Illyana was smiling at the boy.

"My magic isn't the kind that can help animals," she said. "But my sister was raised around horses. Perhaps she can help you."

Conan strode away with a curse, as Raihna knelt to take the mule's left hind foot in both hands.

It was Massouf, the slave who'd saved Illyana, who finally brought them to safety. Freed from his chains with a key Conan found in the master's purse (along with a good sum in gold that he decided the master had no further use for), Massouf put his comrades to some sort of regular stroke. With Conan to lend strength if not skill to the steering oar, they eventually crunched ashore some ways downstream.

"We're in your debt once more," Illyana said, as she emerged from behind a boulder in clean garb. "You already have your freedom. Is there more we can give? We are not ill-provided with gold—"

"Best not say that too loudly, my lady," Massouf said. "Even the rocks may have ears. But if you have gold to spare—" For the first time he seemed to lose his self-assurance, so unlike a slave's.

"If you have gold, I beg you to take it to the house of Kimon in Gala and buy the slave girl Dessa. They will ask much for her, comely as she is. But if you free her, I will be your slave if I can repay you no other way."

"What was she to you?" Raihna said. "We are not unwilling—"

"We were betrothed, when—what made us both slaves came about. It was ordered that we be sold separately, and each serve as hostage for the other. Otherwise, we would long since have fled or died together."

Conan heard an echo of his own thoughts as a slave in the young man's words. "What made you turn against your master this time? If Dessa is still a slave—"

"If you perished, Captain, I would not long outlive you. All the slaves would have been impaled as rebels. That is the law. With no hold over Dessa, Kimon might have sold her to Vendhya, or slain her outright." He straightened. "I had nothing to lose by aiding you."

"Mishrak didn't send us out here to rescue slave girls," Conan growled.

"He didn't send you out here to be rescued by slaves, either," Massouf said cheerfully. "But that's been your fate. Take it as a sign from the gods, Captain."

"You may take this as a sign to hold your tongue," Conan said, raising one massive fist. "I'm a good deal closer than the gods, too. Never fear. We'll pay a visit to Gala and free your Dessa. We'll even pay for her out of your master's gold." Conan hefted the master's purse. "If Kimon thinks this isn't enough, I'll show him reason to change his mind.

"But don't think you can jaunt along with us beyond Gala! Or I'll send your name to Mishrak, for keeping us from going about his business!"

Seven

THEY RODE INTO Gala as sunset flamed in the west. The Three Coins, where Dessa had worked, lay shuttered and silent, its garden a rank tangle of weeds. Inquiries of passing villagers took them to the Horned Wolf at the far end of the village. Illyana's nostrils flared in distaste as she contemplated the second inn.

"Is that the best we can hope for?"

"That depends, mistress," Conan said. Tales of the battle at the ferry might well have reached Gala already. It still seemed best to continue their masquerade until they knew it was useless.

"On what?"

"On how comfortable you find sleeping in open fields among sheep turds. The Horned Wolf may offer only lice-ridden straw, but—"

"You lie! Not the smallest louse ever found a home in my inn!"

A broad, florid face topped by a haystack of gray hair thrust itself out the nearest window. The woman shook her fist at Conan and drew in breath for another accusation.

"Mistress," Conan said, in a chill voice. "Perhaps the sheep will offer better hospitality. Turds and all, they'll not call us liars."

Ruddiness turned to pallor at the prospect of losing a customer.

"Forgive me, my lord and ladies. I meant no insult, You'd have a cold hard bed with the sheep. I swear I can offer better than that."

"We're neither lords nor ladies," Raihna snapped. "We're honest merchants, who know what a thing's worth. We can also recognize lice when we see them. Now, what are your prices?"

Conan let Raihna do the bargaining, with accustomed skill. He used the time to study the village, with an eye to where the houses might let foes wait in ambush. He also took a moment to counsel Massouf to stop fidgeting.

"You'll make the whole village remember you without freeing Dessa a moment sooner. She'll not thank you if that keeps her captive."

From Massouf's horror-stricken gape, this was clearly a new idea. Conan's curses were silent; they owed Massouf too much.

At last Raihna struck a bargain that Conan suspected was nothing of the kind, from the glee on the old woman's face. Louse-ridden straw still offered more comfort than stones. Perhaps the woman also knew where Dessa was.

They ate their own food but drank the inn's wine, near kin to vinegar. Two women brought it, both looking old enough to be Pyla's mother.

At last Conan felt he could cease insulting his stomach without insulting their hostess.

"Goodwife," he called. "The last time I was here I stayed at the Three Coins. They had a fine dancing girl who went by the name of Dessa. She wore rose scent and precious little else. It would be worth much, to see her dance again."

"Ah, you'll have to guest with Lord Achmai. Not that he's much of a lord, but he does have the Hold. He'd long had his eye on Dessa too. When Master Kimon died, he left so many debts that his kin were glad to sell all they could. Dessa went up to the Hold, and Mitra only knows what happened to her then."

Conan ignored strangled noises from Massouf. "What's this 'Hold'? I saw no such thing, the last time."

"Oh, perhaps you did. But it was only a ruin then. Achmai's put it to rights. Even in the old days it couldn't have been half so fine. Lord Achmai struts around now, like he was one of the Seventeen Attendants."

Conan made some ill-natured sounds of his own. This part of Turan was dotted with the old forts of the robber lords who'd infested the countryside before the early kings put them down. From time to time some lordling would bribe a governor to let him move back into one of them.

Doubtless Achmai would overreach himself one day. Then Mughra Khan would descend on the Hold with an army and an executioner. That would help neither Dessa nor those who wished to rescue her tonight.

"Well, I shall see if Lord Achmai's hospitality is worth having," Conan said, feigning doubts. "Who knows? If he's open-handed, perhaps I'll come back to serve him when my mistress and her sister are safe with their kin."

"Oh, he'll not refuse a fine stout young soldier like yourself," the innkeeper said. She giggled lewdly.

"Nor will the women he keeps, I'll wager. Half the men in his service are old enough to be father to such as you."

"How can you stand here talking, when Mitra only knows what Dessa may be suffering?" Massouf shouted. "Mistress, you owe me— ukkkh !"