Roland Green - Conan and The Gods of The Mountains

"Meaning that Conan and I aren't dead?" Valeria snapped. Conan put a hand on her shoulder; she shook him off.

Seyganko looked genuinely ashamed. "My tongue fails me in my time of need. No. We wished Conan to win. But we did not wish such disorder among our folk." He seemed to need his spear as a staff for a moment.

"Aondo and Wobeku have both fled. In their flight, they killed two bidui boys and stole their canoe. We must find the taboo-breakers, or their spirits will curse the Ichiribu. Our fields on the island and the mainland alike will be barren. Our cows will go dry. The fish will swim downriver, beyond our reach."

He went on reciting a litany of disasters until Mokossa boldly gripped his arm. "Oh," Seyganko said as if suddenly awakened from a daze. "There can be no welcoming feast, not until the taboo-breakers are taken. But the gods will forgive us for offering you and your shield-woman companions, for this night and for any other nights as you may choose."

Conan held laughter inside; Seyganko was clearly in no merry mood. Now he knew why Mokossa had interrupted Seyganko's lamentations… and also whom she intended that Conan's partner should be tonight.

Then the Cimmerian could not hold back laughter, because Seyganko was gazing at Valeria as if she were a rather distasteful duty that he must perform for the good of his tribe. Mercifully, Seyganko had enough sense to join in the laughter instead of taking offense.

"My thanks to the Ichiribu, and I mean no insult to their fine women, not to any of them," Conan said. "But my shield-woman and I are vowed, as I have told you. Also, we know each other's ways."

"May we at least send more beer?" Seyganko seemed to be almost pleading as he looked at Valeria.

"As you wish," Conan replied. He glanced at the door-curtain, and in a moment he was alone with Valeria. A Valeria who had, while his back was turned, removed the waistcloth that was her only garment. He saw nothing he had not seen a score of times before… but now, for the first time, it made his blood sing.

He stepped forward; Valeria held up one hand. He gripped it, and she pressed her other hand hard against his chest.

"You are going to have to prove that, you know," she said as he drew her closer.

"Prove what?"

"That you know my ways."

He laughed and kissed her, and this time, her lips opened under his. "We have all night. If I don't know them at first, by Erlik's brass tool, I'll know them by morning!" He lifted her, and she nestled against his chest for a moment before raising her face for more kisses.

ELEVEN

Something's taken the bait," Conan said.

Valeria sat up in the stern of the canoe and reached for her trident. She was clad in an Ichiribu waistcloth, a necklace of lionfish teeth, and a broad hat made of leaves tied with vine to a reed frame.

Conan squatted amidships, letting the fishing line feed over the side. He wore a leather bin'ding to protect his hand from the flax-and-sinew line, a loin-guard, and a dagger. His sword and Valeria's, as well as her bow, lay in the bottom of the canoe, wrapped in fish skin, inside oiled leather, inside waxed linen.

Neither of them cared to leave their weapons ashore on such an expedition as today's. Nor did they care to risk them rusting or taking up dampness. Wobeku might not be the only traitor among the Ichiribu, and there were still warriors with doubts about the two strangers. The nearest smith who could replace, or even repair their blades was at least a month's travel from the Lake of Death.

At last the fish finished its run. Conan braced himself and began hauling it in. Valeria crouched, trident ready, its line coiled lightly in the stern and knotted firmly to a peg driven into the bottom of the canoe.

The fish was a fighter, but Conan wasted no time playing with it. He judged the line would bear any strain the fish could put on it, and hauled away with a will.

Ripples spread around the canoe as the fish's thrashing reached the surface. Valeria's eyes roved about, watching for the first patch of scales large enough to give her trident a mark. Her movements lifted her breasts in a way Conan would have found agreeable, had he spared attention for such matters now.

Suddenly, the fish leaped. The trident was as swift, and blood and foam took the place of the ripples as the fish thrashed out its life an arm's length from the boat. With Valeria gripping the tail and Conan the head, they heaved it aboard, a grisku , as the tribe called it—a third the length of the canoe and weighing as much as a newborn calf.

Valeria made a face as the grisku gave its last wriggle. "All that work for one of those? You know they taste like glue."

"The Ichiribu like them, so we won't have to eat it. Besides, you know well that the more fish we bring back, the less anybody will suspect us."

"I trust the Ichiribu. Don't you?"

"Most of them, yes, as much as I trust any foreigners when I'm nearly alone among them. It takes few enemies to make trouble then."

"In that case, let us make our enemies fewer,

Conan. You've been hammering the idea of our fighting the Kwanyi into my ears night and day."

"Not every night, Valeria. Some nights we've passed otherwise."

She sniffed. "If I do lower myself to take a great loutish Cimmerian to my bed, the least he can do is not to throw it in my face by daylight."

"Where would you have me throw it?"

Valeria made a vulgar gesture and gave an even more vulgar reply. Then she laughed. "I've no quarrel with the Ichiribu, and we'll reach the sea faster if we wait until the rains. A war with the Kwanyi seems as good a way of passing the time as any."

"Better than most. If half they say of Chabano is true, his eye is on an empire. That could bring him down on my old friends toward the coast if he goes unchecked."

"They're not my friends," Valeria protested, but to Conan the protest seemed feeble. Like him, she was one to think twice before walking away from a good fight, even more so when one owed a debt as she and he did to the Ichiribu.

Moreover—

"I've been thinking," he said. "If Dobanpu thinks it well, we can explore the tunnels beyond the Ichiribu island. If they reach to the Kwanyi shore of the lake, we can climb into Chabano's bedchamber some night."

"What of the Golden Serpents?"

"What of them?" Conan asked, shrugging. "With enough good men at our side, no serpent will pass. Besides, the more Golden Serpents, the more fire-stones."

"Indeed." For a moment, Valeria's blue eyes seemed to take on a greenish hue as her pirate's soul warmed to the thought of such booty.

Geyrus, the First Speaker, assumed the pose of meditation. Out of respect, Ryku did the same. He doubted that the gesture would deceive the First Speaker, but it might delay an open breach.

If the First Speaker really intended to come down from Thunder Mountain to meet Chabano, only a little delay would be needed. The presence of Kwanyi warriors, added to his own new skills, would make Ryku proof against anything untoward that Geyrus might intend for him.

The two men remained in the posture of mediation for so long that Ryku began to suffer from both impatience and stiffening limbs. The First Speaker had kept his promise, giving Ryku most of the knowledge of a full Speaker. What had not been taught, Ryku had contrived to learn on his own, as well as certain arts that not even the Speakers acknowledged.

This had taken its toll of his body, however. He had gone sleepless as of ten. as not, endured thirst, hunger, and both great and little pain, and driven his body to its uttermost limits. Or what he had believed were its uttermost limits, before he began the final steps to the Speakers' arts. Now he knew that he had been hardly more than a youth thinking himself a man.