The Conquering Sword of Conan (17 page)

“And you will sell me to him?” she whispered. “In Mitra’s name –”

He fixed upon her a gloomy gaze in which all considerations but his own self-interest had been crowded out. She shrank before it, seeing in it the frantic cruelty that possessed the man in his mysterious fear.

“You will do as I command,” he said presently, with no more human feeling in his voice than there is in the ring of flint on steel. And turning, he left the chamber. Blinded by a sudden rush of horror, Belesa fell fainting beside the couch where Tina lay.

IV

A BLACK DRUM DRONING

Belesa never knew how long she lay crushed and senseless. She was first aware of Tina’s arms about her and the sobbing of the child in her ear. Mechanically she straightened herself and drew the girl into her arms; and she sat there, dry-eyed, staring unseeingly at the flickering candle. There was no sound in the castle. The singing of the buccaneers on the strand had ceased. Dully, almost impersonally she reviewed her problem.

Valenso was mad, driven frantic by the story of the mysterious black man. It was to escape this stranger that he wished to abandon the settlement and flee with Zarono. That much was obvious. Equally obvious was the fact that he was ready to sacrifice her in exchange for that opportunity to escape. In the blackness of spirit which surrounded her she saw no glint of light. The serving men were dull or callous brutes, their women stupid and apathetic. They would neither dare nor care to help her. She was utterly helpless.

Tina lifted her tear-stained face as if she were listening to the prompting of some inner voice. The child’s understanding of Belesa’s inmost thoughts was almost uncanny, as was her recognition of the inexorable drive of Fate and the only alternative left to the weak.

“We must go, my Lady!” she whispered. “Zarono shall not have you. Let us go far away into the forest. We shall go until we can go no further, and then we shall lie down and die together.”

The tragic strength that is the last refuge of the weak entered Belesa’s soul. It was the only escape from the shadows that had been closing in upon her since that day when they fled from Zingara.

“We shall go, child.”

She rose and was fumbling for a cloak, when an exclamation from Tina brought her about. The girl was on her feet, a finger pressed to her lips, her eyes wide and bright with terror.

“What is it, Tina?” The child’s expression of fright induced Belesa to pitch her voice to a whisper, and a nameless apprehension crawled over her.

“Someone outside in the hall,” whispered Tina, clutching her arm convulsively. “He stopped at our door, and then went on, toward the Count’s chamber at the other end.”

“Your ears are keener than mine,” murmured Belesa. “But there is nothing strange in that. It was the Count himself, perchance, or Galbro.” She moved to open the door, but Tina threw her arms frantically about her neck, and Belesa felt the wild beating of her heart.

“No, no, my Lady! Do not open the door! I am afraid! I do not know why, but I feel that some evil thing is skulking near us!”

Impressed, Belesa patted her reassuringly, and reached a hand toward the gold disk that masked the tiny peep-hole in the center of the door.

“He is coming back!” shivered the girl. “I hear him!”

Belesa heard something too – a curious stealthy pad which she knew, with a chill of nameless fear, was not the step of anyone she knew. Nor was it the step of Zarono, or any booted man. Could it be the buccaneer gliding along the hallway on bare, stealthy feet, to slay his host while he slept? She remembered the soldiers who would be on guard below. If the buccaneer had remained in the manor for the night, a man-at-arms would be posted before his chamber door. But who was that sneaking along the corridor? None slept upstairs besides herself, Tina and the Count, except Galbro.

With a quick motion she extinguished the candle so it would not shine through the hole in the door, and pushed aside the gold disk. All the lights were out in the hall, which was ordinarily lighted by candles. Someone was moving along the darkened corridor. She sensed rather than saw a dim bulk moving past her doorway, but she could make nothing of its shape except that it was manlike. But a chill wave of terror swept over her so she crouched dumb, incapable of the scream that froze behind her lips. It was not such terror as her uncle now inspired in her, or fear like her fear of Zarono, or even of the brooding forest. It was blind unreasoning terror that laid an icy hand on her soul and froze her tongue to her palate.

The figure passed on to the stairhead, where it was limned momentarily against the faint glow that came up from below, and at the glimpse of that vague black image against the red, she almost fainted.

She crouched there in the darkness, awaiting the outcry that would announce that the soldiers in the great hall had seen the intruder. But the manor remained silent; somewhere a wind wailed shrilly. That was all.

Belesa’s hands were moist with perspiration as she groped to relight the candle. She was still shaken with horror, though she could not decide just what there had been about that black figure etched against the red glow that had roused this frantic loathing in her soul. It was manlike in shape, but the outline was strangely alien – abnormal – though she could not clearly define that abnormality. But she knew that it was no human being that she had seen, and she knew that the sight had robbed her of all her new-found resolution. She was demoralized, incapable of action.

The candle flared up, limning Tina’s white face in the yellow glow.

“It was the black man!” whispered Tina. “I know! My blood turned cold, just as it did when I saw him on the beach. There are soldiers downstairs; why did they not see him? Shall we go and inform the Count?”

Belesa shook her head. She did not care to repeat the scene that had ensued upon Tina’s first mention of the black man. At any event, she dared not venture out into that darkened hallway.

“We dare not go into the forest!” shuddered Tina. “He will be lurking there –”

Belesa did not ask the girl how she knew the black man would be in the forest; it was the logical hiding-place for any evil thing, man or devil. And she knew Tina was right; they dared not leave the fort now. Her determination which had not faltered at the prospect of certain death, gave way at the thought of traversing those gloomy woods with that black shambling creature at large among them. Helplessly she sat down and sank her face in her hands.

Tina slept, presently, on the couch, whimpering occasionally in her sleep. Tears sparkled on her long lashes. She moved her smarting body uneasily in her restless slumber. Toward dawn Belesa was aware of a stifling quality in the atmosphere. She heard a low rumble of thunder somewhere off to sea-ward. Extinguishing the candle, which had burned to its socket, she went to a window whence she could see both the ocean and a belt of the forest behind the fort.

The fog had disappeared, but out to sea a dusky mass was rising from the horizon. From it lightning flickered and the low thunder growled. An answering rumble came from the black woods. Startled she turned and stared at the forest, a brooding black rampart. A strange rhythmic pulsing came to her ears – a droning reverberation that was not the roll of a Pictish drum.

“The drum!” sobbed Tina, spasmodically opening and closing her fingers in her sleep. “The black man – beating on a black drum – in the black woods! Oh, save us –!”

Belesa shuddered. Along the eastern horizon ran a thin white line that presaged dawn. But that black cloud on the western rim writhed and billowed, swelling and expanding. She stared in amazement, for storms were practically unknown on that coast at that time of the year, and she had never seen a cloud like that one.

It came pouring up over the world-rim in great boiling masses of blackness, veined with fire. It rolled and billowed with the wind in its belly. Its thundering made the air vibrate. And another sound mingled awesomely with the reverberations of the thunder – the voice of the wind, that raced before its coming. The inky horizon was torn and convulsed in the lightning flashes; afar to sea she saw the white-capped waves racing before the wind. She heard its droning roar, increasing in volume as it swept shoreward. But as yet no wind stirred on the land. The air was hot, breathless. There was a sensation of unreality about the contrast: out there wind and thunder and chaos sweeping inland; but here stifling stillness. Somewhere below her a shutter slammed, startling in the tense silence, and a woman’s voice was lifted, shrill with alarm. But most of the people of the fort seemed sleeping, unaware of the oncoming hurricane.

She realized that she still heard that mysterious droning drum-beat and she stared toward the black forest, her flesh crawling. She could see nothing, but some obscure instinct or intuition prompted her to visualize a black hideous figure squatting under black branches and enacting a nameless incantation on something that sounded like a drum –

Desperately she shook off the ghoulish conviction, and looked sea-ward, as a blaze of lightning fairly split the sky. Outlined against its glare she saw the masts of Zarono’s ship; she saw the tents of the buccaneers on the beach, the sandy ridges of the south point and the rock cliffs of the north point as plainly as by midday sun. Louder and louder rose the roar of the wind, and now the manor was awake. Feet came pounding up the stair, and Zarono’s voice yelled, edged with fright.

Doors slammed and Valenso answered him, shouting to be heard above the roar of the elements.

“Why didn’t you warn me of a storm from the west?” howled the buccaneer. “If the anchors don’t hold –”

“A storm never came from the west before, at this time of year!” shrieked Valenso, rushing from his chamber in his night-shirt, his face livid and his hair standing stiffly on end. “This is the work of –” His words were drowned as he raced madly up the ladder that led to the lookout tower, followed by the swearing buccaneer.

Belesa crouched at her window, awed and deafened. Louder and louder rose the wind, until it drowned all other sound – all except that maddening droning that now rose like an inhuman chant of triumph. It roared inshore, driving before it a foaming league-long crest of white – and then all hell and destruction was loosed on that coast. Rain fell in driving torrents, sweeping the beaches with blind frenzy. The wind hit like a thunder-clap, making the timbers of the fort quiver. The surf roared over the sands drowning the coals of the fires the seamen had built. In the glare of lightning Belesa saw, through the curtain of the slashing rain, the tents of the buccaneers whipped to ribbons and washed away, saw the men themselves staggering toward the fort, beaten almost to the sands by the fury of torrent and blast.

And limned against the blue glare she saw Zarono’s ship, ripped loose from her moorings, driven headlong against the jagged cliffs that jutted up to receive her……….

V

A MAN FROM THE WILDERNESS

The storm had spent its fury. Full dawn rose in a clear blue rain-washed sky. As the sun rose in a blaze of fresh gold, bright-hued birds lifted a swelling chorus from the trees on whose broad leaves beads of water sparkled like diamonds, quivering in the gentle morning breeze.

At a small stream which wound over the sands to join the sea, hidden beyond a fringe of trees and bushes, a man bent to lave his hands and face. He performed his ablutions after the manner of his race, grunting lustily and splashing like a buffalo. But in the midst of these splashings he lifted his head suddenly, his tawny hair dripping and water running in rivulets over his brawny shoulders. He crouched in a listening attitude for a split second, then was on his feet and facing inland, sword in hand, all in one motion. And there he froze, glaring wide-mouthed.

A man as big as himself was striding toward him over the sands, making no attempt at stealth; and the pirate’s eyes widened as he stared at the close-fitting silk breeches, high flaring-topped boots, wide-skirted coat and head-gear of a hundred years ago. There was a broad cutlass in the stranger’s hand and unmistakable purpose in his approach.

The pirate went pale, as recognition blazed in his eyes.

“You!” he ejaculated unbelievingly. “By Mitra!
You!
”

Oaths streamed from his lips as he heaved up his cutlass. The birds rose in flaming showers from the trees as the clang of steel interrupted their song. Blue sparks flew from the hacking blades, and the sand grated and ground under the stamping boot heels. Then the clash of steel ended in a chopping crunch, and one man went to his knees with a choking gasp. The hilt escaped his nerveless hand and he slid full-length on the sand which reddened with his blood. With a dying effort he fumbled at his girdle and drew something from it, tried to lift it to his mouth, and then stiffened convulsively and went limp.

The conqueror bent and ruthlessly tore the stiffening fingers from the object they crumpled in their desperate grasp.

ZARONO
and Valenso stood on the beach, staring at the drift wood their men were gathering – spars, pieces of masts, broken timbers. So savagely had the storm hammered Zarono’s ship against the low cliffs that most of the salvage was match-wood. A short distance behind them stood Belesa, listening to their conversation, one arm about Tina. The girl was pale and listless, apathetic to whatever Fate held in store for her. She heard what the men said, but with little interest. She was crushed by the realization that she was but a pawn in the game, however it was to be played out – whether it was to be a wretched life dragged out on that desolate coast, or a return, effected somehow, to some civilized land.

Zarono cursed venomously, but Valenso seemed dazed.

“This is not the time of year for storms from the west,” he muttered, staring with haggard eyes at the men dragging the wreckage up on the beach. “It was not chance that brought that storm out of the deep to splinter the ship in which I meant to escape. Escape? I am caught like a rat in a trap, as it was meant. Nay, we are all trapped rats –”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” snarled Zarono, giving a vicious yank at his mustache. “I’ve been unable to get any sense out of you since that flaxen-haired slut upset you so last night with her wild tale of black men coming out of the sea. But I do know that I’m not going to spend my life on this cursed coast. Ten of my men went to hell in the ship, but I’ve got a hundred and sixty more. You’ve got a hundred. There are tools in your fort, and plenty of trees in yonder forest. We’ll build a ship. I’ll set men to cutting down trees as soon as they get this drift dragged up out of the reach of the waves.”

“It will take months,” muttered Valenso.

“Well, is there any better way in which we could employ our time? We’re here – and unless we build a ship we’ll never get away. We’ll have to rig up some kind of a sawmill, but I’ve never encountered anything yet that balked me long. I hope that storm smashed Strom to bits – the Argossean dog! While we’re building the ship we’ll hunt for old Tranicos’s loot.”

“We will never complete your ship,” said Valenso somberly.

“You fear the Picts? We have enough men to defy them.”

“I do not speak of the Picts. I speak of a black man.”

Zarono turned on him angrily.

“Will you talk sense?
Who
is this accursed black man?”

“Accursed indeed,” said Valenso, staring sea-ward. “A shadow of mine own red-stained past risen up to hound me to hell. Because of him I fled Zingara, hoping to lose my trail in the great ocean. But I should have known he would smell me out at last.”

“If such a man came ashore he must be hiding in the woods,” growled Zarono. “We’ll rake the forest and hunt him out.”

Valenso laughed harshly.

“Seek for a shadow that drifts before a cloud that hides the moon; grope in the dark for a cobra; follow a mist that steals out of the swamp at midnight.”

Zarono cast him an uncertain look, obviously doubting his sanity.

“Who is this man? Have done with ambiguity.”

“The shadow of my own mad cruelty and ambition; a horror come out of the lost ages; no man of mortal flesh and blood, but a –”

“Sail ho!” bawled the lookout on the north point.

Zarono wheeled and his voice slashed the wind.

“Do you know her?”

“Aye!” the reply came back faintly. “It’s
The Red Han
d
!”

Zarono cursed like a wild man.

“Strom! The devil takes care of his own! How could he ride out that blow?” The buccaneer’s voice rose to a yell that carried up and down the strand. “Back to the fort, you dogs!”

Before
The Red Hand,
somewhat battered in appearance, nosed around the point, the beach was bare of human life, the palisade bristling with helmets and scarf-bound heads. The buccaneers accepted the alliance with the easy adaptability of adventurers, the henchmen with the apathy of serfs.

Zarono ground his teeth as a longboat swung leisurely in to the beach, and he sighted the tawny head of his rival in the bow. The boat grounded, and Strom strode toward the fort alone.

Some distance away he halted and shouted in a bull’s bellow that carried clearly in the still morning. “Ahoy, the fort! I want to parley!”

“Well, why in hell don’t you?” snarled Zarono.

“The last time I approached under a flag of truce an arrow broke on my brisket!” roared the pirate. “I want a promise it won’t happen again!”

“You have my promise!” called Zarono sardonically.

“Damn your promise, you Zingaran dog! I want Valenso’s word.”

A measure of dignity remained to the Count. There was an edge of authority to his voice as he answered: “Advance, but keep your men back. You will not be fired upon.”

“That’s enough for me,” said Strom instantly. “Whatever a Korzetta’s sins, once his word is given, you can trust him.”

He strode forward and halted under the gate, laughing at the hate-darkened visage Zarono thrust over at him.

“Well, Zarono,” he taunted, “you are a ship shorter than you were when last I saw you! But you Zingarans never were sailors.”

“How did you save your ship, you Messantian gutter-scum?” snarled the buccaneer.

“There’s a cove some miles to the north protected by a high-ridged arm of land that broke the force of the gale,” answered Strom. “I was anchored behind it. My anchors dragged, but they held me off the shore.”

Zarono scowled blackly. Valenso said nothing. He had not known of that cove. He had done scant exploring of his domain. Fear of the Picts and lack of curiosity had kept him and his men near the fort. The Zingarans were by nature neither explorers nor colonists.

“I come to make a trade,” said Strom, easily.

“We’ve naught to trade with you save sword-strokes,” growled Zarono.

“I think otherwise,” grinned Strom, thin-lipped. “You tipped your hand when you murdered Galacus, my first mate, and robbed him. Until this morning I supposed that Valenso had Tranicos’s treasure. But if either of you had it, you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of following me and killing my mate to get the map.”

“The map?” Zarono ejaculated, stiffening.

“Oh, don’t dissemble!” laughed Strom, but anger blazed blue in his eyes. “I know you have it. Picts don’t wear boots!”

“But –” began the Count, nonplused, but fell silent as Zarono nudged him.

“And if we have the map,” said Zarono, “what have you to trade that we might require?”

“Let me come into the fort,” suggested Strom. “There we can talk.”

He was not so obvious as to glance at the men peering at them from along the wall, but his two listeners understood. And so did the men. Strom had a ship. That fact would figure in any bargaining, or battle. But it would carry just so many, regardless of who commanded; whoever sailed away in it, there would be some left behind. A wave of tense speculation ran along the silent throng at the palisade.

“Your men will stay where they are,” warned Zarono, indicating both the boat drawn up on the beach, and the ship anchored out in the bay.

“Aye. But don’t get the idea that you can seize me and hold me for a hostage!” He laughed grimly. “I want Valenso’s word that I’ll be allowed to leave the fort alive and unhurt within the hour, whether we come to terms or not.”

“You have my pledge,” answered the Count.

“All right, then. Open that gate and let’s talk plainly.”

The gate opened and closed, the leaders vanished from sight, and the common men of both parties resumed their silent surveillance of each other: the men on the palisade, and the men squatting beside their boat, with a broad stretch of sand between; and beyond a strip of blue water, the carack, with steel caps glinting all along her rail.

On the broad stair, above the great hall, Belesa and Tina crouched, ignored by the men below. These sat about the broad table: Valenso, Galbro, Zarono and Strom. But for them the hall was empty.

Strom gulped wine and set the empty goblet on the table. The frankness suggested by his bluff countenance was belied by the dancing lights of cruelty and treachery in his wide eyes. But he spoke bluntly enough.

“We all want the treasure old Tranicos hid somewhere near this bay,” he said abruptly. “Each has something the others need. Valenso has laborers, supplies, and a stockade to shelter us from the Picts. You, Zarono, have my map. I have a ship.”

“What I’d like to know,” remarked Zarono, “is this: if you’ve had that map all these years, why haven’t you come after the loot sooner?”

“I didn’t have it. It was that dog, Zingelito, who knifed the old miser in the dark and stole the map. But he had neither ship nor crew, and it took him more than a year to get them. When he did come after the treasure, the Picts prevented his landing, and his men mutinied and made him sail back to Zingara. One of them stole the map from him, and recently sold it to me.”

“That was why Zingelito recognized the bay,” muttered Valenso.

“Did that dog lead you here, Count? I might have guessed it. Where is he?”

“Doubtless in hell, since he was once a buccaneer. The Picts slew him, evidently while he was searching in the woods for the treasure.”

“Good!” approved Strom heartily. “Well, I don’t know how you knew my mate was carrying the map. I trusted him, and the men trusted him more than they did me, so I let him keep it. But this morning he wandered inland with some of the others, got separated from them, and we found him sworded to death near the beach, and the map gone. The men were ready to accuse me of killing him, but I showed the fools the tracks left by his slayer, and proved to them that my feet wouldn’t fit them. And I knew it wasn’t any one of the crew, because none of them wear boots that make that sort of track. And Picts don’t wear boots at all. So it had to be a Zingaran.

“Well, you’ve got the map, but you haven’t got the treasure. If you had it, you wouldn’t have let me inside the stockade. I’ve got you penned up in this fort. You can’t get out to look for the loot, and even if you did get it, you have no ship to get away in.

“Now here’s my proposal: Zarono, give me the map. And you, Valenso, give me fresh meat and other supplies. My men are nigh to scurvy after the long voyage. In return I’ll take you three men, the Lady Belesa and her girl, and set you ashore within reach of some Zingaran port – or I’ll put Zarono ashore near some buccaneer rendezvous if he prefers, since doubtless a noose awaits him in Zingara. And to clinch the bargain I’ll give each of you a handsome share in the treasure.”

The buccaneer tugged his mustache meditatively. He knew that Strom would not keep any such pact, if made. Nor did Zarono even consider agreeing to his proposal. But to refuse bluntly would be to force the issue into a clash of arms. He sought his agile brain for a plan to outwit the pirate. He wanted Strom’s ship as avidly as he desired the lost treasure.

“What’s to prevent us from holding you captive and forcing your men to give us your ship in exchange for you?” he asked.

Strom laughed at him.

“Do you think I’m a fool? My men have orders to heave up the anchors and sail hence if I don’t reappear within the hour, or if they suspect treachery. They wouldn’t give you the ship, if you skinned me alive on the beach. Besides I have the Count’s word.”

“My pledge is not straw,” said Valenso somberly. “Have done with threats, Zarono.”

Zarono did not reply, his mind wholly absorbed in the problem of getting possession of Strom’s ship; of continuing the parley without betraying the fact that he did not have the map. He wondered who in Mitra’s name
did
have the accursed map.

“Let me take my men away with me on your ship when we sail,” he said. “I can not desert my faithful followers –”

Strom snorted.

“Why don’t you ask for my cutlass to slit my gullet with? Desert your faithful – bah! You’d desert your brother to the devil if you could gain anything by it. No! You’re not going to bring enough men aboard to give you a chance to mutiny and take my ship.”

“Give us a day to think it over,” urged Zarono, fighting for time.