Conan looked at Artus. “Your joke angered him.”
“But he’s looking at you.”
“He’s yours by right, Artus.”
“I cede him to you, Conan.”
“Are you sure?”
The Zingaran smiled. “I insist.”
Conan dug his heels into his horse’s flanks. The beast leaped forward into the fray, hooves thundering on the roadway. The mercenary’s mount sidestepped free of the corpses, almost daintily, then its nostrils flared and it plunged forward. The mercenary made to couch his spear as if it were a lance, but his grip shifted as he closed with his opponent. His eyes tightened, and as their horses closed, he thrust at Conan’s face.
Conan turned his head just enough to avoid the spear, though blood from it painted his ear. His sword arm came up. The glittering steel came over and down, then through. The horses shot past each other, the riders still in their saddles.
But the mercenary’s head spun in the air, the flesh gray, the eyes already milky. It hit the ground, spinning to a stop on its left ear a heartbeat or two before his body crashed into the dust.
Conan reined around and grunted as the larger portion of his foe twitched.
Artus dismounted and toed the head. “As clean a cut as you’ve made in months.”
The Cimmerian slid from the saddle and wiped his blade on a dead mercenary’s trousers. “I’ve made cleaner.”
“And you shall again, my friend.” Artus sheathed his sword and patted Conan on the shoulder. “Come, we have someone to attend to.”
As the rest of the pirates swarmed over the caravan, gathering loot and freeing slaves, the two of them worked to the caravan’s head. The caravan master’s cart had been crushed by a stone, but he had somehow escaped death. Navarus crouched behind his overturned daybed, his face bloodied and streaked with dust. He held his parasol as if it were a shield, and brandished a paring knife. “Stay back. I am warning you.”
Artus looked at Conan. “The gods have spoken.”
The Cimmerian grunted.
The Argosian looked up at the two giants towering over him, then sagged back and began to sob. “You rob me at sea. You rob me on land. Why won’t you let me alone?”
Artus sank to a knee. “It’s simple, Master Navarus. You try so hard, and you’re so clever. If not for you, we should be bored unto death.”
The caravan master stared, agape. “You are doing this for sport?”
The Zingaran shrugged. “Well, we do profit from it, but in your case, it is primarily the sport. Isn’t that so, Conan?”
The Cimmerian nodded slowly. “You make us laugh.”
“Laugh. I make you laugh.” Navarus dropped the knife and tears washed tracks through blood and dust. “I can’t . . . I don’t . . .”
Artus stood and the two of them laughed aloud. This did little for Navarus’s disposition. The rest of the pirates joined the laughter openly, and the freed slaves cautiously. A number of the latter, with rocks in hand and blood in their eyes, made their way toward Navarus.
Conan waved them off. “The gods have spoken.”
If any of the slaves thought it curious that the pirates would leave Navarus alive, they said nothing. Instead, emptyhanded, they turned to helping the pirates gather up loot and repair what carts they could. A handful of pirates returned up the hill and lit a signal fire, which sent a plume of dark smoke into the blue sky. The smoke and the tide would bring their ship, the Hornet, into the cove opposite the road.
Artus nodded as he surveyed the scene. “It is good to have you back, Conan.”
The Cimmerian looked at him, his face impassive. “You have a good crew, Artus.”
“We have a good crew, my friend.” Artus smiled carefully. “Don’t think I don’t know how to read men, Conan. They’re loyal to me, is the Hornet’s crew, because I plucked every one of them from a gibbet before the hangman could drop a noose around his neck. A fair pirate crew they were, too, more cutthroats than sailors, but passable at both. But it’s you that have made them into a band of men who fight together.”
He waved a hand at the hill. “You thought of attacking from the land while he expected us from the sea. Those sea dogs would have mutinied had I suggested such a plan, but you they would follow into the depths of the Stygian underworld. You’re special, and they know it—and knew it ’ere they saw you swing a sword in combat.”
Conan grunted.
Artus laughed. “I, too, know you’re destined for greatness. Knew it when we met. Knew it when I heard you were shipping with Bêlit. I thought someday to find you, see if you remembered me.”
“I do no forget friends, Artus.” Conan did not turn to look at his friend, but instead focused on the sea. In his life, Conan had not made many friends—he could count them on the fingers of one hand, and those among them who yet lived were far fewer. Of the dead, one loomed the largest, having left a void in his life that he could barely comprehend, much less begin to fill. In it, he discovered the hole his mother’s death had left in Corin’s life.
“I know you don’t, Conan. And losing friends . . . no sharper pain.” The Zingaran nodded slowly. “And I’m not much for the wisdom of the gods, especially as displayed today. But I rendered Bel’s share when I was thieving, and don’t mind giving the sea a jug of wine and as much flesh as will sink. If we amuse the gods, they might let us live a bit longer.”
“And if we are tortured, this amuses them the most.” Conan shot Artus a sidelong glance. “So better to torture than be tortured?”
“No sense in hiding, is there?” The Zingaran looked over to where Navarus sat, his daybed righted, his parasol lashed to the haft of a spear. “He hides, and look at the good it does him. ‘Everything that was hidden will be found.’ ”
Conan nodded. “Is it your goal to save me from myself?”
Artus slapped the Cimmerian on the back. “Just to remind you of the reasons we cling to life.”
A commotion arose among the pirates and slaves below. Conan and Artus marched into the heart of the crowd.
Artus planted his hands on his hips. “What is the trouble?”
One of the male slaves knelt and groveled at the pirate’s feet. “Master, we know not what to do.”
Artus shook his head.
Conan drew his sword. “Go. You are all free.”
One of the females, a doe-eyed beauty with long golden locks and longer legs, peered up at him. “But . . . but your crew has gathered all the food and water. They have taken the loot and left us defenseless. Where would you have us go?”
Conan surveyed the desolate coastline in the sun’s dying light. “You are right. You men, go there, take that fruit, that bread, and two carts for water casks. That will see you back to Zingara.”
The slave at whom he pointed frowned. “But, Master, that’s hardly enough for our number.”
“I know.” Conan smiled. “That’s why the women will come with us.”
CHAPTER 13
THICK AND CLOYING, smoke swirled through the Messantian alehouse’s dark reaches. Equal parts the tang of human sweat, the empty promises of opium, and the sharp scent of spilled ale, the heavy air muted laughter and dulled the flash of bright eyes. Women swirled, smoky tendrils caressing them, as they danced free from one pirate’s embrace and into that of another. Hungers of all manner would be sated there, thirsts quenched, hearts inflamed, in a celebration of life and victory.
Two men remained detached. Navarus languished in a hanging cage once reserved for house slaves. He still wore his finery and clutched his parasol. He struggled to maintain his dignity while the women he had enjoyed on the road taunted him and tempted him. Pirates ridiculed him, tossing him grapes and scraps of meat with the same carelessness—but less frequency—that they tossed the same to cautious curs slinking between tables. Navarus made no attempt to gather the food with which he was pelted, but occasionally plucked a morsel from a fold in his robe.