“Just make sure they won’t, Zingaran.” Conan smiled and looked around. “Who’s next?”
The pirates roared laughter to answer his question, but none came to take him up on his offer. Then a small man in a tattered robe and eye patch ducked through the crowd and sat opposite the Cimmerian, his head bowed. Had it not been for the heavy clink of chains linking the manacles on the man’s wrists, Conan would have shoved him away.
The Cimmerian looked around the room. A half-dozen men entered in leather armor, wearing an ensign that Conan did not recognize. They were not of the Messantian Guard or any Argosian company, yet they carried themselves as if they had that much authority or more. Out of place in the alehouse, they became objects of interest, but Conan’s interest in them faded as their captain entered.
Something struck the Cimmerian as familiar about the incredibly corpulent man. He didn’t immediately recognize the face because of the odd mask that covered the man’s nose—or what should have been his nose. He realized he’d not seen this man per se, but the man he had once been, only slightly less bulky, and still possessed of a nose.
A nose I took.
The captain pointed toward the crowd and waved his men in to search while he himself retreated back into the night. As the soldiers began to cut through the crowd, the man opposite Conan made to get up. The Cimmerian clamped his hand over the smaller man’s, causing that man’s single eye to widen with panic.
“They’ll take us both to the mines if you don’t let go.”
“Who are they? Who is the man without a nose?”
“He’s an Aquilonian. Lucan, something . . .”
“Lucius?”
“Yes, yes, I think that’s it.” His other hand grabbed Conan’s. “Please, let me go.”
“He oversees mines?”
“Lead mines, north of Messantia.” The smaller man quaked. “Please. The reward for my capture is small, but I will repay you that and more if you let me go.”
Conan did not release him. “I have business with Lucius.”
The guards had fanned out through the crowd and approached the table where Conan sat with the smaller man. The pirates drew back, fingering their weapons. Conan shook his head, leaving many of them puzzled.
A guard laid the flat of an Aquilonian short sword on the small man’s shoulder. “This one is ours. Release him.”
Conan looked up, aware that three of guardsmen had taken up positions behind him. “A reward.”
The man behind Conan laid a heavy hand on the Cimmerian’s neck. “You’ve earned ten lashes. Care for more?”
Conan stood abruptly, smashing the back of his head into a guardsman’s face. Bones cracked and blood gushed from a shattered nose. The guard opposite the table lunged with his short sword. Conan twisted to the right. His left hand fell on the guard’s wrist and plunged the sword into the belly of another guardsman. The barbarian jacked his elbow back into the face of the man who had tried to stab him, then backhanded a fist to the side of another guardsman’s face.
He turned to face the last two of the guards, a bloodied short sword now in his hands. “I captured him. He said your captain would pay a reward. Will you cheat me of it as these men would have?”
The guards’ new leader cleared his throat. “That would not be my intention.”
Conan sneered. “Your men are weak. Your master should have more men like me.” He deliberately slowed his speech and thickened his accent. He recalled the lesson of Venarium, and allowed the Aquilonian to think him nothing more than a stupid savage. He even pounded a fist against his chest to emphasize that impression. “He should make me your captain.”
The Aquilonian held up open hands. “I think you are quite right, Vanirman. I’ve placed you, haven’t I?”
Conan grunted.
“Well then, with a sign of good faith, I would take you to our master. I’m certain he will hire you immediately. Provided you prove good faith.”
The Cimmerian frowned heavily. “Good faith?”
The guard nodded, pointing toward the moaning men on the floor. “Your capacity for violence speaks well of you, but this also demands caution.”
Conan nodded slowly, as if considering the words. Then, smiling, he stabbed the short sword into a rafter. “Good faith.”
“But you never used the sword on any of these men.” The Aquilonian sighed. “Such a boon you would be to our master, yet you would not be allowed to approach if believed a danger. If there was a way . . .”
The Cimmerian narrowed his eyes. “Your master pays well?”
“Very.”
Conan crouched and came up with a pair of manacles pulled from the belt of a moaning man. He snapped one end around one wrist, held the other out to the Aquilonian. “Take me to this master who pays well. In good faith.”
The Aquilonian smiled. “A wise decision, Vanirman, very wise indeed.”
CHAPTER 14
“STUPID BARBARIAN. HAD to hold on to me for a reward.” The one-eyed man spat in the dust. “Only reward you’re getting will be steel in your belly. And you are just too stupid to understand that, aren’t you?”
Conan, who to this point in the long walk to the lead mines had kept silent, looked down at his companion. “Stupid enough to know that a scrawny Shemite dog like you would be worthless in a lead mine.”
“What?”
“And no man would send six guards after an escaped mine slave.” The Cimmerian chuckled. “Why does he want you?”
The little man’s mouth gaped in shock. “You must know who I am. Why else would you have delivered me to my enemies?”
Conan shook his head.
The small man pressed a manacled hand to his breastbone. “I am Ela Shan, the world’s greatest thief. There is no lock which will not yield to me.”
Conan rattled his chains. “Your bracelets have locks.”
“Yes, well, I lack the proper tools at the moment.” Ela sniffed. “Nonetheless, my accomplishments speak for themselves.”
The Cimmerian raised an eyebrow.
Ela sighed. “You have, perhaps, heard of the Tower of the Elephant? Home to the Elephant’s Heart?”
“You stole it?”
“Not precisely. Yara, its master, had a small villa which I located after his demise and from which I deftly liberated certain treasures.”
“You are a scavenger, a jackal.”
“I am a thief.” Ela shrugged. “I simply choose to ply my trade in places where the passing of aeons blurs the provenance of those items I collect.”
Conan smiled. Had the little man claimed to have stolen the Elephant’s Heart, the Cimmerian would have considered strangling him on the spot. The fact that he did not claim the feat that Conan had performed, and the delicacy with which he chose to describe his career, amused the larger man. Given Ela Shan’s current state and lot in life, he could not be a terribly successful thief, but that he had gotten to his age and had only lost one eye did speak to his survival skills.
Before Conan could press him on why Lucius had put a bounty on his head, the dusty canyon through which they had been walking opened into a vast expanse. To the right, two holes opened like nostrils into the side of a hill. Men bent beneath leather hods stuffed with ore hauled their cargo to where other men with sledges pounded large rocks into smaller ones. Yet other slaves shoveled the small rocks into carts that carried them to the smelting ovens. Black smoke rose from them, distantly reminding Conan of his father’s forge.
All the way to the left stood a makeshift garrison building composed of large stones and mud walls. The guards guided Conan and Ela toward it.
Ela glanced at the Cimmerian. “Do you honestly believe Lucius will reward you for my return?”