“Yes, Cimmerian?”
“The robes of a philosopher would suit you.”
She laughed. “You were thinking the same thing.”
“Hardly.” He raised the sword and studied the edges. “I was thinking that in all my travels, I have never met anything of sorcery born which could touch me, that I could not touch with steel and come away the better for it. If Khalar Zym’s empire will be built on a foundation of sorcery, then cold steel will shatter it.”
He nodded at her, then picked up the whetstone. He whisked it along the blade twice, then looked up again. “Something else . . . ?”
“When you lay there, and I was tending your wounds. When you were fevered . . .”
His expression froze. “Did I speak?”
“Some, yes, but in a hill dialect I have no way of understanding.” She gave him a smile she hoped would be reassuring. “When the fever broke, and you came awake, and I was there at your bunk. . . I was not the one you expected to see.”
“No.” He glanced down, hesitating. “You are not my grandfather.”
“Conan, you don’t need to lie to me.”
The Cimmerian looked up, regarding her coldly. “If I do not need to lie, then why would I?”
The vehemence of his words, and the way he deliberately thickened his Cimmerian accent, shocked her. Tamara took a half step back, raising her hands, using the heartbeat this afforded her to recover herself. “I need to explain.”
“You need to go.”
“Conan, you need to understand.”
He looked up but said nothing.
“My past has been wiped away. At the moment I met you, all I knew was that everyone I had known was being slaughtered, and I was being sent away. I was not allowed to defend my home against invaders, and everyone there was dying to protect me . . . even though none of them beyond Master Fassir knew why. Had you not come upon the scene, they would have taken me. Even now I would be hanging by the ankles from chains in Khor Kalba, my blood draining into that mask.
“And then, from Remo, I learned that I am the last daughter of the Acheron Royal House. It meant that whoever I thought I was, was an illusion. Khalar Zym wanted me for my blood. You wanted me as bait. And though you were willing to treat me as an equal at the Shaipur outpost, and even though you confided in me your plan, I did not feel I served you well.”
The barbarian grunted. “I had seen you fight. You are an ally. We are here, so your effort was what we needed.”
“You may think so, Conan.” Tamara’s eyes sparkled for a second. “You are a terrible weight to drag through the water, but that is all I felt I had done. So when you were ill and I had a chance to ply what I had learned in the monastery of the healing arts, I was determined that you would not die. I owed you that much and . . .”
Conan nodded. “. . . and I was your only link to your past.”
“Yes. And by caring for you, I proved that who I had been was not an illusion. I was Tamara of more names than a barbarian needs, not some vessel bearing the tainted blood of an infamous lineage. Unless I kept you alive by my skills, I was nothing, just a very frightened woman all alone.”
The Cimmerian stood, setting his sword and whetstone aside. Tamara imagined, for a moment, that he would come and take her into his arms. She wanted that, desired it, hungered for his warmth and strength. And for just another moment, it appeared as if he might do exactly that.
But then he half turned from her and studied the shadows in the corner of his cabin. “I have been alone for much of my life, Tamara Amaliat Jorvi Karushan. There are times when that makes life simpler. Others create obligations and demands. Others fail. Avoiding all that creates a life of freedom.
“But it does not always make life easier. Artus is a loyal friend, who watches after me even when I do not watch after myself. I have known few such people down through the years.” The Cimmerian’s head came up. “And perhaps I have been such a friend to too few people. I was born to war, Tamara, and for one with my destiny, to travel alone is better than traveling with ghosts.”
A chill ran down Tamara’s spine. She had always been alone, but she had never felt alone. The other monks and Master Fassir had become her family. Conan’s family had been peeled away, person by person. A lesser man would have let those losses cripple him. Conan merely shouldered them and carried on.
He faced her. “You and I have an obligation to each other. To the world. We are linked by a chain not of our forging, but created by Khalar Zym. He has severed you from your family, and me from mine. But he has brought us together. We have each other, and I believe that means that unlike him, we are not alone.”
“But his daughter . . .” Tamara’s eyes narrowed. “No, no, I see your point. Had he a true family, if he were not alone, he’d not be pressing a quest to re-create a past that was stolen from him.”
“So he does those things to others which had been done to him. His family was taken, so he took mine, took yours, took others, and will take more.” Conan gave her a half smile. “But you and I, we will not let that happen.”
“No.” Tamara reached a hand toward him, then let it drop. “I want to ask you to remain with us, to take me to Hyrkania. I will not.”
“Because you know I will not agree?”
“Because I fear you might, to be a good friend to me, to assuage my fears and, thereby, allow Khalar Zym to kill more people.”
“You do not need me to keep you safe, monk.” Conan laughed. “I would only keep Khalar Zym safe from you.”
“I hope that is as you say, Conan.” Tamara glanced down, hiding a smile. “And I pray we never have to learn if it is the truth.”
CHAPTER 27
THUMP!
The Cimmerian came instantly awake catlike, and reached for his sword. It had not been a loud sound, or one particularly pernicious, but it had been out of place. He slid from his bunk and on bare feet padded his way up the stairs to the main deck, and again up to the wheel deck.
The helmsman had vanished, and save for water splashed between the wheel and taffrail, nothing appeared out of order. Bare steel in hand, the barbarian ran to aft rail and looked down, expecting to see the man’s body floating on the placid surface. He saw half of it, and only by the dint of its being silhouetted against a massive, malevolent golden eye.
What in the name of Crom! He turned back and already dark forms swarmed the main deck. Kushites with spears and shields, Khalar Zym’s light infantry with leather armor and swords, and even a few archers who climbed into the ratlines. A knot of men ran directly toward the companionway leading belowdecks.
Conan hammered the ship’s alarm bell with his sword’s pommel. “To arms! Rise now, or die in your berths!”
He vaulted from the wheel deck to the main and cleaved one man from shoulder to hip with a slash. Conan then spun and threw himself feetfirst down the companionway. He caught a man in the back, between the shoulders, and pitched him forward into the others. Conan landed heavily on the stairs and lost hold of his sword, while the others crashed below him. It didn’t matter. In the ship’s close quarters, a sword would be useless, whereas the dagger he plucked from a downed warrior’s belt would answer very well.
A bass voice barked a command. “Get the girl to a boat!”
From the shadows rose the Kushite general Conan recalled from his village. Snarling, the man rushed at him, reaching out with thick-fingered hands. Conan dodged left, letting the dagger in his right hand trail. The edge scored a line along Ukafa’s leather breastplate, but the larger man spun away before Conan could shift his wrist and draw blood.