A motley horde of escaped slaves, criminals, freebooters, and wandering adventurers, all with a common lust for gold and a common disregard for human life, infested the waters of this huge inland sea, making even Turanian shipping a hazardous venture. In the mazes of islands to the south and east lay their secret harbors.
Internal strife often crippled their power, to the satisfaction of the king of Turan, until there came among them a strange barbarian from the West, with blue eyes and raven hair. Conan swept aside their quarreling captains and took the reins of leadership in his own hands. He united the pirates and forged them into a fearsome weapon aimed at the heart of Turan. Conan smiled in recollection of those days, when his name was a curse in Vilayet harbors, and prayers and incantations were chanted against him in the temples of the seaports.
The sloop was a trim and well-built craft. Her sharp bow cut the water like a scimitar, and her single sail billowed tautly before the wind.
Aghrapur had been astern for nearly twenty hours. Conan guessed their speed to be greater than that of Turanian warships. Should the breeze die, however, they would have a problem. They could never hope to equal the speed of a galley, propelled by hard-driven slave rowers, by means of their own puny sweeps. But the wind showed no sign of slackening, and Rolfs capable hand guided the small vessel before it so as to extract the last ounce of sailpower from it.
Rolf was telling the long tale of the wanderings and adventures that had led him to Aghrapur. “…so here I am, a fugitive from my native Asgard and from Turan both.”
“Why did you join me?” asked Conan. “You were comfortably off at the Turanian court.”
Rolf looked offended. “Did you think I had forgotten the time you saved my life, in that battle with the Hyperboreans in the Graaskal Mountains?”
Conan grinned. “So I did, didn’t I? After so many battles, I had forgotten myself.” He shaded his eyes and looked at the unbroken blue line of the horizon. “I doubt not that at least a couple of Yezdigerd’s war galleys are on our heels,” he said grimly. “The rascal must be hot for vengeance. I doubt he will soon forget how we pulled his beard.”
“True,” rumbled Rolf. “I hope this fine wind keeps up, or we shall soon be at grips with his galleys.”
Conan’s active mind was already dwelling on another topic. “In my days with the Red Brotherhood,” he mused, “this area was the surest one for a sweep to catch a fat merchantman from Sultanapur or Khawarizm. Aye, but those traders fought well; sometimes the sea was red with our blood as well as theirs before we had the prize.
Some of the pirate ships should be nearby.” His eagle eyes continued to scan the endless blue vista.
He stiffened like a lion sighting its prey and thrust out an arm to starboard.
“Rolf, we have company? Those yellow sails can mean but one thing: a pirate. We might as well drop our sail and await them; they could overtake us in a half-hour if they wished!”
Eyes fixed on the oncoming vessel, he waited, outwardly stolid and unmoved.
Conan drank in the measured thump of oars in their locks, the creak of spars, the shouts of boatswains, and the smell of tar with gusto. Half a cable’s length away a slim sailing galley, its yellow sail ablaze in the afternoon sun, hove to. The black flag of the Brotherhood fluttered from its masthead, Conan and Rolf rowed toward the pirate craft.
The gunwale was lined with faces. Many were swathed in colorful headcloths. Some favored the eastern turban; others wore helmets of steel or bronze. A few had pates shaven and bare except for a scalp-lock. The din and clamor lessened. Cold, cruel eyes scrutinized the two strangers in the sloop.
The small craft bumped against the side of the bigger vessel. A rope was lowered. Hand over hand, Conan and Rolf climbed with the agility of practiced seamen. Clearing the gunwale, they found themselves in the center of a half-circle of curious pirates, all shouting queries at once. Among them Conan recognized several who had followed him in former days. He snarled:
“Dogs, don’t you know me? Is your memory so short that you must be reminded of my name, or have your eyes grown dim with age?”
Several men in the throng had drawn back, blanching from the shock of recognition. One, white-faced, rasped: “A ghost, by Tarim! Erlik preserve us! It is our old admiral, come back from his grave to haunt us!” Veteran though he was, the grizzled pirate was obviously terrified as he pointed at Conan. “You perished many years ago, when the vampires of the Colchian Mountains assailed your crew as they fled from the Turanians after taking vengeance on Artaban of Shahpur. Begone, spirit, or we shall all be doomed!”
Conan gave a gusty laugh. He slapped his thigh with mirth, plucked Rolf’s dagger from its sheath, and hurled it to the deck so that the point was driven inches deep into the planking and the hilt quivered upright. Then he pulled the weapon out.
“Have you taken leave of your senses, Artus?” he roared. “Could a ghost make that nick in the deck? Come, man, I am as alive as the lot of you and, if you believe me not, I’ll crack a few heads to prove it! I escaped both the vampires and the Turanians, and what befell me after that is no concern of yours. Do you know me now?”
Conan’s old followers now joyfully milled about the towering Cimmerian to shake his hand and clap his back.
Men who had never seen him before crowded with the others, fired with curiosity about a man whose name was legendary, and whose fantastic exploits were still told by the wine legs on still evenings.
Suddenly a sharp voice sheared through the clamor: “Avast, there! What’s going on? Who are they? I told you to fetch them to me as soon as they were picked up!”
A tall man, wearing a light mail shirt, stood on the bridge, one fist banging the rails. A blazing red cloth was wound around his head. A badly-healed scar from eye to chin disfigured his long, narrow face.
“It is Conan, Captain!” cried old Artus, the shipmaster. “Our old admiral has returned!”
The captain’s close-set eyes narrowed as his own sight sought confirmation of the oldster’s words. An evil light blazed in those eyes as he picked out the bronzed form of the Cimmerian. He opened his mouth to speak, but Conan beat him to it.
“Are you not glad to see me, Yanak? Remember how I kicked you out of the fleet for hoarding spoils that belonged to all? How have you managed to trick your way to a captaincy? Ill days must have dawned for the Brotherhood!”
With his mouth working, Yanak spat back: “For that, barbarian, I will have you hung by the heels and roasted over the ship’s fire! I am captain and give the orders here!”
“That may be,” retorted Conan. “But I am still a member of the Brotherhood.” He looked challengingly around, and nobody chose to deny his assertion. “I claim a right according to the articles. The right of any member of the brotherhood to fight the captain of a ship for the captaincy in a captain’s duel.”
He tossed up the dagger he had borrowed from Rolf and caught it again.
It was a formidable weapon with a broad, eighteen,-inch blade, but still no sword. He and Rolf had cast aside their swords in order to swim to the sloop, so the dagger was the only weapon they had between them.
The crew murmured, for all knew that in such a duel Conan would have to fight with whatever weapon he had with him at the time, while Yanak could choose what weapons he pleased. Yanak’s armor, too, would give him a further advantage.
“This is madness, Conan!” Arms plucked the Cimmerian’s elbow. “Yanak will cut you to pieces. I have seen him fight three brawling drunkards at the time and lay them low. We’ll depose him instead and choose you for captain. All your old followers are on your side.”
Conan shook his head and rumbled: “Half the crew don’t know me and would oppose such a move. The men would be split into factions and our strength would be weakened. No, it must be done the traditional way.”