“I will not hide.” Her eyes flashed, suddenly no longer soft. “You’ve taught me much, but not to be a coward!”
“You’ll hide if I must bind you hand and foot. But if it comes to that, I promise you’ll not sit without wincing for a tenday. Give me your sword,” he added abruptly.
“My sword? No!”
She clutched the hilt protectively, but he snatched the blade from her and started down the deck. She followed in silence, hurt, tear-filled eyes seeming to fill her face.
In front of the mast the ship’s grindstone, where the crew sharpened axes and swords alike, was fastened securely to the planking. Working the foot treadle, Conan set the edge of the blunt sica to the spinning stone. Sparks showered from the metal. With his free hand he dripped oil from a clay jug onto the wheel. The heat must not grow too great, or the temper of the blade would be ruined.
Yasbet scrubbed a hand across her cheek, damp with tears. “I thought that you meant to … that you … .”
“You are no woman warrior,” he said gruffly. “Not in these few days. But you may have need to defend yourself, an the worst comes.”
“Then you will not make me,” she began, but he quelled her with an icy glance. The blood of battle was rising in him, driving out what small softness he had within. When steel was bared, the slightest remnant of gentleness could slay the one who bore it. Fiery sparks fountained from steel that was no harder than him who sharpened it.
XVI
About Foam Dancer’s deck men rushed, readying the parts of Conan’s plan. The clouds darkened above as if dusk had come two turns of the glass before its time, and wind strummed the rigging like a lute, yet no moisture fell on the deck save spume from waves shattering on the bow.
Bit by bit the galley closed the distance, a deadly bronze-beaked centipede skittering across the water, seemingly unimpeded by the rising waves through which Foam Dancer now labored, wallowing heavily from trough to trough. Foam Dancer seemed a sluggish water beetle, waiting to die.
“They busy themselves in the bows!” Muktar bellowed suddenly.
Conan finished tying the line around Yasbet’s waist where she lay between stacked bales, themselves lashed firmly to the deck. “You’ve no fear of being washed overboard now,” he told her, “no matter how violent the storm becomes.”
“It’s the catapult!” Muktar cried.
Conan started to turn away, but Yasbet seized his hand, pressing her lips to his calloused palm. “I shall be waiting for you,” she murmured, “when the battle is done.” She tugged his hand lower, and he found his fingers inside her leather jerkin, a swelling breast nestled in his hand.
With an oath he pulled his hand free, though not without reluctance. “There is no time for that now,” he said roughly. Did she not realize how difficult it was for him already, he wondered, protecting a wench he longed to ravish?
“They prepare to fire!” Muktar shouted, and Conan put Yasbet from his mind.
“Now!” the young Cimmerian cried. “Cut!”
In the stern Muktar raced to the steering oar, roughly shoving aside the burly steersman to seize the thick wooden shaft himself. In the bow two scruffy smugglers drew curved swords and chopped. Lines parted with loud snaps, and the bundles of extra sailcloth Conan had had put over the side were loosed. The sleek vessel leaped forward, all but jumping from wave-top to wave-top.
Almost beneath her stern a stone fell, half-a-man-weight of granite, raising a fountain that drenched Muktar.
“Now, Muktar!” Conan shouted. Snatching an oilskin bag, he ran aft. “I said now! The rest of you watch the pots!”
The deck was dotted with scores of covered clay pots, scavenged from every corner of the ship. Some hissed as foaming water swirled around them and ran across the planking.
Cursing at the top of his lungs, Muktar heaved at the steersman’s oar, its massive thickness bowing from the strain. Slowly Foam Dancer responded, coming around. The crew dashed to run out long sweeps, stroking and backing desperately to aid the turn.
This was the point that had made Muktar’s face pale when Conan told him of it. Turned broadside to the line of waves, the vessel heeled over, further, further, till her rail lay nearly on the surface. Faces twisted with fear, the smugglers worked their oars with feverish intensity. Akeba, Sharak, and the Hyrkanians scrambled to keep the clay containers from toppling or washing over the side. For a froth-peaked gray mountain of water now rolled over the rail, till it seemed that men waded in shallows.
Among those laboring men Conan’s eyes suddenly lit on Yasbet, free of her bonds, struggling among the rest of the pots. His curses were borne away by the wind, and there was no time to do anything about her.
Sluggishly but certainly Foam Dancer’s bow came into the waves, and the vessel lifted. She did not ride easily, as she had before—there was likely water enough below decks to float a launch—but still she crested that first wave and raced on. Back toward the galley.
On the other ship, the catapult arm stood upright. If another stone had been launched, the splash of its fall had been lost in the rough seas. On the galley’s decks, seeing their intended prey turn back on them, men raced about like ants in a crushed anthill. But not so many men as Conan had feared, unless they kept others below. Most of those he could make out wore the twinned gueues of sailors.
“We’ve lost half the pots!” Akeba shouted over the howling wind. “Gone into the sea!”
“Then ready what we have!” Conan bellowed back. “In full haste!” The Hyrkanians took up oilskin sacks, like that Conan carried.
Those on the other ship, apparently believing their quarry intended to come to grips, had now provided themselves with weapons. Swords, spears and axes bristled along the galley’s rail. In its bow, men labored to winch down the catapult’s arm for another shot, but too late, Conan knew; Foam Dancer was now too close.