“Call me not coward,” the Nemedian snapped. “Many times I have risked having my head put on a pike above the Strangers’ Gate, as you well know. If the Cimmerian wants to go, then let him. But do not ask the rest of us to tease the headsman’s axe just for the pleasure of the trip.”
The jagged scar down Hordo’s left cheek went livid as he prepared a blast, but Conan spoke first.
“I do not ask you to come for the pleasure of the trip, Prytanis, nor even for the pleasure of my company. But answer me this. You say you want gold?”
“As any man does,” Prytanis said cautiously.
“These chests are worth gold to the men waiting at the Zaporoska. Vendhyans, if Patil is a guide. You have seen other Vendhyans, men with rings on every finger and gems on their turbans. Did you ever see a Vendhyan without a purse full of gold?”
Prytanis’ eyes widened as he suddenly realized that Conan spoke not only to him. “But—”
The big Cimmerian went on over the attempted interruption like an avalanche rolling over a hapless peasant. “The Vendhyans waiting on the Zaporoska will have plenty of gold, gold due us when we deliver the chests. And if they will not pay…” He grinned wolfishly and touched the hilt of his broadsword. “They’ll not be the first to try refusing to pay for their ‘fish.’ But we did not let the others get away with it, and we’ll not let the Vendhyans either.”
Prytanis looked as though he wanted to protest further but one of the smugglers cried out drunkenly, “Aye! Cut ’em down and take it all!”
“Vendhyan gold for all of us!” another shouted. Others grunted agreement or laughingly repeated the words. The slit-nosed Nemedian sank into a scowling silence and withdrew sullenly to a corner by himself.
“You still have the gift of making men follow you,” Hordo told Conan quietly, “but this time it would have been better to break Prytanis’ head and be done with it. He will give trouble before this is done, and we’ll have enough of that as it is. Mitra, the old man will likely heav
e his stomach up at every wave. He looks no happier at the prospect of this shorter journey than he did about traveling to Vendhya.” Indeed, Ghurran sat slumped against the chests, staring glumly at nothing.
“I will deal with Prytanis if I must,” Conan replied. “And Ghurran can no doubt concoct something to soothe his stomach. The problem now is to find more men.” Hordo’s vessel could be sailed by fewer than those in the cellar, but the winds would not always be favorable, and rowing against tides and currents would require twice so many at least. The Cimmerian surveyed the men sprawled about the floor and added, “Not to mention sobering this lot enough to walk without falling over their own feet.”
“Salted wine,” Hordo said grimly. Conan winced; he had personal experience of the one-eyed man’s method of ridding a man of drunkenness. “And you cannot risk the streets in daylight,” Hordo went on, “I will leave that part of it to you while I try to scrape some more crew out of the taverns. Prytanis! We’ve work to be done!”
Conan ran his eye over the drunken smugglers once more and grimaced. “Hasan, tell Kafar we need ten pitchers of wine. And a large sack of salt.”
The next hour was not going to be pleasant.
CHAPTER VI
The harbor quays were quiet once night had fallen, inhabited only by shadows that transformed great casks of wine and bales of cloth and coiled hawsers into looming, fearsome shapes. Scudding clouds dappled a dull, distant moon. The seaward wind across the bay was as cold as it had been hot during the day, and the watchmen paid by the Merchants’ Guild wrapped themselves in their cloaks and found shelter within the waterside warehouses with warming bottles of wine.
There were no eyes to see the men who worked around a trim vessel some sixteen paces long, with a single forward-raked mast stepped amidship. It was tied alongside a dock that leaned alarmingly and creaked at every step on its rough planks. But then the dock creaked whether there were steps or not. All the boats moored there were draped with nets, but few carried more than the faintest smell of fish. Actual fishermen sold small portions of their catch each day for the maintaining of that smell. King Yildiz’s customs collectors would seize a fishing boat that did not smell of fish before they even bothered to search it.
Conan stood on the rickety dock with the dark cloak he had from Ghurran pulled about him so that he blended with the night. He was the only one there besides Hordo who knew that the one-eyed man privately called that boat Karela, after a woman he had not seen in two years, but looked for still. Conan had known her, too, and understood the smuggler’s obsession.
While others loaded the ship, the Cimmerian kept an eye out for the rare watchman who might actually be trying to earn his coin or, more likely, for a chance patrol of the King’s excisemen. A slight ache behind his eyes was the only remaining effect of the poison he could detect.
“The old man’s potion works well,” he said as Hordo climbed up beside him from the boat. “I could almost think the poison was gone completely.”
“It had better work,” his friend grunted. “You had to promise him those hundred gold pieces when he was ready to settle for herbs.”
“My life is worth a hundred gold pieces to me,” Conan said dryly. Muffled cursing and thumping rose from the boat. “Hordo, did you truly take on every blind fool you could find for this voyage?”
“We may wish we had twice as many blades before this is done. And with half my men vanished into wine pitchers, I had to take the best of what I could find. Or would you rather wait another day? I hear the City Guard cut an albino into dog meat just at twilight, mistaking him for a northlander. And they’ve set out to search every tavern and bordello in the city.”
“That will take them a century,” Conan laughed. A soft cooing caught his ear, and he stared in amazement as a wicker cage of doves was lowered onto the boat, followed by another cage of chickens and three live goats.
“One of the new men suggested it,” Hordo said, “and I think it a good idea. I get tired of choosing between dried meat and salt meat when we are at sea.”
“As long as they are not more of the crew, Hordo.”
“The goats are no randier than some outlanders I know, and the—” The bearded man cut off as a light flared on the boat below. “What in Zandru’s Nine Hells…”
Conan did not waste time on oaths. Leaping to the deck, he snatched a clay lamp from the hands of a tall, lanky Turanian and threw it over the side.
The man stared at him angrily. “How am I to see where to put anything in this dark?” He was a stranger to Conan, one of Hordo’s new recruits, in the turban and leather vest that was the ubiquitous garb of the harbor district.