Conan the Unconquered (Robert Jordan's Conan Novels 3)

Sand grated beneath the galley’s keel. The vessel lurched, heeled, was driven further forward by the motion of long sweeps. Finally motion ceased; the deck tilted only slightly.

“It’s done,” the hook-nosed captain announced, anger warring with satisfaction on his face. “You can leave my vessel, now, and I’ll give burnt offerings to Dagon when you’re gone.”

“Akeba!” Conan called. On receiving an answering hail he turned back to the captain. “I advise you to go south along the coast, you and your crew. I do not know what will happen here this night, but I fear powers will be unbound. One place I have seen where such bonds were cut; there nightmares walked, and some would count death a blessing.”

“Sorcery?” The word was a hiss of indrawn breath in the captain’s mouth, changing to shaky, blustering laughter. “An sorceries are to be loosed, I have no fears of being caught in them. I will be clear of the beach before you, and I will go south as fast as whips can drive my oar-sl—” Hatch covers crashing open amidships cut him off, and the clatter of men scrambling on deck, whip-scarred, half-naked men falling over themselves in their eagerness to dash to the rail and drop to the surf below. The hook-nosed man’s eyes bulged as he stared at them. “You’ve loosed the oar slaves! You fool! What—” He spun back to Conan, and found himself facing the Cimmerian’s blade.

“Three score oars,” Conan said quietly, “and two men chained to each. I have no love for chains on men, for I’ve worn them around my own neck. Normally I do not concern myself with freeing slaves. I cannot strike off all the chains in the world, or in Turan, or even in a single city, and if I could, men would find ways to put them back again before they had a chance to grow dusty. Still, the world may end this night, and the men who have brought me to my fate deserve their freedom, as they and all the rest of us may be dead before dawn. You had best get over the side, captain. Your own life may depend on how fast you can leave this place.”

The hook-nosed captain glared at him, face growing purple. “Steal my slaves, then order me off my own vessel? Rambis!” He bit it off as he stared at the vacant spot by the steering oar. Conan had seen the man slip quietly over the railing as he spoke.

Discovery of the defection took what was left of the captain’s backbone. With a strangled yelp he leaped into the sea.

Sheathing his sword, Conan turned to join his companions, and found himself facing some two dozen filthy galley slaves, gathered in a different knot amidships. Akeba and the Hyrkanians watched them warily.

A tall man with a long, tangled black beard and

the scars of many floggings stepped forward, ducking his head. “Your pardon, lord. I am called Akman. It is you who has freed us? We would follow you.”

“I’m no lord,” Conan said. “Be off with you while you have time, and be grateful you do not follow me. I draw my sword against a powerful sorcerer, and there is dying to be done this night.” A handful of the former slaves melted into the darkness, splashes sounding their departure.

“Still there are those of us who would follow you, lord,” Akman said. “For one who has lived as a dead man, to die as a free man is a greater boon than could be expected from the gods.”

“Stop calling me lord,” Conan growled. Akman bowed again, and the other rowers behind him. Shaking his head, Conan sighed. “Find weapons, then, and make peace with your gods. Akeba! Tamur! Sharak!”

Without waiting to see what the freed slaves would do, the big Cimmerian put a hand to the railing and vaulted into waist-deep seas that broke against his broad back and sent foam over his shoulders. The named men followed as he waded to shore, a stretch of driftwood-covered sand where moon-shadows stirred.

“They’ll be more hindrance than help, those slaves,” Sharak grumbled, attempting to wring seawater from his robes without dropping his staff. “This is a matter for fighting men.”

“And you are the stoutest of them all,” Akeba laughed, clapping the old astrologer on the shoulder and almost knocking him down. His laughter sounded wild and grim, the laughter of a man who would laugh in the face of the dark gods and was doing so now. “And you, Cimmerian. Why so somber? Even if we die we will drag Jhandar before Erlik’s Black Throne behind us.”

“And if Jhandar looses the magicks that he did when he was defeated before?” Conan said. “There are no shamans to contain them here.”

They stared at him, Akeba’s false mirth fading. Sharak held a corner of his robes in two hands, his dampness forgotten, and Conan thought he heard Tamur mutter a prayer.

Then the men from the galley were clambering up the beach, the half score who had not succumbed to fear or good sense, led by Akman with a boarding pike in his calloused hands. The Hyrkanian nomads came too, cursing at the wet as they waded through the surf. A strange army, the Cimmerian thought, with which to save the world.

He turned from the sea. They followed, a file of desperate men snaking into the Turanian night.

“Must I actually put a knife in her heart?”

Davinia’s question jangled in Jhandar’s mind, which had been almost settled for his period of meditation. “Do you regret your decision?” he demanded. In his thoughts, he commanded her: have no regrets. Murder a princess in sorcerous rites. Be bound to me by ties stronger than iron.

“No regrets, my Great Lord,” she said slowly, toying with the feathers of her girdle. When she lifted her gaze to his her sapphire eyes were clear and untroubled. “She has lived a useless life. At least her death will be to some purpose.”

Despite himself he could not stop the testing. “And if I said there was no purpose? Just her death?” Her frown almost stopped his heart.

“No purpose? I do not like getting blood on my hands.” She tossed her blonde mane petulantly. “The feel of it will not wash away for days. I will not do it if there is no purpose.”

“There is a purpose,” he said hastily, “which I cannot tell you until the proper time.” And to forestall questions he hurried from the room.

His nerves burned with how close he had come to dissuading her. Almost, he thought, there would be no joy in achieving all his ambitions without her. Some rational corner of his mind told him the thought was lust-soaked madness. The fruition of his plans would hold her to him, for where would she then find one of greater power or wealth? With the taking of Yasbet—if she chose to call herself so, so he would think of her—all would be in place. His power in Turan would be complete. But Davinia … .

He was still struggling with himself when he settled in the simple chamber, before the Pool of the Ultimate. That would not do. He must be empty of emotion for the Power to fill him. Carefully he focused on his dreams. War and turmoil would fill the nations, disorder hastened by his ever-growing band of the Chosen. Only he would be able to call a halt to it. Kings would kneel to him. Slowly the pool began to glow.

From the branches of the tree, Conan studied the compound of the Cult of Doom. Ivory domes gleamed in the dappled moonlight, and purple spires thrust into the sky, but no hint of light showed within those high marble walls, and no one stirred. The Cimmerian climbed back down to the ground, to the men waiting there.

“Remember,” he said, addressing himself mainly to the former galley slaves, “any man with a weapon must be slain, for they will not surrender.” The Hyrkanians nodded somberly; they knew this well.