The herbalist trailed after him as he made his way down the deck. Hordo was kneeling beside a large, open chest of iron-bound oak that was lashed to the mast.
“I saw,” the one-eyed man muttered when the Cimmerian appeared. “Now to see if they are the ones we seek.” In short order he had assembled a peculiar-looking apparatus, three hooded brass lamps fastened to a long pole. There were hooks for attaching more of the lamps if need be, and pegs for crosspieces if other configurations were desired. This was a not-unusual method of signaling among the smugglers.
Once the lamps were alight, Hordo raised the pole high. Those few of the crew not asleep stood to watch. Ashore, the center light of the three disappeared as though suddenly extinguished. Thrice the bearded smuggler lowered and raised the pole of lamps.
The remaining lights ashore vanished and, with a grunt, Hordo lowered the pole and put out his own lamps. Almost with the breath that extinguished the last flame, he was roaring. “Up, you mangy curs! On your feet, you misbegotten camel spawn! Erlik blast your tainted souls, move!” The ship became an anthill as men lurched out of sleep, some aided by a boot from the one-eyed man.
Conan strode to the tiller and found Shamil manning it. He motioned the lanky newcomer aside and took his place. The lower edge of the sail was just high enough for him to watch the coastline ahead.
“What has happened?” Ghurran demanded. “Were the signals wrong? Are we to land or not?”
“It is a matter of trust,” Conan explained without looking away from his task. “The men ashore see a ship, but is it the smuggler they expect? Signals are exchanged, but not with the place of landing. If a shipload of excisemen or pirates lands at the signal lights, they’d find no more than a single man, and that only if he is slow or stupid.” Another tiny point of light appeared on the coast, separated from the location of the others by almost a league. “And if we had not given the proper signals in return,” the Cimmerian went on, “that would not now be showing us where to come ashore.”
Ghurran peered at the bustle among the smugglers. Some eased tulwars and daggers in their sheaths. Others loosed the strings of oilskin bags to check bowstrings and arrow fletchings. “And you trust them as much as they trust you,” he said.
“Less,” Conan grinned. “Even if those ashore haven’t tortured the signals out of the men we are truly here to meet, they could still want what we
have without the bother of paying for it.”
“I had no idea this could be so dangerous.” The herbalist’s voice was faint.
“Who lives without danger does not live at all,” Conan quoted an old Cimmerian proverb. “Did you think to journey all the way to Vendhya by magic? I can think of no other way to travel so far without danger.”
Ghurran did not reply, and Conan turned his whole attention to the matter at hand. The wind carried them swiftly toward the waiting light, but a landing on a night shore was not made under sail. To the creaking of halyards in the blocks, the long yard was lowered and swung fore and aft on the deck, a few hasty lashings being made to keep the sail from billowing across the deck and hindering movement. Men moved to the rowing benches. The rasp of oarshafts on thole-pins, the slow swirl of blades dipping into the black water, and, incongruously, cooing from the cage of pigeons became the only sounds of the vessel.
Conan swung the tiller, and the smugglers’ craft turned toward land and the guiding point of light. The vessel began to pitch with the swells rolling to shore, and the faint thrash of breakers drifted to his ear. That there was a safe beach ahead he did not doubt. Even excisemen wanted a smuggler’s cargo undamaged for the portion of its value that was theirs in reward. Of what came after the prow had touched shore, however, there was always doubt.
Sand grated under the keel and without the need of orders, every man backed water. To be too firmly aground could mean death. A splash came from the bow as Hordo tossed a stone anchor over the side. It would help hold the lightly beached craft against the tide, but the rope could be cut in an instant.
Even as the shudder of grounding ran through the craft, Conan joined the one-eyed man in the bow. The point of light that had brought them ashore was gone. Varying shades of darkness suggested high dunes and perhaps stunted trees.
Abruptly a click as of stone striking metal came from the beach. Almost directly before them a fire flared, a large fire, some thirty-odd paces from the water. A lone man stood beside the fire, hands outspread to show they were empty. His features could not be seen, but the turban on his head was large, like those favored by Vendhyans.
“We’ll discover no more by looking,” Conan said and jumped over the side. He landed to his calves in water and more splashed over him as Hordo landed.
The bearded man caught his arm. “Let me do the talking, Cimmerian. You’ve never been able to lie well, except to women. The truth may serve us here, but it must be used properly.”
Conan nodded, and they moved up the beach together.
The waiting man was indeed a Vendhyan, with swarthy skin and a narrow nose. A large sapphire and a spray of pale plumes adorned his turban and a ring with a polished stone was on every finger. Rich brocades and silks made up his garments, though there were stout riding boots on his feet. His dark, deep-set eyes went past them to the boat. “Where is Patil?” he said in badly accented Hyrkanian. His tone was flat and unreadable.
“Patil left Sultanapur before us,” Hordo replied, “and by a different way. He did not tell me his route, as you may understand.”
“He was to come with you.”
Hordo shrugged. “The High Admiral of Turan was slain, you see, and it was said the deed was done by a Vendhyan. The streets of Sultanapur are likely still not safe for one of your country.”
The truth, Conan thought. Every word the truth, but handled, as Hordo would put it, properly.
A frown creased the Vendhyan’s brow, though he nodded slowly. “Very well. You may call me Lord Sabah.”
“You may call me King Yildiz if you need names,” Hordo said.
The Vendhyan’s face tightened. “Of course. You have the…goods—Yildiz?”
“You have the gold? Patil spoke of a great deal of gold.”
“The gold is here,” Sabah said impatiently. “What of the chests, O King of Turan?”