As the last flames flickered out on the ruin of the smugglers’ craft, Jelal slipped away into the dunes, a coarse-woven bag under his arm. The others were too tired to take notice, he knew, so long as he was quick.
By touch he found dead twigs on the stunted trees scattered in the low hills of sand, and in a spot well-sheltered from the beach, he built a tiny fire. Flint and steel went back into his pouch, and other things came out. A small brass bottle, tightly capped. A short length of goose quill. Strips of parchment, scraped thin. As rapidly as he could without tearing the parchment, he wrote.
My Lord, by chance I have perhaps stumbled on to a path to the answers you seek. To believe otherwise is to believe in too great a coincidence. I have no answers as yet, only more questions. As you fear, the path leads to Vendhya, and I will follow it there.
Something rustled in the night, and Jelal hastily pushed a handful of sand over the tiny fire, quenching the light. A faint aroma of burned wood lingered in the air but that could easily be mistaken for the smell of the charred re
mains of the ship. For a long moment he listened, holding his breath. Nothing. But there was no reason to take chances at this point. Signing the message by feel, he stowed his paraphernalia and rolled the strip of parchment into a thin tube.
From the coarse-woven sack he took a pigeon. It had been sheer luck, getting the birds brought along, and greater luck that they were not all eaten. Deftly he tied the parchment tube to the pigeon’s leg, then tossed the bird aloft. In a flutter of wings it was gone, carrying all he was really sure of thus far to Lord Khalid in Sultanapur. It was little enough, he knew. But if the indications he had seen so far grew much stronger, he vowed to see that this Conan and this Hordo returned to a Turan ready to put their heads on pikes.
CHAPTER VIII
Dawn south of the Zaporoska was gray and dull, for heavy clouds filtered the light of the rising sun to lifelessness. From where he crouched in the dunes behind a twisted scrub oak, Conan watched the Bhalkhana stallion cropping scattered tufts of tough grass and wondered if the animal had settled enough for another try. The tall black’s high-pommeled saddle was worked with silver studs and a fringe of red silk dangled from the reins.
Carefully the Cimmerian straightened. The horse flicked an ear but munched in seeming unconcern at another clump of grass. Sand crunched underfoot as Conan approached with slow steps. His hand touched the reins…and the stallion seemed to explode.
Fingers tangled in the bridle, Conan was jerked into the air as the ebon animal reared. Like a cat he twisted, throwing his legs around the horse’s neck, clutching its mane with his free hand. The stallion dropped, and the added weight of the man pulled it to its knees. Scrambling back to its feet, the horse shook its head furiously. With wild snorts and whinnies, the animal leaped and plunged but Conan clung tenaciously. And as he knew it must, his presence in such an unaccustomed place began to take a toll. The leaps became shorter, the rearings farther apart. Then the stallion was still, nostrils flared and blowing hard.
The animal was not beaten, Conan knew. He was all but staring it in the eye, and that eye was filled with spirit. The question was whether or not it had decided to accept a strange rider. He knew better than to let go of the beast. With infinite caution he pulled himself onto its back, then lifted himself over the high pommel and into the saddle. The stallion only shifted as he took up the red-fringed reins. Finally letting himself relax, Conan patted the glossy arched neck and gently kneed the animal into a trot toward the beach.
The charred ribs of the smugglers’ craft, awash in the frothy surf, yet with tendrils of gray smoke still rising, spoke eloquently of the previous night’s attack. Some three hundred paces to the north, gray kites screamed and circled above the dunes as they contended with the larger vultures for the pickings below. No one among among the smugglers had considered digging graves for the Vendhyan dead, not after digging three for their own.
The situation on the beach had changed since Conan’s leave-taking that morning. Then the smugglers had been gathered around the fire, where the last of the arrow-slain goat still decorated a spit. Now they were in three well-separated knots. The seven survivors of those who had previously sailed with Hordo formed one group, huddled and muttering among themselves, while the men who had joined on the night they left Sultanapur made a second group. All were bedraggled and sooty-faced, and many sported bandages.
The third group consisted of Hordo and Ghurran, standing by the eight Vendhyan horses the smugglers had spent the morning gathering. Hordo glared indiscriminately at newcomers and oldsters alike, while the herbalist looked as though he wished he knew the location of a soft bed.
As Conan swung down from his saddle beside Hordo, Prytanis limped from the cluster of old crew members.
“Nine horses,” the Nemedian announced. His tone was loud and ranting but directed only to his six fellows. “Nine horses for three and twenty men.”
The newer men stirred uneasily, for the numbers were plain when considered the way Prytanis obviously intended. If they were left out of the calculation, there were horses to go around.
“What happened to his foot?” Conan said softly.
Hordo snorted. “He tried to catch a horse, and it stepped on him. The horse got away.”
“Look at us,” Prytanis shouted, spinning to face Conan and Hordo. “We came for gold, at your urging, and here we stand, our boat in ashes, three of our number dead, and the width of the Vilayet between us and Sultanapur.”
“We came for gold and we have it,” Hordo shouted back. He slapped the bulging sack tied at his wide belt; the clinking weight of it pulled the belt halfway down his hip. “As for the dead, a man who joins the Brotherhood of the Coast expecting no danger would do better to become a real fisherman. Or have you forgotten other times we have had to bury comrades?”
The Nemedian seemed taken aback at the reminder that the gold was still with them. It would be difficult to work up much opposition to Hordo among the smugglers as long as the one-eyed man had gold to hand out. Mouth working, Prytanis cast his eyes about angrily until they landed on Ghurran. “The old man is to blame,” he cried. “I saw him among the Vendhyans, talking to them. What did he say to stir them up against us?”
“Fool!” Ghurran spat, and the coldness of that bony face was startling. “Why should I bring them down on us? A sword can split my head as easily as yours, and my desire to live is easily as great as yours. You are a fool, Nemedian, and you rant your foolishness because seeking to blame others for your troubles is easier than seeking solutions to those troubles.”
Every man there stared at the unexpected outburst, Prytanis the hardest of all. Face pale with rage, the Nemedian stretched a clawed hand toward the scrawny old man, who stared at him disdainfully.
Conan drew his sword, not threatening anyone, just letting it hang at his side. Prytanis’ hand stopped short of the herbalist’s coarse brown robes. “If you have something to say,” Conan said calmly, “then say it. Touch him, though, and I will cut your head off.” The Nemedian jerked his hand back and muttered something under his breath. “Louder,” Conan said. “Let everyone hear.”
Prytanis took a deep breath. “How are nine horses going to carry three and twenty men back to Sultanapur?”
“They are not,” Conan said. “One horse goes to Vendhya with me, and another for Ghurran.”
“A horse each for the two of you, while the rest of us—” The Nemedian took a step back as Conan raised his blade.
“If you want the horses badly enough,” Conan said grimly, “then take them. Myself, I want the animals very much indeed.”
Prytanis’ hand moved slowly in the direction of his sword, but his eyes shifted as though he wished he could gauge the support of those behind him without being so obvious as looking over his shoulder.