“But—”
“You, Tasha, I prize above any silk or gems. I will stay here. With you.”
She gave him a sidelong glance with bright eyes. “You hold me so dear?” Lithely she snuggled closer to him and bent to murmur into his ear between teasing nips with small white teeth. “I like your present very much, Conan.”
The sounds of the street intruded momentarily, indicating the entrance of another patron. With a gasp, Tasha crouched as though trying to use him as a shield. Even for the Golden Crescent, he realized suddenly, it had become too quiet. The constant low murmur of conversation was gone. The Cimmerian looked at the door. In the dimness he could barely make out the shape of a man, tall for a Turanian. One thing was plain, however, even in the shadows by the door. The man wore the tall pointed helmet of the City Guard.
The intruder walked slowly into the silent tavern, head swiveling as if searching for someone, the fingers of one hand tapping on the hilt of the curved sword at his hip. None of the men at the scattered tables met his eyes, but he did not appear interested in any of them. He was an officer, Conan could now see, a narrow-faced man, tall for a Turanian, with a thin mustache and a small beard waxed to a point.
The officer’s fingers stopped tapping as his gaze lit on Conan’s table, then began again as he drew closer. “Ah, Tasha,” he said smoothly, “did you forget I said I would come to you today?”
Tasha kept her eyes down and answered in a near whisper, “Forgive me, Captain Murad. You see that I have a patron. I cannot…I…please.”
“Find another woman,” Conan growled.
The captain’s face froze, but he did not take his eyes from Tasha. “I did not speak to you…fisherman. Tasha, I do not want to hurt you again, but you must learn to obey.”
Conan sneered. “Only a fool needs fear in his dealings with women. If you prefer cringing curs, find yourself a dog to beat.”
The guardsman’s face paled beneath its swarthiness. Abruptly he seized Tasha’s arm, jerking her from the Cimmerian’s lap. “Leave my sight, scum, before I—”
The threat cut off as Conan leaped to his feet with a snarl. The narrow-faced man’s eyes widened in surprise, as though he had expected the girl to be given up without a fight, and his hand darted for his sword hilt, but Conan moved faster. Not toward his own blade, however. Killing guardsmen was considered bad business for smugglers unless it was absolutely necessary, and in truth usually even then. Soldiers who palmed a coin and looked the other way could become tigers in defense of the King’s laws when one of their own was slain. The Cimmerian’s fist smashed into the other’s chin before a fingerwidth of steel was bared. The officer seemed to attempt a tumbler’s back flip and fell against a table, toppling it as he dropped to the floor. His helmet spun across the floor, but the Turanian lay where he had fallen like a sack of rags.
The tavernkeeper, a plump Kothian with small gold rings in the lobe of each ear, bent to peer at the officer. He scrubbed his fat hands nervously on his wine-stained apron as he straightened. “You’ve ruined my custom for a tenday, northlander. If I’m lucky. Mitra, man! You’ve killed the perfumed buffoon! His neck’s snapped.”
Before anyone else could speak or move the door to the street slammed open, and two more guardsmen strode through. They marched into the common room sneering as though it were a barracks square filled with peasant conscripts. The unnatural stillness of the tavern was disturbed by tiny shiftings and rustlings as men marked escape routes.
Conan quietly cursed under his breath. He was all but standing over the accursed fool’s body. To move would only draw attention more quickly than it would come already. As for running, he had no intention of dying with a sword in his back. With a small gesture he motioned Tasha from him. He found the alacrity with which she obeyed a trifle disappointing.
“We seek Captain Murad,” one of the guardsmen shouted into the silence. An oft-broken nose gave him a brawler’s face. The other tugged at a straggly mustache and stared superciliously about the room. The Kothian tried to scuttle into the deeper shadows, but the broken-nosed soldier froze him with a glare. “You, innkeeper! This smuggling scum you serve seem to have no tongues. Where is Captain Murad? I know he came in here.”
The Kothian’s mouth worked soundlessly, and he scrubbed his hands all the harder in his apron.
“Find your tongue, fool, before I slit it! If the captain’s with a wench, still he must hear the word I bring without delay. Speak, or I’ll have your hide for boots!”
Abruptly the straggly-mustached soldier caught the speaker’s tunic sleeve. “It’s Murad, Tavik!” he exclaimed, pointing.
From the still form of the officer the guards’ eyes rose inexorably to Conan, their faces hard. The Cimmerian waited calmly, seemingly unaffected by their stares. What would happen, would happen.
“Your work, big man?” Tavik asked coldly. “Striking an officer of the City Guard will cost you the bastinado. Abdul, see to waking the captain.”
They had rested too long under the protection of their position with regard to the smugglers, the big youth thought. Tavik drew his curved sword, but held it casually, lowered by his side, as though he did not believe anyone there would actually make him use it. The other did not even reach for his weapon.
Abdul squatted beside Captain Murad’s body, grasped the officer’s arms, and stiffened. “He’s dead,” he breathed, then shouted it. “He’s dead, Tavik!”
Conan kicked the bench he had been sitting on at Abdul, who was attempting to leap to his feet and unsheathe his sword at the same time. As the scraggly-mustached man danced awkwardly to avoid falling over the impediment, the Cimmerian’s own blade was bared. At his companion’s cry, Tavik had raised his blade high to slash, which might have been all very well had his opponent been unarmed. Now he paid for his error as Conan’s steel sliced across his exposed belly. With a shrill scream, Tavik dropped his sword, fingers clutching in a vain attempt to keep in the thick ropes of his intestines as he followed the weapon to the stone floor.
Conan leaped back as he recovered from the killing stroke, his broadsword arcking down barely in time to block Abdul’s thrust at his side. The force of the blow knocked the guardsman’s tulwar wide, and doomed desperation filled his dark eyes in the moment before the Cimmerian’s blade pierced his throat to stand out a handspan from the back of his neck. As Conan jerked his sword free from the collapsing corpse, Tavik gave one last kick and died.
Grimly the Cimmerian wiped his sword on Abdul’s tuni
c and sheathed it. The common room, he realized, now held but half those it had at the beginning of his fight, and more were disappearing every moment through the doors that led to alleys beside and behind the building. No man or wench in the tavern but would want to be able to deny being in the Golden Crescent on the day three of the City Guard died there.
The Kothian tavernkeeper cracked the door to the street enough to peer out, then closed it with a groan. “Guardsmen,” he muttered. “Half a score of them. And they look impatient. They’ll be in here in a trice to see what’s keeping those two. How am I to explain this happening in my tavern? What am I to tell them?” His hand snatched the gold coin Conan tossed him, and he was not too despondent to bite it before making it disappear beneath his apron.
“Tell them, Banaric,” Conan said, “of the slavers from Khoraf who killed the captain in a quarrel, and then the guardsmen. A dozen slavers. Too many for you to interfere.”
Banaric nodded reluctantly. “They might believe it. Maybe.”