Conan The Freelance (7 page)

Stal, the commander of the troop that had returned bearing the boy, stood with Rayk, repeating-and doubtless embellishing-the story of how they had come by’ the human.

“-and even though we were outnumbered four to one by the fishmen, they were so fearful that they tendered the human and begged for our mercy. Since the Moon Festival is nearly upon us, and since they were so repentant over their error in blundering quite by accident onto our territory, I decided to spare them. After all, what is a festival without a feast?”

Rayk nodded and slapped Stal on the shoulder. “You have done well, Stal. I have no doubt you could have slaughtered the offending fishmen easily, but your actions showed a fine grasp of tactics. Better to feast than to be burying one’s comrades.”

Thayla rolled her eyes upward and looked away. Just like, males, standing around congratulating themselves on how brave and mighty they were, doubtless lying about nearly all of it. Then again, Stal was a fair specimen of Pili male-he had made a few overtures in Thayla’s direction-and she might one day, out of boredom, take him to her bed. He had ambition, this one, and might prove useful to her.

The human was in the cage built for such purposes, awake and watching his captors somewhat fearfully. Likely he knew his fate.

Thayla walked to the cage and smiled at the young captive. “Hungry?” she asked.

He did not respond.

“Do not worry, you shall be well fed. The Moon Festival is but four days hence, and until then, you shall have as much as you can eat. Would that we had captured you a moon or so past, though. Four days is hardly enough time to add much to your small frame.”

She smiled again, and took a small pleasure as the boy shuddered. He knows, well enough.

But as Thayla turned away in a thin rustle of silk, a thought occurred to her. Why were the fishmen crossing her territory? They must have come from the grove of the Tree Folk, else how had they come by one of them as a captive?

The Queen of the Pili walked toward the king and Stal.

“Pardon, great warrior, but did the fishmen say what business they had with the Tree Folk?”

Stal looked at her, his gaze quickly but unobtrusively traversing her lush body. Rayk appeared to take no notice, but Thayla certainly did. He was hungry for her.

“No, my queen, they did not speak of this.”

“What does it matter to us what the fishmen do?” Rayk interjected.

“Concerning the Tree Folk and certain plans you and I have discussed, my lord king, everything matters.”

“Ask the boy,” Rayk said. He laughed. “Perhaps he knows the minds of the fishmen.”

It was meant as a joke, but Thayla spun, her silk flaring out to reveal her nude body under it to Stal, exactly as she intended. “I shall.”

At the cage, she said, “Harken, boy. What do you know of the fishmen’s business at your grove?”

The boy crouched at the far side of the cage, silent.

“Speak.”

He said nothing.

Thayla considered this. Were you in his place, would you say anything, knowing your immediate future lay in a cooking pot as a meal for your captors? Decidedly not.

“Very well. Speak and you shall have your freedom.”

Behind her, Rayk uttered a short curse and moved toward his queen. “Hold, Thayla!”

She waved at him impatiently. “Silence, husband.”

The boy looked at the king, then back at Thayla. “Is this true? If I tell you, you shall let me go?”

“Upon the grave of my mother I so swear,” Thayla said.

The boy blinked and appeared to think’ about it for a second. Then he said, “They stole the Seed,” he said. “I saw one of them take it. I tried to follow him, but I was caught.”

Thayla stared at the boy. The Seed. He must mean the Talisman of the Forest. How could it be possible that the fishmen could do what the Pili had failed to do for so long? “By the Great Dragon! Is this true?”

“Yes, mistress.”

Thayla turned to glare at Stal. “You fool! You allowed the fishmen to pass carrying a great treasure!”

“Thayla-” Rayk began.

She turned her glare upon him but did not speak.

Rayk did not need her prompting, however. To Stal he said, “Assemble your troop. Full strength, take enough to offset the fishmen’s numbers. I shall personally lead them after the fishmen. With luck, we can catch them before they attain the great lake.” He turned toward Thayla as Stal scurried from the rocky chamber.

“You had better catch them,” Thayla said. “If the magician of the lake gets his hands on that talisman, it is lost to us for certain.”

“Mistress,” came the boy’s voice from the cage. “Did you forget your promise to free me?”

Thayla did not even bother to look at him when she spoke. “Do not be stupid, boy. You are not going anywhere.”

“You swore an oath!”

“I lied. Take it up with your god when you see him. In four days.”

Kleg had anticipated a quiet journey, but he had not figured on something no selkie had ever been able to predict: the weather.

Shortly after they left the desert behind and reached the foothills, a storm began brewing. Kleg could feel the moisture in the air and it was not unwelcome in one sense, but it would slow them some, should it continue to gather, and should it happen to move their way.

The storm did both. Purple-gray clouds built a tower toward the sun, mushrooming at the top into fleecy tatters. Lightning danced in the heart of the storm, and the rumble of some god’s drums rolled over the mesa toward the selkies. A herald wind blew, the breeze full of dampness, and within a few minutes, the gray curtain sweeping toward them arrived. Fat drops splattered on the dry ground, kicking up tiny clouds of dust at first. When , the full force of the storm flowed over them, the world turned dark and gray, visibility dropped to a few spans, and the stupid pack scrats obstinately stopped and refused to move, even under spear-point prods.

Kleg grinned up into the bowels of the storm. Well, if you cannot avoid it, you might as well enjoy it, he thought. The rain was so heavy you could almost Change and breathe it, and it was tempting to shift his form and lie at least partially submerged in one of the deepening puddles all around them. He would not, of course, but it was tempting.

They were on high enough ground, no risk of a flash flood, though some of the small streams they had crossed outbound would be swollen into rushing rivers by the rain. Crossing a river was hardly an obstacle to a selkie, and if the packbeast refused to swim, why, then, they could be dinner for their former riders after the Change. It would serve the damned things right, and it would be worth the walk the rest of the way home, Kleg decided. He Who Creates did not count such beasts generally, and would certainly not care about them when balanced against the talisman Kleg carried in his pouch. Hardly.

Smiling, Kleg enjoyed the rain.

The Tree Folk had two dozen armed members in its party, about equal numbers of men and women. More, they had some strange tracking beasts that looked to be big spotted cats, unlike any Conan had seen before. They kept the cats leashed, a dozen of them on thick leather straps, two or three per handler.

Cheen and Tair set a good pace, but it was no trouble for Conan to maintain; in fact, he offered to go ahead. Cimmerians might not climb as well as did these people, but they were second to none as trackers. Conan could easily see the signs of the selkie’s passage, even on the shifting sandy ground of the Pili’s territory.

Eager to rescue their brother and talisman, Cheen and Tair agreed with Conan’s suggestion. He loped off easily, following the trail that might as well have been a road before him.

“Beware the Pili’s dogs!” Cheen called out as Conan moved away from the band.

“Aye, I shall,” Conan called back to her.

The Pili troop numbered nearly a hundred, and it was augmented by half that many of the dragonlike Korga. The Korga ranged ahead, on the trail of the fishmen, and the Pili followed them at very nearly a run. Thayla watched them depart. Her fool of a husband had better catch the blasted fishmen.

She smiled as she turned back toward the entrance to her chambers. Well, if they were gone more than a few days, they would miss the feast. Sad for them, but not for those who remained behind. Especially her; as Queen, she would get the best parts, including those normally reserved for the King. It was indeed an ill wind that blew no good at all. One had to take one’s compensations where one could find them. And the thought of it made her mouth water.

Conan had gained half a day on the Tree Folk when he found the signs of a meeting between the selkies and another group. To the east, a line of storms thundered distantly, but the dry ground here held shallow impressions altered only slightly by wind and sun. From behind that sandy hillock had come a band whose footprints differed from those of the selkies. At first, they looked like man tracks, but a closer examination revealed subtle differences. Pill, Conan figured, since this was supposedly their territory.

The big Cimmerian quartered the area, with the sun baking his tanned skin darker all the while. Here, two members of the selkies had moved to meet a single footman from the Pili. One of the selkies had carried something heavy enough to make him sink deeper into the soft ground when he approached the meeting, but had not carried it away when he left. On the other hand, the Pili had left much deeper tracks when he had turned back toward his party. There was a depression in the earth, just there, where something smaller than a man but large enough to be a boy had been dropped. Whatever it was, the Pili had taken it.

Unschooled in civilized ways Conan might be, but he could read trail sign. The selkies had given something to the Pili here. According to what Cheen had told him as they began their trek, the selkies and Pili were not on friendly terms, as likely to fight when meeting as not, especially on Pili home ground.

Conan raised from his squat by the tracks. He looked toward the north, where the Pili tracks led. The lizard men ate human flesh, Cheen had said. Conan could imagine that a bargain might have been struck, with the boy Hok as some kind of bribe.

Which way should he go? The selkies’ trail lay to the east, and they had taken both the magic Seed and the boy. But if the Pili now had Hok, he was possibly in more peril than before; like as not, the selkies would keep him until they returned to their master; the Pili, on the other hand, might eat him sooner.

Conan decided. The Seed would keep indefinitely, but the boy might not. He would go north.

Conan stripped a dry branch from one of the scrub plants, broke it into a number of parts, and made from it an arrow he laid on the ground, pointing after the Pili trail. Under this, he created a small stick figure meant to represent Hok. A second arrow indicated the selkie trail, and under this one, he formed an outline of a seed. When Cheen and Tair and the others reached here, they would know which way Conan had gone, and why. With luck, they would find the picture before the wind covered it with dust.

The big man took a long sip of water from the skin he carried over one shoulder, adjusted his sword belt, and started north.

The storm that delayed the selkies was but one of several, and while Kleg fretted at the delay, there was nothing to be done. A god might move the rain, but a selkie could do nothing but wait.

There were several ponds that had been shallow and scummy only hours before but now were quite deep. And as long as they were stuck here, Kleg finally decided it might as well be a pleasant stay.

“Bring one of the scrats,” he ordered one of his selkies. He had to yell to be heard over the steady downpour. “Shove it off that rise into that lake.”

“My Lord Prime?” the selkie began, puzzled.

Kleg smiled widely, showing many teeth. “Perhaps the brothers would enjoy a swim-with a bit of dinner included?”

The selkie mirrored Kleg’s smile. “Yes, Prime, immediately!”

Thayla was returning from the kitchen, where she had been discussing the preparation of the upcoming Moon Festival feast, when she heard some kind of commotion outside. Could her husband have retrieved the magic talisman already?

The queen stopped a young female returning from the main entrance to the caves. “What is that noise outside?”

The female, naked save for a leather crotch strap, but too young for anything other than budding breasts and a distant promise of more, bowed and said, “The Korga, my lady.”

“I thought the king took the Korga with him.”

“Not all, my lady.”

Thayla went to see for herself what the beasts were hissing and moaning about.

Outside, the desert wind blew warmly, but with a hint of moisture. It appeared to be raining to the east, but more than a little distance away. Rain here was a rarity; it did not happen more than once or twice every season, and not plentifully at that.

The Korga master stood yelling at six or seven of the man-sized and mostly stupid lizards, who dashed back and forth in their high-fenced yard excitedly.

“Silence, you ignorant beasts!”

The Korga master was an old Pili; he had been old when, as a child, Thayla had first seen him, and he seemed unchanged in all that time. “What is it, Rawl-)”

The old Pili shrugged. “I cannot say, my lady. The Korga smell something out there.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

He shrugged again. “Nothing. The king told me to keep this bunch penned.”

“The king is not here and I am. Release the Korga to go and chase whatever is bothering them so that we may have quiet here.”

“By your command, Queen Thayla.”

Rawl opened the gate to the pen and the Korga dashed out in that funny gait they had, their thick tails stuck out behind for balance as they ran. She did not much care for the things, and were it up to her, would keep none about the caves. They ate more than they provided, and it was only the male Pili who thought they had any value. Probably because the males were closer to the Korga in thought and action, she thought. There were enough troops left to protect the caves without the stupid beasts slavering about, and good riddance. Mayhaps they would not return. There was a pleasant thought.