A silence lay in the garden. The fight was over.
The men of Falga, still shining with Source-Life, hung their blades from uncomprehending fingers, the light beginning to leave their green eyes. Their skin looked dirty and dull.
Starke wasted no time getting down the galleries, through the slave quarter, and to the quays again.
Linnl awaited him, gently petting the obedient harp.
“It’s over. The slaves will own what’s left. They’ll be our allies, since we’ve freed them.”
Starke didn’t hear. He was squinting off over the Red Sea.
Linnl understood. He plucked two tones from the harp, which pronounced the two words uppermost in Starke’s thought.
“Crom Dhu.”
“If we’re not too late.” Starke leaned forward. “If Faolan lives. If Beudag still stands at the masthead.”
Like a blind man he walked straight ahead, until he fell into the sea.
IT WAS not quite a million miles to Crom Dhu. It only seemed that far.
A sweep of tide picked them up just off shore from Falga and siphoned them rapidly, through deeps along coastal latitudes, through crystal forests. He cursed every mile of the way.
He cursed the time it took to pause at the Titan’s city to gather fresh men. To gather Clev and Mannt and Aesur and Bron. Impatiently, Starke watched the whole drama of the Source-Fire and the bodies again. This time it was the bodies of Crom Dhu men, hung like beasts on slow-turned spits, their limbs and vitals soaking through and through, their skins taking bronze color, their eyes holding flint-sparks. And then the harps wove a garment around each, and the garment moved the men instead of the men the garment.
In the tidal basilica now, Starke twisted. Coursing behind him were the new bodies of Clev and Aesur! The current elevated them, poked them through obsidian needle-eyes like spider-silk threads.
There was good irony in this. Crom Dhu’s men, fallen at Falga under Conan’s treachery, returned now under Conan to exonerate that treachery.
Suddenly they were in Crom Dhu’s outer basin. Shadows swept over them. The long dark falling shadows of Falga’s longboats lying in that harbor. Shadows like black culling-nets let down. The school of men cleaved the shadow nets. The tide ceased here, eddied and distilled them.
Starke glared up at the immense silver bottom of a Falgian ship. He felt his face stiffen and his throat tighten. Then, flexing knees, he rammed upward; night air broke dark red around his head.
The harbor held flare torches on the rims of long ships. On the neck of land that led from Crom Dhu to the mainland the continuing battle sounded. Faint cries and clashing made their way through the fog veils. They sounded like echoes of past dreams.
Linnl let Starke have the leash. Starke felt something pressed into his fist. A coil of slender green woven reeds, a rope with hooked weights on the end of it. He knew how to use it without asking. But he wished for a knife now, even though he realized carrying a knife in the sea was all but impossible if you wanted to move fast.
He saw the sleek naked figurehead of Rann’s best ship a hundred yards away, a floating silhouette, and its torches hanging fire like Beudag’s hair.
He swam toward it, breathing quietly. When at last the silvered figurehead with the mocking green eyes and the flag of shoal-shallow hair hung over him, he felt the cool white ship metal kiss his fingers.
The smell of torch-smoke lingered. A rise of faint shouts from the land told of another rush upon the Gate. Behind him—a ripple. Then—a thousand ripples.
The resurrected men of Crom Dhu rose in dents and stirrings of sparkling wine. They stared at Crom Dhu and maybe they knew what it was and maybe they didn’t. For one moment, Starke felt apprehension. Suppose Linnl was playing a game. Suppose, once these men had won the battle, they went on into Crom Dhu to rupture Romna’s harp and make Faolan the blinder? He shook the thought away. That would have to be handled in time. On either side of him Clev and Mannt appeared. They looked at Crom Dhu, their lips shut. Maybe they saw Faolan’s eyrie and heard a harp that was more than these harps that sang them to blade and plunder—Romna’s instrument telling bard-tales of the rovers and the coastal wars and the old, living days. Their eyes looked and looked at Crom Dhu, but saw nothing.
The sea shepherds appeared now, the followers of Linnl, each with his harp; and the harp music began, high. So high you couldn’t hear it. It wove a tension on the air.
Silently, with a grim certainty, the dead-but-not-dead gathered in a bronze circle about Rann’s ship. The very silence of their encirclement made your skin crawl and sweat break cold on your cheeks.
A dozen ropes went raveling, looping over the ship side. They caught, held, grapnelled, hooked.
Starke had thrown his, felt it bite and hold. Now he scrambled swiftly, cursing, up its length, kicking and slipping at the silver hull.
He reached the top.
Beudag was there.
Half over the low rail he hesitated, just looking at her.
Torchlight limned her, shadowed her. She was still erect; her head was tired and her eyes closed, her face thinned and less brown, but she was still alive. She was coming out of a deep stupor now, at the whistle of ropes and the grate of metal hooks on the deck.
She saw Starke and her lips parted. She did not look away from him. His breath came out of him, choking.
It almost cost him his life, his standing there, looking at her.
A guard, with flesh like new snow, shafted his bow from the turret and let it loose. A chain lay on deck. Thankfully, Starke took it.
Clev came over the rail beside Starke. His chest took the arrow. The shaft burst half through and stopped, held. Clev kept going after the man who had shot it. He caught up with him.
Beudag cried out. “Behind you, Conan!”
Conan! In her excitement, she gave the old name.
Conan he was. Whirling, he confronted a wiry little fellow, chained him brutally across the face, seized the man’s falling sword, used it on him. Then he walked in, got the man’s jaw, unbalanced him over into the sea.
The ship was awake now. Most of the men had been down below, resting from the battles. Now they came pouring up, in a silver spate. Their yelling was in strange contrast to the calm silence of Crom Dhu’s men. Starke found himself busy.
Conan had been a healthy animal, with great recuperative powers. Now his muscles responded to every trick asked of them. Starke leaped cleanly across the deck, watching for Rann, but she was nowhere to be seen. He engaged two blades, dispatched one of them. More ropes raveled high and snaked him. Every ship in the harbor was exploding with violence. More men swarmed over the rail behind Starke, silently.
Above the shouting, Beudag’s voice came, at sight of the fighting men. “Clev! Mannt! Aesur!”
Starke was a god; anything he wanted he could have. A man’s head? He could have it. It meant acting the guillotine with knife and wrist and lunged body. Like—this! His eyes were smoking amber and there were deep lines of grim pleasure tugging at his lips. An enemy cannot fight without hands. One man, facing Starke, suddenly displayed violent stumps before his face, not believing them.
Are you watching, Faolan? cried Starke inside himself, delivering blows. Look here, Faolan! God, no, you’re blind. Listen then! Hear the ring of steel on steel. Does the smell of hot blood and hot bodies reach you? Oh, if you could see this tonight, Faolan. Falga would be forgotten. This is Conan, out of idiocy, with a guy named Starke wearing him and telling him where to go!
It was not safe on deck. Starke hadn’t particularly noticed before, but the warriors of Crom Dhu didn’t care whom they attacked now. They were beginning to do surgery to one another. They excised one another’s shoulders, severed limbs in blind instantaneous obedience. This was no place for Beudag and himself.
He cut her free of the masthead, drew her quickly to the rail.
Beudag was laughing. She could do nothing but laugh. Her eyes were shocked. She saw dead men alive again, lashing out with weapons; she had been starved and made to stand night and day, and now she could only laugh.
Starke shook her.
She did not stop laughing.
“Beudag! You’re all right. You’re free.”
She stared at nothing. “I’ll—I’ll be all right in a minute.”
He had to ward off a blow from one of his own men. He parried the thrust, then got in and pushed the man off the deck, over into the sea. That was the only thing to do. You couldn’t kill them.
Beudag stared down at the tumbling body.
“Where’s Rann?” Starke’s yellow eyes narrowed, searching.
“She was here.” Beudag trembled.
Rann looked out of her eyes. Out of the tired numbness of Beudag, an echo of Rann. Rann was nearby, and this was her doing.
Instinctively, Starke raised his eyes.
Rann appeared at the masthead, like a flurry of snow. Her green-tipped breasts were rising and falling with emotion. Pure hatred lay in her eyes. Starke licked his lips and readied his sword.
Rann snapped a glance at Beudag. Stooping, as in a dream, Beudag picked up a dagger and held it to her own breast.
Starke froze.
Rann nodded, with satisfaction. “Well, Starke? How will it be? Will you come at me and have Beudag die? Or will you let me go free?”
Starke’s palms felt sweaty and greasy. “There’s no place for you to go. Falga’s taken. I
