“They all know I would follow any man who left me, and in my own ship,” Hordo rumbled. “Follow him to the end of the world, if need be, and rip out his throat with my bare hands.” But he took the tiller from the Cimmerian. “See who will go with you. You cannot do it alone.”
Conan moved forward to the mast and stood astride the yard on which the sail was furled, lying fore and aft on the deck. The pace of rowing, already ragged without Hordo to call a stroke, slowed further. Even in the dark he knew every eye was on him.
“The trouble in the city has given us a problem,” he said quietly. “The guard-chains are up. I intend to lower one and open a way out of the harbor for us. If it is not done, we have come this far for nothing. We will have a few chests of spices—or so I was told they were—that only the Vendhyans want, and the Vendhyans will keep their gold.” He waited. Gold was always a good place to end, for the word then loomed large in the listeners’ minds.
To his surprise, Hasan drew in his oar and stood silently. Ghurran shifted and wrapped his cloak tighter about himself. No one else moved.
Conan ran his gaze down the two shadowy lines of men, and some of those who had been with Hordo before his coming stirred uncomfortably on their rowing benches. It would not be easy convincing them. Outright cowards did not last long among the Brotherhood of the Coast, but neither did those too eager to seek battle. As well to start with the hardest to convince.
“You, Prytanis?”
The slit-nosed Nemedian’s teeth showed white in what could have been a smile or a snarl. “You want this journey, northlander? You lower the chain then. I’d as soon be back ashore with a mug of ale in my fist and a wench on my knee.”
“A much safer place, it is true,” Conan said dryly and there was a small laugh from the others. Prytanis hunched angrily over his oar.
Shamil, pulling an oar almost by Conan’s side, had made no move to rise, but there was an air of watching and waiting about him that was plain even in the dimmooned night.
“What of you, lighter of lamps?” the Cimmerian asked.
“I merely waited to be asked,” the lanky man answered quietly. His oar rattled against the thole pins as it was pulled inboard.
Abruptly two men stood who had been with Hordo when Conan arrived in Sultanapur. “I would not have you think only the newlings are with you,” said one, a Kothian named Baltis. Thick old scars were layered where his ears had been none too expertly removed in the distant past. The other, a hollow-faced Shemite who called himself Enam, did not speak but simply drew his tulwar and examined the blade’s edge.
“Fools,” Prytanis said, but he said it softly.
Conan waved his arm in signal to Hordo, only a gray blur in the stern, and the vessel curved toward the mole. The great breakwater reared before them, a granite wall rising from the dark waters, more than the height of a man, higher than the vessel’s deck. Even the new men knew enough of boats to know what was needed now. They backed water smoothly; then those on the side next to the mole raised their oars to fend the craft off from the stone.
The big Cimmerian wasted no time on further words. Putting a foot on the strake, he leaped. His outstretched hands caught the top of the mole, and he pulled himself smoothly up onto the rough granite surface. Grunts and muttered curses announced the arrival of the others, scrambling up beside him. There was no dearth of room, for the breakwater was nearly twenty paces wide.
“We kill them?” Hasan asked in a low voice.
“Perhaps we’ll not need to,” Conan replied. “Come.”
The square, stone watch-tower occupied all of the end of the mole except for a narrow walkway around it. Its crenelated top was fifty feet above them, and only a single heavy wooden door broke the granite walls at the bottom. Arrow slits at the second level showed the yellow gleam of torchlight, but there were none higher.
Motioning the others into the shadows at the base of the tower, Conan drew his dagger and pressed himself flat against the stone wall beside the door. Carefully gauging distance, he tossed the dagger; it clattered on the granite two long paces from the door. For a moment he did not think the sound had carried to those inside. Then came the scrape of the bar being lifted. The door swung open, spilling out a pool of light, and a helmetless guardsman stuck his head through. Conan did not breathe but it was the dagger at the edge of the light that caught the Turanian’s eye. Frowning, he stepped out.
Conan moved like a striking falcon. One hand closed over the guardsman’s mouth. The other seized the man’s sword-belt and heaved. A splash came from below, and then cries.
“Help! Help!”
“The fool’s fallen in,” someone shouted inside, and in a clatter of booted feet, four more guardsmen rushed from the tower.
Without helmets, one carrying a wooden mug, it was clear they had no presentiment of danger. They skidded to a halt as they became aware of the young giant before them, and hands darted for sword-hilts, but it was too late. A nose crunched under Conan’s fist, and even as that man crumpled, another blow took one of his companions in the jaw. The two fell almost one atop the other.
The rest were down as well, Conan saw, and no weapons had been drawn. “Throw their swords in the harbor,” he ordered, retrieving his dagger, “and bind them.” The cries for help still rose from the water, louder now, and more frantic. “Then make a rope of their belts and tunics, and haul that fool out before he wakes the entire city.”
Sword in hand, he cautiously entered the tower. The lowest level was one large room lit by torches, with stone stairs against one wall, leading up. Almost the entire chamber was taken up by a monstrous windlass linked to a complex arrangement of great bronze gears that shone from the fresh grease on them. A long bar ran from the smallest gear to a bronze wheel mounted on the wall below the stairs. Massive iron chain was layered on the windlass drum, the metal of each round link as thick as a man’s arm, and unrusted. It was said the ancient Turanian king who commanded that chain to be made had offered the weight in rubies of any smith who could produce iron that would not rust. It was said he had paid it, too, including the weight of the hands and tongue he took from the smith so the secret would not be gained by others.
From the windlass the chain led into a narrow, round hole in the stone floor. Conan ignored that, examining the gears for the means of loosing the chain. One bronze wedge seemed to be all that kept the gears from turning.
“Look out!”
At the shout Conan spun, broadsword leaping into his hand. Toppling from the stairs, a guardsman thudded to the stones at the Cimmerian’s feet. A dagger hilt stood out from his chest and a still-drawn crossbow lay by his outstretched hand.
“He aimed at your back,” Hasan said from the door.
“I will repay the debt,” Conan said, sheathing his blade.