Conan the Freelance Part 27

Kleg twisted and leaped over a fallen timber that tried to roast him. The dried mud was sloughing off his skin in flat chunks, but it still offered him a fair amount of protection. There was but one more obstacle between him and the water, a low wall of fire fed by a line of tar spilled from a flaming barrel that had tipped onto its side next to where the dock had been.

The running selkie pulled the pouch from his belt and tied it securely around his neck. The pouch bounced on his chest, cracking away more mud, but the weight of the Seed within was the important thing.

Kleg leaped the line of fire, felt it scorch his legs, and came down not on flat ground but on a piece of red-hot iron, some kind of brace from the dock. He was not prepared for the misstep, and his left ankle twisted. He heard a pop in his ankle and knew he had done some damage.

His next step told the tale. When he put his left foot to the ground again, he fell. Some ligament had torn and his ankle would not support his weight.

Behind him, the barrel of pitch exploded, slinging globs of fire out in a fountain. One bit of pitch landed on Kleg's right boot. Desperately he pulled the boot off and flung it away as he managed to come up to a one-legged stance on that same foot.

The water was only a few spans away. He hopped.

A river of burning pitch flowed toward the selkie. He glanced backward and saw more barrels of the stuff starting to burn. If they all went up at once, he would be bathed in the boiling tar!

Kleg hopped for all he was worth.

The barrels blew apart behind him, but he was already diving into the cool safety of the lake when the sheet of deadly pitch arced toward him. When the tar splashed into the water, Kleg was half a span deep and still diving.

He began the Change, and in a matter of moments, he had no more worries about what dangers the land might offer. He was long, sleek, and deadly, and aside from a sore fin on his left side, had never felt better in his life.

That which had been manlike bared its teeth in a fearsome grin and swam once again in the waters of its birth.

Chapter EIGHTEEN.

Conan rowed the small boat to the sloping edge of the weed. When the bow struck the plant, it was as if they had hit solid ground.

The four of them climbed out of the boat onto the mat, and Conan found that indeed the substance seemed very solid. The leaves he saw lay curled tightly against the vinelike runners. Those finger-thick strands of the material, easily visible in the light of the burning village, ran back and forth in a kind of tight weave that supported Conan's weight with a spongy consistency much like damp forest ground covered with leaves and humus. The plant had a distinctly sour, almost fishy odor.

Several boats in the water still moved toward the Sarga.s.so, but none came near where Conan and his friends stood. There might have been other survivors already on the strange weed, but the surface was uneven, rising up into small hillocks here and there, forming shallow trenches in other places, and he did not see anybody else. What an odd thing this Sarga.s.so was.

Conan turned back toward the village, which was now engulfed in its entirety in raging fire. Even where the flame stopped short of the water, the heat must be of killing intensity, to judge from the hot wind that reached him here, hundreds of spans away. If anything still lived within the confines of what had been the village of Karatas, surely it would soon be charred beyond recognition.

As he watched, a great spinning column of fire formed and twisted across the beach, twirling and sending sparks high into the air.

Aye, they had been blessed with good fortune. Many had not been so swift or so lucky.

After a few moments observing the conflagration, Conan turned to Cheen. "It would seem that our quest has ended. If your magical talisman was there"-he pointed at the village"then surely it is destroyed. I am sorry."

Cheen turned away from the fire, and for an instant Conan mistook her action for grief.

"No," she said. "The Seed is not destroyed."

Conan looked at her, puzzled.

She turned slightly to her right, then her left. She glanced downward. "At least one thief must have escaped. I can feel the presence of the Seed yet," she said, "but it is moving away. There." She pointed at the Sarga.s.so beneath them.

Conan's hand stole quickly to the hilt of his sword, then stopped when its master realized there was no threat. "In the weed?"

"Underneath it. The selkies must still have it. One of them swims away from the fire with it. There."

Conan nodded. This was some kind of magic, Cheen's ability to know such things, and he liked it not. Still, he believed that she spoke the truth.

The Cimmerian turned toward Tair. "Your sister says the Seed survives. If we are to retrieve it still, we shall have to cross this weed after it."

Tair nodded. "Aye. Well, never let it be said that Tair was frightened of a treacherous plantscape and its denizens, not to mention the evil wizard who controls them. I shall follow the thieves to the earth's bowels if need be."

"And I too," the boy added.

Conan looked at the vast expanse of Sarga.s.so, lit here by the flickering orange of the dying village, but invisible farther out into the lake and night. Well. He had come this far; another day or two would hardly matter.

"I am with you," he said.

Tair grinned. "Good. Between the two of us, the Mist Mage's beasts will be as nothing."

Conan could not repress his own grin. He was glad Tair thought so, though his own experiences had taught him to be more cautious in making such statements; still, you could not fault the man's bravery.

"I think perhaps we should wait until daylight before beginning our trek," Conan said.

"Aye," Cheen said. "You are wise."

Conan smiled again. Wise? Hardly. A wise man would likely never have begun this quest. Then again, he had never claimed wisdom. Plenty of time to develop that when his hair turned the color of high mountain snow, his eyes grew dim, and his ears became dulled like an old and rusted blade.

If he lived that long.

The Queen of the Pili and her young trooper left their small boat and began immediately looking for a place to conceal themselves. Blad, as usual, did not comprehend the reasons for their actions, and Thayla was beginning to tire of explaining things to him.

"We are alone, you have lost your spear, and we have nothing to protect ourselves save our knives. Suppose for an instant that you are one of the residents of that torched village yon, huddled here with others of your kind. You did see the other boats?"

"Aye, mistress, but I fail to see-"

"You are no doubt most miserable," she continued over his interruption, "and having lost everything you own, might be feeling more than a little anger along with your sorrow. So you see two unarmed Pili, one of whom is a beautiful female; what might you consider doing to them in your sorrow and rage, were you a man among a group of men?"

She watched as the thought worked its way through Blad's mind. Slowly.

"Ah," he said. "I see."

"Good that you-,do. Now find us a place of concealment until we can determine who else inhabits this stinking weed."

Blad cautiously led his queen toward a flat-topped hill not far from where they had landed the boat. As they rounded the tangle of growth, they saw a figure crouched in the shadows next to the hill's base. Blad drew his knife.

"Thayla? Is that you?"

The voice was unmistakable, the figure impossible to deny even in the darkness, and Thayla's shock was great and her thoughts near panic. So it was that the Queen of the Pili found her husband, the King of the Pili.

Blad put away his knife. "Milord!"

Thayla ground her teeth as the young fool looked from Rayk back at her, his guilt at having lain with her s.h.i.+ning forth from his face like a torch. She had told him that Rayk was most likely dead.