Conan Of The Isles

'Old gray-dog is it, you girl-faced, fancy-clad, soft-gutted whelp of a nameless Kordavan gutter slut? I was a captain of the Coast when you were still puking up your mother's thin, sour milk. I was pouring half the gold of a dozen cities into the alleys of Tortage when you were still fondling boys in the back of a Zingaran whorehouse. If you've not guts for an honest venture, then slink back to your fetid kennel - but there are others here with more manhood in one hand than you have in your yellow-bellied body. I speak to them, not you. And, yes, I'm old - but I still know a trick or two, which I shall be pleased to show you if you like!'

Black Alvaro whirled with a curse, his rapier rasping out and glittering in the glare of the torches like a needle of fire. Whooping, the crowd formed a ring.

Conan tossed aside his bellying black cloak and drew his heavy Aquilonian broadsword. But, even before the blade cleared the scabbard or he could step down from the bench on which he stood3 Alvaro lunged with a dancer's grace.

The steel needle flicked out at Conan's unarmored face, but with one booted foot he kicked the lancing blade aside and sprang down from the bench. His sword sang from its worn leather sheath and rang like a bell as it met the Zingaran blade. Steel music clashed in the windy silence as the two combatants circled, advanced, retreated, cut, parried, and thrust. The torches sent their billowing shadows crawling over the walls of the nearest houses.

Men sucked in their breaths, for Alvaro of the Falcon was accounted the deadliest blade among the Isles - and Amra, gray with years, was an unknown adversary. They measured his towering bulk and mighty limbs against the lean, silken grace of the Zingaran and cast bets at wildly fluctuating odds.

Alvaro soon found that his singing blade could never quite dodge past Conan's guard. The great broadsword, made for smashing armor, seemed- ill-chosen for a fencing match against the lighter blade; it should have been slow and unwieldy. But in Conan's leathery hand it danced as lightly as a willow wand. Nor did the fiercely grinning old Cimmerian seem to tire from the heft of it. His arm seemed as tireless and rigid as an iron bar.

Sweat glistened on Alvaro's brow beneath his flying black ringlets. Sweat beaded his thin lips and trickled down his hollow cheeks. He knew that if blade ever met blade with full impact, his rapier would be shattered into flying fragments.

But Conan was not even trying to bring the full weight of his longsword to bear. Instead, with incredible ease, he wove a glittering wall of flying steel before him, through which the flashing point of the Zingaran's light blade could not gain entry. From time to time, Conan's grin broadened into deep laughter. He was playing with the agile but wearying Zingaran, and the chilling thought went through Alvaro that at any time the Cimmerian could beat his rapier aside and cut him down.

The crowd hung breathlessly on the ringing play of shimmering steel. Gradually they came to sense the same fact. Yasunga, the giant Kushite who had known Amra long before, started a chant, which soon rose from hundreds of throats, until it seemed to the gasping, sweating Alvaro that the square shook with its throbbing thunder:

'Am-ral Am-ra, Am-ral'

The pulsing cry rose and rose until it boomed like the pounding of the waves. The driving rhythm shook the little Zingaran's normally icy nerve. With one hand, Alvaro fumbled behind him, beneath his short mantle of black velvet. There, thrust through his girdle, a slim, wavy-bladed Shemite dagger was thrust for use on such occasions as this. His fingers drew the blade from its slender scabbard and palmed the hilt, so that the wary blade lay against his forearm.

Then he disengaged and sprang back several paces. He stood panting and disheveled, while Conan's flashing blade slowed to a halt.

'Had enough, black swine of Zingara?’ the old wolf growled.

The dirk flashed in the torchlight as it whirled through the dark air toward Conan's bare throat. Without appearance of haste, Conan's left hand reached up and caught the dagger by its hilt, snatching it out of the air as it flew.

This amazing feat brought a roar from the throng. They had heard that the hillmen of fabulous eastern lands played the deadly game of plucking flying knives from the air, but never had they seen it done. None knew of the long years Conan had spent on the bleak steppes of Hyr-kania, and amidst the coasts and isles of the Vilayet Sea, and in the towering Himelian Mountains, as nomad chief, pirate on an inland sea, and mercenary warrior. In those years he had mastered the use of the deadly Hyrkanian bow, the keen Zuagir tulwar, the dismembering Zhaibar knife, and other Eastern weaponry.

The shock of the deed glazed Alvaro's eyes with horror. The air seemed to stifle him. He tore open the lace collar above his cuirass and stood uncertainly, as if he knew not what to do next. Tension grew taut as a bowstring.