Conan Of The Isles

'Now what in the scarlet Hells of the Stygian Set-worshippers,' rumbled Conan, 'is a galley doing out here? We must be fairly close to land. No skipper with all his wits would sail far out into the Western Ocean in such a craft. If the long swells didn't swamp her, the crew would collapse from lack of food and water and from not having a place to lie down.'

The galley was now closer, so that they could see the sleek lines of her low, sea-green hull. White foam flashed along her sides, and Conan saw the twinkle of sunlight on dripping water from her double bank of oars - a bireme, with a high, curved prow carved of brass into the likeness of a dragon's head. Below this figurehead, level with the waterline, a long, viciously pointed bronze ram, green with verdigris and spotted with barnacles, cut through the waves.

'Hm, that's cursed odd, Amra!' grumbled Sigurd. 'She flies no banner. Well, you said we were to look for oddities.'

Conan shrugged. 'What's that painted on her bow?'

Sigurd peered. 'Looks like a black cloud with a red center, or is it a black starfish ?'

Conan glowered on the strange green galley. 'Well, she's no merchantman but a war galley, with that ram in her stem and double banks of oars. Let's let her pass; she'd give us hard knocks and no loot..,'

Still, he thought, it was strange to find such a ship hovering about these untraveled waters. Could it be that which they sought? Throwing back his gray mane, Conan called out to the watchman on the foretop.

'Ahoy there! Can you make out the marking on her prow?'

'Aye, Captain. Tis a black thing like a devilfish, with a fringe of tentacles around a burning eye—’

Conan's voice rose in a mighty bellow: 'Helmsman! Two points to port; head straight for that galley. All hands on deck! Swords, pikes, and defenses! Stand by to trim sail. Archers, to the forecastle deck, with your gear! Yasunga, make up a boarding party. Hop to it, swabs! Here's the fight you've been spoiling for.'

Sigurd peered at him, baffled. 'What in the name of Mitra?''

'The sign of the Black Kraken, you red dog of Vana-heim! Does that mean naught to you? Stir your befuddled wits!' growled Conan.

Sigurd followed Conan about the poop and halted when the Cimmerian did to let the cabin boy lace him into his coat of mail and settle the horned helmet on his head. The Northman's brow was knotted in thought. Then his frown relaxed, but his face paled.

'Do ye mean,' he said slowly, 'that old tale about the emblem of the Witch Kings of Atlantis ?’

'I do. Now get your cuirass on, before they spill those fat guts of yours all over the deck.'

'Gods of the sea!' said Sigurd, turning slowly away. 'The Kraken of the Atlanteans, that should all have been decently drowned eight thousand years agone . . . Crom, Badb,andlshtar! Canitbe?'

Although she was clearly no merchantman bearing loot, the green galley turned and fled before the Red Lion on the morning wind. On each of her two masts, a high-peaked, triangular sail bloomed and filled with the following breeze. The Red Lion followed close upon her foaming track.

Conan had clambered into the rigging and clung with one bronzed hand while the other shaded his eyes.

'Odd - cursed odd!' he muttered. 'All oars in motion, yet I'm damned for a Stygian if I can see a single oarsman on the benches. She seems bare of fighting men as well; none on her poop or forecastle deck, and not a hand aloft in her rigging.'

He lowered himself to the deck, where Sigurd and the giant black, Yasunga, stood,

'Cursed odd indeed, Amra,' said the old Northerner. 'And look at the cut of her hull! I've never seen such a ship in all me days.'

'Green ship of Hell,' muttered Yasunga in his deep, musical bass. 'Ship of ghosts, Amra!’

'Belay that!' barked Conan. 'Ship of Hell or ship of earth, she's running free as if she bore the Empress of Khitai and all her treasure! Look at that stem slice the swells!' He raised his voice. 'Milo! Hoist the raffee tops'l! And if you get the lines fouled I'll skin you.' He spoke to Sigurd and Yasunga again: 'She's fast, with both oars and sails; but with our greater spread of sail we may run her down yet. Wherever she's from, she's in a hurry to shake us off her tail!'

'But with no escort,’ growled Sigurd. 'Damned suspicious! Whoever heard of a king's galley or treasure ship barging around the seas without extra protection?'

The crew had now mustered in their places. Archers were stringing their bows on the forecastle deck and looking over the arrows in their quivers to make sure that none had warped. In the waist, men stood to the ropes, while the deck fighters clustered at the rail, buckling the chin straps of helmets., tying the laces of cuirasses and leather jacks, and sharpening their cutlasses with whetstones.

'By Crom!’ boomed Conan. 'We'll find out what she bears so precious that she flees like a frightened maid at the mere sight of us!'