Conan Of The Isles

The skull-faced wizard had reappeared. Now, instead of his magnificent cloak of feathers, he wore a long coat of chain mail, made from some unknown, rosy metal that blazed in the sunlight. A fantastic helm, shaped like a bird's head, was upon his head. In his left hand he bore a long, straight sword with saw teeth of glittering crystal, such as Conan had never seen in all his wanderings. Strapped to his right arm was a jagged-edged shield of green-enameled metal, embossed-with a Kraken emblem like that on the galley's bow.

Conan turned to confront the sorcerer. As he did so, the other uttered a sentence in the same unknown tongue he had spoken in summoning the Red Shadows. A gasp burst from the pirates as astonishment froze them in their tracks.

Where one armed sorcerer had stood, there now stood dozens, all identical to the last detail of dress and features.

'Charge them!' roared Conan, springing up the ladder to the gold-scrolled poop deck and whirling his mighty broadsword. His blade met the swords and shields of the magical army with a metallic crash; Conan was obscurely relieved to find his foes flesh-and-blood men. Tall, gaunt, and lean-muscled, they fought well. But Conan raged like a rabid wolf among them, battering their weapons aside and crunching through their defenses. Behind him, the screaming horde of pirates swarmed up and fell to, so that steel clanged on steel like the beating of anvils in some infernal smithy.

Howling Cimmerian curses, Conan hacked and thrust at the eagle-nosed, cold-eyed faces that rose before him and then fell, slashed and crimsoned. One staggered back from a backhand slash with half his face shorn away. Another fell, clutching at his spilling intestines. A third stumbled back, pawing at the stump of an arm. A fourth fell with bird-helm and skull cloven to the teeth. Still they came on, and still Conan battled with the blind ferocity of the savage he remained at heart.

Eight or nine he must have slain, and now he found himself ringed about by hawk-faced warriors in bird-helms. His blade was notched like a saw and soaked in blood to the hilt. His mail sagged from a dozen rents where the saw-toothed blades had torn it, and his gaunt but mighty shoulders bled from several small, superficial cuts.

Wielding his sword in both hands, he struck at the ring of steel around him, snarling like a trapped wolf. A tenth warrior fell, thrust through the body. Conan knocked several threatening blades aside with a twist of his wrists, feeling the breath sear his lungs and hearing his heart pound like a Pictish war drum. Blood roared in his temples, and he tottered on unsteady legs, but still deadly steel flickered in his hands like lightning and men fell before him.

Now the vision was dimming before his eyes, and the grim ranks of the inexhaustible foe swam in a ruddy mist, and Conan felt the full weight of his sixty-odd years. With half a heart he cursed the gods and fate that he no longer had the iron endurance of his stalwart youth; with the other half, he thanked those same gods that he should fall as he had always wished, face to face with a foe and with steel in hand.

Then, somehow, he had crashed through the hostile ring and confronted a single warrior, who stood at the rear of the deck against the backdrop of sea and sky. In an instant, Conan was upon him. The long blade crunched through the mail links of rosy metal to the foeman's heart - and it was all over.

Gasping and staggering, the Cimmerian whirled to face the rest of the enemy, to find only an empty deck, whereon his own men stood staring. The phantom army had vanished. Every hawknosed warrior had puffed out of existence; even the bodies of the fallen were gone. Conan reeled against the rail. One body remained - that of the last man he had slain. The old Cimmerian hobbled over and, on sudden suspicion, tore away the man's shield. The right hand of the corpse was swathed in bandages.

Conan drew several deep breaths. Then his thunderous laughter stilled the bewildered babble of his pirates.

'They were copies of this dog here,' he said, slapping the remaining corpse with the flat of his blade. 'They were real, all right - but only so long as he was here to animate them. When he died, they went poof! Now take the wounded back to our own deck. Goram Singh, make up a party to search the forecastle. Hurry up; she's leaking and will soon be awash. If there's any treasure aboard, we had better get it quickly. Sigurd, Yasunga, come with me!’

Conan stumbled down the ladder and thrust open the door of the cabin beneath the p«op deck. There, he thought, the sorcerer-captain would probably have berthed. He was bone-weary from the fury of battle and more shaken and exhausted than he wished his men to see. His sixty-odd years weighed down his limbs like armor of lead, and a reviving draught of strong wine would put new strength into his old heart.