Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza Read Online Free PDF Page A

matter. If Levites had risen through royal favour, he might be eager to bring the Cimmerian to “justice” out of loyalty to his liege. Were he his own man, he still might think of one reward from Ophir and another from his king, for the head of the same man.
    Still, Levites showed no signs of suspicion on the voyage, nor was Conan molested, either waking or sleeping. Perhaps it was the sight of the Cimmerian squatting on deck, cleaning rust and Tybor slime from his sword, that kept the peace. Sitting, he rose shoulder-high to some of the crew, and his scars and scowl were enough to make any man cautious about approaching him.
    On the third morning, Sirdis warped into the docks of Shamar. Conan stood in the pay line with the crew for his reward, where he received much hearty gratitude and invitations to parties at Shamar’s taverns. He refused none of them, although he had no intention of being found anywhere near those taverns. But if Levites or anyone in his pay was looking for him where he would not be, that was more time for his trail to grow cold....
     
    * * *
     
    A village stood on the site of Shamar in the distant days before Atlantis sank and the dark shadow of Acheron’s evil magic stretched across the land. Water flowed from abundant springs, fish abounded, and steep-sided hills made for easy defence.
    When a city called Shamar came to be in a land not yet called Aquilonia, it needed all the defences nature and men could contrive. Thrice it was besieged from Ophir, twice from Nemedia, and once by the royal host of Aquilonia when the city rose in rebellion. Half a score of times river pirates snatched ships and men from its very wharves.
    Yet the city survived, prospered, and grew, repairing the breaches in its old walls, stretching out new quarters across the hills until they in turn needed walls, and in time becoming one of Aquilonia’s great cities. Its governor was always a duke, its garrison numbered in the thousands, with horse, foot, and siege engines ready to hand, and its merchants were among the shrewdest and richest in a realm not lacking such men.
    How many people it held, Conan doubted that anyone knew. He knew only that it held enough to make it easy for a man to lose himself among them.
    It also held its share of pleasure quarters and thieves’ alleys, where few honest men ventured at all. It would take more than a thousand crowns to tempt them there in search of one who would assuredly fight like a lion if they were so unfortunate as to overtake him.
    Levites had not been so close-fisted as Conan had expected. With his own purse and his reward from the merchant, Conan was well-fitted to hide longer than his enemies could seek.
    He might even find a frolicsome wench for a night or two.
     
    * * *
     
    Conan was not the easiest of men to forget, but in the quarters where he found refuge, a man was seldom asked his business and a man like Conan was asked hardly at all. He had a brisk set-to with one panderer and his hired bravos when they thought Conan should pay before the woman came with him, and in the end none of the woman’s protectors were in any fit state to receive payment.
    With the woman, however, Conan was more than generous. For her own safety, he advised her to leave Shamar. It was to put her aboard a ship downriver that he left the pleasure quarters for the first time, on the morning of his seventh day in Shamar.
    On the quay, they embraced—almost chastely, to the casual eye.
    “Farewell, Brollya,” Conan said.
    “The gods be with you, Sellus—if that is your name.”
    Conan’s face might have been a stone mask. The wench had her wits about her—but then, he preferred such women.
    “I’m no priest to say where the gods are. But I suppose they can’t be too far from me, or I’d been long dead.”
    “Sad for me, had it been so. I knew that Mikros was growing old and foul-tempered, but not bloodthirsty. I am well out of his reach, and you should think on travelling too.