The Sword of Skelos Read Online Free PDF Page B

Khassek said, scooping up the crossbow.
    “No, but he can open the front door and let others in to help him!”
    “Ah, too true. I think I have quit thinking clearly. If only you had brought back the length of cord I gave those two fellows, along with the gold and my little sticker! Come Imraz—you must accompany us for a little way.”
    While the taverner looked profoundly reluctant and even larger of large mournful eyes, Khassek opened his pouch and brought forth five more pieces of gold. “Two still lie on the table, and we have drunk no more than a few coppers’ worth of wine. Here, take these. Think what fun to see such a pompous fop as that Ferhad dealt with—and think of all the business the telling of this wonderful story of the comeuppance of the king’s Dragoner will bring in! Why, customers will flock in like flies.
Come
.”
    In silence Imraz accompanied them. Conan dropped five swords and four daggers into a smallish empty keg, while the owner of that little barrel made five pieces of gold vanish even more efficiently. He led them through a doorway into an alley that was very different from those of The Desert, and they hurried along like three friends.
    “Right, here,” Conan grunted, carrying his keg with both arms enwrapping it, and they turned right; at the next intersection he muttered “left.”
    “You look a bit loutish lugging that armory-in-a-keg,” Khassek pointed out. “Do you think we really need them?”
    “One can never have too many weapons,” Conan assured him, and walked on, his back arched and his belly thrust out under the keg he bear-hugged. Its contents rattled and clinked.
    After another turn, they bade good evening to their former host, and hurried on whilst Imraz turned back.
    “What’s this about Brythunia?” Conan asked.
    “I gave him the names of several places—”
    “I noticed!”
    “—none of them our destination,” Khassek patiently finished. “Let him wonder. Who knows an Iranistani on sight? We do share a destination, Conan, do we not?”
    “We’re an unlikely pair,” Conan said.
    “Trio; forget not your barrel of blades. But not so, not so. We are both very clever fellows who’d have tried to slay all five of those wights had I not been even cleverer and Ferhad so easy, and we both know it. Conan… does it also occur to you that all the while you’ve been carrying that keg I could have stuck a knife or two into you?”
    “We are walking deeper into The Desert, Khassek. Assume that we are being watched, though you see no one. I have friends down here. They don’t look upon
me
as a foreigner.”
    “Hmm. You don’t happen to own a few camels, do you?”
    “I hate the beasts. I own no less than four horses. No camels. Why don’t you carry this keg a while?”
    “No, thanks.”
    Reluctantly Conan set the thing down, then turned it over. He separated Ferhad’s jeweled dagger, which he stuck into his belt. Three good raps with a Watchman’s sword on the pommel of Ferhad’s ruined a good blade and placed into the Cimmerian’s hand a nice lion’s head of silver. He tossed and caught it, smiling.
    “This look like a camel to you?”
    “Probably only silver plate,” Khassek said.
    Conan frowned. “That bastard! Just my luck if the jewels in this dagger aren’t real! What about you, by the way—have you no horse, no camels? You came a long way.”
    “I have some nice clothing,” Khassek said with a mournful sigh, “several changes; and a handsome ring, and two horses—I came up here with a caravan, most of the way. And, also in my room at the inn—
the Red Lion
, remember—twenty gold coins of Zamboula.”
    “Twenty!” The Cimmerian stared, and his mouth and eyes vied with each other for achieving wideness. “Mitra, Crom and Bel, man—why didn’t you whip up and fetch them ere we left?”
    Khassek looked even sadder. “I seem to have forgot. I fear they are now forfeit to the crown of Zamora.”
    “Ishtar’s eyeballs,” Conan