Queen of the Black Coast Read online

drinkwas a passion and a weakness with him. Naive as a child in many ways,unfamiliar with the sophistry of civilization, he was naturallyintelligent, jealous of his rights, and dangerous as a hungry tiger.Young in years, he was hardened in warfare and wandering, and hissojourns in many lands were evident in his apparel. His horned helmetwas such as was worn by the golden-haired AEsir of Nordheim; his hauberkand greaves were of the finest workmanship of Koth; the fine ring-mailwhich sheathed his arms and legs was of Nemedia; the blade at his girdlewas a great Aquilonian broadsword; and his gorgeous scarlet cloak couldhave been spun nowhere but in Ophir.

  So they beat southward, and master Tito began to look for thehigh-walled villages of the black people. But they found only smokingruins on the shore of a bay, littered with naked black bodies. Titoswore.

  'I had good trade here, aforetime. This is the work of pirates.'

  'And if we meet them?' Conan loosened his great blade in its scabbard.

  'Mine is no warship. We run, not fight. Yet if it came to a pinch, wehave beaten off reavers before, and might do it again; unless it wereBelit's _Tigress_.'

  'Who is Belit?'

  'The wildest she-devil unhanged. Unless I read the signs a-wrong, it washer butchers who destroyed that village on the bay. May I some day seeher dangling from the yard-arm! She is called the queen of the blackcoast. She is a Shemite woman, who leads black raiders. They harry theshipping and have sent many a good tradesman to the bottom.'

  From under the poop-deck Tito brought out quilted jerkins, steel caps,bows and arrows.

  'Little use to resist if we're run down,' he grunted. 'But it rasps thesoul to give up life without a struggle.'

  * * * * *

  It was just at sunrise when the lookout shouted a warning. Around thelong point of an island off the starboard bow glided a long lethalshape, a slender serpentine galley, with a raised deck that ran fromstem to stern. Forty oars on each side drove her swiftly through thewater, and the low rail swarmed with naked blacks that chanted andclashed spears on oval shields. From the masthead floated a long crimsonpennon.

  'Belit!' yelled Tito, paling. 'Yare! Put her about! Into thatcreek-mouth! If we can beach her before they run us down, we have achance to escape with our lives!'

  So, veering sharply, the _Argus_ ran for the line of surf that boomedalong the palm-fringed shore, Tito striding back and forth, exhortingthe panting rowers to greater efforts. The master's black beardbristled, his eyes glared.

  'Give me a bow,' requested Conan. 'It's not my idea of a manly weapon,but I learned archery among the Hyrkanians, and it will go hard if Ican't feather a man or so on yonder deck.'

  Standing on the poop, he watched the serpent-like ship skimming lightlyover the waters, and landsman though he was, it was evident to him thatthe _Argus_ would never win that race. Already arrows, arching from thepirate's deck, were falling with a hiss into the sea, not twenty pacesastern.

  'We'd best stand to it,' growled the Cimmerian; 'else we'll all die withshafts in our backs, and not a blow dealt.'

  'Bend to it, dogs!' roared Tito with a passionate gesture of his brawnyfist. The bearded rowers grunted, heaved at the oars, while theirmuscles coiled and knotted, and sweat started out on their hides. Thetimbers of the stout little galley creaked and groaned as the men fairlyripped her through the water. The wind had fallen; the sail hung limp.Nearer crept the inexorable raiders, and they were still a good milefrom the surf when one of the steersmen fell gagging across a sweep, along arrow through his neck. Tito sprang to take his place, and Conan,bracing his feet wide on the heaving poop-deck, lifted his bow. He couldsee the details of the pirate plainly now. The rowers were protected bya line of raised mantelets along the sides, but the warriors dancing onthe narrow deck were in full view. These were painted and plumed, andmostly naked, brandishing spears and spotted shields.

  On the raised platform in the bows stood a slim figure whose white skinglistened in dazzling contrast to the glossy ebon hides about it. Belit,without a doubt. Conan drew the shaft to his ear--then some whim orqualm stayed his hand and sent the arrow through the body of a tallplumed spearman beside her.

  Hand over hand the pirate galley was overhauling the lighter ship.Arrows fell in a rain about the _Argus_, and men cried out. All thesteersmen were down, pincushioned, and Tito was handling the massivesweep alone, gasping black curses, his braced legs knots of strainingthews. Then with a sob he sank down, a long shaft quivering in hissturdy heart. The _Argus_ lost headway and rolled in the swell. The menshouted in confusion, and Conan took command in characteristic fashion.

  'Up, lads!' he roared, loosing with a vicious twang of cord. 'Grab yoursteel and give these dogs a few knocks before they cut our throats!Useless to bend your backs any more: they'll board us ere we can rowanother fifty paces!'

  In desperation the sailors abandoned their oars and snatched up theirweapons. It was valiant, but useless. They had time for one flight ofarrows before the pirate was upon them. With no one at the sweep, the_Argus_ rolled broadside, and the steel-baked prow of the raider crashedinto her amidships. Grappling-irons crunched into the side. From thelofty gunwales, the black pirates drove down a volley of shafts thattore through the quilted jackets of the doomed sailormen, then sprangdown spear in hand to complete the slaughter. On the deck of the piratelay half a dozen bodies, an earnest of Conan's archery.

  The fight on the _Argus_ was short and bloody. The stocky sailors, nomatch for the tall barbarians, were cut down to a man. Elsewhere thebattle had taken a peculiar turn. Conan, on the high-pitched poop, wason a level with the pirate's deck. As the steel prow slashed into the_Argus_, he braced himself and kept his feet under the shock, castingaway his bow. A tall corsair, bounding over the rail, was met in midairby the Cimmerian's great sword, which sheared him cleanly through thetorso, so that his body fell one way and his legs another. Then, with aburst of fury that left a heap of mangled corpses along the gunwales,Conan was over the rail and on the deck of the _Tigress_.

  In an instant he was the center of a hurricane of stabbing spears andlashing clubs. But he moved in a blinding blur of steel. Spears bent onhis armor or swished empty air, and his sword sang its death-song. Thefighting-madness of his race was upon him, and with a red mist ofunreasoning fury wavering before his blazing eyes, he cleft skulls,smashed breasts, severed limbs, ripped out entrails, and littered thedeck like a shambles with a ghastly harvest of brains and blood.

  Invulnerable in his armor, his back against the mast, he heaped mangledcorpses at his feet until his enemies gave back panting in rage andfear. Then as they lifted their spears to cast them, and he tensedhimself to leap and die in the midst of them, a shrill cry froze thelifted arms. They stood like statues, the black giants poised for thespear-casts, the mailed swordsman with his dripping blade.

  * * * * *

  Belit sprang before the blacks, beating down their spears. She turnedtoward Conan, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing. Fierce fingers ofwonder caught at his heart. She was slender, yet formed like a goddess:at once lithe and voluptuous. Her only garment was a broad silkengirdle. Her white ivory limbs and the ivory globes of her breasts drovea beat of fierce passion through the Cimmerian's pulse, even in thepanting fury of battle. Her rich black hair, black as a Stygian night,fell in rippling burnished clusters down her supple back. Her dark eyesburned on the Cimmerian.

  She was untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she-panther.She came close to him, heedless of his great blade, dripping with bloodof her warriors. Her supple thigh brushed against it, so close she cameto the tall warrior. Her red lips parted as she stared up into hissomber menacing eyes.

  'Who are you?' she demanded. 'By Ishtar, I have never seen your like,though I have ranged the sea from the coasts of Zingara to the fires ofthe ultimate south. Whence come you?'

  'From Argos,' he answered shortly, alert for treachery. Let her slimhand move toward the jeweled dagger in her girdle, and a buffet of hisopen
hand would stretch her senseless on the deck. Yet in his heart hedid not fear; he had held too many women, civilized or barbaric, in hisiron-thewed arms, not to recognize the light that burned in the eyes ofthis one.

  'You are no soft Hyborian!' she exclaimed. 'You are fierce and hard as agray wolf. Those eyes were never dimmed by city lights; those thews werenever softened by life amid marble walls.'

  'I am Conan, a Cimmerian,' he answered.

  To the people of the exotic climes, the north was a mazy half-mythicalrealm, peopled with ferocious blue-eyed giants who occasionallydescended from their icy fastnesses with torch and sword. Their raidshad never taken them as far south as Shem, and this daughter of Shemmade no distinction between AEsir, Vanir or Cimmerian. With the unerringinstinct of the elemental feminine, she knew she had found