Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza by Roland Green Read Free Book Online

thief-taker.
    “Pray take your weapon, sir—”
    “I won’t—”
    “Oh, you will, little man.” Suddenly the courtesy was gone and Tharmis Rog looked more like a bear about to attack. “Take that sticker back and keep it out of my sight. That, or choose between eating it at one end or wearing it at the other.”
    The thief-taker turned as pale as his Stygian-dark complexion would allow and hastily obeyed.
    “Now,” the eunuch-like voice said. “What is all this brawling over one recruit? I think I have the right to an answer.”
    The speaker was the youth who had stood outside, wearing the red tunic. Conan now noticed that he also wore white kid-skin boots, and a sword that must have been worth a year or mote of Tharmis Rog’s pay.
    Levites looked at the youth and began to splutter. Tharmis Rog made a noise like a bear feeding and Levites was silent.
    “Either explain or get out while we enlist our friend Sellus here,” Rog growled.
    The danger of losing those crowns loosened Levites’s tongue. It also loosened Mikros’s. Both tried to talk at once until Rog drew his sword. It made only a faint rasp as it darted free of its scabbard, but he could not have gained more attention in less time if he’d blown a trumpet.
    Tharmis Rog and the youth listened attentively to Levites telling the story of Conan’s crimes in Ophir and Aquilonia. Conan listened in silence. If he had not found an ally in Tharmis Rog, there would be time enough to do something about it when Levites ran out of wind.
    That took a good while, and Rog was again imitating a bear when the merchant at last fell silent. Then he turned to Conan.
    “What have you to say to this?”
    “It’s the way Levites and Mikros see it, no doubt. But they didn’t tell you everything.”
    Conan added a few details, such as his saving Sirdis from the pirates, Mikros’s treatment of his women, and other matters. As the Cimmerian spoke, the two Aquilonian soldiers both took on a predatory look.
    “Mikros,” the youth said at last. “You have no place before the law. Hold your tongue or the watch will learn of this.” His voice sounded much less like a eunuch’s now.
    “Master Levites,” he went on. “Aquilonia and Argos have no quarrels, and I would be loathe to make one.”
    “Then I thank you for your honourably returning Conan to—” Levities blurted.
    “I am returning no one to you,” the youth said. “He may not even be the man you seek. Also, if he did save your ship, it will be known on the waterfront. Our sailors and dockhands will not be happy to handle your cargoes, if you show such ingratitude. Or do you call him a liar in the matter of the pirates?”
    Conan threw Levites a look, which said plainly that if the merchant named the Cimmerian a liar, those would be the last words he ever spoke. Levites swallowed and wiped sweat from his brow, for all that the taproom was cooler than the streets.
    “He did fight, much as he says.”
    “Then go back to Messantia and meditate upon ingratitude,” the youth said.
    Levites looked ready to argue yet again, but Tharmis Rog growled. “Go back, or what’ll happen to you and your ships will cost a deal more than a thousand crowns,” he said. “There’ve even been rumours of Argossean merchants buying the pirates’ aid against rivals. Now, would you like that noised about among the men who’ve lost shipmates to the pirates?”
    The speed with which Levites withdrew showed what he thought of that.
    With the taproom at last empty of thief-takers and other unwanted bystanders, Conan swore his oath of enlistment in the Thanza Rangers. To strengthen it, he repeated the whole oath, instead of merely saying, “I so swear” at the end of each sentence. That would prove him willing to be bound more tightly to the Rangers and also prove that he was no witling.
    “Now, you’re well enough off for boots and weapons,” Rog said. “But you turn over all your money. To me, here, now.”
    Conan’s