Conan and the Shaman's Curse by Sean A. Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

jutted from the ape’s hide, but the beast did not so much as flinch. The knives were naught but the stings of steel bees; his vitals were untouched by Chadim’s short blades.
    A few rowers slipped in puddles of ghastly slime that gushed or oozed from the ruptured bodies of the slain. Conan pounced upon the fallen, rending their limbs and cracking their bones, tossing their pulped cadavers overboard with wanton frenzy. Bravely, the crew surrounded the gore-stained ape and hewed wildly at hide as tough as a leather jerkin. A few drew blood—thick, reddish-black ichor that welled sluggishly from deep stab wounds.
    These blows served only to pump Conan’s savage ape brain full of murderous hysteria. He ran amok into their ranks, heedless of their slashing swords, biting huge chunks of flesh from their unarmored bodies and slitting their throats with the deadly swipe of his cruel claws. Pitted against an unstoppable storm of talons and teeth, the crew finally lost their nerve and fell back. Of the score of men who had stood against the ape, only three officers and five rowers still breathed.
    Khertet thundered in frustration, desperately trying to rally his beleaguered men.

    V
     
    Nehebku’s Noose
     
    The few surviving crewmen turned their cutlasses to the lines of the Mistress’s single launch, leaping onto it as it fell to the water. They seized the oars and bent their backs, rowing like men possessed. Cursing, the Stygian captain looked up fearfully at the rampaging ape and promptly threw himself through the hatch to the officer’s quarters with Chadim and Jhatil at his heels. They had barely slammed the hatch’s cross bar into place before Conan reached the stout wooden portal.
    This door was more secure than the cargo hold’s, for it had been built to keep previous loot—and the officers’ skins—-safe from pirate assaults. Working with the furious speed borne of fear, the three men wedged every heavy object that they could find against the hatch. They piled up barrels, built makeshift braces of a few spare oars, and hammered spikes into the timbers for reinforcement. The Vendhyan custom of keeping tools in the officer’s storage proved its worth, although no mariner could have imagined this emergency.
    Roaring with the furore of a dozen tempests, Conan pounded on the hatch until the wood shivered in its heavy frame. But the thick hinge-bolts held, and the hatch withstood the abuse of the ape’s bludgeoning fists. By design, the hatch lay at an angle. Its size and position prevented Conan from throwing his shoulder against the wood, as he had done with the cargo hold’s door.
    Panting, Conan stepped back from the hatch, smacking his lips at the visceral stench that was rising from the ship. He vented his ire upon the human wreckage littering the Mistress’s gruesome deck. The moon loomed nearer the water, as if bearing witness to the atrocious scene: the grunting ape, gorging itself upon the glistening innards of victims.
    Eating until his belly could hold no more, the sated beast loped across the planks toward the mast Settling against it with a moist, booming belch, he felt his gaze drawn again to the moon. It had sunk below the water, as if swallowed by the sea.
    Its glow had receded. He smacked his lips and sighed, sliding down the mast until his buttocks rested upon the deck. When the last sliver of the moon disappeared, Conan’s eyelids grew heavy. The red tide of blood had extinguished the unbearable burning of the disc that dominated the night sky.
    Conan’s head drooped until his chin slumped against his massive chest, and sleep overcame him.
    In the officer’s quarters, Khertet paced restlessly, his lips drawn back in a ferocious scowl.
    Chadim wiped his damp forehead on the sleeve of his tunic. The moist heat of night filled the cabin, and the air was stale and oppressive. “From which of Sebeq’s seven abysses did that hairy fiend crawl? By Asura, I have never seen a beast so thirsty for