Conan The Freelance by Steve Perry Read Free Book Online

teeth bit into the smooth bark like claws, allowing them to inch their way upward. Once they attained the lower branches, it would go much faster.
    Nearing the place where a guard stood on a limb, Kleg had one of his troopers move around where he might be seen. Sure enough, the guard heard or saw something.
    “Who’s there? Is that you, Jaywo? I am not amused at your antics!” This was one of the males, a gruff-voiced and older one. When no answer came, the guard grew suspicious. “Jaywo? Answer!” The guard lifted the short spear and pointed it at the climbing selkie.
    But before the guard could thrust downward, Kleg reached the branch behind the guard. Kleg pulled his knife, a razoredged sliver of obsidian, and leaped upon the guard. A quick slash opened the guard’s throat before he could cry out a warning, and a shove launched the dying man into the air. The noise of his landing was louder than Kleg had thought, but not so loud as to draw notice from above.
    “Hurry,” Kleg said. “We have but a short time.”
    The two selkies obeyed their leader, and all three moved quickly along the thick limb, angling upward.
    Conan awoke with his head threatening to burst this time, and found himself dangling in midair by a rope around his left ankle. Even as he realized this, somebody started to haul him up toward the platform above.
    Conan lifted himself and caught the rope with his hands so that he was upright, and he began to climb. It was but the work of a moment to reach the platform.
    On the other end of the rope stood Cheen, Tair, and two other men. Tair said, “By the great Green One, you are as heavy as that branch we moved.”
    Conan was confused. “How came I to be down there? I recall seeing-seeing … Crom. We-he-I offered to wrestle him.”
    Cheen said, “The potion sometimes causes disorientation. We all wear safe lines once the ceremony begins.” She pointed at her ankle.
    Indeed, all of the people wore such ropes, at least the ones Conan could see. Those coils he had seen earlier. That was what they were for. Wise.
    “Since you are a stranger to our ways, I put the line on for you while you slept.”
    “I am in your debt,” Conan said.
    “And was your visit with your god a good one?”
    “It was … instructive,” Conan said. Aye. One had best be wary of challenging a god, be he real or an illusion. Especially one with a sense of humor as had Crom.
    To his left, someone on the ground began yelling. A number of them, did Conan’s ears not lie, making quite a racket.
    “What … ?” he began.
    “Intruders in the grove!” Cheen said. “We are under attack. It must be the selkies again!”
    “Selkies?”
    “To arms!” Tair yelled. “To arms!”
    Conan saw his sword, lying where he had left it. He hurried toward it. He did not know who or what selkies were, but if there was fighting to be done, he knew well how to swing a blade.
    Kleg watched as the people on the platform, now below his position, began to stream toward the sound of his troops. There was one who did not seem to belong here, a large and bulky man with square-cut black hair and a large sword, but that was of no import now. The talisman he sought was only a few steps away, past two female guards armed with spears.
    Kleg nodded to his two selkies. They each drew a pair of obsidian knives and rushed along the narrow branch one behind the other.
    The two guards caught sight of the approaching selkies. One of them threw her spear; the weapon’s point pierced the throat of the first of his selkies. The trooper fell wordlessly, but even as he did, he threw both of his knives. His dying action served only to wound one of the guards, but it was enough so that the second selkie could get close enough to launch himself at the two women. The selkie and one of the women fell; she screamed all the way down.
    The second woman managed to catch the limb with one hand, but her action was wasted, for Kleg arrived and stamped on her fingers with his