'But with no escort,’ growled Sigurd. 'Damned suspicious! Whoever heard of a king's galley or treasure ship barging around the seas without extra protection?'
The crew had now mustered in their places. Archers were stringing their bows on the forecastle deck and looking over the arrows in their quivers to make sure that none had warped. In the waist, men stood to the ropes, while the deck fighters clustered at the rail, buckling the chin straps of helmets., tying the laces of cuirasses and leather jacks, and sharpening their cutlasses with whetstones.
'By Crom!’ boomed Conan. 'We'll find out what she bears so precious that she flees like a frightened maid at the mere sight of us!'
The men, inflamed by the excitement of the chase, sent up a cheer. Sigurd, now covered from neck to crotch by a shirt of bronzen scales sewn to leather, puffed up the ladder to the poop deck. Conan clapped him on the shoulder.
cCrom and Mitra, old sea horse, but the taste of battle makes my heart swell like that of an old charger sniffing blood!'
The Northman grinned broadly and gave a bellow of joy that would have summoned a hippogriff in the mating season had one been within earshot.
'Hah! Well, Lion, old Sigurd said things would look up soon, and here they are! I have a feeling in me bones that this'll be a treasure the likes of which we never saw in all our days.'
'Aye?' laughed Conan. ‘Then let's at it!'
With every sail she possessed filled with wind, the carack plunged after her prey. The following swells boosted her along, slowly rising and falling as they foamed by underneath her. Her blunt bow threw up twin fans of green foam., and white foam bubbled in her wake. And ever ahead of her, pitching on the swells, the mysterious green galley rowed and sailed, her two triangular sails set wing-and-wing, like the leathery pinions of some flying reptile of old.
CHAPTER SIX
MAGIC FIRE
A long, green galley from the unknown West,
The dread Black Kraken on her bow impressed,
In full sail hastens from a land untold,
With Hell's foul secret in her deep, dark hold.
- The Voyage of Amra
The sun hung high in the clear, blue vault when the Red Lion at last caught up with the mysterious green galley with the symbol of the Black Kraken of Atlantis on her bow. All morning the galley fled before them, with her tall black triangular sails swollen with the wind and her oars rising and falling as if her oarsmen knew no human fatigue. But, foot by foot,, the big carack closed the distance between them.
Conan, in a horned steel helmet and a long shirt of link mail over a haqueton of soft leather, strode about the deck, inspecting the arm and armor of his boarding party. Then he climbed back to the poop, where Sigurd stood spraddle-legged, watching the galley's every move and barking commands to the steersmen who stood with muscular, brown arms gripping the twin tillers.
'She's giving up the chase at last and putting about,’ grunted Sigurd.
As if owning the futility of flight, the galley was turning and slowing as the Red Lion neared. Now they were almost within bowshot. Conan glanced to the forecastle deck, where Yakov's archers stood behind the wicker mantlets hung along the rail, awaiting the command to shoot.
'Strange, Amra,' grumbled the Northman. 'Still no one on deck!'
'It is cursed strange,' agreed Conan. 'They should at least have a party gathered to repel boarders. Are they all hiding below like mice, or is there nobody aboard but the oarsmen and steersmen?'
'We're getting close,' said Sigurd.
Facing the bow where the archers stood, Conan raised his voice to a bellow: 'Shoot one!'
'Aye, aye, Captain,' Yakov called back. The bowmaster tapped an archer on the shoulder. The man drew his bow to the ear and released with a fiat twang. The arrow arched over the intervening gulf of water, to fall ten paces short, For a short while the crew stood silent as the wind sighed, the water hissed, and the ships wallowed.
'Shoot one!'
This time the shaft thudded home in the enamelled planking.
'In range!' boomed Sigurd.
'One volley, your command!' roared Conan.
‘Aye, aye!' Yakov lined up his archers. Presently all the bows released at once. With a swish like the rush of wings, a flight of arrows swept across the narowing gulf and thudded home, mostly out of sight behind the mantlets that lined the rail of the galley.
Conan narrowly watched the action of the galley's oars. Ordinarily, such a volley of arrows should have struck at least a few of the rowers, disorganizing the beat of the oars until the men hit could be replaced or their oars shipped. But the oars of the galley, in two banks, continued to rise and fall at the same unvarying, mechanical beat.
'She must be full-decked,' grunted Conan.
'I think she's turning to ram us,' said Sigurd.
'Right. Keep our head toward her. If we hit her bow on, we'll drive her down and break her ram.'
The Vanr bellowed commands to the steersmen and to the sailors at the lines. The tillers were put up and the sails trimmed to take the wind abeam as the Red Lion swung to port to keep the galley dead ahead. Unseen hands brailed the galley's sails up against their yards.
The galley continued her swing, and for an instant the two ships rushed at each other head-on. From the poop, Conan got a good view of the galley's deck. Not a soul was to be seen.
Then the galley, as if losing courage at the sight of the tall, massive bow of the Red Lion foaming down upon her, turned again to port, heeling with the sharpness of her turn. A mere fifty paces away, Conan could plainly discern the strange black emblem blazoned on the bow. More like a circular cloud of dense, black vapor it seemed, with whorls of mist escaping in tentacular wisps, than a literal devilfish. But the crimson eye, glaring from the center of the black mass, blazed with lust and fury.
Still nobody was to be seen on deck. The green galley could have been a ghost ship, bare of mortal life.
'No watch in the rigging! Not a hand on deck! Not even a helmsman at the tiller!' rumbled Sigurd uneasily. 'By Badb and Mitra, I like it not, mate, not a bit of it!'
'Yakov!' called Conan. 'Have your lads shoot through the oar holes!'
Bowstrings snapped and arrows hissed. Many struck the wood alongside the oar slots, but many more - at that short range - whipped out of sight through the holes and vanished. But there were none of the expected yells of pain and clatter of oars striking one another that would normally be expected. A second volley produced no di-ferent result. Now the galley was running free again, and her triangular sails stood out to take the wind. The Red Lion swung downwind to follow.
‘Fire arrows, Yakov!' roared Conan. 'By Crom, I'll rouse some life in that black-sailed bastard yet.’
There were a few moments of frantic activity on the forecastle deck as torches were fetched from the galley and rags were dipped in oil and wound about the shafts of arrows. Presently a shower of flaming arrows, trailing tails of black smoke, whistled into the mantlets and thudded into the bare, green decks. In an instant, plumes of dirty black smoke crawled up from a dozen spots about the ship, to be whipped away by the brisk breeze.
'Ha!' thundered Conan. 'That did it! Look, Sigurd!’ On the green galley's ornate poop deck now stood a tall, gaunt figure. This, from his appearance, was no ordinary seaman. His bony form was wrapped in many-pleated cotton garments, while a fantastic cloak of gorgeous green feathers was thrown over his narrow shoulders. His sallow, swarthy pate was shaven; his stern, gaunt features might have been cast in brass for all their mobility. Looking more like a priest or a wizard than a seaman, he stood motionless on the gaudily decorated afterdeck, watching the Red Lion with a venomous glare in his sharp, black eyes.