The Pool of the Black One, Reswum Page 5

of them were asleep on the beach as I entered the woods,' he said.

  'Asleep?' she exclaimed profanely. 'What in the seven devils of hell's fire and damnation-'

  'Listen!' He froze, a white quivering image of fright.

  'I heard it!' she snapped. 'A moaning cry! Wait!'

  She bounded up the ledges again and, glaring over the wall, swore with a concentrated fury that made even Sancho gasp. The black women were returning, but they came not alone or empty-handed. Each bore a limp human form; some bore two. Their captives were the Freebooters; they hung slackly in their captors' arms, and but for an occasional vague movement or twitching, Conyn would have believed them dead. They had been disarmed but not stripped; one of the blacks bore their sheathed swords, a great armload of bristling steel. From time to time one of the seawomen voiced a vague cry, like a drunkard calling out in sottish sleep.

  Like a trapped wolf Conyn glared about her. Three arches led out of the court of the pool. Through the eastern arch the blacks had left the court, and through it they would presumably return. She had entered by the southern arch. In the western arch she had hidden, and had not had time to notice what lay beyond it. Regardless of her ignorance of the plan of the castle, she was forced to make her decision promptly.

  Springing down the wall, she replaced the images with frantic haste, dragged the corpse of her victim to the pool and cast it in. It sank instantly and, as she looked, she distinctly saw an appalling contraction--a shrinking, a hardening. She hastily turned away, shuddering. Then she seized her companion's arm and led his hastily toward the southern archway, while he begged to be told what was happening.

  'They've bagged the crew,' she answered hastily. 'I haven't any plan, but we'll hide somewhere and watch. If they don't look in the pool, they may not suspect our presence.'

  'But they'll see the blood on the grass!'

  'Maybe they'll think one of their own devils spilled it,' she answered. 'Anyway, we'll have to take the chance.'

  They were in the court from which she had watched the torture of the girl, and she led his hastily up the stair that mounted the southern wall, and forced his into a crouching position behind the balustrade of the balcony; it was poor concealment, but the best they could do.

  Scarcely had they settled themselves, when the blacks filed into the court. There was a resounding clash at the foot of the stairs, and Conyn stiffened, grasping her sword. But the blacks passed through an archway on the southwestern side, and they heard a series of thuds and groans. The giants were casting their victims down on the sward. An hysterical giggle rose to Sancho's lips, and Conyn quickly clapped her hand over him mouth, stifling the sound before it could betray them.

  After a while they heard the padding of many feet on the sward below, and then silence reigned. Conyn peered over the wall. The court was empty. The blacks were once more gathered about the pool in the adjoining court, squatting on their haunches. They seemed to pay no heed to the great smears of blood on the sward and the jade rim of the pool. Evidently blood stains were nothing unusual. Nor were they looking into the pool. They were engrossed in some inexplicable conclave of their own; the tall black was playing again on her golden pipes, and her companions listened like ebony statues.

  Taking Sancho's hand, Conyn glided down the stair, stooping so that her head would not be visible above the wall. The cringing boy followed perforce, staring fearfully at the arch that let into the court of the pool, but through which, at that angle, neither the pool nor its grim throng were visible. At the foot of the stair lay the swords of the Zingarans. The clash they had heard had been the casting down of the captured weapons.

  Conyn drew Sancho toward the southwestern arch, and they silently crossed the sward and entered the court beyond. There the Freebooters lay in careless heaps, mustaches bristling, earrings glinting. Here and there one stirred or groaned restlessly. Conyn bent down to them, and Sancho knelt beside her, leaning forward with his hands on his thighs.

  'What is that sweet cloying smell?' he asked nervously. 'It's on all their breaths.'

  'It's that damned fruit they were eating,' she answered softly. 'I remember the smell of it. It must have been like the black lotus, that makes women sleep. By Crom, they are beginning to awake--but they're unarmed, and I have an idea that those black devils won't wait long before they begin their magic on them. What chance will the lasses have, unarmed and stupid with slumber?'

  She brooded for an instant, scowling with the intentness of her thoughts; then seized Sancho's olive shoulder in a grip that made his wince.

  'Listen! I'll draw those black swine into another part of the castle and keep them busy for a while. Meanwhile you shake these fools awake, and bring their swords to them--it's a fighting chance. Can you do it?'

  'I--I--don't know!' he stammered, shaking with terror, and hardly knowing what he was saying.

  With a curse, Conyn caught his thick tresses near his head and shook his until the walls danced to his dizzy sight.

  'You must do it!' she hissed at him. 'It's our only chance!'

  'I'll do my best!' he gasped, and with a grunt of commendation and an encouraging slap on the back that nearly knocked his down, she glided away.

  A few moments later she was crouching at the arch that opened into the court of the pool, glaring upon her enemies. They still sat about the pool, but were beginning to show evidences of an evil impatience. From the court where lay the rousing buccaneers she heard their groans growing louder, beginning to be mingled with incoherent curses. She tensed her muscles and sank into a pantherish crouch, breathing easily between her teeth.

  The jeweled giant rose, taking her pipes from her lips--and at that instant Conyn was among the startled blacks with a tigerish bound. And as a tiger leaps and strikes among her prey, Conyn leaped and struck: thrice her blade flickered before any could lift a hand in defense; then she bounded from among them and raced across the sward. Behind her sprawled three black figures, their skulls split.

  But though the unexpected fury of her surprize had caught the giants off guard, the survivors recovered quickly enough. They were at her heels as she ran through the western arch, their long legs sweeping them over the ground at headlong speed. However, she felt confident of her ability to outfoot them at will; but that was not her purpose. She intended leading them on a long chase, in order to give Sancho time to rouse and arm the Zingarans.

  And as she raced into the court beyond the western arch, she swore. This court differed from the others she had seen. Instead of being round, it was octagonal, and the arch by which she had entered was the only entrance or exit.

  Wheeling, she saw that the entire band had followed her in; a group clustered in the arch, and the rest spread out in a wide line as they approached. She faced them, backing slowly toward the northern wall. The line bent into a semicircle, spreading out to hem her in. She continued to move backward, but more and more slowly, noting the spaces widening between the pursuers. They feared lest she should try to dart around a horn of the crescent, and lengthened their line to prevent it.

  She watched with the calm alertness of a wolf, and when she struck it was with the devastating suddenness of a thunderbolt--full at the center of the crescent. The giant who barred her way went down cloven to the middle of the breast-bone, and the pirate was outside their closing ring before the blacks to right and left could come to their stricken comrade's aid. The group at the gate prepared to receive her onslaught, but Conyn did not charge them. She had turned and was watching her hunters without apparent emotion, and certainly without fear.

  This time they did not spread out in a thin line. They had learned that it was fatal to divide their forces against such an incarnation of clawing, rending fury. They bunched up in a compact mass, and advanced on her without undue haste, maintaining their formation.

  Conyn knew that if she fell foul of that mass of taloned muscle and bone, there could be but one culmination. Once let them drag her down among them where they could reach her with
their talons and use their greater body-weight to advantage, even her primitive ferocity would not prevail. She glanced around the wall and saw a ledge-like projection above a corner on the western side. What it was she did not know, but it would serve her purpose. She began backing toward that corner, and the giants advanced more rapidly. They evidently thought that they were herding her into the corner themselves, and Conyn found time to reflect that they probably looked on her as a member of a lower order, mentally inferior to themselves. So much the better. Nothing is more disastrous than underestimating one's antagonist.

  Now she was only a few yards from the wall, and the blacks were closing in rapidly, evidently thinking to pin her in the corner before she realized her situation. The group at the gate had deserted their post and were hastening to join their fellows. The giants half-crouched, eyes blazing like golden hell-fire, teeth glistening whitely, taloned hands lifted as if to fend off attack. They expected an abrupt and violent move on the part of their prey, but when it came, it took them by surprize.

  Conyn lifted her sword, took a step toward them, then wheeled and raced to the wall. With a fleeting coil and release of steel muscles, she shot high in the air, and her straining arm hooked its fingers over the projection. Instantly there was a