Zarono was struggling to his feet when a painted savage rushed upon him from behind and brained him with a war-ax. Conan with a clump of sailors behind him was battling with the Picts inside the stockade, and Strom, with most of his men, was climbing up on the firing-ledges, slashing at the dark figures already swarming over the wall. The Picts, who had crept up unobserved and surrounded the fort while the defenders were fighting among themselves, were attacking from all sides. Val-enso's soldiers were clustered at the gate, trying to hold it against a howling swarm of exultant demons. More and more savages streamed from behind the huts, having scaled the undefended south wall. Strom and his pirates were beaten back from the other sides of the palisade and in an instant the compound was swarming with naked warriors. They dragged down the defenders like wolves; the battle revolved into swirling whirlpools of painted figures surging about small groups of desperate white men. Picts, sailors and henchmen littered the earth, stamped underfoot by the heedless feet. Blood-smeared braves dived howling into huts and the shrieks that rose from the interiors where women and children died beneath the red axes rose above the din of the battle. The men-at-arms abandoned the gate when they heard those pitiful cries, and in an instant the Picts had burst it and were pouring into the palisade at that point also. Huts began to go up in flames.
'Make for the manor!' roared Conan, and a dozen men surged in behind him as he hewed an inexorable way through the snarling pack.
Strom was at his side, wielding his red cutlass like a flail.
'We can't hold the manor,' grunted the pirate.
'Why not?' Conan was too busy with his crimson work to spare a glance.
'Because—uh!' A knife in a dark hand sank deep in the Barachan's back. 'Devil eat you, bastard!' Strom turned staggeringly and split the savage's head to his teeth. The pirate reeled and fell to his knees, blood starting from his lips.
'The manor's burning!' he croaked, and slumped over in the dust.
Conan cast a swift look about him. The men who had followed him were all down in their blood. The Pict gasping out his life under the Cimmerian's feet was the last of the group which had barred his way. All about him battle was swirling and surging, but for the moment he stood alone. He was not far from the south wall. A few strides and he could leap to the the smoke, brandishing gleaming axes. They were still yards behind him when Conan ducked into the space between the huts and the wall. At die other end of the corridor he saw other howling shapes, running to cut him off. Halting short he tossed Belesa bodily to the fire-ledge and leaped after her. Swinging her over the palisade he dropped her into the sand outside, and dropped Tina after her. A thrown ax crashed into a log by his shoulder, and then he too was over the wall and gathering up his dazed and helpless charges. When the Picts reached the wall the space before the palisade was empty of all except the dead.
VIII. — A PIRATE RETURNS TO THE SEA
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DAWN was tingeing the dim waters with an old rose hue. Far out across the tinted waters a fleck of white grew out of the mist—a sail that seemed to hang suspended in the pearly sky. On a bushy headland Conan the Cimmerian held a ragged cloak over a fire of green wood. As he manipulated the cloak, puffs of smoke rose upward, quivered against the dawn and vanished.
Belesa crouched near him, one arm about Tina.
'Do you think they'll see it and understand?'
'They'll see it, right enough,' he assured her. 'They've been hanging off and on diis coast all night, hoping to sight some survivors. They're scared stiff. There's only half a dozen of them, and not one can navigate well enough to sail from here to the Barachan Isles. They'll understand my signals; it's the pirate code. I'm telling them that the captains are dead and all the sailors, and for them to come inshore and take us aboard. They know I can navigate, and they'll be glad to ship under me; they'll have to. I'm the only captain left.'
'But suppose the Picts see the smoke?' She shuddered, glancing back over the misty sands and bushes to where, miles to the north, a column of smoke stood up in the still air.
'They're not likely to see it. After I hid you in the woods I crept back and saw them dragging barrels of wine and ale out of the storehouses. Already most of them were reeling. They'll all be lying around too drunk to move by this time. If I had a hundred men I could wipe out the whole horde. Look! There goes a rocket from the Red Handl That means they're coming to take us off!'
