Title: A Witch Shall Be Born

Author: Robert E. Howard

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A WITCH SHALL BE BORN

By Robert E. Howard







1 The Blood-Red Crescent



Taramis, Queen of Khauran, awakened from a dream-haunted slumber to a

silence that seemed more like the stillness of nighted catacombs than

the normal quiet of a sleeping place. She lay staring into the

darkness, wondering why the candles in their golden candelabra had

gone out. A flecking of stars marked a gold-barred casement that lent

no illumination to the interior of the chamber. But as Taramis lay

there, she became aware of a spot of radiance glowing in the darkness

before her. She watched, puzzled. It grew and its intensity deepened

as it expanded, a widening disk of lurid light hovering against the

dark velvet hangings of the opposite wall. Taramis caught her breath,

starting up to a sitting position. A dark object was visible in that

circle of light--a human head.



In a sudden panic the queen opened her lips to cry out for her maids;

then she checked herself. The glow was more lurid, the head more

vividly limned. It was a woman's head, small, delicately molded,

superbly poised, with a high-piled mass of lustrous black hair. The

face grew distinct as she stared--and it was the sight of this face

which froze the cry in Taramis's throat. The features were her own!

She might have been looking into a mirror which subtly altered her

reflection, lending it a tigerish gleam of eye, a vindictive curl of

lip.



"Ishtar!" gasped Taramis. "I am bewitched!"



Appallingly, the apparition spoke, and its voice was like honeyed

venom.



"Bewitched? No, sweet sister! Here is no sorcery."



"Sister?" stammered the bewildered girl. "I have no sister."



"You never had a sister?" came the sweet, poisonously mocking voice.

"Never a twin sister whose flesh was as soft as yours to caress or

hurt?"



"Why, once I had a sister," answered Taramis, still convinced that she

was in the grip of some sort of nightmare. "But she died."



The beautiful face in the disk was convulsed with the aspect of a

fury; so hellish became its expression that Taramis, cowering back,

half expected to see snaky locks writhe hissing about the ivory brow.



"You lie!" The accusation was spat from between the snarling red lips.

"She did not die! Fool! Oh, enough of this mummery! Look--and let your

sight be blasted!"



Light ran suddenly along the hangings like flaming serpents, and

incredibly the candles in the golden sticks flared up again. Taramis

crouched on her velvet couch, her lithe legs flexed beneath her,

staring wide-eyed at the pantherish figure which posed mockingly

before her. It was as if she gazed upon another Taramis, identical

with herself in every contour of feature and limb, yet animated by an

alien and evil personality. The face of this stranger waif reflected

the opposite of every characteristic the countenance of the queen

denoted. Lust and mystery sparkled in her scintillant eyes, cruelty

lurked in the curl of her full red lips. Each movement of her supple

body was subtly suggestive. Her coiffure imitated that of the queen's,

on her feet were gilded sandals such as Taramis wore in her boudoir.

The sleeveless, low-necked silk tunic, girdled at the waist with a

cloth-of-gold cincture, was a duplicate of the queen's night-garment.



"Who are you?" gasped Taramis, an icy chill she could not explain

creeping along her spine. "Explain your presence before I call my

ladies-in-waiting to summon the guard!"



"Scream until the roof beams crack," callously answered the stranger.

"Your sluts will not wake till dawn, though the palace spring into

flames about them. Your guardsmen will not hear your squeals; they

have been sent out of this wing of the palace."



"What!" exclaimed Taramis, stiffening with outraged majesty. "Who

dared give my guardsmen such a command?"



"I did, sweet sister," sneered the other girl. "A little while ago,

before I entered. They thought it was their darling adored queen. Ha!

How beautifully I acted the part! With what imperious dignity,

softened by womanly sweetness, did I address the great louts who knelt

in their armor and plumed helmets!"



Taramis felt as if a stifling net of bewilderment were being drawn

about her.



"Who are you?" she cried desperately. "What madness is this? Why do

you come here?"



"Who am I?" There was the spite of a she-cobra's hiss in the soft

response. The girl stepped to the edge of the couch, grasped the

queen's white shoulders with fierce fingers, and bent to glare full

into the startled eyes of Taramis. And under the spell of that

hypnotic glare, the queen forgot to resent the unprecedented outrage

of violent hands laid on regal flesh.



"Fool!" gritted the girl between her teeth. "Can you ask? Can you

wonder? I am Salome!"



"Salome!" Taramis breathed the word, and the hairs prickled on her

scalp as she realized the incredible, numbing truth of the statement.

"I thought you died within the hour of your birth," she said feebly.



"So thought many," answered the woman who called herself Salome. "They

carried me into the desert to die, damn them! I, a mewing, puling babe

whose life was so young it was scarcely the flicker of a candle. And

do you know why they bore me forth to die?"



"I--I have heard the story--" faltered Taramis.



Salome laughed fiercely, and slapped her bosom. The low-necked tunic

left the upper parts of her firm breasts bare, and between them there

shone a curious mark--a crescent, red as blood.



"The mark of the witch!" cried Taramis, recoiling.



"Aye!" Salome's laughter was dagger-edged with hate. "The curse of the

kings of Khauran! Aye, they tell the tale in the market-places, with

wagging beards and rolling eyes, the pious fools! They tell how the

first queen of our line had traffic with a fiend of darkness and bore

him a daughter who lives in foul legendry to this day. And thereafter

in each century a girl baby was born into the Askhaurian dynasty, with

a scarlet half-moon between her breasts, that signified her destiny.



"Every century a witch shall be born." So ran the ancient curse. And

so it has come to pass. Some were slain at birth, as they sought to

slay me. Some walked the earth as witches, proud daughters of Khauran,

with the moon of hell burning upon their ivory bosoms. Each was named

Salome. I too am Salome. It was always Salome, the witch. It will

always be Salome, the witch, even when the mountains of ice have

roared down from the pole and ground the civilizations to ruin, and a

new world has risen from the ashes and dust--even then there shall be

Salomes to walk the earth, to trap men's hearts by their sorcery, to

dance before the kings of the world, to see the heads of the wise men

fall at their pleasure."



"But--but you--" stammered Taramis.



"I?" The scintillant eyes burned like dark fires of mystery. "They

carried me into the desert far from the city, and laid me naked on the

hot sand, under the flaming sun. And then they rode away and left me

for the jackals and the vultures and the desert wolves.



"But the life in me was stronger than the life in common folk, for it

partakes of the essence of the forces that seethe in the black gulfs

beyond mortal ken. The hours passed, and the sun slashed down like the

molten flames of hell, but I did not die aye, something of that

torment I remember, faintly and far away, as one remembers a dim,

formless dream. Then there were camels, and yellow-skinned men who

wore silk robes and spoke in a weird tongue. Strayed from the caravan

road, they passed close by, and their leader saw me, and recognized

the scarlet crescent on my bosom. He took me up and gave me life.



"He was a magician from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdom

after a journey to Stygia He took me with him to purple-towering

Paikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-festooned jungles of

bamboo, and there I grew to womanhood under his teaching. Age had

steeped him deep in black wisdom, not weakened his powers of evil.

Many things he taught me-"



She paused, smiling enigmatically, with wicked mystery gleaming in her

dark eyes. Then she tossed her head.



"He drove me from him at last, saying that I was but a common witch in

spite of his teachings, and not fit to command the mighty sorcery he

would have taught me. He would have made me queen of the world and

ruled the nations through me, he said, but I was only a harlot of

darkness. But what of it? I could never endure to seclude myself in a

golden tower, and spend the long hours staring into a crystal globe,

mumbling over incantations written on serpent's skin in the blood of

virgins, poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.



"He said I was but an earthly sprite, knowing naught of the deeper

gulfs of cosmic sorcery. Well, this world contains all I desire--

power, and pomp, and glittering pageantry, handsome men and soft women

for my paramours and my slaves. He had told me who I was, of the curse

and my heritage. I have returned to take that to which I have as much

right as you. Now it is mine by right of possession."



"What do you mean?" Taramis sprang up and faced her sister, stung out

of her bewilderment and fright. "Do you imagine that by drugging a few

of my maids and tricking a few of my guardsmen you have established a

claim to the throne of Khauran? Do not forget that I am Queen of

Khauran! I shall give you a place of honor, as my sister, but-"



Salome laughed hatefully.



"How generous of you, dear, sweet sister! But before you begin putting

me in my place--perhaps you will tell me whose soldiers camp in the

plain outside the city walls?"



"They are the Shemitish mercenaries of Constantius, the Kothic voivode

of the Free Companies."



"And what do they in Khauran?" cooed Salome.



Taramis felt that she was being subtly mocked, but she answered with

an assumption of dignity which she scarcely felt.



"Constantius asked permission to pass along the borders of Khauran on

his way to Turan. He himself is hostage for their good behavior as

long as they are within my domains."



"And Constantius," pursued Salome. "Did he not ask your hand today?"



Taramis shot her a clouded glance of suspicion.



"How did you know that?"



An insolent shrug of the slim naked shoulders was the only reply.



"You refused, dear sister?"



"Certainly I refused!" exclaimed Taramis angrily. "Do you, an

Askhaurian princess yourself, suppose that the Queen of Khauran could

treat such a proposal with anything but disdain? Wed a bloody-handed

adventurer, a man exiled from his own kingdom because of his crimes,

and the leader of organized plunderers and hired murderers?



"I should never have allowed him to bring his black-bearded slayers

into Khauran. But he is virtually a prisoner in the south tower,

guarded by my soldiers. Tomorrow I shall bid him order his troops to

leave the kingdom. He himself shall be kept captive until they are

over the border. Meantime, my soldiers man the walls of the city, and

I have warned him that he will answer for any outrages perpetrated on

the villagers or shepherds by his mercenaries."



"He is confined in the south tower?" asked Salome.



"That is what I said. Why do you ask?"



For answer Salome clapped her hands, and lifting her voice, with a

gurgle of cruel mirth in it, called: "The queen grants you an

audience, Falcon!"



A gold-arabesqued door opened and a tall figure entered the chamber,

at the sight of which Taramis cried out in amazement and anger.



"Constantius! You dare enter my chamber!"



"As you see, Your Majesty!" He bent his dark, hawk-like head in mock

humility.



Constantius, whom men called Falcon, was tall, broad-shouldered, slim-

waisted, lithe and strong as pliant steel. He was handsome in an

aquiline, ruthless way. His face was burnt dark by the sun, and his

hair, which grew far back from his high, narrow forehead, was black as

a raven. His dark eyes were penetrating and alert, the hardness of his

thin lips not softened by his thin black mustache. His boots were of

Kordavan leather, his hose and doublet of plain, dark silk, tarnished

with the wear of the camps and the stains of armor rust.



Twisting his mustache, he let his gaze travel up and down the

shrinking queen with an effrontery that made her wince.



"By Ishtar, Taramis," he said silkily, "I find you more alluring in

your night-tunic than in your queenly robes. Truly, this is an

auspicious night!"



Fear grew in the queen's dark eyes. She was no fool; she knew that

Constantius would never dare this outrage unless he was sure of

himself.



"You are mad!" she said. "If I am in your power in this chamber, you

are no less in the power of my subjects, who will rend you to pieces

if you touch me. Go at once, if you would live."



Both laughed mockingly, and Salome made an impatient gesture.



"Enough of this farce; let us on to the next act in the comedy.

Listen, dear sister: it was I who sent Constantius here. When I

decided to take the throne of Khauran, I cast about for a man to aid

me, and chose the Falcon, because of his utter lack of all

characteristics men call good."



"I am overwhelmed, princess," murmured Constantius sardonically, with

a profound bow.



"I sent him to Khauran, and, once his men were camped in the plain

outside, and he was in the palace, I entered the city by that small

gate in the west wall--the fools guarding it thought it was you

returning from some nocturnal adventure-"



"You hell-cat!" Taramis's cheeks flamed and her resentment got the

better of her regal reserve.



Salome smiled hardly.



"They were properly surprised and shocked, but admitted me without

question. I entered the palace the same way, and gave the order to the

surprised guards that sent them marching away, as well as the men who

guarded Constantius in the south tower. Then I came here, attending to

the ladies-in-waiting on the way."



Taramis's fingers clenched and she paled.



"Well, what next?" she asked in a shaky voice.



"Listen!" Salome inclined her head. Faintly through the casement there

came the clank of marching men in armor; gruff voices shouted in an

alien tongue, and cries of alarm mingled with the shouts.



"The people awaken and grow fearful," said Constantius sardonically.

"You had better go and reassure them, Salome!"



"Call me Taramis," answered Salome. "We must become accustomed to it."



"What have you done?" cried Taramis. "What have you done?"



"I have gone to the gates and ordered the soldiers to open them,"

answered Salome. "They were astounded, but they obeyed. That is the

Falcon's army you hear, marching into the city."



"You devil!" cried Taramis. "You have betrayed my people, in my guise!

You have made me seem a traitor! Oh, I shall go to them-"



With a cruel laugh Salome caught her wrist and jerked her back. The

magnificent suppleness of the queen was helpless against the

vindictive strength that steeled Salome's slender limbs.



"You know how to reach the dungeons from the palace, Constantius?"

said the witch-girl. "Good. Take this spitfire and lock her into the

strongest cell. The jailers are all sound in drugged sleep. I saw to

that. Send a man to cut their throats before they can awaken. None

must ever know what has occurred tonight. Thenceforward I am Taramis,

and Taramis is a nameless prisoner in an unknown dungeon."



Constantius smiled with a glint of strong white teeth under his thin

mustache.



"Very good; but you would not deny me a little--ah amusement first?"



"Not I! Tame the scornful hussy as you will." With a wicked laugh

Salome flung her sister into the Kothian's arms, and turned away

through the door that opened into the outer corridor.



Fright widened Taramis's lovely eyes, her supple figure rigid and

straining against Constantius's embrace. She forgot the men marching

in the streets, forgot the outrage to her queenship, in the face of

the menace to her womanhood. She forgot all sensations but terror and

shame as she faced the complete cynicism of Constantius's burning,

mocking eyes, felt his hard arms crushing her writhing body.



Salome, hurrying along the corridor outside, smiled spitefully as a

scream of despair and agony rang shuddering through the palace.







2 The Tree of Death



The young soldier's hose and shirt were smeared with dried blood, wet

with sweat and gray with dust. Blood oozed from the deep gash in his

thigh, from the cuts on his breast and shoulder. Perspiration

glistened on his livid face and his fingers were knotted in the cover

of the divan on which he lay. Yet his words reflected mental suffering

that outweighed physical pain.



"She must be mad!" he repeated again and again, like one still stunned

by some monstrous and incredible happening. "It's like a nightmare!

Taramis, whom all Khauran loves, betraying her people to that devil

from Koth! Oh, Ishtar, why was I not slain? Better die than live to

see our queen turn traitor and harlot!"



"Lie still, Valerius," begged the girl who was washing and bandaging

his wounds with trembling hands. "Oh, please lie still, darling! You

will make your wounds worse. I dared not summon a leech-"



"No," muttered the wounded youth. "Constantius's bluebearded devils

will be searching the quarters for wounded Khaurani; they'll hang

every man who has wounds to show he fought against them. Oh, Taramis,

how could you betray the people who worshipped you?" In his fierce

agony he writhed, weeping in rage and shame, and the terrified girl

caught him in her arms, straining his tossing head against her bosom,

imploring him to be quiet.



"Better death than the black shame that has come upon Khauran this

day," he groaned. "Did you see it, Ivga?"



"No, Valerius." Her soft, nimble fingers were again at work, gently

cleansing and closing the gaping edges of his raw wounds. "I was

awakened by the noise of fighting in the streets--I looked out a

casement and saw the Shemites cutting down people; then presently I

heard you calling me faintly from the alley door."



"I had reached the limits of my strength," he muttered. "I fell in the

alley and could not rise. I knew they'd find me soon if I lay there--I

killed three of the blue-bearded beasts, by Ishtar! They'll never

swagger through Khauran's streets, by the gods! The fiends are tearing

their hearts in hell!"



The trembling girl crooned soothingly to him, as to a wounded child,

and closed his panting lips with her own cool sweet mouth. But the

fire that raged in his soul would not allow him to lie silent.



"I was not on the wall when the Shemites entered," he burst out. "I

was asleep in the barracks, with the others not on duty. It was just

before dawn when our captain entered, and his face was pale under his

helmet. 'The Shemites are in the city," he said. "The queen came to

the southern gate and gave orders that they should be admitted. She

made the men come down from the walls, where they've been on guard

since Constantius entered the kingdom. I don't understand it, and

neither does anyone else, but I heard her give the order, and we

obeyed as we always do. We are ordered to assemble in the square

before the palace. Form ranks outside the barracks and march--leave

your arms and armor here. Ishtar knows what this means, but it is the

queen's order."



"Well, when we came to the square the Shemites were drawn up on foot

opposite the palace, ten thousand of the blue-bearded devils, fully

armed, and people's heads were thrust out of every window and door on

the square. The streets leading into the square were thronged by

bewildered folk. Taramis was standing on the steps of the palace,

alone except for Constantius, who stood stroking his mustache like a

great lean cat who has just devoured a sparrow. But fifty Shemites

with bows in their hands were ranged below them."



"That's where the queen's guard should have been, but they were drawn

up at the foot of the palace stair, as puzzled as we, though they had

come fully armed, in spite of the queen's order."



"Taramis spoke to us then, and told us that she had reconsidered the

proposal made her by Constantius--why, only yesterday she threw it in

his teeth in open court--and that she had decided to make him her

royal consort. She did not explain why she had brought the Shemites

into the city so treacherously. But she said that, as Constantius had

control of a body of professional fighting-men, the army of Khauran

would no longer be needed, and therefore she disbanded it, and ordered

us to go quietly to our homes."



"Why, obedience to our queen is second nature to us, but we were

struck dumb and found no word to answer. We broke ranks almost before

we knew what we were doing, like men in a daze."



"But when the palace guard was ordered to disarm likewise and disband,

the captain of the guard, Conan, interrupted. Men said he was off duty

the night before, and drunk. But he was wide awake now. He shouted to

the guardsmen to stand as they were until they received an order from

him--and such is his dominance of his men, that they obeyed in spite

of the queen. He strode up to the palace steps and glared at Taramis--

and then he roared: 'This is not the queen! This isn't Taramis! It's

some devil in masquerade!"



"Then hell was to pay! I don't know just what happened. I think a

Shemite struck Conan, and Conan killed him. The next instant the

square was a battleground. The Shemites fell on the guardsmen, and

their spears and arrows struck down many soldiers who had already

disbanded."



"Some of us grabbed up such weapons as we could and fought back. We

hardly knew what we were fighting for, but it was against Constantius

and his devils--not against Taramis, I swear it! Constantius shouted

to cut the traitors down. We were not traitors!" Despair and

bewilderment shook his voice. The girl murmured pityingly, not

understanding it all, but aching in sympathy with her lover's

suffering.



"The people did not know which side to take. It was a madhouse of

confusion and bewilderment. We who fought didn't have a chance, in no

formation, without armor and only half armed. The guards were fully

armed and drawn up in a square, but there were only five hundred of

them. They took a heavy toll before they were cut down, but there

could be only one conclusion to such a battle. And while her people

were being slaughtered before her, Taramis stood on the palace steps,

with Constantius's arm about her waist, and laughed like a heartless,

beautiful fiend! Gods, it's all mad--mad!



"I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the

courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him the dead men were

strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him

down, a hundred against one. When I saw him fall I dragged myself away

feeling as if the world had burst under my very fingers. I heard

Constantius call to his dogs to take the captain alive--stroking his

mustache, with that hateful smile on his lips!"



That smile was on the lips of Constantius at that very moment. He sat

his horse among a cluster of his men--thick-bodied Shemites with

curled blue-black beards and hooked noses; the low-swinging sun struck

glints from their peaked helmets and the silvered scales of their

corselets. Nearly a mile behind, the walls and towers of Khauran rose

sheer out of the meadowlands.



By the side of the caravan road a heavy cross had been planted, and on

this grim tree a man hung, nailed there by iron spikes through his

hands and feet. Naked but for a loin-cloth, the man was almost a giant

in stature, and his muscles stood out in thick corded ridges on limbs

and body, which the sun had long ago burned brown. The perspiration of

agony beaded his face and his mighty breast, but from under the

tangled black mane that fell over his low, broad forehead, his blue

eyes blazed with an unquenched fire. Blood oozed sluggishly from the

lacerations in his hands and feet.



Constantius saluted him mockingly.



"I am sorry, captain," he said, "that I cannot remain to ease your

last hours, but I have duties to perform in yonder city--I must not

keep your delicious queen waiting!" He laughed softly. "So I leave you

to your own devices--and those beauties!" He pointed meaningly at the

black shadows which swept incessantly back and forth, high above.



"Were it not for them, I imagine that a powerful brute like yourself

should live on the cross for days. Do not cherish any illusions of

rescue because I am leaving you unguarded. I have had it proclaimed

that anyone seeking to take your body, living or dead, from the cross,

will be flayed alive together with all the members of his family, in

the public square. I am so firmly established in Khauran that my order

is as good as a regiment of guardsmen. I am leaving no guard, because

the vultures will not approach as long as anyone is near, and I do not

wish them to feel any constraint. That is also why I brought you so

far from the city. These desert vultures approach the walls no closer

than this spot.



"And so, brave captain, farewell! I will remember you when, in an

hour, Taramis lies in my arms."



Blood started afresh from the pierced palms as the victim's mallet-

like fists clenched convulsively on the spike-heads. Knots and bunches

of muscle started out of the massive arms, and Conan beat his head

forward and spat savagely at Constantius's face. The voivode laughed

coolly, wiped the saliva from his gorget and reined his horse about.



"Remember me when the vultures are tearing at your living flesh," he

called mockingly. "The desert scavengers are a particularly voracious

breed. I have seen men hang for hours on a cross, eyeless, earless,

and scalpless, before the sharp beaks had eaten their way into their

vitals."



Without a backward glance he rode toward the city, a supple, erect

figure, gleaming in his burnished armor, his stolid, bearded henchmen

jogging beside him. A faint rising of dust from the worn trail marked

their passing.



The man hanging on the cross was the one touch of sentient life in a

landscape that seemed desolate and deserted in the late evening.

Khauran, less than a mile away, might have been on the other side of

the world, and existing in another age.



Shaking the sweat out of his eyes, Conan stared blankly at the

familiar terrain. On either side of the city, and beyond it, stretched

the fertile meadowlands, with cattle browsing in the distance where

fields and vineyards checkered the plain. The western and northern

horizons were dotted with villages, miniature in the distance. A

lesser distance to the southeast a silvery gleam marked the course of

a river, and beyond that river sandy desert began abruptly to stretch

away and away beyond the horizon. Conan stared at that expanse of

empty waste shimmering tawnily in the late sunlight as a trapped hawk

stares at the open sky. A revulsion shook him when he glanced at the

gleaming towers of Khauran. The city had betrayed him--trapped him

into circumstances that left him hanging to a wooden cross like a hare

nailed to a tree.



A red lust for vengeance swept away the thought. Curses ebbed fitfully

from the man's lips. All his universe contracted, focused, became

incorporated in the four iron spikes that held him from life and

freedom. His great muscles quivered, knotting like iron cables. With

the sweat starting out on his graying skin, he sought to gain

leverage, to tear the nails from the wood. It was useless. They had

been driven deep. Then he tried to tear his hands off the spikes, and

it was not the knifing, abysmal agony that finally caused him to cease

his efforts, but the futility of it. The spike-heads were broad and

heavy; he could not drag them through the wounds. A surge of

helplessness shook the giant, for the first time in his life. He hung

motionless, his head resting on his breast, shutting his eyes against

the aching glare of the sun.



A beat of wings caused him to look, just as a feathered shadow shot

down out of the sky. A keen beak, stabbing at his eyes, cut his cheek,

and he jerked his head aside, shutting his eyes involuntarily. He

shouted, a croaking, desperate shout of menace, and the vultures

swerved away and retreated, frightened by the sound. They resumed

their wary circling above his head. Blood trickled over Conan's mouth,

and he licked his lips involuntarily, spat at the salty taste.



Thirst assailed him savagely. He had drunk deeply of wine the night

before, and no water had touched his lips since before the battle in

the square, that dawn. And killing was thirsty, salt-sweaty work. He

glared at the distant river as a man in hell glares through the opened

grille. He thought of gushing freshets of white water he had breasted,

laved to the shoulders in liquid jade. He remembered great horns of

foaming ale, jacks of sparkling wine gulped carelessly or spilled on

the tavern floor. He bit his lip to keep from bellowing in intolerable

anguish as a tortured animal bellows.



The sun sank, a lurid ball in a fiery sea of blood. Against a crimson

rampart that banded the horizon the towers of the city floated unreal

as a dream. The very sky was tinged with blood to his misted glare. He

licked his blackened lips and stared with bloodshot eyes at the

distant river. It too seemed crimson with blood, and the shadows

crawling up from the east seemed black as ebony.



In his dulled ears sounded the louder beat of wings. Lifting his head

he watched with the burning glare of a wolf the shadows wheeling above

him. He knew that his shouts would frighten them away no longer. One

dipped--dipped--lower and lower. Conan drew his head back as far as he

could, waiting with terrible patience. The vulture swept in with a

swift roar of wings. Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on

Conan's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird could

flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles,

and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the bare,

wattled neck.



Instantly the vulture exploded into squawking, flapping hysteria. Its

thrashing wings blinded the man, and its talons ripped his chest. But

grimly he hung on, the muscles starting out in lumps on his jaws. And

the scavenger's neckbones crunched between those powerful teeth. With

a spasmodic flutter the bird hung limp. Conan let go, spat blood from

his mouth. The other vultures, terrified by the fate of their

companion, were in full flight to a distant tree, where they perched

like black demons in conclave.



Ferocious triumph surged through Conan's numbed brain. Life beat

strongly and savagely through his veins. He could still deal death; he

still lived. Every twinge of sensation, even of agony, was a negation

of death.



"By Mitra!" Either a voice spoke, or he suffered from hallucination.

"In all my life I have never seen such a thing!"



Shaking the sweat and blood from his eyes, Conan saw four horsemen

sitting their steeds in the twilight and staring up at him. Three were

lean, white-robed hawks, Zuagir tribesmen without a doubt, nomads from

beyond the river. The other was dressed like them in a white, girdled

khalat and a flowing head-dress which, banded about the temples with a

triple circlet of braided camelhair, fell to his shoulders. But he was

not a Shemite. The dust was not so thick, nor Conan's hawk-like sight

so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial

characteristics.



He was as tall as Conan, though not so heavy-limbed. His shoulders

were broad and his supple figure was hard as steel and whalebone. A

short black beard did not altogether mask the aggressive jut of his

lean jaw, and gray eyes cold and piercing as a sword gleamed from the

shadow of the kafieh. Quieting his restless steed with a quick, sure

hand, this man spoke: "By Mitra, I should know this man!"



"Aye!" It was the guttural accents of a Zuagir. "It is the Cimmerian

who was captain of the queen's guard!"



"She must be casting off all her old favorites," muttered the rider.

"Who'd have ever thought it of Queen Taramis? I'd rather have had a

long, bloody war. It would have given us desert folk a chance to

plunder. As it is we've come this close to the walls and found only

this nag"--he glanced at a fine gelding led by one of the nomads--"and

this dying dog."



Conan lifted his bloody head.



"If I could come down from this beam I'd make a dying dog out of you,

you Zaporoskan thief!" he rasped through blackened lips.



"Mitra, the knave knows me!" exclaimed the other. "How, knave, do you

know me?"



"There's only one of your breed in these parts," muttered Conan. "You

are Olgerd Vladislav, the outlaw chief."



"Aye! and once a hetman of the kozaki of the Zaporoskan River, as you

have guessed. Would you like to live?"



"Only a fool would ask that question," panted Conan.



"I am a hard man," said Olgerd, "and toughness is the only quality I

respect in a man. I shall judge if you are a man, or only a dog after

all, fit only to lie here and die."



"If we cut him down we may be seen from the walls," objected one of

the nomads.



Olgerd shook his head.



"The dusk is deep. Here, take this ax, Djebal, and cut down the cross

at the base."



"If it falls forward it will crush him," objected Djebal. "I can cut

it so it will fall backward, but then the shock of the fall may crack

his skull and tear loose all his entrails."



"If he's worthy to ride with me he'll survive it," answered Olgerd

imperturbably. "If not, then he doesn't deserve to live. Cut!"



The first impact of the battle-ax against the wood and its

accompanying vibrations sent lances of agony through Conan's swollen

feet and hands. Again and again the blade fell, and each stroke

reverberated on his bruised brain, setting his tortured nerves

aquiver. But he set his teeth and made no sound. The ax cut through,

the cross reeled on its splintered base and toppled backward. Conan

made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head

back hard against the wood and held it rigid there. The beam struck

the ground heavily and rebounded slightly. The impact tore his wounds

and dazed him for an instant. He fought the rushing tide of blackness,

sick and dizzy, but realized that the iron muscles that sheathed his

vitals had saved him from permanent injury.



And he had made no sound, though blood oozed from his nostrils and his

belly-muscles quivered with nausea. With a grunt of approval Djebal

bent over him with a pair of pincers used to draw horse-shoe nails,

and gripped the head of the spike in Conan's right hand, tearing the

skin to get a grip on the deeply embedded head. The pincers were small

for that work. Djebal sweated and tugged, swearing and wrestling with

the stubborn iron, working it back and forth--in swollen flesh as well

as in wood. Blood started, oozing over the Cimmerian's fingers. He lay

so still he might have been dead, except for the spasmodic rise and

fall of his great chest. The spike gave way, and Djebal held up the

blood-stained thing with a grunt of satisfaction, then flung it away

and bent over the other.



The process was repeated, and then Djebal turned his attention to

Conan's skewered feet. But the Cimmerian, struggling up to a sitting

posture, wrenched the pincers from his fingers and sent him staggering

backward with a violent shove. Conan's hands were swollen to almost

twice their normal size. His fingers felt like misshapen thumbs, and

closing his hands was an agony that brought blood streaming from under

his grinding teeth. But somehow, clutching the pincers clumsily with

both hands, he managed to wrench out first one spike and then the

other. They were not driven so deeply into the wood as the others had

been.



He rose stiffly and stood upright on his swollen, lacerated feet,

swaying drunkenly, the icy sweat dripping from his face and body.

Cramps assailed him and he clamped his jaws against the desire to

retch.



Olgerd, watching him impersonally, motioned him toward the stolen

horse. Conan stumbled toward it, and every step was a stabbing,

throbbing hell that flecked his lips with bloody foam. One misshapen,

groping hand fell clumsily on the saddle-bow, a bloody foot somehow

found the stirrup. Setting his teeth, he swung up, and he almost

fainted in midair; but he came down in the saddle--and as he did so,

Olgerd struck the horse sharply with his whip. The startled beast

reared, and the man in the saddle swayed and slumped like a sack of

sand, almost unseated. Conan had wrapped a rein about each hand,

holding it in place with a clamping thumb. Drunkenly he exerted the

strength of his knotted biceps, wrenching the horse down; it screamed,

its jaw almost dislocated.



One of the Shemites lifted a water-flask questioningly.



Olgerd shook his head.



"Let him wait until we get to camp. It's only ten miles. If he's fit

to live in the desert he'll live that long without a drink."



The group rode like swift ghosts toward the river; among them Conan

swayed like a drunken man in the saddle, bloodshot eyes glazed, foam

drying on his blackened lips.







3 A Letter to Nemedia



The savant Astreas, traveling in the East in his never-tiring search

for knowledge, wrote a letter to his friend and fellowphilosopher

Alcemides, in his native Nemedia, which constitutes the entire

knowledge of the Western nations concerning the events of that period

in the East, always a hazy, half-mythical region in the minds of the

Western folk.



Astreas wrote, in part: "You can scarcely conceive, my dear old

friend, of the conditions now existing in this tiny kingdom since

Queen Taramis admitted Constantius and his mercenaries, an event which

I briefly described in my last, hurried letter. Seven months have

passed since then, during which time it seems as though the devil

himself had been loosed in this unfortunate realm. Taramis seems to

have gone quite mad; whereas formerly she was famed for her virtue,

justice and tranquility, she is now notorious for qualities precisely

opposite to those just enumerated. Her private life is a scandal--or

perhaps 'private' is not the correct term, since the queen makes no

attempt to conceal the debauchery of her court. She constantly

indulges in the most infamous revelries, in which the unfortunate

ladies of the court are forced to join, young married women as well as

virgins."



"She herself has not bothered to marry her paramour, Constantius, who

sits on the throne beside her and reigns as her royal consort, and his

officers follow his example, and do not hesitate to debauch any woman

they desire, regardless of her rank or station. The wretched kingdom

groans under exorbitant taxation, the farms are stripped to the bone,

and the merchants go in rags which are all that is left them by the

tax-gatherers. Nay, they are lucky if they escape with a whole skin.



"I sense your incredulity, good Alcemides; you will fear that I

exaggerate conditions in Khauran. Such conditions would be unthinkable

in any of the Western countries, admittedly. But you must realize the

vast difference that exists between West and East, especially this

part of the East. In the first place, Khauran is a kingdom of no great

size, one of the many principalities which at one time formed the

eastern part of the empire of Koth, and which later regained the

independence which was theirs at a still earlier age. This part of the

world is made up of these tiny realms, diminutive in comparison with

the great kingdoms of the West, or the great sultanates of the farther

East, but important in their control of the caravan routes, and in the

wealth concentrated in them."



"Khauran is the most southeasterly of these principalities, bordering

on the very deserts of eastern Shem. The city of Khauran is the only

city of any magnitude in the realm, and stands within sight of the

river which separates the grasslands from the sandy desert, like a

watch-tower to guard the fertile meadows behind it. The land is so

rich that it yields three and four crops a year, and the plains north

and west of the city are dotted with villages. To one accustomed to

the great plantations and stock-farms of the West, it is strange to

see these tiny fields and vineyards; yet wealth in grain and fruit

pours from them as from a horn of plenty. The villagers are

agriculturists, nothing else. Of a mixed, aboriginal race, they are

unwarlike, unable to protect themselves, and forbidden the possession

of arms. Dependent wholly upon the soldiers of the city for

protection, they are helpless under the present conditions. So the

savage revolt of the rural sections, which would be a certainty in any

Western nation, is here impossible.



"They toil supinely under the iron hand of Constantius, and his black-

bearded Shemites ride incessantly through the fields, with whips in

their hands, like the slave-drivers of the black serfs who toil in the

plantations of southern Zingara."



"Nor do the people of the city fare any better. Their wealth is

stripped from them, their fairest daughters taken to glut the

insatiable lust of Constantius and his mercenaries. These men are

utterly without mercy or compassion, possessed of all the

characteristics our armies learned to abhor in our wars against the

Shemitish allies of Argos--inhuman cruelty, lust, and wild-beast

ferocity. The people of the city are Khauran's ruling caste,

predominantly Hyborian, and valorous and war-like. But the treachery

of their queen delivered them into the hands of their oppressors. The

Shemites are the only armed force in Khauran, and the most hellish

punishment is inflicted on any Khaurani found possessing weapons. A

systematic persecution to destroy the young Khaurani men able to bear

arms has been savagely pursued. Many have ruthlessly been slaughtered,

others sold as slaves to the Turanians. Thousands have fled the

kingdom and either entered the service of other rulers, or become

outlaws, lurking in numerous bands along the borders."



"At present there is some possibility of invasion from the desert,

which is inhabited by tribes of Shemitish nomads. The mercenaries of

Constantius are men from the Shemitish cities of the west, Pelishtim,

Anakim, Akkharim, and are ardently hated by the Zuagirs and other

wandering tribes. As you know, good Alcemides, the countries of these

barbarians are divided into the western meadowlands which stretch to

the distant ocean, and in which rise the cities of the town-dwellers,

and the eastern deserts, where the lean nomads hold sway; there is

incessant warfare between the dwellers of the cities and the dwellers

of the desert."



"The Zuagirs have fought with and raided Khauran for centuries,

without success, but they resent its conquest by their western kin. It

is rumored that their natural antagonism is being fomented by the man

who was formerly the captain of the queen's guard, and who, somehow

escaping the hate of Constantius, who actually had him upon the cross,

fled to the nomads. He is called Conan, and is himself a barbarian,

one of those gloomy Cimmerians whose ferocity our soldiers have more

than once learned to their bitter cost. It is rumored that he has

become the right-hand man of Olgerd Vladislav, the kozak adventurer

who wandered down from the northern steppes and made himself chief of

a band of Zuagirs. There are also rumors that this band has increased

vastly in the last few months, and that Olgerd, incited no doubt by

this Cimmerian, is even considering a raid on Khauran.



"It can not be anything more than a raid, as the Zuagirs are without

siege-machines, or the knowledge of investing a city, and it has been

proven repeatedly in the past that the nomads in their loose

formation, or rather lack of formation, are no match in hand-to-hand

fighting for the well-disciplined, fully-armed warriors of the

Shemitish cities. The natives of Khauran would perhaps welcome this

conquest, since the nomads could deal with them no more harshly than

their present masters, and even total extermination would be

preferable to the suffering they have to endure. But they are so cowed

and helpless that they could give no aid to the invaders.



"Their plight is most wretched. Taramis, apparently possessed of a

demon, stops at nothing. She has abolished the worship of Ishtar, and

turned the temple into a shrine of idolatry. She has destroyed the

ivory image of the goddess which these eastern Hyborians worship (and

which, inferior as it is to the true religion of Mitra which we

Western nations recognize, is still superior to the devil-worship of

the Shemites) and filled the temple of Ishtar with obscene images of

every imaginable sort--gods and goddesses of the night, portrayed in

all the salacious and perverse poses and with all the revolting

characteristics that a degenerate brain could conceive. Many of these

images are to be identified as foul deities of the Shemites, the

Turanians, the Vendhyans, and the Khitans, but others are reminiscent

of a hideous and half-remembered antiquity, vile shapes forgotten

except in the most obscure legends. Where the queen gained the

knowledge of them I dare not even hazard a guess.



"She has instituted human sacrifice, and since her mating with

Constantius, no less then five hundred men, women and children have

been immolated. Some of these have died on the altar she has set up in

the temple, herself wielding the sacrificial dagger, but most have met

a more horrible doom.



"Taramis has placed some sort of monster in a crypt in the temple.

What it is, and whence it came, none knows. But shortly after she had

crushed the desperate revolt of her soldiers against Constantius, she

spent a night alone in the desecrated temple, alone except for a dozen

bound captives, and the shuddering people saw thick, foul-smelling

smoke curling up from the dome, heard all night the frenetic chanting

of the queen, and the agonized cries of her tortured captives; and

toward dawn another voice mingled with these sounds--a strident,

inhuman croaking that froze the blood of all who heard.



"In the full dawn Taramis reeled drunkenly from the temple, her eyes

blazing with demoniac triumph. The captives were never seen again, nor

the croaking voice heard. But there is a room in the temple into which

none ever goes but the queen, driving a human sacrifice before her.

And this victim is never seen again. All know that in that grim

chamber lurks some monster from the black night of ages, which devours

the shrieking humans Taramis delivers up to it.



"I can no longer think of her as a mortal woman, but as a rabid she-

fiend, crouching in her blood-fouled lair amongst the bones and

fragments of her victims, with taloned, crimsoned fingers. That the

gods allow her to pursue her awful course unchecked almost shakes my

faith in divine justice."



"When I compare her present conduct with her deportment when first I

came to Khauran, seven months ago, I am confused with bewilderment,

and almost inclined to the belief held by many of the people--that a

demon has possessed the body of Taramis. A young soldier, Valerius,

had another belief. He believed that a witch had assumed a form

identical with that of Khauran's adored ruler. He believed that

Taramis had been spirited away in the night, and confined in some

dungeon, and that this being ruling in her place was but a female

sorcerer. He swore that he would find the real queen, if she still

lived, but I greatly fear that he himself has fallen victim to the

cruelty of Constantius. He was implicated in the revolt of the palace

guards, escaped and remained in hiding for some time, stubbornly

refusing to seek safety abroad, and it was during this time that I

encountered him and he told me his beliefs.



"But he has disappeared, as so many have, whose fate one dares not

conjecture, and I fear he has been apprehended by the spies of

Constantius.



"But I must conclude this letter and slip it out of the city by means

of a swift carrier-pigeon, which will carry it to the post whence I

purchased it, on the borders of Koth. By rider and camel-train it will

eventually come to you. I must haste, before dawn. It is late, and the

stars gleam whitely on the gardened roofs of Khauran. A shuddering

silence envelops the city, in which I hear the throb of a sullen drum

from the distant temple. I doubt not that Taramis is there, concocting

more devilry."



But the savant was incorrect in his conjecture concerning the

whereabouts of the woman he called Taramis. The girl whom the world

knew as queen of Khauran stood in a dungeon, lighted only by a

flickering torch which played on her features, etching the diabolical

cruelty of her beautiful countenance.



On the bare stone floor before her crouched a figure whose nakedness

was scarcely covered with tattered rags.



This figure Salome touched contemptuously with the upturned toe of her

gilded sandal, and smiled vindictively as her victim shrank away.



"You do not love my caresses, sweet sister?"



Taramis was still beautiful, in spite of her rags and the imprisonment

and abuse of seven weary months. She did not reply to her sister's

taunts, but bent her head as one grown accustomed to mockery.



This resignation did not please Salome. She bit her red lip, and stood

tapping the toe of her shoe against the floor as she frowned down at

the passive figure. Salome was clad in the barbaric splendor of a

woman of Shushan. Jewels glittered in the torchlight on her gilded

sandals, on her gold breast-plates and the slender chains that held

them in place. Gold anklets clashed as she moved, jeweled bracelets

weighted her bare arms. Her tall coiffure was that of a Shemitish

woman, and jade pendants hung from gold hoops in her ears, flashing

and sparkling with each impatient movement of her haughty head. A gem-

crusted girdle supported a silk shirt so transparent that it was in

the nature of a cynical mockery of convention.



Suspended from her shoulders and trailing down her back hung a darkly

scarlet cloak, and this was thrown carelessly over the crook of one

arm and the bundle that arm supported.



Salome stooped suddenly and with her free hand grasped her sister's

dishevelled hair and forced back the girl's head to stare into her

eyes. Taramis met that tigerish glare without flinching.



"You are not so ready with your tears as formerly, sweet sister,"

muttered the witch-girl.



"You shall wring no more tears from me," answered Taramis. "Too often

you have reveled in the spectacle of the queen of Khauran sobbing for

mercy on her knees. I know that you have spared me only to torment me;

that is why you have limited your tortures to such torments as neither

slay nor permanently disfigure. But I fear you no longer; you have

strained out the last vestige of hope, fright and shame from me. Slay

me and be done with it, for I have shed my last tear for your

enjoyment, you shedevil from hell!"



"You flatter yourself, my dear sister," purred Salome. "So far it is

only your handsome body that I have caused to suffer, only your pride

and self-esteem that I have crushed. You forget that, unlike myself,

you are capable of mental torment. I have observed this when I have

regaled you with narratives concerning the comedies I have enacted

with some of your stupid subjects. But this time I have brought more

vivid proof of these farces. Did you know that Krallides, your

faithful councillor, had come skulking back from Turan and been

captured?"



Taramis turned pale.



"What--what have you done to him?"



For answer Salome drew the mysterious bundle from under her cloak. She

shook off the silken swathings and held it up the head of a young man,

the features frozen in a convulsion as if death had come in the midst

of inhuman agony.



Taramis cried out as if a blade had pierced her heart.



"Oh, Ishtar! Krallides!"



"Aye! He was seeking to stir up the people against me, poor fool,

telling them that Conan spoke the truth when he said I was not

Taramis. How would the people rise against the Falcon's Shemites? With

sticks and pebbles? Bah! Dogs are eating his headless body in the

market-place, and this foul carrion shall be cast into the sewer to

rot.



"How, sister!" She paused, smiling down at her victim. "Have you

discovered that you still have unshed tears? Good! I reserved the

mental torment for the last. Hereafter I shall show you many such

sights as--this!"



Standing there in the torchlight with the severed head in her hand she

did not look like anything ever borne by a human woman, in spite of

her awful beauty. Taramis did not look up. She lay face down on the

slimy floor, her slim body shaken in sobs of agony, beating her

clenched hands against the stones. Salome sauntered toward the door,

her anklets clashing at each step, her ear pendants winking in the

torch-glare.



A few moments later she emerged from a door under a sullen arch that

led into a court which in turn opened upon a winding alley. A man

standing there turned toward her--a giant Shemite, with sombre eyes

and shoulders like a bull, his great black beard falling over his

mighty, silver-mailed breast.



"She wept?" His rumble was like that of a bull, deep, low-pitched and

stormy. He was the general of the mercenaries, one of the few even of

Constantius's associates who knew the secret of the queens of Khauran.



"Aye, Khumbanigash. There are whole sections of her sensibilities that

I have not touched. When one sense is dulled by continual laceration,

I will discover a newer, more poignant pang. Here, dog!" A trembling,

shambling figure in rags, filth and matted hair approached, one of the

beggars that slept in the alleys and open courts. Salome tossed the

head to him. "Here, deaf one; cast that in the nearest sewer. Make the

sign with your hands, Khumbanigash. He can not hear."



The general complied, and the tousled head bobbed, as the man turned

painfully away.



"Why do you keep up this farce?" rumbled Khumbanigash. "You are so

firmly established on the throne that nothing can unseat you. What if

Khaurani fools learn the truth? They can do nothing. Proclaim yourself

in your true identity! Show them their beloved ex-queen--and cut off

her head in the public square!"



"Not yet, good Khumbanigash-"



The arched door slammed on the hard accents of Salome, the stormy

reverberations of Khumbanigash. The mute beggar crouched in the

courtyard, and there was none to see that the hands which held the

severed head were quivering strongly brown, sinewy hands, strangely

incongruous with the bent body and filthy tatters.



"I knew it!" It was a fierce, vibrant whisper, scarcely audible. "She

lives! Oh, Krallides, your martyrdom was not in vain! They have her

locked in that dungeon! Oh, Ishtar, if you love true men, aid me now!"







4 Wolves of the Desert



Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a

golden jug and thrust the vessel across the ebony table to Conan the

Cimmerian. Olgerd's apparel would have satisfied the vanity of any

Zaporoskan hetman.



His khalat was of white silk, with pearls sewn on the bosom. Girdled

at the waist with a Bakhauriot belt, its skirts were drawn back to

reveal his wide silken breeches, tucked into short boots of soft green

leather, adorned with gold thread. On his head was a green silk

turban, wound about a spired helmet chased with gold. His only weapon

was a broad curved Cherkees knife in an ivory sheath girdled high on

his left hip, kozak fashion. Throwing himself back in his gilded chair

with its carven eagles, Olgerd spread his booted legs before him, and

gulped down the sparkling wine noisily.



To his splendor the huge Cimmerian opposite him offered a strong

contrast, with his square-cut black mane, brown scarred countenance

and burning blue eyes. He was clad in black meshmail, and the only

glitter about him was the broad gold buckle of the belt which

supported his sword in its worn leather scabbard.



They were alone in the silk-walled tent, which was hung with gilt-

worked tapestries and littered with rich carpets and velvet cushions,

the loot of the caravans. From outside came a low, incessant murmur,

the sound that always accompanies a great throng of men, in camp or

otherwise. An occasional gust of desert wind rattled the palm-leaves.



"Today in the shadow, tomorrow in the sun," quoth Olgerd, loosening

his crimson girdle a trifle and reaching again for the wine-jug.

"That's the way of life. Once I was a hetman on the Zaporoska; now I'm

a desert chief. Seven months ago you were hanging on a cross outside

Khauran. Now you're lieutenant to the most powerful raider between

Turan and the western meadows. You should be thankful to me!"



"For recognizing my usefulness?" Conan laughed and lifted the jug.

"When you allow the elevation of a man, one can be sure that you'll

profit by his advancement. I've earned everything I've won, with my

blood and sweat." He glanced at the scars on the insides of his palms.

There were scars, too, on his body, scars that had not been there

seven months ago.



"You fight like a regiment of devils," conceded Olgerd. "But don't get

to thinking that you've had anything to do with the recruits who've

swarmed in to join us. It was our success at raiding, guided by my

wit, that brought them in. These nomads are always looking for a

successful leader to follow, and they have more faith in a foreigner

than in one of their own race.



"There's no limit to what we may accomplish! We have eleven thousand

men now. In another year we may have three times that number. We've

contented ourselves, so far, with raids on the Turanian outposts and

the city-states to the west. With thirty or forty thousand men we'll

raid no longer. We'll invade and conquer and establish ourselves as

rulers. I'll be emperor of all Shem yet, and you'll be my vizier, so

long as you carry out my orders unquestioningly. In the meantime, I

think we'll ride eastward and storm that Turanian outpost at Vezek,

where the caravans pay toll."



Conan shook his head. "I think not."



Olgerd glared, his quick temper irritated.



"What do you mean, you think not? I do the thinking for this army!"



"There are enough men in this band now for my purpose," answered the

Cimmerian. "I'm sick of waiting. I have a score to settle."



"Oh!" Olgerd scowled, and gulped wine, then grinned. "Still thinking

of that cross, eh? Well, I like a good hater. But that can wait."



"You told me once you'd aid me in taking Khauran," said Conan.



"Yes, but that was before I began to see the full possibilities of our

power," answered Olgerd. "I was only thinking of the loot in the city.

I don't want to waste our strength unprofitably. Khauran is too strong

a nut for us to crack now. Maybe in a year-"



"Within the week," answered Conan, and the kozak stared at the

certainty in his voice.



"Listen," said Olgerd, "even if I were willing to throw away men on

such a hare-brained attempt--what could you expect? Do you think these

wolves could besiege and take a city like Khauran?"



"There'll be no siege," answered the Cimmerian. "I know how to draw

Constantius out into the plain."



"And what then?" cried Olgerd with an oath. "In the arrowplay our

horsemen would have the worst of it, for the armor of the asshuri is

the better, and when it came to sword-strokes their close-marshaled

ranks of trained swordsmen would cleave through our loose lines and

scatter our men like chaff before the wind."



"Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyborian horsemen fighting

in a solid wedge such as I could teach them," answered Conan.



"And where would you secure three thousand Hyborians?" asked Olgerd

with vast sarcasm. "Will you conjure them out of the air?"



"I have them," answered the Cimmerian imperturbably. "Three thousand

men of Khauran camp at the oasis of Akrel awaiting my orders."



"What?" Olgerd glared like a startled wolf.



"Aye. Men who had fled from the tyranny of Constantius. Most of them

have been living the lives of outlaws in the deserts east of Khauran,

and are gaunt and hard and desperate as man-eating tigers. One of them

will be a match for any three squat mercenaries. It takes oppression

and hardship to stiffen men's guts and put the fire of hell into their

thews. They were broken up into small bands; all they needed was a

leader. They believed the word I sent them by my riders, and assembled

at the oasis and put themselves at my disposal."



"All this without my knowledge?" A feral light began to gleam in

Olgerd's eye. He hitched at his weapon-girdle.



"It was I they wished to follow, not you."



"And what did you tell these outcasts to gain their allegiance?" There

was a dangerous ring in Olgerd's voice.



"I told them that I'd use this horde of desert wolves to help them

destroy Constantius and give Khauran back into the hands of its

citizens."



"You fool!" whispered Olgerd. "Do you deem yourself chief already?"



The men were on their feet, facing each other across the ebony board,

devil-lights dancing in Olgerd's cold gray eyes, a grim smile on the

Cimmerian's hard lips.



"I'll have you torn between four palm-trees," said the kozak calmly.



"Call the men and bid them do it!" challenged Conan. "See if they obey

you!"



Baring his teeth in a snarl, Olgerd lifted his hand--then paused.

There was something about the confidence in the Cimmerian's dark face

that shook him. His eyes began to burn like those of a wolf.



"You scum of the western hills," he muttered, "have you dared seek to

undermine my power?"



"I didn't have to," answered Conan. "You lied when you said I had

nothing to do with bringing in the new recruits. I had everything to

do with it. They took your orders, but they fought for me. There is

not room for two chiefs of the Zuagirs. They know I am the stronger

man. I understand them better than you, and they, me; because I am a

barbarian too."



"And what will they say when you ask them to fight for Khauran?" asked

Olgerd sardonically.



"They'll follow me. I'll promise them a camel-train of gold from the

palace. Khauran will be willing to pay that as a guerdon for getting

rid of Constantius. After that, I'll lead them against the Turanians

as you have planned. They want loot, and they'd as soon fight

Constantius for it as anybody."



In Olgerd's eyes grew a recognition of defeat. In his red dreams of

empire he had missed what was going on about him. Happenings and

events that had seemed meaningless before now flashed into his mind,

with their true significance, bringing a realization that Conan spoke

no idle boast. The giant blackmailed figure before him was the real

chief of the Zuagirs.



"Not if you die!" muttered Olgerd, and his hand flickered toward his

hilt. But quick as the stroke of a great cat, Conan's arm shot across

the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd's forearm. There was a snap

of breaking bones, and for a tense instant the scene held: the men

facing each other as motionless as images, perspiration starting out

on Olgerd's forehead. Conan laughed, never easing his grip on the

broken arm.



"Are you fit to live, Olgerd?"



His smile did not alter as the corded muscles rippled in knotting

ridges along his forearm and his fingers ground into the kozak's

quivering flesh. There was the sound of broken bones grating together

and Olgerd's face turned the color of ashes; blood oozed from his lip

where his teeth sank, but he uttered no sound.



With a laugh Conan released him and drew back, and the kozak swayed,

caught the table edge with his good hand to steady himself.



"I give you life, Olgerd, as you gave it to me," said Conan

tranquilly, "though it was for your own ends that you took me down

from the cross. It was a bitter test you gave me then; you couldn't

have endured it; neither could anyone, but a western barbarian.



"Take your horse and go. It's tied behind the tent, and food and water

are in the saddle-bags. None will see your going, but go quickly.

There's no room for a fallen chief on the desert. If the warriors see

you, maimed and deposed, they'll never let you leave the camp alive."



Olgerd did not reply. Slowly, without a word, he turned and stalked

across the tent, through the flapped opening. Unspeaking he climbed

into the saddle of the great white stallion that stood tethered there

in the shade of a spreading palm-tree; and unspeaking, with his broken

arm thrust in the bosom of his khalat, he reined the steed about and

rode eastward into the open desert, out of the life of the people of

the Zuagir.



Inside the tent Conan emptied the wine-jug and smacked his lips with

relish. Tossing the empty vessel into a corner, he braced his belt and

strode out through the front opening, halting for a moment to let his

gaze sweep over the lines of camel-hair tents that stretched before

him, and the white-robed figures that moved among them, arguing,

singing, mending bridles or whetting tulwars.



He lifted his voice in a thunder that carried to the farthest confines

of the encampment: "Aie, you dogs, sharpen your ears and listen!

Gather around here. I have a tale to tell you."







5 The Voice from the Crystal



In a chamber in a tower near the city wall a group of men listened

attentively to the words of one of their number. They were young men,

but hard and sinewy, with a bearing that comes only to men rendered

desperate by adversity. They were clad in mail shirts and worn

leather; swords hung at their girdles.



"I knew that Conan spoke the truth when he said it was not Taramis!"

the speaker exclaimed. "For months I have haunted the outskirts of the

palace, playing the part of a deaf beggar. At last I learned what I

had believed--that our queen was a prisoner in the dungeons that

adjoin the palace. I watched my opportunity and captured a Shemitish

jailer--knocked him senseless as he left the courtyard late one

night--dragged him into a cellar near by and questioned him. Before he

died he told me what I have just told you, and what we have suspected

all along--that the woman ruling Khauran is a witch: Salome. Taramis,

he said, is imprisoned in the lowest dungeon.



"This invasion of the Zuagirs gives us the opportunity we sought. What

Conan means to do, I can not say. Perhaps he merely wishes vengeance

on Constantius. Perhaps he intends sacking the city and destroying it.

He is a barbarian and no one can understand their minds.



"But this is what we must do: rescue Taramis while the battle rages!

Constantius will march out into the plain to give battle. Even now his

men are mounting. He will do this because there is not sufficient food

in the city to stand a siege. Conan burst out of the desert so

suddenly that there was no time to bring in supplies. And the

Cimmerian is equipped for a siege. Scouts have reported that the

Zuagirs have siege engines, built, undoubtedly, according to the

instructions of Conan, who learned all the arts of war among the

Western nations.



"Constantius does not desire a long siege; so he will march with his

warriors into the plain, where he expects to scatter Conan's forces at

one stroke. He will leave only a few hundred men in the city, and they

will be on the walls and in the towers commanding the gates.



"The prison will be left all but unguarded. When we have freed Taramis

our next actions will depend upon circumstances. If Conan wins, we

must show Taramis to the people and bid them rise--they will! Oh, they

will! With their bare hands they are enough to overpower the Shemites

left in the city and close the gates against both the mercenaries and

the nomads. Neither must get within the walls! Then we will parley

with Conan. He was always loyal to Taramis. If he knows the truth, and

she appeals to him, I believe he will spare the city. If, which is

more probable, Constantius prevails, and Conan is routed, we must

steal out of the city with the queen and seek safety in flight.



"Is all clear?"



They replied with one voice.



"Then let us loosen our blades in our scabbards, commend our souls to

Ishtar, and start for the prison, for the mercenaries are already

marching through the southern gate."



This was true. The dawnlight glinted on peaked helmets pouring in a

steady stream through the broad arch, on the bright housings of the

chargers. This would be a battle of horsemen, such as is possible only

in the lands of the East. The riders flowed through the gates like a

river of steel--sombre figures in black and silver mail, with their

curled beards and hooked noses, and their inexorable eyes in which

glimmered the fatality of their race--the utter lack of doubt or of

mercy.



The streets and the walls were lined with throngs of people who

watched silently these warriors of an alien race riding forth to

defend their native city. There was no sound; dully, expressionless

they watched, those gaunt people in shabby garments, their caps in

their hands.



In a tower that overlooked the broad street that led to the southern

gate, Salome lolled on a velvet couch cynically watching Constantius

as he settled his broad sword-belt about his lean hips and drew on his

gauntlets. They were alone in the chamber. Outside, the rhythmical

clank of harness and shuffle of horses' hoofs welled up through the

gold-barred casements.



"Before nightfall," quoth Constantius, giving a twirl to his thin

mustache, "you'll have some captives to feed to your temple devil.

Does it not grow weary of soft, city-bred flesh? Perhaps it would

relish the harder thews of a desert man."



"Take care you do not fall prey to a fiercer beast than Thaug," warned

the girl. "Do not forget who it is that leads these desert animals."



"I am not likely to forget," he answered. "That is one reason why I am

advancing to meet him. The dog has fought in the West and knows the

art of siege. My scouts had some trouble in approaching his columns,

for his outriders have eyes like hawks; but they did get close enough

to see the engines he is dragging on ox-cart wheels drawn by camels--

catapults, rams, ballistas, mangonels--by Ishtar! he must have had ten

thousand men working day and night for a month. Where he got the

material for their construction is more than I can understand. Perhaps

he has a treaty with the Turanians, and gets supplies from them.



"Anyway, they won't do him any good. I've fought these desert wolves

before--an exchange of arrows for awhile, in which the armor of my

warriors protects them--then a charge and my squadrons sweep through

the loose swarms of the nomads, wheel and sweep back through,

scattering them to the four winds. I'll ride back through the south

gate before sunset, with hundreds of naked captives staggering at my

horse's tail. We'll hold a fete tonight, in the great square. My

soldiers delight in flaying their enemies alive--we will have a

wholesale skinning, and make these weak-kneed townsfolk watch. As for

Conan, it will afford me intense pleasure, if we take him alive, to

impale him on the palace steps."



"Skin as many as you like," answered Salome indifferently. "I would

like a dress made of human hide. But at least a hundred captives you

must give to me--for the altar, and for Thaug."



"It shall be done," answered Constantius, with his gauntleted hand

brushing back the thin hair from his high bald forehead, burned dark

by the sun. "For victory and the fair honor of Taramis!" he said

sardonically, and, taking his vizored helmet under his arm, he lifted

a hand in salute, and strode clanking from the chamber. His voice

drifted back, harshly lifted in orders to his officers.



Salome leaned back on the couch, yawned, stretched herself like a

great supple cat, and called: "Zang!"



A cat-footed priest, with features like yellowed parchment stretched

over a skull, entered noiselessly.



Salome turned to an ivory pedestal on which stood two crystal globes,

and taking from it the smaller, she handed the glistening sphere to

the priest.



"Ride with Constantius," she said. "Give me the news of the battle.

Go!"



The skull-faced man bowed low, and hiding the globe under his dark

mantle, hurried from the chamber.



Outside in the city there was no sound, except the clank of hoofs and

after a while the clang of a closing gate. Salome mounted a wide

marble stair that led to the flat, canopied, marble-battlemented roof.

She was above all other buildings in the city. The streets were

deserted, the great square in front of the palace was empty. In normal

times folk shunned the grim temple which rose on the opposite side of

that square, but now the town looked like a dead city. Only on the

southern wall and the roofs that overlooked it was there any sign of

life. There the people massed thickly. They made no demonstration, did

not know whether to hope for the victory or defeat of Constantius.

Victory meant further misery under his intolerable rule; defeat

probably meant the sack of the city and red massacre. No word had come

from Conan. They did not know what to expect at his hands. They

remembered that he was a barbarian.



The squadrons of the mercenaries were moving out into the plain. In

the distance, just this side of the river, other dark masses were

moving, barely recognizable as men on horses. Objects dotted the

farther bank; Conan had not brought his siege engines across the

river, apparently fearing an attack in the midst of the crossing. But

he had crossed with his full force of horsemen. The sun rose and

struck glints of fire from the dark multitudes. The squadrons from the

city broke into a gallop; a deep roar reached the ears of the people

on the wall.



The rolling masses merged, intermingled; at that distance it was a

tangled confusion in which no details stood out. Charge and

countercharge were not to be identified. Clouds of dust rose from the

plains, under the stamping hoofs, veiling the action. Through these

swirling clouds masses of riders loomed, appearing and disappearing,

and spears flashed.



Salome shrugged her shoulders and descended the stair. The palace lay

silent. All the slaves were on the wall, gazing vainly southward with

the citizens.



She entered the chamber where she had talked with Constantius, and

approached the pedestal, noting that the crystal globe was clouded,

shot with bloody streaks of crimson. She bent over the ball, swearing

under her breath.



"Zang!" she called. "Zang!"



Mists swirled in the sphere, resolving themselves into billowing dust-

clouds through which black figures rushed unrecognizably; steel

glinted like lightning in the murk. Then the face of Zang leaped into

startling distinctness; it was as if the wide eyes gazed up at Salome.

Blood trickled from a gash in the skull-like head, the skin was gray

with sweat-runneled dust. The lips parted, writhing; to other ears

than Salome's it would have seemed that the face in the crystal

contorted silently. But sound to her came as plainly from those ashen

lips as if the priest had been in the same room with her, instead of

miles away, shouting into the smaller crystal. Only the gods of

darkness knew what unseen, magic filaments linked together those

shimmering spheres.



"Salome!" shrieked the bloody head. "Salome!"



"I hear!" she cried. "Speak! How goes the battle?"



"Doom is upon us!" screamed the skull-like apparition. "Khauran is

lost! Aie, my horse is down and I can not win clear! Men are falling

around me! They are dying like flies, in their silvered mail!"



"Stop yammering and tell me what happened!" she cried harshly.



"We rode at the desert-dogs and they came on to meet us!" yowled the

priest. "Arrows flew in clouds between the hosts, and the nomads

wavered. Constantius ordered the charge. In even ranks we thundered

upon them.



"Then the masses of their horde opened to right and left, and through

the cleft rushed three thousand Hyborian horsemen whose presence we

had not even suspected. Men of Khauran, mad with hate! Big men in full

armor on massive horses! In a solid wedge of steel they smote us like

a thunderbolt. They split our ranks asunder before we knew what was

upon us, and then the desert-men swarmed on us from either flank.



"They have ripped our ranks apart, broken and scattered us! It is a

trick of that devil Conan! The siege engines are false--mere frames of

palm trunks and painted silk, that fooled our scouts who saw them from

afar. A trick to draw us out to our doom! Our warriors flee!

Khumbanigash is down--Conan slew him. I do not see Constantius. The

Khaurani rage through our milling masses like blood-mad lions, and the

desert-men feather us with arrows. I--ahh!"



There was a flicker as of lightning, or trenchant steel, a burst of

bright blood--then abruptly the image vanished, like a bursting

bubble, and Salome was staring into an empty crystal ball that

mirrored only her own furious features.



She stood perfectly still for a few moments, erect and staring into

space. Then she clapped her hands and another skull-like priest

entered, as silent and immobile as the first.



"Constantius is beaten," she said swiftly. "We are doomed."



"Conan will be crashing at our gates within the hour. If he catches

me, I have no illusions as to what I can expect. But first I am going

to make sure that my cursed sister never ascends the throne again.

Follow me! Come what may, we shall give Thaug a feast."



As she descended the stairs and galleries of the palace, she heard a

faint rising echo from the distant walls. The people there had begun

to realize that the battle was going against Constantius. Through the

dust clouds masses of horsemen were visible, racing toward the city.



Palace and prison were connected by a long closed gallery, whose

vaulted roof rose on gloomy arches. Hurrying along this, the false

queen and her slave passed through a heavy door at the other end that

let them into the dim-lit recesses of the prison. They had emerged

into a wide, arched corridor at a point near where a stone stair

descended into the darkness. Salome recoiled suddenly, swearing. In

the gloom of the hall lay a motionless form--a Shemitish jailer, his

short beard tilted toward the roof as his head hung on a half-severed

neck. As panting voices from below reached the girl's ears, she shrank

back into the black shadow of an arch, pushing the priest behind her,

her hand groping in her girdle.







6 The Vulture's Wings



It was the smoky light of a torch which roused Taramis, Queen of

Khauran, from the slumber in which she sought forgetfulness. Lifting

herself on her hand she raked back her tangled hair and blinked up,

expecting to meet the mocking countenance of Salome, malign with new

torments. Instead a cry of pity and horror reached her ears.



"Taramis! Oh, my Queen!"



The sound was so strange to her ears that she thought she was still

dreaming. Behind the torch she could make out figures now, the glint

of steel, then five countenances bent toward her, not swarthy and

hook-nosed, but lean, aquiline faces, browned by the sun. She crouched

in her tatters, staring wildly.



One of the figures sprang forward and fell on one knee before her,

arms stretched appealingly toward her.



"Oh, Taramis! Thank Ishtar we have found you! Do you not remember me,

Valerius? Once with your own lips you praised me, after the battle of

Korveka!"



"Valerius!" she stammered. Suddenly tears welled into her eyes. "Oh, I

dream! It is some magic of Salome's to torment me!"



"No!" The cry rang with exultation. "It is your own true vassals come

to rescue you! Yet we must hasten. Constantius fights in the plain

against Conan, who has brought the Zuagirs across the river, but three

hundred Shemites yet hold the city. We slew the jailer and took his

keys, and have seen no other guards. But we must be gone. Come!"



The queen's legs gave way, not from weakness but from the reaction.

Valerius lifted her like a child, and with the torchbearer hurrying

before them, they left the dungeon and went up a slimy stone stair. It

seemed to mount endlessly, but presently they emerged into a corridor.



They were passing a dark arch when the torch was suddenly struck out,

and the bearer cried out in fierce, brief agony. A burst of blue fire

glared in the dark corridor, in which the furious face of Salome was

limned momentarily, with a beastlike figure crouching beside her--then

the eyes of the watchers were blinded by that blaze.



Valerius tried to stagger along the corridor with the queen; dazedly

he heard the sound of murderous blows driven deep in flesh,

accompanied by gasps of death and a bestial grunting. Then the queen

was torn brutally from his arms, and a savage blow on his helmet

dashed him to the floor.



Grimly he crawled to his feet, shaking his head in an effort to rid

himself of the blue flame which seemed still to dance devilishly

before him. When his blinded sight cleared, he found himself alone in

the corridor--alone except for the dead. His four companions lay in

their blood, heads and bosoms cleft and gashed. Blinded and dazed in

that hell-born glare, they had died without an opportunity of

defending themselves. The queen was gone.



With a bitter curse Valerius caught up his sword, tearing his cleft

helmet from his head to clatter on the flags; blood ran down his cheek

from a cut in his scalp.



Reeling, frantic with indecision, he heard a voice calling his name in

desperate urgency: "Valerius! Valerius!"



He staggered in the direction of the voice, and rounded a corner just

in time to have his arms filled with a soft, supple figure which flung

itself frantically at him.



"Ivga! Are you mad!"



"I had to come!" she sobbed. "I followed you--hid in an arch of the

outer court. A moment ago I saw her emerge with a brute who carried a

woman in his arms. I knew it was Taramis, and that you had failed! Oh,

you are hurt!"



"A scratch!" He put aside her clinging hands. "Quick, Ivga, tell me

which way they went!"



"They fled across the square toward the temple."



He paled. "Ishtar! Oh, the fiend! She means to give Taramis to the

devil she worships! Quick, Ivga! Run to the south wall where the

people watch the battle! Tell them that their real queen has been

found--that the impostor has dragged her to the temple! Go!"



Sobbing, the girl sped away, her light sandals pattering on the

cobblestones, and Valerius raced across the court, plunged into the

street, dashed into the square upon which it debouched, and raced for

the great structure that rose on the opposite side.



His flying feet spurned the marble as he darted up the broad stair and

through the pillared portico. Evidently their prisoner had given them

some trouble. Taramis, sensing the doom intended for her, was fighting

against it with all the strength of her splendid young body. Once she

had broken away from the brutish priest, only to be dragged down

again.



The group was halfway down the broad nave, at the other end of which

stood the grim altar and beyond that the great metal door, obscenely

carven, through which many had gone, but from which only Salome had

ever emerged. Taramis's breath came in panting gasps; her tattered

garment had been torn from her in the struggle. She writhed in the

grasp of her apish captor like a white, naked nymph in the arms of a

satyr. Salome watched cynically, though impatiently, moving toward the

carven door, and from the dusk that lurked along the lofty walls the

obscene gods and gargoyles leered down, as if imbued with salacious

life.



Choking with fury, Valerius rushed down the great hall, sword in hand.

At a sharp cry from Salome, the skull-faced priest looked up, then

released Taramis, drew a heavy knife, already smeared with blood, and

ran at the oncoming Khaurani.



But cutting down men blinded by the devil's-flame loosed by Salome was

different from fighting a wiry young Hyborian afire with hate and

rage.



Up went the dripping knife, but before it could fall Valerius's keen

narrow blade slashed through the air, and the fist that held the knife

jumped from its wrist in a shower of blood. Valerius, berserk, slashed

again and yet again before the crumpling figure could fall. The blade

licked through flesh and bone. The skulllike head fell one way, the

half-sundered torso the other.



Valerius whirled on his toes, quick and fierce as a jungle-cat,

glaring about for Salome. She must have exhausted her fire-dust in the

prison. She was bending over Taramis, grasping her sister's black

locks in one hand, in the other lifting a dagger. Then with a fierce

cry Valerius's sword was sheathed in her breast with such fury that

the point sprang out between her shoulders. With an awful shriek the

witch sank down, writhing in convulsions, grasping at the naked blade

as it was withdrawn, smoking and dripping. Her eyes were inhuman; with

a more than human vitality she clung to the life that ebbed through

the wound that split the crimson crescent on her ivory bosom. She

groveled on the floor, clawing and biting at the naked stones in her

agony.



Sickened at the sight, Valerius stooped and lifted the half-fainting

queen. Turning his back on the twisting figure on the floor, he ran

toward the door, stumbling in his haste. He staggered out upon the

portico, halted at the head of the steps. The square thronged with

people. Some had come at Ivga's incoherent cries; others had deserted

the walls in fear of the onsweeping hordes out of the desert, fleeing

unreasoningly toward the centre of the city. Dumb resignation had

vanished. The throng seethed and milled, yelling and screaming. About

the road there sounded somewhere the splintering of stone and timbers.



A band of grim Shemites cleft the crowd--the guards of the northern

gates, hurrying toward the south gate to reinforce their comrades

there. They reined up short at the sight of the youth on the steps,

holding the limp, naked figure in his arms. The heads of the throng

turned toward the temple; the crowd gaped, a new bewilderment added to

their swirling confusion.



"Here is your queen!" yelled Valerius, straining to make himself

understood above the clamor. The people gave back a bewildered roar.

They did not understand, and Valerius sought in vain to lift his voice

above their bedlam. The Shemites rode toward the temple steps, beating

a way through the crowd with their spears.



Then a new, grisly element introduced itself into the frenzy. Out of

the gloom of the temple behind Valerius wavered a slim white figure,

laced with crimson. The people screamed; there in the arms of Valerius

hung the woman they thought their queen; yet there in the temple door

staggered another figure, like a reflection of the other. Their brains

reeled. Valerius felt his blood congeal as he stared at the swaying

witch-girl. His sword had transfixed her, sundered her heart. She

should be dead; by all laws of nature she should be dead. Yet there

she swayed, on her feet, clinging horribly to life.



"Thaug!" she screamed, reeling in the doorway. "Thaug!" As in answer

to that frightful invocation there boomed a thunderous croaking from

within the temple, the snapping of wood and metal.



"That is the queen!" roared the captain of the Shemites, lifting his

bow. "Shoot down the man and other woman!"



But the roar of a roused hunting-pack rose from the people; they had

guessed the truth at last, understood Valerius's frenzied appeals,

knew that the girl who hung limply in his arms was their true queen.

With a soul-shaking yell they surged on the Shemites, tearing and

smiting with tooth and nail and naked hands, with the desperation of

hard-pent fury loosed at last. Above them Salome swayed and tumbled

down the marble stairs, dead at last.



Arrows flickered about him as Valerius ran back between the pillars of

the portico, shielding the body of the queen with his own. Shooting

and slashing ruthlessly, the mounted Shemites were holding their own

with the maddened crowd. Valerius darted to the temple door--with one

foot on the threshold he recoiled, crying out in horror and despair.



Out of the gloom at the other end of the great hall a vast dark form

heaved up--came rushing toward him in gigantic frog-like hops. He saw

the gleam of great unearthly eyes, the shimmer of fangs or talons. He

fell back from the door, and then the whir of a shaft past his ear

warned him that death was also behind him. He wheeled desperately.

Four or five Shemites had cut their way through the throng and were

spurring their horses up the steps, their bows lifted to shoot him

down. He sprang behind a pillar, on which the arrows splintered.

Taramis had fainted. She hung like a dead woman in his arms.



Before the Shemites could loose again, the doorway was blocked by a

gigantic shape. With affrighted yells the mercenaries wheeled and

began beating a frantic way through the throng, which crushed back in

sudden, galvanized horror, trampling one another in their stampede.



But the monster seemed to be watching Valerius and the girl. Squeezing

its vast, unstable bulk through the door, it bounded toward him, as he

ran down the steps. He felt it looming behind him, a giant shadowy

thing, like a travesty of nature cut out of the heart of night, a

black shapelessness in which only the staring eyes and gleaming fangs

were distinct.



There came a sudden thunder of hoofs; a rout of Shemites, bloody and

battered, streamed across the square from the south, plowing blindly

through the packed throng. Behind them swept a horde of horsemen

yelling in a familiar tongue, waving red swords--the exiles, returned!

With them rode fifty black-bearded desert-riders, and at their head a

giant figure in black mail.



"Conan!" shrieked Valerius. "Conan!"



The giant yelled a command. Without checking their headlong pace, the

desert men lifted their bows, drew and loosed. A cloud of arrows sang

across the square, over the seething heads of the multitudes, and sank

feather-deep in the black monster. It halted, wavered, reared, a black

blot against the marble pillars. Again the sharp cloud sang, and yet

again, and the horror collapsed and rolled down the steps, as dead as

the witch who had summoned it out of the night of ages.



Conan drew rein beside the portico, leaped off. Valerius had laid the

queen on the marble, sinking beside her in utter exhaustion. The

people surged about, crowding in. The Cimmerian cursed them back,

lifted her dark head, pillowed it against his mailed shoulder.



"By Crom, what is this? The real Taramis! But who is that yonder?"



"The demon who wore her shape," panted Valerius.



Conan swore heartily. Ripping a cloak from the shoulders of a soldier,

he wrapped it about the naked queen. Her long dark lashes quivered on

her cheeks; her eyes opened, stared up unbelievingly into the

Cimmerian's scarred face.



"Conan!" Her soft fingers caught at him. "Do I dream? She told me you

were dead--'



"Scarcely!" He grinned hardly. "You do not dream. You are Queen of

Khauran again. I broke Constantius, out there by the river. Most of

his dogs never lived to reach the walls, for I gave orders that no

prisoners be taken--except Constantius. The city guard closed the gate

in our faces, but we burst in with rams swung from our saddles. I left

all my wolves outside, except this fifty. I didn't trust them in here,

and these Khaurani lads were enough for the gate guards."



"It has been a nightmare!" she whimpered. "Oh, my poor people! You

must help me try to repay them for all they have suffered, Conan,

henceforth councilor as well as captain!"



Conan laughed, but shook his head. Rising, he set the queen upon her

feet, and beckoned to a number of his Khaurani horsemen who had not

continued the pursuit of the fleeing Shemites. They sprang from their

horses, eager to do the bidding of their new-found queen.



"No, lass, that's over with. I'm chief of the Zuagirs now, and must

lead them to plunder the Turanians, as I promised. This lad, Valerius,

will make you a better captain than I. I wasn't made to dwell among

marble walls, anyway. But I must leave you now, and complete what I've

begun. Shemites still live in Khauran."



As Valerius started to follow Taramis across the square towards the

palace, through a lane opened by the wildly cheering multitude, he

felt a soft hand slipped timidly into his sinewy forgers and turned to

receive the slender body of Ivga in his arms. He crushed her to him

and drank her kisses with the gratitude of a weary fighter who has

attained rest at last through tribulation and storm.



But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of

the storm in their blood, restless harbingers of violence and

bloodshed, knowing no other path . . .



The sun was rising. The ancient caravan road was thronged with white-

robed horsemen, in a wavering line that stretched from the walls of

Khauran to a spot far out in the plain. Conan the Cimmerian sat at the

head of that column, near the jagged end of a wooden beam that stuck

up out of the ground. Near that stump rose a heavy cross, and on that

cross a man hung by spikes through his hands and feet.



"Seven months ago, Constantius," said Conan, "it was I who hung there,

and you who sat here."



Constantius did not reply; he licked his gray lips and his eyes were

glassy with pain and fear. Muscles writhed like cords along his lean

body.



"You are more fit to inflict torture than to endure it," said Conan

tranquilly. "I hung there on a cross as you are hanging, and I lived,

thanks to circumstances and a stamina peculiar to barbarians. But you

civilized men are soft; your lives are not nailed to your spines as

are ours. Your fortitude consists mainly in inflicting torment, not in

enduring it. You will be dead before sundown. And so, Falcon of the

desert, I leave you to the companionship of another bird of the

desert."



He gestured toward the vultures whose shadows swept across the sands

as they wheeled overhead. From the lips of Constantius came an inhuman

cry of despair and horror.



Conan lifted his reins and rode toward the river that shone like

silver in the morning sun. Behind him the white-clad riders struck

into a trot; the gaze of each, as he passed a certain spot, turned

impersonally and with the desert man's lack of compassion, toward the

cross and the gaunt figure that hung there, black against the sunrise.

Their horses' hoofs beat out a knell in the dust. Lower and lower

swept the wings of the hungry vultures.













THE END

