Title: The Scarlet Citadel

Author: Robert E. Howard

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Title: The Scarlet Citadel

Author: Robert E. Howard







Contents







I

II

III

IV

V









I







_They trapped the Lion on Shamu's plain;_



The roar of battle had died away; the shout of victory mingled with

the cries of the dying. Like gay-hued leaves after an autumn storm,

the fallen littered the plain; the sinking sun shimmered on burnished

helmets, gilt-worked mail, silver breastplates, broken swords and the

heavy regal folds of silken standards, overthrown in pools of curdling

crimson. In silent heaps lay war-horses and their steel-clad riders,

flowing manes and blowing plumes stained alike in the red tide. About

them and among them, like the drift of a storm, were strewn slashed

and trampled bodies in steel caps and leather jerkins--archers and

pikemen.



The oliphants sounded a fanfare of triumph all over the plain, and the

hoofs of the victors crunched in the breasts of the vanquished as all

the straggling, shining lines converged inward like the spokes of a

glittering wheel, to the spot where the last survivor still waged

unequal strife.



That day Conan, king of Aquilonia, had seen the pick of his chivalry

cut to pieces, smashed and hammered to bits, and swept into eternity.

With five thousand knights he had crossed the south-eastern border of

Aquilonia and ridden into the grassy meadowlands of Ophir, to find his

former ally, King Amalrus of Ophir, drawn up against him with the

hosts of Strabonus, king of Koth. Too late he had seen the trap. All

that a man might do he had done with his five thousand cavalrymen

against the thirty thousand knights, archers and spearmen of the

conspirators.



Without bowmen or infantry, he had hurled his armored horsemen against

the oncoming host, had seen the knights of his foes in their shining

mail go down before his lances, had torn the opposing center to bits,

driving the riven ranks headlong before him, only to find himself

caught in a vise as the untouched wings closed in. Strabonus'

Shemitish bowmen had wrought havoc among his knights, feathering them

with shafts that found every crevice in their armor, shooting down the

horses, the Kothian pikemen rushing in to spear the fallen riders. The

mailed lancers of the routed center had re-formed, reinforced by the

riders from the wings, and had charged again and again, sweeping the

field by sheer weight of numbers.



The Aquilonians had not fled; they had died on the field, and of the

five thousand knights who had followed Conan southward, not one left

the field alive. And now the king himself stood at bay among the

slashed bodies of his house­troops, his back against a heap of dead

horses and men. Ophirean knights in gilded mail leaped their horses

over mounds of corpses to slash at the solitary figure; squat Shemites

with blue-black beards, and dark-faced Kothian knights ringed him on

foot. The clangor of steel rose deafeningly; the black-mailed figure

of the western king loomed among his swarming foes, dealing blows like

a butcher wielding a great cleaver. Riderless horses raced down the

field; about his iron-clad feet grew a ring of mangled corpses. His

attackers drew back from his desperate savagery, panting and livid.



Now through the yelling, cursing lines rode the lords of the

conquerors ­ Strabonus, with his broad dark face and crafty eyes;

Amalrus, slender, fastidious, treacherous, dangerous as a cobra; and

the lean vulture Tsotha-lanti, clad only in silken robes, his great

black eyes glittering from a face that was like that of a bird of

prey. Of this Kothian wizard dark tales were told; tousle-headed women

in northern and western villages frightened children with his name,

and rebellious slaves were brought to abased submission quicker than

by the lash, with threat of being sold to him. Men said that he had a

whole library of dark works bound in skin flayed from living human

victims, and that in nameless pits below the hill whereon his palace

sat, he trafficked with the powers of darkness, trading screaming girl

slaves for unholy secrets. He was the real ruler of Koth.



Now he grinned bleakly as the kings reined back a safe distance from

the grim iron-clad figure looming among the dead. Before the savage

blue eyes blazing murderously from beneath the crested, dented helmet,

the boldest shrank. Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with

passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with

blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece. In this stress all the

veneer of civilization had faded; it was a barbarian who faced his

conquerors. Conan was a Cimmerian by birth, one of those fierce moody

hillmen who dwelt in their gloomy, cloudy land in the north. His saga,

which had led him to the throne of Aquilonia, was the basis of a whole

cycle of hero-tales.



So now the kings kept their distance, and Strabonus called on his

Shemitish archers to loose their arrows at his foe from a distance;

his captains had fallen like ripe grain before the Cimmerian's

broadsword, and Strabonus, penurious of his knights as of his coins,

was frothing with fury. But Tsotha shook his head.



"Take him alive."



"Easy to say!" snarled Strabonus, uneasy lest in some way the black-

mailed giant might hew a path to them through the spears. "Who can

take a man-eating tiger alive? By Ishtar, his heel is on the necks of

my finest swordsmen! It took seven years and stacks of gold to train

each, and there they lie, so much kite's meat. Arrows, I say!"



"Again, nay!" snapped Tsotha, swinging down from his horse. He laughed

coldly. "Have you not learned by this time that my brain is mightier

than any sword?"



He passed through the lines of the pikemen, and the giants in their

steel caps and mail brigandines shrank back fearfully, lest they so

much as touch the skirts of his robe. Nor were the plumed knights

slower in making room for him. He stepped over the corpses and came

face to face with the grim king. The hosts watched in tense silence,

holding their breath. The black-armored figure loomed in terrible

menace over the lean, silk-robed shape, the notched, dripping sword

hovering on high.



"I offer you life, Conan," said Tsotha, a cruel mirth bubbling at the

back of his voice.



"I give you death, wizard," snarled the king, and backed by iron

muscles and ferocious hate the great sword swung in a stroke meant to

shear Tsotha's lean torso in half. But even as the hosts cried out,

the wizard stepped in, too quick for the eye to follow, and apparently

merely laid an open hand on Conan's left forearm, from the ridged

muscles of which the mail had been hacked away. The whistling blade

veered from its arc and the mailed giant crashed heavily to earth, to

lie motionless. Tsotha laughed silently.



"Take him up and fear not; the lion's fangs are drawn."



The kings reined in and gazed in awe at the fallen lion. Conan lay

stiffly, like a dead man, but his eyes glared up at them, wide open,

and blazing with helpless fury. "What have you done to him?" asked

Amalrus uneasily.



Tsotha displayed a broad ring of curious design on his finger. He

pressed his fingers together and on the inner side of the ring a tiny

steel fang darted out like a snake's tongue.



"It is steeped in the juice of the purple lotus which grows in the

ghost-haunted swamps of southern Stygia," said the magician. "Its

touch produces temporary paralysis. Put him in chains and lay him in a

chariot. The sun sets and it is time we were on the road for

Khorshemish."



Strabonus turned to his general Arbanus.



"We return to Khorshemish with the wounded. Only a troop of the royal

cavalry will accompany us. Your orders are to march at dawn to the

Aquilonian border, and invest the city of Shamar. The Ophireans will

supply you with food along the march. We will rejoin you as soon as

possible, with reinforcements."



So the host, with its steel-sheathed knights, its pikemen and archers

and camp­servants, went into camp in the meadowlands near the

battlefield. And through the starry night the two kings and the

sorcerer who was greater than any king rode to the capital of

Strabonus, in the midst of the glittering palace troop, and

accompanied by a long line of chariots, loaded with the wounded. In

one of these chariots lay Conan, king of Aquilonia, weighted with

chains, the tang of defeat in his mouth, the blind fury of a trapped

tiger in his soul.



The poison which had frozen his mighty limbs to helplessness had not

paralyzed his brain. As the chariot in which he lay rumbled over the

meadowlands, his mind revolved maddeningly about his defeat. Amalrus

had sent an emissary imploring aid against Strabonus, who, he said,

was ravaging his western domain, which lay like a tapering wedge

between the border of Aquilonia and the vast southern kingdom of Koth.

He asked only a thousand horsemen and the presence of Conan, to

hearten his demoralized subjects. Conan now mentally blasphemed. In

his generosity he had come with five times the number the treacherous

monarch had asked. In good faith he had ridden into Ophir, and had

been confronted by the supposed rivals allied against him. It spoke

significantly of his prowess that they had brought up a whole host to

trap him and his five thousand.



A red cloud veiled his vision; his veins swelled with fury and in his

temples a pulse throbbed maddeningly. In all his life he had never

known greater and more helpless wrath. In swift-moving scenes the

pageant of his life passed fleetingly before his mental eye--a

panorama wherein moved shadowy figures which were himself, in many

guises and conditions--a skin-clad barbarian; a mercenary swordsman in

horned helmet and scale-mail corselet; a corsair in a dragon-prowed

galley that trailed a crimson wake of blood and pillage along southern

coasts; a captain of hosts in burnished steel, on a rearing black

charger; a king on a golden throne with the lion banner flowing above,

and throngs of gay-hued courtiers and ladies on their knees. But

always the jouncing and rumbling of the chariot brought his thoughts

back to revolve with maddening monotony about the treachery of Amalrus

and the sorcery of Tsotha. The veins nearly burst in his temples and

cries of the wounded in the chariots filled him with ferocious

satisfaction.



Before midnight they crossed the Ophirean border and at dawn the

spires of Khorshemish stood up gleaming and rose-tinted on the south-

eastern horizon, the slim towers overawed by the grim scarlet citadel

that at a distance was like a splash of bright blood in the sky. That

was the castle of Tsotha. Only one narrow street, paved with marble

and guarded by heavy iron gates, led up to it, where it crowned the

hill dominating the city. The sides of that hill were too sheer to be

climbed elsewhere. From the walls of the citadel one could look down

on the broad white streets of the city, on minaretted mosques, shops,

temples, mansions, and markets. One could look down, too, on the

palaces of the king, set in broad gardens, high­walled, luxurious

riots of fruit trees and blossoms, through which artificial streams

murmured, and silvery fountains rippled incessantly. Over all brooded

the citadel, like a condor stooping above its prey, intent on its own

dark meditations.



The mighty gates between the huge towers of the outer wall clanged

open, and the king rode into his capital between lines of glittering

spearmen, while fifty trumpets pealed salute. But no throngs swarmed

the white-paved streets to fling roses before the conqueror's hoofs.

Strabonus had raced ahead of news of the battle, and the people, just

rousing to the occupations of the day, gaped to see their king

returning with a small retinue, and were in doubt as to whether it

portended victory or defeat.



Conan, life sluggishly moving in his veins again, craned his neck from

the chariot floor to view the wonders of this city which men called

the Queen of the South. He had thought to ride some day through these

golden-chased gates at the head of his steel-clad squadrons, with the

great lion banner flowing over his helmeted head. Instead he entered

in chains, stripped of his armor, and thrown like a captive slave on

the bronze floor of his conqueror's chariot. A wayward devilish mirth

of mockery rose above his fury, but to the nervous soldiers who drove

the chariot his laughter sounded like the muttering of a rousing lion.







II







_Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine_



In the citadel, in a chamber with a domed ceiling of carven jet, and

the fretted arches of doorways glimmering with strange dark jewels, a

strange conclave came to pass. Conan of Aquilonia, blood from

unbandaged wounds caking his huge limbs, faced his captors. On either

side of him stood a dozen black giants, grasping their long-shafted

axes. In front of him stood Tsotha, and on divans lounged Strabonus

and Amalrus in their silks and gold, gleaming with jewels, naked

slave-boys beside them pouring wine into cups carved of a single

sapphire. In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked

but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes

blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad

forehead. He dominated the scene, turning to tinsel the pomp of the

conquerors by the sheer vitality of his elemental personality, and the

kings in their pride and splendor were aware of it each in his secret

heart, and were not at ease. Only Tsotha was not disturbed.



"Our desires are quickly spoken, king of Aquilonia," said Tsotha. "It

is our wish to extend our empire."



"And so you want to swine my kingdom," rasped Conan.



"What are you but an adventurer, seizing a crown to which you had no

more claim than any other wandering barbarian?" parried Amalrus. "We

are prepared to offer you suitable compensation -"



"Compensation!" It was a gust of deep laughter from Conan's mighty

chest. "The price of infamy and treachery! I am a barbarian, so I

shall sell my kingdom and its people for life and your filthy gold?

Ha! How did you come to your crown, you and that black-faced pig

beside you? Your fathers did the fighting and the suffering, and

handed their crowns to you on golden platters. What you inherited

without lifting a finger--except to poison a few brothers--I fought

for.



"You sit on satin and guzzle wine the people sweat for, and talk of

divine rights of sovereignty--bah! I climbed out of the abyss of naked

barbarism to the throne and in that climb I spilt my blood as freely

as I spilt that of others. If either of us has the right to rule men,

by Crom, it is I! How have you proved yourselves my superiors?



"I found Aquilonia in the grip of a pig like you--one who traced his

genealogy for a thousand years. The land was torn with the wars of the

barons, and the people cried out under oppression and taxation. Today

no Aquilonian noble dares maltreat the humblest of my subjects, and

the taxes of the people are lighter than anywhere else in the world.



"What of you? Your brother, Amalrus, holds the eastern half of your

kingdom, and defies you. And you, Strabonus, your soldiers are even

now besieging castles of a dozen or more rebellious barons. The people

of both your kingdoms are crushed into the earth by tyrannous taxes

and levies. And you would loot mine--ha! Free my hands and I'll

varnish this floor with your brains!"



Tsotha grinned bleakly to see the rage of his kingly companions.



"All this, truthful though it be, is beside the point. Our plans are

no concern of yours. Your responsibility is at an end when you sign

this parchment, which is an abdication in favor of Prince Arpello of

Pellia. We will give you arms and horse, and five thousand golden

lunas, and escort you to the eastern frontier."



"Setting me adrift where I was when I rode into Aquilonia to take

service in her armies, except with the added burden of a traitor's

name!" Conan's laugh was like the deep short bark of a timber wolf.

"Arpello, eh? I've had suspicions of that butcher of Pellia. Can you

not even steal and pillage frankly and honestly, but you must have an

excuse, however thin? Arpello claims a trace of royal blood; so you

use him as an excuse for theft, and a satrap to rule through. I'll see

you in hell first."



"You're a fool!" exclaimed Amalrus. "You are in our hands, and we can

take both crown and life at our pleasure!"



Conan's answer was neither kingly nor dignified, but

characteristically instinctive in the man, whose barbaric nature had

never been submerged in his adopted culture. He spat full in Amalrus'

eyes. The king of Ophir leaped up with a scream of outraged fury,

groping for his slender sword. Drawing it, he rushed at the Cimmerian,

but Tsotha intervened.



"Wait, your majesty; this man is my prisoner."



"Aside, wizard!" shrieked Amalrus, maddened by the glare in the

Cimmerian's blue eyes.



"Back, I say!" roared Tsotha, roused to awesome wrath. His lean hand

came from his wide sleeve and cast a shower of dust into the

Ophirean's contorted face. Amalrus cried out and staggered back,

clutching at his eyes, the sword falling from his hand. He dropped

limply on the divan, while the Kothian guards looked on stolidly and

King Strabonus hurriedly gulped another goblet of wine, holding it

with hands that trembled. Amalrus lowered his hands and shook his head

violently, intelligence slowly sifting back into his grey eyes.



"I went blind," he growled. "What did you do to me, wizard?"



"Merely a gesture to convince you who was the real master," snapped

Tsotha, the mask of his formal pretense dropped, revealing the naked

evil personality of the man. "Strabonus has learned his lesson--let

you learn yours. It was but a dust I found in a Stygian tomb which I

flung into your eyes--if I brush out their sight again, I will leave

you to grope in darkness for the rest of your life."



Amalrus shrugged his shoulders, smiled whimsically and reached for a

goblet, dissembling his fear and fury. A polished diplomat, he was

quick to regain his poise. Tsotha turned to Conan, who had stood

imperturbably during the episode. At the wizard's gesture, the blacks

laid hold of their prisoner and marched him behind Tsotha, who led the

way out of the chamber through an arched doorway into a winding

corridor, whose floor was of many-hued mosaics, whose walls were

inlaid with gold tissue and silver chasing, and from whose fretted

arched ceiling swung golden censers, filling the corridor with dreamy

perfumed clouds. They turned down a smaller corridor, done in jet and

black jade, gloomy and awful, which ended at a brass door, over whose

arch a human skull grinned horrifically. At this door stood a fat

repellent figure, dangling a bunch of keys--Tsotha's chief eunuch,

Shukeli, of whom grisly tales were whispered--a man with whom a

bestial lust for torture took the place of normal human passions.



The brass door let onto a narrow stair that seemed to wind down into

the very bowels of the hill on which the citadel stood. Down these

stairs went the band, to halt at last at an iron door, the strength of

which seemed unnecessary. Evidently it did not open on outer air, yet

it was built as if to withstand the battering of mangonels and rams.

Shukeli opened it, and as he swung back the ponderous portal, Conan

noted the evident uneasiness among the black giants who guarded him;

nor did Shukeli seem altogether devoid of nervousness as he peered

into the darkness beyond. Inside the great door there was a second

barrier, composed of heavy steel bars. It was fastened by an ingenious

bolt which had no lock and could be worked only from the outside; this

bolt shot back, the grille slid into the wall. They passed through,

into a broad corridor, the floor, walls and arched ceiling of which

seemed to be cut out of solid stone. Conan knew he was far

underground, even below the hill itself. The darkness pressed in on

the guardsmen's torches like a sentient, animate thing.



They made the king fast to a ring in the stone wall. Above his head in

a niche in the wall they placed a torch, so that he stood in a dim

semicircle of light. The blacks were anxious to be gone; they muttered

among themselves, and cast fearful glances at the darkness. Tsotha

motioned them out, and they filed through the door in stumbling haste,

as if fearing that the darkness might take tangible form and spring

upon their backs. Tsotha turned toward Conan, and the king noticed

uneasily that the wizard's eyes shone in the semi-darkness, and that

his teeth much resembled the fangs of a wolf, gleaming whitely in the

shadows.



"And so, farewell, barbarian," mocked the sorcerer. "I must ride to

Shamar, and the siege. In ten days I will be in your palace in Tamar,

with my warriors. What word from you shall I say to your women, before

I flay their dainty skins for scrolls whereon to chronicle the

triumphs of Tsotha-lanti?"



Conan answered with a searing Cimmerian curse that would have burst

the eardrums of an ordinary man, and Tsotha laughed thinly and

withdrew. Conan had a glimpse of his vulture-like figure through the

thick-set bars, as he slid home the grate; then the heavy outer door

clanged, and silence fell like a pall.







III







_The Lion strode through the Halls of Hell;_



King Conan tested the ring in the wall and the chain that bound him.

His limbs were free, but he knew that his shackles were beyond even

his iron strength. The links of the chain were as thick as his thumb

and were fastened to a band of steel about his waist, a band broad as

his hand and half an inch thick. The sheer weight of his shackles

would have slain a lesser man with exhaustion. The locks that held

band and chain were massive affairs that a sledge-hammer could hardly

have dinted. As for the ring, evidently it went clear through the wall

and was clinched on the other side.



Conan cursed and panic surged through him as he glared into the

darkness that pressed against the half-circle of light. All the

superstitious dread of the barbarian slept in his soul, untouched by

civilized logic. His primitive imagination peopled the subterranean

darkness with grisly shapes. Besides, his reason told him that he had

not been placed there merely for confinement. His captors had no

reason to spare him. He had been placed in these pits for a definite

doom. He cursed himself for his refusal of their offer, even while his

stubborn manhood revolted at the thought, and he knew that were he

taken forth and given another chance, his reply would be the same. He

would not sell his subjects to the butcher. And yet it had been with

no thought of anyone's gain but his own that he had seized the kingdom

originally. Thus subtly does the instinct of sovereign responsibility

enter even a red-handed plunderer sometimes.



Conan thought of Tsotha's last abominable threat, and groaned in sick

fury, knowing it was no idle boast. Men and women were to the wizard

no more than the writhing insect is to the scientist. Soft white hands

that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty

white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be

stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young

petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its

mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it

came from a human throat.



The shuddering echoes made him start and brought back his own

situation vividly to the king. He glared fearsomely at the outer

gloom, and thought of the grisly tales he had heard of Tsotha's

necromantic cruelty, and it was with an icy sensation down his spine

that he realized that these must be the very Halls of Horror named in

shuddering legendry, the tunnels and dungeons wherein Tsotha performed

horrible experiments with beings human, bestial, and, it was

whispered, demoniac, tampering blasphemously with the naked basic

elements of life itself. Rumor said that the mad poet Rinaldo had

visited these pits, and been shown horrors by the wizard, and that the

nameless monstrosities of which he hinted in his awful poem, _The Song

of the Pit_, were no mere fantasies of a disordered brain. That brain

had crashed to dust beneath Conan's battle-axe on the night the king

had fought for his life with the assassins the mad rhymer had led into

the betrayed palace, but the shuddersome words of that grisly song

still rang in the king's ears as he stood there in his chains.



Even with the thought the Cimmerian was frozen by a soft rustling

sound, blood-freezing in its implication. He tensed in an attitude of

listening, painful in its intensity. An icy hand stroked his spine. It

was the unmistakable sound of pliant scales slithering softly over

stone. Cold sweat beaded his skin, as beyond the ring of dim light he

saw a vague and colossal form, awful even in its indistinctness. It

reared upright, swaying slightly, and yellow eyes burned icily on him

from the shadows. Slowly a huge, hideous, wedge-shaped head took form

before his dilated eyes, and from the darkness oozed, in flowing scaly

coils, the ultimate horror of reptilian development.



It was a snake that dwarfed all Conan's previous ideas of snakes.

Eighty feet it stretched from its pointed tail to its triangular head,

which was bigger than that of a horse. In the dim light its scales

glistened coldly, white as hoar-frost. Surely this reptile was one

born and grown in darkness, yet its eyes were full of evil and sure

sight. It looped its titan coils in front of the captive, and the

great head on the arching neck swayed a matter of inches from his

face. Its forked tongue almost brushed his lips as it darted in and

out, and its fetid odor made his senses reel with nausea. The great

yellow eyes burned into his, and Conan gave back the glare of a

trapped wolf. He fought against the mad impulse to grasp the great

arching neck in his tearing hands. Strong beyond the comprehension of

civilized man, he had broken the neck of a python in a fiendish battle

on the Stygian coast, in his corsair days. But this reptile was

venomous; he saw the great fangs, a foot long, curved like scimitars.

From them dripped a colorless liquid that he instinctively knew was

death. He might conceivably crush that wedge-shaped skull with a

desperate clenched fist, but he knew that at his first hint of

movement, the monster would strike like lightning.



It was not because of any logical reasoning process that Conan

remained motionless, since reason might have told him--since he was

doomed anyway--to goad the snake into striking and get it over with;

it was the blind black instinct of self-preservation that held him

rigid as a statue blasted out of iron. Now the great barrel reared up

and the head was poised high above his own, as the monster

investigated the torch. A drop of venom fell on his naked thigh, and

the feel of it was like a white-hot dagger driven into his flesh. Red

jets of agony shot through Conan's brain, yet he held himself

immovable; not by the twitching of a muscle or the flicker of an

eyelash did he betray the pain of the hurt that left a scar he bore to

the day of his death.



The serpent swayed above him, as if seeking to ascertain whether there

were in truth life in this figure which stood so death-like still.

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the outer door, all but invisible in the

shadows, clanged stridently. The serpent, suspicious as all its kind,

whipped about with a quickness incredible for its bulk, and vanished

with a long-drawn slithering down the corridor. The door swung open

and remained open. The grille was withdrawn and a huge dark figure was

framed in the glow of torches outside. The figure glided in, pulling

the grille partly to behind it, leaving the bolt poised. As it moved

into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it

was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge

sword and in the other a bunch of keys. The black spoke in a sea-coast

dialect, and Conan replied; he had learned the jargon while a corsair

on the coasts of Kush.



"Long have I wished to meet you, Amra," the black gave Conan the name

­ Amra, the Lion--by which the Cimmerian had been known to the

Kushites in his piratical days. The slave's woolly skull split in an

animal-like grin, showing white tusks, but his eyes glinted redly in

the torchlight. "I have dared much for this meeting! Look! The keys to

your chains! I stole them from Shukeli. What will you give me for

them?"



He dangled the keys in front of Conan's eyes.



"Ten thousand golden lunas," answered the king quickly, new hope

surging fiercely in his breast.



"Not enough!" cried the black, a ferocious exultation shining on his

ebon countenance. "Not enough for the risks I take. Tsotha's pets

might come out of the dark and eat me, and if Shukeli finds out I

stole his keys, he'll hang me up by my ­ well, what will you give

me?"



"Fifteen thousand lunas and a palace in Poitain," offered the king.



The black yelled and stamped in a frenzy of barbaric gratification.

"More!" he cried. "Offer me more! What will you give me?"



"You black dog!" A red mist of fury swept across Conan's eyes. "Were I

free I'd give you a broken back! Did Shukeli send you here to mock

me?"



"Shukeli knows nothing of my coming, white man," answered the black,

craning his thick neck to peer into Conan's savage eyes. "I know you

from of old, since the days when I was a chief among a free people,

before the Stygians took me and sold me into the north. Do you not

remember the sack of Abombi, when your sea-wolves swarmed in? Before

the palace of King Ajaga you slew a chief and a chief fled from you.

It was my brother who died; it was I who fled. I demand of you a

blood-price, Amra!"



"Free me and I'll pay you your weight in gold pieces," growled Conan.



The red eyes glittered, the white teeth flashed wolfishly in the

torchlight. "Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a

black man gold can never pay for blood. The price I ask is--your

head!"



The last word was a maniacal shriek that sent the echoes shivering.

Conan tensed, unconsciously straining against his shackles in his

abhorrence of dying like a sheep; then he was frozen by a greater

horror. Over the black's shoulder he saw a vague horrific form swaying

in the darkness.



"Tsotha will never know!" laughed the black fiendishly, too engrossed

in his gloating triumph to take heed of anything else, too drunk with

hate to know that Death swayed behind his shoulder. "He will not come

into the vaults until the demons have torn your bones from their

chains. I will have your head, Amra!"



He braced his knotted legs like ebon columns and swung up the massive

sword in both hands, his great black muscles rolling and cracking in

the torchlight. And at that instant the titanic shadow behind him

darted down and out, and the wedge­shaped head smote with an impact

that re-echoed down the tunnels. Not a sound came from the thick

blubbery lips that flew wide in fleeting agony. With the thud of the

stroke, Conan saw the life go out of the wide black eyes with the

suddenness of a candle blown out. The blow knocked the great black

body clear across the corridor and horribly the gigantic sinuous shape

whipped around it in glistening coils that hid it from view, and the

snap and splintering of bones came plainly to Conan's ears. Then

something made his heart leap madly. The sword and the keys had flown

from the black's hands to crash and jangle on the stone--and the keys

lay almost at the king's feet.



He tried to bend to them, but the chain was too short; almost

suffocated by the mad pounding of his heart, he slipped one foot from

its sandal, and gripped them with his toes; drawing his foot up, he

grasped them fiercely, barely stifling the yell of ferocious

exultation that rose instinctively to his lips.



An instant's fumbling with the huge locks and he was free. He caught

up the fallen sword and glared about. Only empty darkness met his

eyes, into which the serpent had dragged a mangled, tattered object

that only faintly resembled a human body. Conan turned to the open

door. A few quick strides brought him to the threshold--a squeal of

high-pitched laughter shrilled through the vaults, and the grille shot

home under his very fingers, the bolt crashed down. Through the bars

peered a face like a fiendishly mocking carven gargoyle--Shukeli the

eunuch, who had followed his stolen keys. Surely he did not, in his

gloating, see the sword in the prisoner's hand. With a terrible curse

Conan struck as a cobra strikes; the great blade hissed between the

bars and Shukeli's laughter broke in a death-scream. The fat eunuch

bent at the middle, as if bowing to his killer, and crumpled like

tallow, his pudgy hands clutching vainly at his spilling entrails.



Conan snarled in savage satisfaction; but he was still a prisoner. His

keys were futile against the bolt which could be worked only from the

outside. His experienced touch told him the bars were hard as the

sword; an attempt to hew his way to freedom would only splinter his

one weapon. Yet he found dents on those adamantine bars, like the

marks of incredible fangs, and wondered with an involuntary shudder

what nameless monsters had so terribly assailed the barriers.

Regardless, there was but one thing for him to do, and that was to

seek some other outlet. Taking the torch from the niche, he set off

down the corridor, sword in hand. He saw no sign of the serpent or its

victim, only a great smear of blood on the stone floor.



Darkness stalked on noiseless feet about him, scarcely driven back by

his flickering torch. On either hand he saw dark openings, but he kept

to the main corridor, watching the floor ahead of him carefully, lest

he fall into some pit. And suddenly he heard the sound of a woman,

weeping piteously. Another of Tsotha's victims, he thought, cursing

the wizard anew, and turning aside, followed the sound down a smaller

tunnel, dank and damp.



The weeping grew nearer as he advanced, and lifting his torch he made

out a vague shape in the shadows. Stepping closer, he halted in sudden

horror at the amorphic bulk which sprawled before him. Its unstable

outlines somewhat suggested an octopus, but its malformed tentacles

were too short for its size, and its substance was a quaking, jelly-

like stuff which made him physically sick to look at. From among this

loathsome gelid mass reared up a frog-like head, and he was frozen

with nauseated horror to realize that the sound of weeping was coming

from those obscene blubbery lips. The noise changed to an abominable

high-pitched tittering as the great unstable eyes of the monstrosity

rested on him, and it hitched its quaking bulk toward him. He backed

away and fled up the tunnel, not trusting his sword. The creature

might be composed of terrestrial matter, but it shook his very soul to

look upon it, and he doubted the power of man-made weapons to harm it.

For a short distance he heard it flopping and floundering after him,

screaming with horrible laughter. The unmistakably human note in its

mirth almost staggered his reason. It was exactly such laughter as he

had heard bubble obscenely from the fat lips of the salacious women of

Shadizar, City of Wickedness, when captive girls were stripped naked

on the public auction block. By what hellish arts had Tsotha brought

this unnatural being into life? Conan felt vaguely that he had looked

on blasphemy against the eternal laws of nature.



He ran toward the main corridor, but before he reached it he crossed a

sort of small square chamber, where two tunnels crossed. As he reached

this chamber, he was flashingly aware of some small squat bulk on the

floor ahead of him; then before he could check his flight or swerve

aside, his foot struck something yielding that squalled shrilly, and

he was precipitated headlong, the torch flying from his hand and being

extinguished as it struck the stone floor. Half stunned by his fall,

Conan rose and groped in the darkness. His sense of direction was

confused, and he was unable to decide in which direction lay the main

corridor. He did not look for the torch, as he had no means of

rekindling it. His groping hands found the openings of the tunnels,

and he chose one at random. How long he traversed it in utter

darkness, he never knew, but suddenly his barbarian's instinct of near

peril halted him short.



He had the same feeling he had had when standing on the brink of great

precipices in the darkness. Dropping to all fours, he edged forward,

and presently his outflung hand encountered the edge of a well, into

which the tunnel floor dropped abruptly. As far down as he could reach

the sides fell away sheerly, dank and slimy to his touch. He stretched

out an arm in the darkness and could barely touch the opposite edge

with the point of his sword. He could leap across it, then, but there

was no point in that. He had taken the wrong tunnel and the main

corridor lay somewhere behind him.



Even as he thought this, he felt a faint movement of air; a shadowy

wind, rising from the well, stirred his black mane. Conan's skin

crawled. He tried to tell himself that this well connected somehow

with the outer world, but his instincts told him it was a thing

unnatural. He was not merely inside the hill; he was below it, far

below the level of the city streets. How then could an outer wind find

its way into the pits and blow up from below? A faint throbbing pulsed

on that ghostly wind, like drums beating, far, far below. A strong

shudder shook the king of Aquilonia.



He rose to his feet and backed away, and as he did something floated

up out of the well. What it was, Conan did not know. He could see

nothing in the darkness, but he distinctly felt a presence--an

invisible, intangible intelligence which hovered malignly near him.

Turning, he fled the way he had come. Far ahead he saw a tiny red

spark. He headed for it, and long before he thought to have reached

it, he caromed headlong into a solid wall, and saw the spark at his

feet. It was his torch, the flame extinguished, but the end a glowing

coal. Carefully he took it up and blew upon it, fanning it into flame

again. He gave a sigh as the tiny blaze leaped up. He was back in the

chamber where the tunnels crossed, and his sense of direction came

back.



He located the tunnel by which he had left the main corridor, and even

as he started toward it, his torch flame flickered wildly as if blown

upon by unseen lips. Again he felt a presence, and he lifted his

torch, glaring about.



He saw nothing; yet he sensed, somehow, an invisible, bodiless thing

that hovered in the air, dripping slimily and mouthing obscenities

that he could not hear but was in some instinctive way aware of. He

swung viciously with his sword and it felt as if he were cleaving

cobwebs. A cold horror shook him then, and he fled down the tunnel,

feeling a foul burning breath on his naked back as he ran.



But when he came out into the broad corridor, he was no longer aware

of any presence, visible or invisible. Down it he went, momentarily

expecting fanged and taloned fiends to leap at him from the darkness.

The tunnels were not silent. From the bowels of the earth in all

directions came sounds that did not belong in a sane world. There were

titterings, squeals of demoniac mirth, long shuddering howls, and once

the unmistakable squalling laughter of a hyena ended awfully in human

words of shrieking blasphemy. He heard the pad of stealthy feet, and

in the mouths of the tunnels caught glimpses of shadowy forms,

monstrous and abnormal in outline.



It was as if he had wandered into hell--a hell of Tsotha-lanti's

making. But the shadowy things did not come into the great corridor,

though he distinctly heard the greedy sucking-in of slavering lips,

and felt the burning glare of hungry eyes. And presently he knew why.

A slithering sound behind him electrified him, and he leaped to the

darkness of a near-by tunnel, shaking out his torch. Down the corridor

he heard the great serpent crawling, sluggish from its recent grisly

meal. From his very side something whimpered in fear and slunk away in

the darkness. Evidently the main corridor was the great snake's

hunting-ground and the other monsters gave it room.



To Conan the serpent was the least horror of them; he almost felt a

kinship with it when he remembered the weeping, tittering obscenity,

and the dripping, mouthing thing that came out of the well. At least

it was of earthly matter; it was a crawling death, but it threatened

only physical extinction, whereas these other horrors menaced mind and

soul as well.



After it had passed on down the corridor he followed, at what he hoped

was a safe distance, blowing his torch into flame again. He had not

gone far when he heard a low moan that seemed to emanate from the

black entrance of a tunnel near by. Caution warned him on, but

curiosity drove him to the tunnel, holding high the torch that was now

little more than a stump. He was braced for the sight of anything, yet

what he saw was what he had least expected. He was looking into a

broad cell, and a space of this was caged off with closely set bars

extending from floor to ceiling, set firmly in the stone. Within these

bars lay a figure, which, as he approached, he saw was either a man,

or the exact likeness of a man, twined and bound about with the

tendrils of a thick vine which seemed to grow through the solid stone

of the floor. It was covered with strangely pointed leaves and crimson

blossoms--not the satiny red of natural petals, but a livid, unnatural

crimson, like a perversity of flower-life. Its clinging, pliant

branches wound about the man's naked body and limbs, seeming to caress

his shrinking flesh with lustful avid kisses. One great blossom

hovered exactly over his mouth. A low bestial moaning drooled from the

loose lips; the head rolled as if in unbearable agony, and the eyes

looked full at Conan. But there was no light of intelligence in them;

they were blank, glassy, the eyes of an idiot.



Now the great crimson blossom dipped and pressed its petals over the

writhing lips. The limbs of the wretch twisted in anguish; the

tendrils of the plant quivered as if in ecstasy, vibrating their full

snaky lengths. Waves of changing hues surged over them; their color

grew deeper, more venomous.



Conan did not understand what he saw, but he knew that he looked on

Horror of some kind. Man or demon, the suffering of the captive

touched Conan's wayward and impulsive heart. He sought for entrance

and found a grille-like door in the bars, fastened with a heavy lock,

for which he found a key among the keys he carried, and entered.

Instantly the petals of the livid blossoms spread like the hood of a

cobra, the tendrils reared menacingly and the whole plant shook and

swayed toward him. Here was no blind growth of natural vegetation.

Conan sensed a malignant intelligence; the plant could see him, and he

felt its hate emanate from it in almost tangible waves. Stepping

warily nearer, he marked the root-stem, a repulsively supple stalk

thicker than his thigh, and even as the long tendrils arched toward

him with a rattle of leaves and hiss, he swung his sword and cut

through the stem with a single stroke.



Instantly the wretch in its clutches was thrown violently aside as the

great vine lashed and knotted like a beheaded serpent, rolling into a

huge irregular ball. The tendrils thrashed and writhed, the leaves

shook and rattled like castanets, and the petals opened and closed

convulsively; then the whole length straightened out limply, the vivid

colors paled and dimmed, a reeking white liquid oozed from the severed

stump.



Conan stared, spellbound; then a sound brought him round, sword

lifted. The freed man was on his feet, surveying him. Conan gaped in

wonder. No longer were the eyes in the worn face expressionless. Dark

and meditative, they were alive with intelligence, and the expression

of imbecility had dropped from the face like a mask. The head was

narrow and well-formed, with a high splendid forehead. The whole build

of the man was aristocratic, evident no less in his tall slender frame

than in his small trim feet and hands. His first words were strange

and startling.



"What year is this?" he asked, speaking Kothic.



"Today is the tenth day of the month Yuluk, of the year of the

Gazelle," answered Conan.



"Yagkoolan Ishtar!" murmured the stranger. "Ten years!" He drew a hand

across his brow, shaking his head as if to clear his brain of cobwebs.

"All is dim yet. After a ten-year emptiness, the mind can not be

expected to begin functioning clearly at once. Who are you?"



"Conan, once of Cimmeria. Now king of Aquilonia."



The other's eyes showed surprize.



"Indeed? And Namedides?"



"I strangled him on his throne the night I took the royal city,"

answered Conan.



A certain naivete in the king's reply twitched the stranger's lips.



"Pardon, your majesty. I should have thanked you for the service you

have done me. I am like a man woken suddenly from sleep deeper than

death and shot with nightmares of agony more fierce than hell, but I

understand that you delivered me. Tell me--why did you cut the stem of

the plant Yothga instead of tearing it up by the roots?"



"Because I learned long ago to avoid touching with my flesh that which

I do not understand," answered the Cimmerian.



"Well for you," said the stranger. "Had you been able to tear it up,

you might have found things clinging to the roots against which not

even your sword would prevail. Yothga's roots are set in hell."



"But who are you?" demanded Conan.



"Men called me Pelias."



"What!" cried the king. "Pelias the sorcerer, Tsotha-lanti's rival,

who vanished from the earth ten years ago?"



"Not entirely from the earth," answered Pelias with a wry smile.

"Tsotha preferred to keep me alive, in shackles more grim than rusted

iron. He pent me in here with this devil-flower whose seeds drifted

down through the black cosmos from Yag the Accursed, and found fertile

field only in the maggot-writhing corruption that seethes on the

floors of hell.



"I could not remember my sorcery and the words and symbols of my

power, with that cursed thing gripping me and drinking my soul with

its loathsome caresses. It sucked the contents of my mind day and

night, leaving my brain as empty as a broken wine-jug. Ten years!

Ishtar preserve us!"



Conan found no reply, but stood holding the stump of the torch, and

trailing his great sword. Surely the man was mad--yet there was no

madness in the dark eyes that rested so calmly on him.



"Tell me, is the black wizard in Khorshemish? But no--you need not

reply. My powers begin to wake, and I sense in your mind a great

battle and a king trapped by treachery. And I see Tsotha-lanti riding

hard for the Tybor with Strabonus and the king of Ophir. So much the

better. My art is too frail from the long slumber to face Tsotha yet.

I need time to recruit my strength, to assemble my powers. Let us go

forth from these pits."



Conan jangled his keys discouragedly.



"The grille to the outer door is made fast by a bolt which can be

worked only from the outside. Is there no other exit from these

tunnels?"



"Only one, which neither of us would care to use, seeing that it goes

down and not up," laughed Pelias. "But no matter. Let us see to the

grille."



He moved toward the corridor with uncertain steps, as of long-unused

limbs, which gradually became more sure. As he followed Conan remarked

uneasily, "There is a cursed big snake creeping about this tunnel. Let

us be wary lest we step into his mouth."



"I remember him of old," answered Pelias grimly, "the more as I was

forced to watch while ten of my acolytes were fed to him. He is Satha,

the Old One, chiefest of Tsotha's pets."



"Did Tsotha dig these pits for no other reason than to house his

cursed monstrosities?" asked Conan.



"He did not dig them. when the city was founded three thousand years

ago there were ruins of an earlier city on and about this hill. King

Khossus V, the founder, built his palace on the hill, and digging

cellars beneath it, came upon a walled-up doorway, which he broke into

and discovered the pits, which were about as we see them now. But his

grand vizier came to such a grisly end in them that Khossus in a

fright walled up the entrance again. He said the vizier fell into a

well--but he had the cellars filled in, and later abandoned the palace

itself, and built himself another in the suburbs, from which he fled

in a panic on discovering some black mold scattered on the marble

floor of his palace one morning.



"He then departed with his whole court to the eastern corner of the

kingdom and built a new city. The palace on the hill was not used and

fell into ruins. When Akkutho I revived the lost glories of

Khorshemish, he built a fortress there. It remained for Tsotha-lanti

to rear the scarlet citadel and open the way to the pits again.

Whatever fate overtook the grand vizier of Khossus, Tsotha avoided it.

He fell into no well, though he did descend into a well he found, and

came out with a strange expression which has not since left his eyes.



"I have seen that well, but I do not care to seek in it for wisdom. I

am a sorcerer, and older than men reckon, but I am human. As for

Tsotha--men say that a dancing­girl of Shadizar slept too near the

pre-human ruins on Dagoth Hill and woke in the grip of a black demon;

from that unholy union was spawned an accursed hybrid men call Tsotha-

lanti -"



Conan cried out sharply and recoiled, thrusting his companion back.

Before them rose the great shimmering white form of Satha, an ageless

hate in its eyes. Conan tensed himself for one mad berserker

onslaught--to thrust the glowing fagot into that fiendish countenance

and throw his life into the ripping sword-stroke. But the snake was

not looking at him. It was glaring over his shoulder at the man called

Pelias, who stood with his arms folded, smiling. And in the great cold

yellow eyes slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear--the

only time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes. With

a swirling rush like the sweep of a strong wind, the great snake was

gone.



"What did he see to frighten him?" asked Conan, eyeing his companion

uneasily.



"The scaled people see what escapes the mortal eye," answered Pelias,

cryptically. "You see my fleshly guise; he saw my naked soul."



An icy trickle disturbed Conan's spine, and he wondered if, after all,

Pelias were a man, or merely another demon of the pits in a mask of

humanity. He contemplated the advisability of driving his sword

through his companion's back without further hesitation. But while he

pondered, they came to the steel grille, etched blackly in the torches

beyond, and the body of Shukeli, still slumped against the bars in a

curdled welter of crimson.



Pelias laughed, and his laugh was not pleasant to hear.



"By the ivory hips of Ishtar, who is our doorman? Lo, it is no less

than the noble Shukeli, who hanged my young men by their feet and

skinned them with squeals of laughter! Do you sleep, Shukeli? Why do

you lie so stiffly, with your fat belly sunk in like a dressed pig's?"



"He is dead," muttered Conan, ill at ease to hear these wild words.



"Dead or alive," laughed Pelias, "he shall open the door for us."



He clapped his hands sharply and cried, "Rise, Shukeli! Rise from hell

and rise from the bloody floor and open the door for your masters!

Rise, I say!"



An awful groan reverberated through the vaults. Conan's hair stood on

end and he felt clammy sweat bead his hide. For the body of Shukeli

stirred and moved, with infantile gropings of the fat hands. The

laughter of Pelias was merciless as a flint hatchet, as the form of

the eunuch reeled upright, clutching at the bars of the grille. Conan,

glaring at him, felt his blood turn to ice, and the marrow of his

bones to water; for Shukeli's wide-open eyes were glassy and empty,

and from the great gash in his belly his entrails hung limply to the

floor. The eunuch's feet stumbled among his entrails as he worked the

bolt, moving like a brainless automaton. When he had first stirred,

Conan had thought that by some incredible chance the eunuch was alive;

but the man was dead--had been dead for hours.



Pelias sauntered through the opened grille, and Conan crowded through

behind him, sweat pouring from his body, shrinking away from the awful

shape that slumped on sagging legs against the grate it held open.

Pelias passed on without a backward glance, and Conan followed him, in

the grip of nightmare and nausea. He had not taken half a dozen

strides when a sodden thud brought him round. Shukeli's corpse lay

limply at the foot of the grille.



"His task is done, and hell gapes for him again," remarked Pelias

pleasantly; politely affecting not to notice the strong shudder which

shook Conan's mighty frame.



He led the way up the long stairs, and through the brass skull-crowned

door at the top. Conan gripped his sword, expecting a rush of slaves,

but silence gripped the citadel. They passed through the black

corridor and came into that in which the censers swung, billowing

forth their everlasting incense. Still they saw no one.



"The slaves and soldiers are quartered in another part of the

citadel," remarked Pelias. "Tonight, their master being away, they

doubtless lie drunk on wine or lotus-juice."



Conan glanced through an arched, golden-silled window that let out

upon a broad balcony, and swore in surprize to see the dark-blue star-

flecked sky. It had been shortly after sunrise when he was thrown into

the pits. Now it was past midnight. He could scarcely realize he had

been so long underground. He was suddenly aware of thirst and a

ravenous appetite. Pelias led the way into a gold­domed chamber,

floored with silver, its lapis-lazuli walls pierced by the fretted

arches of many doors.



With a sigh Pelias sank onto a silken divan.



"Gold and silks again," he sighed. "Tsotha affects to be above the

pleasures of the flesh, but he is half devil. I am human, despite my

black arts. I love ease and good cheer--that's how Tsotha trapped me.

He caught me helpless with drink. Wine is a curse--by the ivory bosom

of Ishtar, even as I speak of it, the traitor is here! Friend, please

pour me a goblet--hold! I forgot that you are a king. I will pour."



"The devil with that," growled Conan, filling a crystal goblet and

proffering it to Pelias. Then, lifting the jug, he drank deeply from

the mouth, echoing Pelias' sigh of satisfaction.



"The dog knows good wine," said Conan, wiping his mouth with the back

of his hand. "But by Crom, Pelias, are we to sit here until his

soldiers awake and cut our throats?"



"No fear," answered Pelias. "Would you like to see how fortune holds

with Strabonus?"



Blue fire burned in Conan's eyes, and he gripped his sword until his

knuckles showed blue. "Oh, to be at sword-points with him!" he

rumbled.



Pelias lifted a great shimmering globe from an ebony table.



"Tsotha's crystal. A childish toy, but useful when there is lack of

time for higher science. Look in, your majesty."



He laid it on the table before Conan's eyes. The king looked into

cloudy depths which deepened and expanded. Slowly images crystallized

out of mist and shadows. He was looking on a familiar landscape. Broad

plains ran to a wide winding river, beyond which the level lands ran

up quickly into a maze of low hills. On the northern bank of the river

stood a walled town, guarded by a moat connected at each end with the

river.



"By Crom!" ejaculated Conan. "It's Shamar! The dogs besiege it!"



The invaders had crossed the river; their pavilions stood in the

narrow plain between the city and the hills. Their warriors swarmed

about the walls, their mail gleaming palely under the moon. Arrows and

stones rained on them from the towers and they staggered back, but

came on again.



Even as Conan cursed, the scene changed. Tall spires and gleaming

domes stood up in the mist, and he looked on his own capital of Tamar,

where all was confusion. He saw the steel-clad knights of Poitain, his

staunchest supporters, riding out of the gate, hooted and hissed by

the multitude which swarmed the streets. He saw looting and rioting,

and men-at-arms whose shields bore the insignia of Pellia, manning the

towers and swaggering through the markets. Over all, like a fantasmal

mirage, he saw the dark, triumphant face of Prince Arpello of Pellia.

The images faded.



"So!" raved Conan. "My people turn on me the moment my back is turned

-"



"Not entirely," broke in Pelias. "They have heard that you are dead.

There is no one to protect them from outer enemies and civil war, they

think. Naturally, they turn to the strongest noble, to avoid the

horrors of anarchy. They do not trust the Poitanians, remembering

former wars. But Arpello is on hand, and the strongest prince of the

central provinces."



"When I come to Aquilonia again he will be but a headless corpse

rotting on Traitor's Common," Conan ground his teeth.



"Yet before you can reach your capital," reminded Pelias, "Strabonus

may be before you. At least his riders will be ravaging your kingdom."



"True!" Conan paced the chamber like a caged lion. "With the fastest

horse I could not reach Shamar before midday. Even there I could do no

good except to die with the people, when the town falls--as fall it

will in a few days at most. From Shamar to Tamar is five days' ride,

even if you kill your horses on the road. Before I could reach my

capital and raise an army, Strabonus would be hammering at the gates;

because raising an army is going to be hell--all my damnable nobles

will have scattered to their own cursed fiefs at the word of my death.

And since the people have driven out Trocero of Poitain, there's none

to keep Arpello's greedy hands off the crown--and the crown-treasure.

He'll hand the country over to Strabonus, in return for a mock-

throne--and as soon as Strabonus' back is turned, he'll stir up

revolt. But the nobles won't support him, and it will only give

Strabonus excuse for annexing the kingdom openly. Oh Crom, Ymir, and

Set! If I but had wings to fly like lightning to Tamar!"



Pelias, who sat tapping the jade table-top with his finger-nails,

halted suddenly, and rose as with a definite purpose, beckoning Conan

to follow. The king complied, sunk in moody thoughts, and Pelias led

the way out of the chamber and up a flight of marble, gold-worked

stairs that let out on the pinnacle of the citadel, the roof of the

tallest tower. It was night, and a strong wind was blowing through the

star-filled skies, stirring Conan's black mane. Far below them

twinkled the lights of Khorshemish, seemingly farther away than the

stars above them. Pelias seemed withdrawn and aloof here, one in cold

unhuman greatness with the company of the stars.



"There are creatures," said Pelias, "not alone of earth and sea, but

of air and the far reaches of the skies as well, dwelling apart,

unguessed of men. Yet to him who holds the Master-words and Signs and

the Knowledge underlying all, they are not malignant nor inaccessible.

Watch, and fear not."



He lifted his hands to the skies and sounded a long weird call that

seemed to shudder endlessly out into space, dwindling and fading, yet

never dying out, only receding farther and farther into some

unreckoned cosmos. In the silence that followed, Conan heard a sudden

beat of wings in the stars, and recoiled as a huge bat-like creature

alighted beside him. He saw its great calm eyes regarding him in the

starlight; he saw the forty-foot spread of its giant wings. And he saw

it was neither bat nor bird.



"Mount and ride," said Pelias. "By dawn it will bring you to Tamar."



"By Crom!" muttered Conan. "Is this all a nightmare from which I shall

presently awaken in my palace at Tamar? What of you? I would not leave

you alone among your enemies."



"Be at ease regarding me," answered Pelias. "At dawn the people of

Khorshemish will know they have a new master. Doubt not what the gods

have sent you. I will meet you in the plain by Shamar."



Doubtfully Conan clambered upon the ridged back, gripping the arched

neck, still convinced that he was in the grasp of a fantastic

nightmare. With a great rush and thunder of titan wings, the creature

took the air, and the king grew dizzy as he saw the lights of the city

dwindle far below him.











IV







_"The sword that slays the king cuts the cords of the empire." _



The streets of Tamar swarmed with howling mobs, shaking fists and

rusty pikes. It was the hour before dawn of the second day after the

battle of Shamu, and events had occurred so swiftly as to daze the

mind. By means known only to Tsotha-lanti, word had reached Tamar of

the king's death, within half a dozen hours after the battle. Chaos

had resulted. The barons had deserted the royal capital, galloping

away to secure their castles against marauding neighbors. The well-

knit kingdom Conan had built up seemed tottering on the edge of

dissolution, and commoners and merchants trembled at the imminence of

a return of the feudalistic regime. The people howled for a king to

protect them against their own aristocracy no less than foreign foes.

Count Trocero, left by Conan in charge of the city, tried to reassure

them, but in their unreasoning terror they remembered old civil wars,

and how this same count had besieged Tamar fifteen years before. It

was shouted in the streets that Trocero had betrayed the king; that he

planned to plunder the city. The mercenaries began looting the

quarters, dragging forth screaming merchants and terrified women.



Trocero swept down on the looters, littered the streets with their

corpses, drove them back into their quarter in confusion, and arrested

their leaders. Still the people rushed wildly about, with brainless

squawks, screaming that the count had incited the riot for his own

purposes.



Prince Arpello came before the distracted council and announced

himself ready to take over the government of the city until a new king

could be decided upon, Conan having no son. While they debated, his

agents stole subtly among the people, who snatched at a shred of

royalty. The council heard the storm outside the palace windows, where

the multitude roared for Arpello the Rescuer. The council surrendered.



Trocero at first refused the order to give up his baton of authority,

but the people swarmed about him, hissing and howling, hurling stones

and offal at his knights. Seeing the futility of a pitched battle in

the streets with Arpello's retainers, under such conditions, Trocero

hurled the baton in his rival's face, hanged the leaders of the

mercenaries in the market-square as his last official act, and rode

out of the southern gate at the head of his fifteen hundred steel-clad

knights. The gates slammed behind him and Arpello's suave mask fell

away to reveal the grim visage of the hungry wolf.



With the mercenaries cut to pieces or hiding in their barracks, his

were the only soldiers in Tamar. Sitting his war-horse in the great

square, Arpello proclaimed himself king of Aquilonia, amid the clamor

of the deluded multitude.



Publius the Chancellor, who opposed this move, was thrown into prison.

The merchants, who had greeted the proclamation of a king with relief,

now found with consternation that the new monarch's first act was to

levy a staggering tax on them. Six rich merchants, sent as a

delegation of protest, were seized and their heads slashed off without

ceremony. A shocked and stunned silence followed this execution. The

merchants, confronted by a power they could not control with money,

fell on their fat bellies and licked their oppressor's boots.



The common people were not perturbed at the fate of the merchants, but

they began to murmur when they found that the swaggering Pellian

soldiery, pretending to maintain order, were as bad as Turanian

bandits. Complaints of extortion, murder and rape poured in to

Arpello, who had taken up his quarters in Publius' palace, because the

desperate councillors, doomed by his order, were holding the royal

palace against his soldiers. He had taken possession of the pleasure-

palace, however, and Conan's girls were dragged to his quarters. The

people muttered at the sight of the royal beauties writhing in the

brutal hands of the iron-clad retainers ­ dark-eyed damsels of

Poitain, slim black-haired wenches from Zamora, Zingara and Hyrkania,

Brythunian girls with tousled yellow heads, all weeping with fright

and shame, unused to brutality.



Night fell on a city of bewilderment and turmoil, and before midnight

word spread mysteriously in the street that the Kothians had followed

up their victory and were hammering at the walls of Shamar. Somebody

in Tsotha's mysterious secret-service had babbled. Fear shook the

people like an earthquake, and they did not even pause to wonder at

the witchcraft by which the news had been so swiftly transmitted. They

stormed at Arpello's doors, demanding that he march southward and

drive the enemy back over the Tybor. He might have subtly pointed out

that his force was not sufficient, and that he could not raise an army

until the barons recognized his claim to the crown. But he was drunk

with power, and laughed in their faces.



A young student, Athemides, mounted a column in the market, and with

burning words accused Arpello of being a cats-paw for Strabonus,

painting a vivid picture of existence under Kothian rule, with Arpello

as satrap. Before he finished, the multitude was screaming with fear

and howling with rage. Arpello sent his soldiers to arrest the youth,

but the people caught him up and fled with him, deluging the pursuing

retainers with stones and dead cats. A volley of crossbow quarrels

routed the mob, and a charge of horsemen littered the market with

bodies, but Athemides was smuggled out of the city to plead with

Trocero to retake Tamar, and march to aid Shamar.



Athemides found Trocero breaking his camp outside the walls, ready to

march to Poitain, in the far southwestern corner of the kingdom. To

the youth's urgent pleas he answered that he had neither the force

necessary to storm Tamar, even with the aid of the mob inside, nor to

face Strabonus. Besides, avaricious nobles would plunder Poitain

behind his back, while he was fighting the Kothians. With the king

dead, each man must protect his own. He was riding to Poitain, there

to defend it as best he might against Arpello and his foreign allies.



While Athemides pleaded with Trocero, the mob still raved in the city

with helpless fury. Under the great tower beside the royal palace the

people swirled and milled, screaming their hate at Arpello, who stood

on the turrets and laughed down at them while his archers ranged the

parapets, bolts drawn and fingers on the triggers of their arbalests.



The prince of Pellia was a broad-built man of medium height, with a

dark stern face. He was an intriguer, but he was also a fighter. Under

his silken jupon with its gilt-braided skirts and jagged sleeves,

glimmered burnished steel. His long black hair was curled and scented,

and bound back with a cloth-of-silver band, but at his hip hung a

broadsword the jeweled hilt of which was worn with battles and

campaigns.



"Fools! Howl as you will! Conan is dead and Arpello is king!"



What if all Aquilonia were leagued against him? He had men enough to

hold the mighty walls until Strabonus came up. But Aquilonia was

divided against itself. Already the barons were girding themselves

each to seize his neighbor's treasure. Arpello had only the helpless

mob to deal with. Strabonus would carve through the loose lines of the

warring barons as a galley-ram through foam, and until his coming,

Arpello had only to hold the royal capital.



"Fools! Arpello is king!"



The sun was rising over the eastern towers. Out of the crimson dawn

came a flying speck that grew to a bat, then to an eagle. Then all who

saw screamed in amazement, for over the walls of Tamar swooped a shape

such as men knew only in half-forgotten legends, and from between its

titan-wings sprang a human form as it roared over the great tower.

Then with a deafening thunder of wings it was gone, and the folk

blinked, wondering if they dreamed. But on the turret stood a wild

barbaric figure, half naked, blood-stained, brandishing a great sword.

And from the multitude rose a roar that rocked the towers, "The king!

It is the king!"



Arpello stood transfixed; then with a cry he drew and leaped at Conan.

With a lion-like roar the Cimmerian parried the whistling blade, then

dropping his own sword, gripped the prince and heaved him high above

his head by crotch and neck.



"Take your plots to hell with you!" he roared, and like a sack of

salt, he hurled the prince of Pellia far out, to fall through empty

space for a hundred and fifty feet. The people gave back as the body

came hurtling down, to smash on the marble pave, spattering blood and

brains, and lie crushed in its splintered armor, like a mangled

beetle.



The archers on the tower shrank back, their nerve broken. They fled,

and the beleaguered councilmen sallied from the palace and hewed into

them with joyous abandon. Pellian knights and men-at-arms sought

safety in the streets, and the crowd tore them to pieces. In the

streets the fighting milled and eddied, plumed helmets and steel caps

tossed among the tousled heads and then vanished; swords hacked madly

in a heaving forest of pikes, and over all rose the roar of the mob,

shouts of acclaim mingling with screams of blood-lust and howls of

agony. And high above all, the naked figure of the king rocked and

swayed on the dizzy battlements, mighty arms brandished, roaring with

gargantuan laughter that mocked all mobs and princes, even himself.







V







_A long bow and a strong bow, and let the sky grow dark!_



The midafternoon sun glinted on the placid waters of the Tybor,

washing the southern bastions of Shamar. The haggard defenders knew

that few of them would see that sun rise again. The pavilions of the

besiegers dotted the plain. The people of Shamar had not been able

successfully to dispute the crossing of the river, outnumbered as they

were. Barges, chained together, made a bridge over which the invader

poured his hordes. Strabonus had not dared march on into Aquilonia

with Shamar, unsubdued, at his back. He had sent his light riders, his

spahis, inland to ravage the country, and had reared up his siege

engines in the plain. He had anchored a flotilla of boats, furnished

him by Amalrus, in the middle of the stream, over against the river-

wall. Some of these boats had been sunk by stones from the city's

ballistas, which crashed through their decks and ripped out their

planking, but the rest held their places and from their bows and mast-

heads, protected by mandets, archers raked the riverward turrets.

These were Shemites, born with bows in their hands, not to be matched

by Aquilonian archers.



On the landward side mangonels rained boulders and tree-trunks among

the defenders, shattering through roofs and crushing humans like

beetles; rams pounded incessantly at the stones; sappers burrowed like

moles in the earth, sinking their mines beneath the towers. The moat

had been dammed at the upper end, and emptied of its water, had been

filled up with boulders, earth and dead horses and men. Under the

walls the mailed figures swarmed, battering at the gates, rearing up

scaling­ladders, pushing storming-towers, thronged with spearmen,

against the turrets.



Hope had been abandoned in the city, where a bare fifteen hundred men

resisted forty thousand warriors. No word had come from the kingdom

whose outpost the city was. Conan was dead, so the invaders shouted

exultantly. Only the strong walls and the desperate courage of the

defenders had kept them so long at bay, and that could not suffice for

ever. The western wall was a mass of rubbish on which the defenders

stumbled in hand-to-hand conflict with the invaders. The other walls

were buckling from the mines beneath them, the towers leaning

drunkenly.



Now the attackers were massing for a storm. The oliphants sounded, the

steel­clad ranks drew up on the plain. The storming-towers, covered

with raw bull-hides, rumbled forward. The people of Shamar saw the

banners of Koth and Ophir, flying side by side, in the center, and

made out, among their gleaming knights, the slim lethal figure of the

golden-mailed Amalrus, and the squat black-armored form of Strabonus.

And between them was a shape that made the bravest blench with

horror--a lean vulture figure in a filmy robe. The pikemen moved

forward, flowing over the ground like the glinting waves of a river of

molten steel; the knights cantered forward, lances lifted, guidons

streaming. The warriors on the walls drew a long breath, consigned

their souls to Mitra, and gripped their notched and red-stained

weapons.



Then without warning, a bugle-call cut the din. A drum of hoofs rose

above the rumble of the approaching host. North of the plain across

which the army moved, rose ranges of low hills, mounting northward and

westward like giant stair-steps. Now down out of these hills, like

spume blown before a storm, shot the spahis who had been laying waste

the countryside, riding low and spurring hard, and behind them sun

shimmered on moving ranks of steel. They moved into full view, out of

the defiles--mailed horsemen, the great lion banner of Aquilonia

floating over them.



From the electrified watchers on the towers a great shout rent the

skies. In ecstasy warriors clashed their notched swords on their riven

shields, and the people of the town, ragged beggars and rich

merchants, harlots in red kirtles and dames in silks and satins, fell

to their knees and cried out for joy to Mitra, tears of gratitude

streaming down their faces.



Strabonus, frantically shouting orders, with Arbanus, that would wheel

around the ponderous lines to meet this unexpected menace, grunted,

"We still outnumber them, unless they have reserves hidden in the

hills. The men on the battle-towers can mask any sorties from the

city. These are Poitanians--we might have guessed Trocero would try

some such mad gallantry."



Amalrus cried out in unbelief.



"I see Trocero and his captain Prospero--_but who rides between

them?_"



"Ishtar preserve us!" shrieked Strabonus, paling. "It is King Conan!"



"You are mad!" squalled Tsotha, starting convulsively. "Conan has been

in Satha's belly for days!" He stopped short, glaring wildly at the

host which was dropping down, file by file, into the plain. He could

not mistake the giant figure in black, gilt-worked armor on the great

black stallion, riding beneath the billowing silken folds of the great

banner. A scream of feline fury burst from Tsotha's lips, flecking his

beard with foam. For the first time in his life, Strabonus saw the

wizard completely upset, and shrank from the sight.



"Here is sorcery!" screamed Tsotha, clawing madly at his beard. "How

could he have escaped and reached his kingdom in time to return with

an army so quickly? This is the work of Pelias, curse him! I feel his

hand in this! May I be cursed for not killing him when I had the

power!"



The kings gaped at the mention of a man they believed ten years dead,

and panic, emanating from the leaders, shook the host. All recognized

the rider on the black stallion. Tsotha felt the superstitious dread

of his men, and fury made a hellish mask of his face.



"Strike home!" he screamed, brandishing his lean arms madly. "We are

still the stronger! Charge and crush these dogs! We shall yet feast in

the ruins of Shamar tonight! Oh, Set!" he lifted his hands and invoked

the serpent-god to even Strabonus' horror, "grant us victory and I

swear I will offer up to thee five hundred virgins of Shamar, writhing

in their blood!"



Meanwhile the opposing host had debouched onto the plain. With the

knights came what seemed a second, irregular army on tough swift

ponies. These dismounted and formed their ranks on foot--stolid

Bossonian archers, and keen pikemen from Gunderland, their tawny locks

blowing from under their steel caps.



It was a motley army Conan had assembled, in the wild hours following

his return to his capital. He had beaten the frothing mob away from

the Pellian soldiers who held the outer walls of Tamar, and impressed

them into his service. He had sent a swift rider after Trocero to

bring him back. With these as a nucleus of an army he had raced

southward, sweeping the countryside for recruits and for mounts.

Nobles of Tamar and the surrounding countryside had augmented his

forces, and he had levied recruits from every village and castle along

his road. Yet it was but a paltry force he had gathered to dash

against the invading hosts, though of the quality of tempered steel.



Nineteen hundred armored horsemen followed him, the main bulk of which

consisted of the Poitanian knights. The remnants of the mercenaries

and professional soldiers in the trains of loyal noblemen made up his

infantry--five thousand archers and four thousand pikemen. This host

now came on in good order--first the archers, then the pikemen, behind

them the knights, moving at a walk.



Over against them Arbanus ordered his lines, and the allied army moved

forward like a shimmering ocean of steel. The watchers on the city

walls shook to see that vast host, which overshadowed the powers of

the rescuers. First marched the Shemitish archers, then the Kothian

spearmen, then the mailed knights of Strabonus and Amalrus. Arbanus'

intent was obvious--to employ his footmen to sweep away the infantry

of Conan, and open the way for an overpowering charge of his heavy

cavalry.



The Shemites opened fire at five hundred yards, and arrows flew like

hail between the hosts, darkening the sun. The western archers,

trained by a thousand years of merciless warfare with the Pictish

savages, came stolidly on, closing their ranks as their comrades fell.

They were far outnumbered, and the Shemitish bow had the longer range,

but in accuracy the Bossonians were equal to their foes, and they

balanced sheer skill in archery by superiority in morale, and in

excellency of armor. Within good range they loosed, and the Shemites

went down by whole ranks. The blue-bearded warriors in their light

mail shirts could not endure punishment as could the heavier-armored

Bossonians. They broke, throwing away their bows, and their flight

disordered the ranks of the Kothian spearmen behind them.



Without the support of the archers, these men-at-arms fell by the

hundreds before the shafts of the Bossonians, and charging madly in to

close quarters, they were met by the spears of the pikemen. No

infantry was a match for the wild Gundermen, whose homeland, the

northern-most province of Aquilonia, was but a day's ride across the

Bossonian marches from the borders of Cimmeria, and who, born and bred

to battle, were the purest blood of all the Hyborian peoples. The

Kothian spearmen, dazed by their losses from arrows, were cut to

pieces and fell back in disorder.



Strabonus roared in fury as he saw his infantry repulsed, and shouted

for a general charge. Arbanus demurred, pointing out the Bossonians

re-forming in good order before the Aquilonian knights, who had sat

their steeds motionless during the melee. The general advised a

temporary retirement, to draw the western knights out of the cover of

the bows, but Strabonus was mad with rage. He looked at the long

shimmering ranks of his knights, he glared at the handful of mailed

figures over against him, and he commanded Arbanus to give the order

to charge.



The general commended his soul to Ishtar and sounded the golden

oliphant. With a thunderous roar the forest of lances dipped, and the

great host rolled across the plain, gaining momentum as it came. The

whole plain shook to the rumbling avalanche of hoofs, and the shimmer

of gold and steel dazzled the watchers on the towers of Shamar.



The squadrons clave the loose ranks of the spearmen, riding down

friend and foe alike, and rushed into the teeth of a blast of arrows

from the Bossonians. Across the plain they thundered, grimly riding

the storm that scattered their way with gleaming knights like autumn

leaves. Another hundred paces and they would ride among the Bossonians

and cut them down like corn; but flesh and blood could not endure the

rain of death that now ripped and howled among them. Shoulder to

shoulder, feet braced wide, stood the archers, drawing shaft to ear

and loosing as one man, with deep, short shouts.



The whole front rank of the knights melted away, and over the pin-

cushioned corpses of horses and riders, their comrades stumbled and

fell headlong. Arbanus was down, an arrow through his throat, his

skull smashed by the hoofs of his dying war-horse, and confusion ran

through the disordered host. Strabonus was screaming an order, Amalrus

another, and through all ran the superstitious dread the sight of

Conan had awakened.



And while the gleaming ranks milled in confusion, the trumpets of

Conan sounded, and through the opening ranks of the archers crashed

the terrible charge of the Aquilonian knights.



The hosts met with a shock like that of an earthquake, that shook the

tottering towers of Shamar. The disorganized squadrons of the invaders

could not withstand the solid steel wedge, bristling with spears, that

rushed like a thunderbolt against them. The long lances of the

attackers ripped their ranks to pieces, and into the heart of their

host rode the knights of Poitain, swinging their terrible two-handed

swords.



The clash and clangor of steel was as that of a million sledges on as

many anvils. The watchers on the walls were stunned and deafened by

the thunder as they gripped the battlements and watched the steel

maelstrom swirl and eddy, where plumes tossed high among the flashing

swords, and standards dipped and reeled.



Amalrus went down, dying beneath the trampling hoofs, his shoulder-

bone hewn in twain by Prospero's two-handed sword. The invaders'

numbers had engulfed the nineteen hundred knights of Conan, but about

this compact wedge, which hewed deeper and deeper into the looser

formation of their foes, the knights of Koth and Ophir swirled and

smote in vain. They could not break the wedge.



Archers and pikemen, having disposed of the Kothian infantry which was

strewn in flight across the plain, came to the edges of the fight,

loosing their arrows point-blank, running in to slash at girths and

horses' bellies with their knives, thrusting upward to spit the riders

on their long pikes.



At the tip of the steel wedge Conan roared his heathen battle-cry and

swung his great sword in glittering arcs that made naught of steel

burgonet or mail habergeon. Straight through a thundering waste of

foes he rode, and the knights of Koth closed in behind him, cutting

him off from his warriors. As a thunderbolt strikes, Conan struck,

hurtling through the ranks by sheer power and velocity, until he came

to Strabonus, livid among his palace troops. Now here the battle hung

in balance, for with his superior numbers, Strabonus still had

opportunity to pluck victory from the knees of the gods.



But he screamed when he saw his arch-foe within arm's length at last,

and lashed out wildly with his axe. It clanged on Conan's helmet,

striking fire, and the Cimmerian reeled and struck back. The five-foot

blade crushed Strabonus' casque and skull, and the king's charger

reared screaming, hurling a limp and sprawling corpse from the saddle.

A great cry went up from the host, which faltered and gave back.

Trocero and his house troops, hewing desperately, cut their way to

Conan's side, and the great banner of Koth went down. Then behind the

dazed and stricken invaders went up a mighty clamor and the blaze of a

huge conflagration. The defenders of Shamar had made a desperate

sortie, cut down the men masking the gates, and were raging among the

tents of the besiegers, cutting down the camp followers, burning the

pavilions, and destroying the siege engines. It was the last straw.

The gleaming army melted away in flight, and the furious conquerors

cut them down as they ran.



The fugitives raced for the river, but the men on the flotilla,

harried sorely by the stones and shafts of the revived citizens, cast

loose and pulled for the southern shore, leaving their comrades to

their fate. Of these many gained the shore, racing across the barges

that served as a bridge, until the men of Shamar cut these adrift and

severed them from the shore. Then the fight became a slaughter. Driven

into the river to drown in their armor, or hacked down along the bank,

the invaders perished by the thousands. No quarter they had promised;

no quarter they got.



From the foot of the low hills to the shores of the Tybor, the plain

was littered with corpses, and the river whose tide ran red, floated

thick with the dead. Of the nineteen hundred knights who had ridden

south with Conan, scarcely five hundred lived to boast of their scars,

and the slaughter among the archers and pikemen was ghastly. But the

great and shining host of Strabonus and Amalrus was hacked out of

existence, and those that fled were less than those that died.



While the slaughter yet went on along the river, the final act of a

grim drama was being played out in the meadowland beyond. Among those

who had crossed the barge-bridge before it was destroyed was Tsotha,

riding like the wind on a gaunt weird-looking steed whose stride no

natural horse could match. Ruthlessly riding down friend and foe, he

gained the southern bank, and then a glance backward showed him a grim

figure on a great black stallion in pursuit. The lashings had already

been cut, and the barges were drifting apart, but Conan came

recklessly on, leaping his steed from boat to boat as a man might leap

from one cake of floating ice to another. Tsotha screamed a curse, but

the great stallion took the last leap with a straining groan, and

gained the southern bank. Then the wizard fled away into the empty

meadowland, and on his trail came the king, riding hard, swinging the

great sword that spattered his trail with crimson drops.



On they fled, the hunted and the hunter, and not a foot could the

black stallion gain, though he strained each nerve and thew. Through a

sunset land of dim and illusive shadows they fled, till sight and

sound of the slaughter died out behind them. Then in the sky appeared

a dot, that grew into a huge eagle as it approached. Swooping down

from the sky, it drove at the head of Tsotha's steed, which screamed

and reared, throwing its rider.



Old Tsotha rose and faced his pursuer, his eyes those of a maddened

serpent, his face an inhuman mask. In each hand he held something that

shimmered, and Conan knew he held death there.



The king dismounted and strode toward his foe, his armor clanking, his

great sword gripped high.



"Again we meet, wizard!" he grinned savagely.



"Keep off" screamed Tsotha like a blood-mad jackal. "I'll blast the

flesh from your bones! You can not conquer me--if you hack me in

pieces, the bits of flesh and bone will reunite and haunt you to your

doom! I see the hand of Pelias in this, but I defy ye both! I am

Tsotha, son of -"



Conan rushed, sword gleaming, eyes slits of wariness. Tsotha's right

hand came back and forward, and the king ducked quickly. Something

passed by his helmeted head and exploded behind him, searing the very

sands with a flash of hellish fire. Before Tsotha could toss the globe

in his left hand, Conan's sword sheared through his lean neck. The

wizard's head shot from his shoulders on an arching fount of blood,

and the robed figure staggered and crumpled drunkenly. Yet the mad

black eyes glared up at Conan with no dimming of their feral light,

the lips writhed awfully, and the hands groped, as if searching for

the severed head. Then with a swift rush of wings, something swooped

from the sky--the eagle which had attacked Tsotha's horse. In its

mighty talons it snatched up the dripping head and soared skyward, and

Conan stood struck dumb, for from the eagle's throat boomed human

laughter, in the voice of Pelias the sorcerer.



Then a hideous thing came to pass, for the headless body reared up

from the sand, and staggered away in awful flight on stiffening legs,

hands blindly outstretched toward the dot speeding and dwindling in

the dusky sky. Conan stood like one turned to stone, watching until

the swift reeling figure faded in the dusk that purpled the meadows.



"Crom!" his mighty shoulders twitched. "A murrain on these wizardly

feuds! Pelias has dealt well with me, but I care not if I see him no

more. Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation!

What would I not give for a flagon of wine!"







THE END

