Part 4 (2/2)
”A Pict, by the Gods!” exclai blue eyes turned upon him
”Are you surprized?”
”Why, they toldthe road that these devils sometimes sneaked across the border, but I didn't expect to meet one this far in the interior”
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”You're only four er informed him ”They've been shot within a mile of Velitrium No settler between Thunder River and Fort Tuscelan is really safe I picked up this dog's trail threehi an arrow on you Another instant and there'd have been a stranger in hell But I spoiled his ai wide-eyed at the larger man, dumbfounded by the realization that the man had actually tracked down one of the forest-devils and slain him unsuspected That implied woodsmanshi+p of a quality undreaarrison?” he asked
”I'm no soldier I draw the pay and rations of an officer of the line, but I doalong the river than cooped up in the fort”
Casually the slayer shoved the body deeper into the thickets with his foot, pulled the bushes together and turned away down the trail The other followed him
”My naht I haven't decided whether I'll take up a hide of land, or enter fort-service”
”The best land near Thunder River is already taken,” grunted the slayer ”Plenty of good land between Scalp Creek you crossed it a fewtoo devilish close to the river The Picts steal over to burn and ly Some day they'll try to sweep the settlers out of Conajohara And they may succeed Probably will succeed This colonization business is ood land east of the Bossonianestates of their barons, and plant wheat where now only deer are hunted, they wouldn't have to cross the border and take the land of the Picts away from them”
”That's queer talk from a man in the service of the Governor of Conajohara,” objected Balthus
”It's nothing to me,” the other retorted ”I'hest bidder I never planted wheat and never will, so long as there are other harvests to be reaped with the sword But you Hyborians have expanded as far as you'll be allowed to expand
You've crossed the es, exterminated a few clans and pushed back the frontier to Black River; but I doubt if you'll even be able to hold what you've conquered, and you'll never push the frontier any further ard
”Your idiotic king doesn't understand conditions here He won't send you enough reinforceh settlers to withstand the shock of a concerted attack 50
from across the river”
”But the Picts are divided into small clans,” persisted Balthus ”They'll never unite We can whip any single clan”
”Or any three or four clans,” admitted the slayer ”But some day a man will rise and unite thirty or forty clans, just as was done a the Cimmerians, when the Gundero They tried to colonize the southern marches of Cimmeria: destroyed a few small clans, built a fort-town, Venarium, you've heard the tale”
”So I have indeed,” replied Balthus, wincing The memory of that red disaster was a black blot in the chronicles of a proud and warlike people ”My uncle was at Venarium when the Cimmerians swarmed over the walls He was one of the feho escaped that slaughter I've heard him tell the tale, many a ti horde, without warning, and stormed Venarium with such fury none could stand before them Men, women and children were butchered Venarium was reduced to a mass of charred ruins, as it is to this day The Aquilonians were driven back across the marches, and have never since tried to colonize the Cimmerian country But you speak of Venariurunted the other ”I was one of the horde that swarmed over the walls I hadn't yet seen fifteen snows, but already my name was repeated about the council fires”
Balthus involuntarily recoiled, staring It see tranquilly at his side should have been one of those screeching, blood-mad devils that had poured over the walls of Venariuone day to make her streets run crimson
”Then you, too, are a barbarian!” he exclai offense
”I am Conan, a Cimmerian”
”I've heard of you!” Fresh interest quickened Balthus' gaze No wonder the Pict had fallen victim to his own sort of subtlety The Cimmerians were barbarians as ferocious as the Picts, and ent Evidently Conan had spent h that contact had obviously not softened him, nor weakened any of his primitive instincts
Balthus' apprehension turned to admiration as he marked the easy catlike stride, the effortless silence hich the Ci the trail The oiled links of his arh the deepest thicket or led copse as noiselessly as any naked Pict that ever lived
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”You're not a Gunderman?” It was more assertion than question
Balthus shook his head ”I'ood woodsmen from the Tauran But the Bossonians have sheltered you Aquilonians from the outer wildernesses for too ”
That was true; the Bossonian es filled with deterainst the outlying barbarians Now a up a breed of forest-ame, but their numbers were still scanty Most of the frontiersmen were like Balthus more of the settler than the woodser in sight, hidden as it was behind the dense forest wall
The shadoere lengthening, deepening back in the woods as the companions strode on down the trail
”It'll be dark before we reach the fort,” commented Conan casually then: ”Listen!”
He stopped short, half crouching, sword ready, transforure of suspicion andand rend Balthus had heard it too a wild screahest note It was the cry of a ony
Conan was off in an instant, racing down the trail, each stride widening the distance between hi the settleood runner, but Conan was leaving hiot his exasperation as his ears were outraged by the htful cry he had ever heard It was not hu of hideous triumph that seeulfs beyond human ken
Balthus faltered in his stride and clammy sweat beaded his flesh But Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding hih the forest in grisly echoes, put on an extra burst of speed and plunged after hi halt, al with the Cimmerian who stood in the trail over a cru at the corpse which lay there in the cri into the deep woods on each side of the trail
Balthus muttered a horrified oath It was the body of a man which lay there in the trail, a short, 52
fat ilt-worked boots and (despite the heat) the ermine-trimmed tunic of a wealthy merchant His fat, pale face was set in a stare of frozen horror; his thick throat had been slashed from ear to ear as if by a razor-sharp blade The short sword still in its scabbard seemed to indicate that he had been struck doithout a chance to fight for his life
”A Pict?” Balthus whispered, as he turned to peer into the deepening shadows of the forest
Conan shook his head and straightened to scon at the dead man