Part 6 (1/2)

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”There's nothing in the universe cold steel won't cut,” answered Conan ”I threw ht have ht I' for devils; but I wouldn't step out of o by”

Valannus lifted his head and aze squarely

”Conan, more depends on you than you realize You know the weakness of this province a slender wedge thrust into the untamed wilderness You know that the lives of all the people west of the marches depend on this fort Were it to fall, red axes would be splintering the gates of Velitrium before a horseman could cross the nored my pleas thatof border conditions, and are averse to expending any more money in this direction The fate of the frontier depends upon the men who now hold it”

”You know that most of the army which conquered Conajohara has been withdrawn You know the force left ed to poison our water supply, and forty men died in one day Many of the others are sick, or have been bitten by serpents ornuar's boast that he could summon the forest beasts to slay his enemies

”I have three hundred pikemen, four hundred Bossonian archers, and perhaps fifty men, who, like yourself, are skilled in woodcraft They are worth ten times their number of soldiers, but there are so few of the precarious The soldiers whisper of desertion; they are low spirited, believing Zogar Sag has loosed devils on us They fear the black plague hich he threatened us the terrible black death of the swamplands

When I see a sick soldier I sith fear of seeing him turn black and shrivel and die before ue is loosed upon us, the soldiers will desert in a body! The border will be left unguarded and nothing will check the sweep of the dark-skinned hordes to the very gates of Velitrium maybe beyond! If we can not hold the fort, how can they hold the town?

”Conan, Zogar Sag must die, if we are to hold Conajohara! You have penetrated the unknown deeper than any otherof the forest trails across the river Will you take a band of ht and endeavor to kill or capture him? Oh, I know it's mad There isn't more than one chance in a thousand that any of you will coet him, it's death for us all You can take as many men as you wish”

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”A dozen iht their way to Gela and back But a dozen ain

Let o!” eagerly exclaimed Balthus ”I've hunted deer all ht Valannus, we'll eat at the stall where the foresters gather, and I'll pick my men

We'll start within an hour, drop down the river in a boat to a point below the village and then steal upon it through the woods If we live, we should be back by daybreak”

III

THE CRAWLERS IN THE DARK

The river was a vague trace betalls of ebony The paddles that propelled the long boat creeping along in the dense shadow of the eastern bank dipped softly into the waterno more noise than the beak of a heron The broad shoulders of the loom He knew not even the keen eyes of thehis way by instinct and an intensive familiarity with the river

No one spoke Balthus had had a good look at his companions in the fort before they slipped out of the stockade and down the bank into the waiting canoe They were of a new breed growing up in the world on the raw edge of the frontier ht woodcraft Aquilonians of the western provinces to a man, they had many points in common

They dressed alike in buckskin boots, leathern breeks and deer-skin shi+rts, with broad girdles that held axes and short swords; and they were all gaunt and scarred and hard-eyed; sinewy and taciturn

They ild ulf between them and the Cimmerian

They were sons of civilization, reverted to a seenerations of barbarians They had acquired stealth and craft, but he had been born to these things He excelled them even in lithe econoer

Balthus admired them and their leader and felt a pulse of pride that he was admitted into their company He was proud that his paddle made no more noise than did theirs In that respect at least he was their equal, though woodcraft learned in hunts on the Tauran could never equal that ground into the souls of e border

Below the fort the river hts of the outpost were quickly lost, but the 62

canoe held on its way for nearly a s with alrunt frolided toward the opposite shore Eed the bank and co into the open of the mid-stream created a peculiar illusion of rash exposure But the stars gave little light, and Balthus knew that unless one atching for it, it would be all but impossible for the keenest eye tothe river

They swung in under the overhanging bushes of the western shore and Balthus groped for and found a projecting root which he grasped No as spoken All instructions had been given before the scouting party left the fort As silently as a great panther Conan slid over the side and vanished in the bushes Equally noiseless, ninethe root with his paddle across his knees, it seeled forest with no more sound than these made

He settled himself to wait No word passed between him and the other man who had been left with hi's village stood girdled by the thick woods Balthus understood his orders; he and his co party If Conan and his e of dawn, then they were to race back up the river to the fort and report that the forest had again taken its i race

The silence was oppressive No sound came from the black woods, invisible beyond the ebony er heard the dru, unconsciously trying to see through the deep glooht-smells of the river and the damp forest oppressed hi fish had flopped and splashed the water Balthus thought it must have leaped so close to the canoe that it had struck the side, for a slight quiver vibrated the craft The boat's stern began to swing slightly away froo of the projection he was gripping Balthus twisted his head to hiss a warning, and could just htly blacker bulk in the blackness

Theif he had fallen asleep, Balthus reached out and grasped his shoulder To his amazement, the man cru his body half about Balthus groped for hiers slid over theof his jaws choked back the cry that rose in his throat His fingers encountered a gaping, oozing wound his companion's throat had been cut from ear to ear

In that instant of horror and panic Balthus started up and then a muscular arling his yell The canoe rocked wildly Balthus'

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knife was in his hand, though he did not re it out of his boot, and he stabbed fiercely and blindly He felt the blade sink deep, and a fiendish yell rang in his ear, a yell that was horribly answered The darkness seemed to come to life about hirappled hi bodies the canoe rolled sidewise, but before he went under with it, soht was briefly illuave way to a blackness where not even stars shone

IV

THE BEASTS OF ZOGAR-SAG

Fires dazzled Balthus again as he slowly recovered his senses He blinked, shook his head

Their glare hurt his eyes A confusedmore distinct as his senses cleared He lifted his head and stared stupidly about hiues of fla caht to a post in an open space, ringed by fierce and terrible figures Beyond that ring fires burned, tended by naked, dark- skinned women Beyond the fires he saw huts of mud and wattle, thatched with brush Beyond the huts there was a stockade with a broad gate But he saw these things only incidentally Even the cryptic dark women with their curious coiffures were noted by him only absently His full attention was fixed in awful fascination on theat him

Short men, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, lean-hipped They were naked except for scanty loin clouts The firelight brought out the play of their swelling muscles in bold relief Their dark faces were ilittered with the fire that burns in the eyes of a stalking tiger Their tangled manes were bound back with bands of copper Swords and axes were in their hands Crude bandages banded the limbs of some, and smears of blood were dried on their dark skins There had been fighting, recent and deadly

His eyes wavered away frolare of his captors, and he repressed a cry of horror A few feet away there rose a low, hideous pyralassily up at the black sky Nunized the countenances which were turned toward him They were the heads of the men who had followed Conan into the forest He could not tell if the Ci them Only a few faces were visible to him It looked to him as if there must be ten or eleven heads at least A deadly sickness assailed hiht a desire to retch Beyond the heads lay the bodies of half a dozen Picts, and he are of a fierce exultation at the sight The forest runners had taken toll, at least

Twisting his head away frohastly spectacle, he became aware that another post stood near him a stake painted black as was the one to which he was bound A ed in his 64

bonds there, naked except for his leathern breeks, whonized as one of Conan's woodsash in his side Lifting his head he licked his livid lips andhimself heard with difficulty above the fiendish claot you, too!”