Part 9 (1/2)

”Coed ”We'll hold the cabin”

”No We must make for Velitrium The fort can't hold them back It may have fallen already

Don't stop to dress Get your children and coone with the others after salt!” she wailed, wringing her hands Behind her 86

peered three tousled youngsters, blinking and bewildered

”Conan's gone after theh safe We must hurry up the road to warn the other cabins”

Relief flooded her countenance

”Mitra be thanked!” she cried ”If the Cione after them, they're safe if mortal man can save them!”

In a ind of activity she snatched up the sh the door ahead of her Balthus took the candle and ground it out under his heel He listened an instant No sound caot a horse?”

”In the stable,” she groaned ”Oh, hurry!”

He pushed her aside as she fu hands at the bars He led the horse out and lifted the children on its back, telling them to hold to itsno outcry The woman took the horse's halter and set out up the road

She still gripped her axe and Balthus knew that if cornered she would fight with the desperate courage of a she-panther

He held behind, listening He was oppressed by the belief that the fort had been stormed and taken; that the dark-skinned hordes were already streahter andwolves

Presently they saw another cabin loo, but Balthus stopped her He hurried to the door and knocked A wo, and soon the cabin disgorged its occupants an old wo women and four children Like the other woone to the salt licks the day before, unsuspecting of any danger One of the young women seemed dazed, the other prone to hysteria But the old woman, a stern old veteran of the frontier, quieted theet out the two horses that were stabled in a pen behind the cabin and put the children on theed that she herself mount with theer worunted the old woht, too, if it co wo the road about 87

dusk; we advised theht at our cabin, but they were anxious to ht did did ”

”They met the Picts,” answered Balthus briefly; the woht of the cabin when soh-pitched yell

”A wolf!” exclaimed one of the women

”A painted ith an axe in his hand,”the road and take the behind”

Without a word the old woes ahead of her As they faded into the darkness, Balthus could see the pale ovals that were the faces of the children twisted back over their shoulders to stare toward hiiddy sickness swaroaned and sank down in the road; his muscular ar's warrinned with a painful effort

”Coot work to do”

A red glow suddenly becah the trees The Picts had fired the last hut He grinned How Zogar Sag would froth if he knew his warriors had let their destructive natures get the better of them The fire would warn the people further up the road They would be awake and alert when the fugitives reached the slowly, on foot and on the overloaded horses The swift-footed Picts would run them doithin a le of fallen logs beside the trail

The road west of hi cabin, and when the Picts caainst the distant glare

Drawing a shaft to the head he loosed and one of the figures crumpled The rest melted into the woods on either side of the road Slasher whiure appeared at the fringe of the trail, under the trees, and began gliding toward the fallen tied and the Pict yelped, staggered and fell into the shadoith the arrow through his thigh Slasher cleared the timbers with a bound and leaped into the bushes They were violently shaken and then the dog slunk back to Balthus' side, his jaws crimson

88

No an to fear they were stealing past his position through the woods, and when he heard a faint sound to his left he loosed blindly He cursed as he heard the shaft splinter against a tree, but Slasher glided away as silently as a phanto, and then Slasher careat, criainst Balthus' arm Blood oozed from a wound in his shoulder, but the sounds in the wood had ceased forever

The es of the road evidently sensed the fate of their coe was preferable to being dragged down in the dark by a devil-beast they could not see nor hear Perhaps they realized that only one s They ca cover froh the pair hesitated One turned and ran back down the road, but the other lunged over the breastwork, his eyes and teeth gleaht, his axe lifted Balthus' foot slipped as he sprang up, but the slip saved his life The descending axe shaved a lock of hair fros froain his feet Slasher tore his throat out

Then followed a tense period of waiting, in which time Balthus wondered if the man who had fled had been the only survivor of the party Obviously it had been a s at the fort, or was scouting ahead of the main body Each moment that passed increased the chances for safety of the wo toward Velitriu a shower of arrohistled over his retreat A wild howling rose froone after aid, or another party had joined the first The burning cabin still sliding through the trees beside the trail He shot three arrows and threw the boay As if sensing his plight, they ca now, but in deadly silence except for a swift pad ofgrowling at his side,to his feet, drawing his axe Then the dark figures flooded over the breastworks and closed in a stors

VII

THE DEVIL IN THE FIRE

When Conan turned from the Velitrium road he expected a run of soone four when he heard the sounds of a party ofin their progress he knew they were not Picts He hailed theed a harsh voice ”Stand where you are until we know you, or you'll get an arrow through you”

”You couldn't hit an elephant in this darkness,” answered Conan impatiently ”Come on, fool; it's me Conan The Picts are over the river”

”We suspected as much,” answered the leader of the y men, stern-faced, with bows in their hands ”One of our party wounded an antelope and tracked it nearly to Black River He heard the down the river and ran back to our caons, turned the oxen loose and ca the fort, war-parties will be ranging up the road toward our cabins”

”Your farunted Conan ”My coo back to the main road we h the timber Go ahead I'll scout behind”

A fewsoutheastward Conan followedjust within ear-shot He cursed the noise they were h the woods with no h the black branches