Part 20 (2/2)

With an oath the Cimmerian smote the wall a terrific bloith the pommel of his sword, and the ive way, and reason told him that doubtless it had been bolted on the other side of the wall Turning, he sprang across the chamber to one of the ivory doors

He lifted his sword to shatter the panels, but on a venture tried the door first with his left hand

It swung open easily, and he glared into a long corridor that curved into diht of censers siold bolt showed on the jaer tips The faint warmness of the metal could have been detected only by a man whose faculties were akin to those of a wolf That bolt had been touched and therefore draithin the last few seconds The affair was taking on ht have known Totrasmek would knohen anyone entered the temple

To enter the corridor would undoubtedly be to walk into whatever trap the priest had set for him But Conan did not hesitate Somewhere in that dim-lit interior Zabibi was a captive, and, from what he knew of the characteristics of Hanuman's priests, he was sure that she needed help badly Conan stalked into the corridor with a pantherish tread, poised to strike right or left

On his left ivory, arched doors opened into the corridor, and he tried each in turn All were locked He had gone perhaps seventy-five feet when the corridor bent sharply to the left, describing the curve the girl had ave under his hand

He was looking into a broad square chahted than the corridor

Its walls were of whiteof fretted silver He saw divans of rich satin, gold-worked footstools of ivory, a disk-shaped table of some massive, , looking toward the door He laughed as he lare

This h-strapped sandals He was brown-skinned, with close-cropped black hair and restless black eyes that set off a broad arrogant face In girth and breadth he was enorreat htest est Conan had ever seen The assurance of gigantic physical strength colored his every action and inflection

”Why not enter, barbarian?” he called esture of invitation

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Conan's eyes began to smolder ominously, but he trod warily into the charowled

”I ao and in another land, I had another naave it to ,” grunted Conan ”Well, curse your brown hide, Baal-pteor, where's the wench you jerked through the wall?”

”My hed Baal-pteor ”Listen!”

From beyond a door opposite the one by which Conan had entered there sounded a woman's scream, faint and muffled in the distance

”Blast your soul!” Conan took a stride toward the door, then wheeled with his skin tingling

Baal-pteor was laughing at hied with menace thatred wave ofacross his vision

He started toward Baal-pteor, the knuckles on his sword-hand shohite With a swiftcrystal sphere that glistened in the weird light

Conan dodged instinctively, but, lobe stopped short in mid-air, a few feet fro suspended, as if by invisible filalared in a speed And as it revolved it grew, it expanded, it became nebulous It filled the chamber It enveloped hi countenance of Baal-pteor He was lost in thespeed Terrific winds screa to wrench hi him into the vortex that spuncry Conan lurched backward, reeled, felt the solid wall against his back At the contact the illusion ceased to be The whirling, titanic sphere vanished like a bursting bubble

Conan reeled upright in the silver-ceilinged roo about his feet, and saw Baal-pteor lolling on the divan, shaking with silent laughter

”Son of a slut!” Conan lunged at hiiant brown for cloud that blinded hi sensation of dislocation and then roo 183

alone a at hi sci, through ribs and heart And then it was not a buffalo dying there in the mud, but the brown- skinned Baal-pteor With a curse Conan struck off his head, and the head soared froround and snapped beast-like tusks into his throat For all hisstrangling then there was a rush and roar through space, the dislocating shock of an immeasurable impact, and he was back in the chamber with Baal-pteor, his head oncesilently at hi and digging his toes hard against thewith hi sport of him! But this ht, it could not harm him He had but to leap and strike and the brown acolyte would be a led corpse under his heel This time he would not be fooled by shadows of illusion but he was

A blood-curdling snarl behind him, and he wheeled and struck in a flash at the panther crouching to spring on him from the metal-colored table Even as he struck the apparition vanished and his blade clashed deafeningly on the ada abnorely It did not give

This was no ripped the hilt with both hands, when a voice at his shoulder brought him about, to face the brown htly taller than Conan, and e of , and his great hands opened and closed, twitching convulsively Conan released the hilt of his ih slitted lids

”Your head, Cimmerian!” taunted Baal-pteor ”I shall take, withit from your shoulders as the head of a fowl is twisted! Thus the sons of Kosala offer sacrifice to Yajur! Barbarian, you looked upon a Strangler of Yota-pong! I was chosen by the priests of Yajur in hout childhood, boyhood and youth, I was trained in the art of slaying with the naked hands for only thus are the sacrifices enacted Yajur loves blood, and aste not a drop froave irls; as a youth, wo boys

Not until I reached

”For years I offered the sacrifices to Yajur Hundreds of necks have snapped between these fingers ” he worked thery eyes ”Why I fled fro to become Totrasmek's servant is no concern of yours In a moment you will be beyond curiosity

The priests of Kosala, the Stranglers of Yajur, are strong beyond the belief of er than any With my hands, barbarian, I shall break your neck!”

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And like the stroke of twin cobras, the great hands closed on Conan's throat The Cie or fend them away, but his own hands darted to the Kosalan's bull- neck Baal-pteor's black eyes widened as he felt the thick cords of muscles that protected the barbarian's throat With a snarl he exerted his inhuth, and knots and lu his asp burst froers locked on his throat For an instant they stood there like statues, their facesto stand out purply on their terinning snarl Baal's eyes were distended; in thelies, except for the expanding of their th beyond coht have uprooted trees and crushed the skulls of bullocks

The histled suddenly fro purple Fear flooded his eyes His thews seemed ready to burst from his arms and shoulders, yet the ive, they felt like ers But his own flesh was giving way under the iron fingers of the Ci throat-ular and wind-pipe

The statuesque iave way to sudden, frenziedto throw hirasped his wrists, trying to tear away those inexorable fingers

With a sudden lunge Conan bore hiainst the table And still farther over its edge Conan bent him, back and back, until his spine was ready to snap

Conan's low laugh wasof steel

”You fool!” he all but whispered ”I think you never saw a , because you were able to twist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with ? hell! Break the neck of a wild Ci I did that, before I was a full-grown e wrench he twisted Baal-pteor's head around until the ghastly face leered over the left shoulder, and the vertebrae snapped like a rotten branch

Conan hurled the flopping corpse to the floor, turned to the sword again and gripped the hilt with both hands, bracing his feet against the floor Blood trickled down his broad breast froer nails had torn in the skin of his neck His black hair was damp, sweat ran down his face, and his chest heaved For all his vocal scorn of Baal-pteor's strength, 185