Part 29 (1/2)

CONAN sprang up, his eyes like live coals So that was Olers to destroy his foes! He should have known that so on in that black-bearded degenerate's mind

The Cimmerian started toward Tecuhltli with reckless speed Rapidly he reckoned the nu Olmec, had survived that fiendish battle in the throneroom Three had died since, which left seventeen enee Conan felt capable of accounting for the whole clan single-handed

But the innate craft of the wilderness rose to guide his berserk rage He re of an ambush It was quite probable that the prince would ht have failed to carry out his order Ol hi to Xotalanc

Conan glanced up at a skylight under which he was passing and caught the blurred gliun to pale for dawn The events of the night had been crowded into a comparatively short space of time

He turned aside fro staircase to the floor below

He did not knohere the door was to be found that let into the castle on that level, but he knew he could find it Hoas to force the locks he did not know; he believed that the doors of Tecuhltli would all be locked and bolted, if for no other reason than the habits of half a century But there was nothing else but to atteh a reen-lit or shadowy rooms and halls He knew he ht hi trying to cry out through a stifling gag It came from 250

somewhere ahead of him, and to the left In those deathly-still cha way

Conan turned aside and went seeking after the sound, which continued to be repeated

Presently he was glaring through a doorway upon a weird scene In the roo a low rack-like fraure was bound prostrate upon it His head rested on a bed of iron spikes, which were already crimson-pointed with blood where they had pierced his scalp A peculiar harness-like contrivance was fastened about his head, though in such a manner that the leather band did not protect his scalp from the spikes This harness was connected by a slender chain to the e iron ball which was suspended above the captive's hairy breast As long as the man could force hi in its place But when the pain of the iron points caused him to lift his head, the ball lurched doard a few inches Presently his aching neck er support his head in its unnatural position and it would fall back on the spikes again It was obvious that eventually the ball would crush hied, and above the gag his great black ox-eyes rolled wildly toward the man in the doorho stood in silent amazement The man on the rack was Olmec, prince of Tecuhltli

VI

THE EYES OF TASCELA

”WHY did you bring s?” demanded Valeria ”Couldn't you have done it just as well in the throneroo extended upon it, and the Tecuhltli woes Valeria's red-stained sword lay on the couch beside her

She frowned as she spoke The woman had done her task silently and efficiently, but Valeria liked neither the lingering, caressing touch of her sliers nor the expression in her eyes

”They have taken the rest of the wounded into the other chambers,” answered the woman in the soft speech of the Tecuhltli woentleness in the speakers A little while before, Valeria had seen this sah the breast and stamp the eyeballs out of a wounded Xotalancathe corpses of the dead down into the catacohosts escape into the chahosts?” asked Valeria

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”I know the ghost of Tolkemec dwells in the catacombs,” she answered with a shi+ver ”Once I saw it, as I crouched in a crypt a the bones of a dead queen It passed by in the for white beard and locks, and luminous eyes that blazed in the darkness

It was Tolke tortured”

Her voice sank to a fearful whisper: ”Olhost dwells in the cataconaw the flesh frohosts eat flesh Who knows but that ”

She glanced up quickly as a shadow fell across the couch Valeria looked up to see Ol down at her The prince had cleansed his hands, torso and beard of the blood that had splashed thereat dark-skinned hairless body and lith bestial in its nature His deep black eyes burned with a estion of a twitching in the fingers that tugged at his thick blue-black beard

He stared fixedly at the wolided froh the door she cast a look over her shoulder at Valeria, a glance full of cynical derision and obscene mockery

”She has done a clu to the divan and bending over the bandage ”Letin one of his bulk he snatched her sword and threw it across the chaiant arms

Quick and unexpected as the rabbed her, her dirk was in her hand and she stabbed ht her wrist, and then began a savage wrestling-ht him with fists, feet, knees, teeth and nails, with all the strength of her hting she had acquired in her years of roving and fighting on sea and land It availed her nothing against his brute strength She lost her dirk in the first moment of contact, and thereafter found herself powerless to inflict any appreciable pain on her giant attacker

The blaze in his weird black eyes did not alter, and their expression filled her with fury, fanned by the sardonic smile that seemed carved upon his bearded lips Those eyes and that smile contained all the cruel cynicisenerate race, and for the first time in her life Valeria experienced fear of a e elemental force; his iron ar through her limbs He seemed impervious to any pain she could inflict

Only once, when she sank her white teeth savagely into his wrist so that the blood started, did 252

he react And that was to buffet her brutally upon the side of the head with his open hand, so that stars flashed before her eyes and her head rolled on her shoulders

Her shi+rt had been torn open in the struggle, and with cynical cruelty he rasped his thick beard across her bare breasts, bringing the blood to suffuse the fair skin, and fetching a cry of pain and outraged fury from her Her convulsive resistance was useless; she was crushed down on a couch, disar up at hiress

Aher in his ar of her eyes showed that she was unconquered in spirit, at least

She had not cried out She knew that Conan was not within call, and it did not occur to her that any in Tecuhltli would oppose their prince But she noticed that Ol for sounds of pursuit, and he did not return to the throne chah a door that stood opposite that through which he had entered, crossed another roo down a hall As she became convinced that he feared some opposition to the abduction, she threw back her head and screamed at the top of her lusty voice

She was rewarded by a slap that half stunned her, and Ol run

But her cry had been echoed, and twisting her head about, Valeria, through the tears and stars that partly blinded her, saw Techotl li after the the wonified position under one huge ar vainly, like a child

”Ol as to do this thing! She is Conan's woman! She helped us slay the Xotalancas, and ”

WITHOUT a word Ole fist and stretched the wounded warrior senseless at his feet Stooping, and hindered not at all by the struggles and imprecations of his captive, he drew Techotl's sword from its sheath and stabbed the warrior in the breast

Then casting aside the weapon he fled on along the corridor He did not see a woing It vanished, and presently Techotl groaned and stirred, rose dazedly and staggered drunkenly away, calling Conan's name

Ol ivory staircase He crossed several corridors and halted at last in a broad chamber whose doors were veiled with heavy tapestries, with one exception a heavy bronze door sile on the upper floor

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He wasto it: ”That is one of the outer doors of Tecuhltli For the first tiuard it now, for Xotalanc is no ue!” sneered Valeria, tre with fury and the sha! Conan will cut your throat for this!”

Olullet had already been severed according to his whispered command He was too utterly cynical to be at all interested in her thoughts or opinions His flaenerous expanses of clear white flesh exposed where her shi+rt and breeches had been torn in the struggle

”Forget Conan,” he said thickly ”Olmec is lord of Xuchotl Xotalanc is noWe shall spend our lives in drinking and love- First let us drink!”

He seated himself on an ivory table and pulled her down on his knees, like a dark-skinned satyr with a white ny her un-nyreat arm about her waist while the other reached across the table and secured a vessel of wine

”Drink!” he co it to her lips, as she writhed her head away

The liquor slopped over, stinging her lips, splashi+ng down on her naked breasts

”Your guest does not like your wine, Olmec,” spoke a cool, sardonic voice