Part 35 (2/2)
”Run!” snarled Conan, his eyes blazing like those of a trapped wolf ”It's all we can do!”
Sailors' boots are not , and the life of a pirate does not train one for a runner
Within fifty yards Valeria was panting and reeling in her gait and behind the thunder as the monster broke out of the thickets and into the clearer country
Conan's iron arm about the woman's waist half lifted her; her feet scarcely touched the earth as she was borne along at a speed she could have attained herself A quick glance over his shoulder showed Conan that the alley in front of a hurricane He thrust Valeria fro a dozen feet to fall in a crumpled heap at the foot of the nearest tree, and wheeled in the path of the thundering titan
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Convinced that his death was upon hi to his instinct, and hurled hi down on hi like a wildcat, felt his sword cut deep into the scales that sheathed theand tu for fifty feet with all the wind and half the life battered out of hiained his feet, not even he could ever have told But he thought only for the girl lying dazed al fiend, and before the breath ca over her with his sword in his hand
She lay where he had thrown her, but she was struggling to a sitting posture The dragon had not touched her, neither with tearing tusks or tra that struck Conan; and the blindthe victiony of its death throes Headlong on its course it thundered until its low-hung head crashed into a gigantic tree in its path The impact tore the tree up by the roots and must have dashed the brains froether, and the dazed humans saw the branches and leaves contorted and shaken by the convulsions of the creature they hid and then grow quiet
Conan lifted Valeria to her feet and together they started eastward at a reeling run A few ht of the treeless plain
Conan paused an instant, and glanced back at the black forest behind him Not a leaf stirred, not a bird chirped It stood as silent as it must have stood before ani his companion's hand ”The woods may be full of those devils We'll try that city out there on the plain”
With every step they took away from the black woods Valeria drew a breath of relief Eachof the bushes and see another giant night disturbed the silence of the forest
With the first mile between them and the woods, Valeria breathed easy The sun had set and darkness was gathering over the plain, lightened a little by the stars that hosts out of the hed fields,” muttered Conan ”How do these people live?”
”Perhaps the fields and grazing lands are on the other side of the city,” suggested Valeria
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”Maybe,” he grunted ”I didn't see any froh”
Thewalls and towers blackly in the yello
Valeria shi+vered Black against the e city had a so of the salanced about hiates in the night They probably wouldn't let us in Besides, we're tired, and we don't kno they'll receive us A few hours rest will put us in better shape to fight or run”
He led the way to a bed of cactus which grew in a circle a phenomenon common to the southern desert With his sword he chopped an opening, and motioned Valeria to enter
”We'll be safe frolanced fearfully back toward the black line that indicated the forest, soon comes out of the woods?”
”We'll keep watch,” he answered, though he estion as to what they would do in such an event ”Lie down and sleep I'll keep the first watch”
She hesitated, but he sat down cross-legged in the opening, facing toward the plain, his sword across his knees, his back to her Without further comment she lay down on the sand inside the spiky circle
”Wake me when the moon is at its zenith,” she directed He did not reply nor look toward her
Her last iure, iainst the low-hanging stars
CHAPTER
Valeria aith a start, to the realization that a grey daas stealing over the desert
She sat up, rubbing her eyes Conan was squatting beside the cactus, cutting off the thick pears and dexterously twitching out the spikes
”You didn't awake ht!”
”You were tired,” he answered ”Your posteriorride You pirates aren't used to horseback”
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”What about yourself?” she retorted
”I was a kozak before I was a pirate,” he answered ”They live in the saddle I snatch naps like a panther watching beside the trail for a deer to come by My ears stay ahile iant Cimmerian seeht on a gold bed Having reh skin, Conan handed the girl a thick, juicy cactus leaf
”Eat that pear It's food and drink to a desert irs once desertthe caravans”
”Is there anything you haven't been?” inquired the girl, half in derision, half in fascination
”I've never been king of an Hyborian kingdo an enor even that I may be too, some day Why shouldn't I?”
She shook her head in wonder and fell to devouring her pear She found it not unpleasing to the palate, and full of a cool and thirst-satisfying juice Finishi+ng his ers through his thick black o If the people in that city are going to cut our throats they ins”
His griht be prophetic She touched her sword-hilt as she rose Her terrors of the night were past The roaring dragons of the distant forest were like a di as she moved off beside her companion Whatever perils lay ahead of them, their foes would be men And Valeria of the Red Brethren had never seen the face of the lanced down at her as she strode along beside hi stride that matched his own
”You walk more like a hillman than a sailor,” he said ”You must be an Aquilonian The suns of Darfar never burnt your white skin brown”
”I aer antagonized her His evident admiration pleased her After all, the desire of Conan the Cimmerian was an honor to any woman, even to Valeria of the Red Brotherhood
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The sun rose behind the city, turning the towers to a sinister crimson