Part 4 (2/2)

”By Badb, Morrigan, Macha and Nemain!” he concluded wrathfully ”I aian h the door, and Ascalante's rogues fled before it It slew Ascalante, as about to run h Then it calanced froe Epemitreus had a hand in it ”

”Hark how he names Epemitreus, dead for fifteen hundred years!” they whispered to each other

”By Yht I talked with Epemitreus! He called to me in my dreams, and I walked down a black stone corridor carved with old Gods, to a stone stair on the steps of which were the outlines of Set, until I came to a crypt, and a tomb with a phoenix carved on it ”

”In Mitra's nah-priest of Mitra who cried out, and his countenance was ashen

Conan threw up his head like a lion tossing back its ry lion

”Am I a slave, to shut h-priest was treh fear of the royal wrath ”Iand spoke in a whisper that carried only to Conan's ears37

”My lord, this is aOnly the inner circle of the priestcraft know of the black stone corridor carved in the black heart of Mount Golauarded too And since that tithe Sage in the crypt, blocked up the outer entrance of the corridor so that no h-priests knohere it is Only by word of h-priests to the chosen few, and jealously guarded, does the inner circle of Mitra's acolytes know of the resting-place of Epemitreus in the black heart of Golamira It is one of the Mysteries, on which Mitra's cult stands”

”I can not say by what ht me to him,” answered Conan ”But I talked with him, and he made a mark on ic lay behind the h the blade broke on Groh to kill the horror”

”Let one suddenly dry

Conan held out the broken weapon and the high-priest cried out and fell to his knees

”Mitra guard us against the powers of darkness!” he gasped ”The king has indeed talked with Epen none ht make but him the emblem of the immortal phoenix which broods for ever over his to said the goblin died!”

It lay in the shade of a broken screen They threw the screen aside and bathed the floor in a flood of candle-light And a shuddering silence fell over the people as they looked Then so on Mitra, and so from the chamber

There on the floor where the ible shadow, a broad dark stain that could not be washed out; the thing had left its outline clearly etched in its blood, and that outline was of no being of a sane and normal world Grim and horrific it brooded there, like the shadow cast by one of the apish Gods that squat on the shadowy altars of diia38

The Frost-Giant's Daughter

The Frost-Giant's Daughter

The clangor of the swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow The bleak pale sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay as they had fallen The nerveless hand yet gripped the broken hilt; helmeted heads back-drawn in the death-throes, tilted red beards and golden beards griiant, God of a warrior-race

Across the red drifts and lared at each other In that utter desolation only they moved The frosty sky was over them, the white illimitable plain around theh the corpses they cah the sha silence they stood face to face

Both were tall one, their corselets battered and dinted Blood dried on their mail; their swords were stained red Their horned helmets showed the marks of fierce strokes One was beardless and black-maned The locks and beard of the other were red as the blood on the sunlit snow

”Man,” said he, ”tell me your name, so that my brothers in Vanaheim may knoas the last of Wulfhere's band to fall before the sword of Heirowled the black-haired warrior, ”but in Valhalla will you tell your brothers that you met Conan of Cimmeria”

Heimdul roared and leaped, and his sword flashed in deathly arc Conan staggered and his vision was filled with red sparks as the singing blade crashed on his hel into bits of blue fire But as he reeled he thrust with all the power of his broad shoulders behind the huh brass scales and bones and heart, and the red- haired warrior died at Conan's feet