Part 5 (1/2)
The Ci his sword, a sudden sick weariness assailing hilare of the sun on the snow cut his eyes like a knife and the sky seeely apart He turned away from the trampled expanse where yellow-bearded warriors lay locked with red-haired slayers in the elare of the snow fields was suddenly diulfed hi hi to shake the blindness out of his eyes as a lion h his dizziness, and his sight cleared slowly He looked up; there was a strangeness about all the landscape that he could not place or define an unfa of this Before hi in the wind, stood a woaze, and save for a light veil of gossamer, she was naked as the day Her slender bare feet hiter than the snow they spurned She laughed down at the bewildered warrior Her laughter eeter than the rippling of silvery fountains, and poisonous with cruel mockery
”Who are you?” asked the Cimmerian ”Whence come you?”
”What ed harp, but it was edged with cruelty
”Call up your th fail me, they shall not take me alive I see that you are of the Vanir”
”Have I said so?”
His gaze went again to her unruly locks, which at first glance he had thought to be red Now he saw that they were neither red nor yellow but a glorious coazed spell-bound Her hair was like elfin-gold; the sun struck it so dazzlingly that he could scarcely bear to look upon it Her eyes were likewise neither wholly blue nor wholly grey, but of shi+fting colors and dancing lights and clouds of colors he could not define Her full red lips s crown of her billowy hair, her ivory body was as perfect as the dream of a God Conan's pulse hammered in his temples
”I can not tell,” said he, ”whether you are of Vanaheiard and my friend Far have I wandered, but a woman like you I have never seen Your locks blind htness Never have I seen such hair, not even ahters of the aesir
By Ymir ”
”Who are you to swear by Ymir?” she mocked ”What know you of the Gods of ice and snow, you who have co an alien people?”
”By the dark Gods of olden haired aesir, none has been more forward in sword-play! This day I have seen four score men fall, and I alone have survived the field where Wulfhere's reavers i Tell me, woman, have you seen the flash of 40upon the ice?”
”I have seen the hoar-frost glittering in the sun,” she answered ”I have heard the hispering across the everlasting snows”
He shook his head with a sigh
”Niord should have cohting-men have been ambushed Wulfhere and his warriors lie dead
”I had thought there was no village within ues of this spot, for the war carried us far, but you can not have coreat distance over these snows, naked as you are Lead ard, for I am faint with blows and the weariness of strife”
”My village is further than you can walk, Conan of Ci her ar sensuously, her scintillant eyes half shadowed beneath their long silken lashes ”A naked on the snows,” helike those of a wolf
”Then why do you not rise and followwarrior who falls down beforemockery ”Lie down and die in the snoith the other fools, Conan of the black hair You can not follohere I would lead”
With an oath the Ci, his dark scarred face contorted Rage shook his soul, but desire for the taunting figure before him hah his veins Passion fierce as physical agony flooded his whole being, so that earth and sky swaaze In the madness that swept upon him, weariness and faintness were swept away
He spoke no word as he drove at her, fingers spread to grip her soft flesh With a shriek of laughter she leaped back and ran, laughing at hirowl Conan followed He had forgotten the fight, forgotten the otten Niord and the reavers who had failed to reach the fight He had thought only for the slender white shape which seemed to float rather than run before hi plain the chase led The traht behind him, but still Conan kept on with the silent tenacity of his race His h the frozen crust; he sank deep in the drifts and forged through theht as a feather floating across a pool; her naked feet barely left their imprint on the hoar-frost that overlaid the crust In spite of the fire in his veins, the cold41bit through the warrior's ossah the palardens of Poitain
On and on she led, and Conan followed Black curses drooled through the Cireat veins in his tenashed
”You can not escape me!” he roared ”Lead me into a trap and I'll pile the heads of your kinsmen at your feet! Hide from me and I'll tear apart the mountains to find you! I'll follow you to hell!”
Her hter floated back to him, and foam flew from the barbarian's lips Further and further into the wastes she led hiave way to low hills, ht a gli mountains, blue with the distance, or white with the eternal snows Above theserays of the borealis They spread fan-wise into the sky, frosty blades of cold fla
Above hileams The snow shone weirdly, now frosty blue, now icy cri icy realedly onward, in a crystallineacross the glittering snow beyond his reach ever beyond his reach
He did not wonder at the strangeness of it all, not even when two gigantic figures rose up to bar his way The scales of their mail hite with hoar-frost; their helmets and their axes were covered with ice Snow sprinkled their locks; in their beards were spikes of icicles; their eyes were cold as the lights that strea between theht you aon our father's board!”