Part 29 (1/2)

”Flee! flee!” he sobred ”Who can fight Natohk's ic?”

With a snarl Conan bounded from his boulder and s from nose and mouth Conan drew his sword, his eyes slits of blue bale-fire

”Back to your posts!” he yelled ”Let another take a backward step and I'll shear off his head!

Fight, daun Conan's fierce personality was like a dash of ice- water in their whirling blaze of terror

”Take your places,” he directed quickly ”And stand to it! Neither man nor devil comes up Shamla Pass this day!”

Where the plateau rim broke to the valley slope the ripped their spears Behind them the lancers sat their steeds, and to one side were stationed the Khoraja spear white and speechless at the door of her tent, the host see desert horde

Conan stood a the spearmen He knew the invaders would not try to drive a chariot charge up the Pass in the teeth of the archers, but he grunted with surprize to see the riders

171dis These wildat their saddle- peaks Now they drank the last of their water and threw the canteens away

”This is the death-grip,” he muttered as the lines fore; wounded horses bolt and ruin fore, of which the tip was the Stygians and the body, the mailed asshuri, flanked by the nomads In close formation, shi+elds lifted, they rolled onward, while behind theure in a risly invocation

As the horde entered the wide valley mouth the hillmen loosed their shafts In spite of the protective forians had discarded their bows; hel over the rie, striding over their fallen coave back the fire, and the clouds of arrows darkened the skies Conan gazed over the billoaves of spears and wondered what new horror the sorcerer would invoke Somehow he felt that Natohk, like all his kind, was more terrible in defense than in attack; to take the offensive against hiic that drove the horde on in the teeth of death Conan caught his breath at the havoc wrought in the onsweeping ranks The edges of the wedge see away, and already the valley was streith dead men Yet the survivors came on like madmen unaware of death By the very nuan to swamp the archers on the cliffs Clouds of shafts sped upward, driving the hill advance, and they plied their bowslike trapped wolves

As the horde neared the narrower neck of the Pass, boulders thundered down, crushi+ng e did not waver Conan's wolves braced themselves for the inevitable concussion In their close formation and superior armor, they took little hurt froe Conan feared, when the huge wedge should crash against his thin ranks And he realized now there was no breaking of that onslaught He gripped the shoulder of a Zaheemi who stood near

”Is there any way by which et down into the blind valley beyond that western ridge?”

”Aye, a steep, perilous path, secret and eternally guarded But ”

Conan was dragging hireat war-horse

172

”Amalric!” he snapped ”Follow this man! He'll lead you into yon outer valley Ride down it, circle the end of the ridge, and strike the horde froo! I know it's e we can before we die! Haste!”

Arin, and a few le of gorges leading off from the plateau Conan ran back to the pikee Shupras' hillmen, mad with anticipation of defeat, rained down their shafts desperately Men died like flies in the valley and along the slopes and with a roar and an irresistible upward surge the Stygians crashed against thesteel, the lines twisted and swayed It ar-bred noble against professional soldier shi+elds crashed against shi+elds, and between thehty form of prince Kutamun across the sea of swords, but the press held hiasped and slashed Behind the Stygians the asshuri were surging and yelling

On either hand the norips with their es the co ferocity Tooth and nail, frothing mad with fanaticism and ancient feuds, the tribes, the naked Kushi+tes ran howling into the fray

It seemed to Conan that his sweat-blinded eyes looked down into a rising ocean of steel that seethed and eddied, filling the valley froht was at a bloody deadlock

The hill their dripping pikes, bracing their feet in the bloody earth, held the Pass Superior position and ar nu faces and flashi+ng spears surged up the slope, the asshuri filling the gaps in the Stygian ranks