Part 41 (1/2)

Maddened at the disappearance of his sweetheart, the barbarian reverted to type

A snarl of bloodthirsty gratification hummed in his bull-throat as he leaped, and the first attacker, his short sword overreached by the whistling saber, went doith his brains gushi+ng froht a descending wrist on his edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air scattering a shower of red drops But Conan had not paused or hesitated A pantherish twist and shi+ft of his body avoided the blundering rush of two yelloords its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other

A yell of dismay went up at this mischance, and Conan allowed hihter as he bounded aside frouard of yet anotheredge and the h

The warriors of Xuthal howled like mad wolves Unaccustomed to battle, they were ridiculously slow and cluerish barbarian whose motions were blurs of quickness possible only to steel thews knit to a perfect fighting-brain They floundered and stumbled, hindered by their own numbers; they struck too quick or too soon, and cut only empty air He was never , side-stepping, whirling, twisting, he offered a constantly shi+fting target for their swords, while his own curved blade sang death about their ears

But whatever their faults, the e They swarh the arched doorways rushed others, awakened fro from a cut on the te sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a quick glance about for an avenue of escape At that instant he saw the tapestry on one of the walls drawn aside, disclosing a narrow stairway On this stood a , as if he had just awakened and had not yet shaken the dusts of sluht and action were sih the he of swords, and he bounded toward the stair with the pack giving tongue behind him Three men confronted him at the foot of thecrash of steel There was a frenzied instant when the blades flaroup fell apart and Conan sprang up the stair The onco for welter of blood and brains; another propped hi blackly fro as he clawed at the crimson stump that had been an arm

As Conan rushed up the marble stair, the man above shook himself from his stupor and dreord that sparkled frostily in the radiued upon hi toward his throat, Conan ducked deeply The blade slit the skin of his back, and Conan straightened, driving his saber upward as a ht wield a butcher- knife, with all the power of hisdrive that the sinking of the saber to the hilt into the belly of his eneainst the wretch's body, knocking it sidewise The iainst the wall; the other, the saber torn through his body, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine fro entrails the body tu

229theainst the wall an instant, glaring down upon the saber, he bounded up the steps

Coh to see that it was e with such intensified horror and rage, that he knew he had killed so of that fantastic city

He ran at random, without plan He desperately wished to find and succor Natala, who he was sure needed aid badly; but harried as he was by all the warriors in Xuthal, he could only run on, trusting to luck to elude thehted upper chambers he quickly lost all sense of direction, and it was not strange that he eventually blundered into a cha

They yelled vengefully and rushed for hiust he turned and fled back the way he had coht it was the way he had co into a particularly ornate chamber, he are of histhe stair had been empty This chaed in

Conan saw a yellow-skinned wo at hili from the wall Then the floor dropped from under him, and all his steel-trap coordination could not save hie into the black depths that opened beneath hih it was far enough to have snapped the leg bones of a s and whalebone

He hit cat-like on his feet and one hand, instinctively retaining his grasp on his saber hilt A fa in his ears as he rebounded on his feet as a lynx rebounds with snarling bared fangs So Conan, glaring froure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell

The sight of that awful shape alone ht have frozen the Ciht sent a red wave of h Conan's brain In a crimson irl, wheeling toward its attacker, and the h the air, sheared clear through the black viscous bulk and rang on the stone floor, showering blue sparks Conan went to his knees froe had not encountered the resistance he had expected As he bounded up, the thing was upon hi black cloud It seemed to flow about hiulf hiain and again, his ripping poniard tore and rent it; he was deluged with a sliish blood Yet its fury was nowise abated

He could not tell whether he was slashi+ng off itsits bulk, which knit behind the slicing blade He was tossed to and fro in the violence of that awful battle, and had a dazed feeling that he was fighting not one, but an aggregation of lethal creatures The thing see his and talons rend his flesh; flabby cables that were yet hard as iron encircled his li like a whip of scorpions fell again and again across his shoulders, back and breast, tearing the skin and filling his veins with a poison that was like liquid fire

They had rolled beyond the circle of light, and it was in utter blackness that the Cimmerian battled Once he sank his teeth, beast-like, into the flabby substance of his foe, revolting as the stuff writhed and squir rubber from between his iron jaws

In that hurricane of battle they were rolling over and over, farther and farther down the tunnel

Conan's brain reeled with the punishasps between his teeth High above hilow that see cry that was half curse, half gasp of straining agony, he lunged toward it, thrusting with all his waning power Hilt-deep the saber sank, sorisly face, and a convulsive shudder heaved the vast bulk that half enveloped the Cimmerian With a volcanic burst of contraction and expansion, it tu noith frantic haste down the corridor Conan ith it, bruised, battered, invincible, hanging on like a bulldog to the hilt of his saber which he could not withdraw, tearing and ripping at the shuddering bulk with the poniard in his left hand, goring it to ribbons

The thing glowed all over noith a weird phosphorous radiance, and this gloas in Conan's eyes, blinding hiloose and re down into space, and far below hi doard like a

231reat round well, the edge of which was sli and dwindling until it vanished into a dark shi+ning surface that see witchfire glimmered in those dusky depths; then it disappeared and Conan lay staring down into the blackness of the ulti vainly at the silk cords which cut into her wrists, Natala sought to pierce the darkness beyond the radiant circle Her tongue seemed frozen to the roof of her mouth Into that blackness she had seen Conan vanish, locked in mortal combat with the unknown de ears had been the panting gasps of the barbarian, the ie blows These ceased, and Natala swayed dizzily on her cords, half fainting

A footstep roused her out of her apathy of horror, to see Conan eht she found her voice in a shriek which echoed down the vaulted tunnel Theto behold At every step he dripped blood His face was skinned and bruised as if he had been beaten with a bludgeon His lips were pulped, and blood oozed down his face frohs, calves and forearreat bruises showed on his liainst the stone floor But his shoulders, back and upper-breast muscles had suffered most The flesh was bruised, swollen and lacerated, the skin hanging in loose strips, as if he had been lashed hips