Part 46 (1/2)

255 one's antagonist

Noas only a few yards fro in rapidly, evidently thinking to pin hiroup at the gate had deserted their post and were hastening to join their fellows The giants half crouched, eyes blazing like golden hell-fire, teeth glistening whitely, taloned hands lifted as if to fend off attack They expected an abrupt and violent move on the part of their prey, but when it came, it took them by surprize

Conan lifted his sword, took a step toward the coil and release of steelarers over the projection Instantly there was a rending crash and the jutting ledge gave way, precipitating the pirate back into the court

He hit on his back, which for all its springy sineould have broken but for the cushi+oning of the sward, and rebounding like a great cat, he faced his foes The dancing recklessness was gone from his eyes They blazed like blue bale-fire; his mane bristled, his thin lips snarled In an instant the affair had changed froae nature responded with all the fury of the wild

The blacks, halted an instant by the swiftness of the episode, nowhim down But in that instant a shout broke the stillness Wheeling, the giants saw a disreputable throng crowding the arch The buccaneers weaved drunkenly, they swore incoherently; they were addled and bewildered, but they grasped their swords and advanced with a ferocity not dihtest by the fact that they did not understand what it was all about

As the blacks glared in amazeed thunderbolt They fell like ripe grain beneath his blade, and the Zingarans, shouting with ily across the court and fell on their gigantic foes with bloodthirsty zeal They were still dazed; eed slu theuely heard her urging them to some sort of action They had not understood all she said, but the sight of strangers, and blood streah for theround which soon researans weaved and rocked on their feet, but they wielded their swords with power and effect, swearing prodigiously, and quite oblivious to all wounds except those instantly fatal

They far outnuonists Towering above their assailants, the giants wrought havoc with talons and teeth, tearing outbloith clenched fists that crushed in skulls Mixed and led in that ility to the best advantage, and ed sleep to avoid blows aiht with a blind wild-beast ferocity, too intent on dealing death to evade it The sound of the hacking swords was like that of butchers' cleavers, and the shrieks, yells and curses were appalling

Sancha, shrinking in the archas stunned by the noise and fury; she got a dazed i chaos in which steel flashed and hacked, ar bodies collided, rebounded, locked and led in a devil's dance of s on a background of blood She saw a Zingaran sailor, blinded by a great flap of scalp torn loose and hanging over his eyes, brace his straddling legs and drive his sword to the hilt in a black belly She distinctly heard the buccaneer grunt as he struck, and saw the victiushed out over the driven blade The dying black caught the blade with his naked hands, and the sailor tugged blindly and stupidly; then a black araran's head, a black knee was planted with cruel force in the le, and so of a thick branch The conqueror dashed his victi like a beaht flashed across his shoulders froered, his head toppled forward on his breast, and thence, hideously, to the earth

Sancha turned sick She gagged and wished to vomit She made abortive efforts to turn and flee fros would not work Nor could she close her eyes In fact, she opened them wider Revolted, repelled, nauseated, yet she felt the awful fascination she had always experienced at sight of blood Yet this battle transcended anything she had ever seen fought out between hus in port raids or sea battles Then she saw Conan

Separated from his mates by the whole mass of the enemy, Conan had been enveloped in a black wave of ared down Then they would quickly have stamped the life out of him, but he had pulled down one of them with him, and the black's body protected that of the pirate beneath hied at their writhing comrade, but Conan's teeth were set desperately in his throat, and the pirate clung tenaciously to his dying shi+eld

An onslaught of Zingarans caused a slackening of the press, and Conan threw aside the corpse and rose, blood-sreat black shadows, clutching, buffeting the air with terrible blows But he was as hard to hit or grapple as a blood- mad panther, and at every turn or flash of his blade, blood jetted He had already taken punishh to kill three ordinary men, but his bull-like vitality was undiminished

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His war-cry rose above the arans took fresh heart and redoubled their strokes, until the rending of flesh and the crunching of bone beneath the swords almost drowned the howls of pain and wrath

The blacks wavered, and broke for the gate, and Sancha squealed at their co and scurried out of the way They jaarans stabbed and hacked at their straining backs with strident yelps of glee The gate was a shah and scattered, each for hirassy courts, up shi+ roofs of fantastic towers, even along the broad coping of the walls, the giants fled, dripping blood at each step, harried by their merciless pursuers as by wolves Cornered, some of them turned at bay and led black body twitching on the sward, or hurled writhing and twisting froe in the court of the pool, where she crouched, shaking with terror

Outside rose a fierce yelling, feet pounded the sward, and through the arch burst a black red- stained figure It was the giant ore the gemmed head-band A squat pursuer was close behind, and the black turned, at the very brink of the pool In his extre sailor, and as the Zingaran rushed recklessly at him, he struck with the unfamiliar weapon The buccaneer dropped with his skull crushed, but so aardly the bloas dealt, the blade shi+vered in the giant's hand

He hurled the hilt at the figures which thronged the arch, and bounded toward the pool, his face a convulsed ate, and his feet spurned the sward in his headlong charge

But the giant threw his great ar an inhuht It screa froarans faltered and hesitated But Conan did not pause Silently and ure poised on the brink of the pool

But even as his dripping sword gleah For a flash of an instant they saw hi roar, the green waters rose and rushed up to reen volcano

Conan checked his headlong rush just in ti back, thrusting his reen pool was like a geyser now, the noise rising to deafening volureat colu at the crest with a great crown of foa the them with the flat of his sword; the roar of the water-spout see Sancha standing paralyzed, staring ide-eyed terror at the seething pillar, he accosted her with a bellow that cut through the thunder of the water and made her jump out of her daze She ran to hiht her up under one arm and raced out of the court

In the court which opened on the outer world, the survivors had gathered, weary, tattered, wounded and blood-stained, and stood gaping dureat unstable pillar that towered reen trunk was laced hite; its foa croas thrice the circumference of its base Mo torrent, yet it continued to jet skyward