Part 30 (1/2)
176.horrid shape in half. And there at his feet lay only the two pieces of a severed ebon staff.
Thugra Khotan laughed awfully, and wheeling, caught up something that crawled loathsomely in the dust of the floor.
In his extended hand something alive writhed and slavered. No tricks of shadows this time. In his naked hand Thugra Khotan gripped a black scorpion, more than a foot in length, the deadliest creature of the desert, the stroke of whose spiked tail was instant death. Thugra Khotan's skull-like countenance split in a mummy-like grin. Conan hesitated; then without warning he threw his sword.
Caught off guard, Thugra Khotan had no time to avoid the cast. The point struck beneath his heart and stood out a foot behind his shoulders. He went down, crus.h.i.+ng the poisonous monster in his grasp as he fell.
Conan strode to the altar, lifting Yasmela in his blood-stained arms. She threw her white arms convulsively about his mailed neck, sobbing hysterically, and would not let him go.
”Crom's devils, girl!” he grunted. ”Loose me! Fifty thousand men have perished today, and there is work for me to do ”
”No!” she gasped, clinging with convulsive strength, as barbaric for the instant as he in her fear and pa.s.sion. ”I will not let you go! I am yours, by fire and steel and blood! You are mine! Back there, I belong to others here I am mine and yours! You shall not go!”
He hesitated, his own brain reeling with the fierce upsurging of his violent pa.s.sions. The lurid unearthly glow still hovered in the shadowy chamber, lighting ghostlily the dead face of Thugra Khotan, which seemed to grin mirthlessly and cavernously at them. Out on the desert, in the hills among the oceans of dead, men were dying, were howling with wounds and thirst and madness, and kingdoms were staggering. Then all was swept away by the crimson tide that rode madly in Conan's soul, as he crushed fiercely in his iron arms the slim white body that s.h.i.+mmered like a witch-fire of madness before him.
177.
Iron Shadows in the Moon
Iron Shadows in the Moon
A swift cras.h.i.+ng of horses through the tall reeds; a heavy fall, a despairing cry. From the dying steed there staggered up its rider, a slender girl in sandals and girdled tunic. Her dark hair fell over her white shoulders, her eyes were those of a trapped animal. She did not look at the jungle of reeds that hemmed in the little clearing, nor at the blue waters that lapped the low sh.o.r.e behind her. Her wide-eyed gaze was fixed in agonized intensity on the horseman who pushed through the reedy screen and dismounted before her.
He was a tall man, slender, but hard as steel. From head to heel he was clad in light silvered mesh-mail that fitted his supple form like a glove. From under the dome-shaped, gold-chased helmet his brown eyes regarded her mockingly.
”Stand back!” her voice shrilled with terror. ”Touch me not, Shah Amurath, or I will throw myself into the water and drown!”
He laughed, and his laughter was like the purr of a sword sliding from a silken sheath.
”No, you will not drown, Olivia, daughter of confusion, for the marge is too shallow, and I can catch you before you can reach the deeps. You gave me a merry chase, by the G.o.ds, and all my men are far behind us. But there is no horse west of Vilayet that can distance Irem for long.”
He nodded at the tall, slender-legged desert stallion behind him.
”Let me go!” begged the girl, tears of despair staining her face. ”Have I not suffered enough? Is there any humiliation, pain or degradation you have not heaped on me? How long must my torment last?”
”As long as I find pleasure in your whimperings, your pleas, tears and writhings,” he answered with a smile that would have seemed gentle to a stranger. ”You are strangely virile, Olivia. I wonder if I shall ever weary of you, as I have always wearied of women before. You are ever fresh and unsullied, in spite of me. Each new day with you brings a new delight.
”But come let us return to Akif, where the people are still feting the conqueror of the miserable kozaki ; while he, the conqueror, is engaged in recapturing a wretched fugitive, a foolish, lovely, idiotic runaway!”
178.
”No!” She recoiled, turning toward the waters lapping bluely among the reeds.
”Yes!” His flash of open anger was like a spark struck from flint. With a quickness her tender limbs could not approximate, he caught her wrist, twisting it in pure wanton cruelty until she screamed and sank to her knees.
”s.l.u.t! I should drag you back to Akif at my horse's tail, but I will be merciful and carry you on my saddle-bow, for which favor you shall humbly thank me, while ”
He released her with a startled oath and sprang back, his saber flas.h.i.+ng out, as a terrible apparition burst from the reedy jungle sounding an inarticulate cry of hate.
Olivia, staring up from the ground, saw what she took to be either a savage or a madman advancing on Shah Amurath in an att.i.tude of deadly menace. He was powerfully built, naked but for a girdled loin-cloth, which was stained with blood and crusted with dried mire. His black mane was matted with mud and clotted blood; there were streaks of dried blood on his chest and limbs, dried blood on the long straight sword he gripped in his right hand. From under the tangle of his locks, bloodshot eyes glared like coals of blue fire.
”You Hyrkanian dog!” mouthed this apparition in a barbarous accent. ”The devils of vengeance have brought you here!”
”Kozak!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Shah Amurath, recoiling. ”I did not know a dog of you escaped! I thought you all lay stiff on the steppe, by Ilbars River.”