Part 10 (2/2)

Only a strident screech answered hi with harsh mockery

Conan wasted no more breath on his dusky betrayer Grirind of the hills He dared not push the horse too hard; the rest he had allowed it had not been enough to freshen it He was still far ahead of his pursuers, but they would cut down that lead steadily

It was almost a certainty that their horses were fresher than his, for they had undoubtedly changed rew rougher, the sceneryup to densely tiht elude his hunters, but for that hellish bird that squalled incessantly above hier see them in this broken country, but he was certain that they still followed hily by their feathered allies That black shape becah measureless hells The stones he hurled with a curse ide or fell har

The horse was tiring fast Conan recognized the gri fate behind all this He could not escape He was as much a captive as he had been in the pits of Belverus But he was no son of the Orient to yield passively to what seemed inevitable If he could not escape, he would at least take some of his foes into eternity with him He turned into a wide thicket of larches thatfor a place to turn at bay

Then ahead of hie, shrill scream, huh a screen of branches, and saw the source of that eldritch cry In a slade below hi a noose about the neck of a gaunt old woots, bound with cord on the ground near by, shohat her occupation had been when surprised by these stragglers

Conan felt slow fury swell his heart as he looked silently down and saw the ruffians dragging her toward a tree whose low-spreading branches were obviously intended to act as a gibbet He had crossed the frontier an hour ago He was standing on his own soil, watching the ling with surprising strength and energy, and as he watched, she lifted her head and voiced again the strange, weird, far-carrying call he had heard before It was echoed as if inabove the trees The soldiers laughed roughly, and one struck her in thefrom his weary steed and dropped down the face of the rocks, landing with a clang of rass The fourat the hed harshly His eyes were bleak as flint

'Dogs!' he said without passion and without mercy 'Do Ne my subjects at will? First youyour lordly pleasure!'

The soldiers stared at him uncertainly as he strode toward therowled a bearded ruffian 'He wears Nemedian mail, but speaks with an Aquilonian accent'

'Nothe old hag'

And so saying he ran at Conan, lifting his sword But before he could strike, the king's great blade lashed down, splitting helmet and skull

The ave tongue like wolves and surged about the lone figure in the gray mail, and the cla raven

Conan did not shout His eyes coals of blue fire and his lips sht and left with his two-handed sword For all his size he was quick as a cat on his feet, and he was constantly in s cut empty air oftener than not Yet when he struck he was perfectly balanced, and his blows fell with devastating power Three of the four were down, dying in their own blood, and the fourth was bleeding fro retreat as he parried frantically, when Conan's spur caught in the surcoat of one of the fallenstumbled, and before he could catch himself the Neely that Conan staggered and fell sprawling over the corpse The Nereat sith both hands over his right shoulder, as he braced his legs wide for the stroke--and then, over the prostrate king, soe and hairy shot like a thunderbolt full on the soldier's breast, and his yelp of triu up, saw the ray wolf stood over him, head sunk as it srass

The king turned as the old woht and tall before hiarb, her features, clear-cut and aquiline, and her keen black eyes, were not those of a common peasant woman She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green lahty neck, and so the two stood regarding the king of Aquilonia He found their steady gaze disquieting, though there was no hostility in it

'Men say King Conan died beneath the stones and dirt when the cliffs cru, resonant voice

'So they say,' he growled He was in no ht of those ar nearer every moment

The raven above hirinding his teeth in a spase the white horse stood with drooping head The old woman looked at it, and then at the raven; and then she lifted a strange weird cry as she had before As if recognizing the call, the raven wheeled, suddenly ht, the shadow of le of trees, and rising above it, swooped and struck the black er to the earth The strident voice of betrayal was stilled for ever

'Croician, too?'

'I am Zelata,' she said 'The people of the valleys callarmed men on your trail?'

'Aye' She did not seem to think the answer fantastic 'They cannot be far behindConan,' she said briefly