Part 11 (1/2)

Without colade by a circuitous path As he ca lazily down fro its great wings lightly so as not to crush her with its weight

Without a word she led the way, the great wolf trotting at her side, the eagle soaring above her Through deep thickets and along tortuous ledges poised over deep ravines she led hied path to a curious dwelling of stone, half hut, half cavern, beneath a cliff hidden ale flew to the pinnacle of this cliff, and perched there like a motionless sentinel

Still silent, Zelata stabled the horse in a near-by cave, with leaves and grass piled high for provender, and a tiny spring bubbling in the di on a rude, hide-covered bench, and she herself sat upon a low stool before the tiny fireplace, while she althe fire, his huge head sunk on his paws, his ears twitching in his dreams

'You do not fear to sit in the hut of a witch?' she asked, breaking her silence at last

An iuest's only reply She gave into his hands a wooden dish heaped with dried fruits, cheese and barley bread, and a great pot of the heady upland beer, brewed froh valleys

'I have found the brooding silence of the glensthan the babble of city streets,' she said 'The children of the wild are kinder than the children ofwolf 'My children were afar fro They were cos against you?' Conan dele all over the countryside, froers in the valleys told theold hidden away, so as to divert their attentions froes They deered them But neither skulkers nor the men who pursue you, nor any raven will find you here'

He shook his head, eating ravenously

'I'm for Tarantia'

She shook her head

'You thrust your head into the dragon's jaws Best seek refuge abroad

The heart is gone frodom'

'What do you mean?' he dedoo to Tarantia?'

'Aye Prospero will be holding it against Amalric'

'Are you sure?'

'hell's devils, woman!' he exclaimed wrathfully 'What else?'

She shook her head 'I feel that it is otherwise Let us see Not lightly is the veil rent; yet I will rend it a little, and show you your capital city'

Conan did not see what she cast upon the fire, but the hiathered and billowed up into the hut And as he watched, the walls and ceiling of the hut see with infinite i out everything And in it for clarity

He stared at the familiar towers and streets of Tarantia, where a mob seethed and screamed, and at the same ti inexorably ard through the sreat square of Tarantia the frantic throngwas dead, that the barons were girding themselves to divide the land between the, even of Valerius, was better than anarchy Prospero, shi+ning in his ar the the the city They turned on hi that he was Trocero's butcher, a more evil foe than Ahts

A slight blurring of the picture, thatof ti out of the gates and spurring southward Behind him the city was in an uproar