Part 29 (2/2)

The clatter of weapons redoubled So did the chorus of cries, curses, threats, shrieks, and groans The battle began to break up into hundreds of single coroups They swirled up and down the street, traed into the houses, smashed furniture, thundered up and down stairs, and erupted on to the roofs, where the Kushafis and kozaki made short work of the archers posted there

After that, there was no semblance of order or plan, no chance to obey co, sweating butchery, hand-to-hand, with straining feet splashi+ng through pools of blood Mingled inextricably, the heaving ed and eddied up and down Yanaidar's ardens There was little difference in the nu in the balance, and no ; each was too busy killing and trying not to be killed to see as going on around hi to coone by the board; the fight would be decided by sheerfor hiuts as he could and let the Gods of chance decide the issue

Then, as a fog thins when the wind strikes it, the battle began to thin, knotted roups and individuals

Conan knew that one side or the other was giving way as hter It was the Yezs their leaders had given theerd Vladislav The Zaporoskan's helar to the lightning play of his saber His gray eyes blazed and his lips wore a reckless smile Three dead Kushafis lay at his feet and his saber kept half a dozen blades in play at once Right and left of him corseleted Hyrkanians and slit-eyed Khitans in lacquered leather smote and wrestled breast to breast ild Kushafi tribes through the wrack of battle like a black-bearded buffalo as he glutted his wild-beast fury in stupendous blows And he saw Balash reeling out of the battle covered with blood Conan began beating his way through to Olgerd

Olgerd laughed with a wild glea toward him Blood streamed down Conan's mail and coursed in tiny rivulets down his massive, sun-browned arms His knife was red to the hilt

”Coerd Conan caerd sprang tosi on stroke too swiftly for the eye to follow

In a circle about the, blood-stained warriors ceased their oork of slaughter to stare at the two leaders settling the destiny of Yanaidar

”Aie!” cried a hundred throats as Conan stuerd cried out ringingly and whirled up his sword Before he could strike, or even realize the Ci knife, driven by Conan's iron h the heart beneath He was dead before he struck the ground, tearing the blade out of the wound as he fell

As Conan straightened to look around, there came a new outcry, somehow different from what he would have expected to hear as his men set upon the broken Yezmites He looked up and saw a new force of ar down the street in a solid, disciplined forhters in their way As they ca plued the reat sci the whole aspect of the battle had changed Some Yezan to cluster around him, mixed with the Kushafis and so Conan the only active leader against the new common foe, fell in with the rapple, while along the front between the two masses, swords flashed andGotarza, ept the field with blows that would have felled s and flashed too fast for the eye to follow, but the Iranistani was not behind him

Blood from a cut on the forehead ran down the side of Gotarza's face; blood from another flesh wound in Conan's shoulder crimsoned the front of his mail But still the blades whirled and clashed, neither finding an opening in the other's guard

Then the roar of battle rose in pitch to screaht to ran for the road to the Stair

The panic push drove Conan into a corps-ti-corps with Gotarza Breast to breast they strained and wrestled Conan, opening hisblack beard He spat it out and roared:

”What in hell is going on, you palace-bred lap dog?”

”The real owners of Yanaidar have come back,” shouted Gotarza ”Look, swine!”

Conan risked a glance Fro, soulless eyes and like jaarmed, to fasten upon any man they met, wherever a clawed but in to tear him apart and devour hith of maniacal terror, but their corpselike skins seemed almost impervious to weapons Where one fell, three others leaped to take its place

The ghouls of Yanaidar!” gasped Gotarza ”We must flee Smite me not in the back till in clear, and I'll hold my hand from you We can settle our own score later”

The rush of fugitives bowled the two off their feet Conan felt human feet on his back With a tremendous effort he forced hi out with fists and elbows to clear enough space to breathe

The rout flowed out northward along the road to the Stair, Yezether but forgetting their three-cornered battle in the face of this subhuled with the warriors Along the flanks of the rout swar over any person who became momentarily separated froes of the crowd by the buffeting of the fugitives, cahouls He had lost his sword but gripped two by the throat, one with each hand, while a third clung to his legs and a fourth circled around, trying to reach his throat with its jaws

A swipe of Conan's knife cut one ghoul in half; a second took off the head of another Gotarza hurled the others fro with claws and fangs For an instant they almost pulled him down He was dimly aware that Gotarza had pulled one off hi on it with a sticklike snapping of ribs Conan broke his knife on another and crushed the skull of a third with the hilt

Then he was running on again with the rest They poured through the gate in the cyclopean wall, down the Stair, down the rahouls pursued the down ate, the ghouls fell back, scurrying along the road and into the orchards to fall snarling upon the bodies over which little knots of their own kind already snapped and fought

In the canyon,down upon the rock heedless of the proxiainst boulders and crags Most ounded All were blood-spattered, disheveled, and bloodshot of eye, in ragged garments and hacked and dented armor Many had lost their weapons Of the hundreds of warriors who had gathered for the battle in Yanaidar in the dawn, less than half eed from the city For a tiroans of the wounded, the ripping of gares, and the occasional clink of weapons on the rock as they , and cli most of the time since the previous afternoon, Conan was one of the first on his feet