Part 29 (1/2)

Again Valerius cried out, more in fury than in fear

The defile was blocked by a wild and terrible band of ed, shock-headed men with spears in their hands - hundreds of them And up on the cliffs appeared other faces - thousands of faces - wild, gaunt, ferocious faces, marked by fire and steel and starvation

'A trick of Conan's!' raged Valerius

'Conan knows nothing of it,' laughed Tiberias 'It was the plot of broken ht Conan has not divided his army We are the rabble who followed him, the wolves who skulked in these hills, the homeless men, the hopeless men This was our plan, and the priests of Asura aided us with their mist Look at them, Valerius! Each bears the mark of your hand, on his body or on his heart!

'Look at man burned upon me? Once you knew me Once I was lord of Ahter your mercenaries ravished and slew You said I would not sacrifice hty Gods, if I had a thousand lives I would give theht it! Look on the ! Their hour has coe is your toh Try to fight your way back through the defile: spears will block your path, boulders will crush you fro for you in hell!'

Throwing back his head he laughed until the rocks rang Valerius leaned fro shoulder-bone and breast Tiberias sank to the earth, still laughing ghastlily through a gurgle of gushi+ng blood

The druuttural thunder; boulders caclouds from the cliffs

22 The Road to Acheron

Daas just whitening the east when Amalric drew up his hosts in the mouth of the Valley of Lions This valley was flanked by low, rolling but steep hills, and the floor pitched upward in a series of irregular natural terraces On the uppermost of these terraces Conan's ar the attack The host that had joined hi down from Gunderland, had not been composed exclusively of spearmen With them had come seven thousand Bossonian archers, and four thousand barons and their retainers of the north and west, swelling the ranks of his cavalry

The pikee-shaped formation at the narrow head of the valley There were nineteen thousand of theh some four thousand were Aquilonians of other provinces They were flanked on either hand by five thousand Bossonian archers Behind the ranks of the pikehts sat their steeds hts of Poitain, nine thousand Aquilonians, barons and their retainers

It was a strong positon His flanks could not be turned, for that wouldthe steep, wooded hills in the teeth of the arrows and swords of the Bossonians His camp lay directly behind him, in a narrow, steep-walled valley which was indeedup at a higher level He did not fear a surprise froees and broken men whose loyalty to him was beyond question

But if his position was hard to shake, it was equally hard to escape from It was a trap as well as a fortress for the defenders, a desperate last stand of men who did not expect to survive unless they were victorious The only line of retreat possible was through the narrow valley at their rear

Xaltotun mounted a hill on the left side of the valley, near the wide her than the others, and was known as the King's Altar, for a reason long forgotten Only Xaltotun knew, and his memory dated back three thousand years

He was not alone His two familiars, silent, hairy, furtive and dark, ith hiirl, bound hand and foot They laid her on an ancient stone, which was curiously like an altar, and which crowned the su centuries it had stood there, worn by the ele but a curiously shapen natural rock But what it was, and why it stood there, Xaltotun remembered from of old The fanomes, and Xaltotun stood alone beside the altar, his dark beard blown in the wind, overlooking the valley

He could see clear back to the winding shi+rki, and up into the hills beyond the head of the valley He could see the gleae of steel drawn up at the head of the terraces, the burganets of the archers glinting ahtsabove their hel thicket

Looking in the other direction he could see the long serried lines of the Ne steel into the ay pavilions of the lords and knights and the drab tents of the common soldiers stretched back almost to the river

Like a river of reat scarlet dragon rippling over it First marched the bowers on triggers After theth of the arhts, their banners unfurled to the wind, their lances lifted, walking their great steeds forward as if they rode to a banquet

And higher up on the slopes the srihts, and, as in most Hyborian nations, it was the chivalry which was the sword of the are of the arhts There were twenty-one thousand of these, pike as they advanced, without breaking ranks, launching their quarrels with a whir and tang But the bolts fell short or rattled har shi+elds of the Gundere, the arching shafts of the Bossonians reaking havoc in their ranks

A little of this, a futile atte back in disorder Their arbows The western archers were sheltered by bushes and rocks Moreover, the Ne of theas they did that they were being used hts