Part 27 (1/2)
”Call again, dog of Acheron!” said the other, and laughed ”Summon them loudly They will not hear, unless your shouts reverberate in hell”
Froe of the crest ca over her shoulders, a great gray wolf following at her heels
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”Witch, priest and wolf,” hed ”Fools, to pit your charlatan's ainst my arts! With a wave of my hand I brush you fro of Python,” answered the Asurian ”Have you wondered why the shi+rki did not come down in flood and trap Conan on the other bank? When I saw the lightning in the night I guessed your plan, and my spells dispersed the clouds you had summoned before they could empty their torrents You did not even know that your rain-wizardry had failed”
”You lie!” cried Xaltotun, but the confidence in his voice was shaken ”I have felt the iainst ic, once made, unless he possessed the very heart of sorcery”
”But the flood you plotted did not come to pass,” answered the priest ”Look at your allies in the valley, Pythonian! You have led thes of the trap, and you cannot aid thee of the upper valley, behind the Poitanians, a horse about his head that flashed in the sun Recklessly he hurtled down the slopes, through the ranks of the Gundermen, who sent up a deep-throated roar and clashed their spears and shi+elds like thunder in the hills On the terraces between the hosts the sweat-soaked horse reared and plunged, and his wild rider yelled and brandished the thing in his hands like one demented It was the torn rely on the golden scales of a serpent that writhed thereon
”Valerius is dead!” cried Hadrathus ringingly ”A fog and a dru of Python, and I dispersed it! I, with ic!”
”What ht, his eyes blazing, his features convulsed
”Valerius was a fool I do not need him I can crush Conan without human aid!”
”Why have you delayed?” mocked Hadrathus ”Why have you allowed so many of your allies to fall pierced by arrows and spitted on spears?”
”Because blood aids great sorcery!” thundered Xaltotun, in a voice that made the rocks quiver
A lurid nimbus played about his awful head ”Because no wizard wastes his strength thoughtlessly Because I would conserve reat days to be, rather than employ them in a hill-country brawl But now, by Set, I shall loose the of Asura, false priest of an outworn God, and see a sight that shall blast your reason for everhed, and hell was in his laughter
”Look, black devil of Python!”
His hand ca that flaolden glohich the flesh of Xaltotun looked like the flesh of a corpse
Xaltotun cried out as if he had been stabbed
”The Heart! The Heart of Ahrireater than your power!”
Xaltotun seerow old Suddenly his beard was shot with snow, his locks flecked with gray
”The Heart!” he ! Thief!”
”Not I! It has been on a long journey far to the southward But now it is in ainst it As it resurrected you, so shall it hurl you back into the night whence it drew you You shall go down the dark road to Acheron, which is the road of silence and the night The dark eend and a black ain And the Heart of Ahrio back into the cavern below the temple of Mitra, to burn as a symbol of the power of Aquilonia for a thousand years!”
Xaltotun screaer lifted; but froreat jewel that blazed in the hand of Hadrathus shot a jetting beaainst the breast of Xaltotun it flashed, and the hills re- echoed the concussion The wizard of Acheron went down as though struck by a thunderbolt, and before he touched the ground he was fearfully altered Beside the altar-stone lay no fresh- slain corpse, but a shriveleds
So man,” she said ”The Heart lent him a false aspect of life, that deceived even himself I never saw him as other than a irl on the altar, when froe apparition Xaltotun's chariot drawn by the weird horses Silently they advanced to 237
the altar and halted, with the chariot wheel alrass Hadrathus lifted the body of the wizard and placed it in the chariot And without hesitation the uncanny steeds turned and moved off southward, down the hill And Hadrathus and Zelata and the gray atched the road to Acheron which is beyond the ken of men
Down in the valley Amalric had stiffened in his saddle when he saw that wild horse on the slopes while he brandished that blood-stained serpent-banner
Then some instinct jerked his head about, toward the hill known as the King's Altar And his lips parted Every ht that towered up froh above the hosts it burst in a blinding blaze that nal!” roared the baron
”No!” shouted Tarascus ”It's a signal to the Aquilonians! Look!”
Above the at last, and a deep-throated roar thundered across the vale
”Xaltotun has failed us!” bellowed Amalric furiously ”Valerius has failed us! We have been led into a trap! Mitra's curse on Xaltotun who led us here! Sound the retreat!”
”Too late!” yelled Tarascus ”Look!”
Up on the slopes the forest of lances dipped, leveled The ranks of the Gunder curtain And with a thunder like the rising roar of a hurricane, the knights of Aquilonia crashed down the slopes
The ie was irresistible Bolts driven by the delanced from their shi+elds, their bent hel out behind the lines of pikemen and roared down the slopes like a wave
Ae, and the Nee spurred their horses at the slopes They still outnumbered the attackers
But they eary hts had not struck a blow that day Their horses were fresh They were co downhill and they came like a thunderbolt And like a thunderbolt they s ranks of the Nemedians smote them, split the down the 238
slopes
After them on foot ca down the hills, loosing as they ran at every foe that still moved
Down the slopes washed the tide of battle, the dazed Nemedians swept on the crest of the wave Their archers had thron their arbalests and were fleeing Such pikehts were cut to pieces by the ruthless Gunderh the wide mouth of the valley and into the plain beyond All over the plain swarle co, wheeling horses But the Nemedians were smashed, broken, unable to re-for for the river Many reached it, rushed across and rode eastward The countryside was up behind them; the people hunted them like wolves Few ever reached Tarantia
The final break did not co in vain to rally his iant in black armor whose surcoat bore the royal lion, and over whose head floated the golden lion banner with the scarlet leopard of Poitain beside it A tall warrior in gleaed to meet the lord of Tor Theyhis foe's helmet, snapped bolts and rivets and tore off the casque, revealing the features of Pallantides But the Aquilonian's lance-head crashed through shi+eld and breast-plate to transfix the baron's heart
A roar went up as A the lance that iave way as a barrier bursts under the surging impact of a tidal wave They rode for the river in a blind stampede that swept the plain like a ind The hour of the Dragon had passed
Tarascus did not flee Amalric was dead, the color-bearer slain, and the royal Nehts were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he raged through the melee, conscious of but one desire to meet Conan, the Cimmerian And at last he met him