Part 14 (1/2)
He stopped before a pale blond with ivory satin skin. ”Your name, girl?”
”Susa.” He quirked an eyebrow, and she hastily added, ”Master. I am called Susa, an it please you, master.”
”You five are the dancing girls Yildiz sent to Tiridates?”
Her blue eyes were caught by his dark ones, growing more tremulous as he watched. ”Yes, master,” she quavered.
He stroked his chin and nodded. A king's dancing girls. Fitting for one who would come to rule the world. And when the last jot of amus.e.m.e.nt had been wrung from them, their puny souls could feed Morath-Aminee.
”Conan will free us,” one of the girls suddenly burst out. ”He will kill you.”
Amanar walked slowly down the line to confront her. Slender and long of leg, her big, dark eyes stared defiance even as her supple body trembled. ”And what is your name, girl?” His words were soft, but his tone brought a moan from her throat.
”Velita,” she said at last.
He noted how her teeth had clamped lest she should say ”master.” There would be much pleasure in this one. ”And who is this Conan who will rescue you?”
Velita merely trembled, but Sura.s.sa spoke. ”Pardon, master, but there was one of that name spoken of in Shadizar. A thief who has grown troublesome.”
”A thief!” Amanar laughed. ”Well, little Velita. What shall I do about this rescue? Sitha, command the patrols, if they find this man Conan they are to bring me his skin. Not the man. Just the skin.” Velita shrieked and crumpled forward to rest her sobbing head on her knees.
Amanar laughed again. The other women watched him, terror-struck. But not enough, he thought. ”Each night you will dance for me, all five of you. She who pleases me most will gain my bed for the night. The middle three will be whipped and sleep in chains. She who pleases me least...”
he paused, feeling the anxiety grow ”... will be given to Sitha. He is rough, but he knows still how to use a woman.”
The kneeling women cast one horrified glance at the reptilian creature, now watching them avidly, and threw themselves prostrate, groveling, screaming, pleading. Amanar basked in the miasma of their terror.
Surely this was what the G.o.d-demon felt when it consumed a soul.
Stroking the crystal coffer and stroked by their shrieks, he strode from the chamber.
Chapter XIII.
Conan eyed the ridge to the left of the narrow valley the bandits were traversing. There had been movement up there. Only a flicker, but his keen gaze had caught it. And there had been others.
He booted his horse forward along the winding trail to where Hordo rode. Karela was well to the front, fist on one redbooted thigh, surveying the mountainous countryside as if she headed an army rather than a motley band of two score brigands, snaking out behind her.
”We're being watched,” Conan said as he came alongside the one-eyed bandit.
Hordo spat. ”Think you I don't know that already?”
”Hillmen?”
”Of course.” The lone eye frowned. ”What else?”
”I don't know,” Conan said. ”But the one good chance I had, I saw a helmet, not a turban.”
”The soldiers are still behind us,” Hordo said thoughtfully. ”Talbor and Thanades will let us know if they begin to close.”
The two bandits had been ordered to trail behind, keeping the Zamoran cavalry in sight. Conan refrained from suggesting they might have become affrighted apart from the band and fled, or that Karela was holding the soldiers in too much contempt. ”Whoever they are, we'd best hope they don't attack us here.”