Part 5 (2/2)

The pirate woen in her body would float her over the nightap Then she leaped She was in h for so to reach up froht as a kitten's, yet it burned like a hot iron

Then she was on the far side, clawing up over the tu to the howl of a hunter balked of prey echo up and down the pit and into the tunnel More earth fell froed her the rest of the way over the pile by one arm and her hair

In the process, her loincloth at last deserted her, and she was bare except for weapons and boots as she tunore that state, dragging her upright

”Can you walk?”

”I can run, to get away fro in the tunnel had not di it

The walls of the pit were shuddering, as she wanted to do, and she saw e past She also heard thely, sodden sound

Then the roof of the tunnel , and neither Ci They scra only when they felt stone under their feet, not stopping until they heard the ru earth behind them

A mephitic breeze wafted from the mouth of the tunnel-or rather, from where the mouth of the tunnel had been Whether the whole pit had collapsed, they could not say But the way back was now blocked by a solid lare at theht htest intention of returning by way of the pit, when its inhabitants ry Perhaps that wall of earth between her and theht-unless the pit creatures could carve a path through it, or they had kin somewhere in the tunnel beyond

As to the first, the best course ift flight As to the second, keen eyes and keen steel would have to be enough-that, and a prayer or two, if any God could hear them from these deeps

She pointed a bare arm down the tunnel Conan nodded and fell in at the rear, for the nized this, and also that Conan's eyes now roaht have taken

But there was hardly a price she would not have paid to be able to cliuard until they reached a place where the tunnel divided; there were no sounds of pursuit behind or of life ahead That this was no natural tunnel was by now made plainer than ever by the remains of incredibly ancient tool ht once have been bronze or iron

At the dividing point, Conan exaly darkand the ankle would support her weight Like his ribs, it would slow neither weapons nor feet, depending on what seeer

”Now, you will take the shi+rt off my back, or I'll knohy,” he said ”Garbed as you are, you'd adorn a royal palace, but I doubt we'll be finding eons, perhaps, and the bones of those held in them, but little else”

”You need not soothe oat”

”Ha! You've your spirits back Perhaps you need no clothes then, since without them, you're double-armed, steel and womanhood!”

”Give h to raise echoes She looked about her while the echoes died, then alarment the Cih Conan cut the sleeves into strips and bound them around Valeria's feet to protect the blisters until further walking toughened the skin So clad, with her hair a tangle any honest bird would have disdained to nest in, and her boots dangling fro into the street from the cheapest waterfront tavern

Or she would have been but for her sword and daggers-and also for the look in her eyes that said any hand touching her against her ould not return to its owner intact, if at all

Conan needed no further warnings in that rateful for the skill and luck that had allowed her to keep her weapons They would be fighting again before they ever saw daylight, even if the battle was against foes where steel could do no ive man or woman a clean death

Valeria found little pleasure in her present situation save being alive Also, the Cier than otherwise He had been as forical ones, and for rather more years than she had followed the warrior's path Where the tunnel divided, one way sloped upward, the other down They halted, Valeria set her back against the wall and looked to the rear, and Conan briefly explored in both directions

Valeria did not enjoy being even briefly alone here in the bowels of the earth

But she could master her fancies now; she would wait for real monsters to leap from the shadows before she let herself fear She passed the brief ti fro sword and wrist securely She hoped she would have no call for , and likewise that the da should she need it

Conan returned swiftly ”The way down leads to water, deeper than I'd care to try And that's leaving out what ht be in the water”

Valeria held her nose ”So that reeks like a days-old battlefield, from what's on you”

”That, and more I saw statues, kin to the oldest idols I saw in the Black Kingdoms I'm more than ever certain that someone built this warren”

”But why?”

”Like as not, to save a trek through the jungle Let's hope it's fit to do the sa way ”If I'ether turned about, that leads back the e caht be down here,” Valeria said fervently ”That beast in the pit sounded like so that could have eaten Xuchotl's Crawler for lunch and the dragon in the forest for dinner”

Conan said nothing, but took the lead For three hundred paces, the tunnel sloped upward Valeria began to hope that it ht rise so close to the surface that they could make a way for themselves If another tree had thrust a root down- Disappointment came swiftly Not only were the tunnel walls intact, save for one place where a niche had cruan to slope doard as steeply as it had risen It also grew as slick as if it had been oiled

The light did not fade, and Valeria now began to ht have been paintings They also ht have been patterns of tiny jewels set into the stone; they see to see which, Valeria looked closely at one pattern-and found that it changed before her eyes, from one beast to another, and then to yet others

One beast was a lion, another a great fish, and she hoped that the third was a dragon The rest were things that she decided she would not care to look at too closely, let alone an to feel rowing reek of sohly rotten She tore another strip from Conan's shi+rt and bound it over her nose, and the Cimmerian did likewise

Past a curve where a slab of wall had fallen to half block the tunnel, they caht see to the floor, so that the roof of the cavern was lost in shadow The far wall, a good bowshot aas likewise dimmed

The floor of the cavern was alreat slabs, rising as high as Valeria's waist; for the most part, they were pale and flabby but with streaks of a h thereasy fluid that turned the soil beneath to a noisomehalf-eaten This tireeuarded back in this cavern

As they circled the walls, they found nawed at One entire patch of soil had been eaten bare, with fresh fungi already sprouting as grow fast,” Conan observed ”Fast enough, I wager, for so to browse on therowing thicker than ever, and the sest Valeria stepped forward and slashed at the largest slab with her sword It fell apart in a cru a massive rib-part of the re did browse on the about the cavern ”Now they're eating it”

”If beasts can eat them-” he said

Valeria's stomach twisted, and the last of the ood test Whatever that creature was, it ic, left over from the days of the tunnel-builders Who knohat it could stoh, but we've found nothing else to eat, and no water fit to drink

These look like they ht have water inside”

”Ah”

”I'll try a bit first If reen and fall off-”

”Ha! A Ci what co what they served at the soldiers' taverns in Sukhmet!”