Part 23 (2/2)

Still tearing and rending, they were washed down with the current, now one face showing above water, now another, until both vanished forever.

The Turanians were driven back up the left bank, where they made a brief, b.l.o.o.d.y stand. Then they broke and fled toward the place where Prince Teyaspa stared entranced in the shadow of the cliff, with the small knot of warriors whom Artaban had detailed to guard him.

Thrice he moved as though to draw his sword and cast himself into the fray, but Roxana, clinging to his knees, stopped him.

Artaban, breaking away from the battle, hastened to Teyaspa. The admiral's sword was red to the hilt, his mail was hacked, and blood dripped from beneath his helmet After him through the melee came Conan, brandis.h.i.+ng his great sword in his sledgelike fist. He beat down his foes with strokes that shattered bucklers, caved in helmets, and clove through mail, flesh, and bone.

”Ho, you rascals!” he roared in his barbarous Hyrkanian. ”I want your head, Artaban, and the fellow beside you there-Teyaspa. Fear not, my pretty prince; I'll not hurt you.”

Artaban, looking about for an avenue of escape, saw the groove leading up the cliff and divined its purpose.

”Quick, my lord!” he whispered. ”Up the cliff! I'll hold off the barbarian while you climb!”

”Aye, hasten!” urged Roxana. ”I'll follow!”

But the fatalistic mask had descended again on Prince Teyaspa. He shrugged. ”Nay, the G.o.ds do not will that I should press the throne.

Who can escape his destiny?”

Roxana clutched her hair with a look of horror. Artaban sheathed his sword, sprang for the groove, and started up with the agility of a sailor. But Conan, coming up behind him at a run, reached up, caught his ankle, and plucked him out of his cranny like a fowler catching a bird by the leg. Artaban struck the ground with a clang. As he tried to roll over to wrench loose, the Cimmerian drove his sword into the Turanian's body, crunching through mail links, and into the ground beneath.

Pirates approached with dripping blades. Teyaspa spread his hands, saying: ”Take me if you will. I am Teyaspa.”

Roxana swayed, her hands over her eyes. Then like a flash she thrust her dagger through Teyaspa's heart, and he died on his feet As he fell, she drove the point into her own breast and sank down beside her lover.

Moaning, she cradled his head in her arms, while the pirates stood about, awed and incomprehending.

A sound up the gorge made them lift their heads. They were but a handful, weary and dazed with battle, their garments soaked with blood and water.

Conan said: ”Men are coming down the gorge. Get back into the tunnel.”

They obeyed, but slowly, as if they only half understood him. Before the last of them had ducked under the waterfall, a stream of men poured down the path from the castle. Conan, cursing and beating his rearmost men to make them hurry, looked around to see the gorge thronged with armed figures. He recognized the fur caps of the Zaporoskans and with them the white turbans of the Imperial Guards from Aghrapur. One of these wore a spray of bird-of-paradise feathers in his turban, and Conan stared to recognize, from these and other indications, the general of the Imperial Guards, the third man of the Turanian Empire.

The general saw Conan and the tail of his procession too and shouted an order. As Conan, the last in line, plunged through the waterfall, a body of Turanians detached themselves from the rest and ran to the pool.

Conan yelled to his men to run, then turned and faced the sheet of water from the inner side, holding up a buckler from a dead Turanian and his great sword.

Presently a guardsman came through the sheet of water. He started to yell, but the sound was cut off by a meaty chunk as Conan's sword sheared through his neck. His head and body tumbled separately off the ledge into the pool. The second guard had time to strike at the dim figure that towered over him, but his sword rebounded from the Cimmerian's buckler. The next instant he in turn fell back into the pool with a cloven skull.

There were shouts, partly m.u.f.fled by the sound of the water. Conan flattened himself against the side of the tunnel, and a storm of arrows whipped through the sheet of water, bringing little splashes of droplets with them and rebounding with a clatter from the walls and floor of the tunnel.

A glance back showed Conan that his men had vanished into the gloom of the tunnel. He ran after them, so that when, a few moments later, the guardsmen again burst through the waterfall, they found n.o.body in front of them.

Meanwhile in the gorge, voices filled with horror rose as the newcomers halted among the corpses. The general knelt beside the dead prince and the dying girl.

”It is Prince Teyaspa!” he cried.

”He is beyond your power,” murmured Roxana. ”I would have made him king, but you robbed him of his manhood... so I killed him...”

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