Part 11 (1/2)

Conan turned and sprinted in the opposite direction

Perhaps the hellspawn preferred Pili dogs to hu out firsthand Let it feast on the Korga until sated And even as he ran, he resolved to watchwaded into the shter now, but as the water rose up to his waist, then chest and neck, the rain ceased to e

With his first breath of water, gills sprouted along the sides of his neck His bones stretched, sinews creaking as they followed, and his flesh began to shi+ft His legs elongated and at the sale unit His feet forer on the top than on the bottom His ar into fins A dorsal fin sprouted fro upward, and other fins eed from his ventral side His eyes moved back, his h the hardening gums

In a few seconds, the Change was coth and covered with skin the texture of pu that swa drove his h the water New senses told hi for its destiny

And its destiny wasprey

Around hi the Change, beco was first, and he opened his massive jaws and bit deeply

In a matter of moments, the clear blue water had turned a cloudy cri scrat was no h the halls of his castle toward the strong rooht items that co for completion, and soon his Prime selkie would return with that one piece

Ah, to be solid again, never to fear that coldness and sudden shi+ft into vaporous ether! Once he retained a body upon which he could depend, things would change in this real all who stood before hi control of all he saw He had practiced his spells for five hundred years, after all, and he would not make the sae no longer, but instead Di, and even allow Seg to be his queen-until he got bored with her, of course, and found some nubile beauty to replace her And after that one, another and another There was much to be done, after all the years of inactivity Pleasures to be had, ares and even countries to enslave, all at the whim of Dimma the Destroyer

Yes He much liked the sound of that

Ahead, Conan saw the rocky outcrop that must be the habitat of the Pili The three-toed tracks of the deceased Korga led directly toward the low stone iant rocks piled upon the desert by a careless God than anything else

Conan squatted and observed the mound The Pili had chosen a location from which they could observe approach from any direction Aside from occasional clumps of dry bush, the land was bare around thethe sporadic cover of the bushes, it would take a skilled ht, a party of three or uard posted

There was the key, Conan decided A carefulhe kept doind to avoid watch beasts assuht vision was no more sharp than ato becoin practice somewhere

Conan moved to a roundish clump of brush and settled into its shade Darkness would not be long in co He would wait; in the er sated and his forain that which rese sky The rain had finally diminished and, even as he watched, stopped entirely The late-afternoon air was cool and evening fast approaching They would resume their homeward journey on the morrow, he decided

Awake in her bed, Thayla was restless She hoped her fool of a husband could recover the talisuarantee of success That the Pili were in decline could not be denied, but with that h away froain a powerful force Then those things that should be hers by right could be ht be a precarious thing

Thayla threw the silk sheet from her and lay naked on the bed, her voluptuous body exposed to the night air She needed a male, she decided, but she deemed none of those left behind by her husband satisfactory He had taken the strongest and best ones with him, and Thayla was certain he had done so deliberately to thwart her desires As a married female, she was not allowed to lie with any other than her husband, but that was a formality as far as she was concerned Still, the crea behindstalwarts who had strength, but little experience as lovers She did not feel like teaching a new ht

No, Thayla wanted a lover with power and grace and endurance and she wanted hiht Maybe a prayer to the Great Dragon will bring results, eh? A gift from the Gods?

The Queen of the Pili rolled over onto her stomach and clutched one of the silken pillows to her bosohing Which of the boring young males could she send her chambermaid to fetch?

Conan worked his way toward the rockya wary deer Under the blanket of night, even his sharp eyes had trouble seeing h the chore was made easier by the Pili the, suard and the entrance to a cave

prone on the soft ground, Conan considered the scene