Part 25 (1/2)
Karela tried todown at her, then closed her own in humiliation It was clear from the look on Synelle's face that she had never doubted that the red-haired woht to heel Let them free her, Karela prayed, and she would show the fro her were severed Karela caught a flash of a dagger She ony on the stone floor,confinement barely able to do ht a hand up to drag the gag froht, and she had neither seen who had held it nor where it was hidden
Even as she dropped the wadded cloth two of the woasped with the pain; had they not supported her she could not have stood One of the others began drawing an ivory coled locks, while the last wiped her sweat aith soft, damp clothes
Karela worked her mouth for the ed ”I'll tear your heart out with my bare hands”
”Good,” Synelle said ”I feared your spirit ht have been broken
Often the journey here, bound, is enough for that It is well that it was not in your case”
Karela sneered ”You want the pleasure of breaking me yourself, then?
You will not have it, because you cannot do it And if you want Conan back-”
”Conan!” the noblewo in surprise
”How do you coan, then spluttered to a halt She was tired, and spoke of things of which she had no wish to speak ”No matter how I know of hiain”
Synelle trilled with laughter ”So you think I merely attempt to dispose of a rival I should be furious that such as you could think of yourself asI expect he is a man who has known many women in his time, and if you are one of that nu That is at an end, now” She held out a slender palm ”I hold the barbarian there, wench He will crawl to me on his belly when I call him, dance like a bear for a tin whistle at my command And you think to be hed even harder
”No woman could treat Conan so,” Karela snapped ”I know, for I have tried, and by Derketo, I am ten times the woman you are”
”You are suitable for the rites,” the silver-haired woh Priestess of Al'Kiir Yet were I not, you would still not be woh to serve as my bowermaid My tirewomen were nobly born in Corinthia, and she who draws my bath and rubs me with oils was a princess in far Vendhya, yet to obey htest wish is now the whole of their lives What can a jade of a bandit be beside such as they, who are but my slaves?”
Karela opened her asped when a black-armored man in a horned helmet appeared in the entrance to the cavern For an instant she had thought it was the creature the bronze represented Foolishness, she berated herself Such a creature could not exist
”Has Taramenon come yet?” Synelle dee of him”
”He will suffer for this,” Synelle said heatedly ”He defiesa deep breath, she smoothed the already taut black silk over her rounded breasts ”We will proceed without him When he comes, he is to be seized and bound There are rites other than the gift of women”
”Taramenon, my lady,” the man said in shocked tones
”You heard esture, and the arure bowed hi intently, hoping for soht help her escape, but now she beca her, the tiny white tarla blossoms woven into her hair, the diaphanous layers of blue silk roorowled ”You do think me a rival, but if you mean to rid yourself of me in this way, you are mad! I'll marry no man! Do you hear me, you pasty-faced trull-”
A cruel smile curled Synelle's lips, and the look on her face sent a chill through Karela's blood ”You will ht you ed a God, and I will become ruler of Ophir”
The tall white marker at the crossroads, a square marble pillar inscribed with the distances to the borders of Neht ahead of Conan No sound broke the silence save his labored breath and the steady slap of his running feet on the paving stones Beyond the ranite outcropping do Ci at the blackness There was so sign of his hthawk
The ht-strapped harness announced the sudden appearance of Machaon and the rest, leading their horses Me Aquilonian black as well as those of his ownon their backs
”I thought it best to keep froht,” the tattooed veteran told Conan quietly ”As we arrived, two score e, and twice parties of light cavalry have gone by at the gallop Scouts, the last, no doubt”