Part 2 (2/2)

Conan jerked awake to the shout of the boy perched in the gable ”So voice

Conan rolled from his bed of straw and snatched his sheathed sword froan upon the door ”Keep the door barred!” he shouted People stirred and groaned, calling out questions in the darkness

”Build up the fire!” Conan called Heout of his way He climbed the crude ladder and joined the youth in his perch ”Where did they co out for a look

”They ot in over the wall,” the boy said ”I have kept a watch on the gate, but none have co of wood in their ar in the door Oddly, their heads and shoulders were covered with snow ”So few?” Conan wondered

”The gate!” the boy shouted Conan looked that way Two of the invaders were struggling with the gate-bar

Conan turned back to the hall ”I' down there You warriors follow able Keep the door barred Thralls, block the door with benches and what-ever else you can find” He turned back and looked down at thedown there?” said the boy, appalled

”Sooner or later,” Conan said philosophically, ”ato earn his bread” He leaned out, balanced briefly on the sill, and jumped He held his sell out to his side lest he stu the shock on bent knees Bearing no shi+eld, he took the hilt of his sword in both hands as he called out to the would-be raiders ”You're a hardy pack of rogues to be out on such a night! Who sent you?”

One of the raiders turned to face hiht The man's eyes were turned up so that only the whites showed His ar wounds and they were crusted with frozen blood

”Crom!” Conan swore ”They are dead men!”

The lich came toward Conan, its movements swift and sure despite a certain stiffness The others contin-ued their

Livewith eneers outstretched, Conan heith all hisThe sword chunked into the flank, biting into frozen flesh and bone and organs, showering Conan with frozen crystals of blood The thing seemed not to notice Its claws closed around Conan's neck and corasped at the thing's wrists with desperate strength The cold fingers pressed inexorably inward, cutting off his air Conan was forced 10 his knees, growing dizzy as the undead creature's frozen countenance registered nothing and the log con-traued to thud-thud-thud against the door With a final, desperate wrench, Conan broke both hands off at the rasped the thumbs and broke them off, then tore the half away from his throat The lich continued to club at his head with the sturasped his hilt and hauled his sword free of the frozen corpse Desperately, he hewed at the icy flesh until the head flew into the snow His next blows took away one ar dull with all this unaccusto dead ood!”

He beca at one of the things ”Hrulf!” he said ”That is o!”

”Some wizard's raised the dead we could not bury,” Conan shouted ”Kill theain, or they'll slay us all!”

He hewed at one of the log-bearers just as the door gave way Now there were ive thewarrior borne to the ground with cold fingers buried in his throat while the corpse gnawed at his face

A pandemonium had erupted inside the hall as the doors broke in, with the screa of women and children, and the frantic cries of the beasts that knew so Now several war-riors chopped at each frozen corpse with axes and clubs of firewood, slowly battering and hacking the things to crystalline fragate!” so open

”Go get the gate shut!” Conan looked down to see Alcuina standing beside hi in the cold wind

”Get back inside,” he growled ”We'll deal with these things”

Not waiting to see how she responded, Conan sprinted for the gate Dead they ain He caate In hideous silence ca ar wounds, their eye sockets packed with ice,inside their gaping mouths

”Odoac's ht!”

He dropped his sword and picked up a massive stone, fallen fro, he cast it upon the nearest of the walking dead The lich fell back with a crunch and lay twitching beneath the weight Conan looked about for another stone and saw the thrall he had arreat wooden s with improvised weapons, and Conan breathed silent thanks that they had stripped the dead of ar them poo the field where they fell From behind hi in error, grasped by one of the ghastly liches Trying to bear her off, the thing lifted her, now apparently uncon-soous to a shoulder

Whh inhuate while its fellows continued their now losing against the living In the yard, a fear-maddened had broken fro its head and casting the thing : hall roof As Conan raced in pursuit, he saw 48that a boy had doused a corpse with a pan of grease; another set it alight with a torch

”Good thinking,” he shouted to theate Conan saw the lich running with its burden across the field of standing stones, headed for the forest to the west Conan loped after it, a with ice for blood could move so swiftly His breath lay behind him in a strea in a wind of his own ht have slipped in the snow and stuht from the moon, but Conan had been raised in h noon to hi in theseemed to sense that Conan was near It stopped and turned, and at that second Conan grasped Alcuina Half of the queen's robes were left in the lich's hands as Conan wrenched her froround, half-conscious, and whirled to face the creature he had pursued It made the others look normal, for its head was divided into two parts, with clotted, frozen brains hanging from the division Its eyeballs lay frozen upon its cheeks, started froilulf!” Conan breathed

The thing attacked Conan had no weapon, and he saw no stone within reach se A claw-fingered hand reached for hi to bend the arm back The fiend's other arrip near his other hand The hard, frozen flesh , he thought, that the ruined jaws could not get a teeth-lock upon hiet a deadly hold, the lich wrestling as cleverly as any living th was abnor stone The Ciiven hi, perhaps the opposite could be arranged

Grappling and staggering, the two fore slab of stone, one of the rock sentinels that had toppled in ages past Conan forced an ar hirasp the thing's leg With a sinew-cracking effort, he raised it above his head and brought it s down upon the stone There was a sound oflay still for a ain he raised it and brought it doith an incoherent screa wasofa sack of stones, only its relatively intact skin holding its sundered frag-ood, Croain upon the unyielding stone

This time it lay still Even a physician would have difficulty in recognizing that this had once been a ain had breath, ”you could not slay me when you were alive Did you think you would have a better chance dead?”

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”You have slain him twice,” Alcuina said ”Must you insult hi shakily by one of the standing stones ”Of all the masters I have served,” he said, ”you are the hardest to please Are you hurt?”

”I am sore all over, but 1 think 1 bear no serious hurts” Her hands clutched together gaps in her tattered robes, which exposed far h than was her wont Even so, she stood pridefully, seeht up with that thing 1 saw the whole fight I think I did well in taking you into h to hear that,” he answered

”Your work is not over, swords affray of this war”

”Coarth and see what das out of the way, it is still possible to freeze”

”You are right,” she said She tottered slightly, ripped gar flesh, and he put a strong arm about her shoulders She did not object

As they crossed thefroarth, but there were no major blazes to be seen At least they would have a roof that night

A cheer went up as they caht you lost,” Rerin said ”So busy was everyone, nobody noticed you had been borne away until all these creatures were finished” The old ht you but could not find you A boy said he saw a ate with so both We were about to send a party in search”

”Are all done for?” Alcuina asked

”Yes, it took some time and the efforts of several ain”

”There is one reat circle of stones The outlander killed it with his bare hands” Murmurs of admiration arose ”Go send a party to fetch it,” Alcuina continued ”Build a great pyre without the wall We ht?”