Part 15 (2/2)

It had coht had co of the rivers and the drying up of the water holes had co war, as the ebon tribes locked in desperate battle to secure the few rees went up in flahtered and left to rot Then, in the wake of drought, faue to sweep the land

Thepriests laid these terrors to Conan It was he, they swore, who had brought these disasters upon Bary that a pale-skinned outlander had usurped the ornate stool of a long line of Bamula chieftains Conan, they persisted, enious torle, or all the people would perish

Not relishi+ng so gri reply A thrust through the body with his great northern broadsword had finished the high priest Then he had toppled the bloodstained wooden idol of the Bamula deity upon the other shale He had groped his way for ion where the crowding forest thinned out and gave way to the open grasslands Now he doht of his sword ht find him employment in the service of the dusky hts were snatched away froer Some primal instinct of survival alerted him to the presence of peril He halted and stared about hi sun As the hairs of his nape bristled with the touch of unseen iant barbarian searched the air with sensitive nostrils and probed the glooh he could neither see nor ser of the wilderness-bred told him that peril was near He felt the feathery touch of invisible eyes and whirled to gliloo eyes vanished So short had been his glimpse and so utter the disappearance that he was teination He turned and went forward again, but noas on the alert As he continued his journey, flarasses, to follow his silent progress Tawny, sinuous forlided after him on soundless feet The lions of Kush were on his track, lusting for hot blood and fresh flesh

2 The Circle of Death

An hour later, night had fallen over the savanna, save for a narrow band of sunset glow along the western horizon, against which an occasional snarled tree of the veldt stood up in black silhouette And Conan had almost reached the limits of his endurance

Thrice lionesses had rushed upon hiht or to left Thrice he had driven theh it was hard to shoot straight in the gathering dark, an explosive snarl froh he had no way of knohether he had slain or only wounded the deadly predators

But now his quiver was empty, and he kneas only a matter of tiht or ten lions on his track now, and even the grihty sword accounted for one or two of the attackers, the rest would tear hiain Conan had encountered lions before and knew their enor a whole zebra as easily as a cat does a est ot its claws and teeth into hith would be no more effective than that of a s now for the better part of an hour, with a long, loping stride that ate up the leagues At first he had run effortlessly, but now the grueling exertions of his flight through the black jungles and his eight-day trek across the plain began to take their toll His eyes blurred; theheart seeiant fore from the dense, stormy clouds that veiled most of the sky He prayed for a hillock or a tree to break the gently rolling flatness of the plain, or even a boulder against which he could set his back to ainst the pride

But the Gods heard not The only trees in this region were dwarfish, thorny growths, which rose to a height of six or eight feet and then spread their branches out horizontally in a ed to climb such a tree despite the thorns, it would be easy for the first lion to reach the base to spring upon hiround in one leap The only hillocks were terht but too s to do but run on

To lighten hi bohen he had spent his last shaft, although it wrenched his heart to throay the splendid weapon Quiver and straps soon followed He was now stripped to a h-laced sandals that clad his feet, his goatskin water bag, and the heavy broadsword, which he now carried scabbarded in one fist To part with these wouldhis last hope

The lions were now al reek of their lithe bodies and hear their panting breath Any moment, now, they would close in upon hiht for life before they pulled hie-old tactics The oldest male-the chief of the pride-would follow directly behind hier e ahead on either side in a crescent forh ahead of him to close the circle and trap hi any effective defense iht The round, silver eye of the rising ure of the giant barbarian with her gaze and drawing lines of pale silver fire along the rippling sinews of the lions as they loped at his heels, washi+ng their short, silken fur with her ghostly radiance

Conan's wary eye caught thefur ahead to his left, and he knew that the encirclement was nearly coe, however, he was astounded to see the same lioness veer off and halt In two strides he was past her As he went, he saw that the young lioness on his right had also stopped short She squattedA curious sound, half roar and half wail, caed jaws

Conan dared to slow his run and glance back To his utter astonishment, he saw that the entire pride had halted as if at sos glea roars of baffled rage cahtfully, and his scowling brows knotted in puzzlement What had halted the pride at the very moment when they had made sure of their prey? What unseen force had annulled the fury of the chase? He stood for aif they would resurowling and roaring fro jaws

Then Conan observed a curious thing The place where the lions had halted seemed to mark a line of derew thick, long, lush grasses At the invisible boundary, however, the grass became thin, stubbly, and ill-nourished, with broad patches of bare earth Although Conan could not clearly distinguish colors by rasses on the hither side of the line lacked the norrasses around his feet seeray, as if leached of all vitality

To either side, in the bright rasses curve away into the distance, as if he stood alone in a vast circle of death

3 The Black Citadel

Although he still ached eariness, the brief pause had given Conan the strength to continue his progress Since he did not know the nature of the invisible line that had halted the lions, he could not tell how long this mysterious influence would continue to hold them at bay

Therefore he preferred to put as much distance between the pride and himself as possible

Soon he saw a dark mass take form out of the dimness ahead of him He went forward eventhe hazy iht was still brilliant, but its radiance beca haze So, at first, Conan couldof the black, featureless mass that lifted out of the plain before him, save for its size and its stillness Like some colossal idol of primitive devil worshi+p, hewn fros in tiray grass

As Conan caed from the dark, featureless blur