Part 21 (1/2)

At the door of the living room, Conan halted, transfixed by the scene before him Diana cowered on a low settee streith leopard skins, her white limbs unveiled by the disarray of her silken shi+ft Her blue eyes were dilated with terror

Hanging in the center of the roo shape and for had already partly condensed into a hulking, , hairy shoulders and thick, bestial lililike snout and tusked, cha had solidified out of thin air, ends rose in Conan's s that prowled the dark and sleith inhuman fury For half a heartbeat his atavistic fearsforward to give battle- and tripped over the body of the black woman servant, who had fainted and lay just inside the doorway Conan fell sprawling, the sword flying from his hand

At the same instant the monster, with supernatural quickness, whirled and launched itself at Conan in a gigantic bound As Conan fell flat, the deainst the wall of the hall outside

The combatants were on their feet in an instant As the leareat chisel tusks The Cimmerian thrust his left elbow up under its jahile he fuer

The de force; a smallerrip as the blunt nails of its hands dug in, and a couple of links of his h the weight of the deth was incredible As he strained everybent slowly back, so that the snouted jaws came closer and closer to his face

In the seered about like partners in soer, while the deht its tusks ever nearer Conan realized that his belt er was out of reach He felt even his titanic strength ebbing, when soht hand It was the hilt of his sword, which Diana had picked up and now pressed into his grasp

Drawing back his right arm, Conan felt with his point for a place in the body of his assailant Then he thrust The hty heave drove the blade ho its jaws, the creature uttered a bestial grunt

Conan stabbed again and again, but the shaggy brute did not even seeed the Ci embrace The chisel-toothed jaws came closer and closer to his face More links of his h claws ripped his tunic and dug bloody furrows in his sweat-smeared back A viscous fluid from the creature's wounds, which did not feel like any norar theth reered to his feet, dripping gore As the de its apelike arrapple, Conan, with both hands on his hilt, swung his sword in a desperate arc The blade bit into the hty bloould have decapitated two or even three huher than those of ered back and crashed to the floor As Conan stood panting, with dripping blade, Diana threw her arlad-I prayed to Ishtar to send you-”

”There, there,” said Conan, coh caresses ”I rave, but I can still stand-”

He broke off, eyes wide The dead thing rose, itson its half-severed neck It lurched to the door, tripped over the still-unconscious body of the Negro servant woht

”Crorowled: ”Later, later! You're a good lass, but I ht they talk about, and by Crom, I'll find out where it coth of rein attached to the hitching ring told that the animal had broken its tether in panic at the demon's appearance

Moments later Conan reappeared in the square As he rah the crohich had burst into a roar of exciteer and fall in front of the tall Kordafan wizard in Tuthroup In its final throes, it laid its head at the sorcerer's feet

Screanized the monster as the demon that for years had terrified Meroe froled to keep the space around the torture stake open, hands reached from the sides and back to pull Muru down In the confused uproar, Conan caught a few snatches of speech: ”Slay him! He is the demon's master! Kill hieera had suddenly appeared, his shaven head painted to resemble a skull It was as if he had somehow bounded over the heads of the crowd to land in the clearing

”Why slay the tool and not the man ields it?” he shrieked He pointed at Tuthmes ”There stands he whom the Kordafan served! At his command, the demon slew Amboola! My spirits have told me, in the silence of the teed down the screaeera pointed toward the platform on which sat the queen ”Slay all the lords! Cast off your bonds! Kill the ain and not slaves! Kill, kill, kill!”

Conan could barely keep his feet in the buffeting of the crohich surged this way and that, chanting: ”Kill, kill, kill!” Here and there a screaht down and torn to pieces