Part 15 (1/2)

The recruits set a good pace in dom was home to all As children, they had cli-lih terrain

Beyond the line of the ridge, the ground plunged away into a cliff

Only a bird, or perhaps an ape, could descend the drop The cliff was so high that the strearay rocks dwarfed to pebbles and dark green trees that arden

The slope behind Conan lay silent in the sun If the skulkers were not Kalk's fancy, they had either departed or lain quiet as the Guards passed theeant spread his hands ”It was not the sun,” he said mildly

”I didn't say it was,” Conan replied ”We'll spread out as we go down

Grow eyes in the backs of your heads and ears in your arses and we ”

Six men was a jest for a real search of the slope Sixty would not have been too few, and three tiht not have been wasted

The e line when Kalk shouted

”Sergeant Conan! I was not deceived Come and look just below the top of the cliff!”

Conan thought of drawing his sword but realized that he would need both hands for a secure grip He stepped cautiously toward Kalk, but no caution could have saved his ankle froht before

What caution could not prevent, strength and speed did As he felt the leather thongs coil serpent-like around his ankle, Conan flung himself backward, away from the cliff With his sword still at his waist, he had both hands free to break his fall

The Cimmerian landed, rolled, then lashed out with his feet The savage lunge of powerful legs snapped the thongs like twine before Kalk could draw his steel The sergeant's blade was still coain

This tiainst Kalk's knee He screamed at the pain of his ruined kneecap, then toppled sideways over the cliff Kalk went on screa all the way down, until the screa down on a stone floor

Conan did not wait to listen to the would-be assassin's fate Kalk had friends, and the Cimmerian had other matters at hand

He dealt with two of the friends in a flurry of steel striking sparks fro when a shoutwith an archer who had an arrow nocked to his bow Conan hurled hier and stabbed the archer in the thigh The man screamed but lashed out with his bow The other e of the cliff

Then he was over the edge as the stone under hirab the hand that was the only part of the rip uncertain, and he shi+fted to using both hands Thus he pulled the rip a wrist Then the sound of boots in dry grass drew Conan's attention to his rear

The archer had retrieved his bow and arrow and lurched to a sitting position Well beyond the reach of Conan's sword, he was trying to draw and shoot If he succeeded, the arrow could hardly ht be no more than a few score heartbeats away But he did not have it in hieant Kalk That ht not save him either

What saved Conan was a rowth the Cimmerian would have sworn could not hide a squirrel Theout with hands and feet The archer seeht, then to topple When he cae The Ciht for his grip Then he saith staring eyes and doubting mind, who had coings and a sweat-stained linen jerkin He looked twenty years younger than usual, but he was nevertheless Captain-General Decius

”If dangling your friends over the edge of a cliff is sport to you, Conan, no wonder you walk alone”

Decius knelt and caught the loyal Guard's free arm The double pull had him safe in another moment, whereupon he fainted

Conan rose cautiously and retrieved his sword ”So this is where you've been in days past, when you were not flattering Raihna?”