Part 12 (2/2)

With no eneht, the warriors relaxed Basinets were doffed, coifs thrown back on mailed shoulders, belts let out Rude jests flew back and forth as the fighting-s Along the slopes the hill dates and olives Amalric strode up to where Conan sat bareheaded on a boulder

'Conan, have you heard what the tribesmen say about Natohk? They say - Mitra, it's too mad even to repeat What do you think?'

'Seeds rest in the ground for centuries without rotting, sometimes,' answered Conan 'But surely Natohk is a runted Aed your lines as well as a seasoned general could have done It's certain Natohk's devils can't fall on us unawares Mitra, what a fog!'

'I thought it was clouds at first,' answered Conan 'See how it rolls!'

What had seereat unstable ocean, rapidly hiding the desert froian ruins, and still it rolled onward The ar unprecedented - unnatural and inexplicable

'No use sending out scouts,' said Aes are near the outer flanges of the ridges Soon the whole Pass and these hills will benervousness, bent suddenly and laid his ear to the earth He sprang up with frantic haste, swearing

'Horses and chariots, thousands of theround vibrates to their tread! Ho, there!' His voice thundered out across the valley to electrify the lounging s! Stand to your ranks!'

At that, as the warriors scra head-pieces and thrusting arh shi+eld-straps, the er useful It did not slowly lift and fade like a natural fog; it simply vanished, like a blown-out fla fleecy billows, piled mountainously, stratum above stratum; the next, the sun shone froer ereat shout shook the hills

At first glance the a sparkling sea of bronze and gold, where steel points twinkled like athe invaders had halted as if frozen, in long serried lines, fla line of chariots, drawn by the great fierce horses of Stygia, with plu as each naked driver leaned back, bracing his powerful legs, his dusky ar-ures, their hawk-like faces set off by bronze helolden ball Heavy boere in their hands No common archers these, but nobles of the South, bred to war and the hunt, ere accusto down lions with their arrows

Behind these came a motley array of wild men on half-wild horses - the warriors of Kush, the first of the great black kingdo ebony, supple and lithe, riding stark naked and without saddle or bridle

After these rolled a horde that seemed to encompass all the desert Thousands on thousands of the war-like Sons of Shem: ranks of horsemen in scale-mail corselets and cylindrical helmets - the asshuri of Nippr, Shumir and Eruk and their sister cities; hite-robed hordes - the noan to mill and eddy The chariots drew off to one side while the main host cahts had alloped up the slope to where Conan stood He did not deign to dis of the e! The Kushi+tes have no bows and they hts will crush the their formation Follow me! We in this battle with one stroke!'

Conan shook his head 'Were we fighting a natural foe, I would agree But this confusion is e I fear a trap'

'Then you refuse to move?' cried Thespides, his face dark with passion

'Be reasonable,' expostulated Conan 'We have the advantage of position-'

With a furious oath Thespides wheeled and galloped back down the valley where his knights waited impatiently

Amalric shook his head 'You should not have let hi up with a curse Thespides had swept in beside his men They could hear his iesture toward the approaching horde was significant enough In another instant five hundred lances dipped and the steel-clad coe ca to Conan in a shrill, eager voice 'My Lord, the princess asks why you do not follow and support Count Thespides?'

'Because I a hie beef-bone

'You grow sober with authority,' quoth Amalric 'Such madness as that was always your particular joy'

'Aye, when I had only my own life to consider,' answered Conan 'Nohat in hell-'

The horde had halted Fro rushed a chariot, the naked charioteer lashi+ng the steeds like a ure whose robe floated spectrally on the wind He held in his arold and froht Across the whole front of the desert horde the chariot swept, and behind its thundering wheels was left, like the wake behind a shi+p, a long thin powdery line that glittered in the sands like the phosphorescent track of a serpent

'That's Natohk!' swore Aing knights had not checked their headlong pace Another fifty paces and they would crash into the uneven Kushi+te ranks, which stood hts had reached the thin line that glittered across the sands They did not heed that crawling menace But as the steel-shod hoofs of the horses struck it, it was as when steel strikes flint - but with more terrible result A terrific explosion rocked the desert, which see the strewn line with an awful burst of white flahts was seen enveloped in that flalare like insects in an open blaze The next instant the rear ranks were piling up on their charred bodies Unable to check their headlong velocity, rank after rank crashed into the ruins With appalling suddenness the charge had turned into a shaled horses

Now the illusion of confusion vanished as the horde settled into orderly lines The wild Kushi+tes rushed into the shahts with stones and iron hammers It was all over so quickly that the watchers on the slopes stood dazed; and again the hordeto avoid the charred waste of corpses Froht not e the hill from his beard

'Flee, flee!' he sobred 'Who can fight Natohk's ic?'

With a snarl Conan bounded from his boulder and s from nose and mouth Conan drew his sword, his eyes slits of blue bale-fire

'Back to your posts!' he yelled 'Let another take a backward step and I'll shear off his head! Fight, daun Conan's fierce personality was like a dash of ice-water in their whirling blaze of terror

'Take your places,' he directed quickly 'And stand to it! Neither man nor devil comes up Shamla Pass this day!'

Where the plateau rim broke to the valley slope the ripped their spears Behind them the lancers sat their steeds, and to one side were stationed the Khoraja spear white and speechless at the door of her tent, the host see desert horde

Conan stood a the spearmen He knew the invaders would not try to drive a chariot charge up the Pass in the teeth of the archers, but he grunted with surprize to see the riders dis These wildat their saddle-peaks Now they drank the last of their water and threw the canteens away

'This is the death-grip,' he muttered as the lines fore; wounded horses bolt and ruin fore, of which the tip was the Stygians and the body, the mailed asshuri, flanked by the nomads In close formation, shi+elds lifted, they rolled onward, while behind theure in a risly invocation

As the horde entered the wide valley mouth the hillmen loosed their shafts In spite of the protective forians had discarded their bows; hel over the rie, striding over their fallen coave back the fire, and the clouds of arrows darkened the skies Conan gazed over the billoaves of spears and wondered what new horror the sorcerer would invoke Somehow he felt that Natohk, like all his kind, was more terrible in defense than in attack; to take the offensive against hiic that drove the horde on in the teeth of death Conan caught his breath at the havoc wrought in the onsweeping ranks The edges of the wedge see away, and already the valley was streith dead men Yet the survivors came on like madmen unaware of death By the very nuan to swamp the archers on the cliffs Clouds of shafts sped upward, driving the hill advance, and they plied their bowslike trapped wolves

As the horde neared the narrower neck of the Pass, boulders thundered down, crushi+ng e did not waver Conan's wolves braced themselves for the inevitable concussion In their close formation and superior armor, they took little hurt froe Conan feared, when the huge wedge should crash against his thin ranks And he realized now there was no breaking of that onslaught He gripped the shoulder of a Zaheemi who stood near

'Is there any way by which et down into the blind valley beyond that western ridge?'

'Aye, a steep, perilous path, secret and eternally guarded But-'

Conan was dragging hireat war-horse

'Amalric!' he snapped 'Follow this man! He'll lead you into yon outer valley Ride down it, circle the end of the ridge, and strike the horde froo! I know it's e we can before we die! Haste!'

Arin, and a few le of gorges leading off from the plateau Conan ran back to the pikemen, sword in hand