Part 17 (1/2)

'What have you done?' cried Taraates and ordered the soldiers to open them,' answered Salome 'They were astounded, but they obeyed That is the Falcon's ar into the city'

'You devil!' cried Tarauise! You have o to theht her wrist and jerked her back The ainst the vindictive strength that steeled Saloeons froirl 'Good Take this spitfire and lock her into the strongest cell The jailers are all sound in drugged sleep I saw to that Send a man to cut their throats before they can awaken None ht Thenceforward I am Taraeon'

Constantius s white teeth under his thin ood; but you would not deny me a little - ah -amusement first?'

'Not I! Tah Salo her sister into the Kothian's arh the door that opened into the outer corridor

Fright widened Taraainst Constantius's eot the outrage to her queenshi+p, in the face of the ot all sensations but terror and sha,body

Salo the corridor outside, s shuddering through the palace

2 THE TREE OF DEATH

The young soldier's hose and shi+rt were sray with dust Blood oozed froh, frolistened on his livid face and his fingers were knotted in the cover of the divan on which he lay Yet his words reflected hed physical pain

'She ain, like one still stunned by soht her people to that devil from Koth! Oh, Ishtar, as I not slain? Better die than live to see our queen turn traitor and harlot!'

'Lie still, Valerius,' begged the girl ashi+ng and bandaging his wounds with tre! You will make your wounds worse I dared not summon a leech-'

'No,' muttered the wounded youth 'Constantius's blue-bearded devils will be searching the quarters for wounded Khaurani; they'll hang every ainst them Oh, Taramis, how could you betray the people orshi+pped you?' In his fierce agony he writhed, weeping in rage and sha his tossing head against her boso him to be quiet

'Better death than the black sharoaned 'Did you see it, Ivga?'

'No, Valerius' Her soft, ni the gaping edges of his raounds 'I akened by the noise of fighting in the streets -I looked out a case down people; then presently I heard you calling me faintly from the alley door'

'I had reached the lith,' he muttered 'I fell in the alley and could not rise I knew they'd find me soon if I lay there - I killed three of the blue-bearded beasts, by Ishtar! They'll never swagger through Khauran's streets, by the Gods! The fiends are tearing their hearts in hell!'

The trely to hi lips with her own cool sweet ed in his soul would not allow him to lie silent

'I was not on the hen the Shemites entered,' he burst out 'I was asleep in the barracks, with the others not on duty It was just before dahen our captain entered, and his face was pale under his helmet ”The Shemites are in the city,” he said ”The queen caave orders that they should be admitted She uard since Constantius entered the kingdom I don't understand it, and neither does anyone else, but I heard her give the order, and we obeyed as ays do We are ordered to assemble in the square before the palace Form ranks outside the barracks and march - leave your arms and armor here Ishtar knohat this means, but it is the queen's order”

'Well, e came to the square the Shemites were drawn up on foot opposite the palace, ten thousand of the blue-bearded devils, fully armed, and people's heads were thrust out of everyand door on the square The streets leading into the square were thronged by bewildered folk Tara on the steps of the palace, alone except for Constantius, who stood stroking his reat lean cat who has just devoured a sparrow But fifty Sheed below theuard should have been, but they were drawn up at the foot of the palace stair, as puzzled as we, though they had come fully armed, in spite of the queen's order

'Taramis spoke to us then, and told us that she had reconsidered the proposal made her by Constantius - why, only yesterday she threw it in his teeth in open court - and that she had decided to make hiht the Shemites into the city so treacherously But she said that, as Constantius had control of a body of professional fighting-er be needed, and therefore she disbanded it, and ordered us to go quietly to our homes

'Why, obedience to our queen is second nature to us, but ere struck dumb and found no word to answer We broke ranks al, like uard was ordered to disaruard, Conan, interrupted Men said he was off duty the night before, and drunk But he ide awake now He shouted to the guardsmen to stand as they were until they received an order from him - and such is his dominance of his men, that they obeyed in spite of the queen He strode up to the palace steps and glared at Taramis - and then he roared: '”This is not the queen! This isn't Taramis! It's some devil in masquerade!”

'Then hell was to pay! I don't know just what happened I think a Shemite struck Conan, and Conan killed hiround The Sheuardsmen, and their spears and arrows struck down many soldiers who had already disbanded

'Soht back We hardly knee were fighting for, but it was against Constantius and his devils - not against Taramis, I swear it! Constantius shouted to cut the traitors down We were not traitors!' Despair and bewilderly, not understanding it all, but aching in sy

'The people did not knohich side to take It was a ht didn't have a chance, in no foruards were fully armed and drawn up in a square, but there were only five hundred of them They took a heavy toll before they were cut down, but there could be only one conclusion to such a battle And while her people were being slaughtered before her, Taramis stood on the palace steps, with Constantius's arhed like a heartless, beautiful fiend! Gods, it's all ht He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered hih-deep about hiainst one When I saw hi as if the world had burst under s to take the captain alive - stroking his mustache, with that hateful smile on his lips!'

That smile was on the lips of Constantius at that verya cluster of his men - thick-bodied Shemites with curled blue-black beards and hooked noses; the loinging sun struck glints from their peaked helmets and the silvered scales of their corselets Nearly a mile behind, the walls and towers of Khauran rose sheer out of the meadowlands

By the side of the caravan road a heavy cross had been planted, and on this grih his hands and feet Naked but for a loin-cloth, the iant in stature, and his es on lio burned brown The perspiration of agony beaded his face and his led black mane that fell over his low, broad forehead, his blue eyes blazed with an unquenched fire Blood oozed sluggishly from the lacerations in his hands and feet

Constantius saluted hily

'I am sorry, captain,' he said, 'that I cannot remain to ease your last hours, but I have duties to perform in yonder city - I hed softly 'So I leave you to your own devices - and those beauties!' He pointed ly at the black shadohich swept incessantly back and forth, high above

'Were it not for theine that a powerful brute like yourself should live on the cross for days Do not cherish any illusions of rescue because I auarded I have had it proclai or dead, froether with all the members of his family, in the public square I aood as a regiuard, because the vultures will not approach as long as anyone is near, and I do not wish theht you so far from the city These desert vultures approach the walls no closer than this spot

'And so, brave captain, farewell! I will remember you when, in an hour, Taramis lies in my arms'

Blood started afresh from the pierced palms as the victim's mallet-like fists clenched convulsively on the spike-heads Knots and bunches of muscle started out of the ely at Constantius's face The voivode laughed coolly, wiped the saliva froet and reined his horse about

'Re flesh,' he called ers are a particularly voracious breed I have seenfor hours on a cross, eyeless, earless, and scalpless, before the sharp beaks had eaten their way into their vitals'

Without a backward glance he rode toward the city, a supple, erect figure, gleaing beside hi of dust fro

Theon the cross was the one touch of sentient life in a landscape that see Khauran, less than a ht have been on the other side of the world, and existing in another age

Shaking the sweat out of his eyes, Conan stared blankly at the familiar terrain On either side of the city, and beyond it, stretched the fertilein the distance where fields and vineyards checkered the plain The western and northern horizons were dotted with villages, miniature in the distance A lesser distance to the southeast a silvery gleam marked the course of a river, and beyond that river sandy desert began abruptly to stretch away and away beyond the horizon Conan stared at that expanse of eht as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky A revulsion shook hi towers of Khauran The city had betrayed hi to a wooden cross like a hare nailed to a tree

A red lust for vengeance swept away the thought Curses ebbed fitfully from the man's lips All his universe contracted, focused, became incorporated in the four iron spikes that held hi like iron cables With the sweat starting out on his graying skin, he sought to gain leverage, to tear the nails from the wood It was useless They had been driven deep Then he tried to tear his hands off the spikes, and it was not the knifing, abysony that finally caused him to cease his efforts, but the futility of it The spike-heads were broad and heavy; he could not drag theiant, for the first ti on his breast, shutting his eyes against the aching glare of the sun

A beat of wings caused him to look, just as a feathered shadow shot down out of the sky A keen beak, stabbing at his eyes, cut his cheek, and he jerked his head aside, shutting his eyes involuntarily He shouted, a croaking, desperate shout of htened by the sound They resu above his head Blood trickled over Conan's mouth, and he licked his lips involuntarily, spat at the salty taste

Thirst assailed hiht before, and no water had touched his lips since before the battle in the square, that dawn And killing was thirsty, salt-sweaty work He glared at the distant river as a ht of gushi+ng freshets of white water he had breasted, laved to the shoulders in liquid jade He reulped carelessly or spilled on the tavern floor He bit his lip to keep frouish as a tortured animal bellows

The sun sank, a lurid ball in a fiery sea of blood Against a crimson rampart that banded the horizon the towers of the city floated unreal as a drealare He licked his blackened lips and stared with bloodshot eyes at the distant river It too see up from the east seemed black as ebony

In his dulled ears sounded the louder beat of wings Lifting his head he watched with the burning glare of a wolf the shadoheeling above hier One dipped - dipped - lower and lower Conan drew his head back as far as he could, waiting with terrible patience The vulture swept in with a swift roar of wings Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird could flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on hislike those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck

Instantly the vulture exploded into squawking, flapping hysteria Its thrashi+ng wings blinded theon, the er's neck-bones crunched between those powerful teeth With a spaso, spat blood from his mouth The other vultures, terrified by the fate of their coht to a distant tree, where they perched like black deh Conan's nuh his veins He could still deal death; he still lived Every twinge of sensation, even of agony, was a negation of death

'By Mitra!' Either a voice spoke, or he suffered from hallucination 'In all !'

Shaking the sweat and blood fro their steeds in the twilight and staring up at hiir tribesmen without a doubt, nomads from beyond the river The other was dressed like the head-dress which, banded about the temples with a triple circlet of braided camel-hair, fell to his shoulders But he was not a Sheht so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial characteristics