Part 19 (2/2)

Out of the glooreat hall a vast dark for-like hops He saw the gleas or talons He fell back from the door, and then the whir of a shaft past his ear warned him that death was also behind him He wheeled desperately Four or five She their horses up the steps, their bows lifted to shoot hi behind a pillar, on which the arrows splintered Tara like a dead woain, the dooras blocked by a gigantic shape With affrighted yells the h the throng, which crushed back in sudden, galvanized horror, tra one another in their sta Valerius and the girl Squeezing its vast, unstable bulk through the door, it bounded toward hi behind hi, like a travesty of nature cut out of the heart of night, a black shapelessness in which only the staring eyes and gleas were distinct

There came a sudden thunder of hoofs; a rout of Shemites, bloody and battered, streah the packed throng Behind theue, waving red swords - the exiles, returned! With them rode fifty black-bearded desert-riders, and at their head a giant figure in black iant yelled a co pace, the desertacross the square, over the seething heads of the multitudes, and sank feather-deep in the black ainst the ain, and the horror collapsed and rolled down the steps, as dead as the witch who had sues

Conan drew rein beside the portico, leaped off Valerius had laid the queen on thebeside her in utter exhaustion The people surged about, crowding in The Ciainst his mailed shoulder

'By Crom, what is this? The real Taramis! But who is that yonder?'

'The demon ore her shape,' panted Valerius

Conan swore heartily Ripping a cloak from the shoulders of a soldier, he wrapped it about the naked queen Her long dark lashes quivered on her cheeks; her eyes opened, stared up unbelievingly into the Ciht at him 'Do I drearinned hardly 'You do not dreaain I broke Constantius, out there by the river Most of his dogs never lived to reach the walls, for I gave orders that no prisoners be taken - except Constantius The city guard closed the gate in our faces, but we burst in with ra from our saddles I left all my wolves outside, except this fifty I didn't trust theuards'

'It has been a nightmare!' she whimpered 'Oh, my poor people! You must help me try to repay them for all they have suffered, Conan, henceforth councilor as well as captain!'

Conan laughed, but shook his head Rising, he set the queen upon her feet, and beckoned to a number of his Khaurani horse She of their new-found queen

'No, lass, that's over with I'irs now, and must lead them to plunder the Turanians, as I promised This lad, Valerius, willmarble walls, anyway But I un Shemites still live in Khauran'

As Valerius started to follow Tarah a lane opened by the wildly cheering multitude, he felt a soft hand slipped tiers and turned to receive the slender body of Ivga in his arratitude of a weary fighter who has attained rest at last through tribulation and storm

But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path

The sun was rising The ancient caravan road was thronged hite-robed horse line that stretched from the walls of Khauran to a spot far out in the plain Conan the Cied end of a wooden bearound Near that stu by spikes through his hands and feet

'Seventhere, and you who sat here'

Constantius did not reply; he licked his gray lips and his eyes were glassy with pain and fear Muscles writhed like cords along his lean body

'You are more fit to inflict torture than to endure it,' said Conan tranquilly 'I hung there on a cross as you are hanging, and I lived, thanks to circumstances and a stamina peculiar to barbarians But you civilized men are soft; your lives are not nailed to your spines as are ours Your fortitude consistsit You will be dead before sundown And so, Falcon of the desert, I le e you to the coestured toward the vultures whose shadoept across the sands as they wheeled overhead From the lips of Constantius came an inhuman cry of despair and horror

Conan lifted his reins and rode toward the river that shone like silver in thesun Behind hiaze of each, as he passed a certain spot, turned impersonally and with the desert ure that hung there, black against the sunrise Their horses' hoofs beat out a knell in the dust Lower and loept the wings of the hungry vultures

SHADOWS IN ZAMBOULA

1 A DRUM BEGINS

'Peril hides in the house of Aram Baksh!+'

The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-nailed fingers clawed at Conan'sHe was a wiry, sun-burnt arments proclaimed him a nomad He looked siant Cimmerian with his black brows, broad chest, and powerful limbs They stood in a corner of the Sword-Makers' Bazar, and on either side of theued, many-colored stream of the Zamboula streets, which is exotic, hybrid, flamboyant and cla a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion

'What do you lanced furtively over his shoulder before replying, and lowered his voice

'Who can say? But desert men and travelers have slept in the house of Araain What became of them? He swore they rose and went their way - and it is true that no citizen of the city has ever disappeared froain, and nized as theirs have been seen in the bazars If Ara aith their owners, how carowled the Cireen-bound hilt of the broadsword that hung at hL hip 'I have even sold ers who vanish by night froir 'Nay, poor desert men have slept there - because his score is less than that of the other taverns - and have been seen no irs whose son had thus vanished coir Khan, who ordered the house searched by soldiers'

'And they found a cellar full of corpses?' asked Conan in good-huht! And drove the chief from the city with threats and curses! But -' he drew closer to Conan and shi+vered - 'soe of the desert, beyond the houses, there is a clurove there is a pit And within that pit have been found human bones, charred and blackened! Not once, but runted the Cimmerian

'Araians built and which Hyrkanians rule - where white, brown and black folk ether to produce hybrids of all unholy hues and breeds - who can tell who is a uise? Araht he assuuests off into the desert where his fellow demons from the waste ers?' asked Conan skeptically

'The people of the city would not suffer hiers who fall into his hands Conan, you are of the West, and know not the secrets of this ancient land But, since the beginning of happenings, the de, the Lord of the Empty Abodes, with fire - fire that devours human victims

'Be warned! You have dwelt for irs, and you are our brother! Go not to the house of Araht!' Conan said suddenly 'Yonder comes a squad of the city-watch If they see you they may remember a horse that was stolen froasped, and moved convulsively He ducked between a booth and a stone horse-trough, pausing only long enough to chatter: 'Be warned, my brother! There are demons in the house of Araone

Conan shi+fted his broad sword-belt to his liking, and cal stares directed at hi past They eyed him curiously and suspiciously, for he was aas crowded the winding streets of Zauished hiht sword at his hip added point to the racial difference

The watch on down the street, while the crowd opened a lane for them They were Pelishti theirTuranians considered beneath therel population for that reason

Conan glanced at the sun, just beginning to dip behind the flat-topped houses on the western side of the bazar, and hitching once more at his belt, moved off in the direction of Aram Baksh's tavern

With a hill colors of the streets, where the ragged tunics of whining beggars brushed against the ermine-trimmed khalats of lordly merchants, and the pearl-sewn satin of rich courtezans Giant black slaves slouched along, jostling blue-bearded wanderers fro deserts, traders and adventurers from all the lands of the East

The native population was no less heterogenous Here, centuries ago, the ar an err pire out of the eastern desert Za of oases, and inhabited by des ndants of noians built it into a city and settled it with their own people, and with She the desert froling of races Then ca out of the East to thrust back the boundaries of Stygia, and now for a generation Zamboula had been Turan's westernmost outpost, ruled by a Turanian satrap

The babel of a ues smote on the Cimmerian's ears as the restless pattern of the Zamboula streets weaved about hi horsemen, the tall, supple warriors of Turan, with dark hawk-faces, clinkingscampered from under their horses' hoofs, for they were the lords of Za back in the shadows, glowered darkly, relories The hybrid population cared little whether the king who controlled their destinies dwelt in dark Kheir Khan ruled Zamboula, and men whispered that Nafertari, the satrap's ir Khan; but the people went their way, flaunting their , swilling, loving, as the people of Zamboula have done for all the centuries its towers and minarets have lifted over the sands of the Kharamun