Part 27 (2/2)

All four of the men in black robes stared at Khemsa Their vulture-like faces were immobile, their eyes introspective and conteue His feet were braced on the rock, his calves straining as if in physical coht hand locked on so under his brown robe so desperately that the blood ebbed from that hand and left it white His left hand fell on the shoulder of Gitara and clutched in agony like the grasp of a drowninglike talons into her firm flesh

Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them But he only faintly sensed the le With his back to the wall, driven to bay by his for for his life with all the dark power, all the frightful knowledge they had taught hie

He was stronger than even he had guessed, and the free exercise of his powers in his own behalf had tapped unsuspected reservoirs of forces And he was nerved to super-energy by frantic fear and desperation He reeled before the round His features were distorted into a bestial grin of agony, and his lihtful brains steeped in lore forbidden to men for a million years, of mentalities which had plumbed the abysses and explored the dark stars where spawn the shadows

Yasmina understood this better than did Conan And she dimly understood why Khemsa could withstand the concentrated iht have blasted into atoirl that he clutched with the strength of his despair She was like an anchor to his staggering soul, battered by the waves of those psychic eth His love for the girl, violent and evil though it ht be, was yet a tie that bound hie for his will, a chain that his inhuh Khemsa

They realized that before he did And one of theaze from the Rakhsha full upon Gitara There was no battle there The girl shrank and wilted like a leaf in the drought Irresistibly impelled, she tore herself fro Then a hideous thing ca her torlass froroaned and staggered toward her, falling into the trap set for him A divided mind could not maintain the unequal battle He was beaten, a straw in their hands The girl went backward, walking like an automaton, and Kheroaning, sobring in his pain, his feet s

On the very brink she paused, standing stiffly, her heels on the edge, and he fell on his knees and crahi her back froers touched her, one of the wizards laughed, like the sudden, bronze note of a bell in hell The girl reeled suddenly and, consu flooded back into her eyes, which flared with awful fear She screa hand, and then, unable to save herself, fell headlong with a e and stared over, haggardly, his lips working as heht And then with a cry that al toward them, a knife lifted in his hand

One of the Rakhshas stepped forward and stareiftly to a grinding roar Where his foot struck, a crevice opened in the solid rock that widened instantly Then, with a deafening crash, a whole section of the ledge gave way There was a last gli, and then he vanished amidst the roar of the avalanche that thundered down into the abyss

The four looked contee of rock that formed the new rim of the precipice, and then turned suddenly Conan, thrown off his feet by the shudder of theYas He was befogged and stupid [ He realized that there was a desperate need for him to lift the I Devi on the black stallion and ride like the wind, but an unaccountable sluggishness weighted his every thought and action

And now the wizards had turned toward hiht, he saw their outlines fading, di hazy and nebulous, as a crimson smoke billowed around their feet and rose about the cloud - and then he realized that he too was enveloped in a blinding crimson mist - he heard Yasmina scream, and the stallion cried out like a woman in pain The Devi was torn from his arm, and as he lashed out with his knife blindly, a terrific blow like a gust of storainst a rock Dazedly he saw a cri up and over the one, and so were the four e with hi wind, the cobwebs vanished fro curse he leaped into the saddle and the stallion reared neighing beneath hilared up the slopes, hesitated, and then turned down the trail in the direction he had been going when halted by Kheait He shook loose the reins and the stallion went like a thunderbolt, as if frantic to lose hysteria in violent physical exertion Across the ledge and around the crag and down the narrow trail threading the great steep they plunged at breakneck speed The path followed a fold of rock, winding interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarplihty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a gigantic cliff

The valley floor was still far below hie that led out from the slope like a natural causeway Out upon this he rode, with an almost sheer drop on either hand He could trace ahead of hireat horseshoe back into the riverbed at his left hand He cursed the necessity of traversing those miles, but it was the only way To try to descend to the lower lap of the trail here would be to atteet to the riverbed with a whole neck

So he urged on the wearying stallion, until a clink of hoofs reached his ears, welling up fro to the lip of the cliff, he stared down into the dry riverbed that wound along the foot of the ridge Along that gorge rode a- beardedeapons And Conan shouted suddenly, leaning over the edge of the cliff, three hundred feet above them

At his shout they reined back, and five hundred bearded faces were tilted up towards him; a deep, clamorous roarfilled the canyon Conan did not waste words

'I was riding for Ghor!' he roared 'I had not hoped to s can push!+ I' to Yimsha, and-'

'Traitor!' The hoas like a dash of ice-water in his face

'What?' He glared down at the up at hi blades

'Traitor!' they roared back, wholeheartedly 'Where are the seven chiefs held captive in Peshkhauri?'

'Why, in the governor's prison, I suppose,' he answered

A bloodthirsty yell fro of weapons and a cla He beat down the din with a bull-like roar, and bellowed: 'What devil's play is this? Let one of you speak, so I can understand what you aunt old chief elected himself to this position, shook his tulwar at Conan as a prea Peshkhauri to rescue our brothers!'

'No, you fools!' roared the exasperated Cimmerian 'Even if you'd breached the wall, which is unlikely, they'd have hanged the prisoners before you could reach theovernor!' yelled the Afghuli, working hi frenzy

'Well?'

'Where are the seven chiefs?' howled the old chief,wheel of steel about his head 'Where are they? Dead!'

'What!' Conan nearly fell off his horse in his surprize

'Aye, dead!' five hundred bloodthirsty voices assured hiot the floor again 'They were not hanged!' he screeched 'A Wazuli in another cell saw theovernor sent a wizard to slay theovernor would not dare Last night I talked with him-'

The admission was unfortunate A yell of hate and accusation split the skies

'Aye! You went to hih the doors the wizard burst in his entry, and told the tale to our scouts whom he met in Zhaibar They had been sent forth to search for you, when you did not return When they heard the Wazuli's tale, they returned with all haste to Ghor, and we saddled our steeds and girt our swords!'

'And what do you fools e our brothers!' they howled 'Death to the Kshatriyas! Slay hian to rattle around hi to make hiled rage, defiance and disgust, he wheeled and galloped back up the trail Behind hie, too furious even to reht whereon he rode was to traverse the riverbed in the other direction,trail up over the ridge When they did remember this, and turned back, their reputhated chief had ale joined the escarpment

At the cliff he did not take the trail by which he had descended, but turned off on another, aa rock-fault, where the stallion scra He had not ridden far when the stallion snorted and shi+ed back fro in the trail Conan stared down on the travesty of a nashed splintered teeth

Impelled by so down at the ghastly shape, knowing that he itness of a thing ory head, and his strange eyes, glazed with agony and approaching death, rested on Conan with recognition 'Where are they?' It was a racking croak not even re a human voice

'Gone back to their darunted Conan 'They took the Devi with theo!' muttered the man 'I will follow them! They killed Gitara; I will kill them - the acolytes, the Four of the Black Circle, the Master hi histhe rock, but not even his indoer, where the splintered bones hung together only by torn tissue and ruptured fibre

'Follow the a bloody slaver 'Follow!'

'I'hulis, but they've turned onon to Yimsha alone I'll have the Devi back if I have to tear down that daovernor would dare kill my headmen, when I had the Devi, but it seems he did I'll have his head for that She's no use to e, but-'

'The curse of Yizil on theirdle'

He tried to fuled hand at his tatters, and Conan, understanding what he sought to convey, bent and drew froirdle of curious aspect

'Follow the golden vein through the abyss,' ian priest It will aid you, though it failed ranates Beware of the Master's trans for me in hell - ate, ya Skelos yarf And so he died

Conan stared down at the girdle The hair of which it oven was not horsehair He was convinced that it oven of the thick black tresses of a woman Set in the thick mesh were tiny jewels such as he had never seen before The buckle was strangely e-shaped and scaled with curious art A strong shudder shook Conan as he handled it, and he turned as though to cast it over the precipice; then he hesitated, and finally buckled it about his waist, under the Bakhariot girdle Then he s He climbed the trail in the vast shadow of the cliffs that was thrown out like a dark blue es far below He was not far fro, he heard the clink of shod hoofs ahead of him He did not turn back Indeed, so narroas the path that the stallion could not have wheeled his great body upon it He rounded the jut of the rock and came upon a portion of the path that broadened so yells broke on his ear, but his stallion pinned a terrified horse hard against the rock, and Conan caught the ar the lifted sword in lints sle; they sat their horses al the other's sword-araunt horses They glared like wolves, fingering bows and knives, but rendered uncertain because of the narrowness of the path and the perilous proximity of the abyss that yawned beneath them