Part 32 (1/2)

'By Crorumbled Conan 'A woman will stop to consider her beauty, if the devil hiain before we've got out of sight of this city And Thalis, I'd take it kindly if you'd furnish us with a bit of food and drink'

For answer Thalis leaned herself against hi one white arm about his bronzed shoulders Her sleek naked flank pressed against his thigh and the perfume of her foamy hair was in his nostrils

'Why dare the desert?' she whispered urgently 'Stay here! I will teach you the ways of Xuthal I will protect you I will love you! You are a real h and dreary for the hard, clean passion of a man from the earth The blaze of your dynamic eyes makes my heart pound in my bosom, and the touch of your iron-thewed ar of Xuthal! I will show you all the ancient mysteries, and the exotic ways of pleasure! I-' She had thrown both ar on tiptoe, her vibrant body shi+vering against his Over her ivory shoulder he saw Natala, throwing back her da, her red lips parting in a shocked O With an e arms and put her aside with one irl and s to nod her splendid head in itation

Natala rose and jerked up her tunic, her eyes blazing, her lips pouting sulkily Conan swore under his breath He was no e soldier of fortune, but there was an innate decency about him that was Natala's : protection Tialis did not press her suit Beckoning them with her slender d to follow, she turned and walked across the chamber

There, close to the tapestried wall, she halted suddenly Conan, watching her, wondered if she had heard the sounds that h the ht

'What do you hear?' he de

He wheeled, sword ready Only the eaze Then behind hiasp He whirled Thalis and Natala had vanished The tapestry was settling back in place, as if it had been lifted away froaped bewil-deredly, fro a irl

When Conan turned, in colare at the doorway opposite, Natala had been standing just behind hiian The instant the Cimmerian's back was turned, Thalis, with a pantherish quickness almost incredible, clapped her hand over Natala's ive Siian's other arirl's supple waist, and she was jerked back against the wall, which seeainst it A section of the wall swung inward, and through a slit that opened in the tapestry Thalis slid with her captive, just as Conan wheeled back

Inside was utter blackness as the secret door swung to again Thalis paused to fu home a bolt, and as she took her hand froan to screah was like poisoned honey in the darkness

'Scream if you will, little fool It will only shorten your life'

At that Natala ceased suddenly, and cowered shaking in every lioing to do?'

'I a to take you down this corridor for a short distance,' answered Thalis, 'and leave you for one ill sooner or later come for you'

'Ohhhhhh!' Natala's voice broke in a sob of terror 'Why should you harm me? I have never injured you!'

'I want your warrior You stand in my way He desires me -I could read the look in his eyes But for you, he would be willing to stay here and beWhen you are out of the way, he will follow me'

'He will cut your throat,' answered Natala with conviction, knowing Conan better than Thalis did

'We shall see,' answered the Stygian coolly from the confidence of her power over men 'At any rate, you will not knohether he stabs or kisses me, because you will be the bride of him ells in darkness Coht like a wild thing, but it availed her nothing With a lithe strength she would not have believed possible in a woman, Thalis picked her up and carried her down the black corridor as if she had been a child Natala did not screaian's sinister words; the only sounds were her desperate quick panting and Thalis' soft taunting lascivious laughter Then the Brythunian's fluttering hand closed on so froirdle Natala jerked it forth and struck blindly and with all her girlish power

A scream burst from Thalis's lips, feline in its pain and fury She reeled, and Natala slipped frorasp, to bruise her tender li, she scurried to the nearest wall and stood there panting and treainst the stones She could not see Thalis, but she could hear her The Stygian was quite certainly not dead She was cursing in a steady stream, and her fury was so concentrated and deadly that Natala felt her bones turn to wax, her blood to ice

'Where are you, you little she-devil?' gasped Thalis 'Let rew physically sick as Thalis described the bodily injuries she intended to inflict on her rival The Stygian's choice of language would have shahest courtezan in Aquilonia

Natala heard her groping in the dark, and then a light sprang up Evidently whatever fear Thalis felt of the black corridor was subems which adorned the walls of Xuthal This Thalis had rubbed, and now she stood bathed in its reddish glow: a light different from that which the others had emitted One hand was pressed to her side and blood trickled between the fingers But she did not seem weakened or badly hurt, and her eyes blazed fiendishly What little courage re lilow, her beautiful face contorted with a passion that was no less than hellish She now advanced with a pantherish tread, drawing her hand away fro the blood drops iers Natala saw that she had not badly harlanced froirdle and inflicted only a very superficial flesh-wound, only enough to rouse the Stygian's unbridled fury

'Giveup to the cowering girl

Natala knew she ought to fight while she had the chance, but she sihter, the darkness, violence and horror of her adventure had left her lier froers and threw it conteround between her teeth, slapping the girl viciously with either hand 'Before I drag you down the corridor and throw you into Thog's jaws I'll have a little of your blood myself! You would dare to knifeher by the hair, Thalis dragged her down the corridor a short distance, to the edge of the circle of light Ashowed in the wall, above the level of a ht stripped from her, and the next instant Thalis had jerked up her wrists and bound the, naked as the day she was born, her feet barely touching the floor Twisting her head, Natala saw Thalis unhook a jewel-handled whip fro The lashes consisted of seven round silk cords, harder yet s

With a hiss of vindictive gratification, Thalis drew back her arm, and Natala shrieked as the cords curled across her loins The tortured girl writhed, twisted and tore agonizedly at the thongs which i ht summon, and so apparently had Thalis Every stroke evoked screas Natala had received in the Shenificance before this She had never guessed the punishi+ng power of hard-woven silk cords Their caress was s They whistled venomously as they cut the air

Then, as Natala twisted her tear-stained face over her shoulder to shriek for ave place to paralyzing horror in her beautiful eyes

Struck by her expression, Thalis checked her lifted hand and whirled quick as a cat Too late! An awful cry rang fro Natala saw her for an instant, a white figure of fear etched against a great black shapeless ure hipped off its feet, the shadow receded with it, and in the circle of di with terror

From the black shadows ca She heard Thalis's voice pleading frenziedly, but no voice answered There was no sound except the Stygian's panting voice, which suddenly rose to screaled with sobs This dwindled to a convulsive panting, and presently this too ceased, and a silence more terrible hovered over the secret corridor

Nauseated with horror, Natala twisted about and dared to look fearfully in the direction the black shape had carried Thalis She saw nothing, but she sensed an unseen peril, ainst a rising tide of hysteria Her bruised wrists, her sotten in the teeth of this menace which she dimly felt threatened not only her body, but her soul as well

She strained her eyes into the blackness beyond the riht see A whi forrew up out of the void She saw a great ht At least she took it for a head, though it was not the reat toad-like face, the features of which were as dihtht have been eyes blinked at her, and she shook at the cos about the creature's body Its outline seemed to waver and alter subtly even as she looked at it; yet its substance was apparently solid enough There was nothing hostly about it

As it caled, flew or crept Its method of locomotion was absolutely beyond her coed from the shadows she was still uncertain as to its nature The light froem did not illumine it as it would have illu seeht Its details were still obscure and indistinct, even when it halted so near that it al toad-like face stood out with any distinctness The thing was a blur in the sight, a black blot of shadow that normal radiance would neither dissipate nor illuminate

She decided she waslooked up at her or towered above her She was unable to say whether the dim repulsive face blinked up at her from the shadows at her feet, or looked down at her froht convinced her that whatever its mutable qualities, it was yet composed of solid substance, her sense of feel further assured her of that fact A dark tentacle-like member slid about her body, and she screamed at the touch of it on her naked flesh It was neither war that had ever touched her before, and at its caress she knew such fear and shame as she had never dreamed of All the obscenity and salacious infamy spawned in the muck of the abysmal pits of Life seemed to drown her in seas of cosmic filth And in that instant she knew that whatever for represented it was not a beast

She began to screaed at her as if to tear her fro crashed above their heads, and a forh the air to strike the stone floor

When Conan wheeled to see the tapestry settling back in place and to hear Natala's ainst the ith afrom the impact that would have splintered the bones of a lesserwhat appeared to be a blank wall Beside hih the

A score of figures faced him, yellow men in purple tunics, with short swords in their hands As he turned they surged in on him with hostile cries He made no attempt to conciliate them Maddened at the disappearance of his sweetheart, the barbarian reverted to type

A snarl of bloodthirsty gratification hummed in his bull-throat as he leaped, and the first attacker, his short sword overreached by the whistling saber, went doith his brains gushi+ng froht a descending wrist on his edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air scattering a shower of red drops But Conan had not paused or hesitated A pantherish twist and shi+ft of his body avoided the blundering rush of two yelloords its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other

A yell of dismay went up at this hter as he bounded aside frouard of yet anotheredge and the h

The warriors of Xuthal howled like mad wolves Unaccustomed to battle, they were ridiculously slow and cluerish barbarian whose motions were blurs of quickness possible only to steel thews knit to a perfect fighting-brain They floundered and stumbled, hindered by their own numbers; they struck too quick or too soon, and cut only empty air He was never , side-stepping, whirling, twisting, he offered a constantly shi+fting target for their swords, while his own curved blade sang death about their ears

But whatever their faults, the e They swarh the arched doorways rushed others, awakened fro from a cut on the te sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a quick glance about for an avenue of escape At that instant he saw the tapestry on one of the walls drawn aside, disclosing a narrow stairway On this stood a , as if he had just awakened and had not yet shaken the dusts of sluht and action were sih the he of swords, and he bounded toward the stair with the pack giving tongue behind him Three men confronted him at the foot of thecrash of steel There was a frenzied instant when the blades flaroup fell apart and Conan sprang up the stair The onco for welter of blood and brains; another propped hi blackly fro as he clawed at the crimson stump that had been an arm

As Conan rushed up the marble stair, the man above shook himself from his stupor and dreord that sparkled frostily in the radiued upon hi toward his throat, Conan ducked deeply The blade slit the skin of his back, and Conan straightened, driving his saber upward as a hty shoulders

So terrific was his headlong drive that the sinking of the saber to the hilt into the belly of his eneainst the wretch's body, knocking it sideways The iainst the wall; the other, the saber torn through his body, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine fro entrails the body tu theainst the wall an instant, glaring down upon the saber, he bounded up the steps

Coh to see that it was e with such intensified horror and rage, that he knew he had killed so of that fantastic city

He ran at random, without plan He desperately wished to find and succor Natala, who he was sure needed aid badly; but harried as he was by all the warriors in Xuthal, he could only run on, trusting to luck to elude thehted upper chambers he quickly lost all sense of direction, and it was not strange that he eventually blundered into a cha

They yelled vengefully and rushed for hiust he turned and fled back the way he had coht it was the way he had co into a particularly ornate chamber, he are of histhe stair had been empty This chaed in