Part 33 (1/2)

'I do not feel theiven me, but I swear I am aware of neither pain nor weakness'

With sudden purpose he crossed the chamber to ashe had not noticed Over his shoulder she looked out A cool breeze tossed her tousled locks Above was the dark velvet sky, clustered with stars Below theue expanse of sand

'Thalis said the city was one great palace,' said Conan 'Evidently some of the chambers are built like towers on the wall This one is Chance has led us well'

'What do youapprehensively over her shoulder

'There is a crystal jar on that ivory table,' he answered 'Fill it ater and tie a strip of that torn hanging about its neck for a handle while I rip up this tapestry'

She obeyed without question, and when she turned froh strips of silk toof the massive ivory table

'We'll take our chance with the desert,' said he 'Thalis spoke of an oasis a day's rasslands beyond that If we reach the oasis we can rest until o I was littleHere is enough silk left for you to otten her nudity The mere fact caused her no qualms, but her delicate skin would need protection froth about her supple body, Conan turned to theand with a conteuarded it Then, looping the loose end of his silk rope about Natala's hips, and cautioning her to hold on with both hands, he lifted her through theand lowered her the thirty-odd feet to the earth She stepped out of the loop, and drawing it back up, he made fast the vessels of water and wine, and lowered the doiftly, hand over hand

As he reached her side, Natala gave a sigh of relief They stood alone at the foot of the great wall, the paling stars overhead and the naked desert about them What perils yet confronted the with joy because they were out of that ghostly, unreal city

'Theythe precious jars across his shoulders, wincing at the contact with his led flesh 'They may even pursue us, but from what Thalis said, I doubt it That way is south,' a bronze muscular arm indicated their course; 'so so her hand with a thoughtfulness unusual for hi his stride to the shorter legs of his co dreahostlily behind theht the monster, and later, as you ca of-of Thalis?'

He shook his head 'It was dark in the corridor; but it was empty'

She shuddered 'She tortured ot in that accursed city,' he snarled Then his grih, I'll wager There are brains and guts and blood to be cleaned off the marble tiles, and if their God still lives, he carries ht, after all: we have wine and water and a good chance of reaching a habitable country, though I look as if I've gone through a rinder, and you have a sore-'

'It's all your fault,' she interrupted 'If you had not looked so long and adian cat-'

'Crom and his devils!' he swore 'When the oceans drown the world, women will take tiian to fall in love with me? After all, she was only human!'

DRUMS OF TOMBALKU

(DRAFT)

I

Three men squatted beside the water hole, beneath the sunset sky that painted the desert umber and red Tere Ghanatas, desert warriors, their tatters scarcely concealing their wiry dark frames Men called them Gobir and Saidu; they looked like vultures as they crouched beside the water hole The third was yellow-haired and gray-eyed; he was called Around its cud noisily, and a pair of weary horses vainly nuzzled the bare sand The men munched dried dates cheerlessly, the desertof their jaws, A at the dull red sky, or out across the levelHe was first to see the horseman who rode up and drew rein with a jerk that set the steed rearing

The rider was a dark-skinned giant His wide silk pantaloons were gathered in about his bare ankles They were supported by a broad girdle wrapped repeatedly about his huge belly; that girdle also supported a flaring-tipped scimitar few men could wield with one hand With that scimitar the man was famed wherever the sons of the desert rode He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata

Across his saddle bow a lih the teeth of the Ghanatas as they caught the glea across Tilutan's saddle bow, face down, her loose hair flowing over his stirrup in a rippling black wave The giant grinned with a glint of white teeth, and cast her casually onto the sand, where she lay laxly, unconscious Instinctively Gobir and Saidu turned toward Amalric, and Tilutan watched him from his saddle Three Ghanatas and an oudander The entrance of a woe in the atmosphere

Almaric was the only one as apparendy oblivious to the tenseness He raked back his rebellious yellow locks absendy, and glanced indifferendy at the girl's lirey eyes, the others did not catch it

Tilutan swung down fro the rein to Amalric

'Tend my horse,' he said 'By Jhil, I did not find a desert antelope, but I found this little filly She was reeling through the sands, and she fell just as I approached I dunk she fainted from weariness and durst Get away froive her a drink'

The bigher face and wrists, trickling a few drops between her parched lips She uely Gobir and Saidu crouched with their hands on their knees, staring at her over Tilutan's burly shoulder A only casual

'She is co, but he licked his lips involuntarily, aniaze travelled impersonally over the prostrate forlossy black hair Her only garirdled at the waist It left her arms, neck and part of her bosom bare, and the skirt ended several inches above her knees On the parts revealed rested the gaze of the Ghanatas with devouring intensity, taking in the soft contours, childish in their white tenderness, yet rounded with budding woed his shoulders

'After Tilutan, who?' he asked carelessly

A pair of lean heads turned toward him, bloodshot eyes rolled at the question, then the Ghanatas turned and mutually stared at one another Sudden rivalry crackled electrically between theht' His hand came from under his worn tunic, and he thren a pair of dice before thereed Gobir 'We cast - after Tilutan, the winner!'

Aiant who still bent above his captive, bringing life back into her exhausted body As he looked, her long-lashed lids parted Deep violet eyes stared up into the leering face bewilderedly An explosive exclaratification escaped the thick lips of Tilutan Wrenching a flask froirdle, he put it to her mouth She drank the wine aze He was one man and the three Ghanatas were all his match

Gobir and Saidu bent above the dice; Saidu cupped them in his palm, breathed on them for luck, shook and threo vulture-like heads bent over the spinning cubes in the diht And Ae sliced through a duck neck, severing the windpipe, and Gobir fell across the dice, spurting blood, his head hanging by a shred

Simultaneously, Saidu, with the desperate quickness of a desert man, shot to his feet and hacked ferociously at the slayer's head Amalric barely had ti sciering higing him into close quarters where his scis, the wiry fra the irl down and risen with a roar He rushed toward the struggling pair like a charging bull, his great sci, and his flesh turned cold Saidu was jerking and wrenching, handicapped by the scionist Their feet twisted and staainst one another Amalric smashed his sandal heel down on the Ghanata's bare instep, feeling bones give way Saidu howled and plunged convulsively, and Aave a desperate heave The pair lurched drunkenly about, just as Tilutan struck with a rolling drive of his broad shoulders A deep into Saidu's body The Ghanata gave an agonized screarasp Tilutan roared a ferocious oath and, wrenching his steel free, hurled the dying ain, Areat curved blade, had grappled with hith of the warrior Tilutan iser than Saidu He dropped the sciht Aers locked like iron, and Arip, was borne doith the Ghanata's great weight pinning him to the earth The s His head was sainst the sandy earth As in a red mist he saw the furious face of his opponent, lips writhed back in a bestial grin of hate, teeth glistening An inhu slavered fro!' the Ghanata hhh! I break your back! I tear out your throat! I - my scimitar! I cut off your head and make her kiss it!'

A final ferocious sainst the hard-packed sand, and Tilutan half-lifted him and hurled hi, the ht up his scimitar where it lay like a broad crescent of steel in the sand Yelling in ferocious exultation, he turned and charged back, brandishi+ng the blade on high Amalric rose slowly tohe had received

Tilutan's girdle had becoled about his feet He tripped, stu out his arms to save hialvanized, caught up the sci step forward The desert swaaze In the dusk before hiaped, the whites of the eyeballs rolled up The giant froze on one knee and a hand, as if incapable of furtherthe round, shaven head to the chin, where its doard course was checked with a sickening jerk

A red line, fading in the thickening shadows Then darkness caught hi Aroped blindly and his hand closed on soht cleared and he looked into a soft oval face, fraazed unspeaking, hungrily dwelling on each detail of the full red lips, dark violet eyes, and alabaster throat With a start he realized the vision was speaking in a soft e, yet possessed an illusive fa bunch of silk was passed gently over his throbbing head and face He sat up dizzily

It was night, under the star-splashed skies The camel still munched its cud; a horse whinnied restlessly Not far away lay a hulking dark figure with its cleft head in a horrible puddle of blood and brains A in her gentle, unknown tongue As the an to understand her Harking back into half-forgotten tongues he had learned and spoken in the past, he ree used by a scholarly class in a southern province of Koth

'Who are you, girl?' he deers

'I aestion of a lisp It was like the rippling of a slender strealad you are conscious I feared you were not alive'

'A little risly sprawl that had been Tilutan She paled, refusing to follow his gaze Her hand treht he could feel the quick throb of her heart