The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (great reads .TXT) 📗

between them and struck with all his desperate power. He

felt the blade sink to the hilt in the hairy breast, and instantly,

releasing it, he ducked his head and bunched his whole body into one

compact mass of knotted muscles, and as he did so he grasped the

closing arms and drove his knee fiercely into the monster’s belly,

bracing himself against that crushing grapple.

 

For one dizzy instant he felt as if he were being dismembered in the

grip of an earthquake; then suddenly he was free, sprawling on the

floor, and the monster was gasping out its life beneath him, its red

eyes turned upward, the hilt of the poniard quivering in its breast.

His desperate stab had gone home.

 

Conan was panting as if after long conflict, trembling in every limb.

Some of his joints felt as if they had been dislocated, and blood

dripped from scratches on his sidn where the monster’s talons had

ripped; his muscles and tendons had been savagely wrenched and

twisted. If the beast had lived a second longer, it would surely have

dismembered him. But the Cimmerian’s mighty strength had resisted, for

the fleeting instant it had endured, the dying convulsion of the ape

that would have torn a lesser man limb from limb.

 

Chapter 6: The Thrust of a Knife

 

CONAN STOOPED AND tore the knife from the monster’s breast. Then he

went swiftly up the stair. What other shapes of fear the darkness held

he could not guess, but he had no desire to encounter any more. This

touch-and-go sort of battling was too strenuous even for the giant

Cimmerian. The moonlight was fading from the floor, the darkness

closing in, and something like panic pursued him up the stair. He

breathed a gusty sigh of relief when he reached the head, and felt the

third key turn in the lock. He opened the door slightly, and craned

his neck to peer through, half expecting an attack from some human or

bestial enemy.

 

He looked into a bare stone corridor, dimly lighted, and a slender,

supple figure stood before the door.

 

“Your Majesty!” It was a low, vibrant cry, half in relief and half in

fear. The girl sprang to his side, then hesitated as if abashed.

 

“You bleed,” she said. “You have been hurt!”

 

He brushed aside the implication with an impatient hand.

 

“Scratches that wouldn’t hurt a baby. Your skewer came in handy,

though. But for it Tarascus’s monkey would be cracking my shin-bones

for the marrow right now. But what now?”

 

“Follow me,” she whispered. “I will lead you outside the city wall. I

have a horse concealed there.”

 

She turned to lead the way down the corridor, but he laid a heavy hand

on her naked shoulder.

 

“Walk beside me,” he instructed her softly, passing his massive arm

about her lithe waist. “You’ve played me fair so far, and I’m inclined

to believe in you; but I’ve lived this long only because I’ve trusted

no one too far, man or woman. So! Now if you play me false you won’t

live to enjoy the jest.”

 

She did not flinch at sight of the reddened poniard or the contact of

his hard muscles about her supple body.

 

“Cut me down without mercy if I play you false,” she answered. “The

very feel of your arm about me, even in menace, is as the fulfillment

of a dream.”

 

The vaulted corridor ended at a door, which she opened. Outside lay

another black man, a giant in turban and silk loincloth, with a curved

sword lying on the flags near his band. He did not move.

 

“I drugged his wine,” she whispered, swerving to avoid the recumbent

figure. “He is the last, and outer, guard of the pits. None ever

escaped from them before, and none has ever wished to seek them; so

only these black men guard them. Only these of all the servants knew

it was King Conan that Xaltotun brought a prisoner in his chariot. I

was watching, sleepless, from an upper casement that opened into the

court, while the other girls slept; for I knew that a battle was being

fought, or had been fought, in the west, and I feared for you.

 

“I saw the blacks carry you up the stair, and I recognized you in the

torchlight. I slipped into this wing of the palace tonight, in time to

see them carry you to the pits. I had not dared come here before

nightfall. You must have lain in drugged senselessness all day in

Xaltotun’s chamber.

 

“Oh, let us be wary! Strange things are afoot in the palace tonight.

The slaves said that Xaltotun slept as he often sleeps, drugged by the

lotus of Stygia, but Tarascus is in the palace. He entered secretly,

through the postern, wrapped in his cloak which was dusty as with long

travel, and attended only by his squire, the lean silent Arideus. I

cannot understand, but I am afraid.”

 

They came out at the foot of a narrow, winding stair, and mounting it,

passed through a narrow panel which she slid aside. When they had

passed through, she slipped it back in place, and it became merely a

portion of the ornate wall. They were in a more spacious corridor,

carpeted and tapestried, over which hanging lamps shed a golden glow.

 

Conan listened intently, but he heard no sound throughout the palace.

He did not know in what part of the palace he was, or in which

direction lay the chamber of Xaltotun. The girl was trembling as she

drew him along the corridor, to halt presently beside an alcove masked

with satin tapestry. Drawing this aside, she motioned for him to step

into the niche, and whispered: “Wait here! Beyond that door at the end

of the corridor we are likely to meet slaves or eunuchs at any time of

the day or night. I will go and see if the way is clear, before we

essay it.” Instantly his hair-trigger suspicions were aroused. “Are

you leading me into a trap?”

 

Tears sprang into her dark eyes. She sank to her knees and seized his

muscular hand. “Oh, my king, do not mistrust me now!” Her voice shook

with desperate urgency. “If you doubt and hesitate, we are lost! Why

should I bring you up out of the pits to betray you now?”

 

“All right,” he muttered. “I’ll trust you; though, by Crom, the habits

of a lifetime are not easily put aside. Yet I wouldn’t harm you now,

if you brought all the swordsmen in Nemedia upon me. But for you

Tarascus’s cursed ape would have come upon me in chains and unarmed.

Do as you wish, girl.”

 

Kissing his hands, she sprang lithely up and ran down the corridor, to

vanish through a heavy double door.

 

He glanced after her, wondering if he was a fool to trust her; then he

shrugged his mighty shoulders and pulled the satin hangings together,

masking his refuge. It was not strange that a passionate young beauty

should be risking her life to aid him; such things had happened often

enough in his life. Many women had looked on him with favor, in the

days of his wanderings, and in the time of his kingship.

 

Yet he did not remain motionless in the alcove, waiting for her

return. Following his instincts, he explored the niche for another

exit, and presently found one-the opening of a narrow passage, masked

by the tapestries, that ran to an ornately carved door, barely visible

in the dim light that filtered in from the outer corridor. And as he

stared into it, somewhere beyond that carven door he heard the sound

of another door opening and shutting, and then a low mumble of voices.

The familiar sound of one of those voices caused a sinister expression

to cross his dark face. Without hesitation he glided down the passage,

and crouched like a stalking panther beside the door. It was not

locked, and manipulating it delicately, he pushed it open a crack,

with a reckless disregard for possible consequences that only he could

have explained or defended.

 

It was masked on the other side by tapestries, but through a thin slit

in the velvet he looked into a chamber lit by a candle on an ebony

table. There were two men in that chamber. One was a scarred,

sinister-looking ruffian in leather breeks and ragged cloak; the other

was Tarascus, king of Nemedia.

 

Tarascus seemed ill at ease. He was slightly pale, and he kept

starting and glancing about him, as if expecting and fearing to hear

some sound or footstep.

 

“Go swiftly and at once,” he was saying. “He is deep in drugged

slumber, but I know not when he may awaken.”

 

“Strange to hear words of fear issuing from the lips of Tarascus,”

rumbled the other in a harsh, deep voice.

 

The king frowned.

 

“I fear no common man, as you well know. But when I saw the cliffs

fall at Valkia I knew that this devil we had resurrected was no

charlatan. I fear his powers, because I do not know the full extent of

them. But I know that somehow they are connected with this accursed

thing which I have stolen from him. It brought him back to life; so it

must be the source of his sorcery.

 

“He had it hidden well; but following my secret order a slave spied on

him and saw him place it in a golden chest, and saw where he hid the

chest. Even so, I would not have dared steal it had Xaltotun himself

not been sunk in lotus slumber.

 

“I believe it is the secret of his power. With it Orastes brought him

back to life. With it he will make us all slaves, if we are not wary.

So take it and cast it into the sea as I have bidden you. And be sure

you are so far from land that neither tide nor storm can wash it up on

the beach. You have been paid.”

 

“So I have,” grunted the ruffian. “And I owe more than gold to you,

king; I owe you a debt of gratitude. Even thieves can be grateful.”

 

“Whatever debt you may feel you owe me,” answered Tarascus, “will be

paid when you have hurled this thing into the sea.”

 

“I’ll ride for Zingara and take ship from Kordava,” promised the

other. “I dare not show my head in Argos, because of the matter of a

murder or so—”

 

“I care not, so it is done. Here it is; a horse awaits you in the

court. Go, and go swiftly!”

 

Something passed between them, something that flamed like living fire.

Conan had only a brief glimpse of it; and then the ruffian pulled a

slouch hat over his eyes, drew his cloak about his shoulder, and

hurried from the chamber. And as the door closed behind him, Conan

moved with the devastating fury of unchained blood-lust. He had held

himself in check as long as he could. The sight of his enemy so near

him set his wild blood seething and swept away all caution and

restraint.

 

Tarascus was turning toward an inner door when Conan tore aside the

hangings and leaped like a blood-mad panther into the room. Tarascus

wheeled, but even before he could recognize his attacker, Conan’s

poniard ripped into him.

 

But the blow was not mortal, as Conan knew the instant he struck. His

foot had caught in a fold of the curtains and tripped him as he

leaped. The point fleshed itself in Tarascus’s shoulder and plowed

down along his ribs, and the king of Nemedia screamed.