Conan Compilation - The Bloody Crown of Conan Part 32

Conan lifted his reins and rode toward the river that shone like silver in the morning sun.

Behind him the white-clad riders struck into a trot; the gaze of each, as he pa.s.sed a certain spot, turned impersonally and with the desert man's lack of compa.s.sion toward the cross and the gaunt figure that hung there, black against the sunrise. Their horses' hoofs beat out a knell in the dust. Lower and lower swept the wings of the hungry vultures.

278.

Miscellanea 279.

Unt.i.tled Synopsis (The People of the Black Circle) The king of Vendhya, Bundha Chand, died in his palace in the royal city of Ayodhya. His young sister, Yasmina Devi, could not understand why he should die, since he had neither been poisoned nor wounded. As he died he called to her with a far away voice that seemed to come from beyond wind-blown gulfs, and said that his soul had been trapped by wizards in a stone room on a high mountain in the night where the wind roared among peaks that shouldered the stars. They were drawing his soul into the body of a foul night-weird, and in a moment of lucidity, he begged her to plunge her jewel-hilted golden-guarded dagger into his heart, to send his soul to Asura before the wizards could draw it back to the tower on the mountain crag.

While he was dying, temple gongs and conch sh.e.l.ls brayed and thundered in the city, and in a room whose latticed balcony overlooked a long street where torches tossed luridly, a man who called himself Kerim Shah, a n.o.ble of Iranistan, watched the wailing thousands cryptically, and speaking to a man in a plain camel-hair robe, called Khemsa, asked him why the destruction of the young king could not have been thus accomplished months or years ago. To which Khemsa answered that even magic was governed by the stars. The stars were properly placed for the destruction of Bhunda Chand the Serpent in the House of the King. He said that a lock of the king's black hair had been obtained and sent by a camel caravan across the Jhumda River, to Peshkhauri which guards the Zhaibar Pa.s.s, up the Zhaibar into the hills of Ghulistan. The lock of hair, in a golden case crusted with jewels, had been stolen from a princess of Khosala, who had vainly loved Bhunda Chand, begging from him this small token. With this lock of hair forming a point of contact between himself and them for discarded portions of the human body have invisible connections with the living body a cult of wizards called Rakhashas, and by themselves the Black Seers, had performed a sorcery which robbed the young king of life, and almost his soul. Kerim Shah revealed in his conversation, what Khemsa already knew, that he was not a prince from Iranistan, but a Hyrcanian, a chief of Turan, and emissary of Yezdigerd, king of Turan, and the mightiest emperor of the East, reigning on the sh.o.r.es of the Sea of Vilayet. Bhunda Chand had defeated the Turanians in a great battle on the River Jhumda. Yezdigerd, plotting his destruction, had sent Kerim Shah to Vendhya, to try to conquer the Kshatriya warriors by sorcery where force had not succeeded. Meanwhile, in the palace, Yasmini Devi had stabbed her brother to save his soul, and then fallen prostrate on the reed-strown floor, while outside the priests howled and slashed themselves with copper daggers, and the gongs thundered with a strident clamor. Then the scene s.h.i.+fted to Peshkhauri in the shadow of the mountains of Ghulistan. The tribes of Ghulistan were kin to those of Iranistan, but more untamed. The armies of Turan had marched through their valleys but had not conquered the hill tribes. The chief cities, Hirut, Secunderam, Bhalkhan, were in the hands of the Turanians but Khahabhul, where dwelt the king of Ghulistan, whose rule the tribes seldom acknowledge, was free, and the Turanians made no attempt to tax or otherwise oppress the mountain tribes. The governor of Peshkhauri had captured seven Afghulis, and according to 280.

instructions from Ayodhya, had sent word into the mountains that their chief, Conan, a wanderer from the west who had become a notable bandit in the hills, should come and himself bargain for their release. But Conan was wary, for the Kshatriyas had not always kept their bargains with the hill tribes. On a night the governor was in his chamber the wide window of which, open to allow the cool mountain breeze to temper the heat of the plains, was adjacent to a battlement. Through it he could see the blue Himelian night, dotted with great white stars. He was writing a letter on parchment with a golden pen dipped in the juice of crushed lotos, when to him came a masked woman, in filmy gossamer robes which did not conceal the rich silk vest and girdle and trousers beneath; her slippers were cloth-of-gold, and her head-dress, supporting the veil which fell below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, was bound about with a gold-worked cord, adorned with a golden crescent. The governor recognized her as the Devi, and expostulated with her, citing the unrest of the hill tribes and the turbulence of their foreign chief, Conan, who had raided to the very walls of Peshkhauri. This indeed was not within the walls, but in the great fortress outside, near the foothills. She replied that she had learned that her brother's destruction was accomplished by the wizards known as the Black Seers, and since it would be folly to lead a Kshatriya army up into the hills, she intended bringing about her vengeance through a chief of the tribes. She ordered the governor to demand, as a price for the lives of the seven Afghulis, the destruction of the Black Seers. Then she left, but she had not gotten to her apartments when she remembered something else she wished to tell him, and she returned. Perhaps she saw a stallion tied under the outer wall. Meanwhile, the governor had heard some one drop upon the battlement outside from a turret, and the next instant a man sprang through the window, with a yard-long Zhaibar knife in his hand, and bade the governor make no sound. It was Conan, the chief of the Afghulis; he was a tall, strongly and supply built man, clad like a hillman, which attire seemed incongruous, for he was not an Eastern, but a barbaric Cimmerian. He demanded what the governor wished with him, and when told, he was suspicious. At that instant the Devi entered, the governor cried out her name in his alarm, and Conan, realizing who she was, struck the governor down with the hilt of his knife, caught up the Devi, leaped through the window onto the parapet, gained his horse and rode for the mountains, shouting in his wild exultation. The governor ordered out a party of hors.e.m.e.n in full pursuit. Meanwhile, a girl who acted as Khemsa's spy, took him the word. He and Kerim Shah had followed the Devi to Peshkhauri. She urged him to take advantage of his knowledge of the black art knowledge forbidden him by his masters without their permit and make himself rich. Her idea was that they should destroy the seven men in prison for she knew that part of the ransom Conan would demand for the Devi would be their release and then follow Conan into the mountains and take the girl away from him, and collect the ransom themselves. Her idea in destroying the prisoners was to gain time for themselves. So he went to the prison and destroyed them by his black magic, and he and the girl went into the mountains. In the meantime Kerim Shah had heard of the abduction though the governor tried to keep it a secret and he sent a rider to Secunderam to inform the satrap there, and bid him send a force southward strong enough to take the Devi away from the hillmen. He himself went into the hills with some Irakzai tribesmen he had bribed. Meanwhile Conan, who was making for the country of the Afghulis, which lay adjacent to the Zhaibar Pa.s.s, lamed his horse and was pressed so closely by the pursuing Kshatriyas that he was forced to take refuge among the Wazulis. The chief of the 281.

Wazulis was his friend, but Khemsa, following close, destroyed the chief, and the warriors tried to take the Devi from him. After a savage fight Conan won clear, taking her with him, and encountering Khemsa, resisted his magic and saw him and the girl destroyed by greater magic.

The Black Seers were taking notice at last. The girl was taken from him, and carried to their tower. He fell in with Kerim Shah, and the Turanian, hearing that the Black Seers had turned against him, went with his Irakzais and Conan. In storming the tower, all were destroyed except Conan and Kerim Shah. Then they fought for the girl, and Conan won. In the meantime the force had advanced from Secunderam and fallen on the Afghulis, taking them by surprize.

A force of Kshatriyas were advancing up a valley, and the Devi won her freedom by bargaining with Conan, and hurling her warriors into the battle to crush and rout the Turanians. Then he returned her safely to her people.

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The Story Thus Far...

(The October and November 1934 installments of The People of the Black Circle in Weird Tales were headed by a short recap of the preceding chapters. Such paragraphs were usually written by the magazine's staff; those for this particular Conan story were written by Howard himself, for reasons unknown.) (The People of the Black Circle) Robert E. Howard.

THE STORY THUS FAR.

Yasmina Devi, queen of Vendhya, sought vengeance for her brother, King Bhunda Chand, who had met his death through the sorcery of the Black Seers of Yimsha, magicians who dwelt on a mountain in Ghulistan. She did not know that his death was part of a plot of King Yezdigerd of Turan to conquer Vendhya. Yezdigerd had enlisted the aid of the Black Seers and sent to Vendhya a spy, Kerim Shah, accompanied by Khemsa, an acolyte of the Black Seers, to destroy the royal family.

Yasmina wished to secure the a.s.sistance of Conan, a Cimmerian, but chief of the Afghulis of Ghulistan, a wild country of barbarians. At her orders the governor of Peshkhauri, a border city, captured seven Afghuli headmen and threatened to hang them unless Conan put his forces at her disposal. But Conan came to Peshkhauri by night and kidnaped the Devi herself and carried her into the hills, as a hostage for the release of his men.

Gitara, Yasmina's treacherous maid, persuaded Khemsa to rebel against his masters, the Black Seers, and try to capture Yasmina from Conan to wring a huge ransom from Vendhya. Khemsa employed his sorcery to kill the seven Afghuli captives, so they could not be used by the governor to obtain Yasmina's release, and with Gitara, followed Conan and his prisoner into the hills. Kerim Shah, deserted by Khemsa, despatched a message to to the satrap of Secunderam, a Turanian outpost, ordering an army to be sent to Afghulistan to capture the Devi from Conan, and rode into the hills with a band of Irakzai, to meet the oncoming army and guide it.

In the meantime Conan, pursued by the governor's troops, had sought shelter with his friend Yar Afzal, chief of the Wazulis. Khemsa killed Yar Afzal with his magic, and tricked the Wazulis into attacking Conan, meaning to steal the Devi during the fight. But Conan escaped 283.

from the village on Yar Afzal's black stallion, carrying Yasmina with him, and Khemsa, approaching through a defile in the hills, was surprized and knocked down by the rush of the horse. The Wazulis, pursuing Conan, attacked Khemsa, who loosed upon them all the horrors of his black magic.

(The People of the Black Circle) Robert E. Howard THE STORY THUS FAR.

(First Eight Chapters.) Yasmina Devi, queen of Vendhya, sought vengeance for her brother, who had met his death through the sorcery of the Black Seers of Yimsha, magicians who dwelt on a mountain Ghulistan, a wild barbaric hill country.

To secure the a.s.sistance of Conan, chief of the Afghulis of that country, she had the governor of Peshkhauri capture seven Afghuli headmen as hostages. But Conan kidnaped Yasmina and carried her into the mountains. Three others desired to secure possession of Yasmina: Kerim Shah, a spy of Yezdigerd, king of Turan, who plotted the conquest of Vendhya; Khemsa, a former acolyte of the Black Seers, and his sweetheart, Gitara, Yasmina's treacherous maid.

These two wished to wring a huge ransom from Vendhya.

Khemsa employed his black magic to kill the seven Afghuli headmen so they could not be used to buy Yasmina's release from Conan, and he and he and Gitara followed Conan into the hills.

Conan, in the meantime, had sought shelter with his friend Yar Afzal, chief of the Wazulis.

Khemsa killed Yar Afzal with his magic, and tricked the Wazulis into driving Conan from their village. He then sought to take Yasmina from Conan, but during a fight between the two, the Black Seers themselves arrived on the scene. They destroyed Gitara and Khemsa, and carried Yasmina away with them. Before Khemsa died he gave Conan a Stygian girdle of great magic powers.

Conan, riding toward Afghulistan to gather his followers to rescue Yasmina, met five hundred of them seeking him. They had learned of the death of the seven headmen, and believed he had betrayed them. Escaping from them, he met the spy, Kerim Shah, with a band of Irakzai, riding to meet a Turanian army which was forcing its way through the hills to capture Yasmina, whom they thought a captive among the Afghulis.

Striking a temporary truce, Conan and Kerim Shah rode together toward Yimsha.

284.

In the meantime Yasmina, in the wizard castle, had met the mysterious figure called the Master, who told her she was to be his slave. To terrify her into subjection he forced her to relive all her past reincarnations, and when she awoke, she saw a hooded shape near her in the gloom. It clasped her in its bony arms, and she screamed to see a fleshless skull grinning from the shadow of the hood.

285.

Unt.i.tled Synopsis Amalric, a son of a n.o.bleman of the great house of Valerus, of western Aquilonia, halted at a palm-bordered spring in the desolate vastness of the desert that lies south of Stygia, with two companions, members of the bandit tribe of Ghanata, a negro race mixed with Shemitish blood.

The Ghanatas with Amalric were named Gobir, and Saidu. Just at dusk, as they prepared to eat their frugal meal of dried dates, the third member of the tribe rode up Tilutan, a black giant, famous for his ferocity and swordsmans.h.i.+p. He carried across his saddle-bow an unconscious white girl, whom he had found falling with exhaustion and thirst out on the desert as he hunted for the rare desert antelope. He cast the girl down beside the spring and began reviving her.

Gobir and Saidu watched Amalric, expecting him to try to rescue her, but he feigned inidifference, and asked them which would take the girl after Tilutan wearied of her. That started an argument, and he cast down a pair of dice, telling them to gamble for her. As they crouched over the dice, he drew his sword and split Gobir's skull. Instantly Saidu attacked him, and Tilutan threw down the girl and ran at him, drawing his terrible scimitar. Amalric wheeled about, causing Saidu to receive the thrust instead of himself, and hurling the wounded man into Tilutan's arms, grappled with the giant. Tilutan bore Amalric to the earth, and was strangling him, and threw him down, and rose to procure his sword and cut off his head. But as he ran at him, his girdle became unwound and he tripped and fell over it. His sword flew from his hand and Amalric caught it up and slashed his head nearly off. Then he reeled and fell senseless. He came to life again with the girl splas.h.i.+ng him with water. He found she spoke a language akin to the Kothic, and they could understand each other. She said her name was Lissa; she was a beautiful youngster, white soft white skin, violet eyes, and dark wavy hair. Her innocence shamed the wild young soldier of fortune, and he forwent his intention of raping her. She supposed that he had fought his companions merely to rescue her, and he did not disillusion her. She said that she was an inhabitant of the city of Gazal, lying not far to the southeast. She had run away from Gazal, on foot, her water supply had given out, and she had fainted just as she was discovered by Tilutan. Amalric put her on a camel, he mounted a horse the other beasts having broken away and bolted into the desert during the fight and dawn found them approaching Gazal. Amalric was astounded to find the city a ma.s.s of ruins, except for a tower in the southeastern corner. When he spoke of it, Lissa turned pale, and begged him not to talk of it. He found the people were a dreamy, kindly race, without practical sense, much given to poetry and day dreams. There were not many of them, and they were a dying race. They had come into the desert and built the city over an oasis long ago a cultured, scholarly race, not given to war. They were never attacked by any of the fierce and brutal nomadic tribes, because these people looked on Gazal with superst.i.tious awe, and wors.h.i.+pped the thing that lurked in the southeastern tower. Amalric told Lissa his story that he had been a soldier in the army of Argos, under the Zingaran Prince Zapayo da Kova, which had sailed in s.h.i.+ps down the Kus.h.i.+te coast, landed in southern Stygia, and sought to invade the kingdom from that direction, while the armies of Koth invaded from the north. But Koth had treacherously made peace with 286.

Stygia, and the army in the south was trapped. They found their escape to the sea cut off, and tried to fight their way eastward, hoping to gain the lands of the Shemites. But the army was annihilated in the desert. Amalric had fled with his companion, Conan, a giant Cimmerian, but they had been attacked by a band of wild-riding brown-skinned men of strange dress and appearance, and Conan was cut down. Amalric escaped under cover of night, and wandered in the desert, suffering from hunger and thirst, until he fell in with the three vultures of the Ghanata. He spoke of the unreality of the city of Gazal, and Lissa told him of her childish yet pa.s.sionate desire to break way from the stagnating environment, and see something of the world. She gave herself to him as naturally as a child, and as they lay together on a silk- covered couch in a chamber lighted only by the starlight, they heard awful cries from a building nearby. Amalric would have investigated, but Lissa clung to him, trembling, and told him the secret of the lonely tower. There dwelt a supernatural monster, which occasionally descended into the city and devoured one of the inhabitants. What the thing was, Lissa did not know. But she told of bats flying from the tower at dusk, and returning before dawn, and of piteous cries from victims carried up into the mysterious tower. Amalric was unnerved, and recognized the thing as a mysterious deity wors.h.i.+pped by certain cults among the negro tribes.

He urged Lissa to flee with him before dawn the inhabitants of Gazal had so far lost their initiative that they were helpless, unable to fight or flee like men hypnotized, which the young Aquilonian believed to be the case. He went to prepare their mounts, and returning, heard Lissa give an awful scream. He rushed into the chamber and found it empty. Sure she had been seized by the monster, he rushed to the tower, ascended a stair, and found himself in an upper chamber in which he found a white man, of strange beauty. Remembering an ancient incantation repeated to him by an old Kus.h.i.+te priest of a rival cult, he repeated it, binding the demon into his human form. A terrific battle then ensued, in which he drove his sword through the being's heart. As it died it screamed horribly for vengeance and was answered by voices from the air. Then it altered in a hideous manner, and Amalric fled in horror. He met Lissa at the foot of the stair. She had been frightened by a glimpse of the creature dragging its human prey through the corridors, and had run away in ungovernable panic and hidden herself.

Realizing that her lover had gone to the tower to seek her, she had come to share his fate. He crushed her briefly in his arms, and led her to where he had left their mounts. It was dawn when they rode out of the city, she upon the camel and he upon the horse. Looking back on the sleeping city, in which there were no animals at all, they saw seven hors.e.m.e.n ride out black robed men on gaunt black horses following them. Panic a.s.sailed them, for they knew those were no human riders. All day they pushed their steeds mercilessly, westward, toward the distant coast. They found no water, and the horse became exhausted just before sundown. All the while the black figures had followed relentlessly, and as dusk fell they began to close in rapidly. Amalric knew they were ghoulish creatures summoned from the abyss by the death cry of the monster in the tower. As darkness gathered, the pursuers were close upon them. A bat- shaped shadow blotted out the moon, and the fugitives could smell the charnel-house reek of their hunters. Suddenly the camel stumbled and fell, and the fiends closed in. Lissa shrieked.

Then there came a drum of hoofs, a gusty voice roared, and the fiends were swept away by the headlong charge of a band of hors.e.m.e.n. The leader of these dismounted and bent over the exhausted youth and girl, and as the moon came out, he swore in a familiar voice. It was Conan 287.

the Cimmerian. Camp was made and the fugitives given food and drink. The Cimmerian's companions were the wild-looking brown men who had attacked him and Amalric. They were the riders of Tombalku, that semi-mythical desert city whose kings had subjugated the tribes of the southwestern desert and the negro races of the steppes. Conan told them that he had been knocked senseless and carried to the distant city to be exhibited to the kings of Tombalku.

There were always two of these kings, though one was generally merely a figure-head. Carried before the kings, he was doomed to die by torture, and he demanded that liquor be given him, and cursed the kings roundly. At that, one of them woke from his drowse with interest. He was a big fat negro, while the other was a lean brown-skinned man, named Zehbeh. The negro stared at Conan, and greeted him by the name of Amra, the Lion. The black man's name was Sak.u.mbe, and he was an adventurer from the West Coast who had been connected with Conan when the latter was a corsair devastating the coast. He had become one of the kings of Tombalku partly because of the support of the negro population, partly because of the machinations of a fanatical priest, Askia, who had risen to power over Zehbeh's priest, Daura.

He had Conan instantly freed, and raised to the high position of general of all the hors.e.m.e.n incidentally having the present inc.u.mbent, one Kordofo, poisoned. In Tombalku were various factions Zehbeh and the brown priests, Kordofo's kin who hated both Zehbeh and Sak.u.mbe, and Sak.u.mbe and his supporters, of whom the most powerful was Conan himself. All this Conan told Amalric, and the next day they rode on toward Tombalku. Conan had been riding to drive from the land the Ghanata thieves. In three days they reached Tombalku, a strange fantastic city set in the sands of the desert, beside an oasis of many springs. It was a city of many tongues. The dominant caste, the founders of the city, were a warlike brown race, descendents of the Aphaki, a Shemitish tribe which pushed into the desert several hundred years before, and mixed with the negro races. The subject tribes included the Tibu, a desert race, of mixed negro and Stygian blood; and the Bagirmi, Mandingo, Dongola, Bornu, and other negro tribes of the gra.s.slands to the south. They arrived in Tombalku in time to witness the horrible execution of Daura, the Aphaki priest, by Askia. The Aphaki were enraged, but helpless against the determined stand of their black subjects to whom they had taught the arts of war. Sak.u.mbe, once a man of remarkable courage, vitality and statescraft, had degenerated into a mountainous ma.s.s of fat, caring for nothing except women and wine. Conan played dice with him, got drunk with him, and suggested that they eliminate Zehbeh entirely. The Cimmerian wished to be a king of Tombalku himself. So Askia was persuaded to denounced Zehbeh, and in the b.l.o.o.d.y civil war that followed, the Aphaki were defeated, and Zehbeh fled the city with his riders. Conan took his seat beside Sak.u.mbe, but strive as he would, he found the negro the real ruler of the city, because of his ascendency over the black races. Meanwhile, Askia had been suspicious of Amalric, and he finally denounced him as the slayer of the G.o.d wors.h.i.+pped by the cult of which he was a priest, and demanded that he and the girl be given to the torture. Conan refused, and Sak.u.mbe, completely dominated by the Cimmerian, backed him up. Then Askia turned on Sak.u.mbe and destroyed him by means of an awful magic.

Conan, realizing that with Sak.u.mbe slain, the blacks would rend him and his friends, shouted to Amalric, and cut a way through the bewildered warriors. As the companions strove to reach the outer walls, Zehbeh and his Aphaki attacked the city, and in a wild holocaust of blood and 288.

flame, Tombalku was almost destroyed, and Conan, Amalric and Lissa escaped.

289.

Unt.i.tled Draft

CHAPTER 1.

Three men squatted beside the water hole, beneath the sunset sky that painted the desert umber and red. One was white, and his name was Amalric; the other two were Ghanatas, their tatters scarcely concealing their wiry black frames. Men called them Gobir and Saidu; they looked like vultures as they crouched beside the water hole.

Near by a camel ground its cud noisely, and a pair of weary horses vainly nuzzled the bare sand. The men munched dried dates cheerlessly, the black men intent only on the working of their jaws, the white man occasionally glancing at the dull red sky, or out across the level monotony where the shadows were gathering and deepening. He was first to see the horseman who rode up and drew rein with a jerk that set the steed rearing.

The rider was a giant whose skin, blacker than that of the other two, as well as his thick lips and flaring nostrils, told of negro blood in vastly predominating abundance. His wide silk pantaloons, gathered in about his bare ankles, 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 where ever the dark-skinned sons of the desert rode. He was Tilutan, the pride of the Ghanata.

Across his saddle bow a limp shape lay, or rather hung. Breath hissed through the teeth of the Ghanatas as they caught the gleam of white limbs. It was a white girl who hung across Tilutan's saddle bow, face down, her loose hair flowing over his stirrup in a rippling black wave. The black grinned with a glint of white teeth, and cast her casually in to the sand, where she lay laxly, unconscious. Instinctively Gobir and Saidu turned toward Amalric, and Tilutan watched him from his saddle. Three black men against one white. The entrance of a white woman into the scene wrought a subtle change in the atmosphere.

Amalric was the only one who was apparently oblivious to the tenseness. He raked back his rebellious yellow locks absently, and glanced indifferently at the girl's limp figure. If there was a momentary gleam in his grey eyes, the others did not catch it.

Tilutan swung down from his saddle, contemptuously tossing 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 think she fainted from weariness and thirst. Get away from there, you jackals, and let me give her a drink."

290.

The big black stretched her out beside the water hole, and began laving her face and wrists, and trickling a few drops between her parched lips. She moaned presently and stirred vaguely.

Gobir and Saidu crouched with their hands on their knees, staring at her over Tilutan's burly shoulder. Amalric stood a little apart from them, his interest seeming only casual.

"She is coming to," announced Gobir.

Saidu said nothing, but he licked his thick lips involuntarily, animal-like.

Amalric's gaze travelled impersonally over the prostrate form, from the torn sandals to the loose crown of glossy black hair. Her only garment was a silk kirtle, girdled 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 womanhood.

Amalric shrugged his shoulders.

"After Tilutan, who?" he asked carelessly.

A pair of lean heads turned toward him, blood-shot eyes rolled at the question, then the black men turned and mutually stared at one another. Sudden rivalry crackled electrically between them.

"Don't fight," urged Amalric. "Cast the dice." His hand came from under his worn tunic, and he threw down a pair of dice before them. A claw like hand seized them.

"Aye!" agreed Gobir. "We cast after Tilutan, the winner!"

Amalric cast a glance toward the giant black, 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 of the black man, bewilderedly. An explosive exclamation of gratification escaped the thick lips of Tilutan. Wrenching a flask from his girdle, he put it to her mouth. She drank the wine mechanically. Amalric avoided her wandering gaze; one white men and three blacks either of them his match.

Gobir and Saidu bent above the dice; Saidu cupped them in his palm, breathed on them for luck, shook and threw. Two vulture-like heads bent over the spinning cubes in the dim light.

And Amalric drew and struck with the same motion. The edge sliced through a thick neck, severing the wind-pipe, and Gobir fell across the dice, spurting blood, his head hanging by a shred.

291.

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 time to catch the stroke on his lifted sword.

The whistling scimitar beat the straight blade down on the white man's head, staggering him.

Amalric released his sword and threw both arms about Saidu, dragging him into close quarters where his scimitar was useless. Under the desert man's rags, the wiry frame was like steel cords.

Tilutan, comprehending the matter instantly, had cast the girl down and risen with a roar. He rushed toward the strugglers like a charging bull his great scimitar flaming in his hand. Amalric saw him coming, and his flesh turned cold. Saidu was jerking and wrenching, handicapped by the scimitar he was still seeking futilely to turn against his antagonist. Their feet twisted and stamped in the sand, their bodies ground against one another. Amalric smashed his sandal heel down on the Ghanata's bare instep, feeling bones give way. Saidu howled and plunged convulsively, and Amalric, aiding his leap with a desperate heave of his own. They lurched drunkenly about, just as Tilutan struck with a rolling drive of his broad shoulders. Amalric felt the steel rasp under part of his arm, and chug deep into Saidu's body. The Ghanata gave an agonized scream, and his convulsive start tore himself free of Amalric's grasp. Tilutan roared a furious oath and wrenching his steel free, hurled the dying man aside, but before he could strike again, Amalric, his skin crawling with the fear of that great curved blade, had grappled with him.

Despair swept over him as he felt the strength of the negro. Tilutan was wiser than Saidu. He dropped the scimitar and with a bellow, caught Amalric's throat with both hands. The great black fingers locked like iron, and Amalric, striving vainly to break their grip, was borne down, with the Ghanata's great weight pinning him to the earth. The smaller man was shaken like a rat in the jaws of a dog. His head was smashed savagely against the sandy earth. As in a red mist he saw the furious face of the negro, the thick lips writhed back in a b.e.s.t.i.a.l grin of hate, the teeth glistening. A b.e.s.t.i.a.l snarling slavered from the thick black throat.

"You want her, you white dog!" the Ghanata mouthed, insane with rage and l.u.s.t." Arrrrghhh! I break your back! I tear it out your throat! I my scimitar! I cut off your head and make her kiss it!"

A final ferocious smash of Amalric's head against the hard packed sand, and Tilutan half lifted him and hurled him down in an excess of b.e.s.t.i.a.l pa.s.sion. Rising, the black ran, stooping like an ape, and caught up his scimitar where it lay like a broad crescent of steel in the sand. Yelling in ferocious exultation, he turned and charged back, brandis.h.i.+ng the blade on high. Amalric rose slowly to meet him, dazed, shaken, sick from the manhandling he had received.

Tilutan's girdle had become unwound in the fight, and now the end dangled about his feet. He tripped, stumbled, fell headlong, throwing out his arms to save himself. The scimitar flew from his hand.

292.

Amalric, galvanized, caught up the scimitar, and took a reeling step forward. The desert swam darkly to his gaze. In the dusk before him he saw Tilutan's face suddenly ashy. The wide mouth gaped, the whites of the eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled up. The black froze on one knee and a hand, as if incapable of further motion. Then the scimitar fell, cleaving the round shaven head to the chin, where its downward course was checked with a sickening jerk. Amalric had a dim impression of a black face, divided by a widening red line, fading in the thickening shadows, then darkness caught him with a rush.

Something soft and cool was touching Amalric's face with gentle persistence. He groped blindly and his hand closed on something warm, firm and resilient. Then his sight cleared and he looked into a soft oval face, framed in l.u.s.trous black hair. As in a trance he gazed 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 musical voice. The words were strange, yet possessed an illusive familiarity. A small white hand, holding a dripping bunch of silk was pa.s.sed gently over his throbbing head and his 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 black figure with its cleft head in a horrible puddle of blood and brains. Amalric looked up at the girl who knelt beside him, talking in her gentle unknown tongue. As the mists cleared from his brain, he began to understand her. Harking back into half forgotten tongues he had learned and spoken in the past, he remembered a language used by a scholarly cla.s.s in a southern province of Koth.

"Who are you, girl?" he demanded, prisoning a small hand in his own hardened fingers.

"I am Lissa." The name was spoken with almost the suggestion of a lisp. It was like the rippling of a slender stream. "I am glad you are conscious. I feared you were not alive."

"A little more and I wouldn't have been," he muttered, glancing at the grisly sprawl that had been Tilutan. She paled, and refused to follow his gaze. Her hand trembled, and in their nearness, Amalric thought he could feel the quick throb of her heart.

"It was horrible," she faltered. "Like an awful dream. Anger and blows and blood "

"It might have been worse," he growled.

She seemed sensitive to every changing inflection of voice or mood. Her free hand stole timidly to his arm.

"I did not mean to offend you. It was very brave for you to risk your life for a stranger. You are 293.

n.o.ble as the knights about which I have read."

He cast a quick glance at her. Her wide clear eyes met his, reflecting only the thought she had spoken. He started to speak, then changed his mind and said another thing.

"What are you doing in the desert?"

"I came from Gazal," she answered. "I I was running away. I could not stand it any longer.

But it was hot and lonely and weary, and I saw only sand, sand and the blazing blue sky. The sands burned my feet, and my sandals were worn out quickly. I was so thirsty, my canteen was soon empty. And then I wished to return to Gazal, but one direction looked like another. I did not know which way to go. I was terribly afraid, and started running in the direction in which I thought Gazal to be. I do not remember much after that; I ran until I could run no further, and I must have lain in the burning sand for awhile. I remember rising and staggering on, and toward the last, I thought I heard some one shouting, and saw a black man on a black horse riding toward me, and then I knew no more, until I awoke and found myself lying with my head in that man's lap, while he gave me wine to drink. Then there was shouting and fighting " she shuddered. "When it was all over, I crept to where you lay like a dead man, and I tried to bring you to "

"Why?" he demanded.

She seemed at a loss. "Why," she floundered, "why, you were hurt and why, it is what anyone would do. Besides, I realized that you were fighting to protect me from these black men. The people of Gazal have always said that the black people were wicked, and would harm the helpless."

"That's no exclusive characteristic of the blacks," muttered Amalric. "Where is this Gazal?"