file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Robert%20E.%20Howard%20-%20Conan%20-%20A%20Witch%20Shall%20be%20Born.txt

A WITCH SHALL BE BORN
A Conan Story
by Robert E. Howard

1    THE BLOOD-RED CRESCENT
     Taramis, Queen of Khauran, awakened from a dream-haunted slumber to a silence that seemed
more like the stillness of nighted catacombs than the normal quiet of a sleeping place. She lay
staring into the darkness, wondering why the candles in their golden candelabra had gone out. A
flecking of stars marked a gold-barred casement that lent no illumination to the interior of the
chamber. But as Taramis lay there, she became aware of a spot of radiance glowing in the darkness
before her. She watched, puzzled. It grew and its intensity deepened as it expanded, a widening
disk of lurid light hovering against the dark velvet hangings of the opposite wall. Taramis caught
her breath, starting up to a sitting position. A dark object was visible in that circle of light -
a human bead.
     In a sudden panic the queen opened her lips to cry out for her maids; then she checked
herself. The glow was more lurid, the head more vividly limned. It was a woman's head, small,
delicately molded, superbly poised, with a high-piled mass of lustrous black hair. The face grew
distinct as she stared - and it was the sight of this face which froze the cry in Taramis's
throat. The features were her own! She might have been looking into a mirror which subtly altered
her reflection, lending it a tigerish gleam of eye, a vindictive curl of lip.
     "Ishtar!" gasped Taramis. "I am bewitched!" Appallingly, the apparition spoke, and its
voice was like honeyed venom.
     "Bewitched? No, sweet sister! Here is no sorcery." "Sister?" stammered the bewildered girl.
"I have no sister." "You never had a sister?" came the sweet, poisonously mocking voice. "Never a
twin sister whose flesh was as soft as yours to caress or hurt?"
     "Why, once I had a sister," answered Taramis, still convinced that she was in the grip of
some sort of nightmare. "But she died."
     The beautiful face in the disk was convulsed with the aspect of a fury; so hellish became its
expression that Taramis, cowering back, half expected to see snaky locks writhe hissing about the
ivory brow.
     "You lie!" The accusation was spat from between the snarling red lips. "She did not die!
Fool! Oh, enough of this mummery! Look - and let your sight be blasted!"
     Light ran suddenly along the hangings like flaming serpents, and incredibly the candles in
the golden sticks flared up again. Taramis crouched on her velvet couch, her lithe legs flexed
beneath her, staring wide-eyed at the pantherish figure which posed mockingly before her. It was
as if she gazed upon another Taramis, identical with herself in every contour of feature and limb,
yet animated by an alien and evil personality. The face of this stranger waif reflected the
opposite of every characteristic the countenance of the queen denoted. Lust and mystery sparkled
in her scintillant eyes, cruelty lurked in the curl of her full red lips. Each movement of her
supple body was subtly suggestive. Her coiffure imitated that of the queen's, on her feet were
gilded sandals such as Taramis wore in her boudoir. The sleeveless, low-necked silk tunic, girdled
at the waist with a cloth-of-gold cincture, was a duplicate of the queen's night-garment.
     "Who are you?" gasped Taramis, an icy chill she could not explain creeping along her spine.
"Explain your presence before I call my ladies-in-waiting to summon the guard!"
     "Scream until the roof beams crack," callously answered the stranger. "Your sluts will not
wake till dawn, though the palace spring into flames about them. Your guardsmen will not hear your
squeals; they have been sent out of this wing of the palace."
     "What!" exclaimed Taramis, stiffening with outraged majesty. "Who dared give my guardsmen
such a command?"
     "I did, sweet sister," sneered the other girl. "A little while ago, before I entered. They
thought it was their darling adored queen. Ha! How beautifully I acted the part! With what
imperious dignity, softened by womanly sweetness, did I address the great louts who knelt in their
armor and plumed helmets!"
     Taramis felt as if a stifling net of bewilderment were being drawn about her.
     "Who are you?" she cried desperately. "What madness is this? Why do you come here?"
     "Who am I?" There was the spite of a she-cobra's hiss in the soft response. The girl stepped
to the edge of the couch, grasped the queen's white shoulders with fierce fingers, and bent to
glare full into the startled eyes of Taramis. And under the spell of that hypnotic glare, the
queen forgot to resent the unprecedented outrage of violent hands laid on regal flesh.
     "Fool!" gritted the girl between her teeth. "Can you ask? Can you wonder? I am Salome!"
     "Salome!" Taramis breathed the word, and the hairs prickled on her scalp as she realized the


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incredible, numbing truth of the statement. "I thought you died within the hour of your birth,"
she said feebly.
     "So thought many," answered the woman who called herself Salome. "They carried me into the
desert to die, damn them! I, a mewing, puling babe whose life was so young it was scarcely the
flicker of a candle. And do you know why they bore me forth to die?"
     "I - I have heard the story--" faltered Taramis.
     Salome laughed fiercely, and slapped her bosom. The low-necked tunic left the upper parts of
her firm breasts bare, and between them there shone a curious mark - a crescent, red as blood.
     "The mark of the witch!" cried Taramis, recoiling.
     "Aye!" Salome's laughter was dagger-edged with hate. "The curse of the kings of Khauran! Aye,
they tell the tale in the market-places, with wagging beards and rolling eyes, the pious fools!
They tell how the first queen of our line had traffic with a fiend of darkness and bore him a
daughter who lives in foul legendry to this day. And thereafter in each century a girl baby was
born into the Askhaurian dynasty, with a scarlet half-moon between her breasts, that signified her
destiny.
     ""Every century a witch shall be born." So ran the ancient curse. And so it has come to pass.
Some were slain at birth, as they sought to slay me. Some walked the earth as witches, proud
daughters of Khauran, with the moon of hell burning upon their ivory bosoms. Each was named
Salome. I too am Salome. It was always Salome, the witch. It will always be Salome, the witch,
even when the mountains of ice have roared down from the pole and ground the civilizations to
ruin, and a new world has risen from the ashes and dust - even then there shall be Salomes to walk
the earth, to trap men's hearts by their sorcery, to dance before the kings of the world, to see
the heads of the wise men fall at their pleasure."
     "But - but you--" stammered Taramis.
     "I?" The scintillant eyes burned like dark fires of mystery. "They carried me into the desert
far from the city, and laid me naked on the hot sand, under the flaming sun. And then they rode
away and left me for the jackals and the vultures and the desert wolves.
     "But the life in me was stronger than the life in common folk, for it partakes of the essence
of the forces that seethe in the black gulfs beyond mortal ken. The hours passed, and the sun
slashed down like the molten flames of hell, but I did not die -aye, something of that torment I
remember, faintly and far away, as one remembers a dim, formless dream. Then there were camels,
and yellow-skinned men who wore silk robes and spoke in a weird tongue. Strayed from the caravan
road, they passed close by, and their leader saw me, and recognized the scarlet crescent on my
bosom. He took me up and gave me life.
     "He was a magician from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdom after a journey to
Stygia. He took me with him to purple-towering Paikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-
festooned jungles of bamboo, and there I grew to womanhood under his teaching. Age had steeped him
deep in black wisdom, not weakened his powers of evil. Many things he taught me--"
     She paused, smiling enigmatically, with wicked mystery gleaming in her dark eyes. Then she
tossed her head.
     "He drove me from him at last, saying that I was but a common witch in spite of his
teachings, and not fit to command the mighty sorcery he would have taught me. He would have made
me queen of the world and ruled the nations through me, he said, but I was only a harlot of
darkness. But what of it? I could never endure to seclude myself in a golden tower, and spend the
long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumbling over incantations written on serpent's skin in
the blood of virgins, poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.
     "He said I was but an earthly sprite, knowing naught of the deeper gulfs of cosmic sorcery.
Well, this world contains all I desire - power, and pomp, and glittering pageantry, handsome men
and soft women for my paramours and my slaves. He had told me who I was, of the curse and my
heritage. I have returned to take that to which I have as much right as you. Now it is mine by
right of possession."
     "What do you mean?" Taramis sprang up and faced her sister, stung out of her bewilderment and
fright. "Do you imagine that by drugging a few of my maids and tricking a few of my guardsmen you
have established a claim to the throne of Khauran? Do not forget that I am Queen of Khauran! I
shall give you a place of honor, as my sister, but--"
     Salome laughed hatefully.
     "How generous of you, dear, sweet sister! But before you begin putting me in my place -
perhaps you will tell me whose soldiers camp in the plain outside the city walls?"
     "They are the Shemitish mercenaries of Constantius, the Kothic voivode of the Free
Companies."
     "And what do they in Khauran?" cooed Salome.


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     Taramis felt that she was being subtly mocked, but she answered with an assumption of dignity
which she scarcely felt.
     "Constantius asked permission to pass along the borders of Khauran on his way to Turan. He
himself is hostage for their good behavior as long as they are within my domains."
     "And Constantius," pursued Salome. "Did he not ask your hand today?"
     Taramis shot her a clouded glance of suspicion.
     "How did you know that?"
     An insolent shrug of the slim naked shoulders was the only reply.
     "You refused, dear sister?"
     "Certainly I refused!" exclaimed Taramis angrily. "Do you, an Askhaurian princess yourself,
suppose that the Queen of Khauran could treat such a proposal with anything but disdain? Wed a
bloody-handed adventurer, a man exiled from his own kingdom because of his crimes, and the leader
of organized plunderers and hired murderers?
     "I should never have allowed him to bring his black-bearded slayers into Khauran. But he is
virtually a prisoner in the south tower, guarded by my soldiers. Tomorrow I shall bid him order
his troops to leave the kingdom. He himself shall be kept captive until they are over the border.
Meantime, my soldiers man the walls of the city, and I have warned him that he will answer for any
outrages perpetrated on the villagers or shepherds by his mercenaries."
     "He is confined in the south tower?" asked Salome. "That is what I said. Why do you ask?"
     For answer Salome clapped her hands, and lifting her voice, with a gurgle of cruel mirth in
it, called: "The queen grants you an audience, Falcon!"
     A gold-arabesqued door opened and a tall figure entered the chamber, at the sight of which
Taramis cried out in amazement and anger.
     "Constantius! You dare enter my chamber!" "As you see, Your Majesty!" He bent his dark, hawk-
like head in mock humility.
     Constantius, whom men called Falcon, was tall, broad-shoul-lered, slim-waisted, lithe and
strong as pliant steel. He was landsome in an aquiline, ruthless way. His face was burnt dark ay
the sun, and his hair, which grew far back from his high, arrow forehead, was black as a raven.
His dark eyes were jenetrating and alert, the hardness of his thin lips not softened ay his thin
black mustache. His boots were of Kordavan leather, lis hose and doublet of plain, dark silk,
tarnished with the wear af the camps and the stains of armor rust.
     Twisting his mustache, he let his gaze travel up and down the shrinking queen with an
effrontery that made her wince.
     "By Ishtar, Taramis," he said silkily, "I find you more alluring in your night-tunic than in
your queenly robes. Truly, this is an auspicious night!"
     Fear grew in the queen's dark eyes. She was no fool; she knew that Constantius would never
dare this outrage unless he was sure of himself.
     "You are mad!" she said. "If I am in your power in this chamber, you are no less in the power
of my subjects, who will rend you to pieces if you touch me. Go at once, if you would live."
     Both laughed mockingly, and Salome made an impatient gesture.
     "Enough of this farce; let us on to the next act in the comedy. Listen, dear sister: it was I
who sent Constantius here. When I decided to take the throne of Khauran, I cast about for a man to
aid me, and chose the Falcon, because of his utter lack of all characteristics men call good."
     "I am overwhelmed, princess," murmured Constantius sardonically, with a profound bow.
     "I sent him to Khauran, and, once his men were camped in the plain outside, and he was in the
palace, I entered the city by that small gate in the west wall - the fools guarding it thought it
was you returning from some nocturnal adventure--"
     "You hell-cat!" Taramis's cheeks flamed and her resentment got the better of her regal
reserve.
     Salome smiled hardly.
     "They were properly surprised and shocked, but admitted me without question. I entered the
palace the same way, and gave the order to the surprised guards that sent them marching away, as
well as the men who guarded Constantius in the south tower. Then I came here, attending to the
ladies-in-waiting on the way."
     Taramis's fingers clenched and she paled.
     "Well, what next?" she asked in a shaky voice.
     "Listen!" Salome inclined her head. Faintly through the casement there came the clank of
marching men in armor; gruff voices shouted in an alien tongue, and cries of alarm mingled with
the shouts.
     "The people awaken and grow fearful," said Constantius sardonically. "You had better go and
reassure them, Salome!"


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     "Call me Taramis," answered Salome. "We must become accustomed to it."
     "What have you done?" cried Taramis. "What have you done?"
     "I have gone to the gates and ordered the soldiers to open them," answered Salome. "They were
astounded, but they obeyed. That is the Falcon's army you hear, marching into the city."
     "You devil!" cried Taramis. "You have betrayed my people, in my guise! You have made me seem
a traitor! Oh, I shall go to them--"
     With a cruel laugh Salome caught her wrist and jerked her back. The magnificent suppleness of
the queen was helpless against the vindictive strength that steeled Salome's slender limbs.
     "You know how to reach the dungeons from the palace, Constantius?" said the witch-girl.
"Good. Take this spitfire and lock her into the strongest cell. The jailers are all sound in
drugged sleep. I saw to that. Send a man to cut their throats before they can awaken. None must
ever know what has occurred tonight. Thenceforward I am Taramis, and Taramis is a nameless
prisoner in an unknown dungeon."
     Constantius smiled with a glint of strong white teeth under his thin mustache.
     "Very good; but you would not deny me a little - ah -amusement first?"
     "Not I! Tame the scornful hussy as you will." With a wicked laugh Salome flung her sister
into the Kothian's arms, and turned away through the door that opened into the outer corridor.
     Fright widened Taramis's lovely eyes, her supple figure rigid and straining against
Constantius's embrace. She forgot the men marching in the streets, forgot the outrage to her
queenship, in the face of the menace to her womanhood. She forgot all sensations but terror and
shame as she faced the complete cynicism of Constantius's burning, mocking eyes, felt his hard
arms crushing her writhing body.
     Salome, hurrying along the corridor outside, smiled spitefully as a scream of despair and
agony rang shuddering through the palace.

2    THE TREE OF DEATH
     The young soldier's hose and shirt were smeared with dried blood, wet with sweat and gray
with dust. Blood oozed from the deep gash in his thigh, from the cuts on his breast and shoulder.
Perspiration glistened on his livid face and his fingers were knotted in the cover of the divan on
which he lay. Yet his words reflected mental suffering that outweighed physical pain.
     "She must be mad!" he repeated again and again, like one still stunned by some monstrous and
incredible happening. "It's like a nightmare! Taramis, whom all Khauran loves, betraying her
people to that devil from Koth! Oh, Ishtar, why was I not slain? Better die than live to see our
queen turn traitor and harlot!"
     "Lie still, Valerius," begged the girl who was washing and bandaging his wounds with
trembling hands. "Oh, please lie still, darling! You will make your wounds worse. I dared not
summon a leech--"
     "No," muttered the wounded youth. "Constantius's blue-bearded devils will be searching the
quarters for wounded Khaurani; they'll hang every man who Jias wounds to show he fought against
them. Oh, Taramis, how could you betray the people who worshipped you?" In his fierce agony he
writhed, weeping in rage and shame, and the terrified girl caught him in her arms, straining his
tossing head against her bosom, imploring him to be quiet.
     "Better death than the black shame that has come upon Khauran this day," he groaned. "Did you
see it, Ivga?"
     "No, Valerius." Her soft, nimble fingers were again at work, gently cleansing and closing the
gaping edges of his raw wounds. "I was awakened by the noise of fighting in the streets -I looked
out a casement and saw the Shemites cutting down people; then presently I heard you calling me
faintly from the alley door."
     "I had reached the limits of my strength," he muttered. "I fell in the alley and could not
rise. I knew they'd find me soon if I lay there - I killed three of the blue-bearded beasts, by
Ishtar! They'll never swagger through Khauran's streets, by the gods! The fiends are tearing their
hearts in hell!"
     The trembling girl crooned soothingly to him, as to a wounded child, and closed his panting
lips with her own cool sweet mouth. But the fire that raged in his soul would not allow him to lie
silent.
     "I was not on the wall when the Shemites entered," he burst out. "I was asleep in the
barracks, with the others not on duty. It was just before dawn when our captain entered, and his
face was pale under his helmet. "The Shemites are in the city," he said. "The queen came to the
southern gate and gave orders that they should be admitted. She made the men come down from the
walls, where they've been on guard since Constantius entered the kingdom. I don't understand it,
and neither does anyone else, but I heard her give the order, and we obeyed as we always do. We


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are ordered to assemble in the square before the palace. Form ranks outside the barracks and march
- leave your arms and armor here. Ishtar knows what this means, but it is the queen's order."
      "Well, when we came to the square the Shemites were drawn up on foot opposite the palace, ten
thousand of the blue-bearded devils, fully armed, and people's heads were thrust out of every
window and door on the square. The streets leading into the square were thronged by bewildered
folk. Taramis was standing on the steps of the palace, alone except for Constantius, who stood
stroking his mustache like a great lean cat who has just devoured a sparrow. But fifty Shemites
with bows in their hands were ranged below them.
      "That's where the queen's guard should have been, but they were drawn up at the foot of the
palace stair, as puzzled as we, though they had come fully armed, in spite of the queen's order.
      "Taramis spoke to us then, and told us that she had reconsidered the proposal made her by
Constantius - why, only yesterday she threw it in his teeth in open court - and that she had
decided to make him her royal consort. She did not explain why she had brought the Shemites into
the city so treacherously. But she said that, as Constantius had control of a body of professional
fighting-men, the army of Khauran would no longer be needed, and therefore she disbanded it, and
ordered us to go quietly to our homes.
      "Why, obedience to our queen is second nature to us, but we were struck dumb and found no
word to answer. We broke ranks almost before we knew what we were doing, like men in a daze.
      "But when the palace guard was ordered to disarm likewise and disband, the captain of the
guard, Conan, interrupted. Men said he was off duty the night before, and drunk. But he was wide
awake now. He shouted to the guardsmen to stand as they were until they received an order from him
- and such is his dominance of his men, that they obeyed in spite of the queen. He strode up to
the palace steps and glared at Taramis - and then he roared: ""This is not the queen! This isn't
Taramis! It's some devil in masquerade!"
      "Then hell was to pay! I don't know just what happened. I think a Shemite struck Conan, and
Conan killed him. The next instant the square was a battleground. The Shemites fell on the
guardsmen, and their spears and arrows struck down many soldiers who had already disbanded.
      "Some of us grabbed up such weapons as werould and fought back. We hardly knew what we were
fighting for, but it was against Constantius and his devils - not against Taramis, I swear it!
Constantius shouted to cut the traitors down. We were not traitors!" Despair and bewilderment
shook his voice. The girl murmured pityingly, not understanding it all, but aching in sympathy
with her lover's suffering.
      "The people did not know which side to take. It was a madhouse of confusion and bewilderment.
We who fought didn't have a chance, in no formation, without armor and only half armed. The guards
were fully armed and drawn up in a square, but there were only five hundred of them. They took a
heavy toll before they were cut down, but there could be only one conclusion to such a battle. And
while her people were being slaughtered before her, Taramis stood on the palace steps, with
Constantius's arm about her waist, and laughed like a heartless, beautiful fiend! Gods, it's all
mad - mad!
      "I never saw a man fight as Conan fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before
they overpowered him the dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they
dragged him down, a hundred against one. When I saw him fall I dragged myself away feeling as if
the world had burst under my very fingers. I heard Constantius call to his dogs to take the
captain alive - stroking his mustache, with that hateful smile on his lips!"
      That smile was on the lips of Constantius at that very moment. He sat his horse among a
cluster of his men - thick-bodied Shemites with curled blue-black beards and hooked noses; the low-
swinging sun struck glints from their peaked helmets and the silvered scales of their corselets.
Nearly a mile behind, the walls and towers of Khauran rose sheer out of the meadowlands.
      By the side of the caravan road a heavy cross had been planted, and on this grim tree a man
hung, nailed there by iron spikes through his hands and feet. Naked but for a loin-cloth, the man
was almost a giant in stature, and his muscles stood out in thick corded ridges on limbs and body,
which the sun had long ago burned brown. The perspiration of agony beaded his face and his mighty
breast, but from under the tangled black mane that fell over his low, broad forehead, his blue
eyes blazed with an unquenched fire. Blood oozed sluggishly from the lacerations in his hands and
feet.
      Constantius saluted him mockingly.
      "I am sorry, captain," he said, "that I cannot remain to ease your last hours, but I have
duties to perform in yonder city - I must not keep your delicious queen waiting!" He laughed
softly. "So I leave you to your own devices - and those beauties!" He pointed meaningly at the
black shadows which swept incessantly back and forth, high above.
      "Were it not for them, I imagine that a powerful brute like yourself should live on the cross


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for days. Do not cherish any illusions of rescue because I am leaving you unguarded. I have had it
proclaimed that anyone seeking to take your body, living or dead, from the cross, will be flayed
alive together with all the members of his family, in the public square. I am so firmly
established in Khauran that my order is as good as a regiment of guardsmen. I am leaving no guard,
because the vultures will not approach as long as anyone is near, and I do not wish them to feel
any constraint. That is also why I brought you so far from the city. These desert vultures
approach the walls no closer than this spot.
     "And so, brave captain, farewell! I will remember you when, in an hour, Taramis lies in my
arms."
     Blood started afresh from the pierced palms as the victim's mallet-like fists clenched
convulsively on the spike-heads. Knots and bunches of muscle started out of the massive arms, and
Conan beat his head forward and spat savagely at Constantius's face. The voivode laughed coolly,
wiped the saliva from his gorget and reined his horse about.
     "Remember me when the vultures are tearing at your living flesh," he called mockingly. "The
desert scavengers are a particularly voracious breed. I have seen men hang for hours on a cross,
eyeless, earless, and scalpless, before the sharp beaks had eaten their way into their vitals."
     Without a backward glance he rode toward the city, a supple, erect figure, gleaming in his
burnished armor, his stolid, bearded henchmen jogging beside him. A faint rising of dust from the
worn trail marked their passing.
     The man hanging on the cross was the one touch of sentient life in a landscape that seemed
desolate and deserted in the late evening. Khauran, less than a mile away, might have been on the
other side of the world, and existing in another age.
     Shaking the sweat out of his eyes, Conan stared blankly at the familiar terrain. On either
side of the city, and beyond it, stretched the fertile meadowlands, with cattle browsing in the
distance where fields and vineyards checkered the plain. The western and northern horizons were
dotted with villages, miniature in the distance. A lesser distance to the southeast a silvery
gleam marked the course of a river, and beyond that river sandy desert began abruptly to stretch
away and away beyond the horizon. Conan stared at that expanse of empty waste shimmering tawnily
in the late sunlight as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky. A revulsion shook him when he
glanced at the gleaming towers of Khauran. The city had betrayed him -trapped him into
circumstances that left him hanging to a wooden cross like a hare nailed to a tree.
     A red lust for vengeance swept away the thought. Curses ebbed fitfully from the man's lips.
All his universe contracted, focused, became incorporated in the four iron spikes that held him
from life and freedom. His great muscles quivered, knotting like iron cables. With the sweat
starting out on his graying skin, he sought to gain leverage, to tear the nails from the wood. It
was useless. They had been driven deep. Then he tried to tear his hands off the spikes, and it was
not the knifing, abysmal agony that finally caused him to cease his efforts, but the futility of
it. The spike-heads were broad and heavy; he could not drag them through the wounds. A surge of
helplessness shook the giant, for the first time in his life. He hung motionless, his head resting
on his breast, shutting his eyes against the aching glare of the sun.
     A beat of wings caused him to look, just as a feathered shadow shot down out of the sky. A
keen beak, stabbing at his eyes, cut his cheek, and he jerked his head aside, shutting his eyes
involuntarily. He shouted, a croaking, desperate shout of menace, and the vultures swerved away
and retreated, frightened by the sound. They resumed their wary circling above his head. Blood
trickled over Conan's mouth, and he licked his lips involuntarily, spat at the salty taste.
     Thirst assailed him savagely. He had drunk deeply of wine the night before, and no water had
touched his lips since before the battle in the square, that dawn. And killing was thirsty, salt-
sweaty work. He glared at the distant river as a man in hell glares through the opened grille. He
thought of gushing freshets of white water he had breasted, laved to the shoulders in liquid jade.
He remembered great horns of foaming ale, jacks of sparkling wine gulped carelessly or spilled on
the tavern floor. He bit his lip to keep from bellowing in intolerable anguish as a tortured
animal bellows.
     The sun sank, a lurid ball in a fiery sea of blood. Against a crimson rampart that banded the
horizon the towers of the city floated unreal as a dream. The very sky was tinged with blood to
his misted glare. He licked his blackened lips and stared with bloodshot eyes at the distant
river. It too seemed crimson with blood, and the shadows crawling up from the east seemed black as
ebony.
     In his dulled ears sounded the louder beat of wings. Lifting his head he watched with the
burning glare of a wolf the shadows wheeling above him. He knew that his shouts would frighten
them away no longer. One dipped - dipped - lower and lower. Conan drew his head back as far as he
could, waiting with terrible patience. The vulture swept in with a swift roar of wings. Its beak


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flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird
could flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles, and his teeth, snapping
like those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck.
      Instantly the vulture exploded into squawking, flapping hysteria. Its thrashing wings blinded
the man, and its talons ripped his chest. But grimly he hung on, the muscles starting out in lumps
on his jaws. And the scavenger's neck-bones crunched between those powerful teeth. With a
spasmodic flutter the bird hung limp. Conan let go, spat blood from his mouth. The other vultures,
terrified by the fate of their companion, were in full flight to a distant tree, where they
perched like black demons in conclave.
      Ferocious triumph surged through Conan's numbed brain. Life beat strongly and savagely
through his veins. He could still deal death; he still lived. Every twinge of sensation, even of
agony, was a negation of death.
      "By Mitra!" Either a voice spoke, or he suffered from hallucination. "In all my life I have
never seen such a thing!"
      Shaking the sweat and blood from his eyes, Conan saw four horsemen sitting their steeds in
the twilight and staring up at him. Three were lean, white-robed hawks, Zuagir tribesmen without a
doubt, nomads from beyond the river. The other was dressed like them in a white, girdled khalat
and a flowing head-dress which, banded about the temples with a triple circlet of braided camel-
hair, fell to his shoulders. But he was not a Shemite. The dust was not so thick, nor Conan's hawk-
like sight so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial characteristics.
      He was as tall as Conan, though not so heavy-limbed. His shoulders were broad and his supple
figure was hard as steel and whalebone. A short black beard did not altogether mask the aggressive
jut of his lean jaw, and gray eyes cold and piercing as a sword gleamed from the shadow of the
kafieh. Quieting his restless steed with a quick, sure hand, this man spoke: "By Mitra, I should
know this man!"
      "Aye!" It was the guttural accents of a Zuagir. "It is the Cimmerian who was captain of the
queen's guard!"
      "She must be casting off all her old favorites," muttered the rider. "Who'd have ever thought
it of Queen Taramis? I'd rather have had a long, bloody war. It would have given us desert folk a
chance to plunder. As it is we've come this close to the walls and found only this nag" - he
glanced at a fine gelding led by one of the nomads - "and this dying dog." Conan lifted his bloody
head.
      "If I could come down from this beam I'd make a dying dog out of you, you Zaporoskan thief!"
he rasped through blackened lips.
      "Mitra, the knave knows me!" exclaimed the other. "How, knave, do you know me?"
      "There's only one of your breed in these parts," muttered Conan. "You are Olgerd Vladislav,
the outlaw chief."
      "Aye! and once a hetman of the kozaki of the Zaporoskan River, as you have guessed. Would you
like to live?" "Only a fool would ask that question," panted Conan. "I am a hard man," said
Olgerd, "and toughness is the only quality I respect in a man. I shall judge if you are a man, or
only a dog after all, fit only to lie here and die."
      "If we cut him down we may be seen from the walls," objected one of the nomads.
      Olgerd shook his head.
      "The dusk is deep. Here, take this ax, Djebal, and cut down the cross at the base."
      "If it falls forward it will crush him," objected Djebal. "I can cut it so it will fall
backward, but then the shock of the fall may crack his skull and tear loose all his entrails."
      "If he's worthy to ride with me he'll survive it," answered Olgerd imperturbably. "If not,
then he doesn't deserve to live. Cut!"
      The first impact of the battle-ax against the wood and its accompanying vibrations sent
lances of agony through Conan's swollen feet and hands. Again and again the blade fell, and each
stroke reverberated on his bruised brain, setting his tortured nerves aquiver. But he set his
teeth and made no sound. The ax cut through, the cross reeled on its splintered base and toppled
backward. Conan made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head back hard
against the wood and held it rigid there. The beam struck the ground heavily and rebounded
slightly. The impact tore his wounds and dazed him for an instant. He fought the rushing tide of
blackness, sick and dizzy, but realized that the iron muscles that sheathed his vitals had saved
him from permanent injury.
      And he had made no sound, though blood oozed from his nostrils and his belly-muscles quivered
with nausea. With a grunt of approval Djebal bent over him with a pair of pincers used to draw
horse-shoe nails, and gripped the head of the spike hi Conan's right hand, tearing the skin to get
a grip on the deeply embedded head. The pincers were small for that work. Djebal sweated and


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tugged, swearing and wrestling with the stubborn iron, working it back and forth - in swollen
flesh as well as in wood. Blood started, oozing over the Cimmerian's fingers. He lay so still he
might have been dead, except for the spasmodic rise and fall of his great chest. The spike gave
way, and Djebal held up the blood-stained thing with a grunt of satisfaction, then flung it away
and bent over the other.
     The process was repeated, and then Djebal turned his attention to Conan's skewered feet. But
the Cimmerian, struggling up to a sitting posture, wrenched the pincers from his fingers and sent
him staggering backward with a violent shove. Conan's hands were swollen to almost twice their
normal size. His fingers felt like misshapen thumbs, and closing his hands was an agony that
brought blood streaming from under his grinding teeth. But somehow, clutching the pincers clumsily
with both hands, he managed to wrench out first one spike and then the other. They were not driven
so deeply into the wood as the others had been.
     He rose stiffly and stood upright on his swollen, lacerated feet, swaying drunkenly, the icy
sweat dripping from his face and body. Cramps assailed him and he clamped his jaws against the
desire to retch.
     Olgerd, watching him impersonally, motioned him toward the stolen horse. Conan stumbled
toward it, and every step was a stabbing, throbbing hell that flecked his lips with bloody foam.
One misshapen, groping hand fell clumsily on the saddle-bow, a bloody foot somehow found the
stirrup. Setting his teeth, he swung up, and he almost fainted in midair; but he came down in the
saddle - and as he did so, Olgerd struck the horse sharply with his whip. The startled beast
reared, and the man in the saddle swayed and slumped like a sack of sand, almost unseated. Conan
had wrapped a rein about each hand, holding it in place with a clamping thumb. Drunkenly he
exerted the strength of his knotted biceps, wrenching the horse down; it screamed, its jaw almost
dislocated.
     One of the Shemites lifted a water-flask questioningly.
     Olgerd shook his head.
     "Let him wait until we get to camp. It's only ten miles. If he's fit to live in the desert
he'll live that long without a drink."
     The group rode like swift ghosts toward the river; among them Conan swayed like a drunken man
in the saddle, bloodshot eyes glazed, foam drying on his blackened lips.

3    A LETTER TO NEMEDIA
     The savant Astreas, traveling in the East in his never-tiring search for knowledge, wrote a
letter to his friend and fellow-philosopher Alcemides, in his native Nemedia, which constitutes
the entire knowledge of the Western nations concerning the events of that period in the East,
always a hazy, half-mythical region in the minds of the Western folk.
     Astreas wrote, in part: "You can scarcely conceive, my dear old friend, of the conditions now
existing in this tiny kingdom since Queen Taramis admitted Constantius and his mercenaries, an
event which I briefly described in my last, hurried letter. Seven months have passed since then,
during which time it seems as though the devil himself had been loosed in this unfortunate realm.
Taramis seems to have gone quite mad; whereas formerly she was famed for her virtue, justice and
tranquillity, she is now notorious for qualities precisely opposite to those just enumerated. Her
private life is a scandal - or perhaps "private" is not the correct term, since the queen makes no
attempt to conceal the debauchery of her court. She constantly indulges in the most infamous
revelries, in which the unfortunate ladies of the court are forced to join, young married women as
well as virgins.
     "She herself has not bothered to marry her paramour, Constantius, who sits on the throne
beside her and reigns as her royal consort, and his officers follow his example, and do not
hesitate to debauch any woman they desire, regardless of her rank or station. The wretched kingdom
groans under exorbitant taxation, the farms are stripped to the bone, and the merchants go in rags
which are all that is left them by the tax-gatherers. Nay, they are lucky if they escape with a
whole skin.
     "I sense your incredulity, good Alcemides; you will fear that I exaggerate conditions in
Khauran. Such conditions would be unthinkable in any of the Western countries, admittedly. But you
must realize the vast difference that exists between West and East, especially this part of the
East. In the first place, Khauran is a kingdom of no great size, one of the many principalities
which at one time formed the eastern part of the empire of Koth, and which later regained the
independence which was theirs at a still earlier age. This part of the world is made up of these
tiny realms, diminutive in comparison with the great kingdoms of the West, or the great sultanates
of the farther East, but important in their control of the caravan routes, and in the wealth
concentrated in them.


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     "Khauran is the most southeasterly of these principalities, bordering on the very deserts of
eastern Shem. The city of Khauran is the only city of any magnitude in the realm, and stands
within sight of the river which separates the grasslands from the sandy desert, like a watch-tower
to guard the fertile meadows behind it. The land is so rich that it yields three and four crops a
year, and the plains north and west of the city are dotted with villages. To one accustomed to the
great plantations and stock-farms of the West, it is strange to see these tiny fields and
vineyards; yet wealth in grain and fruit pours from them as from a horn of plenty. The villagers
are agriculturists, nothing else. Of a mixed, aboriginal race, they are unwarlike, unable to
protect themselves, and forbidden the possession of arms. Dependent wholly upon the soldiers of
the city for protection, they are helpless under the present conditions. So the savage revolt of
the rural sections, which would be a certainty in any Western nation, is here impossible.
     "They toil supinely under the iron hand of Constantius, and his black-bearded Shemites ride
incessantly through the fields, with whips in their hands, like the slave-drivers of the black
serfs who toil in the plantations of southern Zingara.
     "Nor do the people of the city fare any better. Their wealth is stripped from them, their
fairest daughters taken to glut the insatiable lust of Constantius and his mercenaries. These men
are utterly without mercy or compassion, possessed of all the characteristics our armies learned
to abhor in our wars against the Shemitish allies of Argos - inhuman cruelty, lust, and wild-beast
ferocity. The people of the city are Khauran's ruling caste, predominantly Hyborian, and valorous
and war-like. But the treachery of their queen delivered them into the hands of their oppressors.
The Shemites are the only armed force in Khauran, and the most hellish punishment is inflicted on
any Khaurani found possessing weapons. A systematic persecution to destroy the young Khaurani men
able to bear arms has been savagely pursued. Many have ruthlessly been slaughtered, others sold as
slaves to the Turanians. Thousands have fled the kingdom and either entered the service of other
rulers, or become outlaws, lurking in numerous bands along the borders.
     "At present there is some possibility of invasion from the desert, which is inhabited by
tribes of Shemitish nomads. The mercenaries of Constantius are men from the Shemitish cities of
the west, Pelishtim, Anakim, Akkharim, and are ardently hated by the Zuagirs and other wandering
tribes. As you know, good Alcemides, the countries of these barbarians are divided into the
western meadowlands which stretch to the distant ocean, and in which rise the cities of the town-
dwellers, and the eastern deserts, where the lean nomads hold sway; there is incessant warfare
between the dwellers of the cities and the dwellers of the desert.
     "The Zuagirs have fought with and raided Khauran for centuries, without success, but they
resent its conquest by their western kin. It is rumored that their natural antagonisntis being
fomented by the man who was formerly the captain of the queen's guard, and who, somehow escaping
the hate of Constantius, who actually had him upon the cross, fled to the nomads. He is called
Conan, and is himself a barbarian, one of those gloomy Cimmerians whose ferocity our soldiers have
more than once learned to their bitter cost. It is rumored that he has become the right-hand man
of Olgerd Vladislav, the kozak adventurer who wandered down from the northern steppes and made
himself chief of a band of Zuagirs. There are also rumors that this band has increased vastly in
the last few months, and that Olgerd, incited no doubt by this Cimmerian, is even considering a
raid on Khauran.
     "It can not be anything more than a raid, as the Zuagirs are without siege-machines, or the
knowledge of investing a city, and it has been proven repeatedly in the past that the nomads in
their loose formation, or rather lack of formation, are no match in hand-to-hand fighting for the
well-disciplined, fully-armed warriors of the Shemitish cities. The natives of Khauran would
perhaps welcome this conquest, since the nomads could deal with them no more harshly than their
present masters, and even total extermination would be preferable to the suffering they have to
endure. But they are so cowed and helpless that they could give no aid to the invaders.
     "Their plight is most wretched. Taramis, apparently possessed of a demon, stops at nothing.
She has abolished the worship of Ishtar, and turned the temple into a shrine of idolatry. She has
destroyed the ivory image of the goddess which these eastern Hyborians worship (and which,
inferior as it is to the true religion of Mitra which we Western nations recognize, is still
superior to the devil-worship of the Shemites) and filled the temple of Ishtar with obscene images
of every imaginable sort --"gods and goddesses of the night, portrayed in all the salacious and
perverse poses and with all the revolting characteristics that a degenerate brain could conceive.
Many of these images are to be identified as foul deities of the Shemites, the Turanians, the
Vendhyans, and the Khitans, but others are reminiscent of a hideous and half-remembered antiquity,
vile shapes forgotten except in the most obscure legends. Where the queen gained the knowledge of
them I dare not even hazard a guess.
     "She has instituted human sacrifice, and since her mating with Constantius, no less then five


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hundred men, women and children have been immolated. Some of these have died on the altar she has
set up in the temple, herself wielding the sacrificial dagger, but most have met a more horrible
doom.
      "Taramis has placed some sort of monster in a crypt in the temple. What it is, and whence it
came, none knows. But shortly after she had crushed the desperate revolt of her soldiers against
Constantius, she spent a night alone in the desecrated temple, alone except for a dozen bound
captives, and the shuddering people saw thick, foul-smelling smoke curling up from the dome, heard
all night the frenetic chanting of the queen, and the agonized cries of her tortured captives; and
toward dawn another voice mingled with these sounds - a strident, inhuman croaking that froze the
blood of all who heard.
      "In the full dawn Taramis reeled drunkenly from the temple,
      r eyes blazing with demoniac triumph. The captives were seen again, nor the croaking voice
heard. But there is a in the temple into which none ever goes but the queen, driving a human
sacrifice before her. And this victim is never s^en again. All know that in that grim chamber
lurks some ^onster from the black night of ages, which devours the shriek-i^g humans Taramis
delivers up to it.
      "I can no longer think of her as a mortal woman, but as a r*bid she-fiend, crouching in her
blood-fouled lair amongst the bones and fragments of her victims, with taloned, crimsoned ^tigers.
That the gods allow her to pursue her awful course unchecked almost shakes my faith in divine
justice.
      "When I compare her present conduct with her deportment Mien first I came to Khauran, seven
months ago, I am confused Mth bewilderment, and almost inclined to the belief held by **lany of
the people - that a demon has possessed the body of T^aramis. A young soldier, Valerius, had
another belief. He believed that a witch had assumed a form identical with that of Ithauran's
adored ruler. He believed that Taramis had been spirited away in the night, and confined in some
dungeon, and that this being ruling in her place was but a female sorcerer. He sVore that he would
find the real queen, if she still lived, but I greatly fear that he himself has fallen victim to
the cruelty of Qionstantius. He was implicated in the revolt of the palace guards, escaped and
remained in hiding for some time, stub-t^ornly refusing to seek safety abroad, and it was during
this time tliat I encountered him and he told me his beliefs.
      "But he has disappeared, as so many have, whose fate one <tares not conjecture, and I fear he
has been apprehended by the s J)ies of Constantius.
      "But I must conclude this letter and slip it out of the city by >*ieans of a swift carrier-
pigeon, which will carry it to the post Whence I purchased it, on the borders of Koth. By rider
and darnel-train it will eventually come to you. I must haste, before ^lawn. It is late, and the
stars gleam whitely on the gardened of Khauran. A shuddering silence envelops the city, in which I
hear the throb of a sullen drum from the distant temple. I doubt not that Taramis is there,
concocting more devilry."
      But the savant was incorrect in his conjecture concerning the whereabouts of the woman he
called Taramis. The girl whom the world knew as queen of Khauran stood in a dungeon, lighted only
by a flickering torch which played on her features, etching the diabolical cruelty of her
beautiful countenance.
      On the bare stone floor before her crouched a figure whose nakedness was scarcely covered
with tattered rags.
      This figure Salome touched contemptuously with the upturned toe of her gilded sandal, and
smiled vindictively as her victim shrank away.
      "You do not love my caresses, sweet sister?"
      Taramis was still beautiful, in spite of her rags and the imprisonment and abuse of seven
weary months. She did not reply to her sister's taunts, but bent her head as one grown accustomed
to mockery.
      This resignation did not please Salome. She bit her red lip, and stood tapping the toe of her
shoe against the floor as she frowned down at the passive figure. Salome was clad in the barbaric
splendor of a woman of Shushan. Jewels glittered in the torchlight on her gilded sandals, on her
gold breast-plates and the slender chains that held them in place. Gold anklets clashed as she
moved, jeweled bracelets weighted her bare arms. Her tall coiffure was that of a Shemitish woman,
and jade pendants hung from gold hoops in her ears, flashing and sparkling with each impatient
movement of her haughty head. A gem-crusted girdle supported a silk shirt so transparent that it
was in the nature of a cynical mockery of convention.
      Suspended from her shoulders and trailing down her back hung a darkly scarlet cloak, and this
was thrown carelessly over the crook of one arm and the bundle that arm supported.
      Salome stooped suddenly and with her free hand grasped her sister's dishevelled hair and


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forced back the girl's head to stare into her eyes. Taramis met that tigerish glare without
flinching.
     "You are not so ready with your tears as formerly, sweet sister," muttered the witch-girl.
     "You shall wring no more tears from me," answered Taramis. "Too often you have reveled in the
spectacle of the queen of Khauran sobbing for mercy on her knees. I know that you have spared me
only to torment me; that is why you have limited your tortures to such torments as neither slay
nor permanently disfigure. But I fear you no longer; you have strained out the last vestige of
hope, fright and shame from me. Slay me and be done with it, for I have shed my last tear for your
enjoyment, you she-devil from hell!"
     "You flatter yourself, my dear sister," purred Salome. "So far it is only your handsome body
that I have caused to suffer, only your pride and self-esteem that I have crushed. You forget
that, unlike myself, you are capable of mental torment. I have observed this when I have regaled
you with narratives concerning the comedies I have enacted with some of your stupid subjects. But
this time I have brought more vivid proof of these farces. Did you know that Krallides, your
faithful councillor, had come skulking back from Turan and been captured?"
     Taramis turned pale.
     "What - what have you done to him?"
     For answer Salome drew the mysterious bundle-from under her cloak. She shook off the silken
swathings and held it up -the head of a young man, the features frozen in a convulsion as if death
had come in the midst of inhuman agony.
     Taramis cried out as if a blade had pierced her heart.
     "Oh, Ishtar! Krallides!"
     "Aye! He was seeking to stir up the people against me, poor fool, telling them that Conan
spoke the truth when he said I was not Taramis. How would the people rise against the Falcon's
Shemites? With sticks and pebbles? Bah! Dogs are eating his headless body in the market-place, and
this foul carrion shall be cast into the sewer to rot.
     "How, sister!" She paused, smiling down at her victim. "Have you discovered that you still
have unshed tears? Good! I reserved the mental torment for the last. Hereafter I shall show you
many such sights as - this!"
     Standing there in the torchlight with the severed head in her hand she did not look like
anything ever borne by a human woman, in spite of her awful beauty. Taramis did not look up. She
lay face down on the slimy floor, her slim body shaken in sobs of agony, beating her clenched
hands against the stones. Salome sauntered toward the door, her anklets clashing at each step, her
ear pendants winking in the torch-glare.
     A few moments later she emerged from a door under a sullen arch that led into a court which
in turn opened upon a winding alley. A man standing there turned toward her - a giant Shemite,
with sombre eyes and shoulders like a bull, his great black beard falling over his mighty, silver-
mailed breast.
     "She wept?" His rumble was like that of a bull, deep, low-pitched and stormy. He was the
general of the mercenaries, one of the few even of Constantius's associates who knew the secret of
the queens of Khauran.
     "Aye, Khumbanigash. There are whole sections of her sensibilities that I have not touched.
When one sense is dulled by continual laceration, I will discover a newer, more poignant pang.
Here, dog!" A trembling, shambling figure in rags, filth and matted hair approached, one of the
beggars that slept in the alleys and open courts. Salome tossed the head to him. "Here, deaf one;
cast that in the nearest sewer. Make the sign with your hands, Khumbanigash. He can not hear."
     The general complied, and the tousled head bobbed, as the man turned painfully away.
     "Why do you keep up this farce?" rumbled Khumbanigash. "You are so firmly established on the
throne that nothing can unseat you. What if Khaurani fools learn the truth? They can do nothing.
Proclaim yourself in your true identity! Show them their beloved ex-queen - and cut off her head
in the public square!"
     "Not yet, good Khumbanigash--"
     The arched door slammed on the hard accents of Salome, the stormy reverberations of
Khumbanigash. The mute beggar crouched in the courtyard, and there was none to see that the hands
which held the severed head were quivering strongly -brown, sinewy hands, strangely incongruous
with the bent body and filthy tatters.
     "I knew it!" It was a fierce, vibrant whisper, scarcely audible. "She lives! Oh, Krallides,
your martyrdom was not in vain! They have her locked in that dungeon! Oh, Ishtar, if you love true
men, aid me now!"

4      WOLVES OF THE DESERT


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     Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the
vessel across the ebony table to Conan the Cimmerian. Olgerd's apparel would have satisfied the
vanity of any Zaporoskan hetman.
     His khalat was of white silk, with pearls sewn on the bosom. Girdled at the waist with a
Bakhauriot belt, its skirts were drawn back to reveal his wide silken breeches, tucked into short
boots of soft green leather, adorned with gold thread. On his head was a green silk turban, wound
about a spired helmet chased with gold. His only weapon was a broad curved Cherkees knife in an
ivory sheath girdled high on his left hip, kozak fashion. Throwing himself back in his gilded
chair with its carven eagles, Olgerd spread his booted legs before him, and gulped down the
sparkling wine noisily.
     To his splendor the huge Cimmerian opposite him offered a strong contrast, with his square-
cut black mane, brown scarred countenance and burning blue eyes. He was clad in black mesh-mail,
and the only glitter about him was the broad gold buckle of the belt which supported his sword in
its worn leather scabbard.
     They were alone in the silk-walled tent, which was hung with gilt-worked tapestries and
littered with rich carpets and velvet cushions, the loot of the caravans. From outside came a low,
incessant murmur, the sound that always accompanies a great throng of men, in camp or otherwise.
An occasional gust of desert wind rattled the palm-leaves.
     "Today in the shadow, tomorrow in the sun," quoth Olgerd, loosening his crimson girdle a
trifle and reaching again for the wine-jug. "That's the way of life. Once I was a hetman on the
Zaporoska; now I'm a desert chief. Seven months ago you were hanging on a cross outside Khauran.
Now you're lieutenant to the most powerful raider between Turan and the western meadows. You
should be thankful to me!"
     "For recognizing my usefulness?" Conan laughed and lifted the jug. "When you allow the
elevation of a man, one can be sure that you'll profit by his advancement. I've earned everything
I've won, with my blood and sweat." He glanced at the scars on the insides of his palms. There
were scars, too, on his body, scars that had not been there seven months ago.
     "You fight like a regiment of devils," conceded Olgerd. "But don't get to thinking that
you've had anything to do with the recruits who've swarmed in to join us. It was our success at
raiding, guided by my wit, that brought them in. These nomads are always looking for a successful
leader to follow, and they have more faith in a foreigner than in one of their own race.
     "There's no limit to what we may accomplish! We have eleven thousand men now. In another year
we may have three times that number. We've contented ourselves, so far, with raids on the Turanian
outposts and the city-states to the west. With thirty or forty thousand men we'll raid no longer.
We'll invade and conquer and establish ourselves as rulers. I'll be emperor of all Shem yet, and
you'll be my vizier, so long as you carry out my orders unquestioningly. In the meantime, I think
we'll ride eastward and storm that Turanian outpost at Vezek, where the caravans pay toll."
     Conan shook his head. "I think not."
     Olgerd glared, his quick temper irritated.
     "What do you mean, you think not? I do the thinking for this army!"
     "There are enough men in this band now for my purpose," answered the Cimmerian. "I'm sick of
waiting. I have a score to ettle."
     "Oh!" Olgerd scowled, and gulped wine, then grinned. "Still thinking of that cross, eh? Well,
I like a good hater. But that can wait."
     "You told me once you'd aid me in taking Khauran," said Conan.
     "Yes, but that was before I began to see the full possibilities of our power," answered
Olgerd. "I was only thinking of the loot in the city. I don't want to waste our strength
unprofitably. Khauran is too strong a nut for us to crack now. Maybe in a year--"
     "Within the week," answered Conan, and the kozak stared at the certainty in his voice.
     "Listen," said Olgerd, "even if I were willing to throw away men on such a hare-brained
attempt - what could you expect? Do you think these wolves could besiege and take a city like
Khauran?"
     "There'll be no siege," answered the Cimmerian. "I know how to draw Constantius out into the
plain."
     "And what then?" cried Olgerd with an oath. "In the arrow-play our horsemen would have the
worst of it, for the armor of the asshuri is the better, and when it came to sword-strokes their
close-marshaled ranks of trained swordsmen would cleave through our loose lines and scatter our
men like chaff before the wind."
     "Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyboriaa horsemen fighting in a solid wedge such
as I could teach them," answered Conan.
     "And where would you secure three thousand Hyborians?" asked Olgerd with vast sarcasm. "Will


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you conjure them out of the air?"
      "I have them," answered the Cimmerian imperturbably. "Three thousand men of Khauran camp at
the oasis of Akrel awaiting my orders."
      "What?" Olgerd glared like a startled wolf.
      "Aye. Men who had fled from the tyranny of Constantius. Most of them have been living the
lives of outlaws in the deserts east of Khauran, and are gaunt and hard and desperate as man-
eating tigers. One of them will be a match for any three squat mercenaries. It takes oppression
and hardship to stiffen men's guts and put the fire of hell into their thews. They were broken up
into small bands; all they needed was a leader. They believed the word I sent them by my riders,
and assembled at the oasis and put themselves at my disposal."
      "All this without my knowledge?" A feral light began to gleam in Olgerd's eye. He hitched at
his weapon-girdle.
      "It was / they wished to follow, not you."
      "And what did you tell these outcasts to gain their allegiance?" There was a dangerous ring
in Olgerd's voice.
      "I told them that I'd use this horde of desert wolves to help them destroy Constantius and
give Khauran back into the hands of its citizens."
      "You fool!" whispered Olgerd. "Do you deem yourself chief already?"
      The men were on their feet, facing each other across the ebony board, devil-lights dancing in
Olgerd's cold gray eyes, a grim smile on the Cimmerian's hard lips.
      "I'll have you torn between four palm-trees," said the kozak calmly.
      "Call the men and bid them do it!" challenged Conan. "See if they obey you!"
      Baring his teeth in a snarl, Olgerd lifted his hand - then paused. There was something about
the confidence in the Cimmerian's dark face that shook him. His eyes began to burn like those of a
wolf.
      "You scum of the western hills," he muttered, "have you dared seek to undermine my power?"
      "I didn't have to," answered Conan. "You lied when you said I had nothing to do with bringing
in the new recruits. I had everything to do with it. They took your orders, but they fought for
me. There is not room for two chiefs of the Zuagirs. They know I am the stronger man. I understand
them better than you, and they, me; because I am a barbarian too."
      "And what will they say when you ask them to fight for Khauran?" asked Olgerd sardonically.
      "They'll follow me. I'll promise them a camel-train of gold from the palace. Khauran will be
willing to pay that as a guerdon for getting rid of Constantius. After that, I'll lead them
against the Turanians as you have planned. They want loot, and they'd as soon fight Constantius
for it as anybody."
      In Olgerd's eyes grew a recognition of defeat. In his red dreams of empire he had missed what
was going on about him. Happenings and events that had seemed meaningless before now flashed into
his mind, with their true significance, bringing a realization that Conan spoke no idle boast. The
giant blackmailed figure before him was the real chief of the Zuagirs.
      "Not if you die!" muttered Olgerd, and his hand flickered toward his hilt. But quick as the
stroke of a great cat, Conan's arm shot across the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd's
forearm. There was a snap of breaking bones, and for a tense instant the scene held: the men
facing each other as motionless as images, perspiration starting out on Olgerd's forehead. Conan
laughed, never easing his grip on the broken arm. "Are you fit to live, Olgerd?"
      His smile did not alter as the corded muscles rippled in knotting ridges along his forearm
and his fingers ground into the kozak's quivering flesh. There was the sound of broken bones
grating together and Olgerd's face turned the color of ashes; blood oozed from his lip where his
teeth sank, but he uttered no sound.
      With a laugh Conan released him and drew back, and the kozak swayed, caught the table edge
with his good hand to steady himself.
      "I give you life, Olgerd, as you gave it to me," said Conan tranquilly, "though it was for
your own ends that you took me down from the cross. It was a bitter test you gave me then; you
couldn't have endured it; neither could anyone, but a western barbarian.
      "Take your horse and go. It's tied behind the tent, and food and water are in the saddle-
bags. None will see your going, but go quickly. There's no room for a fallen chief on the desert.
If the warriors see you, maimed and deposed, they'll never let you leave the camp alive."
      Olgerd did not reply. Slowly, without a word, he turned and stalked across the tent, through
the flapped opening. Unspeaking he climbed into the saddle of the great white stallion that stood
tethered there in the shade of a spreading palm-tree; and unspeaking, with his broken arm thrust
in the bosom of his kbalat, he reined the steed about and rode eastward into the open desert, out
of the life of the people of the Zuagir.


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     Inside the tent Conan emptied the wine-jug and smacked his lips with relish. Tossing the
empty vessel into a corner, he braced his belt and strode out through the front opening, halting
for a moment to let his gaze sweep over the lines of camel-hair tents that stretched before him,
and the white-robed figures that moved among them, arguing, singing, mending bridles or whetting
tulwars.
     He lifted his voice in a thunder that carried to the farthest confines of the encampment:
"Ate, you dogs, sharpen your ears and listen! Gather around here. I have a tale to tell you."

5   THE VOICE FROM THE CRYSTAL
     In a chamber in a tower near the city wall a group of men listened attentively to the words
of one of their number. They were young men, but hard and sinewy, with a bearing that comes only
to men rendered desperate by adversity. They were clad in mail shirts and worn leather; swords
hung at their girdles.
     "I knew that Conan spoke the truth when he said it was not Taramis!" the speaker exclaimed.
"For months I have haunted the outskirts of the palace, playing the part of a deaf beggar. At last
I learned what I had believed - that our queen was a prisoner in the dungeons that adjoin the
palace. I watched my opportunity and captured a Shemitish jailer - knocked him senseless as he
left the courtyard late one night - dragged him into a cellar near by and questioned him. Before
he died he told me what I have just told you, and what we have suspected all along -- that the
woman ruling Khauran is a witch: Salome. Taramis, he said, is imprisoned in the lowest dungeon.
     "This invasion of the Zuagirs gives us the opportunity we sought. What Conan means to do, I
can not say. Perhaps he merely wishes vengeance on Constantius. Perhaps he intends sacking the
city and destroying it. He is a barbarian and no one can understand their minds.
     "But this is what we must do: rescue Taramis while the battle rages! Constantius will march
out into the plain to give battle. Even now his men are mounting. He will do this because there is
not sufficient food in the city to stand a siege. Conan burst out of the desert so suddenly that
there was no time to bring in supplies. And the Cimmerian is equipped for a siege. Scouts have
reported that the Zuagirs have siege engines, built, undoubtedly, according to the instructions of
Conan, who learned all the arts of war among the Western nations.
     "Constantius does not desire a long siege; so he will march with his warriors into the plain,
where he expects to scatter Conan's forces at one stroke. He will leave only a few hundred men in
the city, and they will be on the walls and in the towers commanding the gates.
     "The prison will be left all but unguarded. When we have freed Taramis our next actions will
depend upon circumstances. If Conan wins, we must show Taramis to the people and bid them rise -
they will! Oh, they will! With their bare hands they are enough to overpower the Shemites left in
the city and close the gates against both the mercenaries and the nomads. Neither must get within
the walls! Then we will parley with ConaiL He was always loyal to Taramis. If he knows the truth,
and she appeals to him, I believe he will spare the city. If, which is more probable, Constantius
prevails, and Conan is routed, we must steal out of the city with the queen and seek safety in
flight.
     "Is all clear?"
     They replied with one voice.
     "Then let us loosen our blades in our scabbards, commend our souls to Ishtar, and start for
the prison, for the mercenaries are already marching through the southern gate."
     This was true. The dawnlight glinted on peaked helmets pouring in a steady stream through the
broad arch, on the bright housings of the chargers. This would be a battle of horsemen, such as is
possible only in the lands of the East. The riders flowed through the gates like a river of steel -
-"sombre figures in black and silver mail, with their curled beards and hooked noses, and their
inexorable eyes in which glimmered the fatality of their race - the utter lack of doubt or of
mercy.
     The streets and the walls were lined with throngs of people who watched silently these
warriors of an alien race riding forth to defend their native city. There was no sound; dully,
expressionless they watched, those gaunt people in shabby garments, their caps in their hands.
     In a tower that overlooked the broad street that led to the southern gate, Salome lolled on a
velvet couch cynically watching Constantius as he settled his broad sword-belt about his lean hips
and drew on his gauntlets. They were alone in the chamber. Outside, the rhythmical clank of
harness and shuffle of horses" hoofs welled up through the gold-barred casements.
     "Before nightfall," quoth Constantius, giving a twirl to his thin mustache, "you'll have some
captives to feed to your temple-devil. Does it not grow weary of soft, city-bred flesh? Perhaps it
would relish the harder thews of a desert man."
     "Take care you do not fall prey to a fiercer beast than Thaug," warned the girl. "Do not


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forget who it is that leads these desert animals."
     "I am not likely to forget," he answered. "That is one reason why I am advancing to meet him.
The dog has fought in the West and knows the art of siege. My scouts had some trouble in
approaching his columns, for his outriders have eyes like hawks; but they did get close enough to
see the engines he is dragging on ox-cart wheels drawn by camels - catapults, rams, ballistas,
mangonels - by Ishtar! he must have had ten thousand men working day and night for a month. Where
he got the material for their construction is more than I can understand. Perhaps he has a treaty
with the Turanians, and gets supplies from them.
     "Anyway, they won't do him any good. I've fought these desert wolves before - an exchange of
arrows for awhile, in which the armor of my warriors protects them - then a charge and my
squadrons sweep through the loose swarms of the nomads, wheel and sweep back through, scattering
them to the four winds. I'll ride back through the south gate before sunset, with hundreds of
naked captives staggering at my horse's tail. We'll hold a fete tonight, in the great square. My
soldiers delight in flaying their enemies alive - we will have a wholesale skinning, and make
these weak-kneed townsfolk watch. As for Conan, it will afford me intense pleasure, if we take him
alive, to impale him on the palace steps."
     "Skin as many as you like," answered Salome indifferently. "I would like a dress made of
human hide. But at least a hundred captives you must give to me - for the altar, and for Thaug."
     "It shall be done," answered Constantius, with his gauntleted hand brushing back the thin
hair from his high bald forehead, burned dark by the sun. "For victory and the fair honor of
Taramis!" he said sardonically, and, taking his vizored helmet under his arm, he lifted a hand in
salute, and strode clanking from the chamber. His voice drifted back, harshly lifted in orders to
his officers.
     Salome leaned back on the couch, yawned, stretched herself like a great supple cat, and
called: "Zang!"
     A cat-footed priest, with features like yellowed parchment stretched over a skull, entered
noiselessly.
     Salome turned to an ivory pedestal on which stood two crystal globes, and taking from it the
smaller, she handed the glistening sphere to the priest.
     "Ride with Constantius," she said. "Give me the news of the battle. Go!"
     The skull-faced man bowed low, and hiding the globe under his dark mantle, hurried from the
chamber.
     Outside in the city there was no sound, except the clank of hoofs and after a while the clang
of a closing gate. Salome mounted a wide marble stair that led to the flat, canopied, marble-
battlemented roof. She was above all other buildings in the city. The streets were deserted, the
great square in front of the palace was empty. In normal times folk shunned the grim temple which
rose on the opposite side of that square, but now the town looked like a dead city. Only on the
southern wall and the roofs that overlooked it was there any sign of life. There the people massed
thickly. They made no demonstration, did not know whether to hope for the victory or defeat of
Constantius. Victory meant further misery under his intolerable rule; defeat probably meant the
sack of the city and red massacre. No word had come from Conan. They did not know what to expect
at his hands. They remembered that he was a barbarian.
     The squadrons of the mercenaries were moving out into the plain. In the distance, just this
side of the river, other dark masses were moving, barely recognizable as men on horses. Objects
dotted the farther bank; Conan had not brought his siege engines across the river, apparently
fearing an attack in the midst of the crossing. But he had crossed with his full force of
horsemen. The sun rose and struck glints of fire from the dark multitudes. The squadrons from the
city broke into a gallop; a deep roar reached the ears of the people on the wall.
     The rolling masses merged, intermingled; at that distance it was a tangled confusion in which
no details stood out. Charge and countercharge were not to be identified. Clouds of dust rose from
the plains, under the stamping hoofs, veiling the action. Through these swirling clouds masses of
riders loomed, appearing and disappearing, and spears flashed.
     Salome shrugged her shoulders and descended the stair. The palace lay silent. All the slaves
were on the wall, gazing vainly southward with the citizens.
     She   entered   the   chamber   where   she   had   talked   with Constantius, and approached
the pedestal, noting that the crystal globe was clouded, shot with bloody streaks of crimson. She
bent over the ball, swearing under her breath. "Zang!" she called. "Zang!"
     Mists swirled in the sphere, resolving themselves into billowing dust-clouds through which
black figures rushed unrecognizably; steel glinted like lightning in the murk. Then the face of
Zang leaped into startling distinctness; it was as if the wide eyes gazed up at Salome. Blood
trickled from a gash in the skull-like head, the skin was gray with sweat-runneled dust. The lips


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parted, writhing; to other ears than Salome's it would have seemed that the face in the crystal
contorted silently. But sound to her came as plainly from those ashen lips as if the priest had
been in the same room with her, instead of miles away, shouting into the smaller crystal. Only the
gods of darkness knew what unseen, magic filaments linked together those shimmering spheres.
     "Salome! shrieked the bloody head. "Salome?
     "I hear!" she cried. "Speak! How goes the battle?"
     "Doom is upon us!" screamed the skull-like apparition. "Khauran is lost! Aie, my horse is
down and I can not win clear! Men are falling around me! They are dying like flies, in their
silvered mail!"
     "Stop yammering and tell me what happened!" she cried harshly.
     "We rode at the desert-dogs and they came on to meet us!" yowled the priest. "Arrows flew in
clouds between the hosts, and the nomads wavered. Constantius ordered the charge. In even ranks we
thundered upon them.
     "Then the masses of their horde opened to right and left, and through the cleft rushed three
thousand Hyborian horsemen whose presence we had not even suspected. Men of Khauran, mad with
hate! Big men in full armor on massive horses! In a solid wedge of steel they smote us like a
thunderbolt. They split our ranks asunder before we knew what was upon us, and then the desert-men
swarmed on us from either flank.
     "They have ripped our ranks apart, broken and scattered us! It is a trick of that devil
Conan! The siege engines are false - mere frames of palm trunks and painted silk, that fooled our
scouts who saw them from afar. A trick to draw us out to our doom! Our warriors flee! Khumbanigash
is down - Conan slew him. I do not see Constantius. The Khaurani rage through our milling masses
like blood-mad lions, and the desert-men feather us with arrows. I - ahh!"
     There was a flicker as of lightning, or trenchant steel, a burst of bright blood - then
abruptly the image vanished, like a bursting bubble, and Salome was staring into an empty crystal
ball that mirrored only her own furious features.
     She stood perfectly still for a few moments, erect and staring into space. Then she clapped
her hands and another skull-like priest entered, as silent and immobile as the first.
     "Constantius is beaten," she said swiftly. "We are doomed.
     Conan will be crashing at our gates within the hour. If he catches me, I have no illusions as
to what I can expect. But first I am going to make sure that my cursed sister never ascends the
throne again. Follow me! Come what may, we shall give Thaug a feast."
     As she descended the stairs and galleries of the palace, she heard a faint rising echo from
the distant walls. The people there had begun to realize that the battle was going against
Constantius. Through the dust clouds masses of horsemen were visible, racing toward the city.
     Palace and prison were connected by a long closed gallery, whose vaulted roof rose on gloomy
arches. Hurrying along this, the false queen and her slave passed through a heavy door at the
other end that let them into the dim-lit recesses of the prison. They had emerged into a wide,
arched corridor at a point near where a stone stair descended into the darkness. Salome recoiled
suddenly, swearing. In the gloom of the hall lay a motionless form - a Shemitish jailer, his short
beard tilted toward the roof as his head hung on a half-severed neck. As panting voices from below
reached the girl's ears, she shrank back into the black shadow of an arch, pushing the priest
behind her, her hand groping in her girdle.

6   THE VULTURE'S WINGS
     It was the smoky light of a torch which roused Taramis, Queen of Khauran, from the slumber in
which she sought forgetfulness. Lifting herself on her hand she raked back her tangled hair and
blinked up, expecting to meet the mocking countenance of Salome, malign with new torments. Instead
a cry of pity and horror reached her ears.
     "Taramis! Oh, my Queen!"
     The sound was so strange to her ears that she thought she was still dreaming. Behind the
torch she could make out figures now, the glint of steel, then five countenances bent toward her,
not swarthy and hook-nosed, but lean, aquiline faces, browned by the sun. She crouched in her
tatters, staring wildly.
     One of the figures sprang forward and fell on one knee before her, arms stretched appealingly
toward her.
     "Oh, Taramis! Thank Ishtar we have found you! Do you not remember me, Valerius? Once with
your own lips you praised me, after the battle of Korveka!"
     "Valerius!" she stammered. Suddenly tears welled into her eyes. "Oh, I dream! It is some
magic of Salome's to torment me!"
     "No!" The cry rang with exultation. "It is your own true vassals come to rescue you! Yet we


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must hasten. Constantius fights in the plain against Conan, who has brought the Zuagirs across the
river, but three hundred Shemites yet hold the city. We slew the jailer and took his keys, and
have seen no other guards. But we must be gone. Come!"
     The queen's legs gave way, not from weakness but from the reaction. Valerius lifted her like
a child, and with the torch-bearer hurrying before them, they left the dungeon and went up a slimy
stone stair. It seemed to mount endlessly, but presently they emerged into a corridor.
     They were passing a dark arch when the torch was suddenly struck out, and the bearer cried
out in fierce, brief agony. A burst of blue fire glared in the dark corridor, in which the furious
face of Salome was limned momentarily, with a beast-like figure crouching beside her - then the
eyes of the watchers were blinded by that blaze.
     Valerius tried to stagger along the corridor with the queen; dazedly he heard the sound of
murderous blows driven deep in flesh, accompanied by gasps of death and a bestial grunting. Then
the queen was torn brutally from his arms, and a savage blow on his helmet dashed him to the
floor.
     Grimly he crawled to his feet, shaking his head in an effort to rid himself of the blue flame
which seemed still to dance devilishly before him. When his blinded sight cleared, he found
himself alone in the corridor - alone except for the dead. His four companions lay in their blood,
heads and bosoms cleft and gashed. Blinded and dazed in that hell-born glare, they had died
without an opportunity of defending themselves. The queen was gone.
     With a bitter curse Valerius caught up his sword, tearing his cleft helmet from his head to
clatter on the flags; blood ran down his cheek from a cut in his scalp.
     Reeling, frantic with indecision, he heard a voice calling his name in desperate urgency:
"Valerius! Valerius!"
     He staggered in the direction of the voice, and rounded a corner just in time to have his
arms filled with a soft, supple figure which flung itself frantically at him.
     "Ivga! Are you mad!"
     "I had to come!" she sobbed. "I followed you - hid in an arch of the outer court. A moment
ago I saw her emerge with a brute who carried a woman in his arms. I knew it was Taramis, and that
you had failed! Oh, you are hurt!"
     "A scratch!" He put aside her clinging hands. "Quick, Ivga, tell me which way they went!"
     "They fled across the square toward the temple."
     He paled. "Ishtar! Oh, the fiend! She means to give Taramis to the devil she worships! Quick,
Ivga! Run to the south wall where the people watch the battle! Tell them that their real queen has
been found - that the impostor has dragged her to the temple! Go!"
     Sobbing, the girl sped away, her light sandals pattering on the cobblestones, and Valerius
raced across the court, plunged into the street, dashed into the square upon which it debouched,
and raced for the great structure that rose on the opposite side.
     His flying feet spurned the marble as he darted up the broad stair and through the pillared
portico. Evidently their prisoner had given them some trouble. Taramis, sensing the doom intended
for her, was fighting against it with all the strength of her splendid young body. Once she had
broken away from the brutish priest, only to be dragged down again.
     The group was halfway down the broad nave, at the other end of which stood the grim altar and
beyond that the great metal door, obscenely carven, through which many had gone, but from which
only Salome had ever emerged. Taramis's breath came in
     panting gasps; her tattered garment had been torn from her in the struggle. She writhed in
the grasp of her apish captor like a white, naked nymph in the arms of a satyr. Salome watched
cynically, though impatiently, moving toward the carven door, and from the dusk that lurked along
the lofty walls the obscene gods and gargoyles leered down, as if imbued with salacious life.
     Choking with fury, Valerius rushed down the great hall, sword in hand. At a sharp cry from
Salome, the skull-faced priest looked up, then released Taramis, drew a heavy knife, already
smeared with blood, and ran at the oncoming Khaurani.
     But cutting down men blinded by the devil's-flame loosed by Salome was different from
fighting a wiry young Hyborian afire with hate and rage.
     Up went the dripping knife, but before it could fall Valerius's keen narrow blade slashed
through the air, and the fist that held the knife jumped from its wrist in a shower of blood.
Valerius, berserk, slashed again and yet again before the crumpling figure could fall. The blade
licked through flesh and bone. The skull-like head fell one way, the half-sundered torso the
other.
     Valerius whirled on his toes, quick and fierce as a jungle-cat, glaring about for Salome. She
must have exhausted her fire-dust in the prison. She was bending over Taramis, grasping her
sister's black locks in one hand, in the other lifting a dagger. Then with a fierce cry Valerius's


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sword was sheathed in her breast with such fury that the point sprang out between her shoulders.
With an awful shriek the witch sank down, writhing in convulsions, grasping at the naked blade as
it was withdrawn, smoking and dripping. Her eyes were inhuman; with a more than human vitality she
clung to the life that ebbed through the wound that split the crimson crescent on her ivory bosom.
She groveled on the floor, clawing and biting at the naked stones in her agony.
     Sickened at the sight, Valerius stooped and lifted the half-fainting queen. Turning his back
on the twisting figure on the floor, he ran toward the door, stumbling in his haste. He staggered
out upon the portico, halted at the head of the steps. The square thronged with people. Some had
come at Ivga's incoherent cries; others had deserted the walls in fear of the onsweeping hordes
out of the desert, fleeing unreasoningly toward the centre of the city. Dumb resignation had
vanished. The throng seethed and milled, yelling and screaming. About the road there sounded
somewhere the splintering of stone and timbers.
     A band of grim Shemites cleft the crowd - the guards of the northern gates, hurrying toward
the south gate to reinforce their comrades there. They reined up short at the sight of the youth
on the steps, holding the limp, naked figure in his arms. The heads of the throng turned toward
the temple; the crowd gaped, a new bewilderment added to their swirling confusion.
     "Here is your queen!" yelled Valerius, straining to make himself understood above the clamor.
The people gave back a bewildered roar. They did not understand, and Valerius sought in vain to
lift his voice above their bedlam. The Shemites rode toward the temple steps, beating a way
through the crowd with their spears.
     Then a new, grisly element introduced itself into the frenzy. Out of the gloom of the temple
behind Valerius wavered a slim white figure, laced with crimson. The people screamed; there in the
arms of Valerius hung the woman they thought their queen; yet there in the temple door staggered
another figure, like a reflection of the other. Their brains reeled. Valerius felt his blood
congeal as he stared at the swaying witch-girl. His sword had transfixed her, sundered her heart.
She should be dead; by all laws of nature she should be dead. Yet there she swayed, on her feet,
clinging horribly to life.
     "Thaug!" she screamed, reeling in the doorway. "Thaugf As in answer to that frightful
invocation there boomed a thunderous croaking from within the temple, the snapping of wood and
metal.
     "That is the queen!" roared the captain of the Shemites, lifting his bow. "Shoot down the man
and other woman!"
     But the roar of a roused hunting-pack rose from the people; they had guessed the truth at
last, understood Valerius's frenzied appeals, knew that the girl who hung limply in his arms was
their true queen. With a soul-shaking yell they surged on the Shemites, tearing and smiting with
tooth and nail and naked hands, with the desperation of hard-pent fury loosed at last. Above them
Salome swayed and tumbled down the marble stairs, dead at last.
     Arrows flickered about him as Valerius ran back between the pillars of the portico, shielding
the body of the queen with his own. Shooting and slashing ruthlessly, the mounted Shemites were
holding their own with the maddened crowd. Valerius darted to the temple door - with one foot on
the threshold he recoiled, crying out in horror and despair.
     Out of the gloom at the other end of the great hall a vast dark form heaved up - came rushing
toward him in gigantic frog-like hops. He saw the gleam of great unearthly eyes, the shimmer of
fangs or talons. He fell back from the door, and then the whir of a shaft past his ear warned him
that death was also behind him. He wheeled desperately. Four or five Shemites had cut their way
through the throng and were spurring their horses up the steps, their bows lifted to shoot him
down. He sprang behind a pillar, on which the arrows splintered. Taramis had fainted. She hung
like a dead woman in his arms.
     Before the Shemites could loose again, the doorway was blocked by a gigantic shape. With
affrighted yells the mercenaries wheeled and began beating a frantic way through the throng, which
crushed back in sudden, galvanized horror, trampling one another in their stampede.
     But the monster seemed to be watching Valerius and the girl. Squeezing its vast, unstable
bulk through the door, it bounded toward him, as he ran down the steps. He felt it looming behind
him, a giant shadowy thing, like a travesty of nature cut out of the heart of night, a black
shapelessness in which only the staring eyes and gleaming fangs were distinct.
     There came a sudden thunder of hoofs; a rout of Shemites, bloody and battered, streamed
across the square from the south, plowing blindly through the packed throng. Behind them swept a
horde of horsemen yelling in a familiar tongue, waving red swords - the exiles, returned! With
them rode fifty black-bearded desert-riders, and at their head a giant figure in black mail.
     "Conan!" shrieked Valerius. "Conan.--"
     The giant yelled a command. Without checking their headlong pace, the desert men lifted their


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bows, drew and loosed. A cloud of arrows sang across the square, over the seething heads of the
multitudes, and sank feather-deep in the black monster. It halted, wavered, reared, a black blot
against the marble pillars. Again the sharp cloud sang, and yet again, and the horror collapsed
and rolled down the steps, as dead as the witch who had summoned it out of the night of ages.
     Conan drew rein beside the portico, leaped off. Valerius had laid the queen on the marble,
sinking beside her in utter exhaustion. The people surged about, crowding in. The Cimmerian cursed
them back, lifted her dark head, pillowed it against his mailed shoulder.
     "By Crom, what is this? The real Taramis! But who is that yonder?"
     "The demon who wore her shape," panted Valerius.
     Conan swore heartily. Ripping a cloak from the shoulders of a soldier, he wrapped it about
the naked queen. Her long dark lashes quivered on her cheeks; her eyes opened, stared up
unbelievingly into the Cimmerian's scarred face.
     "Conan!" Her soft fingers caught at him. "Do I dream? She told me you were dead--"
     "Scarcely!" He grinned hardly. "You do not dream. You are Queen of Khauran again. I broke
Constantius, out there by the river. Most of his dogs never lived to reach the walls, for I gave
orders that no prisoners be taken - except Constantius. The city guard closed the gate in our
faces, but we burst in with rams swung from our saddles. I left all my wolves outside, except this
fifty. I didn't trust them in here, and these Khaurani lads were enough for the gate guards."
     "It has been a nightmare!" she whimpered. "Oh, my poor people! You must help me try to repay
them for all they have suffered, Conan, henceforth councilor as well as captain!"
     Conan laughed, but shook his head. Rising, he set the queen upon her feet, and beckoned to a
number of his Khaurani horsemen who had not continued the pursuit of the fleeing Shemites. They
sprang from their horses, eager to do the bidding of their new-found queen.
     "No, lass, that's over with. I'm chief of the Zuagirs now, and must lead them to plunder the
Turanians, as I promised. This lad, Valerius, will make you a better captain than I. I wasn't made
to dwell among marble walls, anyway. But I must leave you now, and complete what I've begun.
Shemites still live in Khauran."
     As Valerius started to follow Taramis across the square towards the palace, through a lane
opened by the wildly cheering multitude, he felt a soft hand slipped timidly into his sinewy
fingers and turned to receive the slender body of Ivga in his arms. He crushed her to him and
drank her kisses with the gratitude of a weary fighter who has attained rest at last through
tribulation and storm.
     But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their
blood, restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path ...
     The sun was rising. The ancient caravan road was thronged with white-robed horsemen, in a
wavering line that stretched from the walls of Khauran to a spot far out in the plain. Conan the
Cimmerian sat at the head of that column, near the jagged end of a wooden beam that stuck up out
of the ground. Near that stump rose a heavy cross, and on that cross a man hung by spikes through
his hands and feet.
     "Seven months ago, Constantius," said Conan, "it was I who hung there, and you who sat here."
     Constantius did not reply; he licked his gray lips and his eyes were glassy with pain and
fear. Muscles writhed like cords along his lean body.
     "You are more fit to inflict torture than to endure it," said Conan tranquilly. "I hung there
on a cross as you are hanging, and I lived, thanks to circumstances and a stamina peculiar to
barbarians. But you civilized men are soft; your lives are not nailed to your spines as are ours.
Your fortitude consists mainly in inflicting torment, not in enduring it. You will be dead before
sundown. And so, Falcon of the desert, I le e you to the companionship of another bird of the
desert."
     He gestured toward the vultures whose shadows swept across the sands as they wheeled
overhead. From the lips of Constantius came an inhuman cry of despair and horror.
     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 passed a certain
spot, turned impersonally and with the desert man's lack of compassion, 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.

End




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