Queen of the Black Coast Read online

creepers that sprawled snake-likeacross his path. His sword swung low in his right hand, and anunaccustomed pallor tinged his dark face.

  The silence that reigned in the jungle was not broken. The sun had setand great shadows rushed upward from the slime of the black earth.Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conanwas a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel. No sound in all thesolitude was heard except his own quick panting as he burst from theshadows into the dim twilight of the river-shore.

  He saw the galley shouldering the rotten wharf, the ruins reelingdrunkenly in the gray half-light.

  And here and there among the stones were spots of raw bright color, asif a careless hand had splashed with a crimson brush.

  Again Conan looked on death and destruction. Before him lay hisspearmen, nor did they rise to salute him. From the jungle-edge to theriverbank, among the rotting pillars and along the broken piers theylay, torn and mangled and half devoured, chewed travesties of men.

  All about the bodies and pieces of bodies were swarms of hugefootprints, like those of hyenas.

  Conan came silently upon the pier, approaching the galley above whosedeck was suspended something that glimmered ivory-white in the fainttwilight. Speechless, the Cimmerian looked on the Queen of the BlackCoast as she hung from the yard-arm of her own galley. Between the yardand her white throat stretched a line of crimson clots that shone likeblood in the gray light.

  4 The Attack from the Air

  _The shadows were black around him, The dripping jaws gaped wide, Thicker than rain the red drops fell; But my love was fiercer than Death's black spell, Nor all the iron walls of hell Could keep me from his side._

  THE SONG OF BELIT

  The jungle was a black colossus that locked the ruin-littered glade inebon arms. The moon had not risen; the stars were flecks of hot amber ina breathless sky that reeked of death. On the pyramid among the fallentowers sat Conan the Cimmerian like an iron statue, chin propped onmassive fists. Out in the black shadows stealthy feet padded and redeyes glimmered. The dead lay as they had fallen. But on the deck of the_Tigress_, on a pyre of broken benches, spear-shafts and leopardskins,lay the Queen of the Black Coast in her last sleep, wrapped in Conan'sscarlet cloak. Like a true queen she lay, with her plunder heaped highabout her: silks, cloth-of-gold, silver braid, casks of gems and goldencoins, silver ingots, jeweled daggers and teocallis of gold wedges.

  But of the plunder of the accursed city, only the sullen waters ofZarkheba could tell where Conan had thrown it with a heathen curse. Nowhe sat grimly on the pyramid, waiting for his unseen foes. The blackfury in his soul drove out all fear. What shapes would emerge from theblackness he knew not, nor did he care.

  He no longer doubted the visions of the black lotus. He understood thatwhile waiting for him in the glade, N'Gora and his comrades had beenterror-stricken by the winged monster swooping upon them from the sky,and fleeing in blind panic, had fallen over the cliff, all except theirchief, who had somehow escaped their fate, though not madness.Meanwhile, or immediately after, or perhaps before, the destruction ofthose on the riverbank had been accomplished. Conan did not doubt thatthe slaughter along the river had been massacre rather than battle.Already unmanned by their superstitious fears, the blacks might wellhave died without striking a blow in their own defense when attacked bytheir inhuman foes.

  Why he had been spared so long, he did not understand, unless the malignentity which ruled the river meant to keep him alive to torture him withgrief and fear. All pointed to a human or superhuman intelligence--thebreaking of the water-casks to divide the forces, the driving of theblacks over the cliff, and last and greatest, the grim jest of thecrimson necklace knotted like a hangman's noose about Belit's whiteneck.

  Having apparently saved the Cimmerian for the choicest victim, andextracted the last ounce of exquisite mental torture, it was likely thatthe unknown enemy would conclude the drama by sending him after theother victims. No smile bent Conan's grim lips at the thought, but hiseyes were lit with iron laughter.

  The moon rose, striking fire from the Cimmerian's horned helmet. No callawoke the echoes; yet suddenly the night grew tense and the jungle heldits breath. Instinctively Conan loosened the great sword in its sheath.The pyramid on which he rested was four-sided, one--the side toward thejungle--carved in broad steps. In his hand was a Shemite bow, such asBelit had taught her pirates to use. A heap of arrows lay at his feet,feathered ends towards him, as he rested on one knee.

  Something moved in the blackness under the trees. Etched abruptly inthe rising moon, Conan saw a darkly blocked-out head and shoulders,brutish in outline. And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently,swiftly, running low--twenty great spotted hyenas. Their slavering fangsflashed in the moonlight, their eyes blazed as no true beast's eyes everblazed.

  Twenty: then the spears of the pirates had taken toll of the pack, afterall. Even as he thought this, Conan drew nock to ear, and at the twangof the string a flame-eyed shadow bounded high and fell writhing. Therest did not falter; on they came, and like a rain of death among themfell the arrows of the Cimmerian, driven with all the force and accuracyof steely thews backed by a hate hot as the slag-heaps of hell.

  In his berserk fury he did not miss; the air was filled with feathereddestruction. The havoc wrought among the onrushing pack wasbreathtaking. Less than half of them reached the foot of the pyramid.Others dropped upon the broad steps. Glaring down into the blazing eyes,Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely in theirunnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference. They exuded anaura tangible as the black mist rising from a corpse-littered swamp. Bywhat godless alchemy these beings had been brought into existence, hecould not guess; but he knew he faced diabolism blacker than the Well ofSkelos.

  Springing to his feet, he bent his bow powerfully and drove his lastshaft point blank at a great hairy shape that soared up at his throat.The arrow was a flying beam of moonlight that flashed onward with but ablur in its course, but the were-beast plunged convulsively in midairand crashed headlong, shot through and through.

  Then the rest were on him, in a nightmare rush of blazing eyes anddripping fangs. His fiercely driven sword shore the first asunder; thenthe desperate impact of the others bore him down. He crushed a narrowskull with the pommel of his hilt, feeling the bone splinter and bloodand brains gush over his hand; then, dropping the sword, useless at suchdeadly close quarters, he caught at the throats of the two horrors whichwere ripping and tearing at him in silent fury. A foul acrid scentalmost stifled him, his own sweat blinded him. Only his mail saved himfrom being ripped to ribbons in an instant. The next, his naked righthand locked on a hairy throat and tore it open. His left hand, missingthe throat of the other beast, caught and broke its foreleg. A shortyelp, the only cry in that grim battle, and hideously human-like, burstfrom the maimed beast. At the sick horror of that cry from a bestialthroat, Conan involuntarily relaxed his grip.

  One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasmof ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat--to fall back dead,even as Conan felt the tearing agony of its grip.

  The other, springing forward on three legs, was slashing at his belly asa wolf slashes, actually rending the links of his mail. Flinging asidethe dying beast, Conan grappled the crippled horror and, with a musculareffort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, he heavedupright, gripping the struggling, tearing fiend in his arms. An instanthe reeled off balance, its fetid breath hot on his nostrils; its jawssnapping at his neck; then he hurled it from him, to crash withbone-splintering force down the marble steps.

  As he reeled on wide-braced legs, sobbing for breath, the jungle and themoon swimming bloodily to his sight, the thrash of bat-wings was loud inhis ears. Stooping, he groped for his sword, and swaying upright, bracedhis feet drunkenly and heaved the great blade above his head with bothhands, shaking the blood from his eyes as he sought the air above himfor his foe.

  Instead
of attack from the air, the pyramid staggered suddenly andawfully beneath his feet. He heard a rumbling crackle and saw the tallcolumn above him wave like a wand. Stung to galvanized life, he boundedfar out; his feet hit a step, halfway down, which rocked beneath him,and his next desperate leap carried him clear. But even as his heels hitthe earth, with a shattering crash like a breaking mountain the pyramidcrumpled, the column came thundering down in bursting fragments. For ablind cataclysmic instant the sky seemed to rain shards of marble. Thena rubble of shattered stone lay whitely under the moon.

  * * * * *

  Conan stirred, throwing off the splinters that half covered him. Aglancing blow had knocked off his helmet and momentarily stunned him.Across his legs lay a great piece of the column, pinning him down. Hewas not sure that his legs were unbroken. His black locks were plasteredwith sweat; blood trickled from the wounds in his throat and hands. Hehitched up on one arm, struggling with the debris that prisoned