Part 10 (1/2)

'I have found the brooding silence of the glensthan the babble of city streets,' she said 'The children of the wild are kinder than the children ofwolf 'My children were afar fro They were cos against you?' Conan dele all over the countryside, froers in the valleys told theold hidden away, so as to divert their attentions froes They deered them But neither skulkers nor the men who pursue you, nor any raven will find you here'

He shook his head, eating ravenously

'I'm for Tarantia'

She shook her head

'You thrust your head into the dragon's jaws Best seek refuge abroad The heart is gone frodom'

'What do you mean?' he dedoo to Tarantia?'

'Aye Prospero will be holding it against Amalric'

'Are you sure?'

'hell's devils, woman!' he exclaimed wrathfully 'What else?'

She shook her head 'I feel that it is otherwise Let us see Not lightly is the veil rent; yet I will rend it a little, and show you your capital city'

Conan did not see what she cast upon the fire, but the hiathered and billowed up into the hut And as he watched, the walls and ceiling of the but see with infinite i out everything And in it for clarity

He stared at the familiar towers and streets of Tarantia, where a mob seethed and screamed, and at the same ti inexorably ard through the sreat square of Tarantia the frantic throngwas dead, that the barons were girding themselves to divide the land between the, even of Valerius, was better than anarchy Prospero, shi+ning in his ar the the the city They turned on hi that he was Trocero's butcher, a more evil foe than Ahts

A slight blurring of the picture, thatof ti out of the gates and spurring southward Behind him the city was in an uproar

'Fools!' muttered Conan thickly 'Fools! Why could they not trust Prospero? Zelata, if you are ame of me, with some trickery-'

'This has passed,' answered Zelata i of the day that has passed when Prospero rode out of Tarantia, with the hosts of Aht Fro So I read it in the smoke At sunset the Nemedians rode into Tarantia, unopposed Look! Even now, in the royal hall of Tarantia-'

Abruptly Conan was looking into the great coronation hall Valerius stood on the regal dais, clad in ermine robes, and Amalric, still in his dusty, bloodstained ar circlet on his yellow locks - the crown of Aquilonia! The people cheered; long lines of steel-clad Ne in disfavor at Conan's court strutted and swaggered with the emblem of Valerius on their sleeves

'Crom!' It was an explosive ireat fists clenched into ha, his features convulsed 'A Neade -in the royal hall of Tarantia!'

As if dispelled by his violence, the s at hih the mist