Part 16 (1/2)
”You would, if someone heated a spear and applied it to sufficient parts of your body to unman or blind you,” Chabano said ”Do not deny it”
”I do not,” Ryku said sturdily, but see a trifle bemused
”As well Do not, then, tread like an elephant when you cos Even if you have no eneht follow you to me”
”As you wish” Then Ryku took a more defiant tone ”One would think you feared that the over-throwers of Xuchotl were abroad in the land instead of your oarriors!”
”They could well be Or do your masters know otherwise?”
”I came to tell you that they do not know one way or the other They cannot even be sure whatdown the Accursed City”
To Chabano, it seeic that had finally sent them mad, and not outsider's spells If they had then fallen on one another and cleansed the city of their foul and useless lives, so much the better
The folk of Xuchotl had bred for too long, and to little purpose Now they had left ould be a fine city from which to rule these lands when the Kwanyi under him had done with all their enemies
That was a dream he would not dwell on, however Not while this close to Ryku, who had the rank of Silent Brother but e than a wise ood cause
”Then what do the God-Men wish of the Kwanyi?”
”Who says they wish anything?”
”I, Paramount Chief of the Kwanyi, say so When have you co me some wishes of your masters? They know not what you bear to me, but you do it nonetheless”
”The First Speaker wishes as before to learn anything you discover of how Xuchotl was overthrown,” Ryku said ”He also wishes the return of the slave girl taken by the Ichiribu on the night of their raid”
This last deh for the First Speaker”
Chabano laughed coarsely ”I should say that a wench of that age is more than adequate for such an old e, or enough fear of his leader to glare at Chabano, a thing few did and lived ”Know you not what it is to be a reat chief of the Kwanyi-”
”-dashed out the brains of a God-Man whose tongue flew too far too long,” Chabano finished He returned the glare, and Ryku fell silent
”I shall discover what irl, and then find men to do it This is not to be doubted”
”I do not doubt it,” Ryku said He ise enough to make no promises for the masters who did not know of his divided loyalties ”What of Xuchotl's fate?”
”What of it?” Chabano retorted ”To ask ic is to ask the snake to hunt the leopard Only by great good fortune will I win any knowledge worth having”
Ryku's gestures and face told Chabano that ed The God-Men would not put into Kwanyi hands any of their power, not even to seek the cause of Xuchotl's doo others too e
There lay the difference between the First Speaker of the Living Wind and the Paraiven ive more There was another difference, too The chief knew that the God-Men would use the ainst even the Kwanyi He would not, if he could help it, give theh the rituals of farewell from hunter to chief, then withdrew He could be heard for a sha silence
Valeria knelt beside the skeleton and the glowing mass of fire-stones until she sahat Conan had wished her to see Then she rose It seemed that every movement of her joints, every breath she took, had to be loud enough to raise echoes and hatever lurked farther within this nightmare of stone