Or perhaps they did not return at all, or returned only as severed heads cast down before the bolted bronze doors. It was particularly ghastly, these people, shut off from the rest of the world, caught together like rabid rats in a trap, butchering each other through the years, crouching and creeping through the sunless corridors to maim and murder.
And while Olmec talked Valeria felt the blazing eyes of the woman Tascela fixed for ever upon her.
"And we can never leave the city," said Olmec. "For fifty years no one has stepped outside the gate, except the victims bound and thrown forth for the dragon. And of late years even that has been discontinued. Once the dragon came from the forest to bellow about the wall. We who were born and raised here would fear to leave it, even were the dragon not there."
"Well," grunted Conan, "with your leave, we"ll take our chance with the dragons. This feud is none of our business, and we don"t care to get mixed up in it. If you"ll show us the south gate, we"ll be on our way."
Tascela"s hands clenched and she started to speak, but Olmec interrupted her: "It is nearly nightfall. Wait at least until morning. If you wander forth into the plain tonight, you will certainly fall prey to the dragons."
"We crossed it last night without seeing any," answered Conan. "But perhaps it would be better to wait until morning. But no later than that. We wish to reach the west coast, and it"s a march of many weeks, even if we had horses."
"We have jewels," offered Olmec.
"Well, listen," said Conan. "Suppose we do this: we"ll help you clean out those Xotalancas, and then we"ll all see what we can do about wiping out the dragons in the forest."
They were showed into ornate chambers, lighted by the slot-like skylights.
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"Why don"t the Xotalancas come over the roofs and shatter the gla.s.s?" Conan demanded.
"It can not be broken," answered Techotl, who had accompanied him into his chamber.
"Besides the roofs would be hard to clamber over. They are mostly spires and domes and steep ridges."
"Who is this Tascela?" Conan asked. "Olmec"s wife?"
Techotl shuddered and glanced about him before answering.
"No. She is Tascela! She was the wife of Xotalanc the woman about which the feud began."
"What are you saying?" demanded Conan. "That woman is young and beautiful. Are you trying to tell me that she was a wife fifty years ago?"
"Aye! She was a full-grown woman when the Tlazitlans journeyed from Lake Zuad. She is a witch, who possesses the knowledge of perpetual youth but a grisly knowledge it is. I dare not say more."
And with his finger at his lips, he glided from the chamber.
Valeria awoke suddenly on her couch. There were no fire-gems in the room, but illumination was supplied by a jewel. In the weird dusky glow of the fire-gems she saw a shadowy figure bending over her. She was aware of a delicious, sensuous langour stealing over her that was not like natural sleep. Something had touched her face, awakening her.
The sight of the dim figure roused her instantly. Even as she recognized the figure as the sullen Yasala, Tascela"s maid, she was on her feet. Yasala whirled lithely, but before she could run, Valeria caught her wrist and wrenched her around to face.
"What the devil were you doing bending over me? What"s that in your hand?"
The woman made no reply, but sought to cast the object away. Valeria twisted her arm in front of her and the thing fell to the floor a great black exotic blossom on a jade green stem.
"The black lotus!" said Valeria between her teeth. "You were trying to drug me if you hadn"t accidentally awkened me by touching my face with that blossom why did you do it? What"s your game?"
Yasala maintained a sulky silence, and with an oath Valeria whirled her around, forced her to her knees and twisted her arm up behind her back.
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"Tell me, or I"ll tear your arm out of the socket."
Yasala squirmed in anguish as her arm was forced excruiatingly up between her shoulder blades, but a violent shaking of her head was the only answer she made.
"s.l.u.t!" Valeria cast her from her to sprawl on the floor. The pirate bent over her prostrate figure, her eyes blazing. Fear and the memory of Tascela"s burning eyes stirred in her, rousing all her ruthless anger and tigerish instinct of self-preservation. The chambers were as silent as if Xuchotl were in reality a deserted city. A thrill of panic throbbed through Valeria, rendering her merciless.
"You came here for no good reason," she muttered, her eyes smoldering as it rested on the sullen figure with its lowered head. "There"s some foul mystery here treason or intrigue. Did Tascela send you? Does Olmec know you came?"
No answer. Valeria cursed venomously and slapped the woman first on one side and then the other. The blows resounded in the room.
Valeria turned and tore a handful of cords from a nearby hanging.
"You stubborn b.i.t.c.h!" she said between her teeth. "I"m going to strip you naked and tie you across that couch, and whip you with my sword-belt until you tell me what you were doing here."
"Why don"t you scream?" she asked sardonically. "Who do you fear? Tascela or Olmec, or Conan?"
"Mercy," whispered the woman presently. "I will tell."
Valeria released her. Yasala was quivering, her limbs and body.
"Wine," she begged, indicating the vessel on the ivory table with a trembling hand. "Let me drink then I will tell you." She rose unsteadily as Valeria picked up the vessel. She took it, raised it to her lips and then dashed the contents full into the Aquilonian"s face. Valeria reeled backward, shaking and clawing the stinging liquid out of her eyes, and her misty sight cleared enough to let her see Yasala dart across the room, fling back a bolt, throw open the door and run down the hall. The pirate was after her instantly, sword out and murder in her heart.
The woman turned a corner in the corridor and when Valeria reached it, she only an empty hall, 336.
and an open door that gaped blackly. A damp moldy scent reeked up from it, and Valeria shivered. That must be the door that led to the catacombs. Yasala had taken refuge there.
Valeria advanced to the door and looked down the flight of steps that vanished quickly into utter blackness. She shivered slightly at the thought of the thousands of corpses lying in their stone nitches down there, wrapped in their moldering cloths. She had no intention of groping her way down. Yasala doubtless knew every turn and twist of the subterranean pa.s.sages.
Valeria was drawing back, baffled, when a sobbing cry welled up from the blackness. Faintly human words were distinguishable, and the voice was that of a woman: "Oh, help! Help, in Set"s name! Ahhh!" It trailed away and Valeria thought she heard the echo of a fiendish t.i.ttering.
Valeria felt her skin crawl. What had happened to Yasala down there in the thick blackness?
That it had been she who cried out, the pirate did not doubt. But what peril could have befallen her? Was one of the Xotalancas lurking down there? Olmec had a.s.sured them that the south end of the catacombs were walled off from the rest, too securely for their enemies to break through from that direction. Besides that t.i.ttering had not sounded like a human being at all Valeria closed the door and hurried back down the corridor. She regained her chamber and shot the bolt behind her. She was determined to make her way to Conan"s room, and urge him to join her in an attempt to fight their way out of that city of devils. But even as she reached the door, a long-drawn scream of agony rang through the halls.
CHAPTER.
It was the yelling of men and the clang of steel that brought Conan bounding from his couch, broadsword in hand and wide awake. In an instant he had reached the door and flung it open, even as Techotl rushed in, eyes blazing, sword dripping and blood streaming from a gash in the neck.
"The Yotalancas!" he croaked, his voice hardly human. "They are within the doors!"
Conan thrust past him and ran down the narrow corridors, even as Valeria emerged from her chamber.
"What the devil is it?" she called.
"Techotl says the Xotalancas are in," he answered hurriedly. "That racket sounds like it."
They ran into the throne-room and burst upon a wild scene of blood. Some twenty men and women, their black hair streaming, and the white skulls gleaming on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, were locked in combat with a somewhat larger number of Tecuhltli. The women on both sides fought as 337.
madly as the men. Already the room was strewn with corpses, the greater number of which were Tecuhltli.
Olmec, without his robe and naked but for a breech-clout, was fighting before his throne, and as Conan and Valeria entered, Tascela ran from an inner chamber, with a sword in her hand.
The rest was a whirling nightmare of steel. The feud came to a b.l.o.o.d.y end there. The losses of the Xotalancas had been greater, their position more desperate than the Tecuhltli had realized.
Driven to frenzy by the word, gasped by a dying man, that mysterious white-skinned allies had joined their enemies, they had cast all in one furious onslaught. Though how they gained entrance into Tecuhltli remained a mystery until after the battle.
It was long and savage. The surprize had aided the Xotalancas and seven of the Tecuhltli were down before they knew their foes were on them. But still they outnumbered the Xotalancas, and they too were fired by the realization that it was the death-grip at last, and heartened by the presence of their allies.
In a melee of this sort no three Tlazitlans were a match for Conan. Taller, stronger and quicker than they, he moved through the whirling ma.s.s with the surety and devastating force of a hurricane. Valeria was as strong as a man, and her quickness and ferocity outmatched any that opposed her.
Only five women were with the Xotalancas and they were down and their throats cut before Conan and Valeria reached the fighting. And presently only Tecuhltli and their allies lived in the great throne room, and the staggering, blood-stained living set up a mad howling of triumph.
"How came they in Tecuhltli?" roared Olmec, brandishing his sword.
"It was Xatmec," stammered a warrior, wiping blood from a great gash across his shoulder.
"He heard a noise and placed his ear against the door while I went to the mirrors to look. I saw the Xotalancas outside the door and one played on a pipe Xatmec leaned frozen against the door, as if paralyzed by the strains of music that whispered through the panels.
"Then suddenly the music changed to a shrill keening and Xatmec screamed like one in agony and like a madman he tore opened the door and rushed out, with his sword lifted. A dozen blades struck him down and over his body the Xotalancas surged into the guard-room."
"The pipes of madness," muttered Olmec. "They were hidden in the city old Tolkemec used to speak of them. The dogs found them, somehow. There is great magic hidden in this city if we could only find it."
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"Are these all of them?" demanded Conan.
Olmec shrugged his shoulders. Only thirty of his people were left. Men were driving twenty new crimson nails into the ebony column.
"I do not know."
"I"ll go to Xotalanc and see," said Conan. "No, you won"t, either," his to Valeria. "You"ve got a stab in your leg. You"ll stay here and get it bandaged. Shut up, will you? Who"ll go and guide me?"
Techotl limped out.
"I"ll go!"
"No, you won"t. You"re wounded."
A man volunteered and Olmec ordered another to go with the Cimmerian. Their names were Yanath and Topal. They led Conan through silent chambers and halls until they came to the bronze door that marked the boundary of Xotalanc. They tried it gingerly and it opened under their fingers. Awedly they stared into the green-lit chambers. For fifty years no man of Teculhtli had entered those halls save as a prisoner going to a hideous doom.
Conan strode in and they followed. They found no living men, but they found evidences of the feud.
In a chamber there stood rows of gla.s.s-like cases. And in these cases were human heads, perfectly preserved scores of them.
Yanath stood staring at them, a wild light in his wild eyes.
"There is my brother"s head," he murmured. "And my sister"s son, and my father"s brother!"
Suddenly he went mad. The sanity of all the Tlazitlans hung on a hair trigger. Howling and frothing he turned and drove his sword to the hilt in Topal"s body. Topal went down and Yanath turned on Conan. The Cimmerian saw the man was hopelessly mad so he side-stepped and as the maniac went past, he swung a cut that severed shoulder bone and breast, and dropped the man dead beside his dying victim.
Conan knelt beside Topal and then caught the man"s wrist as, with a dying effort, he drove a dagger at the Cimmerian"s breast.
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"Crom!" swore Conan. "Are you mad, too?"
"Olmec ordered it," gasped the dying man. "He bade me slay you while returning to Tecuhltli " and with the name of his clan on his lips, Topal died.
Conan rose, scowling. Then he turned and hurried back through the halls and chambers, toward Tecuhltli. His primitive sense of direction led him unerringly back the way they had come.
And as he approached Tecuhltli he was aware of someone ahead of him someone who gasped and panted and advanced with a floundering noise. Conan sprang forward and saw Techotl crawling toward him. The man was bleeding from a deep gash in his breast.
"Conan!" he cried. "Olmec has taken the yellow-haired woman! I sought to stay him, but he struck me down. He thought he had slain me! Slay Olmec, take her and go! He lied to you!
There was but one dragon in all the forest, and if you slew it, there is no fear but you can win through to the coast! For many years we worshipped it as a G.o.d, and offered up victims to it!
Haste! Olmec has taken her to the "
His head slumped down and he died.
Conan sprang up, his eyes like live coals. So that was why Olmec gave orders to Topal that he should be slain! He might have known what was going on in that black-bearded degenerate"s mind. He raced recklessly, counting his opponents in his mind. There could not be more than fourteen or fifteen of them. In his rage he felt able to account for the whole clan single-handed.
But craft conquered, or rather controlled, his berserk rage. He would not attack through the door by which the Xotalancas had come. He would strike from a higher or a lower level.
Doubtless half a century of habit would cause all the doors to be locked and bolted, anyway.
When Topal and Yanath did not return, it might rouse fears that some of the Xotalancas still survived.
He went down a winding stair, and heard a low groan ahead of him. Entering cautiously he saw a giant figure strapped to a rack-like frame. A heavy iron ball was poised over his breast. His head rested on a bed of iron spikes. When this became unbearable the wretch lifted his head and a strap fastened to his head worked the iron ball. Each time he lifted his head, the ball descended a few inches toward his hairy breast. Eventually it would crush him to a pulp. The man was gagged, but Conan recognized him. It was Olmec, prince of Teculhtli.
When Valeria retired into the chamber indicated by Olmec, a woman followed her and bandaged the stab in the calf of her leg. Silently that woman retired and as a shadow fell across 340.
her, Valeria looked up, to see Olmec staring down at her. She had laid her blood-stained sword on the couch.
"She has done a clumsy job," criticised the prince of Tecuhltli, bending over the bandage. "Let me see "
With a quickness amazing in one of his bulk, he s.n.a.t.c.hed her sword and threw it across the chamber. His next move was to catch her in his giant arms.
Quick as he was, she almost matched him, for even as he grabbed her her dirk was in her hand and she stabbed murderous at his throat. Somehow he caught her wrist and then began a savage wrestling match, in which his superior strength and weight finally told. She was crushed down on a couch, disarmed and panting, her eyes blazing up at him like the eyes of a trapped tigress.
Though prince of Tecuhltli, Olmec moved in haste and silence. He gagged and bound her and carried her along corridors and hallways to a secret chamber. There, before he could have his will of her, came Tascela. He hid the girl, and he had a clash of wits with Tascela, in which she persuaded him to drink wine with her. He did so and was instantly paralyzed. She dragged him into a torture room and stretched him on the rack where Conan found him.