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Read books online » Fiction » The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard (types of ebook readers txt) 📖

Book online «The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard (types of ebook readers txt) 📖». Author Robert E. Howard



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>black stone stood a curious golden vessel, shaped like the shell of a

scallop. Into this cavern came some of the same dark, wiry men who had

borne the mummy-case. They seized the golden vessel, and then the

shadows swirled around them and what happened he could not say. But he

saw a glimmer in a whorl of darkness, like a ball of living fire. Then

the smoke was only smoke, drifting up from the fire of tamarisk

chunks, thinning and fading.

 

“But what does this portend?” he demanded, bewildered. “What I saw in

Tarantia I can understand. But what means this glimpse of Zamorian

thieves sneaking through a subterranean temple of Set, in Stygia? And

that cavern-I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it, in all my

wanderings. If you can show me that much, these shreds of vision which

mean nothing, disjointed, why can you not show me all that is to

occur?”

 

Zeiata stirred the fire without replying.

 

“These things are governed by immutable laws,” she said at last. “I

can not make you understand; I do not altogether understand myself,

though I have sought wisdom in the silences of the high places for

more years than I can remember. I cannot save you, though I would if I

might. Man must, at last, work out his own salvation. Yet perhaps

wisdom may come to me in dreams, and in the morn I may be able to give

you the clue to the enigma.”

 

“What enigma?” he demanded.

 

“The mystery that confronts you, whereby you have lost a kingdom,” she

answered. And then she spread a sheepskin upon the floor before the

hearth. “Sleep,” she said briefly. Without a word he stretched himself

upon it, and sank into restless but deep sleep through which phantoms

moved silently and monstrous shapeless shadows crept. Once, limned

against a purple sunless horizon, he saw the mighty walls and towers

of a great city of such as rose nowhere on the waking earth he knew.

Its colossal pylons and purple minarets lifted toward the stars, and

over it, floating like a giant mirage, hovered the bearded countenance

of the man Xaltotun.

 

Conan woke in the chill whiteness of early dawn, to see Zelata

crouched beside the tiny fire. He had not awakened once in the night,

and the sound of the great wolf leaving or entering should have roused

him. Yet the wolf was there, beside the hearth, with its shaggy coat

wet with dew, and with more than dew. Blood glistened wetly amid the

thick fell, and there was a cut upon his shoulder.

 

Zeiata nodded, without looking around, as if reading the thoughts of

her royal guest.

 

“He has hunted before dawn, and red was the hunting. I think the man

who hunted a king will hunt no more, neither man nor beast.”

 

Conan stared at the great beast with strange fascination as he moved

to take the food Zelata offered him.

 

“When I come to my throne again I won’t forget,” he said briefly.

“You’ve befriended me-by Crom, I can’t remember when I’ve lain down

and slept at the mercy of man or woman as I did last night. But what

of the riddle you would read me this morn?”

 

A long silence ensued, in which the crackle of the tamarisks was loud

on the hearth.

 

“Find the heart of your kingdom,” she said at last. “There lies your

defeat and your power. You fight more than mortal man. You will not

press the throne again unless you find the heart of your kingdom.”

 

“Do you mean the city of Tarantia?”

 

She shook her head. “I am but an oracle, through whose lips the gods

speak. My lips are sealed by them lest I speak too much. You must find

the heart of your kingdom. I can say no more. My lips are opened and

sealed by the gods.”

 

Dawn was still white on the peaks when Conan rode westward. A glance

back showed him Zelata standing in the door of her hut, inscrutable as

ever, the great wolf beside her.

 

A gray sky arched overhead, and a moaning wind was chill with a

promise of winter. Brown leaves fluttered slowly down from the bare

branches, sifting upon his mailed shoulders.

 

All day he pushed through the hills, avoiding roads and villages.

Toward nightfall he began to drop down from the heights, tier by tier,

and saw the broad plains of Aquilonia spread out beneath him.

 

Villages and farms lay close to the foot of the hills on the western

side of the mountains for, for half a century, most of the raiding

across the frontier had been done by the Aquilonians. But now only

embers and ashes showed where farm huts and villas had stood.

 

In the gathering darkness Conan rode slowly on. There was little fear

of discovery, which he dreaded from friend as well as from foe. The

Nemedians had remembered old scores on their westward drive, and

Valerius had made no attempt to restrain his allies. He did not count

on winning the love of the common people. A vast swath of desolation

had been cut through the country from the foothills westward. Conan

cursed as he rode over blackened expanses that had been rich fields,

and saw the gaunt gable-ends of burned houses jutting against the sky.

He moved through an empty and deserted land, like a ghost out of a

forgotten and outworn past.

 

The speed with which the army had traversed the land showed what

little resistance it had encountered. Yet had Conan been leading his

Aquilonians the invading army would have been forced to buy every foot

they gained with their blood. The bitter realization permeated his

soul; he was not the representative of a dynasty. He was only a lone

adventurer. Even the drop of dynastic blood Valerius boasted had more

hold on the minds of men than the memory of Conan and the freedom and

power he had given the kingdom.

 

No pursuers followed him down out of the hills. He watched for

wandering or returning Nemedian troops, but met none. Skulkers gave

him a wide path, supposing him to be one of the conquerors, what of

his harness. Groves and rivers were far more plentiful on the western

side of the mountains, and coverts for concealment were not lacking.

 

So he moved across the pillaged land, halting only to rest his horse,

eating frugally of the food Zeiata had given him, until, on a dawn

when he lay hidden on a river bank where willows and oaks grew

thickly, he glimpsed, afar, across the rolling plains dotted with rich

groves, the blue and golden towers of Tarantia.

 

He was no longer in a deserted land, but one teeming with varied life.

His progress thenceforth was slow and cautious, through thick woods

and unfrequented byways. It was dusk when he reached the plantation of

Servius Galannus.

Chapter 8: Dying Embers

THE COUNTRYSIDE ABOUT Tarantia had escaped the fearful ravaging of the

more easterly provinces. There were evidences of the march of a

conquering army in broken hedges, plundered fields and looted

granaries, but torch and steel had not been loosed wholesale.

 

There was but one grim splotch on the landscape-a charred expanse of

ashes and blackened stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the

stately villa of one of his staunchest supporters.

 

The king dared not openly approach the Galannus farm, which lay only a

few miles from the city. In the twilight he rode through an extensive

woodland, until he sighted a keeper’s lodge through the trees.

Dismounting and tying his horse, he approached the thick, arched door

with the intention of sending the keeper after Servius. He did not

know what enemies the manor house might be sheltering. He had seen no

troops, but they might be quartered all over the countryside. But as

he drew near, he saw the door open and a compact figure in silk hose

and richly embroidered doublet stride forth and turn up a path that

wound away through the woods.

 

“Servius!”

 

At the low call the master of the plantation wheeled with a startled

exclamation. His hand flew to the short hunting-sword at his hip, and

he recoiled from the tall gray steel figure standing in the dusk

before him.

 

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What is your—Mitra!”

 

His breath hissed inward and his ruddy face paled. “Avaunt!” he

ejaculated. “Why have you come back from the gray lands of death to

terrify me? I was always your true liegeman in your lifetime—”

 

“As I still expect you to be,” answered Conan. “Stop trembling, man;

I’m flesh and blood.”

 

Sweating with uncertainty Servius approached and stared into the face

of the mail-clad giant, and then, convinced of the reality of what he

saw, he dropped to one knee and doffed his plumed cap.

 

“Your Majesty! Truly, this is a miracle passing belief! The great bell

in the citadel has tolled your dirge, days agone. Men said you died at

Valkia, crushed under a million tons of earth and broken granite.”

 

“It was another in my harness,” grunted Conan. “But let us talk later.

If there is such a thing as a joint of beef on your board—”

 

“Forgive me, my lord!” cried Servius, springing to his feet. “The dust

of travel is gray on your mail, and I keep you standing here without

rest or sup! Mitra! I see well enough now that you are alive, but I

swear, when I turned and saw you standing all gray and dim in the

twilight, the marrow of my knees turned to water. It is an ill thing

to meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk.”

 

“Bid the keeper see to my steed which is tied behind yonder oak,”

requested Conan, and Servius nodded, drawing the king up the path. The

patrician, recovering from his supernatural fright, had become

extremely nervous.

 

“I will send a servant from the manor,” he said. “The keeper is in his

lodge-but I dare not trust even my servants in these days. It is

better that only I know of your presence.”

 

Approaching the great house that glimmered dimly through the trees, he

turned aside into a little-used path that ran between close-set oaks

whose intertwining branches formed a vault overhead, shutting out the

dim light of the gathering dusk. Servius hurried on through the

darkness without speaking, and with something resembling panic in his

manner, and presently led Conan through a small side-door into a

narrow, dimly illuminated corridor. They traversed this in haste and

silence, and Servius brought the king into a spacious chamber with a

high, oak-beamed ceiling and richly paneled walls. Logs flamed in the

wide fireplace, for there was a frosty edge to the air, and a great

meat pasty in a stone platter stood smoking on a broad mahogany board.

Servius locked the massive door and extinguished the candles that

stood in a silver candlestick on the table, leaving the chamber

illuminated only by the fire on the hearth.

 

“Your pardon, your Majesty,” he apologized. “These are perilous times;

spies lurk everywhere. It were better that none be able to peer

through the windows and recognize you. This pasty, however, is just

from the oven, as I intended supping on my return from talk with my

keeper. If your Majesty would deign—”

 

“The light is sufficient,” grunted Conan, seating himself with scant

ceremony, and drawing his poniard.

 

He dug ravenously into the luscious dish, and washed it down with

great gulps of wine from grapes grown in Servius’s vineyards. He

seemed oblivious to any sense of peril, but Servius shifted uneasily

on his

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