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'Not if you die!' muttered Olgerd, and his hand flickered toward his hilt. But quick as the stroke of a great cat, Conan's arm shot across the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd's forearm. There was a snap of breaking bones, and for a tense instant the scene held: the men facing each other as motionless as images, perspiration starting out on Olgerd's forehead. Conan laughed, never easing his grip on the broken arm.
'Are you fit to live, Olgerd?'
His smile did not alter as the corded muscles rippled in knotting ridges along his forearm and his fingers ground into the kozak's quivering flesh. There was the sound of broken bones grating together and Olgerd's face turned the color of ashes; blood oozed from his lip where his teeth sank, but he uttered no sound.
With a laugh Conan released him and drew back, and the kozak swayed, caught the table edge with his good hand to steady himself.
'I give you life, Olgerd, as you gave it to me,' said Conan tranquilly, 'though it was for your own ends that you took me down from the cross. It was a bitter test you gave me then; you couldn't have endured it; neither could anyone, but a western barbarian.
'Take your horse and go. It's tied behind the tent, and food and water are in the saddle-bags. None will see your going, but go quickly. There's no room for a fallen chief on the desert. If the warriors see you, maimed and deposed, they'll never let you leave the camp alive.'
Olgerd did not reply. Slowly, without a word, he turned and stalked across the tent, through the flapped opening. Unspeaking he climbed into the saddle of the great white stallion that stood tethered there in the shade of a spreading palm-tree; and unspeaking, with his broken arm thrust in the bosom of his khalat , he reined the steed about and rode eastward into the open desert, out of the life of the people of the Zuagir.
Inside the tent Conan emptied the wine-jug and smacked his lips with relish. Tossing the empty vessel into a corner, he braced his belt and strode out through the front opening, halting for a moment to let his gaze sweep over the lines of camel-hair tents that stretched before him, and the white-robed figures that moved among them, arguing, singing, mending bridles or whetting tulwars.
He lifted his voice in a thunder that carried to the farthest confines of the encampment: 'Aie , you dogs, sharpen your ears and listen! Gather around here. I have a tale to tell you.'
5 The Voice from the Crystal
'I knew that Conan spoke the truth when he said it was not Taramis!' the speaker exclaimed. 'For months I have haunted the outskirts of the palace, playing the part of a deaf beggar. At last I learned what I had believed that our queen was a prisoner in the dungeons that adjoin the palace. I watched my opportunity and captured a Shemitish jailer knocked him senseless as he left the courtyard late one night dragged him into a cellar near by and questioned him. Before he died he told me what I have just told you, and what we have suspected all along that the woman ruling Khauran is a witch: Salome. Taramis, he said, is imprisoned in the lowest dungeon.
'This invasion of the Zuagirs gives us the opportunity we sought. What Conan means to do, I can not say. Perhaps he merely wishes vengeance on Constantius. Perhaps he intends sacking the city and destroying it. He is a barbarian
Thaug.'
'It shall be done,' answered Constantius, with his gauntleted hand brushing back the thin hair from his high bald forehead, burned dark by the sun. 'For victory and the fair honor of Taramis!' he said sardonically, and, taking his vizored helmet under his arm, he lifted a hand in salute, and strode clanking from the chamber. His voice drifted back, harshly lifted in orders to his officers.
Salome leaned back on the couch, yawned, stretched herself like a great supple cat, and called: 'Zang!'
A cat-footed priest, with features like yellowed parchment stretched over a skull, entered noiselessly.
Salome turned to an ivory pedestal on which stood two crystal globes, and taking from it the smaller, she handed the glistening sphere to the priest.
'Ride with Constantius,' she said. 'Give me the news of the battle. Go!'
The skull-faced man bowed low, and hiding the globe under his dark mantle, hurried from the chamber.
Outside in the city there was no sound, except the clank of hoofs and after a while the clang of a closing gate. Salome mounted a wide marble stair that led to the flat, canopied, marble-battlemented roof. She was above all other buildings in the city. The streets were deserted, the great square in front of the palace was empty. In normal times folk shunned the grim temple which rose on the opposite side of that square, but now the town looked like a dead city. Only on the southern wall and the roofs that overlooked it was there any sign of life. There the people massed thickly. They made no demonstration, did not know whether to hope for the victory or defeat of Constantius. Victory meant further misery under his intolerable rule; defeat probably meant the sack of the city and red massacre. No word had come from Conan. They did not know what to expect at his hands. They remembered that he was a barbarian.