The Hours of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard Read Free Book Online

the broken host, he fell back toward Tarantia. Riding hard, replacing his wearied horses with steeds seized from the countryside, he approaches Tarantia.
    “I see his weary knights, their armor gray with dust, their pennons drooping as they push their tired horses through the plain. I see, also, the streets of Tarantia. The city is in turmoil. Somehow word has reached the people of the defeat and the death of King Conan. The mob is mad with fear, crying out that the king is dead, and there is none to lead them against the Nemedians. Giant shadows rush on Aquilonia from the east, and the sky is black with vultures.”
    Conan cursed deeply.
    “What are these but words? The raggedest beggar in the street might prophesy as much. If you say you saw all that in the glass ball, then you’re a liar as well as a knave, of which last there’s no doubt! Prospero will hold Tarantia, and the barons will rally to him. Count Trocero of Poitain commands the kingdom in my absence, and he’ll drive these Nemedian dogs howling back to their kennels. What are fifty thousand Nemedians? Aquilonia will swallow them up. They’ll never see Belverus again. It’s not Aquilonia which was conquered at Valkia; it was only Conan.”
    “Aquilonia is doomed,” answered Xaltotun, unmoved. “Lance and ax and torch shall conquer her; or if they fail, powers from the dark of ages shall march against her. As the cliffs fell at Valkia, so shall walled cities and mountains fall, if the need arise, and rivers roar from their channels to drown whole provinces.
    “Better if steel and bowstring prevail without further aid from the arts , for the constant use of mighty spells sometimes sets forces in motion that might rock the universe.”
    “From what hell have you crawled, you nighted dog?” muttered Conan, staring at the man. The Cimmerian involuntarily shivered; he sensed something incredibly ancient, incredibly evil.…
    Xaltotun lifted his head, as if listening to whispers across the void. He seemed to have forgotten his prisoner. Then he shook his head impatiently, and glanced impersonally at Conan.
    “What? Why, if I told you, you would not believe me. But I am wearied of conversation with you; it is less fatiguing to destroy a walled city than it is to frame my thoughts in words a brainless barbarian can understand.”
    “If my hands were free,” opined Conan, “I’d soon make a brainless corpse out of you.”
    “I do not doubt it, if I were fool enough to give you the opportunity,” answered Xaltotun, clapping his hands.
    His manner had changed; there was impatience in his tone, and a certain nervousness in his manner, though Conan did not think this attitude was in any way connected with himself.
    “Consider what I have told you, barbarian,” said Xaltotun. “You will have plenty of leisure. I have not yet decided what I shall do with you. It depends on circumstances yet unborn. But let this be impressed upon you: that if I decide to use you in my game, it will be better to submit without resistance than to suffer my wrath.”
    Conan spat a curse at him, just as hangings that masked a door swung apart and four giant Negroes entered. Each was clad only in a silken breech-clout supported by a girdle, from which hung a great key.
    Xaltotun gestured impatiently toward the king and turned away, as if dismissing the matter entirely from his mind. His fingers twitched queerly. From a cavern green jade box he took a handful of shimmering black dust, and placed it in a brazier which stood on a golden tripod at his elbow. The crystal globe, which he seemed to have forgotten, fell suddenly to the floor, as if its invisible support had been removed.
    Then the blacks had lifted Conan—for so loaded with chains was he that he could not walk—and carried him from the chamber. A glance back, before the heavy, gold-bound teak door was closed, showed him Xaltotun leaning back in his throne-like chair, his arms folded, while a thin wisp of smoke curled