you have found it! You remember the feud! After all these years of
blackness, you remember!"
For in the lean hand of Tolkemec now waved a curious jade-hued wand, on
the end of which glowed a knob of crimson shaped like a pomegranate. She
sprang aside as he thrust it out like a spear, and a beam of crimson
fire lanced from the pomegranate. It missed Tascela, but the woman
holding Valeria's ankles was in the way. It smote between her shoulders.
There was a sharp crackling sound and the ray of fire flashed from her
bosom and struck the black altar, with a snapping of blue sparks. The
woman toppled sidewise, shriveling and withering like a mummy even as
she fell.
Valeria rolled from the altar on the other side, and started for the
opposite wall on all fours. For hell had burst loose in the throne room
of dead Olmec.
The man who had held Valeria's hands was the next to die. He turned to
run, but before he had taken half a dozen steps, Tolkemec, with an
agility appalling in such a frame, bounded around to a position that
placed the man between him and the altar. Again the red fire-beam
flashed and the Tecuhltli rolled lifeless to the floor, as the beam
completed its course with a burst of blue sparks against the altar.
Then began slaughter. Screaming insanely the people rushed about the
chamber, caroming from one another, stumbling and falling. And among
them Tolkemec capered and pranced, dealing death. They could not escape
by the doors; for apparently the metal of the portals served like the
metal-veined stone altar to complete the circuit for whatever hellish
power flashed like thunderbolts from the witch-wand the ancient waved in
his hand. When he caught a man or a woman between him and a door or the
altar, that one died instantly. He chose no special victim. He took them
as they came, with his rags flapping about his wildly gyrating limbs,
and the gusty echoes of his tittering sweeping the room above the
screams. And bodies fell like falling leaves about the altar and at the
doors. One warrior in desperation rushed at him, lifting a dagger, only
to fall before he could strike. But the rest were like crazed cattle,
with no thought for resistance, and no chance of escape.
The last Tecuhltli except Tascela had fallen when the princess reached
the Cimmerian and the girl who had taken refuge beside him. Tascela bent
and touched the floor, pressing a design upon it. Instantly the iron
jaws released the bleeding limb and sank back into the floor.
"Slay him if you can!" she panted, and pressed a heavy knife into his
hand. "I have no magic to withstand him!"
With a grunt he sprang before the women, not heeding his lacerated leg
in the heat of the fighting-lust. Tolkemec was coming toward him, his
weird eyes ablaze, but he hesitated at the gleam of the knife in Conan's
hand. Then began a grim game, as Tolkemec sought to circle about Conan
and get the barbarian between him and the altar or a metal door, while
Conan sought to avoid this and drive home his knife. The women watched
tensely, holding their breath.
There was no sound except the rustle and scrape of quick-shifting feet.
Tolkemec pranced and capered no more. He realized that grimmer game
confronted him than the people who had died screaming and fleeing. In
the elemental blaze of the barbarian's eyes he read an intent deadly as
his own. Back and forth they weaved, and when one moved the other moved
as if invisible threads bound them together. But all the time Conan was
getting closer and closer to his enemy. Already the coiled muscles of
his thighs were beginning to flex for a spring, when Valeria cried out.
For a fleeting instant a bronze door was in line with Conan's moving
body. The red line leaped, searing Conan's flank as he twisted aside,
and even as he shifted he hurled the knife. Old Tolkemec went down,
truly slain at last, the hilt vibrating on his breast.
* * * * *
Tascela sprang--not toward Conan, but toward the wand where it shimmered
like a live thing on the floor. But as she leaped, so did Valeria, with
a dagger snatched from a dead man, and the blade, driven with all the
power of the pirate's muscles, impaled the princess of Tecuhltli so that
the point stood out between her breasts. Tascela screamed once and fell
dead, and Valeria spurned the body with her heel as it fell.
"I had to do that much, for my own self-respect!" panted Valeria, facing
Conan across the limp corpse.
"Well, this cleans up the feud," he grunted. "It's been a hell of a
night! Where did these people keep their food? I'm hungry."
"You need a bandage on that leg." Valeria ripped a length of silk from a
hanging and knotted it about her waist, then tore off some smaller
strips which she bound efficiently about the barbarian's lacerated limb.
"I can walk on it," he assured her. "Let's begone. It's dawn, outside
this infernal city. I've had enough of Xuchotl. It's well the breed
exterminated itself. I don't want any of their accursed jewels. They
might be haunted."
"There is enough clean loot in the world for you and me," she said,
straightening to stand tall and splendid before him.
The old blaze came back in his eyes, and this time she did not resist as
he caught her fiercely in his arms.
"It's a long way to the coast," she said presently, withdrawing her lips
from his.
"What matter?" he laughed. "There's nothing we can't conquer. We'll have
our feet on a ship's deck before the Stygians open their ports for the
trading season. And then we'll show the world what plundering means!"
[THE END]
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Weird Tales_ July, August-September
and October 1936. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor
spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.