Conan and the Shaman's Curse Read Online Free PDF

his way through its savage depths. Countless times before, he had tracked quarry through his territory. The sounds, smells, and shapes guided him toward his destination, toward his prey. His belly rumbled, and he craved raw, warm meat, fresh hot blood. The air tingled with the scent of fat, four-legged animals. They had passed recently, leaving their spoor behind them.
    A nagging tickle in his brain told him that something was wrong. He was no primitive predator, to track wild game and rend it with his teeth; strange urges filled him. What was he doing in this jungle, naked, without even his sword?
    But these thoughts quickly vanished from his brain, and he was again wholly intent on the hunt. His dry throat craved red, rich juices; he longed to sink his sharp teeth into the vitals of a soft animal and tear strips of meat from its corpse. His mind had room for naught else but these bestial cravings. He lived for the hunt... all creatures in his leafy realm feared him and his brutish, voracious appetite.
    And he relished their fear. Nothing enraged him as much as the rare beast who would fight him, instead of quivering in terror when facing him.
    As he crept through the underbrush, his stinking breath rose from his open mouth, filling his nostrils with the stale stench of past feasts. He licked at the comers of his lips, savouring the faint taste of blood from the boar he had slain at midday. He often slept at night, but tonight the full moon filled him with the longing to feed until his bloated belly could hold no more. Even then he would stalk and slay, until that baleful ivory orb sank from the sky.
    Ahead lay a clearing in the trees, and the smell of his quarry wafted through the air toward him. Drooling, he smacked his lips and crouched, bending his ears attentively. He sensed the presence of the herd directly ahead. He would spring through the brush and be upon the sleeping animals before they could bolt.
    From the crouch, he tensed his powerful leg muscles and leapt through the wall of leaves and moss, extending his hairy, black-nailed hands and baring his crooked yellow fangs. An involuntary growl ripped its way out of his throat, shattering the jungle’s silence. He landed atop a sleeping beast that stirred too late to avoid him. His fangs tore through its tough black-and-white striped hide.
    Blood jetted from the animal’s tom throat; its hooves twitched feebly before it died. The rest of the herd had sprung up, blinking, the moon reflected in a dozen pairs of eyes. They turned to flee.
    The sight drove him into a red frenzy. Spraying blood from his mouth, he howled with such savage fury that the herd froze in terror. He slaughtered three more as they cowered and bleated, slashing their throats with his vicious fangs. Then the beasts shook off the paralysing trance of his cry, and bounded away from him.
    He gave chase, filled with the madness that drove him to kill, to spill the blood of anything that breathed. Snarling and panting, he caught up with the herd and dragged down the rearmost beast, rending its hide, ripping its vitals as its still-beating heart pumped gouts of thick, hot blood from its ghastly wound.
    Conan’s mouth foamed at the sight. Slavering, he stripped hunks of dripping red flesh from the dying beast and crammed them into his mouth, gulping them down without even chewing, tearing meat from the twitching carcass in a gluttonous orgy of frenzied feeding. He lifted his blood-smeared face to the sky, staring at the moon.
    It stared back, suddenly taking on the aspect of that Kaklani shaman’s wrinkled, tattooed face. The lips were twisted in a mockery of a smile, and the mouth opened, filling the night sky with hollow, diabolical laughter.
    Conan woke to the sound of his own shout, instinctively reaching for a sword that was no longer at his side. Perspiration dripped from his every pore. He recalled every detail of the nightmare with hair-raising clarity. His body was damp, but not only from