Conan: Road of Kings Read Online Free PDF

beneath the old. Foundation pilings from structures aboveground thrust downward in massive columns—like roots questing across the passage of a buried tomb. Indeed, the Pit was a catacomb, it seemed to Conan—a catacomb for the living.
    Conan had spoken little with his companions throughout their ride. There had been no time for words during the wild gallop through Kordava’s twisting streets and alleyways. Santiddio had vouched for him, after which Mordermi and the half-dozen of his men who rode with him had accepted Conan’s presence without comment. Santiddio himself was too busy chattering with Sandokazi and Mordermi to spare Conan a thought. For the moment, Conan was content to put distance between himself and the slaughter upon the Dancing Floor. Clearly Santiddio was among friends here. The alliance of a high-minded intellectual and Kordava’s most notorious outlaw was a puzzle that concerned Conan less than the matter of securing passage on the next vessel to sail for friendlier shores.
    Ahead of them the street passed between a narrow corridor of shopfronts—from the boarded over windows and doorways, their aspect was one of long abandonment—and made a dead end against a brick wall. Mordermi and his men rode toward the barrier as if it were no more than a shadow across their path, so that Conan showed no surprise when a section of the wall slid downward into the earth to form an opening for their passage. As they rode past, the wall quickly rose back into place. Conan heard the faint grating of gears and counterweights as the hidden machinery functioned.
    The wall, Conan decided, must once have enclosed the garden and ground of a wealthy estate. Beneath their horses’ hooves, the tile mosaics showed dull visions of cavorting sea nymphs and dolphins through a patina of filth. Slabs of rubble paved the packed mud of flower beds, and a garden fountain was drowned beneath refuse. Brick supporting columns crowded in a forest of dank tree trunks to the vaulted ceiling where soot and nitre replaced clouds and stars. From somewhere close at hand came the iodine breath of the sea.
    Beyond squatted the remains of what had been one of the old city’s proudest mansions. Its massive walls reached two storeys or more to merge with the roof overhead; crude brickwork extended above the original stucco, and Conan guessed that this structure was one of those that arose innocently from the streets of the new city above. Lights shone from its diamond-paned windows, and cressets flared to disclose a great confusion of barrels, bales and mounds of stolen goods heaped about its walls and outbuildings.
    A score of men, all heavily armed, lounged about the enclosure. More of their sort swaggered out of the mansion, shouting raucous greetings. Children came running from behind the brick pillars and broken statuary, yelling their excitement. A few slatterns leaned from the windows and hooted. Returning the applause, Mordermi and his men dismounted, turned the horses over to their fellows.
    Conan followed suit, feeling the scrutiny of suspicious eyes.
    Mordermi raised his arms in a grand gesture, shouting above the babble of questions.
    “Your attention, gentle sirs! Your attention, please! As you know, I set out this bright morning to steal a gallows bird from King Rimanendo. Well, then. King Rimanendo was generous today—he’s given me two gallows birds from his royal cages. Not only has he returned to us our learned brother, Santiddio, the very prince of polemicists…”
    Here jeers and catcalls drowned him out. Santiddio made a sweeping bow.
    “Not only Santiddio,” Mordermi continued, “But our grateful king has presented us with the illustrious duellist and mutineer, Conan of Cimmeria, lately of Zingara’s mercenary companies, and slaughterer of the unlamented Captain Rinnova!”
    A heartbeat of silence as they absorbed Mordermi’s grandiloquence—then boisterous cheers and applause. Men shouted congratulations, studied