Conan the Rebel Read Online Free PDF

foul hold where they were chained.'
    Her voice was dry. 'It turned out that this was a one-time venture. A Stygian aristocrat and enterpriser named Ramwas had warned enough about the Suba and our post that he decided a raid would be worthwhile, for plunder as well as slaves. It would acquire special equipment, though, to break our defence'
    Conan frowned. No matter pity for Bêlit, his barbarian practicality had come to the fore. 'Why is that mist of sleep not seen in war?' he asked.
    'It is too costly, in too short a supply,' she answered. 'Certain swamp-dwellers in Zembabwei brew it from a poisonous fruit found nowhere else. The agents of Ramwas could only collect enough for this single task, at a price to make it worthwhile, because it chanced they had wormed out a shameful secret from the chiefs past and threatened to spread it abroad. At that, the preparation of such an amount took months.'
    'How do you know this?'
    'Ramwas told me once, when he was in his cups and boastful,' she sighed. 'He put most of the captives on the auction block, but Jehanan and me he kept for himself. Jehanan was to be a plantation labourer We hugged each other, in a single heartbeat, before we were parted. I – Ramwas had me brought to his harem.
    'First – he did not want inconveniences – he gave me into the hands of a witch, who cast a spell that made me barren. What was done left no mark on my skin, but – Oh, Conan, the pain of that day I can put behind me, but never the pain that I cannot bear your child!'
    Muscles bunched in the Cimmerian's jaws. He wanted to smash something. Instead, he held Bêlit very gently to him, though he shivered.
    She laughed a little, as a she-wolf might yelp. 'He got small joy of me,' she said. 'I almost raked his eyeballs out. He barely escaped, yammering. Since whips leave scars, he – well, he had the juice of
    purple lotus forced between my lips, which paralyses the body for hours. But not often.'
    'And in hope, I think,' Conan whispered. 'You are so lovely.'
    Bêlit shrugged. 'Perhaps. Be that as it may, I began to see that I did wrong to yearn for death. What revenge can the poor dead take? No, I must use my wits, so that Hoiakim, Shaaphi, Aliel, and Kedron may have many slaves to attend them.'
    A flaw of wind made the ship lurch and the sail crack.
    'Ramwas had business in Khemi,' Bêlit said. 'I never pretended aught but hatred for him. I could not bring myself to anything else. I could, though, I could be mild enough about it that he brought me along. For Khemi is a seaport -'
    The new moon sank in a greenish west, the glimmer of the old in her arms. Silence brimmed the street beneath ogive windows through which coolness entered. Their grill-work filled with violet and the even star
    In a chamber of red velvet, Bêlit left the couch where she had been waiting. Nearby stood a glass vase full of lilies. She ripped the blossoms out and cast them on the floor. A blow against the tabletop shattered the bowl of the vase. Jagged neck in her fist, she glided to the door.
    Her other fist smote the panel, again and again. 'Open!' she moaned. 'Open, let me out, send for a physician, I perish!'
    The bolt clicked, the barrier swung wide. Lamplight in the corridor beyond revealed, gigantic, the guardian eunuch. He touched his sword, but his face was suspicions as he asked, 'What do you want, woman?'
    Bêlit grinned wide. 'This,' she said, and drove the broken glass past his jowls, into his throat.
    She twisted her weapon. He reeled back but could not scream, only gurgle, because she kept after him, thrusting and twisting. He sank to his knees, to his belly. His blood spurted across walls and floor.
    'Would you had been Ramwas,' she said when he lay slack. But time was scant. She plucked his Ambulant scimitar from its scabbard and padded off to the stairwell. Lamps flickered in brackets along it; shadows moved monstrous. Bêlit hurried downward.
    At the bottom, where a door gave on the world, a second sentinel