The Hours of the Dragon Read Online Free PDF

blunder! Ah, I see lances and pennons pouring from the farther mouth of the defile, beyond the Nemedian lines. They will smite those ranks from the rear and crumple them. Mitra, what is this? ”
    He staggered as the walls of the tent swayed drunkenly. Afar over the thunder of the fight rose a deep bellowing roar, indescribably ominous.
    “The cliffs reel!” shrieked the squire. “Ah, gods, what is this? The river foams out of its channel, and the peaks are crumbling! The ground shakes and horses and riders in armor are overthrown! The cliffs! The cliffs are falling!”
    With his words there came a grinding rumble and a thunderous concussion, and the ground trembled. Over the roar of the battle sounded screams of mad terror.
    “The cliffs have crumbled!” cried the livid squire. “They have thundered down into the defile and crushed every living creature in it! I saw the lion banner wave an instant amid the dust and falling stones, and then it vanished! Ha, the Nemedians shout with triumph! Well may they shout, for the fall of the cliffs has wiped out five thousand of our bravest knights—hark!”
    To Conan’s ears came a vast torrent of sound, rising and rising in frenzy: “The king is dead! The king is dead! Flee! Flee! The king is dead!”
    “Liars!” panted Conan. “Dogs! Knaves! Cowards! Oh, Crom, if I could but stand—but crawl to the river with my sword in my teeth! How, boy, do they flee?”
    “Aye!” sobbed the squire. “They spur for the river; they are broken, hurled on like spume before a storm. I see Pallantides striving to stem the torrent—he is down, and the horses trample him! They rush into the river, knights, bowmen, pikemen, all mixed and mingled in one mad torrent of destruction. The Nemedians are on their heels, cutting them down like corn.”
    “But they will make a stand on this side of the river!” cried the king. With an effort that brought the sweat dripping from his temples, he heaved himself up on his elbows.
    “Nay!” cried the squire. “They cannot! They are broken! Routed! Oh gods, that I should live to see this day!”
    Then he remembered his duty and shouted to the men-at-arms who stood stolidly watching the flight of their comrades. “Get a horse, swiftly, and help me lift the king upon it. We dare not bide here.”
    But before they could do his bidding, the first drift of the storm was upon them. Knights and spearmen and archers fled among the tents, stumbling over ropes and baggage, and mingled with them were Nemedian riders, who smote right and left at all alien figures. Tent-ropes were cut, fire sprang up in a hundred places, and the plundering had already begun. The grim guardsmen about Conan’s tent died where they stood, smiting and thrusting, and over their mangled corpses beat the hoofs of the conquerors.
    But the squire had drawn the flap close, and in the confused madness of the slaughter none realized that the pavilion held an occupant. So the flight and the pursuit swept past, and roared away up the valley, and the squire looked out presently to see a cluster of men approaching the royal tent with evident purpose.
    “Here comes the king of Nemedia with four companions and his squire,” quoth he. “He will accept your surrender, my fair lord—”
    “Surrender the devil’s heart!” gritted the king.
    He had forced himself up to a sitting posture. He swung his legs painfully off the dais, and staggered upright, reeling drunkenly. The squire ran to assist him, but Conan pushed him away.
    “Give me that bow!” he gritted, indicating a longbow and quiver that hung from a tent-pole.
    “But Your Majesty!” cried the squire in great perturbation. “The battle is lost! It were the part of majesty to yield with the dignity becoming one of royal blood!”
    “I have no royal blood,” ground Conan. “I am a barbarian and the son of a blacksmith.”
    Wrenching away the bow and an arrow he staggered toward the opening of the pavilion. So formidable was his