Valley of the Worm Read Online Free PDF

lead me here?” he snarled, his blazing eyes darting all about the chamber. “What manner of trap is this?”
    “There is no trickery,” she answered. “I brought you here because you can aid me. I called on the gods—on Mitra—and he bade me go into the streets and ask aid of the first man I met.”
    This was something he could understand. The barbarians had their oracles. He lowered his sword, though he did not sheathe it.
    “Well, if you’re Yasmela, you need aid,” he grunted. “Your kingdom’s in a devil of a mess. But how can I aid you? If you want a throat cut, of course—”
    “Sit down,” she requested. “Vateesa, bring him wine.”
    He complied, taking care, she noticed, to sit with his back against a solid wall, where he could watch the whole chamber. He laid his naked sword across his mail-sheathed knees. She glanced at it in fascination. Its dull blue glimmer seemed to reflect tales of bloodshed and rapine; she doubted her ability to lift it, yet she knew that the mercenary could wield it with one hand as lightly as she could wield a riding-whip. She noted the breadth and power of his hands; they were not the stubby undeveloped paws of a troglodyte. With a guilty start she found herself imagining those strong fingers locked in her dark hair.
    He seemed reassured when she deposited herself on a satin divan opposite him. He lifted off his basinet and laid it on the table, and drew back his coif, letting the mail folds fall upon his massive shoulders. She saw more fully now his unlikeness to the Hyborian races. In his dark, scarred face there was a suggestion of moodiness; and without being marked by depravity, or definitely evil, there was more than a suggestion of the sinister about his features, set off by his smoldering blue eyes. A low broad forehead was topped by a square-cut tousled mane as black as a raven’s wing.
    “Who are you?” she asked abruptly.
    “Conan, a captain of the mercenary spearmen,” he answered, emptying the wine-cup at a gulp and holding it out for more. “I was born in Cimmeria.”
    The name meant little to her. She only knew vaguely that it was a wild grim hill-country which lay far to the north, beyond the last outposts of the Hyborian nations, and was peopled by a fierce moody race. She had never before seen one of them.
    Resting her chin on her hands, she gazed at him with the deep dark eyes that had enslaved many a heart.
    “Conan of Cimmeria,” she said, “you said I needed aid. Why?”
    “Well,” he answered, “any man can see that. Here is the king your brother in an Ophirean prison; here is Koth plotting to enslave you; here is this sorcerer screaming hellfire and destruction down in Shem—and what’s worse, here are your soldiers deserting every day.”
    She did not at once reply; it was a new experience for a man to speak so forthrightly to her, his words not couched in courtier phrases.
    “Why are my soldiers deserting, Conan?” she asked.
    “Some are being hired away by Koth,” he replied, pulling at the wine-jar with relish. “Many think Khoraja is doomed as an independent state. Many are frightened by tales of this dog Natohk.”
    “Will the mercenaries stand?” she asked anxiously.
    “As long as you pay us well,” he answered frankly. “Your politics are nothing to us. You can trust Amalric, our general, but the rest of us are only common men who love loot. If you pay the ransom Ophir asks, men say you’ll be unable to pay us. In that case we might go over to the king of Koth, though that cursed miser is no friend of mine. Or we might loot this city. In a civil war the plunder is always plentiful.”
    “Why would you not go over to Natohk?” she inquired.
    “What could he pay us?” he snorted. “With fat-bellied brass idols he looted from the Shemite cities? As long as you’re fighting Natohk, you may trust us.”
    “Would your comrades follow you?” she asked abruptly.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean,” she answered