Conan and the Spider God Read Free Page B

smiled grimly when, far behind, he heard the drumming of hooves as a body of horsemen raced westward along the main road. Traveling in that direction, they would never catch him.
    Half an hour later, in the violet dawn, Conan was walking his horse northward along a minor road that was little more than a track through a region of scrubby second growth. So full was his head of alternative plans and routes that for an instant he failed to mark the sound of hooves, the creak of harness, and the jingle of accouterments of approaching horesmen. Before he had time to turn his horse into the concealing scrub, the riders galloped around a bend in the track and rode straight for him. They were a squad of King Yildiz’s horse archers on foam-flecked mounts.
    Cursing his inattention, Conan pulled off to the roadside, uncertain whether to fight or flee. But the soldiers clattered past with scarcely a glance in his direction. The last man in the column, an officer, pulled up long enough to shout:
    “You there, fellow! Have you seen a party of travelers with a woman?”
    “Why—” Conan started an angry retort before he remembered that he was no longer Captain Conan of the King’s Royal Guard. “Nay, sir, I have not,” he growled, with an unconvincing show of humility.
    Cursing by his gods, the officer spurred his horse after the rest of the squad. For Conan, as he resumed his northward trot, astonishment trod on the heels of relief. Something must have happened in Aghrapur—something of more moment than his affair with Orkhan. The squad that had rushed past had not even been interested in ascertaining his identity. Could it be that the force pounding westward along the Road of Kings also pursued some quarry other than the renegade Captain Conan?
    Perhaps he would unravel the tangle in Sultanapur.

chapter ii
     
    THE SWAMP CAT
     
    T raveling through the Marshes of Mehar proved no less onerous than guiding a camel across a featureless desert or conning a boat on the boundless sea. On all sides reeds, taller than Conan’s horse, stretched away to infinity. The yellowed canes of last year’s crop rattled monotonously whenever a breeze rippled across them; while below, the tender green shoots of the new growth crowded the earth and provided Egil with fodder.
    A rider through the marshes was forced to set his course by sun and stars. A man afoot would find this task all but impossible, for the towering reeds would obscure all view save that of the sky directly overhead.
    From the back of his stallion, Conan could look out across the tops of the reeds, which undulated gently like the waves of a placid sea. When he reached one of the rare rises of ground, he sometimes glimpsed the Vilayet Sea afar to his right. On his left he often sighted the tops of the low hills that sundered the Marshes of Mehar from the Turanian steppe.
    Conan had swum his horse across the Ilbars River below Akif and headed north, keeping the sea in view. He reasoned that, to escape his pursuers’ notice, he must either lose himself in an urban crowd or seek the solitude of some uninhabited place, whence he could be forewarned of his pursuers if they picked up his trail.
    Conan had never before seen the Marshes of Mehar. Rumor reported them as solitary a lieu as any place on earth. The waterlogged soil was useless for farming. Timber was limited to a few dwarfish, twisted trees, crowning occasional knobby knolls. Biting insects were alleged to swarm in such numbers that even hunters, who might otherwise have invaded the marshes in pursuit of wild swine and other game, forswore to seek their prey there.
    The marshes, moreover, were said to be the abode of a dangerous predator, vaguely referred to as the “swamp cat.” Although Conan had never met anyone who claimed to have seen such a creature, all agreed that it was as deadly as a tiger.
    Still, the dismal solitude of the marshes exceeded Conan’s expectations. Here no sound broke the silence save the plashing