Conan the Barbarian: The Complete Collection

As he reached her side, Natala gave a sigh of relief. They stood alone at the foot of the great wall, the paling stars overhead and the naked desert about them. What perils yet confronted them she could not know, but her heart sang with joy because they were out of that ghostly, unreal city.

“They may find the rope,” grunted Conan, slinging the precious jars across his shoulders, wincing at the contact with his mangled flesh. “They may even pursue us, but from what Thalis said, I doubt it. That way is south,” a bronze muscular arm indicated their course; “so somewhere in that direction lies the oasis. Come!”

Taking her hand with a thoughtfulness unusual for him, Conan strode out across the sands, suiting his stride to the shorter legs of his companion. He did not glance back at the silent city, brooding dreamily and ghostly behind them.

“Conan,” Natala ventured finally, “when you fought the monster, and later, as you came up the corridor, did you see anything of — of Thalis?”

He shook his head. “It was dark in the corridor; but it was empty.”

She shuddered. “She tortured me — yet I pity her.”

“It was a hot welcome we got in that accursed city,” he snarled. Then his grim humor returned. “Well, they’ll remember our visit long enough, I’ll wager. There are brains and guts and blood to be cleaned off the marble tiles, and if their god still lives, he carries more wounds than I. We got off light, after all: we have wine and water and a good chance of reaching a habitable country, though I look as if I’ve gone through a meatgrinder, and you have a sore —”

“It’s all your fault,” she interrupted. “If you had not looked so long and admiringly at that Stygian cat —”

“Crom and his devils!” he swore. “When the oceans drown the world, women will take time for jealousy. Devil take their conceit! Did I tell the Stygian to fall in love with me? After all, she was only human!”

The Pool of the Black One

First published : 1933

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Sancha, once of Kordava, yawned daintily, stretched her supple limbs luxuriously, and composed herself more comfortably on the ermine-fringed silk spread on the carack’s poop-deck. That the crew watched her with burning interest from waist and forecastle she was lazily aware, just as she was also aware that her short silk kirtle veiled little of her voluptuous contours from their eager eyes. Wherefore she smiled insolently and prepared to snatch a few more winks before the sun, which was just thrusting his golden disk above the ocean, should dazzle her eyes.

But at that instant a sound reached her ears unlike the creaking of timbers, thrum of cordage and lap of waves. She sat up, her gaze fixed on the rail, over which, to her amazement, a dripping figure clambered. Her dark eyes opened wide, her red lips parted in an O of surprise. The intruder was a stranger to her. Water ran in rivulets from his great shoulders and down his heavy arms. His single garment — a pair of bright crimson silk breeks — was soaking wet, as was his broad gold-buckled girdle and the sheathed sword it supported. As he stood at the rail, the rising sun etched him like a great bronze statue. He ran his fingers through his streaming black mane, and his blue eyes lit as they rested on the girl.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Whence did you come?”

He made a gesture toward the sea that took in a whole quarter of the compass, while his eyes did not leave her supple figure.

“Are you a merman, that you rise up out of the sea?” she asked, confused by the candor of his gaze, though she was accustomed to admiration.

Before he could reply, a quick step sounded on the boards, and the master of the carack was glaring at the stranger, fingers twitching at sword-hilt.

“Who the devil are you, sirrah?” this one demanded in no friendly tone.

“I am Conan,” the other answered imperturbably. Sancha pricked up her ears anew; she had never heard Zingaran spoken with such an accent as the stranger spoke it.

“And how did you get aboard my ship?” The voice grated with suspicion.

“I swam.”

“Swam!” exclaimed the master angrily. “Dog, would you jest with me? We are far beyond sight of land. Whence do you come?”

Conan pointed with a muscular brown arm toward the east, banded in dazzling gold by the lifting sun.

“I came from the Islands.”

“Oh!” The other regarded him with increased interest. Black brows drew down over scowling eyes, and the thin lip lifted unpleasantly.

“So you are one of those dogs of the Barachans.”

A faint smile touched Conan’s lips.

“And do you know who I am?” his questioner demanded.

“This ship is the Wastrel; so you must be Zaporavo.”

“Aye!” It touched the captain’s grim vanity that the man should know him. He was a tall man, tall as Conan, though of leaner build. Framed in his steel morion his face was dark, saturnine and hawk-like, wherefore men called him the Hawk. His armor and garments were rich and ornate, after the fashion of a Zingaran grandee. His hand was never far from his sword-hilt.