"Camp & Lin Carter - Conan Of Cimmeria - 01 - The Curse Of The Monolith" - читать интересную книгу автора (Camp L. Sprague de)

The Curse of the Monolith
By L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter

1.
The sheer cliffs of dark stone closed about Conan the Cimmerian
like the sides of a trap. HE did not like the way their jagged
peaks loomed against the few faint stars, which glittered like
the eyes of spiders down upon the small camp on the flat floor of
the valley. Neither did he like the chill, uneasy wind that
whistled across the stony heights and prowled about the campfire.
It caused the flames to lean and flicker, sending monstrous black
shadows writhing across the rough stone walls of the nearer
valley side.

On the other side of the camp, colossal redwoods, which had been
old when Atlantis sank beneath the waves eight thousand years
before, rose amid thickets of bamboo and clumps of rhododendron.
A small stream meandered out of the woods, murmured past the
camp, and wandered off into the forest again. Overhead, a layer
of haze or high fog drifted across the tops of the cliffs,
drowning the light of the fainter stars and making the brighter
ones seem to weep.

Something about this place, thought Conan, stank of fear and of
death. HE could almost smell the acrid odor of terror on the
breeze. The horses felt it too. They nickered plaintively,
pawed the earth, and rolled white eyeballs at the dark beyond the
circle of the fire. So was Conan, the barbarian warrior from the
bleak hills of Cimmeria. Like his, their senses were more
delicately turned to the aura of evil than were the senses of
city-bred men like the Turanian troopers he had led into this
deserted vale.

The soldiers sat about the fire, sharing the last of this night's
ration of wine from goatskin bags. Some laughed and boasted of
the amorous feats they would do in the silken bagnios of Aghrapur
upon their return. Others, weary from a long day's hard ride,
sat silently, staring at the fire and yawning. Soon they would
settle down for the night, rolled in their heavy cloaks. With
their heads pillowed on saddlebags, they would lie in a loose
circle about the hissing fire, while two of their number stood
guard with their powerful Hyrkanian bows strung and ready. They
sensed nothing of the sinister force that hovered about the
valley.

Standing with his back to the nearest of the giant redwoods,
Conan wrapped his cloak more closely about him against the dank
breeze from the heights. Although his troopers were well-built
men of good size, he towered half a head over the tallest of
them, while his enormous breadth of shoulder made them seem puny