"L. Sprague De Camp - Conan - The Curse of the Monolith" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

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
by comparison. His square-cut black mane escaped from below the
edges of his spired, turban-wound helmet, and the deepset blue
eyes in his dark, scarred face caught glints of red from the
firelight.

Sunk in one of his fits of melancholy gloom, Conan silently
cursed King Yildiz, the well-meaning but weak Turanian monarch
who had sent him on this ill-omened mission. Over a year had
passed since he had taken the oath of allegiance to the king of
Turan. Six months before, he had been lucky enough to earn this
king's favor; with the help of a fellow-mercenary, Juma the
Kushite, he had rescued Yildiz's daughter Zosara from the mad
god-king of Meru. HE had brought the princess, more or less
intact, to her affianced bridegroom, Khan Kujala of the nomadic
Kuigar horde.

When Conan returned to Yildiz's glittering capital of Aghrapur,
he had found the monarch generous enough in his gratitude. Both
he and Juma had been raised to captain. But, whereas Juma had
obtained a coveted post in the Royal Guard, Conan had been
rewarded with yet another arduous, perilous mission. Now, as he
recalled these events, he sourly contemplated the fruits of
success.

Yildiz had entrusted the Cimmerian giant with a letter to King
Shu of Kusan, a minor kingdom in western Khitai. At the head of
forty veterans, Conan had accomplished the immense journey. He
had traversed hundreds of leagues of bleak Hyrkanian steppe and
skirted the foothills of the towering Talakma Mountains. He had
threaded his way through the windy deserts and swampy jungles
bordering the mysterious realm of Khitai, the easternmost land of
which the men of the West had heard.

Arrived in Kusan at last, Conan had found the venerable and
philosophical King Shu a splendid host. While Conan and his

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warriors were plied with exotic food and drink and furnished with
willing concubines, the king and his advisers decided to accepts