"L. Sprague De Camp - Conan 26 - The Castle of Terror" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

Their leader sighted the black castle, looming above the grasslands, for the blazing lightning made it
visible in the rain-veiled dark. He shouted a guttural command and drove his spurs into the ribs of his
big black mare. The others spurred after him and rode up to the frowning bastions with a clatter of hoofs,
a creaking of leather, and a jingle of mail. In the blur of rain and night, the abnormality of the facade
was not visible, and the Stygians were eager to get under shelter before they were soaked.
They came stamping in, cursing and bellowing and shaking the water from their cloaks. In a trice, the
gloomy silence of the ruin was broken with a clamor of noise. Brushwood and dead leaves were
gathered; flint and steel were struck. Soon a smoking, sputtering fire leaped up in the midst of the
cracked marble floor, to paint the sculptured walls with rich orange.
The men flung down their saddlebags, stripped off wet burnooses, and spread them to dry. They
struggled out of their coats of mail and set to rubbing the moisture from them with oily rags. They
opened their saddlebags

and sank strong white teeth into round loaves of hard, stale bread.
Outside, the storm bellowed and flashed. Streams of rainwater, like little waterfalls, poured through gaps
in the masonry. But the Stygians heeded them not.
On the balcony above, Conan stood silently, awake but trembling with shudders that wracked his
powerful body. With the cloudburst, the spell that held him captive had broken. Starting up, he glared
about for the shadowy conclave of ghosts that he had seen form in his dream. When the lightning
flashed, he thought he glimpsed a dark, amorphous form at the far end of the balcony, but he did not care
to go closer to investigate.
While he pondered the problem of how to quit the balcony without coming in reach of the Thing, the
Stygians came stamping and roaring in. They were hardly an improvement on the ghosts. Given half a
chance, they would be delighted to capture him for their slave gang. For all his immense strength and
skill at arms, Conan knew that no man can fight forty well-armed foes at once. Unless he instantly cut
his way out and escaped, they would bring him down. He faced either a swift death or / a bitter life of
groaning drudgery in a Stygian slave pen. He was not sure which he preferred.
If the Stygians distracted Conan's attention from the phantoms, they likewise distracted the attention of
the phantoms from Conan. In their mindless hunger, the shadow-things ignored the Cimmerian in favor

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of the forty Stygians encamped below. Here was living flesh and vital force enough to glut their
phantasmal lusts thrice over. Like autumn leaves, they drifted over the balustrade and down from the
balcony into the hall below.
The Stygians sprawled around their fire, passing a bottle of wine from hand to hand and talking in their
guttural tongue. Although Conan knew only a few words of Stygian, from the intonations and gestures
he could follow the course of the argument The leaderтАФa clean-shaven giant, as tall as the CimmerianтАФ
swore that he would not venture into the downpour on such a night They would await the dawn in this
crumbling ruin. At least, the roof seemed to be still sound in places, and a man could here out of the drip.
When several more bottles had been emptied, the Stygians, now warm and dry, composed themselves
for sleep. The fire burned low, for the brushwood with which they fed it could not long sustain a strong
blaze. The leader pointed to one of his men and spoke a harsh sentence. The man protested, but after
some argument he heaved himself up with a groan and pulled on his coat of mail. He, Conan realized,
had been chosen to stand the first watch. |
Presently, with sword in hand and shield on arm, the sentry was standing in the shadows at the margin of
the light of the dying fire. From time to time he walked slowly up and down the length of the hall,
pausing to peer into the winding corridors or out through the front doors, where the storm was in
retreat.