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

While the sentry stood in the main doorway with his back to his comrades, a grim shape formed
among the snoring band of slavers. It grew slowly out of wavering clouds of insubstantial shadows. The
compound creature that gradually took shape was made up of the vital force of thousands of dead
beings. It became a ghastly formтАФa huge bulk that sprouted countless malformed limbs and
appendages. A dozen squat legs supported its monstrous weight. From its top, like grisly fruit, sprouted
scores of heads: some lifelike, with shaggy hair and brows; others mere lumps in which eyes, ears,
mouths, and nostrils were arranged at random.

The sight of the hundred-headed monster in that dimly firelit ball was enough to freeze the blood of the
stoutest with terror. Conan felt his nape hairs rise and his skin crawl with revulsion as he stared down
upon the scene.
The thing lurched across the floor. Leaning unsteadily down, it clutched one of the Stygians with half a
dozen grasping claws. As the man awoke with a scream, the nightmare Thing tore its victim apart,
spattering his sleeping comrades with gory, dripping fragments of the man.
7. Flight from Nightmare
In an instant, the Stygians were on their feet. Hardbitten ravagers though they were, the sight was
frightful enough to wring yells of terror from some. Wheeling at the first scream, the sentry rushed back
into the hall to hack at the monster with his sword. Bellowing commands, the leader snatched up the
nearest weapon and fell to. The rest, although unarmored, disheveled, and confused, seized sword and
spear to defend themselves against the shape that shambled and slew among them.
Swords hacked into misshapen thighs; spears plunged into the swollen, swaying belly. Clutching hands
and arms were hacked away to thud, jerking and grasping, to the floor. But, seeming to reel no pain, the
monster snatched up man after man. Some Stygians had their heads twisted off by strangling hands.
Others were seized by the feet and battered to gory remnants against the pillars.
As the Cimmerian watched from above, a dozen Stygians were battered or torn to death. The ghastly
wounds inflicted on the monster by the weapons of the Stygians instantly closed up and healed. Severed

file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Conan%20026.2%20-%20The...%20L%20Sprague%20de%20Camp%20&%20Lin%20Carter.txt (8 of 10)14-8-2005 23:54:33
 file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Conan%20026.2%20-%20The%20Castle%20of%20Terror%20-%20L%20Sprague%20de%20Camp%20&%20Lin%20Carter.txt

heads and arms were replaced by new members, which sprouted from the bulbous body.
Seeing that the Stygians had no chance against the monster, Conan resolved to take his leave while the
Thing was still occupied with the slavers and before it turned its attention to him. Thinking it unwise to
enter the hall, he sought a more direct exit He cimbed out through a window. This let on to a roof terrace
of broken tiles, where a false step could drop him through a gap in the pavement to ground level.
The rain had slackened to a drizzle. The moon, now nearly overhead, showed intermittent beams again.
Looking down from the parapet that bounded the terrace, Conan found a place where the exterior
carvings, together with climbing vines, provided means of descent. With the lithe grace of an ape, he
lowered himself hand over hand down the weirdly carven facade.
Now the moon glazed out in full glory, lighting the courtyard below where the Stygians horses stood
tethered, moving and whinnying uneasily at the sounds of mortal combat that came from the great hall.
Over the roar of battle sounded screams of agony as man after man was torn limb from limb.
Conan dropped, landing lightly on the earth of the courtyard. He sprinted for the great black mare that
had belonged to the leader of the slavers. He would have liked to linger to loot the bodies, for he needed
their armor and other supplies. The mail shirt he had worn as Belits piratical partner had long since
succumbed to wear and rust, and his flight from Bamula had been too hasty to allow him to equip
himself more completely. But no force on earth could have drawn him into that ''hall, where a horror of
living death still stalked and slew.
As the young Cimmerian untethered the horse he had chosen, a screaming figure burst from the entrance
and came pelting across the courtyard toward him. Conan saw that it was the man who had stood the