"Robert E. Howard - Conan - Drums of Tobalku" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

them.
"Cast the dice," urged Amalric. "No need to fight." His hand came from under his worn tunic,
and he threw down a pair of dice before them. A claw-like hand seized them.
"Aye!" agreed Gobir. "We cast - after Tilutan, the winner!"
Amalric cast a glance toward the giant who still bent above his captive, bringing life back
into her exhausted body. As he looked, her long-lashed lids parted. Deep violet eyes stared up
into the leering face bewilderedly. An explosive exclamation of gratification escaped the thick
lips of Tilutan. Wrenching a flask from his girdle, he put it to her mouth. She drank the wine
mechanically. Amalric avoided her wandering gaze. He was one man and the three Ghanatas were all
his match.
Gobir and Saidu bent above the dice; Saidu cupped them in his palm, breathed on them for
luck, shook and threw. Two vulture-like heads bent over the spinning cubes in the dim light. And
Amalric drew and struck with the same motion. The edge sliced through a duck neck, severing the


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windpipe, and Gobir fell across the dice, spurting blood, his head hanging by a shred.
Simultaneously, Saidu, with the desperate quickness of a desert man, shot to his feet and
hacked ferociously at the slayer's head. Amalric barely had time to catch the stroke on his lifted
sword. The whistling scimitar beat the straight blade down on Amalric's head, staggering him. He
released his sword and threw both arms about Saidu, dragging him into close quarters where his
scimitar was useless. Under the desert man's rags, the wiry frame was like steel cords.
Tilutan, comprehending the matter instandy, had cast the girl down and risen with a roar. He
rushed toward the struggling pair like a charging bull, his great scimitar flaming in his hand.
Amalric saw him coming, and his flesh turned cold. Saidu was jerking and wrenching, handicapped by
the scimitar he was still seeking futilely to turn against his antagonist. Their feet twisted and
stamped in the sand, their bodies ground against one another. Amalric smashed his sandal heel down
on the Ghanata's bare instep, feeling bones give way. Saidu howled and plunged convulsively, and
Amalric gave a desperate heave. The pair lurched drunkenly about, just as Tilutan struck with a
rolling drive of his broad shoulders. Amalric felt the steel rasp the under part of his arm, and
chug deep into Saidu's body. The Ghanata gave an agonized scream, and his convulsive start tore
himself free of Amalric's grasp. Tilutan roared a ferocious oath and, wrenching his steel free,
hurled the dying man aside. Before he could srike again, Amalric, his skin crawling with the fear
of that great curved blade, had grappled with him.
Despair swept over him as he felt the strength of the warrior. Tilutan was wiser than Saidu.
He dropped the scimitar and with a bellow, caught Amalric's throat with both hands. The great
fingers locked like iron, and Amalric, striving vainly to break their grip, was borne down, with
the Ghanata's great weight pinning him to the earth. The smaller man was shaken like a rat in the
jaws of a dog. His head was smashed savagely against the sandy earth. As in a red mist he saw the
furious face of his opponent, lips writhed back in a bestial grin of hate, teeth glistening. An
inhuman snarling slavered from his thick throat.
"You want her, you dog!" the Ghanata mouthed, insane with rage and lust. "Arrrrghhh! I break
your back! I tear out your throat! I - my scimitar! I cut off your head and make her kiss it!"
A final ferocious smash of Amalric's head against the hard-packed sand, and Tilutan half-
lifted him and hurled him down in an excess of bestial passion. Rising, the man ran, stooping like
an ape, and caught up his scimitar where it lay like a broad crescent of steel in the sand.
Yelling in ferocious exultation, he turned and charged back, brandishing the blade on high.
Amalric rose slowly to meet him, dazed, shaken, sick from the manhandling he had received.