oor-guards from the lower floors came racing to hurl themselves
into the fray. It was the death-fight of rabid wolves, blind, panting,
merciless. Back and forth it surged, from door to dais, blades
whickering and striking into flesh, blood spurting, feet stamping the
crimson floor where redder pools were forming. Ivory tables crashed
over, seats were splintered, velvet hangings torn down were stained red.
It was the bloody climax of a bloody half-century, and every man there
sensed it.

But the conclusion was inevitable. The Tecuhltli outnumbered the
invaders almost two to one, and they were heartened by that fact and by
the entrance into the melee of their light-skinned allies.

These crashed into the fray with the devastating effect of a hurricane
plowing through a grove of saplings. In sheer strength no three
Tlazitlans were a match for Conan, and in spite of his weight he was
quicker on his feet than any of them. He moved through the whirling,
eddying mass with the surety and destructiveness of a gray wolf amidst a
pack of alley curs, and he strode over a wake of crumpled figures.

Valeria fought beside him, her lips smiling and her eyes blazing. She
was stronger than the average man, and far quicker and more ferocious.
Her sword was like a living thing in her hand. Where Conan beat down
opposition by the sheer weight and power of his blows, breaking spears,
splitting skulls and cleaving bosoms to the breast-bone, Valeria brought
into action a finesse of sword-play that dazzled and bewildered her
antagonists before it slew them. Again and again a warrior, heaving high
his heavy blade, found her point in his jugular before he could strike.
Conan, towering above the field, strode through the welter smiting right
and left, but Valeria moved like an illusive phantom, constantly
shifting, and thrusting and slashing as she shifted. Swords missed her
again and again as the wielders flailed the empty air and died with her
point in their hearts or throats, and her mocking laughter in their
ears.

Neither sex nor condition was considered by the maddened combatants. The
five women of the Xotalancas were down with their throats cut before
Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down
under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless
throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull.

From wall to wall, from door to door rolled the waves of combat,
spilling over int