oldering surface. It was
Techotl and his eyes were already glazing; from a deep gash in his
breast blood gushed steadily between the fingers of his clutching hand.
With the other he clawed and hitched himself along.

"Conan," he cried chokingly, "Conan! Olmec has taken the yellow-haired
woman!"

"So that's why he told Topal to kill me!" murmured Conan, dropping to
his knee beside the man, who his experienced eye told him was dying.
"Olmec isn't so mad as I thought."

Techotl's groping fingers plucked at Conan's arm. In the cold, loveless
and altogether hideous life of the Tecuhltli his admiration and
affection for the invaders from the outer world formed a warm, human
oasis, constituted a tie that connected him with a more natural humanity
that was totally lacking in his fellows, whose only emotions were hate,
lust and the urge of sadistic cruelty.

"I sought to oppose him," gurgled Techotl, blood bubbling frothily to
his lips. "But he struck me down. He thought he had slain me, but I
crawled away. Ah, Set, how far I have crawled in my own blood! Beware,
Conan! Olmec may have set an ambush for your return! Slay Olmec! He is a
beast. Take Valeria and flee! Fear not to traverse the forest. Olmec and
Tascela lied about the dragons. They slew each other years ago, all save
the strongest. For a dozen years there has been only one dragon. If you
have slain him, there is naught in the forest to harm you. He was the
god Olmec worshipped; and Olmec fed human sacrifices to him, the very
old and the very young, bound and hurled from the wall. Hasten! Olmec
has taken Valeria to the Chamber of the----"

His head slumped down and he was dead before it came to rest on the
floor.

* * * * *

Conan sprang up, his eyes like live coals. So that was Olmec's game,
having first used the strangers to destroy his foes! He should have
known that something of the sort would be going on in that black-bearded
degenerate's mind.

The Cimmerian started toward Tecuhltli with reckless speed. Rapidly he
reckoned the numbers of his former allies. Only twenty-one, counting
Olmec, had survived that fiendish battle in the throne room. Three had
died since, which left seventeen enemies with which to reckon. In his
rage Conan felt capable of accounting for the whole clan single-handed.

But the innate craft of the wilderness rose to guide his berserk rage.
He remembered Techotl's warning of an ambush. It was quite pr