Page:Weird Tales volume 30 number 04.djvu/77

Rh yelled, shaking swords and fists in imprecation. "Death and torture for the Dordonan wench!"

Lurain looked neither to right nor left. Again that strong, unwilling respect for the girl stirred in Clark Stannard.

"You are still our prisoner," he leaned forward to tell her. "They shall not take you from us."

"I do not fear them—nor you," snarled Lurain without turning. "The day comes when this Red spawn go to their doom."

At the end of the broad avenue down which they rode loomed the largest building in the city. It was an hexagonal scarlet tower, blunt and truncated, a hundred feet high, a squat, ugly structure. They dismounted in front of it, and the Red captain Dral strode to them.

"The king Thargo has been already informed of your coming and anxiously awaits you," he informed Clark smoothly.

"Lead the way," Clark said curtly. "Our prisoner goes with us." And as they started forward he muttered to his men, "Keep close together and don't make a move unless we're attacked."

They followed Dral into the building, past red-armored guards and down corridors. Dral clanked in the lead, Clark following with the girl, her dark head high, his five men rolling belligerently along and staring about with frank curiosity.

They emerged into a large, round banqueting-hall with red stone walls, lit by shafts of sunset from slit-like windows. All around it were tables, empty now except for one raised on a dais. There alone sat a man in the red helmet and armor, a great jewel blazing on his breast. Behind him hovered a wrinkled- faced, withered old man with sly eyes.

"The strangers and the captive, great king," announced Dral as he paused and bowed to the sitting man. The man stood up.

"You are welcome, strangers," Thargo told Clark. "Yes, more than welcome, when you bring as captive Lurain of Dordona."

Thargo, king of K'Lamm, was a big man. Well over six feet he towered, and his shoulders were as broad as Mike Shinn's. His shining red armor well set off that towering, great-thewed figure.

There was power in his face, not only the arrogant consciousness of utter authority, but hard power innate in the man himself. It was in the square, merciless mouth, in the flaring nostrils, strongest of all in the black, penetrating eyes behind which little devil-lights of mockery and amused contempt seemed to dance.

"Be ready for trouble," Clark muttered to his men. "It may pop right this minute."

For Dral, the Red captain, was now making a respectful report to his lord. And Thargo stiffened as he heard.

"So you claim the Black girl as your prisoner?" he said to Clark, his eyes narrowing.

Clark nodded curtly. "We do. We took her, and she is ours."

"Now why, strangers from outside, did you penetrate this land?" Thargo asked thoughtfully. "No others from outside have ever crossed the death mountains and entered. What object brought you here?"

"In the great world outside," Clark told him, "there are legends of a strange, shining lake in this land. We came in search of that lake, and once we find it, will return with some of its waters to our own land."

"The legends you heard were true, strangers," said Thargo, with changed expression. "That shining Lake of Life does exist in this land, but not here, not at K'Lamm. For many generations we of K'Lamm have been striving also to win to that lake. It may be," he added