Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 02.djvu/44

170 was stern and war-like. "Throw down your arms and advance!"

Astonished, Thwaine whispered hastily: "Maybe a demon in woman's form…succubus–"

"I'll talk!" warned Rald. "Slip along the shadows there and strike the steel from her hand. Quick! There may be more, and we can use a hostage." Then aloud: "Ho, woman, why do you accost peaceful travelers with such inhospitable manners? We seek only rest and comfort, we but–"

Thwaine had taken but two cautious steps forward when a noose slithered from above and wound itself about his crouched form. Choking, he staggered backward, clawing at his throat. With a sweep of his sword Rald severed the strangling cord. Glancing upward, he had a brief glimpse of a well-rounded female figure poised on the rocks above and clad, like their accoster, in burnished mail; in uplifted hands she held a jagged stone. For the space of two heart-beats he saw her; then the boulder struck the base of his neck with stunning force and consciousness left his body before it touched the ground.

awoke in semi-darkness. Bit by bit, very slowly, he became aware of things about him. Somewhere water was falling–whether stream or rainfall he did not know or care. Above he saw a seamed stone ceiling and he was conscious the object supporting his reclining form was some kind of a couch. The room, he could tell by the ceiling, was small, and he observed no windows within the restricted limits of his view. Gentle hands–female, it seemed–were engaged in applying a soothing massage to his various abrasions. There was a heavy, dull ache in his head and his neck was too stiff to turn. Vaguely he thought of Thwaine, but his debilitated limbs refused to obey the dim commands he sought to impart to an exhausted brain; he lay still and drifted back into a dream-racked sleep wherein he dwelt once more in beloved Forthe to carouse in the native taverns and drink the red wines of Ygoth's slopes. Throughout his dream the memory of a lady stirred his pulse's strength and a slight smile rested on the hitherto pain-racked lips.

When he awoke again it was night, or at least he so surmised after seeing blank darkness beyond and through the iron network of a doorway and a sputtering torch thrust into a hanging bracket on the wall. From a tousled couch on the opposite side of die prison cell his fellow mercenary regarded him gravely.

One of Thwaine's wrists was encircled by a ringlet of steel attached to an accompanying chain which was, in turn, secured to another ring imbedded in the wall. An ankle was fastened likewise to a circlet in the floor; so the prisoner could move into restricted positions without taking leave of his bed. When Rald attempted to swing himself erect he discovered that he too was confined in a similar fashion.

"Well," he demanded of the solemn Thwaine, "who has us, and why are we chained like captured white apes from Sorjoon?"

"Succubi, I think! And the reason must be because we are men!"

"What do they welcome here–apes?"

"Listen. For two days and nights I've lain–"

"Two–days and nights?"

"You've been unconscious that long. The woman who smote you with the rock almost made a thorough job of it. But, it seems, it was intended that we be taken as captives and not as corpses. The woman we first saw, the one commanding the party, told me so; nothing else, though–for a female she has a very