'Where's Valenso?' demanded Conan, gnawing a huge beef-bone as he stood beside the fire the men had built in the center of the compound. Pirates, buccaneers and henchmen mingled with each other, wolfing the meat and ale the women brought them, and allowing their wounds to be bandaged.
'He disappeared an hour ago,' grunted Strom. 'He was fighting on the wall beside me, when suddenly he stopped short and glared out into the darkness as if he saw a ghost. "Look!" he croaked. "The black devil! I see him! Out there in the night!" Well, I could swear I saw a figure moving among the shadows that was too tall for a Pict. But it was just a glimpse and it was gone. But Valenso jumped down from the firing-ledge and staggered into the manor like a man with a mortal wound. I haven't seen him since.'
'He probably saw a forest-devil,' said Conan tranquilly. 'The Picts say this coast is lousy with them. What I'm more afraid of is fire-arrows. The Picts are likely to start shooting them at any time. What's that? It sounded like a cry for help?' When the lull came in the fighting, Belesa and Tina had crept to their window, from which they had been driven by the danger of flying arrows. Silently they watched the men gather about the fire.
'There are not enough men on the stockade,' said Tina.
In spite of her nausea at the sight of the corpses sprawled about the palisade, Belesa was forced to laugh.
'Do you think you know more about wars and sieges than the freebooters?' she chided gently.
'There should be more men on the walls,' insisted the child, shivering. 'Suppose the black man came back?'
Belesa shuddered at the thought.
'I am afraid,' murmured Tina. 'I hope Strom and Zarono are killed.'
'And not Conan?' asked Belesa curiously.
'Conan would not harm us,' said the child, confidently. 'He lives up to his barbaric code of honor, but they are men who have lost all honor.'
'You are wise beyond your years, Tina,' said Belesa, with the vague uneasiness the precocity of the girl frequently roused in her.
'Look!' Tina stiffened. 'The sentry is gone from the south wall! I saw him on the ledge a moment ago; now he has vanished.'
From their window the palisade points of the south wall were just visible over the slanting roofs of a row of huts which paralleled that wall almost its entire length. A sort of open-topped corridor, three or four yards wide, was framed by the stockade and the back of the huts, which were built in a solid row. These huts were occupied by the serfs.
'Where could the sentry have gone?' whispered Tina uneasily.
Belesa was watching one end of the hut-row which was not far from a side door of the manor. She could have sworn she saw a shadowy figure glide from behind the huts and disappear at the door. Was that the vanished sentry? Why had he left the wall, and why should he steal so subtly into the manor? She did not believe it was the sentry she had seen, and a nameless fear congealed her blood.
'Where is the Count, Tina?' she asked.
'In the great hall, my Lady. He sits alone at the table, wrapped in his cloak and drinking wine, with a face gray as death.' 'Go and tell him what we have seen. I will keep watch from this window, lest the Picts steal to the unguarded wall.' Tina scampered away. Belesa heard her slippered feet pattering along the corridor, receding down the stair. Then abruptly, terribly, there rang out a scream of such poignant fear that Belesa's heart almost stopped with the shock of it. She was out of the chamber and flying down the corridor before she was aware that her limbs were in motion. She ran down the stair -and halted as if turned to stone.
She did not scream as Tina had screamed. She was incapable of sound or motion. She saw Tina, was aware of the reality of small hands grasping her frantically. But these were the only sane realities in a scene of black nightmare and lunacy and death, dominated by the monstrous, anthropomorphic shadow which spread awful arms against a lurid, hell-fire glare. Out in the stockade Strom shook his head at Conan's question.
'I heard nothing.'
'I did!' Conan's wild instincts were roused; he was tensed, his eyes blazing. 'It came from the south wall, behind those huts!' Drawing his cutlass he strode toward the palisade. From the compound the wall on the south and the sentry posted there were not visible, being hidden behind the huts. Strom followed, impressed by the Cimmerian's manner. At the mouth of the open space between the huts and wall Conan halted, warily. The space was dimly lighted by torches flaring at either corner of the stockade. And about mid-way of that natural corridor a crumpled shape sprawled on the ground.
'Bracus!' swore Strom, running forward and dropping on one knee beside the figure. 'By Mitra, his throat's been cut from ear to ear!'
Conan swept the space with a quick glance, finding it empty save for himself, Strom and the dead man. He peered through a loop-hole. No living man moved within the ring of torch-light outside the fort.
