Conan Of The Isles

A tremendous hiss came from the dark interior behind the opening doors. Out into the sunlight shambled the first of the dragons to reach the top of the ramp - fifty feet of slate-gray scales, waddling briskly on bowed, muscular legs and splayed., long-toed feet. Its raised head swiveled from side to side as its great, green eyes, their pupils contracted to slits by the glare, took in the scene around it. From the tip of its long, crocodilian snout, a yard of pink, forked tongue flicked out.

Screaming, the ranks of the chanting priests broke. The priests fought their way into the crowd of common An-tillians, who in turn surged away from the doors. In the panic push, men and women were thrown down and the life was trampled out of them.

One priest tripped on his feathered robe and fell. Before he could recover, the jaws of the dragon slammed shut upon him. The reptile raised its head. Then it jerked its head back several times, while the elastic skin of its throat swelled and shrank with gulping motions. With each jerk, the priest slid further into its jaws, until only his feet, still wearing their gilded stilt shoes, were visible. A final jerk and gulp, and the dragon's throat bulged as its prey slid down its gullet.

Meanwhile other dragons, with tongues flickering and jaws opening to emit their groaning roars, crowded past the first. There seemed to be no end to the procession. They scrambled across the pavement and plunged into the screaming, clawing mass of Antillians. Some people were crushed beneath the monsters' clawed feet; others were knocked about like dolls by casual swings of huge, scaly tails. Blood lay in puddles and ran into the gutters in sticky scarlet streams. Everywhere., dragons paused to raise their heads and gulp down their prey before plunging on after another mouthful.

Meanwhile, high up od the side of the red-and-black pyramid, a small door opened. Conan stepped out, carrying the sword of black glass with which the guard had been armed. The salt wind from the sea whipped his shaggy gray mane. He expanded his huge chest to take in a lungful of clean, fresh air, welcome after the stenches of the charnel cavern world below.

After he had opened the gates that loosed the reptilian horde upon the people of Ptahuacan, he had mounted the stone stair that slanted up from the platform in the wall of the dragon chamber. Other passages branched off horizontally from this tunnel. But Conan, reasoning that the sacrifice should be taking place on top of the pyramid and that the steepest passageway would bring him out closest to that place, continued on up, until he had come to the door from which he just emerged.

For an instant he stood staring down, watching with grim satisfaction the scene of havoc and madness below. Some of the dragons had reached the tiers of stone benches where the nobles and higher priests had sat. They were lurching up and down these benches, pursuing and capturing screaming, befeathered fugitives.

From his height, Conan could see along the streets that let out of the square. Each of these streets now bore a stream of madly running fugitives. Some darted into the first open door they reached, to slam and bar it against later arrivals. Others kept running until they passed through the city gates and straggled out into the countryside.

Craning his neck in the other direction, Conan looked up to the top of the pyramid. Here, where rose the temple of Xotli, knots of men struggled. The colors of their skins told Conan that some of these were his own crew, battling with priests and guards.

Then Conan became aware of a figure standing near him on one of the stairways that led to the top of the pyramid. This was the gaunt old hierarch himself, recognizable by the splendor of his feathered robe - now torn -and his golden ornaments. His plumed headpiece was gone, and blood ran down one side of his head. Leaning forward, he gesticulated frantically with his skinny brown arms, screaming commands to the milling soldiers and priests below.

At the base of the pyramid directly below the hierarch, one of the dragons looked up, its pink tongue feeling the air. Then the monster began to claw its way up the stair.

A wicked grin wrinkled Oman's bearded face. Thrusting his glass sword through his belt, he vaulted to the next higher level of the yard-high steps that made up the pyramid. He stepped softly along the step until he came to the stair on which the hierarch stood, behind and above that personage. Without a word, he placed both hands on the small of the archpriest's back and gave a terrific shove.

The hierarch shot out from the surface of the pyramid in an arc and struck the steps lower down. He rolled over and over in a whirl of brown limbs and green feathers, until he reached the dragon coming up from below. A loud chomp, and the jaws dosed upon the age-old master of Antillia.