Free Conan The Freelance by Steve Perry Page A

shoulders.
    The headless body continued running, but past Conan.
    Conan spun in time to meet the next Korga’s charge. Continuing the motion of the blade, Conan opened the beast horizontally. Entrails spilled, and the lizard creature blinked and looked down, forgetting all about Conan.
    But the other four were nearly upon him. Conan shifted his stance to recock the blade.
    He could take one more, mayhaps two, were he lucky
    The first Korga screamed from the pit. It was a long cry that stopped as though sliced off by a razor.
    Conan risked a glance toward the pit as another of the beasts impaled itself on his extended sword point.
    Something was coming out of the pit, and it was not the Korga that had fallen into it.
    In that instant, Conan recalled where he had seen the like before. It had been much, much smaller, and had belonged to a spidery creature that fed upon ants and other tiny insects unfortunate enough to slide into its trap.
    What came from within this ground, however, was twice the size of the beasts, and it looked like a spider from the dream of a mad god. The monster was black and furry, eyeless, but with arm-thick mandibles that dripped smoking poison, and what seemed at least eight legs.
    “Crom.”
    Faster than he would have thought possible, the monster scrabbled up the hillock and attacked one of the surprised Korga. The click of the thing’s mandibles was loud in the desert air; with one snap, it clipped the Korga in twain.
    The remaining Korga scattered amidst loud and fearful hissings, and the monster turned toward the nearest and began to chase it. Big it was, and hideous, and faster than its scaled target.
    Conan turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.
    Perhaps the hellspawn preferred Pili dogs to human flesh, but Conan had no intention of finding out firsthand. Let it feast on the Korga until sated. And even as he ran, he resolved to watch more closely his own steps.
    Kleg waded into the small lake, grinning. The rain continued, somewhat lighter now, but as the water rose up to his waist, then chest and neck, the rain ceased to matter.
    He sank below the surface and began the Change.
    With his first breath of water, gills sprouted along the sides of his neck. His bones stretched, sinews creaking as they followed, and his flesh began to shift. His legs elongated and at the same time fused into a single unit. His feet formed themselves into a tail, longer on the top than on the bottom. His arms drew in toward his sleek body, his hands flattening into fins. A dorsal fin sprouted from his back, a delta shape reaching upward, and other fins emerged from his ventral side. His eyes moved back, his mouth widened, and rows of serrated teeth pushed through the hardening gums.
    In a few seconds, the Change was complete. What had been Kleg the manlike was now twice the length and covered with skin the texture of pumice, as deadly a thing that swam any salt sea.
    With a flick of his tail, Kleg drove his metamorphosed form through the water. New senses told him that the thrashing scrat lay just ahead, waiting for its destiny.
    And its destiny was … prey.
    Around him in the water, Kleg was aware of his brothers also undergoing the Change, becoming as he was, seeking that which he sought, but Kleg was first, and he opened his massive jaws and bit deeply.
    In a matter of moments, the clear blue water had turned a cloudy crimson, and the struggling scrat was no more.

Chapter Eight
    Dimma floated through the halls of his castle toward the strong room that contained his most valuable treasures: the eight items that composed his recovery spell. Only one piece was lacking for completion, and soon his Prime selkie would return with that one piece.
    Ah, to be solid again, never to fear that coldness and sudden shift into vaporous ether! Once he retained a body upon which he could depend, things would change in this realm. He would go forth in the flesh, sweeping all who stood before him aside, taking control of