Free Conan and the Death Lord of Thanza by Roland Green

swallow an ox. Safely on what was left of a curtain wall, they had a splendid view out over the nighted forest, tinted unnatural shades of silver, grey, and blue by the moon.
    “The chest is what you seek, is it not?” Grolin asked.
    “I can hardly pretend otherwise, can I now?” Lysinka replied. Her voice held a bitter edge.
    “You did yourself no harm by revealing your desire,” Grolin said. “It is one I share. Together, we may attain it.”
    “And fighting some mad wizard for its possession?”
    “You were ready to do that with your unaided steel, Lysinka. Together, we can do better. You have thirty stout fighters. I have a sorcerer. Or at least one who finds this quest worthy.”
    Lysinka frowned. Grolin was flinging open a door to a whole new world, much too large for her to grasp readily. She said the first thing that came to her mind, to avoid seeming a witling.
    “As long as he is master over whoever magicked the chest—”
    Grolin stopped her with a hand to her lips. It seemed to Lysinka that he and his men must learn the rules of her band, about touching women, if there was to be peace tonight, let alone during a quest of days or weeks.
    After a moment, Grolin let his hand fall. “Your pardon,” he said.
    “Granted. But is this hedge-wizard likely to be strong enough?”
    “I do not know. No sorcerer called the chest. It flew of its own will, called by the Mountain of the Skulls. That is the original resting place of what lies within the chest.”
    “A treasure?” Lysinka frowned. Within, she was torn between eagerness to make her comrades rich and suspicion that Grolin would be deft in treachery to avoid sharing any gains.
    “Some have called it so,” Grolin replied, so softly that Lysinka could barely hear him over the moan of the wind. “It is called the Soul of Thanza.”
    In spite of herself, Lysinka felt the night wind as chill against her as if she had been unclothed. She shivered, but stepped aside as Grolin moved to embrace her.
    “What does this Soul do?”
    Grolin did not look at her as he replied. “It gives its possessor lordship over death.”
    Conan expected his shout to bring Tharmis Rog to his feet and the big man’s sword out of its scabbard. Instead the master-at-arms only grunted like the sleepiest of boars and shifted his position slightly.
    The Cimmerian had no time to marvel at this or ponder the reason for it. He snatched up a rock and flung it with all the strength of his arm at the archer. The rock took the man in the shoulder as he loosed his arrow. He roared with surprise more than pain, but his arrow flew wide.
    In the next moment Conan leaped on the spear man just as his weapon flew. Its course was truer, but the archer’s cry had roused Rog more than the Cimmerian’s warning shout. He moved, just in time to take the spear across the mail shoulder pieces of his corselet. Sparks flew but no blood.
    Meanwhile, Conan was trying to end the spear man’s fighting, keep the archer from shooting again, and fight the other men who were swarming out of the trees toward Tharmis Rog like dogs at a bear-baiting. Not for the first time, Conan would have given some years of his life for the power to be in two places at once.
    His own strength and sheer good luck divided the work between him and Rog. The spear man had no more chance against Conan than a goat against a tiger. In moments he was limp.
    Meanwhile, one of the running men darted squarely into the path of the archer’s second shaft. He reeled, clutching his throat, which had suddenly sprouted the arrow. Then he fell as the archer let out something between a wail and a curse. That was the last sound the archer made, as the Cimmerian closed with him and split his skull with the broadsword.
    Meanwhile, the death of friend at the hand of friend had slowed the onrush of Mikros’s other hirelings. So had Tharmis Rog’s lurching to his feet and drawing his sword. He held it uncertainly, and Conan saw him rub his eyes