Free Complete El Borak (Pulp Heroes and Villains) by Robert E. Howard

into the darkness and presently stumbled over something yielding, which evoked another moan. His hands told him it was a man in European clothing. Something warm and oozy smeared his hands as he groped. Feeling in the man’s pockets he found a box of matches and struck one, cupping it in his hands.
     
    A livid face with glassy eyes stared up at him.
     
    “Pembroke!” muttered Gordon.
     
    The sound of his name seemed to rouse the dying man. He half rose on an elbow, blood trickling from his mouth with the effort.
     
    “Ormond!” he whispered ghastily. “Have you come back? Damn you, I’ll do for you yet--”
     
    “I’m not Ormond,” growled the American. “I’m Gordon. It seems somebody has saved me the trouble of killing you. Where’s Yasmeena?”
     
    “He took her away.” The Englishman’s voice was scarcely intelligible, choked by the flow of blood. “Ormond, the dirty swine! We found the cave empty--knew old Yogok had betrayed us. We jumped him. He ran away. His damned monk stabbed me. Ormond took Yasmeena and the monk and went away. He’s mad. He’s going to try to cross the mountains on foot, with the girl, and the monk to guide him. And he left me to die, the swine, the filthy swine!”
     
    The dying man’s voice rose to a hysterical shriek; he heaved himself up, his eyes glaring; then a terrible shudder ran through his body and he was dead.
     
    Gordon rose, struck another match and swept a glance over the cave. It was utterly bare. Not a firearm in sight. Ormond had evidently robbed his dying partner. Ormond, starting through the mountains with a captive woman, and a treacherous monk for a guide, on foot and with no provisions--surely the man must be mad.
     
    Returning to Yogok he unbound his legs, repeating Pembroke’s tale in a few words. He saw the priest’s eyes gleam in the starlight.
     
    “Good! They will all die in the mountains! Let them go!”
     
    “We’re following them,” Gordon answered. “You know the way the monk will lead Ormond. Show it to me.”
     
    A restoration of confidence had wakened insolence and defiance.
     
    “No! Let them die!”
     
    With a searing curse Gordon caught the priest’s throat and jammed his head back between his shoulders, until his eyes were glaring at the stars.
     
    “Damn you!” he ground between his teeth, shaking the man as a dog shakes a rat. “If you try to balk me now I’ll kill you the slowest way I know. Do you want me to drag you back to Yolgan and tell the people what you plotted against the daughter of Erlik Khan? They’ll kill me, but they’ll flay you alive!”
     
    Yogok knew Gordon would not do that, not because the American feared death, but because to sacrifice himself would be to remove Yasmeena’s last hope. But Gordon’s glaring eyes made him cold with fear; he sensed the abysmal rage that gripped the white man and knew that El Borak was on the point of tearing him limb from limb. In that moment there was no bloody deed of which Gordon was not capable.
     
    “Stay, sahib!” Yogok gasped. “I will guide you.”
     
    “And guide me right!” Gordon jerked him savagely to his feet. “They have been gone less than an hour. If we don’t overtake them by sunrise, I’ll know you’ve led me astray, and I’ll tie you head down to a cliff for the vultures to eat alive.”
     

CHAPTER 9
    In the darkness before dawn Yogok led Gordon up into the hills by a narrow trail that wound among ravines and windy crags, climbing ever southward. The eternal lights of Yolgan fell away behind them, growing smaller and smaller with distance.
     
    They left half a mile to the east of the gorge where the Turkomans were concealed. Gordon ardently wished to get his men out of that ravine before dawn, but he dared not take the time now. His eyes burned from lack of sleep and moments of giddiness assailed him, but the fire of his driving energy burned fiercer than ever. He urged the priest to greater and greater speed until sweat