Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

24 ROBERT E. HOWARD sky seemed to rain shards of marble. Then a rubble of shattered stone lay whitely under the moon. _ Conan stirred, throwing off the splinters that half covered him. A glancing blow had knocked off his helmet and momentarily stunned him. Across his legs lay a great piece of the column, pinning him down. He was not sure that his legs were unbroken. His black locks were plastered with sweat; blood trickled from the wounds in his throat and hands. He hitched up on one arm, struggling with the debris that prisoned him. _ Then something swept down across the stars and struck the sward near him. Twisting about, he saw it—rhe winged one! With fearful speed it was tushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic man-like shape hurtling along on bowed and stunted legs; of huge hairy arms outstretching misshapen black- nailed paws; of a malformed head, in whose broad face the only features recognizable as such were a pair of blood-red eyes. It was a thing neither man, beast, nor devil, imbued with characteristics subhuman as well as charac- teristics superhuman. . | But Conan had'no time for conscious consecutive thought. He threw him- self toward his fallen sword, and his clawing fingers missed it by inches. Desperately he grasped the shard which pinned his legs, and the veins swelled in his temples as he strove to thrust it off him. It gave slowly, but he knew that before he could free himself the monster would be upon him, and he knew that those black-taloned hands were death. 3 The headlong rush of the winged one had not wavered. It towered over the prostrate Cimmerian like a black shadow, arms thrown wide—a glimmer of white flashed between it and its victim, In one mad instant she was there—a tense white shape, vibrant with love fierce as a she-panther’s. The dazed Cimmerian saw between him and the onrushing death, her lithe figure, shimmering like ivory beneath the moon; he saw the blaze of her dark eyes, the thick cluster of her burnished hair; her bosom heaved, her red lips were parted, she cried out sharp and ringing as the ring of steel as she thrust at the winged monster’s breast. ? “Bélit!” screamed Conan. She flashed a quick glance toward him, and in her dark eyes he saw her love flaming, a naked elemental thing of raw fire and ‘molten lava. Then she was gone, and the Cimmerian saw only the winged fend which had staggered back in unwonted fear, arms lifted as if to fend off attack. And he knew that Bélit in truth lay on her pyre on the Tigress’ deck. In his ears rang her passionate cry: “Were [still in death and you fighting for life I would come back from the abyss——” With a terrible cry he heaved upward, hurling the stoge aside. The winged one came on again, and Conan sprang to meet it, his veins on fire with mad- ness. The thews started out like cords on his forearms as he swung his great sword, pivoting on his heel with the force of the sweeping arc. Just above the = $ > 4 boo aa gs: