The Bloodstained God

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It was dark as the Pit in that stinking alley down which Conan of Cimmeria groped on a quest as blind as the darkness around him. Had there been anyone to witness, they would have seen a tall and enormously powerful man clad in a flowing Zuagir khilat, over that a mail shirt of fine steel mesh, and over that a Zuagir cloak of camel's hair. His mane of black hair and his broad, somber, youth­ful face, bronzed by the desert sun, were hidden by the Zuagir kaffia.

A sharp, pain-edged cry smote his ears.

Such cries were not uncommon in the twisting alleys of Arenjun, the City of Thieves, and no cautious or timid man would think of interfering in an affair that was none of his business. But Conan was neither cautious nor timid. His ever-lively curiosky would not let him pass by a cry for help; besides, he was searching for certain men, and the disturbance might be a clue to their whereabouts.

Obeying his quick barbarian instincts, he turned toward a beam of light that lanced the darkness close at hand. An instant later he peered through a crack in the close-drawn shutters of a window in a thick stone wall.

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