The Phoenix on the Sword Displayed by Roberta E. Howard Smashwords Edition Copyright 2010 Roberta E. Howard A Conyn the Barbarian story. A Gender Switch Adventure. Chapter I 'Know, oh princess, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Daughters of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars -- Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired men and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conyn, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under her sandalled feet.' -- The Nemedian Chronicles. Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered women they disappeared in the darkness. Behind them a sardonic countenance was framed in the partly opened door; a pair of evil eyes glittered malevolently in the gloom. 'Go into the night, creatures of the night,' a voice mocked. 'Oh, fools, your doom hounds your heels like a blind dog, and you know it not.' The speaker closed the door and bolted it, then turned and went up the corridor, candle in hand. She was a somber giant, whose dusky skin revealed her Stygian blood. She came into an inner chamber, where a tall, lean woman in worn velvet lounged like a great lazy cat on a silken couch, sipping wine from a huge golden goblet. 'Well, Ascalante,' said the Stygian, setting down the candle, 'your dupes have slunk into the streets like rats from their burrows. You work with strange tools.' 'Tools?' replied Ascalante. 'Why, they consider me that. For months now, ever since the Rebel Four summoned me from the southern desert, I have been living in the very heart of my enemies, hiding by day in this obscure house, skulking through dark alleys and darker corridors at night. And I have accomplished what those rebellious nobles could not. Wyrking through them, and through other agents, many of whom have never seen my face, I have honeycombed the empire with sedition and unrest. In short I, working in the shadows, have paved the downfall of the queen who sits throned in the sun. By Mitra, I was a statesman before I was an outlaw.' 'And these dupes who deem themselves your masters?' 'They will continue to think that I serve them, until our present task is completed. Who are they to match wits with Ascalante? Volmyna, the dwarfish count of Karaban; Gromae, the giant commander of the Black Legion; Dione, the fat baroness of Attalus; Rinalde, the hare-brained minstrel. I am the force which has welded together the steel in each, and by the clay in each, I will crush them when the time comes. But that lies in the future; tonight the queen dies.' 'Days ago I saw the imperial squadrons ride from the city,' said the Stygian. 'They rode to the frontier which the heathen Picts assail -- thanks to the strong liquor which I've smuggled over the borders to madden them. Dione's great wealth made that possible. And Volmyna made it possible to dispose of the rest of the imperial troops which remained in the city. Through her princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade Queen Numa to request the presence of Countess Trocera of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do her honor, she'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as her own troops, and Prospera, Queen Conyn's right-hand woman. That leaves only the queen's personal bodyguard in the city-beside the Black Legion. Through Gromae I've corrupted a spendthrift officer of that guard, and bribed her to lead her women away from the queen's door at midnight. 'Then, with sixteen desperate rogues of mine, we enter the palace by a secret tunnel. After the deed is done, even if the people do not rise to welcome us, Gromae's Black Legion will be sufficient to hold the city and the crown.' 'And Dione thinks that crown will be given to her?' 'Yes. The fat fool claims it by reason of a trace of royal blood. Conyn makes a bad mistake in letting women live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which she tore the crown of Aquilonia. 'Volmyna wishes to be reinstated in royal favor as she was under the old regime, so that she may lift her poverty-ridden estates to their former grandeur. Gromae hates Pallantide, commander of the Black Dragons, and desires the command of the whole army, with all the stubbornness of the Bossonian. Alone of us all, Rinalde has no personal ambition. She sees in Conyn a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land. She idealizes the queen whom Conyn killed to get the crown, remembering only that she occasionally patronized the arts, and forgetting the evils of her reign, and she is making the people forget. Already they openly sing The Lament for the Queen in which Rinalde lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conyn as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.' Conyn laughs, but the people snarl.' 'Why does she hate Conyn?' 'Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future. Rinalde is a flaming torch of idealism, rising, as she thinks, to overthrow a tyrant and liberate the people. As for me -- well, a few months ago I had lost all ambition but to raid the caravans for the rest of my life; now old dreams stir. Conyn will die; Dione will mount the throne. Then she, too, will die. One by one, all who oppose me will die -- by fire, or steel, or those deadly wines you know so well how to brew. Ascalante, queen of Aquilonia! How like you the sound of it?' The Stygian shrugged her broad shoulders. 'There was a time,' she said with unconcealed bitterness, 'when I, too, had my ambitions, beside which yours seem tawdry and childish. To what a state I have fallen! My old-time peers and rivals would stare indeed could they see Thoth-amin of the Ring serving as the slave of an outlander, and an outlaw at that; and aiding in the petty ambitions of barons and kings!' 'You laid your trust in magic and mummery,' answered Ascalante carelessly. 'I trust my wits and my sword.' 'Wits and swords are as straws against the wisdom of the Darkness,' growled the Stygian, her dark eyes flickering with menacing lights and shadows. 'Had I not lost the Ring, our positions might be reversed.' 'Nevertheless,' answered the outlaw impatiently, 'you wear the stripes of my whip on your back, and are likely to continue to wear them.' 'Be not so sure!' the fiendish hatred of the Stygian glittered for an instant redly in her eyes. 'Some day, somehow, I will find the Ring again, and when I do, by the serpent-fangs of Set, you shall pay--' The hot-tempered Aquilonian started up and struck her heavily across the mouth. Thoth reeled back, blood starting from her lips. 'You grow over-bold, dog,' growled the outlaw. 'Have a care; I am still your mistress who knows your dark secret. Go upon the housetops and shout that Ascalante is in the city plotting against the queen -- if you dare.' 'I dare not,' muttered the Stygian, wiping the blood from her lips. 'No, you do not dare,' Ascalante grinned bleakly. 'For if I die by your stealth or treachery, a hermit priestess in the southern desert will know of it, and will break the seal of a manuscript I left in her hands. And having read, a word will be whispered in Stygia, and a wind will creep up from the south by midnight. And where will you hide your head, Thoth-amin?' The slave shuddered and her dusky face went ashen. 'Enough!' Ascalante changed her tone peremptorily. 'I have work for you. I do not trust Dione. I bade her ride to her country estate and remain there until the work tonight is done. The fat fool could never conceal her nervousness before the queen today. Ride after her, and if you do not overtake her on the road, proceed to her estate and remain with her until we send for her. Don't let her out of your sight. She is mazed with fear, and might bolt -- might even rush to Conyn in a panic, and reveal the whole plot, hoping thus to save her own hide. Go!' The slave bowed, hiding the hate in her eyes, and did as she was bidden. Ascalante turned again to her wine. Over the jeweled spires was rising a dawn crimson as blood. Chapter II When I was a fighting-womenwoman, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great queen, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. -- The Road of Kings. The room was large and ornate, with rich tapestries on the polished-panelled walls, deep rugs on the ivory floor, and with the lofty ceiling adorned with intricate carvings and silver scrollwork. Behind an ivory, gold-inlaid writing-table sat a woman whose broad shoulders and sun-browned skin seemed out of place among those luxuriant surroundings. She seemed more a part of the sun and winds and high places of the outlands. Her slightest movement spoke of steel-spring muscles knit to a keen brain with the co-ordination of a born fighting-womenwoman. There was nothing deliberate or measured about her actions. Either she was perfectly at rest -- still as a bronze statue -- or else she was in motion, not with the jerky quickness of over-tense nerves, but with a cat-like speed that blurred the sight which tried to follow her. Her garments were of rich fabric, but simply made. She wore no ring or ornaments, and her square-cut black mane was confined merely by a cloth-of-silver band about her head. Now she laid down the golden stylus with which she had been laboriously scrawling on waxed papyrus, rested her chin on her fist, and fixed her smoldering blue eyes enviously on the woman who stood before her. This person was occupied in her own affairs at the moment, for she was taking up the laces of her gold-chased armor, and abstractedly whistling -- a rather unconventional performance, considering that she was in the presence of a queen. 'Prospera,' said the woman at the table, 'these matters of statecraft weary me as all the fighting I have done never did.' 'All part of the game, Conyn,' answered the dark-eyed Poitainian. 'You are queen -- you must play the part.' 'I wish I might ride with you to Nemedia,' said Conyn enviously. 'It seems ages since I had a horse between my knees -- but Publia says that affairs in the city require my presence. Curse her! 'When I overthrew the old dynasty,' she continued, speaking with the easy familiarity which existed only between the Poitainian and herself, 'it was easy enough, though it seemed bitter hard at the time. Looking back now over the wild path I followed, all those days of toil, intrigue, slaughter and tribulation seem like a dream. 'I did not dream far enough, Prospera. When Queen Numedides lay dead at my feet and I tore the crown from her gory head and set it on my own, I had reached the ultimate border of my dreams. I had prepared myself to take the crown, not to hold it. In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless. 'When I overthrew Numedides, then I was the Liberator -- now they spit at my shadow. They have put a statue of that swine in the temple of Mitra, and people go and wail before it, hailing it as the holy effigy of a saintly monarch who was done to death by a red-handed barbarian. When I led his armies to victory as a mercenary, Aquilonia overlooked the fact that I was a foreigner, but now he can not forgive me. 'Now in Mitra's temple there come to burn incense to Numedides' memory, women whom her hangmen maimed and blinded, women whose daughters died in her dungeons, whose husbands and sons were dragged into her seraglio. The fickle fools!' 'Rinalde is largely responsible,' answered Prospera, drawing up her sword-belt another notch. 'She sings songs that make women mad. Hang her in her jester's garb to the highest tower in the city. Let her make rimes for the vultures.' Conyn shook her lion head. 'No, Prospera, she's beyond my reach. A great poet is greater than any queen. Her songs are mightier than my scepter; for she has near ripped the heart from my breast when she chose to sing for me. I shall die and be forgotten, but Rinalde's songs will live for ever. 'No, Prospera,' the queen continued, a somber look of doubt shadowing her eyes, 'there is something hidden, some undercurrent of which we are not aware. I sense it as in my youth I sensed the tiger hidden in the tall grass. There is a nameless unrest throughout the kingdom. I am like a hunter who crouches by her small fire amid the forest, and hears stealthy feet padding in the darkness, and almost sees the glimmer of burning eyes. If I could but come to grips with something tangible, that I could cleave with my sword! I tell you, it's not by chance that the Picts have of late so fiercely assailed the frontiers, so that the Bossonians have called for aid to beat them back. I should have ridden with the troops.' 'Publia feared a plot to trap and slay you beyond the frontier,' replied Prospera, smoothing her silken surcoat over her shining mail, and admiring her tall lithe figure in a silver mirror. 'That's why she urged you to remain in the city. These doubts are born of your barbarian instincts. Let the people snarl! The mercenaries are ours, and the Black Dragons, and every rogue in Poitain swears by you. Your only danger is assassination, and that's impossible, with women of the imperial troops guarding you day and night. What are you working at there?' 'A map,' Conyn answered with pride. 'The maps of the court show well the countries of south, east and west, but in the north they are vague and faulty. I am adding the northern lands myself. Here is Cimmeria, where I was born. And--' 'Asgard and Vanaheim,' Prospera scanned the map. 'By Mitra, I had almost believed those countries to have been fabulous.' Conyn grinned savagely, involuntarily touching the scars on her dark face. 'You had known otherwise, had you spent your youth on the northern frontiers of Cimmeria! Asgard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest of Cimmeria, and there is continual war along the borders.' 'What manner of women are these northern folk?' asked Prospera. 'Tall and fair and blue-eyed. Their god is Ymir, the frost-giant, and each tribe has its own queen. They are wayward and fierce. They fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night.' 'Then I think you are like them,' laughed Prospera. 'You laugh greatly, drink deep and bellow good songs; though I never saw another Cimmerian who drank aught but water, or who ever laughed, or ever sang save to chant dismal dirges.' 'Perhaps it's the land they live in,' answered the queen. 'A gloomier land never was -- all of hills, darkly wooded, under skies nearly always gray, with winds moaning drearily down the valleys.' 'Little wonder women grow moody there,' quoth Prospera with a shrug of her shoulders, thinking of the smiling sun-washed plains and blue lazy rivers of Poitain, Aquilonia's southernmost province. 'They have no hope here or hereafter,' answered Conyn. 'Their gods are Crom and her dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Mitra! The ways of the ’sir were more to my liking.' 'Well,' grinned Prospera, 'the dark hills of Cimmeria are far behind you. And now I go. I'll quaff a goblet of white Nemedian wine for you at Numa's court.' 'Good,' grunted the queen, 'but kiss Numa's dancing-boys for yourself only, lest you involve the states!' Her gusty laughter followed Prospera out of the chamber. Chapter III Under the caverned pyramids great Set coils asleep; Among the shadows of the tombs her dusky people creep. I speak the Wyrd from the hidden gulfs that never knew the sun Send me a servant for my hate, oh scaled and shining One! The sun was setting, etching the green and hazy blue of the forest in brief gold. The waning beams glinted on the thick golden chain which Dione of Attalus twisted continually in her pudgy hand as she sat in the flaming riot of blossoms and flower--trees which was her garden. She shifted her fat body on her marble seat and glanced furtively about, as if in quest of a lurking enemy. She sat within a circular grove of slender trees, whose interlapping branches cast a thick shade over her. Near at hand a fountain tinkled silverly, and other unseen fountains in various parts of the great garden whispered an everlasting symphony. Dione was alone except for the great dusky figure which lounged on a marble bench close at hand, watching the baroness with deep somber eyes. Dione gave little thought to Thoth-amin. She vaguely knew that she was a slave in whom Ascalante reposed much trust, but like so many rich women, Dione paid scant heed to women below her own station in life. 'You need not be so nervous,' said Thoth. 'The plot can not fail.' 'Ascalante can make mistakes as well as another,' snapped Dione, sweating at the mere thought of failure. 'Not she,' grinned the Stygian savagely, 'else I had not been her slave, but her mistress.' 'What talk is this?' peevishly returned Dione, with only half a mind on the conversation. Thoth-amin's eyes narrowed. For all her iron-self-control, she was near bursting with long pent-up shame, hate and rage, ready to take any sort of a desperate chance. What she did not reckon on was the fact that Dione saw her, not as a human being with a brain and a wit, but simply a slave, and as such, a creature beneath notice. 'Listen to me,' said Thoth. 'You will be queen. But you little know the mind of Ascalante. You can not trust her, once Conyn is slain. I can help you. If you will protect me when you come to power, I will aid you. 'Listen, my lord. I was a great sorceress in the south. Women spoke of Thoth-amin as they spoke of Rammon. Queen Ctesphon of Stygia gave me great honor, casting down the magicians from the high places to exalt me above them. They hated me, but they feared me, for I controlled beings from outside which came at my call and did my bidding. By Set, mine enemy knew not the hour when she might awake at midnight to feel the taloned fingers of a nameless horror at her throat! I did dark and terrible magic with the Serpent Ring of Set, which I found in a nighted tomb a league beneath the earth, forgotten before the first woman crawled out of the slimy sea. 'But a thief stole the Ring and my power was broken. The magicians rose up to slay me, and I fled. Disguised as a camel-driver, I was travelling in a caravan in the land of Koth, when Ascalante's reavers fell upon us. All in the caravan were slain except myself; I saved my life by revealing my identity to Ascalante and swearing to serve her. Bitter has been that bondage! 'To hold me fast, she wrote of me in a manuscript, and sealed it and gave it into the hands of a hermit who dwells on the southern borders of Koth. I dare not strike a dagger into her while she sleeps, or betray her to her enemies, for then the hermit would open the manuscript and read -- thus Ascalante instructed her. And she would speak a word in Stygia--' Again Thoth shuddered and an ashen hue tinged her dusky skin. 'Women knew me not in Aquilonia,' she said. 'But should my enemies in Stygia learn my whereabouts, not the width of half a world between us would suffice to save me from such a doom as would blast the soul of a bronze statue. Only a queen with castles and hosts of swordswomen could protect me. So I have told you my secret, and urge that you make a pact with me. I can aid you with my wisdom, and you can protect me. And some day I will find the Ring--' 'Ring? Ring?' Thoth had underestimated the woman's utter egoism. Dione had not even been listening to the slave's words, so completely engrossed was she in her own thoughts, but the final word stirred a ripple in her self-centeredness. 'Ring?' she repeated. 'That makes me remember -- my ring of good fortune. I had it from a Shemitish thief who swore she stole it from a wizard far to the south, and that it would bring me luck. I paid her enough, Mitra knows. By the gods, I need all the luck I can have, what with Volmyna and Ascalante dragging me into their bloody plots -- I'll see to the ring.' Thoth sprang up, blood mounting darkly to her face, while her eyes flamed with the stunned fury of a woman who suddenly realizes the full depths of a fool's swinish stupidity. Dione never heeded her. Lifting a secret lid in the marble seat, she fumbled for a moment among a heap of gewgaws of various kinds -- barbaric charms, bits of bones, pieces of tawdry jewelry -- luck-pieces and conjures which the woman's superstitious nature had prompted her to collect. 'Ah, here it is!' She triumphantly lifted a ring of curious make. It was of a metal like copper, and was made in the form of a scaled serpent, coiled in three loops, with its tail in its mouth. Its eyes were yellow gems which glittered balefully. Thoth-amin cried out as if she had been struck, and Dione wheeled and gaped, her face suddenly bloodless. The slave's eyes were blazing, her mouth wide, her huge dusky hands outstretched like talons. 'The Ring! By Set! The Ring!' she shrieked. 'My Ring -- stolen from me--'Steel glittered in the Stygian's hand and with a heave of her great dusky shoulders she drove the dagger into the baron's fat body. Dione's high thin squeal broke in a strangled gurgle and her whole flabby frame collapsed like melted butter. A fool to the end, she died in mad terror, not knowing why. Flinging aside the crumpled corpse, already forgetful of it, Thoth grasped the ring in both hands, her dark eyes blazing with a fearful avidness. 'My Ring!' she whispered in terrible exultation. 'My power!' How long she crouched over the baleful thing, motionless as a statue, drinking the evil aura of it into her dark soul, not even the Stygian knew. When she shook herself from her revery and drew back her mind from the nighted abysses where it had been questing, the moon was rising, casting long shadows across the smooth marble back of the garden-seat, at the foot of which sprawled the darker shadow which had been the lord of Attalus. 'No more, Ascalante, no more!' whispered the Stygian, and her eyes burned red as a vampire's in the gloom. Stooping, she cupped a handful of congealing blood from the sluggish pool in which her victim sprawled, and rubbed it in the copper serpent's eyes until the yellow sparks were covered by a crimson mask. 'Blind your eyes, mystic serpent,' she chanted in a blood-freezing whisper. 'Blind your eyes to the moonlight and open them on darker gulfs! What do you see, oh serpent of Set? Whom do you call from the gulfs of the Night? Whose shadow falls on the waning Light? Call her to me, oh serpent of Set!' Stroking the scales with a peculiar circular motion of her fingers, a motion which always carried the fingers back to their starting place, her voice sank still lower as she whispered dark names and grisly incantations forgotten the world over save in the grim hinterlands of dark Stygia, where monstrous shapes move in the dusk of the tombs. There was a movement in the air about her, such a swirl as is made in water when some creature rises to the surface. A nameless, freezing wind blew on her briefly, as if from an opened Door. Thoth felt a presence at her back, but she did not look about. She kept her eyes fixed on the moonlit space of marble, on which a tenuous shadow hovered. As she continued her whispered incantations, this shadow grew in size and clarity, until it stood out distinct and horrific. Its outline was not unlike that of a gigantic baboon, but no such baboon ever walked the earth, not even in Stygia. Still Thoth did not look, but drawing from her girdle a sandal of her mistress -- always carried in the dim hope that she might be able to put it to such use -- she cast it behind her. 'Know it well, slave of the Ring!' she exclaimed. 'Find her who wore it and destroy her! Look into her eyes and blast her soul, before you tear out her throat! Kill her! Aye,' in a blind burst of passion, 'and all with her!' Etched on the moonlit wall Thoth saw the horror lower its misshapen head and take the scent like some hideous hound. Then the grisly head was thrown back and the thing wheeled and was gone like a wind through the trees. The Stygian flung up her arms in maddened exultation, and her teeth and eyes gleamed in the moonlight. A soldier on guard without the walls yelled in startled horror as a great loping black shadow with flaming eyes cleared the wall and swept by her with a swirling rush of wind. But it was gone so swiftly that the bewildered warrior was left wondering whether it had been a dream or a hallucination. Chapter IV When the world was young and women were weak, and the fiends of the night walked free, I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Now that I sleep in the mount's black heart, and the ages take their toll, Forget ye her who fought with the Snake to save the human soul? Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome Queen Conyn slumbered and dreamed. Through swirling gray mists she heard a curious call, faint and far, and though she did not understand it, it seemed not within her power to ignore it. Sword in hand she went through the gray mist, as a woman might walk through clouds, and the voice grew more distinct as she proceeded until she understood the word it spoke -- it was her own name that was being called across the gulfs of Space or Time. Now the mists grew lighter and she saw that she was in a great dark corridor that seemed to be cut in solid black stone. It was unlighted, but by some magic she could see plainly. The floor, ceiling and walls were highly polished and gleamed dull, and they were carved with the figures of ancient heroes and half-forgotten gods. She shuddered to see the vast shadowy outlines of the Nameless Old Ones, and she knew somehow that mortal feet had not traversed the corridor for centuries. She came upon a wide stair carved in the solid rock, and the sides of the shaft were adorned with esoteric symbols so ancient and horrific that Queen Conyn's skin crawled. The steps were carven each with the abhorrent figure of the Old Serpent, Set, so that at each step she planted her heel on the head of the Snake, as it was intended from old times. But she was none the less at ease for all that. But the voice called her on, and at last, in darkness that would have been impenetrable to her material eyes, she came into a strange crypt, and saw a vague white smooth figure sitting on a tomb. Conyn's hair rose up and she grasped her sword, but the figure spoke in sepulchral tones. 'Oh woman, do you know me?' 'Not I, by Crom!' swore the queen. 'Woman,' said the ancient, 'I am Epemitreya.' 'But Epemitreya the Sage has been dead for fifteen hundred years!' stammered Conyn. 'Harken!' spoke the other commandingly. 'As a pebble cast into a dark lake sends ripples to the further shores, happenings in the Unseen world have broken like waves on my slumber. I have marked you well, Conyn of Cimmeria, and the stamp of mighty happenings and great deeds is upon you. But dooms are loose in the land, against which your sword can not aid you.' 'You speak in riddles,' said Conyn uneasily. 'Let me see my foe and I'll cleave her skull to the teeth.' 'Loose your barbarian fury against your foes of flesh and blood,' answered the ancient. 'It is not against women I must shield you. There are dark worlds barely guessed by woman, wherein formless monsters stalk -- fiends which may be drawn from the Outer Voids to take material shape and rend and devour at the bidding of evil magicians. There is a serpent in your house, oh queen -- an adder in your kingdom, come up from Stygia, with the dark wisdom of the shadows in her murky soul. As a sleeping woman dreams of the serpent which crawls near her, I have felt the foul presence of Set's neophyte. She is drunk with terrible power, and the blows she strikes at her enemy may well bring down the kingdom. I have called you to me, to give you a weapon against her and her hell-hound pack.' 'But why?' bewilderedly asked Conyn. 'Women say you sleep in the black heart of Golamira, whence you send forth your ghost on unseen wings to aid Aquilonia in times of need, but I -- I am an outlander and a barbarian.' 'Peace!' the ghostly tones reverberated through the great shadowy cavern. 'Your destiny is one with Aquilonia. Gigantic happenings are forming in the web and the womb of Fate, and a blood-mad sorceress shall not stand in the path of imperial destiny. Ages ago Set coiled about the world like a python about its prey. All my life, which was as the lives of three common women, I fought her. I drove her into the shadows of the mysterious south, but in dark Stygia women still worship her who to us is the arch-demon. As I fought Set, I fight her worshippers and her votaries and her acolytes. Hold out your sword.' Wondering, Conyn did so, and on the great blade, close to the heavy silver guard, the ancient traced with a bony finger a strange symbol that glowed like white fire in the shadows. And on the instant crypt, tomb and ancient vanished, and Conyn, bewildered, sprang from her couch in the great golden-domed chamber. And as she stood, bewildered at the strangeness of her dream, she realized that she was gripping her sword in her hand. And her hair prickled at the nape of her neck, for on the broad blade was carven a symbol -- the outline of a phoenix. And she remembered that on the tomb in the crypt she had seen what she had thought to be a similar figure, carven of stone. Now she wondered if it had been but a stone figure, and her skin crawled at the strangeness of it all. Then as she stood, a stealthy sound in the corridor outside brought her to life, and without stopping to investigate, she began to don her armor; again she was the barbarian, suspicious and alert as a gray wolf at bay. Chapter V What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs--I was a woman before I was a queen. -- The Road of Kings. Through the silence which shrouded the corridor of the royal palace stole twenty furtive figures. Their stealthy feet, bare or cased in soft leather, made no sound either on thick carpet or bare marble tile. The torches which stood in niches along the halls gleamed red on dagger, sword and keen-edged ax. 'Easy all!' hissed Ascalante. 'Stop that cursed loud breathing, whoever it is! The officer of the night-guard has removed most of the sentries from these halls and made the rest drunk, but we must be careful, just the same. Back! Here come the guard!' They crowded back behind a cluster of carven pillars, and almost immediately ten giants in black armor swung by at a measured pace. Their faces showed doubt as they glanced at the officer who was leading them away from their post of duty. This officer was rather pale; as the guard passed the hiding-places of the conspirators, she was seen to wipe the sweat from her brow with a shaky hand. She was young, and this betrayal of a queen did not come easy to her. She mentally cursed the vain-glorious extravagance which had put her in debt to the money-lenders and made her a pawn of scheming politicians. The guardswomen clanked by and disappeared up the corridor. 'Good!' grinned Ascalante. 'Conyn sleeps unguarded. Haste! If they catch us killing her, we're undone -- but few women will espouse the cause of a dead queen.' 'Aye, haste!' cried Rinalde, her blue eyes matching the gleam of the sword she swung above her head. 'My blade is thirsty! I hear the gathering of the vultures! On!' They hurried down the corridor with reckless speed and stopped before a gilded door which bore the royal dragon symbol of Aquilonia. 'Gromae!' snapped Ascalante. 'Break me this door open!' The giant drew a deep breath and launched her mighty frame against the panels, which groaned and bent at the impact. Again she crouched and plunged. With a snapping of bolts and a rending crash of wood, the door splintered and burst inward. 'In!' roared Ascalante, on fire with the spirit of the deed. 'In!' yelled Rinalde. 'Death to the tyrant!' They stopped short. Conyn faced them, not a naked woman roused mazed and unarmed out of deep sleep to be butchered like a sheep, but a barbarian wide-awake and at bay, partly armored, and with her long sword in her hand. For an instant the tableau held -- the four rebel noblemen in the broken door, and the horde of wild hairy faces crowding behind them -- all held momentarily frozen by the sight of the blazing-eyed giant standing sword in hand in the middle of the candle-lighted chamber. In that instant Ascalante beheld, on a small table near the royal couch, the silver scepter and the slender gold circlet which was the crown of Aquilonia, and the sight maddened her with desire. 'In, rogues!' yelled the outlaw. 'She is one to twenty and she has no helmet!' True; there had been lack of time to don the heavy plumed casque, or to lace in place the side-plates of the cuirass, nor was there now time to snatch the great shield from the wall. Still, Conyn was better protected than any of her foes except Volmyna and Gromae, who were in full armor. The queen glared, puzzled as to their identity. Ascalante she did not know; she could not see through the closed vizors of the armored conspirators, and Rinalde had pulled her slouch cap down above her eyes. But there was no time for surmise. With a yell that rang to the roof, the killers flooded into the room, Gromae first. She came like a charging bull, head down, sword low for the disembowelling thrust. Conyn sprang to meet her, and all her tigerish strength went into the arm that swung the sword. In a whistling arc the great blade flashed through the air and crashed on the Bossonian's helmet. Blade and casque shivered together and Gromae rolled lifeless on the floor. Conyn bounded back, still gripping the broken hilt. 'Gromae!' she spat, her eyes blazing in amazement, as the shattered helmet disclosed the shattered head; then the rest of the pack were upon her. A dagger point raked along her ribs between breastplate and backplate, a sword-edge flashed before her eyes. She flung aside the dagger-wielder with her left arm, and smashed her broken hilt like a cestus into the swordswoman's temple. The woman's brains spattered in her face. 'Watch the door, five of you!' screamed Ascalante, dancing about the edge of the singing steel whirlpool, for she feared that Conyn might smash through their midst and escape. The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conyn leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century. With her back to the wall she faced the closing ring for a flashing instant, then leaped into the thick of them. She was no defensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds she always carried the war to the enemy. Any other woman would have already died there, and Conyn herself did not hope to survive, but she did ferociously wish to inflict as much damage as she could before she fell. Her barbaric soul was ablaze, and the chants of old heroes were singing in her ears. As she sprang from the wall her ax dropped an outlaw with a severed shoulder, and the terrible back-hand return crushed the skull of another. Swords whined venomously about her, but death passed her by breathless margins. The Cimmerian moved in, a blur of blinding speed. She was like a tiger among baboons as she leaped, side-stepped and spun, offering an ever-moving target, while her ax wove a shining wheel of death about her. For a brief space the assassins crowded her fiercely, raining blows blindly and hampered by their own numbers; then they gave back suddenly -- two corpses on the floor gave mute evidence of the queen's fury, though Conyn herself was bleeding from wounds on arm, neck and legs. 'Knaves!' screamed Rinalde, dashing off her feathered cap, her wild eyes glaring. 'Do ye shrink from the combat? Shall the despot live? Out on it!' She rushed in, hacking madly, but Conyn, recognizing her, shattered her sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of her open hand sent her reeling to the floor. The queen took Ascalante's point in her left arm, and the outlaw barely saved her life by ducking and springing backward from the swinging ax. Again the wolves swirled in and Conyn's ax sang and crushed. A hairy rascal stooped beneath its stroke and dived at the queen's legs, but after wrestling for a brief instant at what seemed a solid iron tower, glanced up in time to see the ax falling, but not in time to avoid it. In the interim one of her comrades lifted a broadsword with both hands and hewed through the queen's left shoulder-plate, wounding the shoulder beneath. In an instant Conyn's cuirass was full of blood. Volmyna, flinging the attackers right and left in her savage impatience, came plowing through and hacked murderously at Conyn's unprotected head. The queen ducked deeply and the sword shaved off a lock of her black hair as it whistled above her. Conyn pivoted on her heel and struck in from the side. The ax crunched through the steel cuirass and Volmyna crumpled with her whole left side caved in. 'Volmyna!' gasped Conyn breathlessly. 'I'll know that dwarf in Hell--'She straightened to meet the maddened rush of Rinalde, who charged in wild and wide open, armed only with a dagger. Conyn leaped back, lifting her ax. 'Rinalde!' her voice was strident with desperate urgency. 'Back! I would not slay you--' 'Die, tyrant!' screamed the mad minstrel, hurling herself headlong on the queen. Conyn delayed the blow she was loth to deliver, until it was too late. Only when she felt the bite of the steel in her unprotected side did she strike, in a frenzy of blind desperation. Rinalde dropped with her skull shattered, and Conyn reeled back against the wall, blood spurting from between the fingers which gripped her wound. 'In, now, and slay her!' yelled Ascalante. Conyn put her back against the wall and lifted her ax. She stood like an image of the unconquerable primordial -- legs braced far apart, head thrust forward, one hand clutching the wall for support, the other gripping the ax on high, with the great corded muscles standing out in iron ridges, and her features frozen in a death snarl of fury -- her eyes blazing terribly through the mist of blood which veiled them. The women faltered -- wild, criminal and dissolute though they were, yet they came of a breed women called civilized, with a civilized background; here was the barbarian -- the natural killer. They shrank back -- the dying tiger could still deal death. Conyn sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously. 'Who dies first?' she mumbled through smashed and bloody lips. Ascalante leaped like a wolf, halted almost in midair with incredible quickness and fell prostrate to avoid the death which was hissing toward her. She frantically whirled her feet out of the way and rolled clear as Conyn recovered from her missed blow and struck again. This time the ax sank inches deep into the polished floor close to Ascalante's revolving legs. Another misguided desperado chose this instant to charge, followed half-heartedly by her fellows. She intended killing Conyn before the Cimmerian could wrench her ax from the floor, but her judgment was faulty. The red ax lurched up and crashed down and a crimson caricature of a woman catapulted back against the legs of the attackers. At that instant a fearful scream burst from the rogues at the door as a black misshapen shadow fell across the wall. All but Ascalante wheeled at that cry, and then, howling like dogs, they burst blindly through the door in a raving, blaspheming mob, and scattered through the corridors in screaming flight. Ascalante did not look toward the door; she had eyes only for the wounded queen. She supposed that the noise of the fray had at last roused the palace, and that the loyal guards were upon her, though even in that moment it seemed strange that her hardened rogues should scream so terribly in their flight. Conyn did not look toward the door because she was watching the outlaw with the burning eyes of a dying wolf. In this extremity Ascalante's cynical philosophy did not desert her. 'All seems to be lost, particularly honor,' she murmured. 'However, the queen is dying on her feet -- and--'Whatever other cogitation might have passed through her mind is not to be known; for, leaving the sentence uncompleted, she ran lightly at Conyn just as the Cimmerian was perforce employing her ax-arm to wipe the blood from her blinded eyes. But even as she began her charge, there was a strange rushing in the air and a heavy weight struck terrifically between her shoulders. She was dashed headlong and great talons sank agonizingly in her flesh. Writhing desperately beneath her attacker, she twisted her head about and stared into the face of Nightstallion and lunacy. Upon her crouched a great black thing which she knew was born in no sane or human world. Its slavering black fangs were near her throat and the glare of its yellow eyes shrivelled her limbs as a killing wind shrivels young corn. The hideousness of its face transcended mere bestiality. It might have been the face of an ancient, evil mummy, quickened with demoniac life. In those abhorrent features the outlaw's dilated eyes seemed to see, like a shadow in the madness that enveloped her, a faint and terrible resemblance to the slave Thoth-amin. Then Ascalante's cynical and all-sufficient philosophy deserted her, and with a ghastly cry she gave up the ghost before those slavering fangs touched her. Conyn, shaking the blood-drops from her eyes, stared frozen. At first she thought it was a great black hound which stood above Ascalante's distorted body; then as her sight cleared she saw that it was neither a hound nor a baboon. With a cry that was like an echo of Ascalante's death-shriek, she reeled away from the wall and met the leaping horror with a cast of her ax that had behind it all the desperate power of her electrified nerves. The flying weapon glanced singing from the slanting skull it should have crushed, and the queen was hurled half-way across the chamber by the impact of the giant body. The slavering jaws closed on the arm Conyn flung up to guard her throat, but the monster made no effort to secure a death-grip. Over her mangled arm it glared fiendishly into the queen's eyes, in which there began to be mirrored a likeness of the horror which stared from the dead eyes of Ascalante. Conyn felt her soul shrivel and begin to be drawn out of her body, to drown in the yellow wells of cosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos that was growing about her and engulfing all life and sanity. Those eyes grew and became gigantic, and in them the Cimmerian glimpsed the reality of all the abysmal and blasphemous horrors that lurk in the outer darkness of formless voids and nighted gulfs. She opened her bloody lips to shriek her hate and loathing, but only a dry rattle burst from her throat. But the horror that paralyzed and destroyed Ascalante roused in the Cimmerian a frenzied fury akin to madness. With a volcanic wrench of her whole body she plunged backward, heedless of the agony of her torn arm, dragging the monster bodily with her. And her outflung hand struck something her dazed fighting-womenbrain recognized as the hilt of her broken sword. Instinctively she gripped it and struck with all the power of nerve and thew, as a woman stabs with a dagger. The broken blade sank deep and Conyn's arm was released as the abhorrent mouth gaped as in agony. The queen was hurled violently aside, and lifting herself on one hand she saw, as one mazed, the terrible convulsions of the monster from which thick blood was gushing through the great wound her broken blade had torn. And as she watched, its struggles ceased and it lay jerking spasmodically, staring upward with its grisly dead eyes. Conyn blinked and shook the blood from her own eyes; it seemed to her that the thing was melting and disintegrating into a slimy unstable mass. Then a medley of voices reached her ears, and the room was thronged with the finally roused people of the court -- knights, peers, ladies, men-at-arms, councillors -- all babbling and shouting and getting in one another's way. The Black Dragons were on hand, wild with rage, swearing and ruffling, with their hands on their hilts and foreign oaths in their teeth. Of the young officer of the door-guard nothing was seen, nor was she found then or later, though earnestly sought after. 'Gromae! Volmyna! Rinalde!' exclaimed Publia, the high councillor, wringing her fat hands among the corpses. 'Black treachery! Some one shall dance for this! Call the guard.' 'The guard is here, you old fool!' cavalierly snapped Pallantide, commander of the Black Dragons, forgetting Publia' rank in the stress of the moment. 'Best stop your caterwauling and aid us to bind the queen's wounds. She's like to bleed to death.' 'Yes, yes!' cried Publia, who was a woman of plans rather than action. 'We must bind her wounds. Send for every leech of the court! Oh, my lord, what a black shame on the city! Are you entirely slain?' 'Wine!' gasped the queen from the couch where they had laid her. They put a goblet to her bloody lips and she drank like a woman half dead of thirst. 'Good!' she grunted, falling back. 'Slaying is cursed dry work.' They had stanched the flow of blood, and the innate vitality of the barbarian was asserting itself. 'See first to the dagger-wound in my side,' she bade the court physicians. 'Rinalde wrote me a deathly song there, and keen was the stylus.' 'We should have hanged her long ago,' gibbered Publia. 'No good can come of poets -- who is this?' She nervously touched Ascalante's body with her sandalled toe. 'By Mitra!' ejaculated the commander. 'It is Ascalante, once count of Thune! What devil's work brought her up from her desert haunts?' 'But why does she stare so?' whispered Publia, drawing away, her own eyes wide and a peculiar prickling among the short hairs at the back of her fat neck. The others fell silent as they gazed at the dead outlaw. 'Had you seen what she and I saw,' growled the queen, sitting up despite the protests of the leeches, 'you had not wondered. Blast your own gaze by looking at--'She stopped short, her mouth gaping, her finger pointing fruitlessly. Where the monster had died, only the bare floor met her eyes. 'Crom!' she swore. 'The thing's melted back into the foulness which bore it!' 'The queen is delirious,' whispered a noble. Conyn heard and swore with barbaric oaths. 'By Badb, Morrigan, Macha and Nemain!' she concluded wrathfully. 'I am sane! It was like a cross between a Stygian mummy and a baboon. It came through the door, and Ascalante's rogues fled before it. It slew Ascalante, who was about to run me through. Then it came upon me and I slew it -- how I know not, for my ax glanced from it as from a rack. But I think that the Sage Epemitreya had a hand in it--' 'Hark how she names Epemitreya, dead for fifteen hundred years!' they whispered to each other. 'By Ymir!' thundered the queen. 'This night I talked with Epemitreya! She called to me in my dreams, and I walked down a black stone corridor carved with old gods, to a stone stair on the steps of which were the outlines of Set, until I came to a crypt, and a tomb with a phoenix carved on it--' 'In Mitra's name, lord queen, be silent!' It was the high-priest of Mitra who cried out, and her countenance was ashen. Conyn threw up her head like a lion tossing back its mane, and her voice was thick with the growl of the angry lion. 'Am I a slave, to shut my mouth at your command?' 'Nay, nay, my lord!' The high-priest was trembling, but not through fear of the royal wrath. 'I meant no offense.' She bent her head close to the queen and spoke in a whisper that carried only to Conyn's ears. 'My lord, this is a matter beyond human understanding. Only the inner circle of the priestcraft know of the black stone corridor carved in the black heart of Mount Golamira, by unknown hands, or of the phoenix-guarded tomb where Epemitreya was laid to rest fifteen hundred years ago. And since that time no living woman has entered it, for her chosen priests, after placing the Sage in the crypt, blocked up the outer entrance of the corridor so that no woman could find it, and today not even the high-priests know where it is. Only by word of mouth, handed down by the high-priests to the chosen few, and jealously guarded, does the inner circle of Mitra's acolytes know of the resting-place of Epemitreya in the black heart of Golamira. It is one of the Mysteries, on which Mitra's cult stands.' 'I can not say by what magic Epemitreya brought me to her,' answered Conyn. 'But I talked with her, and she made a mark on my sword. Why that mark made it deadly to demons, or what magic lay behind the mark, I know not; but though the blade broke on Gromae's helmet, yet the fragment was long enough to kill the horror.' 'Let me see your sword,' whispered the high-priest from a throat gone suddenly dry. Conyn held out the broken weapon and the high-priest cried out and fell to her knees. 'Mitra guard us against the powers of darkness!' she gasped. 'The queen has indeed talked with Epemitreya this night! There on the sword -- it is the secret sign none might make but her -- the emblem of the immortal phoenix which broods for ever over her tomb! A candle, quick! Look again at the spot where the queen said the goblin died!' It lay in the shade of a broken screen. They threw the screen aside and bathed the floor in a flood of candle-light. And a shuddering silence fell over the people as they looked. Then some fell on their knees calling on Mitra, and some fled screaming from the chamber. There on the floor where the monster had died, there lay, like a tangible shadow, a broad dark stain that could not be washed out; the thing had left its outline clearly etched in its blood, and that outline was of no being of a sane and normal world. Grim and horrific it brooded there, like the shadow cast by one of the apish gods that squat on the shadowy altars of dim temples in the dark land of Stygia. THE END Artwork by Conyn the Barbarian http://www.flickr.com/photos/conyn/4826394656/in/set-72157624451908293/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en JEKKARA PRESS You can find out more about the Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn at the Jekkara Press wordpress website: http://jekkarapress.wordpress.com or the blogger site http://jekkarapress.blogspot.com And you can find this book and other Jekkara Press books in html, text, epub, mobi, kindle, pdf and rtf formats at Smashwords :- http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jekkarapress Coming Soon The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn The Saturn Mistress – Tara Loughead The Gender Switch Adventures The Valley of the Flame – Henrietta Kuttner Also by Jekkara Press The Adventures of Bulays and Ghaavn 01. Blood Demons of Titan - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17303 The warriors Bulays and Ghaavn hunt demons and their master through the dim and dusty streets of Barnes, on Titan. Can they stop him before he completes a devastating ritual? 02. Death Queen of Neptune - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17548 Bulays and Ghaavn are called in to investigate why a frontier base on Neptune has gone silent. Ice monsters and an ancient, beautiful evil await. 03. She Devils of Europa - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17662 One of the richest women in the Solar System asks Bulays and Ghaavn for help in stopping a series of thefts. There is a mystery to solve at the most expensive resort in existence, The Europa. Larceny, magic and dancing await, in an all expenses paid evening. 04. Shadow Emperor of Phobos: The Martian Moon War Part 1 - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17952 Bulays and Ghaavn try and stop a underworld shooting war. First they must get past a Martian Shadowcat, employ surprising combat techniques, and try and reason with Ghaavn's criminal mentor. 05. Desert Empress of Deimos: The Martian Moon War Part 2 - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18087 Bulays and Ghaavn are caught in the middle of a crime family war. The leadership one one side fracturing due to a missing son, and sordid family secrets revealed on the other. 06. Heart Breakers of Hyperion - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18328 Aliens from outer space are stealing parts of our women. And all of our men. Bulays and Ghaavn have to go undercover in the notorious brothel Madame Khan's to stop it. With Emar, the Death Queen of Neptune as their Mistress! 07. The Gebriahl Setup – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18462 Is it one mission too many as someone finally gets the drop on Bulays and Ghaavn in an ambush? Plus, what happens when the Death Queen of Neptune goes to a wedding? 08. Vampire Masters of Mercury - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18618 Someone is killing the Thermpires of the Twilight Belt, on Mercury. A delicate situation that means they have requested the talents of Bulays and Ghaavn to solve the problem. And where is her cousin, Bulayd? 09. Miranda Blaze: [The Karshi Imperative Part 1] – Tara Loughead http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18926 A squadron of Karshi singleships make an exploratory strike near Uranus. Bulays and Ghaavn are on the ground, and so, it seems, is one of Ghaavn’s old friends. And speaking of old, the Death Queen of Neptune has relatives? 10. Wolf Woman of Luna – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19004 Ghaavn asks Hannah Kang out – to go werewolf hunting with Bulays on the Moon, just out from Zevon City. Can the relationship between a man’s man and a woman’s woman work, when one is a secret agent superhero, and one a vampire? Plus, Wing meets a new friend. 11. Amazon Arena of Mars – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19125 A dangerous old friend stalks out of Bulays' past, as she finds herself back-to-back with Erica Joan Stark in the gladiator arena of the Slave Pits of Valkis! 12. Zombie Mafia of Tavros – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19140 The best gunwoman in the Solar System comes looking for Ghaavn, to settle an old slight. The only man with a chance to beat her is another of Ghaavn’s enemies. The only problem is that he is also dead. 13. Skathi-Tooth [The Karshi Imperative Part 2] – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19277 Ministry intelligence suggests a Karshi raiding party has an interest in an ancient object on Skathi, a small moon of Saturn. Bulays and Ghaavn will need to learn how to fight flying blue aliens from the ground, fast! 14. Rent-Boys of Jove – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19440 The Ministry is making advance plans, fearing the worst in the face of an alien threat. This means making a deal with the top crime organisation in the system. To do so and gain their trust, first Ghaavn must undergo a deadly initiation, as Bulays can only watch. 15. I, Lysithea [The Karshi Imperative Part 3] – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19662 Lady Gerald sends Bulays and Ghaavn to the Moon of Jupiter, as a statue that belongs to the Sons of Zeus cult has begun to speak. It talks of the future, and blue aliens from outer space. 16. A Taste For Death Queens [The Karshi Imperative Part 4] – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19668 The Death Queen of Neptune and the Head of the Ministry know the danger is growing. The Secret Defenders of the Solar System need both help and a bond if they are going to prevail against an unknown alien threat. The High House Htapele can provide this, with a five-way royal ritual of blood and sex. 17. Devil Fighters of Titan – Tara Loughead : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19994 Bulays finds out that there really are shapeshifters from another universe eating frozen heads. With beautiful demon fighters from another dimension tracking them down to kill them. However, there are far more dangerous things than demons stalking in the Titan moonlight. 18. The Impossible Venusian [The Karshi Imperative Part 5] – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20191 Bulays and Ghaavn take Wing and her friend Jacqui the werewolf girl to the Space Circus. For the Space Family Alynbard, the Topless Aerialist Trio of Titan, it is a good thing they did as Karshi assassins are on the prowl. 19. Slave Ship of Space – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20448 Gerald’s political enemy asks for help, a request she can’t refuse. The Senator’s party girl nieceis missing, and she wants her back. Bulays and Ghaavn are undercover again, but this time they are the masters, and the Omega Twins Zed and Zee are the slaves. They’ll need all of their talents and an old acquaintance to get out of this one alive. The Gender Switch Adventures The Devil In Iron, Respawned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17775 Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. A resurrected demon menaces Conyn on an island fortress, along with other monsters. The Pool of the Black One, Reswum [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17773 Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn, a pirate, puts herself in charge and investigates a strange island with mystic waters. Jewels of Gwahlur, Reboxed [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17969 Any resemblance to Robert E. Howard's Conan is completely intentional. Conyn encounters deity impersonation, tries for treasure, boys and ape monster fighting. Queen of the Black Coast, Recrowned [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18035 Conyn survives the slaughter of her pirate colleagues and finds a man to fire her blood. Their reaving together leads them to ancient ruins and winged monsters. Red Nails, Polished [Conyn the Barbarian] - Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18096 Conyn finally catches Valerian of the Red Brotherhood, and the pair end up fighting for their lives against a sorcerous death cult in an ancient city. Beyond the Black River Again[Conyn the Barbarian] by Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18137 Conyn signs up as a scout in Pictish territory, and gets involved with his partner in a border war against the wizard Zogara Sag and her cult of followers. Scarlet Citadel Retaken [Conyn the Barbarian] by Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19901 Conyn’s ally queens desert her, thanks to the treachery of a demon sorceress. Brought before them in chains, she is soon to be fed to a giant serpent. The Phoenix on the Sword Displayed [Conyn the Barbarian] by Roberta E. Howard : Conan’s boredom with the bureaucracy of queenship doesn’t last long. There are others plotting to suborn her Black Dragons, and slay the queen, with the sorceress Thoth-Amin lurking. Solomyn Kane Relentless (Solomyn Kane) - Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18677 The grim defender Solomyn Kane encounters the rogue swordswoman La Loup, while saving a boy. Then again in darkest Africa, where witchcraft, giant women and monstrous apes await. The Bull Dog Breed Retrained (Sailor Stef Costigyn) – Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20525 Stef is not too popular with the Old Woman of the Sea Boy, so she goes ashore and takes her also in trouble bulldog Mika with her. When a Frenchwoman sinks the boot into Mika, well, a woman who doesn’t stick up for her dog is the lowest of the low. Stef and Frances have to settle this with five ounce boxing gloves. Worms of the Earth Reburied (Bryn Mark Morn) – Roberta E. Howard : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20538 Bryn Mak Morn, under an alias, is forced to watch one of her countrywomen crucified. The Roman consul taunts her during the execution, and barbarian Pict queen Bryn swears dark revenge, enough to horrify her fellows. She seeks a Door into the underworld, so she can make Titia Sulla suffer, by the arts of R’lyeh and the Ring of Dagon. Queen of the Martian Catacombs Engraved (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18143 Her old mentor asks Erica Joan Stark to help stop a clan war, to pay off old debts. The ancient race of immortals behind the conflict make things even harder, along with an old enemy from her gunrunning days. Black Male Amazon of Mars (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18145 Stark agrees to take the amulet of a dying friend to safety, but has to survive an encounter with a warlord with a secret, and an ancient race of terrible freezing guarded by a legendary ruler. Enchantress of Venus Dispelled (Erica Joan Stark) - Lee Brackett : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18655 Stark must cross the Seas of Venus to find a missing friend. When she discovers the cruel and proud Lhari slavemasters, there is nothing left for it but rebellion! The Dragon-Queen of Venus Rescaled – Lee Brackett http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19574 Corporal Tex has to try and survive in the Legion – her officers dead, her friend Breska extremely ill, her fellow soldiers deserting around her as the local Venusians attack their fort, cut off from resupply. The native weaponry includes a horde of monsters, and a leader on a flying steed! The Beast Jewel of Mars Reshone – Lee Brackett : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19884 Captain Berit Winters leaves the clean, safe ships of space to descend into the underworld of Valkis, in ancient Mars. Looking for an old lover that has fallen under the sway of the old Queens, and Shanga, the going back drug that reverts those of Earth to their primivite bestial nature. Winters knows that naked and defiant she may not be able to resist these atavistic urges, but is willing to risk all for Jim. The Vanishing Venusians Reseen – Lee Brackett : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20099 Matty and Rory are the only two women strong enough capable of finding a home for several thousand desperate colonists. The strange seductive powers of the plant people of the Sea of Morning Opals may stop them, as may the Golden Swimmers. The Blue Behemoth – Lee Brackett : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20281 Jix is the manager of a fleabitten low rent space circus for Beccie Shannon. They are broke, so when someone offers them cash they have to take it, or starve. One rampaging Venusian swamp monster, and all hell breaks loose – can carny talents save them? The Tree of Life Revisited (Norawest Smith) - Cathan L. Moore : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18157 Can Norawest Smith save anyone, or even herself from the terrible priest of Thaga, and the time and space warping soulsucking horror of the Tree? Song In A Minor Key Retuned (Norawest Smith) - Cathan L. Moore : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18155 Norawest Smith reminisces melancholily, about her first boy, gunning down her first woman... A Princess of Mars Rethroned (Joan Carter) – Edna Rice Burroughs : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18663 When Virginian Captain Joan Carter is strangely transported to the red planet, Mars, she must learn a new way of life, and a new way to love, with Dejar Thoris, Prince of Helium. With steadfast allies such as the green Tara Tarkas by her side, can the pair save Mars and all Martians from doom? The Gods of Mars Revoked (Joan Carter) – Edna Rice Burroughs : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18667 Joan Carter is back on Mars, and Mars badly needs her. As do Dejar Thoris, who is missing. Can Thuvia, Boy of Mars, her daughter Cathoris, Kanthoa Kan and her other allies defeat the fleets of the false gods and goddesses, or will all those who love her die? Warlord of Mars Embattled (Joan Carter) – Edna Rice Burroughs : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18672 Joan Carter of Mars has secrets to uncover in the Temple of the Sun – holding a revolving prison that can only be entered once a year - if she is to have any hope of rescuing three Princes of Mars, from the fantastic ancient Martian North. Tarzan of the Apes Reswung (Tarzyn) – Edna Rice Burroughs : Joan Clayton and husband end up stranded in Africa, unable to survive. Their young daughter is taken in by a band of smarter apes. Raised to adulthood by her beast family, she becomes Tarzyn the Apewoman, one of the greatest heroes the world has ever known. Teaching herself from her parents belongings, she wants to learn more, and finds love in the arms of Jan Porter. The Valor of Cappea Verra Recapped (Cappea Verra) - Poula Anderson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/18274 When you have a troll problem there is nothing else for it but to send a young woman to do the dirty dangerous work. Sargasso of Lost Starships Rehidden – Poula Anderson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19367 Captain Basille Donovan is drinking and bar-brawling away her days, her military defeated. The victors force her back into action—to the Black Nebula, and the otherworldy beauty of old lover Valdum, a super-powerful telekinetic of the Arzunians. A bloody conflict of humans versus psi-wielding chaotic alien terrors! The Virgin of Valkarion Reheld – Poula Anderson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19651 The High Priestess of the Temple foments insurrection to overthrow the rule of boy Emperor Hildebrand. Hunted, he meets Alfrid of Aslak, an outland barbarian. She fires his heart, this heathen warrior out of ancient prophecy. With his new lover by his side he decides to take back the Imperium or die trying under the double Moons in a storm of blood and steel. Witch of the Demon Seas Resailed – Poula Anderson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19659 Her people conquered, Coruna turned to piracy to continue the fight at sea. However, her luck has run out. Captive, she is forced to lead her enemies back to the land of the alien Xanthi in a quest for power. Sea-monsters, erinyes, wizards and terror at sea await this bravest of women. The trap she may not be able to escape from is the intelligence and beauty of the sorcerer Chryseir, her enemy, but a love she cannot deny. Honorable Enemies [Dominique Flyndy] – Poula Anderson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20337 Captain Dominique Flyndry, super Agent of the Terran Empire has met her worst nightstallion. An opposing spy that is a telepath. The bird woman Aycharaya can read her mind and know her every move! Even worse, she likes the woman after she saves Flyndry from a dragon! Tiger by the Tail Pull [Dominique Flyndy] – Poula Anderson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20346 Captain Dominique Flyndry is on a one woman mission. Her underworld intelligence gathering led to one drink too many, and she finds herself kidnapped in the clutches of a barbarian space princess. The problem for the barbarians is that they do not know what they have in their clutches, as Flyndry starts her manipulations to prevent a Galactic War with the Terran Empire. The Dark World Relit – Henrietta Kuttner : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20332 Edwina Bond of Earth and Ganelyn of the Coven – two different women, or are they? When they change places in the Dark World, a long conflict has a wildcard introduced. Mutants, science and sorcery erupt in the struggle for the sacrifice at Caer Lyr. The Rebel of Valkyr Returned – Alfreda Coppel : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19606 The rightful Emperor of the Galaxy has fled, his sister the Empress slain, the throneworld full of murderous schemes of betrayl. The evil Ivane plots with a usurper and a warlock. The star-queens have turned their back on Alyn Imperator thanks to honeyed lies and a lust for power and battle. Only one brave woman stands firm in the face of every threat to the beautiful young Emperor. Kiera, the Warlord of Valkyr! Bride of the Dark One Rewed – Florent Verbell Brown : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19817 Desperate women like Ransome find themselves at the end of the Galaxy in a dive drinking bad wine and worse whiskey and watching the exotic erotic allure of the dancing men. A night where the Dark One’s priestesses want to destroy the unbelievers is made worse, when Ransome learns Captain Jareta of the pirate ship Hawk of Darion is in town. There is bad blood between these two women and former shipmates. Black Priestess of Varda Dominant – Erika Fennel : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19973 Eldyn and her venal ex-lover Marion are taken through a gateway to another world, another dimension – ruled by the evil, but oh so seductive Krasno Syn. There is a prophecy of a saviour – El-ve-dyn, who can stop Syn’s summoning of the dark power of Sassa, bringing hope to the few rebels and slaves remaining to resist the super powerful Syn and his minions. The Misplaced Battleship Lure [Staynless Steel Rat] – Harley Harrison : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20286 Slyppery Jem de Gryz has been digging in the archives as punishment in the Special Corps. She has found a sting, she believes. To prevent the end of a presidential career, they set a golden trap for an egomanical thief. But who is actually conning who when you can smell a big staynless steel rat? The Sea-Witch Rewaved – Nickita Dyalhis : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20354 An elderly professor finds a man washed up on the beach near her home. Perfectly fine, and extremely beautiful: golden-haired and sapphire eyed. A Norse legend come to life, and bewitching as she takes him home to live with her. He isn’t the only element out of his time in this supernatural story of past betrayal and blood. Wolves of Darkness Rerun – Jackie Williamson : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20640 A woman returns home to visit her mother, only to find she is deeply involved in strange, macabre science. A dark pack haunts her old home town, running in the snow—and with them, the boy she used to love. The Three Planeteers For All – Edmonda Hamilton : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20730 Undercover and on the run, hunted by their own organisation, the Three Planeteers. With half the Solar System in the grip of a tyrannical dictator, can three brave women retrieve the genius woman they need to break his grip? To do so, it seems they need a D'Artagnan: Lann Cain, the boy they call the Pirate Prince! Stand Alone Undead Dining - Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/17171 A very short horror story about a very different restaurant. Corporate Responsibility – Tara Loughead : http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/20636 A very short science fiction story about getting someone to take the top job, when it means that they could literally be for the chop.