conan_adj.json

{
    "-": [
        "Conan and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door, and between them and the ring of warriors another man sat cross-legged."
    ],
    "More": [
        "More than an hour passed, and Conan had not reappeared."
    ],
    "Most": [
        "Most of his knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he raged through the melee, conscious of but one desire-to meet Conan, the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "abhorrent": [
        "The broken blade sank deep and Conan's arm was released as the abhorrent mouth gaped as in agony.",
        "This might be some diabolical trap planned by Tarascus, but plunging headlong into a snare was less abhorrent to Conan's temperament than sitting meekly to await his doom."
    ],
    "ablaze": [
        "Tolkemec was coming toward him, his weird eyes ablaze, but he hesitated at the gleam of the knife in Conan's hand."
    ],
    "abominable": [
        "Conan thought of Tsotha's last abominable threat, and groaned in sick fury, knowing it was no idle boast.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Conan looked down into the open waist, whence wafted that sickening abominable odor."
    ],
    "about": [
        "Conan watched him warily from the corner of his eye, and just as Valeria believed the dragon was about to hurl himself up the crag again, the Cimmerian drew back and climbed up to the ledge with the branches he had cut."
    ],
    "absurd": [
        "But Amalric exclaimed, \"It is absurd to dream that Conan lives!\""
    ],
    "abysmal": [
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.",
        "\"Black last night against the moon,\" grunted Conan, his eys clouding with the abysmal superstition of the barbarian.",
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "accepted": [
        "Only Conan seemed unaware what a monstrous dislocating and uprooting of accepted thought and action their invasion constituted, what an unprecedented violation of tradition."
    ],
    "accursed": [
        "But of the plunder of the accursed city, only the sullen waters of Zarkheba could tell where Conan had thrown it with a heathen curse.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Somewhere in these primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, men whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic shadows-Conan shuddered strongly."
    ],
    "accustomed": [
        "At such times accustomed habits sway men strongly, and the warriors, who were used to seeing Conan in their vanguard, were heartened mightily, despite their distrust of him."
    ],
    "actual": [
        "Evidently Conan supposed Yasmela intended to strap on a sword and take part in the actual fighting, as the barbarian women often fought.",
        "It was the actual body of a woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form unblemished for so many ages Conan could not even guess."
    ],
    "admonitory": [
        "An hysterical gurgle rose in Natala's throat, and Conan gave her an admonitory shake."
    ],
    "afire": [
        "Conan was animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old racial hate, but Balthus was afire with wrath.",
        "With a definite purpose in mind Conan was afire with impatience and dynamic energy."
    ],
    "afraid": [
        "\"Conan, I am afraid!\"",
        "\"They're not afraid of anything, very long,\" grunted Conan.",
        "But fear had fought for it when it slew its other victims and Conan was not afraid."
    ],
    "alien": [
        "Conan suddenly realized that the air was impregnated with an alien and exotic scent.",
        "Conan was as much a part of this wilderness as Balthus was alien to it.",
        "Conan sensed an inexplicable something about him that set him apart-an alien aura of Time and Space, a sense of tremendous and sinister antiquity."
    ],
    "alive": [
        "The Aquilonians had not fled; they had died on the field, and of the five thousand knights who had followed Conan southward, not one left the field alive.",
        "When he had first stirred, Conan had thought that by some incredible chance the eunuch was alive; but the man was dead--had been dead for hours.",
        "As for Conan, it will afford me intense pleasure, if we take him alive, to impale him on the palace steps.\"",
        "Take the Teeth of Gwahlur and go; return instantly to Keshia; there give the jewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay him alive in the great square.\"",
        "\"The fools believe that Conan is alive, and coming at the head of a Poitanian army to reclaim his kingdom.",
        "\"Somebody ought to go to Xotalanc and see if any remain alive,\" said Conan."
    ],
    "alone": [
        " IV When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed.",
        "Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great shadowy palace.",
        "But Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding himself alone with that awful scream still shuddering through the forest in grisly echoes, put on an extra burst of speed and plunged after him.",
        "They were alone; not even a slave or a page slept on the carpeted floor; but Conan's eyes blazed as they were wont to blaze in the teeth of great peril, and the sword quivered in his hand.",
        "Conan was alone."
    ],
    "ancient": [
        "He 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 King Conan's skin crawled.",
        "Wondering, Conan 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 Conan, bewildered, sprang from his couch in the great golden-domed chamber.",
        "The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century.",
        "Before him rose up the ancient ruins, and with a shriek that froze the blood in Conan's veins, the unhuman charioteer cast Natohk and the girl from him.",
        "And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble.",
        "And Conan knew that this was Khosatral Khel, the ancient from the Abyss, the god of Dagonia.",
        "Gorulga was booming forth some kind of a chant in an accent unfamiliar to Conan, and which was probably some invocation in the ancient tongue of Alkmeenon, handed down from generation to generation of high priests.",
        "How the ancient Pelishti had gained lordship over them--and with it eternal exile from humanity--was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate, even if he had had opportunity.",
        "\"I've heard that there's an ancient grove sacred to Jhebbal Sag somewhere in this forest,\" said Conan.",
        "Conan, you are of the West, and know not the secrets of this ancient land.",
        "Somewhere in these primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, men whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic shadows-Conan shuddered strongly."
    ],
    "angry": [
        "Conan threw up his head like a lion tossing back its mane, and his voice was thick with the growl of the angry lion.",
        "Conan shrugged his shoulders and the angry nobleman rode away.",
        "\"And do the people thrive under his benevolent rule?\" asked Conan with angry irony."
    ],
    "anthropomorphic": [
        "Somewhere in these primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, men whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic shadows-Conan shuddered strongly."
    ],
    "appalled": [
        "And down in the desert the slaughter continued, where the survivors of the horde had reached their horses and streamed out across the waste, pursued by the weary victors--and Conan stood appalled as he noted how few of these were left to pursue."
    ],
    "apparent": [
        "He only knew that a stone in the Stygian's hand crashed again and again on his basinet, filling his sight with flashing sparks, as Conan drove his dagger again and again into his foe's body, without apparent effect on the prince's terrible vitality.",
        "Yet aftera while, after a period of time he had no way of estimating, a faint glow became apparent, a sort of slanting gray beam, by which Conan could see, vaguely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even make out the skeleton of the other grille."
    ],
    "aquilonian": [
        "And while the gleaming ranks milled in confusion, the trumpets of Conan sounded, and through the opening ranks of the archers crashed the terrible charge of the Aquilonian knights.",
        "They crossed the border, took a frontier castle and burned three mountain villages, and then, in the valley of the Valkia, ten miles west of the boundary line, they met the hosts of Conan, king of Aquilonia-forty-five thousand knights, archers and men-at-arms, the flower of Aquilonian strength and chivalry.",
        "\"Is Poitain in revolt then,\" asked Conan, watching the other closely, \"that a man in Aquilonian harness is halted and questioned like a foreigner?\"",
        "Conan had tamed a bay in the Goralian hills, which had more than once before served as the last Stand of an Aquilonian king.",
        "His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked, in the Aquilonian tongue: \"Who is this madman?\""
    ],
    "arched": [
        "Conan glanced through an arched, golden-silled window that let out upon a broad balcony, and swore in surprize to see the dark-blue star-flecked sky.",
        "Doubtfully Conan clambered upon the ridged back, gripping the arched neck, still convinced that he was in the grasp of a fantastic nightmare.",
        "The handle was made in the shape of a serpent, head lifted on arched neck; and Conan had a suspicion that that metal head would come to grisly life under his hand.",
        "Albiona cried out faintly and clung closer to Conan, staring fearfully at the black, arched doors, as if expecting the entry of some grisly shape of darkness."
    ],
    "argossean": [
        "Chapter 13: \"A Ghost Out of the Past\" SOON AFTER SUNRISE Conan crossed the Argossean border."
    ],
    "armed": [
        "This was Conan, who had wandered into the armed camps of the kozaks with no other possession than his wits and his sword, and who had carved his way to leadership among them.",
        "\"Tiberias was an armed man,\" grunted Conan."
    ],
    "artificial": [
        "Conan knew that most of the people lay on the flat roofs, among the palms of artificial gardens under the stars."
    ],
    "astonished": [
        "Bundling them all in a bunch, she proffered them to Conan, who handed them to the astonished Devi."
    ],
    "audacious": [
        "She laughed wickedly, flashing her audacious eyes meaningly at Conan."
    ],
    "average": [
        "Conan had shielded Natala all he could, and the rough life of the camp had given her more stamina and strength than the average woman possesses; but even so, she was not far from collapse."
    ],
    "awake": [
        "Conan faced them, not a naked man 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 his long sword in his hand.",
        "\"Your captive is awake, Conan,\" said the Wazuli girl, and he grunted, strode up to the fire and swept the strips of mutton off into a stone dish.",
        "It was the yelling of men and the clanging of steel that brought Conan bounding from his couch, wide awake and broadsword in hand."
    ],
    "aware": [
        "Conan was aware of a vague uneasiness as he stared at the dumb sightless figures.",
        "Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound.",
        "Gagging with intolerable repugnance, Conan turned to flee the sight; and he was suddenly aware that the pinnacles of Dagon no longer glimmered through the trees.",
        "As the third tribesman clumped his way past Conan to his death, the Cimmerian, his veins bulging in his temples with his efforts to break past the unseen barrier that held him, was suddenly aware of allied forces, unseen, but waking into life about him.",
        "And suddenly Conan was aware of something unnatural.",
        "The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow, emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on the ledge.",
        "Conan made no reply, and the forester, aware of the reticence of barbarians on certain matters, continued: \"He lived by magic, and somehow, he died by magic.",
        "Conan did not seem aware of his gaze.",
        "The street broadened, and Conan was aware that he was getting into the part of the city dedicated to the temples.",
        "At the same instant Conan was aware of a sinister slithering ahead of him."
    ],
    "awful": [
        "Pelias sauntered through the opened grille, and Conan crowded through behind him, sweat pouring from his body, shrinking away from the awful shape that slumped on sagging legs against the grate it held open.",
        "Oh, Conan, let us go into our boat and flee this awful island!",
        "The bolt on the bronze portal clanged and Conan stifled an awful oath as he saw Octavia come into the room.",
        "His terrible arms flailed down, but Conan, quicker than the archers who had died beneath those awful flails, avoided their strokes and struck again and yet again.",
        "Conan, who had not shrunk from Khosatral living, recoiled blenching for Khosatral dead, for he had witnessed an awful transmutation; in his dying throes Khosatral Khel hed become again the thing that had crawled up from the Abyss millennia gone.",
        "But Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding himself alone with that awful scream still shuddering through the forest in grisly echoes, put on an extra burst of speed and plunged after him."
    ],
    "backward": [
        "Pelias passed on without a backward glance, and Conan followed him, in the grip of nightmare and nausea.",
        "As Valeria plunged into the leafy screen a backward glance showed her the titan rearing up fearsomely on his massive hindlegs, even as Conan had predicted."
    ],
    "bad": [
        "Conan makes a bad mistake in letting men live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which he tore the crown of Aquilonia."
    ],
    "baffled": [
        "Conan took a swift stride toward the open doorway, and then halted short, baffled.",
        "The Teeth of Gwahlur Baffled wrath confused the brain of Conan the Cimmerian.",
        "With a baffled shake of his head, Conan lifted the countess into the palfrey's saddle, and then mounted the war-horse and reined toward the summits that castellated the sky."
    ],
    "barachan": [
        "Many who won't know me as king of Aquilonia will remember me as Conan of the Barachan pirates, or Amra of the black corsairs.",
        "All this Conan knew well, for had he not, in the days of old when he was a Barachan pirate, sailed by night into the harbor of Messantia to discharge strange cargoes?"
    ],
    "barbarian": [
        "Evidently Conan supposed Yasmela intended to strap on a sword and take part in the actual fighting, as the barbarian women often fought."
    ],
    "barbaric": [
        "Conan heard and swore with barbaric oaths.",
        "Conan's answer was neither kingly nor dignified, but characteristically instinctive in the man, whose barbaric nature had never been submerged in his adopted culture.",
        "Involuntarily he recoiled from the mirror, while Conan thrust his head truculently forward, till his jaws almost touched the surface, growling some threat or defiance in his own barbaric tongue.",
        "They call your race barbaric, Conan of Cimmeria.\""
    ],
    "barbarous": [
        "Abandoning speculation, Conan groped his way up the steps, his skin crawling in anticipation of a knife in his back at every stride, yearning to drown his semi-panic in a barbarous burst of bloodletting."
    ],
    "bare": [
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain.",
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain.",
        "A human foot, bare or softly shod, had made that sound, and Conan, with the wariness of a wolf, turned quickly aside.",
        "In a brooding twilight, Conan moved across the bare green floor.",
        "Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird could flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles, and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck.",
        "Balthus hurled his ax with an accuracy that reduced the attackers to one, and Conan, abandoning his efforts to free his sword, wheeled and met the remaining Pict with his bare hands.",
        "Conan glared at it with some curiosity, noticing the state of the bare bones, most of which were splintered and broken; the skull which had fallen from the vertebrae, was crushed as if by some savage blow of tremendous force.",
        "Then these fell behind, and Conan, topping a wooded crest, saw a vast expanse of bare slopes sweeping up and away before him."
    ],
    "bareheaded": [
        "Amalric strode up to where Conan sat bareheaded on a boulder."
    ],
    "barred": [
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.",
        "Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars."
    ],
    "basaltic": [
        "Conan halted suddenly, his warriors freezing into basaltic statues."
    ],
    "basic": [
        "But even at that distance Conan sensed the basic diabolism of their features."
    ],
    "battered": [
        "Conan went with it, bruised, battered, invincible, hanging on like a bulldog to the hilt of his saber which he could not withdraw, tearing and ripping at the shuddering bulk with the poniard in his left hand, goring it to ribbons."
    ],
    "bearded": [
        "\"What are you hunting in the Zhaibar by night, Yar Afzal?\" Conan demanded of the burly chief, who grinned like a bearded ghoul.",
        "A bearded tribesman, thrusting with all his fury as Conan sprang back, overreached and pitched head-first through the doorway.",
        "A few feet farther up the corridor there was a heavy bolted door, and before it stood a bearded Nemedian in corselet and helmet his back to Conan as he peered up the corridor in the direction of the growing tumult and wildly waving lanterns.",
        "Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image-the image of a bearded face of calm inhuman beauty."
    ],
    "beastlike": [
        "With a curse Conan struck off his head; and the head soared from the ground and snapped beastlike tusks into his throat."
    ],
    "beastly": [
        "\"I thought you swore you saw him in beastly shape in the house above,\" said Conan."
    ],
    "beautiful": [
        "She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in disorder over her white shoulders."
    ],
    "benevolent": [
        "\"And do the people thrive under his benevolent rule?\" asked Conan with angry irony."
    ],
    "bent": [
        "A bent figure came hobbling swiftly along, lantern held high, and its light shone full on Conan and the girl."
    ],
    "berserk": [
        "Conan charged after it, up the left-hand stair, uncertain as to just what he had seen whip up those steps, but in a berserk mood that drowned the nausea and horror whispering at the back of his consciousness."
    ],
    "beserk": [
        "Then Khosatral turned again, flailing the air with desperate blows, but Conan, fired to beserk fury, was not to be denied."
    ],
    "bestial": [
        "A low bestial moaning drooled from the loose lips; the head rolled as if in unbearable agony, and the eyes looked full at Conan.",
        "At the sick horror of that cry from a bestial throat, Conan involuntarily relaxed his grip."
    ],
    "bewildered": [
        "Conan looked on, bewildered."
    ],
    "bewildering": [
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction."
    ],
    "big": [
        "As he followed Conan remarked uneasily, \"There is a cursed big snake creeping about this tunnel.",
        "\"Aye, send your dogs at me, big-belly,\" sneered Conan with bitter scorn, \"You were always a coward, you Kothic cur.\"",
        "Conan raced up the stair, carrying the big girl over one shoulder as easily as if she had been a child.",
        "\"It must be as big as an elephant,\" muttered Conan, echoing her thought."
    ],
    "billowing": [
        "Conan gazed over the billowing waves of spears and wondered what new horror the sorcerer would invoke."
    ],
    "bitter": [
        "\"Aye, send your dogs at me, big-belly,\" sneered Conan with bitter scorn, \"You were always a coward, you Kothic cur.\"",
        "He is called Conan, and is himself a barbarian, one of those gloomy Cimmerians whose ferocity our soldiers have more than once learned to their bitter cost.",
        "And while the fallen king stared with burning eyes that reflected the bitter rage and humiliation that ate his heart, the squires stripped Valannus of mail shirt, burganet and leg-pieces, and clad him in Conan's armor of black plate-mail, with the vizored salade, and the dark plumes nodding over the wivern crest."
    ],
    "black": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "Already they openly sing _The Lament for the King_ in which Rinaldo lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.'",
        "Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece.",
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "Shukeli opened it, and as he swung back the ponderous portal, Conan noted the evident uneasiness among the black giants who guarded him; nor did Shukeli seem altogether devoid of nervousness as he peered into the darkness beyond.",
        "It was not because of any logical reasoning process that Conan remained motionless, since reason might have told him--since he was doomed anyway--to goad the snake into striking and get it over with; it was the blind black instinct of self-preservation that held him rigid as a statue blasted out of iron.",
        "As it moved into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge sword and in the other a bunch of keys.",
        "The black spoke in a sea-coast dialect, and Conan replied; he had learned the jargon while a corsair on the coasts of Kush.",
        "\"Shukeli knows nothing of my coming, white man,\" answered the black, craning his thick neck to peer into Conan's savage eyes.",
        "With the thud of the stroke, Conan saw the life go out of the wide black eyes with the suddenness of a candle blown out.",
        "The blow knocked the great black body clear across the corridor and horribly the gigantic sinuous shape whipped around it in glistening coils that hid it from view, and the snap and splintering of bones came plainly to Conan's ears.",
        "It was night, and a strong wind was blowing through the star-filled skies, stirring Conan's black mane.",
        "Yet the mad black eyes glared up at Conan with no dimming of their feral light, the lips writhed awfully, and the hands groped, as if searching for the severed head.",
        "The sun beat fiercely on Conan's tangled black mane.",
        "So Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell.",
        "Presently the dim light shone on a black arch, and into this Conan turned.",
        "Conan mentally termed the creatures black men, for lack of a better term; instinctively he knew that these tall ebony beings were not men, as he understood the term.",
        "Conan saw the white glimmer of his naked body amid the green water, as the black giant held his captive deep under the surface.",
        "There he had seen the tall black place something--cold sweat broke suddenly out on Conan's brown hide.",
        "Separated from his mates by the whole mass of the enemy, Conan had been enveloped in a black wave of arms and bodies, and dragged down.",
        "The chair glanced from Thak's slanted black skull; but the stunned monster momentarily relaxed his rending grasp, and in that instant Conan, gasping and streaming blood, plunged forward and sank his poniard to the hilt in the ape-man's heart.",
        "A great spout of blood deluged the sward as the severed member fell, twitching horribly, but even as the sword bit through, the other malformed hand locked in Conan's black mane.",
        "Etched against the whitening sky they saw Conan the Cimmerian standing in the bows, sword in hand, his black mane tossing in the dawn wind.",
        "Then, as the white stars glimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseleted breast.",
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.",
        "Roars and howls and yells set the black warriors to trembling, but all this noise, Conan noted, came from farther back in the jungle, as if the beasts no less than men shunned the black waters of Zarkheba.",
        "Roars and howls and yells set the black warriors to trembling, but all this noise, Conan noted, came from farther back in the jungle, as if the beasts no less than men shunned the black waters of Zarkheba.",
        "Supported on her elbows, her chin resting on her slim hands, she gazed up into the face of Conan, who lounged beside her, his black mane stirring in the faint breeze.",
        "Thereafter Conan kept the lookout watch himself, but no other horror came crawling up from the murky depths, and as dawn whitened over the jungle, he sighted the black fangs of towers jutting up among the trees.",
        "At first Conan thought it to be a great black gorilla.",
        "The black man gave no heed to Conan's shout as he charged, eyes rolled up to display the whites, teeth gleaming, face an inhuman mask.",
        "With his skin crawling with the horror that madness always instils in the sane, Conan passed his sword through the black man's body; then, avoiding the hooked hands that clawed at him as N'Gora sank down, he strode to the edge of the cliff.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "The sight stirred some dim recollection in his mind; then Conan heeded the altar no longer, for on the lower steps of the stair stood four black-robed figures.",
        "Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms.",
        "Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms.",
        "Conan could make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard.",
        "Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the walls reflecting the lurid glow of the torches.",
        "In the dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the blue glare.",
        "Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and swords of the priests were ineffective.",
        "The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-nailed fingers clawed at Conan's mightily-muscled arm as he croaked his warning.",
        "They were high, meant to keep out the man-eaters; but Conan was no swamp-bred black man; his thews had been steeled in boyhood on the sheer cliffs of his native hills.",
        "Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length from the black breast.",
        "Conan, grabbing ineffectually at her, felt his fingers slip from a naked limb, and in an instant she had vanished and the wall showed black as before.",
        "But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black banner with its golden lion that floated above King Conan's pavilion.",
        "And while the fallen king stared with burning eyes that reflected the bitter rage and humiliation that ate his heart, the squires stripped Valannus of mail shirt, burganet and leg-pieces, and clad him in Conan's armor of black plate-mail, with the vizored salade, and the dark plumes nodding over the wivern crest.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Conan did not deign to reply to the taunt and the black, galled perhaps by his prisoner's silence, muttered a curse, stooped and spat full in the king's face.",
        "This kept up for hours, until Conan's teeth were on edge, and he felt that he would give half his kingdom to be allowed to wring that black neck.",
        "When the door closed, Conan saw only one man standing before him-a slim figure, masked in a black cloak with a hood.",
        "Albiona cried out faintly and clung closer to Conan, staring fearfully at the black, arched doors, as if expecting the entry of some grisly shape of darkness.",
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows.",
        "\"A shell-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,\" Conan muttered, frowning as he sought to capture the illusive image.",
        "Conan swept off his helmet, and shaking back his black mane stared full at the speaker.",
        "Many who won't know me as king of Aquilonia will remember me as Conan of the Barachan pirates, or Amra of the black corsairs.",
        "Conan rode a great black stallion, the gift of Trocero.",
        "Horses, still bridled and saddled, ran neighing about the court, Conan's black stallion among them.",
        "Conan glared at the silent, black, moon-dappled woods which ringed him, and felt cold moisture bead his flesh.",
        "Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for Messantia.",
        "\"But not with the black corsairs,\" answered Conan grimly.",
        "In thick darkness Conan came upon the strand, straining his eyes out across the black restless water.",
        "Conan bounded out on the bridge and stood poised above the upturned black faces, ax lifted, black mane blown in the wind.",
        "Conan bounded out on the bridge and stood poised above the upturned black faces, ax lifted, black mane blown in the wind.",
        "Conan's ax rose and fell without pause, and with every stroke a frothing, screaming black giant broke free, mad with hate and the fury of freedom and vengeance.",
        "Conan, his mighty chest heaving and glistening with sweat, the red ax gripped in his blood-smeared hand, glared about him as the first of men might have glared in some primordial dawn, and shook back his black mane.",
        "Conan stood on the poop, frowning down at the black men who watched him expectantly.",
        "But though Conan kept a man on the masthead day and night, they did not sight a long, low, black galley fleeing southward ahead of them.",
        "Conan found the scene gloomy and unreal; the silence of the people, their furtive haste, the great black stone walls that rose on each side of the streets.",
        "With a curse Conan wheeled and darted into the black mouth of an alley.",
        "Conan's heart beat quicker as he gazed at the grim black wedge that stood etched against the stars, and his impatience to close with Thutothmes in whatever conflict the meeting might mean was not unmixed with a fear of the unknown.",
        "Conan stood waiting expectantly, staring at the various black arches which opened into the chamber.",
        "Then the bronze doorway was before him, and Conan felt the night wind blowing across the desert, and saw the stars, and the starlit desert across which streamed the great black shadow of the pyramid.",
        "Finishing his meal, Conan wiped his hands in the sand, rose, ran his fingers through his thick black mane, hitched up his sword belt and said: \"Well, let's go.",
        "\"Black last night against the moon,\" grunted Conan, his eys clouding with the abysmal superstition of the barbarian."
    ],
    "blank": [
        "But the hooded men turned suddenly toward the seemingly blank wall, and Conan saw a door gape there."
    ],
    "blasphemous": [
        "Glaring down into the blazing eyes, Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely in their unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference."
    ],
    "blazing": [
        "With a grunt of annoyance Conan dragged on the bulky headpiece, and the girl nodded as if in approval as she scanned his dark scarred face and blazing eyes."
    ],
    "blind": [
        "In one of these chariots lay Conan, king of Aquilonia, weighted with chains, the tang of defeat in his mouth, the blind fury of a trapped tiger in his soul.",
        "It was not because of any logical reasoning process that Conan remained motionless, since reason might have told him--since he was doomed anyway--to goad the snake into striking and get it over with; it was the blind black instinct of self-preservation that held him rigid as a statue blasted out of iron.",
        "The trunk of the horror was lifted and quested about, the topaz eyes stared unseeingly, and Conan knew the monster was blind.",
        "And with the cry she sprang through a crevice in the wall, burst madly through the hindering vines, and ran, ran, ran blind, screaming, witless--until a grasp on her arm brought her up short and she shrieked and fought against the arms that caught her, until a familiar voice penetrated the mists of her terror, and she saw Conan's face, a mask of bewilderment in the moonlight.",
        "Then, as the white stars glimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseleted breast.",
        "Conan staggered away from their blind strokes.",
        "It had been a shoulder or front leg that struck Conan, and blind monster rushed on, forgettnig the victims whose scent it had been following, in the sudden agony of its death throes."
    ],
    "blinded": [
        "Whatever other cogitation might have passed through his mind is not to be known; for, leaving the sentence uncompleted, he ran lightly at Conan just as the Cimmerian was perforce employing his ax-arm to wipe the blood from his blinded eyes."
    ],
    "blinding": [
        "Then Conan's iron hand closed on her wrist and she was jerked headlong into the blinding welter of the leaves, and out again into the hot sunshine above, just as the monster fell forward with his front feet on the crag with an impact that made the rock vibrate."
    ],
    "bloodshot": [
        "The group rode like swift ghosts toward the river; among them Conan swayed like a drunken man in the saddle, bloodshot eyes glazed, foam drying on his blackened lips."
    ],
    "bloodstained": [
        "Conan wiped the sweat-smeared dust from his face with bloodstained hand.",
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "bloody": [
        "A yell that had nothing of the human in its timbre rang from his lips as Conan rebounded from the bloody earth and seized the rein of a riderless horse that raced past him, throwing himself into the saddle without bringing the charger to a halt.",
        "Natala obeyed, and holding the tiny point of light in his left hand and his bloody saber in his right, Conan started down the corridor.",
        "Conan's eyes swept the bloody, naked group, and he cursed to see only a score.",
        "Conan stared down on the travesty of a man, a broken, shredded, bloody heap that gibbered and gnashed splintered teeth.",
        "Conan lifted his bloody head.",
        "Conan stumbled toward it, and every step was a stabbing, throbbing hell that flecked his lips with bloody foam.",
        "Conan was thinking of the scores of wretches who owed their bloody doom to this man's greed.",
        "But they attempted no reprisal, nor did they accept Conan's urgent invitation to approach within reach of the bloody chain in his hand.",
        "A moment later Conan saw a man crawling over the flaming floor toward him--a man whose progress left a broad bloody smear on the smoldering surface.",
        "\"Thanks to Conan and me, you bloody rogue!\" sneered Valeria, trembling with fury and the shame of physical coercion.",
        "The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he strove to tear his leg from the trap."
    ],
    "blue": [
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "Conan glanced through an arched, golden-silled window that let out upon a broad balcony, and swore in surprize to see the dark-blue star-flecked sky.",
        "Blue fire burned in Conan's eyes, and he gripped his sword until his knuckles showed blue.",
        "Blue fire burned in Conan's eyes, and he gripped his sword until his knuckles showed blue.",
        "She could dimly see that Conan still sat on the boulder; she glimpsed the long blue glimmer of his blade.",
        "Conan drew his sword, his eyes slits of blue bale-fire.",
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him.",
        "Conan fought in silence, his eyes slits of blue bale-fire.",
        "Then, as the white stars glimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseleted breast.",
        "Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conan was a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel.",
        "So passed the Queen of the Black Coast, and leaning on his red-stained sword, Conan stood silently until the red glow had faded far out in the blue hazes and dawn splashed its rose and gold over the ocean.",
        "\"Then in Crom's name let us be gone,\" grunted Conan, fidgeting with impatience as he started into the blue gulfs of the deepening twilight.",
        "Conan turned to Yasmina, his red knife still in his hand, his blue eyes smoldering, blood oozing from wounds on his thickly muscled arms and thighs.",
        "In the dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the blue glare.",
        "The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow, emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on the ledge.",
        "Sparks flashed blue as Conan parried the blade, and the next instant the madman was stretched senseless in the dust from a thundering buffet of Conan's left fist.",
        "Conan's head jerked up and a lethal flame lit his blue eyes.",
        "Conan started and stared at Servius with such anger smoldering in his blue eyes that the patrician shrank back.",
        "\"You were not in my tent before Valkia,\" answered Conan grimly, involuntarily glancing at his right wrist, on which blue marks still showed faintly.",
        "Steel flashed blindingly in the sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of armor as Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous stroke of Conan's broadsword."
    ],
    "blunt": [
        "Conan sprang after it, knife lifted, but his vicious swipe cut empty air as the serpent writhed away from him and struck its blunt nose against a paneled screen of sandalwood."
    ],
    "blurred": [
        "Conan glanced up at a skylight under which he was passing and caught the blurred glimmer of stars."
    ],
    "bold": [
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion."
    ],
    "bony": [
        "Wondering, Conan 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."
    ],
    "booted": [
        "Conan disappeared through the door opposite that one opening upon the gallery, and Valeria leaned back with her hands clasped behind her head, and thrust her booted legs out in front of her."
    ],
    "bowed": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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."
    ],
    "braced": [
        "Reeling on wide-braced legs Conan drunkenly tore the door-flap open and staggered out under the canopy."
    ],
    "brainless": [
        "\"If my hands were free,\" opined Conan, \"I'd soon make a brainless corpse out of you.\""
    ],
    "breathless": [
        "Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached, impresonal, though he winced at the Corinthian accent."
    ],
    "brief": [
        "The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century.",
        "For a brief space the assassins crowded him 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 king's fury, though Conan himself was bleeding from wounds on arm, neck and legs.",
        "Conan, crouching like a panther at bay, saw nothing in the room behind the stricken Nemedian, in the brief instant the door was partly open--unless it was not a trick of the light which made it seem as if a shadow darted across the gleaming floor.",
        "Conan had only a brief glimpse of it; and then the ruffian pulled a slouch hat over his eyes, drew his cloak about his shoulder, and hurried from the chamber."
    ],
    "broad": [
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "Conan glanced through an arched, golden-silled window that let out upon a broad balcony, and swore in surprize to see the dark-blue star-flecked sky.",
        "Conan followed him, and lying flat on the broad top, they spoke in wary whispers.",
        "Conan knew, and as he saw the broad line slip into the waves and stream through the water toward them, without altering its shape or course, he called up his last ounce of reserve strength so fiercely that the oar snapped in his hands.",
        "Sancha went up on Conan's broad shoulder, hanging limp as a corpse, to be dumped unceremoniously on to the deck as the Barachan took the wheel, gasping orders to his skeleton of a crew.",
        "Conan and his companion stood in the broad entrance and stared inside.",
        "There Conan halted in some uncertainty, at last selecting a place sheltered by a broad ledge, nowhere near any trees.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "Opposite this, on a dais against the wall, up to which led broad curving steps, there stood a throne of copper, and when Conan saw what was coiled on this throne, he retreated hastily, lifting his scimitar.",
        "Conan passed into a broad, lofty hall, lined with tall columns, between which arches gaped, their doors long rotted away.",
        "Conan shifted his broad sword-belt to his liking and calmly returned the searching stares directed at him by the squad of watchmen as they swung past.",
        "Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length from the black breast.",
        "Conan came from behind the curtain, wiping his broad blade.",
        "Glaring down at his lifeless enemy, dripping poniard in hand, sweat glistening on his broad breast, Conan poised like a statue, listening intently.",
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction.",
        "But Conan's was the broad tolerance of the barbarian, and he had refused to persecute the followers of Asura or to allow the people to do so on no better evidence than was presented against them, rumors and accusations that could not be proven.",
        "Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor through which the sea-breeze swept.",
        "Even the elements seemed to work for Conan now; the broad purple sail bellied to a stiff breeze that held day by day, needing little aid from the oars.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man.",
        "They would slay him merely for being a stranger; if he were recognized as Amra, the corsair chief who had swept their coasts with steel and flame-an involuntary shudder twitched Conan's broad shoulders.",
        "A moment later Conan saw a man crawling over the flaming floor toward him--a man whose progress left a broad bloody smear on the smoldering surface.",
        "Incoherent sounds issued from behind the gag and Conan bent and tore it away, evoking a bellow of fear from the captive; for his action caused the iron ball to lurch down until it nearly touched the broad breast."
    ],
    "broken": [
        "Conan bounded back, still gripping the broken hilt.",
        "The broken blade sank deep and Conan's arm was released as the abhorrent mouth gaped as in agony.",
        "Conan held out the broken weapon and the high-priest cried out and fell to his knees.",
        "With a terrible shout he hurled his broken hilt full into Conan's face, and leaping, seized the stallion's bridle.",
        "The impact sent Conan crashing against the wall; the other, the saber torn through his body, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine from groin to broken breastbone.",
        "But on the deck of the Tigress, on a pyre of broken benches, spear-shafts and leopardskins, lay the Queen of the Black Coast in her last sleep, wrapped in Conan's scarlet cloak.",
        "The path followed a fold of rock, winding interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarpment, and once, far below, Conan got a glimpse of the ruin that had fallen--a mighty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a gigantic cliff.",
        "Conan stared down on the travesty of a man, a broken, shredded, bloody heap that gibbered and gnashed splintered teeth.",
        "Broken arches opened into other chambers and corridors, and Conan believed he was still in the great palace.",
        "Conan rose, kicking himself free of the tangling tapestries and the broken table, cursing with the bitterness of his blood-thirsty disappointment."
    ],
    "bronze": [
        "Bronze lanterns, carved with leering dragons, had been lighted in the streets before Conan reached the house of Aram Baksh."
    ],
    "brooding": [
        "In a brooding twilight, Conan moved across the bare green floor."
    ],
    "brown": [
        "Conan pointed with a muscular brown arm toward the east, banded in dazzling gold by the lifting sun.",
        "There he had seen the tall black place something--cold sweat broke suddenly out on Conan's brown hide.",
        "Conan ripped out a sulfurous oath and the long blade quivered in his grip as the muscles rose in ridges on his brown arm.",
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion.",
        "Groping in a rolling cloud that blinded him, Conan felt a rending sensation of dislocation--and then room and mist and brown man were gone together."
    ],
    "bruised": [
        "Conan went with it, bruised, battered, invincible, hanging on like a bulldog to the hilt of his saber which he could not withdraw, tearing and ripping at the shuddering bulk with the poniard in his left hand, goring it to ribbons.",
        "Why the Zingaran fled from one pursuer Conan did not tax his bruised brain to guess."
    ],
    "brutal": [
        "Conan caught the glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the day she was born.",
        "\"Have you sighted a Stygian galley--\" began Conan, but the beard of the burly, brutal-faced captain bristled."
    ],
    "brute": [
        "With full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eye and hand and his muscular power against the brute might and ferocity of the man-eater."
    ],
    "brutish": [
        "Etched abruptly in the rising moon, Conan saw a darkly blocked-out head and shoulders, brutish in outline.",
        "Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul."
    ],
    "bulky": [
        "With a grunt of annoyance Conan dragged on the bulky headpiece, and the girl nodded as if in approval as she scanned his dark scarred face and blazing eyes."
    ],
    "burdened": [
        "It was a long start Zorathus had, but Conan rode steadily on, knowing that he was traveling faster than the burdened merchants could travel."
    ],
    "burly": [
        "\"What are you hunting in the Zhaibar by night, Yar Afzal?\" Conan demanded of the burly chief, who grinned like a bearded ghoul.",
        "\"Have you sighted a Stygian galley--\" began Conan, but the beard of the burly, brutal-faced captain bristled."
    ],
    "burnished": [
        "When Yasmela again drew the curtains, a Conan in burnished steel stood before his audience."
    ],
    "busy": [
        "As he spoke Conan was busy at the edge of the trail with his ax."
    ],
    "caged": [
        "Conan paced the chamber like a caged lion."
    ],
    "callused": [
        "Conan did not reply; he merely stood and glared at her with his burning eyes, testing the edge of his poniard with a callused thumb."
    ],
    "calm": [
        "Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image-the image of a bearded face of calm inhuman beauty."
    ],
    "capable": [
        "In his rage Conan felt capable of accounting for the whole clan single-handed."
    ],
    "captive": [
        "Were Conan slain or carried away captive, her only choice would lie between giving herself up to the human wolves of the sea, or remaining alone on that devil-haunted island.",
        "He would hold Conan captive to use as a club against us-against Amalric, against Valerius, and against myself."
    ],
    "carpeted": [
        "They were alone; not even a slave or a page slept on the carpeted floor; but Conan's eyes blazed as they were wont to blaze in the teeth of great peril, and the sword quivered in his hand."
    ],
    "carven": [
        "As the monstrous shape with it leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow."
    ],
    "casual": [
        "Conan bounded from the bushes, wrenched his ax free and dragged the limp body in among the trees, concealing it from the casual glance.",
        "But Conan's practised fingers, stealing over it, pressed here and there knobs invisible to the casual eye."
    ],
    "catlike": [
        "With catlike quickness Conan bent over him, poniard poised above his heart.",
        "One of them was down, disemboweled, before he could strike, and wheeling catlike, Conan evaded the stroke of the other's cudgel and lashed in a whistling counter-cut."
    ],
    "ceilinged": [
        "Conan reeled upright in the silver-ceilinged room, with a gray mist coiling about his feet, and saw Baal-pteor lolling on the divan, shaking with silent laughter."
    ],
    "central": [
        "\"But an uprising in the central provinces would tip the scales for us!\" exclaimed Conan.",
        "He began to grow fearful that if he and Valerius advanced farther into the wild country, Conan might elude them entirely, march around them and invade the central provinces behind them.",
        "We must crush Conan before his army grows too great, before the central provinces rise."
    ],
    "certain": [
        "Conan made no reply, and the forester, aware of the reticence of barbarians on certain matters, continued: \"He lived by magic, and somehow, he died by magic.",
        "',' His manner had changed; there was impatience in his tone, and a certain nervousness in his manner, though Conan did not think this attitude was in any way connected with himself.",
        "Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul.",
        "And if the man lived, Conan felt certain that he was riding along the road somewhere ahead of him.",
        "Conan turned in his horse at a certain gold-worked gate, and rode into a court where a fountain tinkled and pigeons fluttered from marble coping to marble flagging.",
        "Olmec did not lead Conan back to the bronze door, which the prince naturally supposed Tascela had locked, but to a certain chamber on the border of Tecuhltli."
    ],
    "characteristic": [
        "The men shouted in confusion, and Conan took command in characteristic fashion."
    ],
    "charred": [
        "There was but one grim splotch on the landscape-a charred expanse of ashes and blackened stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the stately villa of one of his staunchest supporters."
    ],
    "chill": [
        "Conan woke in the chill whiteness of early dawn, to see Zelata crouched beside the tiny fire."
    ],
    "chilling": [
        "As he hacked and smote like a man possessed, Conan had time for some chilling doubts--would Yasmina keep her word?",
        "In the few seconds Conan stood frozen, hitherto unintelligible phrases in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling clarity."
    ],
    "choked": [
        "With a choked cry Conan threw his knife."
    ],
    "choking": [
        "Natala saw it and gave a low choking cry, for which Conan did not punish her.",
        "A louder clash of steel, a sliding rasp, a choking cry from the pirate horde a fierce yell split the morning as Conan's sword plunged through their captain's massive body.",
        "With a choking cry the black stumbled headlong, and Conan braced his feet and dragged out his sword as his victim fell.",
        "With a choking cry Conan lurched backward, reeled, felt the solid wall against his back.",
        "And then a choking gasp burst from him as Conan's fingers locked on his throat."
    ],
    "cimmerian": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "Conan answered with a searing Cimmerian curse that would have burst the eardrums of an ordinary man, and Tsotha laughed thinly and withdrew.",
        "\"The women of the Hyborians do not fight like your Cimmerian women, Conan,\" he said.",
        "But she could not bring herself to plunge the Cimmerian poniard into that still bosom, and at last she drew back the hanging and returned to Conan, who lay where she had left him, seemingly only partly conscious."
    ],
    "civil": [
        "Count Trocero, left by Conan in charge of the city, tried to reassure them, but in their unreasoning terror they remembered old civil wars, and how this same count had besieged Tamar fifteen years before."
    ],
    "civilized": [
        "He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land.",
        "Evidently Conan had spent much time among civilized men, though that contact had obviously not softened him, nor weakened any of his primitive instincts.",
        "\"Civilized men laugh,\" said Conan.",
        "Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women.",
        "Many of Conan's ways were inexplicable to the civilized people he ruled, and one of them was his insistence on sleeping alone in his chamber or tent."
    ],
    "clammy": [
        "Conan's hair stood on end and he felt clammy sweat bead his hide."
    ],
    "clean": [
        "Conan recognized them by their straighter features and hah-, their rangier, cleaner-limbed build.",
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "clear": [
        "Conan turned to the gold and ivory altar indicated, and took up a great round jewel, clear as crimson crystal; and he knew that this was the Heart of the Elephant.",
        "The promise had been made, the word kept; whether sorcery or magic or the falling shadow of great green wings had stilled the revelry, Conan could not know, but his way had been made clear.",
        "From that final slaughter, when the Stygians and the Kushites closed in on the trapped remnants, Conan had cut his way clear and fled on a camel with the girl.",
        "There was a fleeting concussion, a fierce writhing and intertwining of limbs and bodies, and then Conan sprang clear, every thew quivering from the violence of his efforts; blood started where the grazing fingers had torn the skin.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips."
    ],
    "cloaked": [
        "Striding back from the sentry lines, Conan halted as a slender cloaked figure stayed him with an outstretched hand.",
        "A dark, cloaked shape sprang toward Conan, who heaved up his sword, catching a gleam of steel in the right hand."
    ],
    "close": [
        "Wondering, Conan 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.",
        "She stopped short and the gourd fell from her hands when she saw them; she wavered as though to run, then realized that Conan was too close to her to allow her to escape, and so stood still, staring at them with a mixed expression of fear and curiosity.",
        "This exhibition of primordial fury chilled the blood in Valeria's veins, but Conan was too close to the primitive himself to feel anything but a comprehending interest.",
        "As it was, Conan swayed backward, but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him as he fell.",
        "But all the time Conan was getting closer and closer to his enemy.",
        "But all the time Conan was getting closer and closer to his enemy."
    ],
    "closed": [
        "They follow Valannus, deeming him Conan, as he rides with closed vizor."
    ],
    "clouded": [
        "The dust was not so thick, nor Conan's hawk-like sight so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial characteristics."
    ],
    "cloudy": [
        "Conan was a Cimmerian by birth, one of those fierce moody hillmen who dwelt in their gloomy, cloudy land in the north.",
        "They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam, but Conan stepped aside to avoid contact with the first."
    ],
    "clumsy": [
        "The man turned just as the king reached him, bawled in surprize and fright and lifted bis pike; but before he could bring the clumsy weapon into play, Conan brought down his sword on the fellow's helmet with a force that would have felled an ox."
    ],
    "coiled": [
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows."
    ],
    "cold": [
        "And in the great cold yellow eyes slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear--the only time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes.",
        "There he had seen the tall black place something--cold sweat broke suddenly out on Conan's brown hide.",
        "Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached, impresonal, though he winced at the Corinthian accent.",
        "\"There's nothing in the universe cold steel won't cut,\" answered Conan.",
        "Conan glared at the silent, black, moon-dappled woods which ringed him, and felt cold moisture bead his flesh.",
        "Cold sweat gathered thick on Conan's flesh."
    ],
    "colossal": [
        "Conan wondered uneasily for what purpose these colossal piles had been reared, in what forgotten age."
    ],
    "common": [
        "Once she heard a strange rushing above them that was not the sweep of the wind, and from the way Conan looked up, she knew it was not a common sound to him, either.",
        "The thought came vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the actors.",
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man."
    ],
    "compact": [
        "The invaders' numbers had engulfed the nineteen hundred knights of Conan, but about this compact wedge, which hewed deeper and deeper into the looser formation of their foes, the knights of Koth and Ophir swirled and smote in vain.",
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "complicated": [
        "In the wall near the door there was a complicated contrivance of mirrors which Conan guessed was the Eye Techotl had mentioned, so arranged that a narrow, crystal-paned slot in the wall could be looked through from within without being discernible from without."
    ],
    "confused": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "A confused torrent of sound rose, deep and thunderous as the sea-surf: \"Hail, Conan, king of Aquilonia!\""
    ],
    "conscious": [
        "\"Follow me,\" she directed and led the way, conscious of Conan's eyes fixed on her supple figure and perfectly poised carriage.",
        "But she could not bring herself to plunge the Cimmerian poniard into that still bosom, and at last she drew back the hanging and returned to Conan, who lay where she had left him, seemingly only partly conscious.",
        "But Conan had no time for conscious consecutive thought.",
        "Most of his knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he raged through the melee, conscious of but one desire-to meet Conan, the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "consecutive": [
        "But Conan had no time for conscious consecutive thought."
    ],
    "considerable": [
        "She seemed to derive considerable amusement from this bit of rough horse-play, but Conan paid no more heed to her."
    ],
    "contemptuous": [
        "As she knotted the silk length about her supple body, Conan turned to the window and with a contemptuous wrench tore away the soft gold bars that guarded it."
    ],
    "contorted": [
        "Those of the Seers were not good to look at; as they lay twisted and contorted, their hands and feet were exposed to view, and at the sight Yasmina went livid and hid her face against Conan's powerful shoulder."
    ],
    "convinced": [
        "Doubtfully Conan clambered upon the ridged back, gripping the arched neck, still convinced that he was in the grasp of a fantastic nightmare.",
        "But Conan was convinced no enemies were near, and the Cimmerian was right."
    ],
    "convulsive": [
        "The world was swimming to Conan's sight, when with a convulsive shudder the frame that strained against his stiffened and then went limp.",
        "Conan caught the glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the day she was born."
    ],
    "cool": [
        "Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor through which the sea-breeze swept."
    ],
    "corded": [
        "Thrusting his dagger-point into the crack, Conan exerted leverage with a corded forearm."
    ],
    "corinthian": [
        "Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached, impresonal, though he winced at the Corinthian accent."
    ],
    "corseleted": [
        "Then, as the white stars glimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseleted breast."
    ],
    "cosmic": [
        "Conan felt his soul shrivel and begin to be drawn out of his body, to drown in the yellow wells of cosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos that was growing about him and engulfing all life and sanity."
    ],
    "covert": [
        "Conan had no instinct to tell him that men were watching him from a covert among the reeds of the mainland."
    ],
    "crafty": [
        "\"It is that devil Conan; he is even wilder than the kozaks, yet he is crafty as a mountain lion.\""
    ],
    "crestfallen": [
        "Conan seemed rather crestfallen."
    ],
    "crimson": [
        "Conan turned to the gold and ivory altar indicated, and took up a great round jewel, clear as crimson crystal; and he knew that this was the Heart of the Elephant.",
        "Then all was swept away by the crimson tide that rode madly in Conan's soul, as he crushed fiercely in his iron arms the slim white body that shimmered like a witch-fire of madness before him.",
        "Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the vessel across the ebony table to Conan the Cimmerian.",
        "Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the purple and crimson and vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and carracks and galleys and dromonds."
    ],
    "crippled": [
        "Flinging aside the dying beast, Conan grappled the crippled horror and, with a muscular effort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, he heaved upright, gripping the struggling, bearing fiend in his arms."
    ],
    "cross": [
        "Conan and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door, and between them and the ring of warriors another man sat cross-legged."
    ],
    "cruel": [
        "\"I offer you life, Conan,\" said Tsotha, a cruel mirth bubbling at the back of his voice.",
        "Conan was rising slowly, shaken and dazed by the cruel craft of that blow which, delivered with an art forgotten of men before Atlantis sank, would have broken like a rotten twig the neck of a lesser man."
    ],
    "cryptic": [
        "Conan glared bewilderedly at the cryptic golden door."
    ],
    "curious": [
        "Conan admired the scaly torso, thick as his thigh and obviously of great length, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing.",
        "He tried to fumble with a mangled hand at his tatters, and Conan, understanding what he sought to convey, bent and drew from about his gory waist a girdle of curious aspect.",
        "Conan did not reply for a space, and when he did it was with a curious reticence.",
        "Conan turned, squatted and with his knife began scratching a curious symbol in the mold."
    ],
    "curly": [
        "Conan dragged him to his feet and again the dagger slashed, and most of the curly beard fell to the floor.",
        "Conan played idly with her curly yellow locks, seemingly intent only upon his conquest.",
        "She saw no way of escape, and Conan seemed to be concerned only with her supple waist and curly tresses."
    ],
    "curved": [
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man."
    ],
    "cylindrical": [
        "They mounted until Conan estimated that they were above the level of the fourth floor, and then came out into a cylindrical tower, in the domed roof of which was set the bunch of fire-jewels that lighted the stair."
    ],
    "dainty": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat."
    ],
    "damnable": [
        "\"The damnable people murmur, Conan,\" quoth he.",
        "\"Gone back to their damnable castle on Yimsha,\" grunted Conan.",
        "\"Tricked us with its damnable caterwauling!\" raved Conan, swinging his great sword about his head in his wrath.",
        "\"And what is this damnable source?\" demanded Conan irritably."
    ],
    "damned": [
        "\"Damned degenerates!\" growled Conan."
    ],
    "dangerous": [
        "Conan knew that he could have been discovered by no more dangerous a foeman.",
        "Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for Messantia."
    ],
    "dappled": [
        "Conan glared at the silent, black, moon-dappled woods which ringed him, and felt cold moisture bead his flesh."
    ],
    "daring": [
        "In an instant the affair had changed from a daring game to a battle of life and death, and Conan's savage nature responded with all the fury of the wild."
    ],
    "dark": [
        "\"All part of the game, Conan,\" answered the dark-eyed Poitainian.",
        "Conan grinned savagely, involuntarily touching the scars on his dark face.",
        "Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece.",
        "Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece.",
        "Conan saw the mighty form of prince Kutamun across the sea of swords, but the press held him hard, breast to breast with dark shapes that gasped and slashed.",
        "Keep back your blade, Conan; there is a mystery here even darker than I thought.",
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him.",
        "Along the dark, silent tunnel Conan groped, momentarily dreading a fall into some unseen pit; but at last his feet struck steps again, and he went up them until he came to a door on which his fumbling fingers found a metal catch.",
        "Conan got one glimpse of her as they thundered by--a slim, dark girl in silk trousers and a jeweled breast-band, flattening herself against the ravine wall.",
        "It was the actual body of a woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form unblemished for so many ages Conan could not even guess.",
        "She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in disorder over her white shoulders.",
        "Conan could make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard.",
        "\"It will be dark before we reach the fort,\" commented Conan casually; then: \"Listen!\"",
        "Conan made no comment; his scarred dark countenance was immobile.",
        "Still gripping his captive's throat--for a man can scream incoherently even with his throat slit--Conan dragged him out of the dark chamber and down the cypress-shadowed path, to the iron-bound door in the outer wall.",
        "And while the fallen king stared with burning eyes that reflected the bitter rage and humiliation that ate his heart, the squires stripped Valannus of mail shirt, burganet and leg-pieces, and clad him in Conan's armor of black plate-mail, with the vizored salade, and the dark plumes nodding over the wivern crest.",
        "Swearing luridly, Conan ran back down the passage and into the alcove, glaring out into the lighted corridor, just as Zenobia came running up it, her dark eyes dilated with terror.",
        "A dark, cloaked shape sprang toward Conan, who heaved up his sword, catching a gleam of steel in the right hand.",
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows.",
        "They traversed a long, dark, vaulted corridor in which, Conan noticed uneasily, the skull on the staff glowed phosphorescently.",
        "Conan wondered if he dared fade into some dark alley; but hesitated, uncertain, and down the long dark street they padded silently, while such folk as they met turned their heads away and fled from them.",
        "Conan wondered if he dared fade into some dark alley; but hesitated, uncertain, and down the long dark street they padded silently, while such folk as they met turned their heads away and fled from them.",
        "With a grunt of annoyance Conan dragged on the bulky headpiece, and the girl nodded as if in approval as she scanned his dark scarred face and blazing eyes.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight."
    ],
    "daunting": [
        "Slightly taller than Conan and much heavier, Baal-pteor loomed before him, a daunting image of muscular development."
    ],
    "dead": [
        "\"But Epemitreus the Sage has been dead for fifteen hundred years!\" stammered Conan.",
        "Conan lay stiffly, like a dead man, but his eyes glared up at them, wide open, and blazing with helpless fury.",
        "\"He is dead,\" muttered Conan, ill at ease to hear these wild words.",
        "When he had first stirred, Conan had thought that by some incredible chance the eunuch was alive; but the man was dead--had been dead for hours.",
        "When he had first stirred, Conan had thought that by some incredible chance the eunuch was alive; but the man was dead--had been dead for hours.",
        "Conan is dead and Arpello is king!\"",
        "Conan was dead, so the invaders shouted exultantly.",
        "\"Then the dead man at the gate-\" began Conan.",
        "Their captives were the Freebooters; they hung slackly in their captors' arms, and but for an occasional vague movement or twitching, Conan would have believed them dead.",
        "One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat--to fall back dead, even as Conan felt the tearing agony of its grip.",
        "Conan, who had not shrunk from Khosatral living, recoiled blenching for Khosatral dead, for he had witnessed an awful transmutation; in his dying throes Khosatral Khel hed become again the thing that had crawled up from the Abyss millennia gone.",
        "They found the dead horse, and one of the men recognized it as Conan's.",
        "Yet Conan was not dead; breaking his fall with his left hand, he slashed at Khemsa's legs even as he went down, and the Rakhsha avoided the scythe-like swipe only by a most unwizardly bound backward.",
        "\"Khemsa's dead,\" grunted Conan.",
        "Conan bent over the victim of the attack, but the man was already dead.",
        "Then with one frenzied crescendo of inhuman ululation they stiffened and lay still, and Conan knew that they were dead.",
        "Conan shook his head and straightened to scowl down at the dead man.",
        "\"Zogar Sag's dead?\" ejaculated Conan.",
        "To Conan's ears came a vast torrent of sound, rising and rising in frenzy: \"The king is dead!",
        "The man-eater is dead-stabbed through the heart-and Conan is gone!\"",
        "Conan, scrambling up, saw the man lying dead with his throat torn out, and a great gray wolf stood over him, head sunk as it smelt the blood that formed a pool on the grass.",
        "For this is King Conan who died at Valkia, and I am among the dead.\"",
        "\"You're not dead,\" said Conan.",
        "\"Dead!\" muttered Conan, stooping to pick up the jewel where it rolled on the floor from Valbroso's rigid hand.",
        "Conan took it, with an eery sensation of receiving gifts from the hand of the dead.",
        "\"A dead city,\" grunted Conan.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight."
    ],
    "deadly": [
        "Conan hurled his ax with deadly aim, but the warrior's mouth was already open for a yell of warning, and it rang loud above the din, cut short as he dropped with a shattered skull."
    ],
    "dear": [
        "Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women."
    ],
    "deep": [
        "Conan faced them, not a naked man 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 his long sword in his hand.",
        "It was a gust of deep laughter from Conan's mighty chest.",
        "Conan's laugh was like the deep short bark of a timber wolf.",
        "Conan bent above him, seeking the cause of his death, and discovered him to be merely sunk in the same deep sleep as the girl in the chamber.",
        "The oiled links of his armor did not clink, and Balthus knew Conan could glide through the deepest thicket or most tangled copse as noiselessly as any naked Pict that ever lived.",
        "Then the deeper fires were masked and Conan was silently leading the way deeper into the forest.",
        "\"Men say King Conan died beneath the stones and dirt when the cliffs crumbled by Valkia,\" she said in a deep, strong, resonant voice.",
        "\"A shell-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,\" Conan muttered, frowning as he sought to capture the illusive image.",
        "The leader of the band made straight for the doorway, in the deep well of which Conan saw a shadowy figure.",
        "A confused torrent of sound rose, deep and thunderous as the sea-surf: \"Hail, Conan, king of Aquilonia!\""
    ],
    "defiant": [
        "Half stunned, Conan leaned against the wall an instant, glaring down upon them; then with a defiant shake of his dripping saber, he bounded up the steps."
    ],
    "definite": [
        "Pelias, who sat tapping the jade table-top with his finger-nails, halted suddenly, and rose as with a definite purpose, beckoning Conan to follow.",
        "With a definite purpose in mind Conan was afire with impatience and dynamic energy.",
        "An uneasy feeling rose in Conan that this had not happened by chance, or without design; a conviction that the mysterious Stygian galley had come into the harbor of Messantia on a definite mission."
    ],
    "delicate": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat."
    ],
    "delicious": [
        "As a delicious languor stole over her relaxing limbs and she sank into foamy billows of slumber, her last waking thought was a drowsy recollection of the firm touch of Conan's fingers on her soft flesh."
    ],
    "demoniac": [
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.",
        "But the face was higher than his own, and there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes, a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before him."
    ],
    "dense": [
        "Under the trees the shadows clustered thick, and Conan swerved to avoid the denser patches.",
        "Conan wheeled and faced the dense shadows, a crouching image of menace.",
        "Conan shook his head and drew his companion into a dense thicket.",
        "Near the crest Conan slid into a tangle of jutting rocks, crowned by dense bushes.",
        "Conan stood for a moment in the door, the glow of the bronze lamps behind him, looking down the road to where it vanished among the dense palms.",
        "But ahead rose a dense wood that stretched to the hills on the horizon, and between it and himself Conan glimpsed the dim form of the fugitive."
    ],
    "dented": [
        "Reeling up, blood streaming down his face from under his dented helmet, Conan glared dizzily at the profusion of destruction which spread before him."
    ],
    "derisive": [
        "Conan sensed the man's great belly shaking in laughter, but it was not derisive."
    ],
    "deserted": [
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain."
    ],
    "desperate": [
        "These strands were thick as ropes, and Conan knew that once they were coiled about him, his desperate strength would not be enough to tear him free before the monster struck.",
        "With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry from the wall and whirling it, with a muscular effort greater than that required for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head.",
        "Conan cleared the space between him and the throne with a desperate bound, his scimitar swinging with all his power.",
        "Then Khosatral turned again, flailing the air with desperate blows, but Conan, fired to beserk fury, was not to be denied.",
        "Bones snapped under the impact, and the next instant Conan slammed the bolts into place and whirled with desperate haste to meet the man who sprang from the floor and tore into action like a madman.",
        "\"Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyborian horsemen fighting in a solid wedge such as I could teach them,\" answered Conan."
    ],
    "detached": [
        "Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached, impresonal, though he winced at the Corinthian accent."
    ],
    "determined": [
        "She was determined to make her way to Conan's room and urge him, if he still lived, to join her in an attampt to fight their way out of that city of devils."
    ],
    "devastating": [
        "Conan, bleeding from a cut on the temple, cleared a space for an instant with a devastating sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a quick glance about for an avenue of escape.",
        "And as the door closed behind him, Conan moved with the devastating fury of unchained blood-lust."
    ],
    "devilish": [
        "Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them.",
        "The other end was masked by a rich velvet curtain, and from beyond that curtain came the devilish strains of such music as Conan had never heard, not even in nightmares."
    ],
    "devious": [
        "Conan believed that this consulting of the oracle was but a ruse to persuade the king of Keshan to accede to Thutmekri's wishes--for he never for a moment doubted that Gorulga was as subtle and devious as all the rest mixed up in this grand swindle.",
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction."
    ],
    "devoid": [
        "Shukeli opened it, and as he swung back the ponderous portal, Conan noted the evident uneasiness among the black giants who guarded him; nor did Shukeli seem altogether devoid of nervousness as he peered into the darkness beyond.",
        "Conan flipped the coin to her, she caught it, bit, then thrust it into her hair, bent and caught up the gourd and went on down the path, as devoid of self-consciousness as of garments."
    ],
    "diabolical": [
        "Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them.",
        "This might be some diabolical trap planned by Tarascus, but plunging headlong into a snare was less abhorrent to Conan's temperament than sitting meekly to await his doom."
    ],
    "different": [
        "These figures, not much longer than a man's hand, represented men, and so cleverly were they made that Conan recognized various racial characteristics in the different idols, features typical of Zingarans, Argoseans, Ophireans and Kushite corsairs.",
        "The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of the valley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era and race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whatever immeasurably distant date the people of Alkmeenon had found and entered the haunted valley.",
        "\"By Crom, Publio,\" said Conan, lowering the vessel but retaining it in his hands, \"you dwell in different quarters than of old."
    ],
    "difficult": [
        "Yet if his forces were overthrown in the battle that must first take place, and Conan himself slain, I think it would not be difficult to put Valerius on the throne."
    ],
    "dignified": [
        "Conan's answer was neither kingly nor dignified, but characteristically instinctive in the man, whose barbaric nature had never been submerged in his adopted culture."
    ],
    "dilated": [
        "Conan caught his breath at her beauty, and Natala stared with dilated eyes.",
        "He stared at Conan with dilated eyes."
    ],
    "dim": [
        "What that something was, Conan had no idea, but an aura of unnatural horror hung over those dim-lit chambers.",
        "Presently the dim light shone on a black arch, and into this Conan turned.",
        "It was dim and misty in the chamber, and Conan's hair began to lift on his scalp as he looked.",
        "Conan half expected some other monstrosity to leap at him with the opening of the door, but in the dimmer light he saw only the vague sweep of the arch above, a dully gleaming block of gold, and a half-moon glimmer on the stone.",
        "The sight stirred some dim recollection in his mind; then Conan heeded the altar no longer, for on the lower steps of the stair stood four black-robed figures.",
        "Balthus wasted his wind in swearing as the Cimmerian drew away from him again, like a phantom between the trees, and then Conan burst into a dim glade and halted crouching, lips snarling, sword lifted.",
        "Conan pulled up suddenly, turned and stared back down the dim path.",
        "With no further comment Conan turned off the trail and hurried down the dim path, and Balthus, after staring after him for a few moments, set out along the road.",
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction.",
        "But ahead rose a dense wood that stretched to the hills on the horizon, and between it and himself Conan glimpsed the dim form of the fugitive.",
        "Even as the dagger flashed in the dim light, Conan caught the dusky wrist and smashed his clenched right fist against the Stygian's jaw.",
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "direct": [
        "Conan was basically a direct-actionist."
    ],
    "discernible": [
        "In the wall near the door there was a complicated contrivance of mirrors which Conan guessed was the Eye Techotl had mentioned, so arranged that a narrow, crystal-paned slot in the wall could be looked through from within without being discernible from without."
    ],
    "disquieting": [
        "\"They are now,\" was Conan's disquieting answer."
    ],
    "distant": [
        "The sun was sinking toward the distant crags when Conan, his garments hacked to tatters and the mail under them reeking and clotted with blood, his knife dripping and crusted to the hilt, strode over the corpses to where Yasmina Devi sat her horse among her nobles on the crest of the ridge, near a lofty precipice.",
        "Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms.",
        "The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of the valley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era and race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whatever immeasurably distant date the people of Alkmeenon had found and entered the haunted valley.",
        "When the last huddled village fell behind him, Conan left the road, which was beginning to bend toward the northwest, toward the distant passes.",
        "Before the inhuman feet behind him could resume their slithering advance at the fading of the distant illumination, Conan was running down the corridor."
    ],
    "distinct": [
        "There was no sound of footsteps, but the great dusky form grew more distinct until Conan recognized the figure of a man."
    ],
    "distracted": [
        "Prince Arpello came before the distracted council and announced himself ready to take over the government of the city until a new king could be decided upon, Conan having no son."
    ],
    "dizzy": [
        " 3 How long Conan stood drowned in dizzy cogitation, he never knew.",
        "With a curse, Conan caught her thick tresses near her head and shook her until the walls danced to her dizzy sight."
    ],
    "domed": [
        "And on the instant crypt, tomb and ancient vanished, and Conan, bewildered, sprang from his couch in the great golden-domed chamber.",
        "They mounted until Conan estimated that they were above the level of the fourth floor, and then came out into a cylindrical tower, in the domed roof of which was set the bunch of fire-jewels that lighted the stair."
    ],
    "doorless": [
        "But Conan knew now why people locked themselves in so securely at night, and why even beggars shunned the open alley and doorless ruins."
    ],
    "double": [
        "Before they reached the double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the outer steps and was in the hall behind them."
    ],
    "doubtless": [
        "Doubtless Conan is there."
    ],
    "downward": [
        "Conan scarcely wasted a downward glance."
    ],
    "drowsy": [
        "As a delicious languor stole over her relaxing limbs and she sank into foamy billows of slumber, her last waking thought was a drowsy recollection of the firm touch of Conan's fingers on her soft flesh."
    ],
    "drunken": [
        "The Irakzai screamed, reeling like drunken men on the shuddering slope, and Conan, eyes glaring, charged recklessly up the incline, knife in hand, straight at the door that showed in the tower-wall.",
        "The group rode like swift ghosts toward the river; among them Conan swayed like a drunken man in the saddle, bloodshot eyes glazed, foam drying on his blackened lips."
    ],
    "dry": [
        "Conan likened it in his mind to a great torrent, dwindling gradually as it rushed southward, to run dry at last in the sands of the naked desert.",
        "In the center of the court rose the square curb of a well, and the sight stung Conan, whose mouth felt caked with dry dust."
    ],
    "due": [
        "Banners will wave from every tower, roses will carpet the road before your horse's feet, and all the beauty and chivalry of the south will give you the honor due you--\" Conan shook his head."
    ],
    "dull": [
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "dumb": [
        "In its mighty talons it snatched up the dripping head and soared skyward, and Conan stood struck dumb, for from the eagle's throat boomed human laughter, in the voice of Pelias the sorcerer.",
        "Conan was aware of a vague uneasiness as he stared at the dumb sightless figures."
    ],
    "dumbfounded": [
        "Conan lifted his knife and smote, and the watchers were dumbfounded to see his blow checked apparently in midair, with the loud clang of steel that meets an unyielding substance."
    ],
    "dusky": [
        "For an instant a dimming witchfire glimmered in those dusky depths; then it disappeared and Conan lay staring down into the blackness of the ultimate abyss from which no sound came.",
        "The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms.",
        "There was no sound of footsteps, but the great dusky form grew more distinct until Conan recognized the figure of a man.",
        "Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length from the black breast.",
        "Conan wasted no more breath on his dusky betrayer.",
        "Even as the dagger flashed in the dim light, Conan caught the dusky wrist and smashed his clenched right fist against the Stygian's jaw.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight."
    ],
    "dynamic": [
        "With a definite purpose in mind Conan was afire with impatience and dynamic energy."
    ],
    "dynastic": [
        "Even the drop of dynastic blood Valerius boasted had more hold on the minds of men than the memory of Conan and the freedom and power he had given the kingdom."
    ],
    "eager": [
        "A young page came running from Yasmela's pavilion, crying to Conan in a shrill, eager voice.",
        "Into their eager arms Conan thrust the innkeeper.",
        "The five women of the Xotalancas were down with thir throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull."
    ],
    "early": [
        "Conan woke in the chill whiteness of early dawn, to see Zelata crouched beside the tiny fire."
    ],
    "earnest": [
        "On the deck of the pirate lay half a dozen bodies, an earnest of Conan's archery."
    ],
    "eastern": [
        "The hill steed reared wildly under the unfamiliar clash of the Kothic armor, and Conan's gusty laugh rose above the din as he led them to where the eastern ridge branched away from the plateau.",
        "Conan scrambled in, seized the paddle and sent the craft shooting toward the eastern shore."
    ],
    "easy": [
        "Through his princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presence of Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do him honor, he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops, and Prospero, King Conan's right\u00adhand man."
    ],
    "ebon": [
        "Conan had heard no sound of fighting--saw no blood-stains or wounds on the sleek ebon limbs of the giants.",
        "In the dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the blue glare.",
        "Conan paused an instant and glanced back at the ebon fastness behind them."
    ],
    "ebony": [
        "Conan laid the jewel on the great ebony table.",
        "But still he dwindled, and Conan saw a tiny, pigmy figure rushing wildly about the ebony table-top, waving tiny arms and shrieking in a voice that was like the squeak of an insect.",
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain.",
        "Conan was sprawled in his chair, his feet propped on the ebony table, busily engaged in gnawing a beef-bone which he gripped firmly in both hands.",
        "Conan mentally termed the creatures black men, for lack of a better term; instinctively he knew that these tall ebony beings were not men, as he understood the term.",
        "Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the vessel across the ebony table to Conan the Cimmerian.",
        "Then they regarded Conan cryptically, slit-eyed ebony giants, the torch striking highlights from their glossy skin."
    ],
    "edged": [
        "As the blacks glared in amazement, Conan yelled stridently and struck them like a razor-edged thunderbolt."
    ],
    "eery": [
        "His head was lowered, but Conan caught the wierd gleam of eery eyes regarding them unblinkingly.",
        "Conan took it, with an eery sensation of receiving gifts from the hand of the dead."
    ],
    "elaborate": [
        "It was a much more elaborate chamber than Conan could have procured for the price nearer the center of the city--a fact that had first attracted him, when, that morning, he discoverd how slim a purse his roistering for the past few days had left him."
    ],
    "embarrassed": [
        "With an embarrassed grunt, Conan disengaged Thalis's clinging arms and put her aside with one massive arm."
    ],
    "emerald": [
        "Conan glared shoreward; like a tongue of emerald flame, a ribbon licked out on the water futilely, an oar's length from the Wastrel's keel."
    ],
    "empty": [
        "Conan, glaring at him, felt his blood turn to ice, and the marrow of his bones to water; for Shukeli's wide-open eyes were glassy and empty, and from the great gash in his belly his entrails hung limply to the floor.",
        "Conan sprang after it, knife lifted, but his vicious swipe cut empty air as the serpent writhed away from him and struck its blunt nose against a paneled screen of sandalwood.",
        "Conan stared at that expanse of empty waste shimmering tawnily in the late sunlight as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky.",
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world.",
        "As Conan came down the road, he wondered why the beggars, so plentiful in Zamboula, had not appropriated these empty houses for sleeping quarters.",
        "The sailor who had drenched him stood grinning, the empty bucket still poised in his hand, and Conan cursed nun with venom, instinctively reaching for his hilt.",
        "\"They must not have perished of plague,\" sad Conan, meditating upon the mystery of the empty city.",
        "Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited.",
        "Conan's hand instinctively sought his belt, only to encounter an empty scabbard."
    ],
    "enough": [
        "These strands were thick as ropes, and Conan knew that once they were coiled about him, his desperate strength would not be enough to tear him free before the monster struck.",
        "But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, riverlaced jungle, and mountains.",
        "Public complied so readily that Conan's suspicions were lulled, and without further hesitation he sat down and devoured enough for three men.",
        "Enough starlight filtered into the alley to silhouette the man's profile dimly as he passed the doorway where Conan lurked.",
        "\"It is true the water was muddy, and the people of Tanasul said that the river rose perhaps a foot yesterday; but that was not enough to prevent Conan's crossing.\""
    ],
    "entire": [
        "Could we not then bring up our entire force at our leisure, catch Conan on this side of the river and crush him, and then, when the flood subsided, which I think it would do the next day, could we not cross the river and destroy the Gundermen?"
    ],
    "equal": [
        "Conan leaned on the sweep, his somber gaze fixed on the cloak-wrapped shape that lay in state on the pyre the richness of which was equal to the ransom of an empress."
    ],
    "erect": [
        "At her shriek Conan shot erect, teeth gleaming, sword lifted.",
        "Standing erect, he head would scarcely top the Cimmerians shoulders; yet that face was on a level with Conan's own."
    ],
    "erstwhile": [
        "\"Are you mad, to ask?\" laughed Conan, coming swiftly toward his erstwhile chief."
    ],
    "esoteric": [
        "He 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 King Conan's skin crawled."
    ],
    "eternal": [
        "Conan felt vaguely that he had looked on blasphemy against the eternal laws of nature.",
        "How the ancient Pelishti had gained lordship over them--and with it eternal exile from humanity--was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate, even if he had had opportunity.",
        "The plain ran red with the blood of their eternal warfare, and it was then that--\" He bit his tongue in the midst of the sentence, then presently continued, but Valeria and Conan felt that he had checked an admission he had considered unwise."
    ],
    "eventful": [
        "Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the throne of Aquilonia."
    ],
    "everlasting": [
        "Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep."
    ],
    "evident": [
        "Shukeli opened it, and as he swung back the ponderous portal, Conan noted the evident uneasiness among the black giants who guarded him; nor did Shukeli seem altogether devoid of nervousness as he peered into the darkness beyond.",
        "\"That's evident,\" answered Conan.",
        "\"We encountered a bench-legged monstrosity about the size of a mastodon,\" said Conan casually, holding out his wine goblet which Techutl filled with evident pleasure."
    ],
    "exaggerated": [
        "But the face was higher than his own, and there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes, a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before him."
    ],
    "exhausted": [
        "Perhaps the Stygian girdle about Conan's waist could have told why their necromantic spells had proven so weak and so quickly exhausted."
    ],
    "exotic": [
        "Conan suddenly realized that the air was impregnated with an alien and exotic scent."
    ],
    "experienced": [
        "\"So that's why he told Topal to kill me!\" murmured Conan, dropping to his knee beside the man, who his experienced eye told him was dying."
    ],
    "explosive": [
        "It was an explosive imprecation from Conan's lips as he started up, his great fists clenched into hammers, his veins on his temples knotting, his features convulsed."
    ],
    "extended": [
        "As it was, Conan swayed backward, but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him as he fell."
    ],
    "extinct": [
        "And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble."
    ],
    "extra": [
        "But Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding himself alone with that awful scream still shuddering through the forest in grisly echoes, put on an extra burst of speed and plunged after him."
    ],
    "extreme": [
        "They swarmed about Conan, shouting their war-cries and brandishing their swords in their extreme emotion."
    ],
    "exuberant": [
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips."
    ],
    "eyed": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "\"All part of the game, Conan,\" answered the dark-eyed Poitainian.",
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.",
        "Even as he thought this, Conan drew nock to ear, and at the twang of the string a flame-eyed shadow bounded high and fell writhing.",
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion.",
        "Then they regarded Conan cryptically, slit-eyed ebony giants, the torch striking highlights from their glossy skin.",
        "From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the inns where he slaked his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he met upon the road, Conan sought for news of Beloso."
    ],
    "fabled": [
        "Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings."
    ],
    "faced": [
        "\"Have you sighted a Stygian galley--\" began Conan, but the beard of the burly, brutal-faced captain bristled."
    ],
    "facial": [
        "The dust was not so thick, nor Conan's hawk-like sight so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial characteristics."
    ],
    "faint": [
        "Conan saw scant reason in this, and a faint suspicion of his companion touched his wary soul, but he did as Taurus requested.",
        "A faint smile touched Conan's lips.",
        "Supported on her elbows, her chin resting on her slim hands, she gazed up into the face of Conan, who lounged beside her, his black mane stirring in the faint breeze.",
        "Conan came silently upon the pier, approaching the galley above whose deck was suspended something that glimmered ivory-white in the faint twilight.",
        "A faint groove ran from the sill to the altar, and when Conan's foot felt it, he stepped away as quickly as if he had trodden upon a snake.",
        "From beyond a door opposite the one by which Conan had entered there sounded a woman's scream, faint and muffled in the distance.",
        "Yet aftera while, after a period of time he had no way of estimating, a faint glow became apparent, a sort of slanting gray beam, by which Conan could see, vaguely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even make out the skeleton of the other grille.",
        "Then Conan saw what Topal was staring at, and he felt a faint twitching of the skin between his giant shoulders."
    ],
    "faithful": [
        "Most of his knights were fleeing and the Aquilonians were riding them down; Tarascus knew the day was lost, but with a handful of faithful followers he raged through the melee, conscious of but one desire-to meet Conan, the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "fallen": [
        "With an inhuman cry Conan caught up his fallen sword and leaped into the path of the hurtling horror.",
        "On the pyramid among the fallen towers sat Conan the Cimmerian like an iron statue, chin propped on massive fists.",
        "And while the fallen king stared with burning eyes that reflected the bitter rage and humiliation that ate his heart, the squires stripped Valannus of mail shirt, burganet and leg-pieces, and clad him in Conan's armor of black plate-mail, with the vizored salade, and the dark plumes nodding over the wivern crest."
    ],
    "false": [
        "\"You have my leave to go!\" answered the false goddess, with an imperious gesture of dismissal that set Conan grinning again, and the priests backed out, ostrich plumes and torches rising and falling with the rhythm of their genuflexions."
    ],
    "familiar": [
        "And with the cry she sprang through a crevice in the wall, burst madly through the hindering vines, and ran, ran, ran blind, screaming, witless--until a grasp on her arm brought her up short and she shrieked and fought against the arms that caught her, until a familiar voice penetrated the mists of her terror, and she saw Conan's face, a mask of bewilderment in the moonlight.",
        "Shaking the sweat out of his eyes, Conan stared blankly at the familiar terrain."
    ],
    "fantastic": [
        "Doubtfully Conan clambered upon the ridged back, gripping the arched neck, still convinced that he was in the grasp of a fantastic nightmare.",
        "Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited."
    ],
    "farth": [
        "Objects dotted the farther bank; Conan had not brought his siege engines across the river, apparently fearing an attack in the midst of the crossing.",
        "Conan shrugged his shoulders, and turned toward the farther grille.",
        "Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side."
    ],
    "farther": [
        "Then they fastened Conan's chains to that ring, and the third black turned his key in the lock of the farther door, grunting when he had assured himself that it was properly fastened."
    ],
    "fast": [
        "As the fast rushed in, lifting his sword, Conan met him with a sweeping stroke that severed mail-links like cloth, and sheared the Nemedian's arm and shoulder clean from his body."
    ],
    "fat": [
        "The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "fated": [
        "As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shaman attended to the cuts on his hands and limbs, the cargo of the ill-fated Argus was quickly shifted aboard the Tigress and stored in small cabins below deck."
    ],
    "faulty": [
        "He intended killing Conan before the Cimmerian could wrench his ax from the floor, but his judgment was faulty."
    ],
    "fearful": [
        "\"Is it a city, Conan?\" she whispered, too fearful to hope.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "He began to grow fearful that if he and Valerius advanced farther into the wild country, Conan might elude them entirely, march around them and invade the central provinces behind them."
    ],
    "fearless": [
        "Conan grunted uncertainly; fearless as a wounded tiger as far as human foes were concerned, he had all the superstitious dreads of the primitive."
    ],
    "fearsome": [
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows."
    ],
    "feminine": [
        "She imagined Conan similarly situated across the corridor, but her feminine vanity prompted her to visualize him as scowling and muttering with chagrin as he cast himself on his solitary couch, and she grinned with gleeful malice as she prepared herself for slumber."
    ],
    "feral": [
        "Yet the mad black eyes glared up at Conan with no dimming of their feral light, the lips writhed awfully, and the hands groped, as if searching for the severed head."
    ],
    "ferocious": [
        "Endowed with all the barbarian's ferocious love of life and instinct to live, Conan the Cimmerian yet knew that he had reached the end of his trail.",
        "Ferocious triumph surged through Conan's numbed brain.",
        "Conan snarled a savage curse and hurled his ax with ferocious will."
    ],
    "feudalistic": [
        "The well-knit kingdom Conan had built up seemed tottering on the edge of dissolution, and commoners and merchants trembled at the imminence of a return of the feudalistic regime."
    ],
    "few": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "And down in the desert the slaughter continued, where the survivors of the horde had reached their horses and streamed out across the waste, pursued by the weary victors--and Conan stood appalled as he noted how few of these were left to pursue.",
        "A few muttered words, and Conan mounted the horse of the man he had killed, lifting the girl up in front of him.",
        "Conan and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door, and between them and the ring of warriors another man sat cross-legged.",
        "In the few seconds Conan stood frozen, hitherto unintelligible phrases in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling clarity.",
        "Conan pointed to a creek which flowed into Black River from the east, a few hundred yards below them.",
        "\"That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin on the bank of the river a few miles south of the fort,\" gruntcd Conan.",
        "With no further comment Conan turned off the trail and hurried down the dim path, and Balthus, after staring after him for a few moments, set out along the road.",
        "It was a much more elaborate chamber than Conan could have procured for the price nearer the center of the city--a fact that had first attracted him, when, that morning, he discoverd how slim a purse his roistering for the past few days had left him.",
        "Conan dodged instinctively, but, miraculously, the globe stopped short in midair, a few feet from his face.",
        "A low tree, a few yards below the parapet, received Conan's weight, as he dropped noiselessly into the branches.",
        "\"There are secrets to the Tower which few know,\" said Conan.",
        "A few feet farther up the corridor there was a heavy bolted door, and before it stood a bearded Nemedian in corselet and helmet his back to Conan as he peered up the corridor in the direction of the growing tumult and wildly waving lanterns.",
        "They glared about, bellowing, unable to penetrate the darkness which their torches served to illuminate for only a few feet in any direction, and then rushed down the alley at random-heading in the direction opposite to that taken by Conan and Albiona.",
        "Then she held the long sweep, cunningly bound in place by ropes to aid her, while Conan snatched a few hours of sleep.",
        "Scouts brought in the news that Conan had taken up his position in the Gpralian hills, which began to rise a few miles beyond the river."
    ],
    "fiendish": [
        "Conan tensed himself for one mad berserker onslaught--to thrust the glowing fagot into that fiendish countenance and throw his life into the ripping sword-stroke."
    ],
    "fierce": [
        "Conan was a Cimmerian by birth, one of those fierce moody hillmen who dwelt in their gloomy, cloudy land in the north.",
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "Conan's fierce personality was like a dash of ice-water in their whirling blaze of terror.",
        "A louder clash of steel, a sliding rasp, a choking cry from the pirate horde a fierce yell split the morning as Conan's sword plunged through their captain's massive body.",
        "There was a fleeting concussion, a fierce writhing and intertwining of limbs and bodies, and then Conan sprang clear, every thew quivering from the violence of his efforts; blood started where the grazing fingers had torn the skin.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with appreciation.",
        "A fierce cry rose from Conan's lips as his sword went up; a pale oval of a face was turned toward him, a sword gleamed in a half-seen hand, and Beloso echoed the cry-and then the weary stallion, with a lurch and a groan, missed his footing in the shadows and went heels over head, hurling his dazed rider from the saddle.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight.",
        "The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he strove to tear his leg from the trap."
    ],
    "filmy": [
        "Conan sat on a silken divan in a rich chamber whose filmy curtains the warm breeze billowed."
    ],
    "final": [
        "From that final slaughter, when the Stygians and the Kushites closed in on the trapped remnants, Conan had cut his way clear and fled on a camel with the girl.",
        "Conan fell to voraciously, and Athicus made a final round of the cells, to see that all was in order, and that none should witness the pretended prison break."
    ],
    "fine": [
        "\"They talk each night,\" reminded the governor, his fine eyes shadowed, as he stared closely at Conan.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man."
    ],
    "firece": [
        "The blow, firece and silent, was aimed at the base of Conan's brain."
    ],
    "firm": [
        "As a delicious languor stole over her relaxing limbs and she sank into foamy billows of slumber, her last waking thought was a drowsy recollection of the firm touch of Conan's fingers on her soft flesh.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips."
    ],
    "first": [
        "And he saw that in spite of the handicap of Conan's first hold, and the voluminous robe that lashed and wrapped about the ape-man's limbs and body, Thak's giant strength was swiftly prevailing.",
        "\"The first man who tries to climb over the side, I'll split his skull,\" promised Conan.",
        "She was the first to spring ashore, closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinned pirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyes rolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.",
        "Conan waited with some impatience while the Devi, for the first time in her pampered life, dressed herself.",
        "\"That first tower is held by the acolytes of the Black Seers,\" said Conan.",
        "They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam, but Conan stepped aside to avoid contact with the first.",
        "The first impact of the battle-ax against the wood and its accompanying vibrations sent lances of agony through Conan's swollen feet and hands.",
        "If Conan and his men had not returned by the first tinge of dawn, they were to race back up the river to the fort and report that the forest had again taken its immemorial toll of the invading race.",
        "Conan, his mighty chest heaving and glistening with sweat, the red ax gripped in his blood-smeared hand, glared about him as the first of men might have glared in some primordial dawn, and shook back his black mane.",
        "At the first stroke Conan had bounded up and was racing down the stairs.",
        "Valeria and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door and shot a bolt across it--the first Conan had seen since they had left the outer gate.",
        "Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars."
    ],
    "fit": [
        "\"A rare prize, Conan; fit mate for a chief of the Afghulis.\"",
        "\"You are more fit to inflict torture than to endure it,\" said Conan tranquilly."
    ],
    "fixed": [
        "Conan noticed that his eyes were wide, fixed, and of a peculiar luminous quality."
    ],
    "flat": [
        "Conan followed him, and lying flat on the broad top, they spoke in wary whispers.",
        "Conan was driving his men to the gate, herding them ahead of him, beating them with the flat of his sword; the roar of the water-spout seemed to have robbed them of their faculties.",
        "Conan started toward him to finish the job--for he knew that the black's sudden movement had caused the blade to strike flat--but Muriela threw her arms convulsively about him.",
        "Conan glanced at the sun, just beginning to dip behind the flat-topped houses on the western side of the bazaar, and hitching once more at his belt, moved off in the direction of Aram Baksh's tavern.",
        "Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along the shore, seeking and finding that which Conan desired-a Stygian fisherman in his shallow, flat-prowed boat.",
        "Conan knew that most of the people lay on the flat roofs, among the palms of artificial gardens under the stars."
    ],
    "fleeting": [
        "There was a fleeting concussion, a fierce writhing and intertwining of limbs and bodies, and then Conan sprang clear, every thew quivering from the violence of his efforts; blood started where the grazing fingers had torn the skin.",
        "For a fleeting instant a bronze door was in line with Conan's moving body."
    ],
    "foamy": [
        "As a delicious languor stole over her relaxing limbs and she sank into foamy billows of slumber, her last waking thought was a drowsy recollection of the firm touch of Conan's fingers on her soft flesh."
    ],
    "footed": [
        "He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land."
    ],
    "foreign": [
        "Take the Teeth of Gwahlur and go; return instantly to Keshia; there give the jewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay him alive in the great square.\""
    ],
    "forgetful": [
        "Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight."
    ],
    "forgotten": [
        "\"Come near that I may touch you,\" the creature faltered, and Conan came near unfearingly, his sword hanging forgotten in his hand."
    ],
    "former": [
        "Conan reined the horse aside and followed it southward, going almost at right angles to their former course."
    ],
    "formless": [
        "Conan felt his soul shrivel and begin to be drawn out of his body, to drown in the yellow wells of cosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos that was growing about him and engulfing all life and sanity."
    ],
    "fortunate": [
        "Conan reflected that he had been fortunate in returning from the vampire's chamber by another route than that by which he had been led to it."
    ],
    "foul": [
        "Conan knew that if he fell foul of that mass of taloned muscle and bone, there could be but one culmination.",
        "How the ancient Pelishti had gained lordship over them--and with it eternal exile from humanity--was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate, even if he had had opportunity."
    ],
    "fourth": [
        "Three of the four were down, dying in their own blood, and the fourth was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, stumbling in headlong retreat as he parried frantically, when Conan's spur caught in the surcoat of one of the fallen men.",
        "They mounted until Conan estimated that they were above the level of the fourth floor, and then came out into a cylindrical tower, in the domed roof of which was set the bunch of fire-jewels that lighted the stair."
    ],
    "frantic": [
        "The black went down like a felled tree, gushing blood, and the next instant Conan was seized in a frantic grasp as Sancha sprang up and threw her arms around him in a frenzy of terror and hysterical relief.",
        "So frantic was her pleading that Conan was impressed.",
        "A frantic chorus of expostulation rose, which Conan silenced with a lion-like roar.",
        "Conan's admiration increased to see how well she had recovered her poise after having endured such frantic terror."
    ],
    "free": [
        "These strands were thick as ropes, and Conan knew that once they were coiled about him, his desperate strength would not be enough to tear him free before the monster struck.",
        "Conan glared about, but no other horror appeared, and he set himself to working free of the web.",
        "As he passed that of Conan, his sense of propriety was shocked and outraged to see the prisoner free of his chains and in the act of gnawing the last shreds of meat from a huge beefbone.",
        "Reaching the spot he sought, Conan halted, gripping the wall with his free hand.",
        "Her breath came in gasps; Conan's wrists were free, but his elbows and legs were still bound fast.",
        "Conan's left arm was pinioned among the bone-crushing folds, but his right was free.",
        "Conan tore his sword free as the victim sagged to the floor, gasping and gurgling.",
        "Conan bounded from the bushes, wrenched his ax free and dragged the limp body in among the trees, concealing it from the casual glance.",
        "Conan wrenched his sword free and snatched up an ax.",
        "\"If my hands were free,\" opined Conan, \"I'd soon make a brainless corpse out of you.\"",
        "Conan rose, kicking himself free of the tangling tapestries and the broken table, cursing with the bitterness of his blood-thirsty disappointment.",
        "With a choked gurgle he reeled and went down, and Conan ruthlessly tore his blade free as his victim fell.",
        "Conan's ax rose and fell without pause, and with every stroke a frothing, screaming black giant broke free, mad with hate and the fury of freedom and vengeance.",
        "Conan wrenched his knife free and sprang clear as the great body knotted and looped and Whipped terrifically in its death throes."
    ],
    "frenzied": [
        "Conan, standing frozen, heard her frenzied scream as Natohk's long arm swept her up into the chariot.",
        "There was a frenzied instant when the blades flamed like summer lightning; then the group fell apart and Conan sprang up the stair.",
        "Then with one frenzied crescendo of inhuman ululation they stiffened and lay still, and Conan knew that they were dead."
    ],
    "frightful": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat."
    ],
    "front": [
        "Then Conan's iron hand closed on her wrist and she was jerked headlong into the blinding welter of the leaves, and out again into the hot sunshine above, just as the monster fell forward with his front feet on the crag with an impact that made the rock vibrate.",
        "It had been a shoulder or front leg that struck Conan, and blind monster rushed on, forgettnig the victims whose scent it had been following, in the sudden agony of its death throes."
    ],
    "frosty": [
        "Conan paused a moment on the very edge, fascinated by the great frosty jewels whose gleams dazzled his eyes\u00addiamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, set thick as stars in the shimmering silver."
    ],
    "frozen": [
        "Conan, shaking the blood-drops from his eyes, stared frozen.",
        "Conan, standing frozen, heard her frenzied scream as Natohk's long arm swept her up into the chariot.",
        "Conan glared frozen with repulsion and shaken with nausea.",
        "Conan stood frozen, the girl clinging to him in a frenzy of terror.",
        "In the few seconds Conan stood frozen, hitherto unintelligible phrases in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling clarity."
    ],
    "full": [
        "Still, Conan was better protected than any of his foes except Volmana and Gromel, who were in full armor.",
        "In an instant Conan's cuirass was full of blood.",
        "A low bestial moaning drooled from the loose lips; the head rolled as if in unbearable agony, and the eyes looked full at Conan.",
        "\"And they found a cellar full of corpses?\" asked Conan in good-humored derision.",
        "Conan's eyes were open; they blazed up at him with full intelligence and recognition.",
        "With full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eye and hand and his muscular power against the brute might and ferocity of the man-eater.",
        "Steel flashed blindingly in the sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of armor as Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous stroke of Conan's broadsword.",
        "\"As soon as his belly is full he'll be back,\" muttered Conan.",
        "\"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples,\" quoth Conan, with his mouth full, \"and jab them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than any other chunk of beef."
    ],
    "furious": [
        "With a furious oath Conan struck, and his sword sheared the horrid shape in half."
    ],
    "further": [
        "One of them was just placing something on a ledge of the further wall, and Conan saw it was the one who had tortured the boy.",
        "As he vanished within, Conan sprang recklessly down the wall and glided into the arch that opened into the further court.",
        "With no further comment Conan turned off the trail and hurried down the dim path, and Balthus, after staring after him for a few moments, set out along the road.",
        "Conan listened for what seemed a long time, but which could not have been, for the moon still shone down the hidden shaft, but he heard no further sound.",
        "Public complied so readily that Conan's suspicions were lulled, and without further hesitation he sat down and devoured enough for three men."
    ],
    "furtive": [
        "He lashed out with his heels at a slinking shadow that ducked and bobbed about him--and then about Conan other shadows moved: gray, furtive shadows that closed in on all sides.",
        "Conan found the scene gloomy and unreal; the silence of the people, their furtive haste, the great black stone walls that rose on each side of the streets."
    ],
    "future": [
        "Conan wondered if his own bones would be found at some future date, hanging in their rusty chains."
    ],
    "garrulous": [
        "From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the inns where he slaked his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he met upon the road, Conan sought for news of Beloso."
    ],
    "gaunt": [
        "A gaunt old chief elected himself to this position, shook his tulwar at Conan as a preamble, and shouted accusingly: \"You would not let us go raiding Peshkhauri to rescue our brothers!\"",
        "There, to Conan the Cimmerian, moodily quaffing from a great wine-glass, came a gaunt forester with a bandage about his head and his arm in a sling.",
        "Conan cursed as he rode over blackened expanses that had been rich fields, and saw the gaunt gable-ends of burned houses jutting against the sky."
    ],
    "general": [
        "Let the Teeth of Gwahlur be placed in the care of the general Conan.",
        "Let the Teeth of Gwahlur be placed in the care of the general Conan.",
        "Amalric found it impossible to obtain more than vague general tidings about Conan's movements."
    ],
    "ghastly": [
        "Of the nineteen hundred knights who had ridden south with Conan, scarcely five hundred lived to boast of their scars, and the slaughter among the archers and pikemen was ghastly.",
        "Impelled by some obscure reason, Conan dismounted and stood looking down at the ghastly shape, knowing that he was witness of a thing miraculous and opposed to nature.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight."
    ],
    "ghostly": [
        "Whirling, he glared back the way he had come, and was startled to see a vague ghostly glow vanishing into the forest in the direction Conan had taken.",
        "In the ceilings the green fire-gems were set, and their light was as ghostly and illusive as Conan had predicted."
    ],
    "giant": [
        "Catching her up, Conan tossed her over his giant shoulder and ran on.",
        "And he saw that in spite of the handicap of Conan's first hold, and the voluminous robe that lashed and wrapped about the ape-man's limbs and body, Thak's giant strength was swiftly prevailing.",
        "Conan rushed into the bows, and swinging his great sword, hewed nearly through the giant trunk, which was thicker than a man's body.",
        "Conan spat a curse at him, just as hangings that masked a door swung apart and four giant negroes entered.",
        "She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green lambent eyes.",
        "And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and wondering what connection his master might have with this giant fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian.",
        "Then Conan saw what Topal was staring at, and he felt a faint twitching of the skin between his giant shoulders."
    ],
    "gigantic": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "As it moved into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge sword and in the other a bunch of keys.",
        "The blow knocked the great black body clear across the corridor and horribly the gigantic sinuous shape whipped around it in glistening coils that hid it from view, and the snap and splintering of bones came plainly to Conan's ears.",
        "Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conan was a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "The path followed a fold of rock, winding interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarpment, and once, far below, Conan got a glimpse of the ruin that had fallen--a mighty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a gigantic cliff."
    ],
    "glassy": [
        "Conan, glaring at him, felt his blood turn to ice, and the marrow of his bones to water; for Shukeli's wide-open eyes were glassy and empty, and from the great gash in his belly his entrails hung limply to the floor.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight."
    ],
    "gleeful": [
        "She imagined Conan similarly situated across the corridor, but her feminine vanity prompted her to visualize him as scowling and muttering with chagrin as he cast himself on his solitary couch, and she grinned with gleeful malice as she prepared herself for slumber."
    ],
    "gloomy": [
        "Conan was a Cimmerian by birth, one of those fierce moody hillmen who dwelt in their gloomy, cloudy land in the north.",
        "He had his opportunity to kill Conan, and he let it pass, engrossed in his own gloomy ruminations.",
        "He is called Conan, and is himself a barbarian, one of those gloomy Cimmerians whose ferocity our soldiers have more than once learned to their bitter cost.",
        "Conan found the scene gloomy and unreal; the silence of the people, their furtive haste, the great black stone walls that rose on each side of the streets.",
        "As each masked priest passed through the gloomy portal he was halted briefly by the mysterious guardian and something passed between them, some word or gesture Conan could not make out."
    ],
    "glossy": [
        "\"Beauty like yours might drive a man mad,\" quoth Conan, running his fingers experimentally through the glossy tresses.",
        "Then they regarded Conan cryptically, slit-eyed ebony giants, the torch striking highlights from their glossy skin."
    ],
    "gold": [
        "Conan displayed the gold coin.",
        "The gold door closed behind them, shutting out sound and sight, and Conan darted across the throne-chamber and into the alcove behind the throne."
    ],
    "golden": [
        " IV When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed.",
        "And on the instant crypt, tomb and ancient vanished, and Conan, bewildered, sprang from his couch in the great golden-domed chamber.",
        "Conan glanced through an arched, golden-silled window that let out upon a broad balcony, and swore in surprize to see the dark-blue star-flecked sky.",
        "Conan glared bewilderedly at the cryptic golden door.",
        "Conan stared at the wide flaring ears, the curling proboscis, on either side of which stood white tusks tipped with round golden balls.",
        "Conan the Cimmerian, restless in his plate-armor, stared at the bedecked camel with no great approval, and spoke to Amalric, who rode beside him, resplendent in chain-mail threaded with gold, golden breastplate and helmet with flowing horsehair crest.",
        "Presently Conan grunted in pleasure at the sight of golden and russet globes hanging in clusters among the leaves.",
        "And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips.",
        "Were the souls of the wizards imprisoned in those golden balls?--Ha!\" Conan wheeled as Kerim Shah drew his sword and pointed.",
        "Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the vessel across the ebony table to Conan the Cimmerian.",
        "But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black banner with its golden lion that floated above King Conan's pavilion."
    ],
    "good": [
        "\"The dog knows good wine,\" said Conan, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.",
        "\"In good time,\" muttered Conan, his eyes burning on Thalis ivory limbs.",
        "\"Let us come aboard, good Conan,\" whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods.",
        "Those of the Seers were not good to look at; as they lay twisted and contorted, their hands and feet were exposed to view, and at the sight Yasmina went livid and hid her face against Conan's powerful shoulder.",
        "With a laugh Conan released him and drew back, and the kozak swayed, caught the table edge with his good hand to steady himself.",
        "Among the settlements of the Tauran he was accounted a good runner, but Conan was leaving him behind with maddening ease.",
        "Conan's wrath got the best of his momentary awe.",
        "\"And they found a cellar full of corpses?\" asked Conan in good-humored derision.",
        "\"Let him make the best of it then,\" said Conan grimly.",
        "Conan had handled many coins in the years of his plunderings, and had a good practical knowledge of them.",
        "\"A good enough plan if you were dealing with anyone but Conan."
    ],
    "goralian": [
        "Conan had tamed a bay in the Goralian hills, which had more than once before served as the last Stand of an Aquilonian king."
    ],
    "gory": [
        "The Rakhsha lifted his gory head, and his strange eyes, glazed with agony and approaching death, rested on Conan with recognition.",
        "He tried to fumble with a mangled hand at his tatters, and Conan, understanding what he sought to convey, bent and drew from about his gory waist a girdle of curious aspect."
    ],
    "gpralian": [
        "Scouts brought in the news that Conan had taken up his position in the Gpralian hills, which began to rise a few miles beyond the river."
    ],
    "grand": [
        "Conan believed that this consulting of the oracle was but a ruse to persuade the king of Keshan to accede to Thutmekri's wishes--for he never for a moment doubted that Gorulga was as subtle and devious as all the rest mixed up in this grand swindle."
    ],
    "grassy": [
        "In a grassy swale Conan halted and unsaddled his mount."
    ],
    "gray": [
        "As the monstrous shape with it leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow.",
        "Conan reeled upright in the silver-ceilinged room, with a gray mist coiling about his feet, and saw Baal-pteor lolling on the divan, shaking with silent laughter.",
        "But his eyes were gray and he did not resemble Conan in his features.",
        "Yet aftera while, after a period of time he had no way of estimating, a faint glow became apparent, a sort of slanting gray beam, by which Conan could see, vaguely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even make out the skeleton of the other grille.",
        "Conan, scrambling up, saw the man lying dead with his throat torn out, and a great gray wolf stood over him, head sunk as it smelt the blood that formed a pool on the grass.",
        "Conan scanned the shore-line closely, and finally swung the long sweep and headed inshore at a point where a neck of land jutted into the water, and fir trees grew in a curiously symmetrical ring about a gray, strangely shaped rock.",
        "Somewhere in these primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, men whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic shadows-Conan shuddered strongly.",
        "He lashed out with his heels at a slinking shadow that ducked and bobbed about him--and then about Conan other shadows moved: gray, furtive shadows that closed in on all sides."
    ],
    "great": [
        " IV When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed.",
        "I have marked you well, Conan of Cimmeria, and the stamp of mighty happenings and great deeds is upon you.",
        "Wondering, Conan 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 Conan, bewildered, sprang from his couch in the great golden-domed chamber.",
        "Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece.",
        "The great yellow eyes burned into his, and Conan gave back the glare of a trapped wolf.",
        "Conan tensed, unconsciously straining against his shackles in his abhorrence of dying like a sheep; then he was frozen by a greater horror.",
        "The blow knocked the great black body clear across the corridor and horribly the gigantic sinuous shape whipped around it in glistening coils that hid it from view, and the snap and splintering of bones came plainly to Conan's ears.",
        "With a terrible curse Conan struck as a cobra strikes; the great blade hissed between the bars and Shukeli's laughter broke in a death-scream.",
        "Conan found no reply, but stood holding the stump of the torch, and trailing his great sword.",
        "And in the great cold yellow eyes slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear--the only time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes.",
        "Conan, glaring at him, felt his blood turn to ice, and the marrow of his bones to water; for Shukeli's wide-open eyes were glassy and empty, and from the great gash in his belly his entrails hung limply to the floor.",
        "At the tip of the steel wedge Conan roared his heathen battle-cry and swung his great sword in glittering arcs that made naught of steel burgonet or mail habergeon.",
        "Trocero and his house troops, hewing desperately, cut their way to Conan's side, and the great banner of Koth went down.",
        "Conan sensed the man's great belly shaking in laughter, but it was not derisive.",
        "Conan could sense the great slavering jaws, the tufted tails lashing tawny sides.",
        "Conan knelt beside the great forms, assuring himself that they were indeed beyond power of harm.",
        "Conan paused a moment on the very edge, fascinated by the great frosty jewels whose gleams dazzled his eyes\u00addiamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, set thick as stars in the shimmering silver.",
        "He showed Conan where the hook had caught--a fraction of an inch of the point had sunk under a great blazing jewel on the inner side of the rim.",
        "Conan turned to the gold and ivory altar indicated, and took up a great round jewel, clear as crimson crystal; and he knew that this was the Heart of the Elephant.",
        "Conan laid the jewel on the great ebony table.",
        "Now he had shrunk until the great jewel towered above him like a hill, and Conan saw him cover his eyes with his hands, as if to shield them from the glare, as he staggered about like a madman.",
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain.",
        "The promise had been made, the word kept; whether sorcery or magic or the falling shadow of great green wings had stilled the revelry, Conan could not know, but his way had been made clear.",
        "Conan the Cimmerian, restless in his plate-armor, stared at the bedecked camel with no great approval, and spoke to Amalric, who rode beside him, resplendent in chain-mail threaded with gold, golden breastplate and helmet with flowing horsehair crest.",
        "\"Because I am not so great a fool as he,\" grunted Conan, reseating himself on the boulder and beginning to gnaw a huge beef-bone.",
        "But-\" Conan was dragging him along to where Amalric sat his great war-horse.",
        "Conan likened it in his mind to a great torrent, dwindling gradually as it rushed southward, to run dry at last in the sands of the naked desert.",
        "Conan dazedly realized that he lay on the brink of a great round well, the edge of which was slimy stone.",
        "\"Thalis said the city was one great palace,\" said Conan.",
        "Conan laughed and spread his mighty arms as a great cat might stretch itself, and his gaze sought the deck above.",
        "The realization roused Conan to a greater pitch of endurance.",
        "Conan glanced down into the muck and slime of the alleys below; he listened briefly to the clamor inside and the pleas of the wench; then he dropped her with great accuracy into a cesspool.",
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him.",
        "Conan had brought a great armful of tender branches, well leafed.",
        "Quick as a great cat Conan caught up Olivia and ran.",
        "She saw the pirates clustered about a great fire outside the ruins, and her heart leaped as a group emerged from the interior dragging some object she knew was Conan.",
        "A great spout of blood deluged the sward as the severed member fell, twitching horribly, but even as the sword bit through, the other malformed hand locked in Conan's black mane.",
        "Conan loosened his great blade in its scabbard.",
        "Conan rushed into the bows, and swinging his great sword, hewed nearly through the giant trunk, which was thicker than a man's body.",
        "As they swung onward, Conan stepped quickly behind a great tree, glaring back along the way they had come.",
        "At first Conan thought it to be a great black gorilla.",
        "Instinctively Conan loosened the great sword in its sheath.",
        "Conan of Cimmeria leaned on his great sword upon the white beach, watching the Tigress swinging out on her last voyage.",
        "And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble.",
        "Conan admired the scaly torso, thick as his thigh and obviously of great length, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing.",
        "There was no sound of footsteps, but the great dusky form grew more distinct until Conan recognized the figure of a man.",
        "Khosatral spread his great arms, and Conan, crouching beneath them, slashed at the giant's belly.",
        "With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry from the wall and whirling it, with a muscular effort greater than that required for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head.",
        "Conan shut it and dropped in place the great bars with which it was furnished.",
        "Halting before the great bronze-valved door, Conan caught Octavia by her shoulders and shook her in his intensity.",
        "The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian.",
        "Conan yelled, took a step into the tower, and then native caution jerked him back, just as a great block of stone fell crashing to the floor where his foot had been an instant before.",
        "But quick as the stroke of a great cat, Conan's arm shot across the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd's forearm.",
        "Broken arches opened into other chambers and corridors, and Conan believed he was still in the great palace.",
        "Conan strode like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past.",
        "Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great shadowy palace.",
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world.",
        "Take the Teeth of Gwahlur and go; return instantly to Keshia; there give the jewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay him alive in the great square.\"",
        "\"Tricked us with its damnable caterwauling!\" raved Conan, swinging his great sword about his head in his wrath.",
        "As silently as a great panther, Conan slid over the side and vanished in the bushes.",
        "There, to Conan the Cimmerian, moodily quaffing from a great wine-glass, came a gaunt forester with a bandage about his head and his arm in a sling.",
        "Conan strode through a garden, where great pale blossoms nodded in the starlight, and entered the taproom, where a Stygian with the shaven head of a student sat at a table brooding over nameless mysteries, and some nondescripts wrangled over a game of dice in a corner.",
        "Then: \"Set!\" she screamed, and even as Conan leaped toward her, he saw that a great misshapen hand has fastened itself in her hair.",
        "And like the stroke of twin cobras, the great hands closed on Conan's throat.",
        "They were alone; not even a slave or a page slept on the carpeted floor; but Conan's eyes blazed as they were wont to blaze in the teeth of great peril, and the sword quivered in his hand.",
        "But for the handful in the secret, no one else in the vast host knew that it was not Conan who rode on the great stallion at the head of the army.",
        "Conan, scrambling up, saw the man lying dead with his throat torn out, and a great gray wolf stood over him, head sunk as it smelt the blood that formed a pool on the grass.",
        "She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green lambent eyes.",
        "She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green lambent eyes.",
        "Even now, in the royal hall of Tarantia--\" Abruptly Conan was looking into the great coronation hall.",
        "It was an explosive imprecation from Conan's lips as he started up, his great fists clenched into hammers, his veins on his temples knotting, his features convulsed.",
        "Conan stared at the great beast with strange fascination as he moved to take the food Zelata offered him.",
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows.",
        "Conan smote the table with his clenched fist so that the great board quivered.",
        "Conan rode a great black stallion, the gift of Trocero.",
        "Conan was caught off guard, his eyes dazzled, his brain dazed by the blaze of the great gem.",
        "From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the inns where he slaked his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he met upon the road, Conan sought for news of Beloso.",
        "Conan found the scene gloomy and unreal; the silence of the people, their furtive haste, the great black stone walls that rose on each side of the streets.",
        "Gripping his great knife under his mantle, Conan hoped the slimy brute would pass him by.",
        "Conan wrenched his knife free and sprang clear as the great body knotted and looped and Whipped terrifically in its death throes.",
        "Then the bronze doorway was before him, and Conan felt the night wind blowing across the desert, and saw the stars, and the starlit desert across which streamed the great black shadow of the pyramid.",
        "We must crush Conan before his army grows too great, before the central provinces rise.",
        "It was Valeria who exclaimed, but they both started violently, and Conan wheeled like a cat, his great sword flashing into his hand.",
        "And as the monstrous mouth gaped like that of a great snake, Conan drove his spear into the red angle of the jawbone hinge.",
        "Conan lashed down with his great sword and felt the blade shear through something that might have been flesh and bone, and cut deep into the stair beneath.",
        "Conan stooped and cut the ropes that held the prince, and Olmec slid cautiously from under the great ball and rose, shaking his head like a bull and muttering imprecations as he fingered his lacerated scalp.",
        "Conan rose, shaking the splinters from his great shoulders, blinking blood and dust out of his eyes."
    ],
    "green": [
        "Conan stared aghast; the image had the body of a man, naked, and green in color; but the head was one of nightmare and madness.",
        "The promise had been made, the word kept; whether sorcery or magic or the falling shadow of great green wings had stilled the revelry, Conan could not know, but his way had been made clear.",
        "Conan saw the white glimmer of his naked body amid the green water, as the black giant held his captive deep under the surface.",
        "The giant followed his fellows, and presently Conan saw them emerge from the archway by which he had gained access to that castle of horror, and file away across the green slopes, in the direction from which he had come.",
        "In a brooding twilight, Conan moved across the bare green floor.",
        "A wind blowing across the green floor would have made more noise than Conan's slinking feet.",
        "As Conan rounded the tower he saw their green robes twinkling up the mountain ahead of him.",
        "At first Conan thought it was Zogar Sag himself who stood wrapped in green fire.",
        "She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green lambent eyes.",
        "Conan did not see what she cast upon the fire, but the wolf whimpered in his dreams, and a green smoke gathered and billowed up into the hut.",
        "\"Green fire-stones,\" growled Conan.",
        "In the ceilings the green fire-gems were set, and their light was as ghostly and illusive as Conan had predicted.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight.",
        "Warily the two Tecuhltli led Conan along the hall beyond the bronze door, and through chamber after chamber shimmering in the green fire."
    ],
    "grim": [
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "\"Pirates!\" whispered Conan, a grim smile on his thin lips.",
        "Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conan was a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel.",
        "No smile bent Conan's grim lips at the thought, but his eyes were lit with iron laughter.",
        "Conan made no more noise laden with their grim burden than he had made when unencumbered.",
        "The grim guardsmen about Conan's tent died where they stood, smiting and thrusting, and over their mangled corpses beat the hoofs of the conquerors.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Conan recognized the grim finality of his position.",
        "There was but one grim splotch on the landscape-a charred expanse of ashes and blackened stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the stately villa of one of his staunchest supporters.",
        "Again Conan felt the presence of a grim reality behind the veil of material illusion.",
        "While Conan watched him with a flicker of grim amusement in his eyes, the merchant rose and hurriedly shut the door, first craning his neck up and down the corridor to be sure that no slave was loitering about.",
        "Conan shivered; he was in a temple of some Stygian god, if not Set himself, then someone only less grim.",
        "Conan's heart beat quicker as he gazed at the grim black wedge that stood etched against the stars, and his impatience to close with Thutothmes in whatever conflict the meeting might mean was not unmixed with a fear of the unknown.",
        "Then began a grim game, as Tolkemec sought to circle about Conan and get the barbarian between him and the altar or a metal door, while Conan sought to avoid this and drive home his knife."
    ],
    "grisly": [
        "That brain had crashed to dust beneath Conan's battle-axe on the night the king had fought for his life with the assassins the mad rhymer had led into the betrayed palace, but the shuddersome words of that grisly song still rang in the king's ears as he stood there in his chains.",
        "Sure that life had fled, at least life as he understood it, Conan set to work on his grisly task and quickly brought forth something that he felt must be the strange being's heart, though it differed curiously from any he had ever seen.",
        "The handle was made in the shape of a serpent, head lifted on arched neck; and Conan had a suspicion that that metal head would come to grisly life under his hand.",
        "But Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding himself alone with that awful scream still shuddering through the forest in grisly echoes, put on an extra burst of speed and plunged after him.",
        "Albiona cried out faintly and clung closer to Conan, staring fearfully at the black, arched doors, as if expecting the entry of some grisly shape of darkness."
    ],
    "gusty": [
        "The hill steed reared wildly under the unfamiliar clash of the Kothic armor, and Conan's gusty laugh rose above the din as he led them to where the eastern ridge branched away from the plateau.",
        "Looking down, Conan vented a gusty sigh of relief."
    ],
    "haired": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\""
    ],
    "hairy": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "But as Conan tugged vainly at his sword, wedged deep in the hairy body, the frothing jaws snapped spasmodically shut, an inch from the Cimmerian's face, and he was hurled to the sward by the dying convulsions of the monster.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "With a stride Conan reached him and bent slightly to stare full into his hairy face."
    ],
    "half": [
        "Conan cursed and panic surged through him as he glared into the darkness that pressed against the half-circle of light.",
        "Conan half expected some other monstrosity to leap at him with the opening of the door, but in the dimmer light he saw only the vague sweep of the arch above, a dully gleaming block of gold, and a half-moon glimmer on the stone."
    ],
    "handed": [
        "He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land."
    ],
    "hard": [
        "The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian.",
        "Conan made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head back hard against the wood and held it rigid there.",
        "This statement brought a savage grin to Conan's hard lips.",
        "\"But it's hard for you Hyborians to learn the ways of the outlands,\" said Conan.",
        "These swept Conan with their searching gaze but rode on, for the solitary rider's harness promised no plunder, but only hard strokes.",
        "Conan threw up his right arm, and the dog-like jaws closed on it, driving the mail links into the hard flesh.",
        "She felt herself half dragged, half lifted up the winding stair, while Conan released her and turned on the steps, his ears and instincts telling him their foes were hard at their backs."
    ],
    "harmless": [
        "They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam, but Conan stepped aside to avoid contact with the first."
    ],
    "haunted": [
        "The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of the valley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era and race, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whatever immeasurably distant date the people of Alkmeenon had found and entered the haunted valley.",
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows."
    ],
    "haunting": [
        "Either was within arm's length; for the fraction of a split second the chest teetered ont he edge of the bridge, and Muriela clung by one arm, her face turned desperately toward Conan, her eyes dilated with the fear of death and her lips parted in a haunting cry of despair."
    ],
    "headless": [
        "\"When I come to Aquilonia again he will be but a headless corpse rotting on Traitor's Common,\" Conan ground his teeth.",
        "Their pikes jangled against each other as they thrust shut the gate, chin on shoulder, and Conan asked testily: \"Have you never seen a headless body before?\""
    ],
    "headlong": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "Conan burst through the men at the gate, and his feet spurned the sward in his headlong charge.",
        "Conan checked his headlong rush just in time to keep from toppling into the pool, and he sprang back, thrusting his men behind him with mighty swings of his arms.",
        "At such headlong speed had Conan covered the ground that before the clattering echoes of that fall had died away, he was hacking at the door.",
        "Three of the four were down, dying in their own blood, and the fourth was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, stumbling in headlong retreat as he parried frantically, when Conan's spur caught in the surcoat of one of the fallen men."
    ],
    "hearted": [
        "Already they openly sing _The Lament for the King_ in which Rinaldo lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.'"
    ],
    "heathen": [
        "At the tip of the steel wedge Conan roared his heathen battle-cry and swung his great sword in glittering arcs that made naught of steel burgonet or mail habergeon.",
        "But of the plunder of the accursed city, only the sullen waters of Zarkheba could tell where Conan had thrown it with a heathen curse.",
        "But on his dais in the royal pavilion Conan groaned in anguish of spirit, and cursed with strange heathen oaths."
    ],
    "heavy": [
        "Wondering, Conan 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.",
        "Conan had a glimpse of his vulture-like figure through the thick-set bars, as he slid home the grate; then the heavy outer door clanged, and silence fell like a pall.",
        "Arbanus' intent was obvious--to employ his footmen to sweep away the infantry of Conan, and open the way for an overpowering charge of his heavy cavalry.",
        "Flinging down his useless sword, Conan caught up a heavy bench and hurled it with all his power.",
        "\"Are you a magician, that you have conquered the Black Seers of Yimsha, Conan of Ghor?\" she asked, as they went down the path, with his heavy arm about her supple waist.",
        "A heavy bronze door showed in the stone at a point even with the head of the ladder, but it did not give to Conan's efforts.",
        "Slightly taller than Conan and much heavier, Baal-pteor loomed before him, a daunting image of muscular development.",
        "In a winding street a short distance away, Conan halted and checked his companion with a heavy hand on her naked shoulder.",
        "A few feet farther up the corridor there was a heavy bolted door, and before it stood a bearded Nemedian in corselet and helmet his back to Conan as he peered up the corridor in the direction of the growing tumult and wildly waving lanterns.",
        "In an instant Conan had drawn the massive bolt that barred the door-too heavy for one ordinary man to have manipulated-and called hastily to Albiona, who ran staggering to him.",
        "Conan ripped a heavy ax from the rail and wheeled cat-like to meet the rush of the sailors.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man.",
        "Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his massive shoulder against it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves and thighs.",
        "Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side.",
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "heedless": [
        "\"Then I'm headed in the direction I wanted to go, after all,\" muttered Conan, heedless of that last remark."
    ],
    "helpless": [
        "Conan lay stiffly, like a dead man, but his eyes glared up at them, wide open, and blazing with helpless fury.",
        "But in the meanwhile he, Conan, must lie helpless in a darkened cell, while others led his spears and fought for his kingdom.",
        "The five women of the Xotalancas were down with thir throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull."
    ],
    "hidden": [
        "Conan listened for what seemed a long time, but which could not have been, for the moon still shone down the hidden shaft, but he heard no further sound."
    ],
    "hideous": [
        "The third Irakzai was a decapitated corpse, and the hideous finger was lifting again when Conan felt the bursting of the invisible barrier.",
        "In the dying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in the blue glare.",
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "high": [
        " IV When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed.",
        "Conan held out the broken weapon and the high-priest cried out and fell to his knees.",
        "The sea and the ways of the sea were neverending mysteries to Conan, whose homeland was among the high hills of the northern uplands.",
        "Conan, on the high-pitched poop, was on a level with the pirate's deck.",
        "Conan had not approached the high priest himself, because in the game of bribery he would have no chance against Thutmekri, and to attempt it would be to play directly into the Stygian's hands.",
        "Gorulga was booming forth some kind of a chant in an accent unfamiliar to Conan, and which was probably some invocation in the ancient tongue of Alkmeenon, handed down from generation to generation of high priests.",
        "But the face was higher than his own, and there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes, a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before him.",
        "They were high, meant to keep out the man-eaters; but Conan was no swamp-bred black man; his thews had been steeled in boyhood on the sheer cliffs of his native hills.",
        "A bent figure came hobbling swiftly along, lantern held high, and its light shone full on Conan and the girl.",
        "Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars."
    ],
    "honest": [
        "Conan was too honest to lie to her.",
        "\"I'll stake my kingdom that this is nothing but honest roast beef,\" answered Conan."
    ],
    "hooded": [
        "But the hooded men turned suddenly toward the seemingly blank wall, and Conan saw a door gape there."
    ],
    "hooked": [
        "With his skin crawling with the horror that madness always instils in the sane, Conan passed his sword through the black man's body; then, avoiding the hooked hands that clawed at him as N'Gora sank down, he strode to the edge of the cliff."
    ],
    "horrible": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and swords of the priests were ineffective."
    ],
    "horrid": [
        "With a furious oath Conan struck, and his sword sheared the horrid shape in half."
    ],
    "horrific": [
        "He 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 King Conan's skin crawled."
    ],
    "hot": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "Yet though Conan followed him with the speed of hot passion, the walls and towers of Dagon loomed through the trees before the man came with dagger-reach of the giant.",
        "After that Keshia would be too hot for the Cimmerian, nor had Conan had any intention of returning when he rode way in the night.",
        "Then Conan's iron hand closed on her wrist and she was jerked headlong into the blinding welter of the leaves, and out again into the hot sunshine above, just as the monster fell forward with his front feet on the crag with an impact that made the rock vibrate."
    ],
    "huddled": [
        "Conan's sword flailed down, crunching through flesh and bone, and then the Cimmerian was dragging Balthus around the altar, past a huddled shaggy bulk on the floor, to a door at the back of the long hut.",
        "When the last huddled village fell behind him, Conan left the road, which was beginning to bend toward the northwest, toward the distant passes."
    ],
    "hued": [
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "huge": [
        "Conan of Aquilonia, blood from unbandaged wounds caking his huge limbs, faced his captors.",
        "As it moved into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge sword and in the other a bunch of keys.",
        "In the silence that followed, Conan heard a sudden beat of wings in the stars, and recoiled as a huge bat-like creature alighted beside him.",
        "\"Because I am not so great a fool as he,\" grunted Conan, reseating himself on the boulder and beginning to gnaw a huge beef-bone.",
        "It was the impact of the charge Conan feared, when the huge wedge should crash against his thin ranks.",
        "Conan shook the red drops from his sword, grinned with unaffected pleasure, stretched like a huge cat--and abruptly stiffened, the expression of satisfaction on his face being replaced by a stare of bewilderment.",
        "2 Shortly after Murilo left the dungeon where Conan the Cimmerian was confined, Athicus brought the prisoner a platter of food which included, among other things, a huge joint of beef and a tankard of ale.",
        "As he passed that of Conan, his sense of propriety was shocked and outraged to see the prisoner free of his chains and in the act of gnawing the last shreds of meat from a huge beefbone.",
        "It was not until, with a sobbing cry, the creature lifted huge hands and rushed towards him, that Conan recognized N'Gora.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "At the end of the procession there stalked a huge Negro with an unusually wicked cast of countenance, at the sight of whom Conan scowled."
    ],
    "human": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "In its mighty talons it snatched up the dripping head and soared skyward, and Conan stood struck dumb, for from the eagle's throat boomed human laughter, in the voice of Pelias the sorcerer.",
        "A human foot, bare or softly shod, had made that sound, and Conan, with the wariness of a wolf, turned quickly aside.",
        "Conan grunted uncertainly; fearless as a wounded tiger as far as human foes were concerned, he had all the superstitious dreads of the primitive.",
        "Conan, I have suspected that Nabonidus was not wholly human!",
        "\"Human words, I'll swear,\" answered Conan; \"but in what tongue I can't say.\"",
        "Were Conan slain or carried away captive, her only choice would lie between giving herself up to the human wolves of the sea, or remaining alone on that devil-haunted island.",
        "Through the belling of the voice, which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered laws of a sane planet, a human sound anchored Conan's mind from its flight through spheres of madness.",
        "The Turanian slumped to the floor and lay motionless, and the Master laughed and hurled the object to fall before Conan's feet--a still-quivering human heart.",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "\"No human being could have found our trail so quickly, or followed us so swiftly,\" muttered Conan.",
        "\"I'd like to see what you look like,\" muttered Conan, working his ax free, \"you who leave a track like a bird, who burn like a flame and yet speak with a human voice.\"",
        "Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the vampire that was Akivasha shrinking back from the glow of the jewel; and with her, other less human shapes scuttled or shambled into the darkness.",
        "I can crush Conan without human aid!\""
    ],
    "humored": [
        "\"And they found a cellar full of corpses?\" asked Conan in good-humored derision."
    ],
    "hyborian": [
        "And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so prominently in Hyborian legendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pigments and marble.",
        "\"Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyborian horsemen fighting in a solid wedge such as I could teach them,\" answered Conan."
    ],
    "hypnotic": [
        "Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight."
    ],
    "hyrkanian": [
        "\"An Hyrkanian craft, from the cut of her rigging,\" muttered Conan.",
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.",
        "\"What's it to you, you Hyrkanian spy?\" snarled Conan."
    ],
    "hysterical": [
        "An hysterical gurgle rose in Natala's throat, and Conan gave her an admonitory shake.",
        "The black went down like a felled tree, gushing blood, and the next instant Conan was seized in a frantic grasp as Sancha sprang up and threw her arms around him in a frenzy of terror and hysterical relief.",
        "An hysterical giggle rose to Sancha's lips, and Conan quickly clapped his hand over her mouth, stifling the sound before it could betray them.",
        "There was a quiver in her voice as she ended, and Conan began to sweat, believing she was on the point of an hysterical collapse."
    ],
    "icy": [
        "An icy trickle disturbed Conan's spine, and he wondered if, after all, Pelias were a man, or merely another demon of the pits in a mask of humanity.",
        "Conan turned and peered into the darkness, an icy finger crawling along his spine."
    ],
    "idiotic": [
        "\"These folk must be either fools or heroes,\" grunted Conan, \"to lie down and dream their idiotic dreams, knowing they might awaken in his belly.\""
    ],
    "idle": [
        "Conan thought of Tsotha's last abominable threat, and groaned in sick fury, knowing it was no idle boast.",
        "Happenings and events that had seemed meaningless before now flashed into his mind, with their true significance, bringing a realization that Conan spoke no idle boast."
    ],
    "ill": [
        "\"He is dead,\" muttered Conan, ill at ease to hear these wild words.",
        "As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shaman attended to the cuts on his hands and limbs, the cargo of the ill-fated Argus was quickly shifted aboard the Tigress and stored in small cabins below deck."
    ],
    "illusive": [
        "\"A shell-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,\" Conan muttered, frowning as he sought to capture the illusive image.",
        "In the ceilings the green fire-gems were set, and their light was as ghostly and illusive as Conan had predicted.",
        "Conan, towering above the field, strode through the welter smiting right and left, but Valeria moved like an illusive phantom, constantly shifting, and thrusting and slashing as she shifted."
    ],
    "immemorial": [
        "If Conan and his men had not returned by the first tinge of dawn, they were to race back up the river to the fort and report that the forest had again taken its immemorial toll of the invading race."
    ],
    "immobile": [
        "Conan made no comment; his scarred dark countenance was immobile."
    ],
    "immortal": [
        "\"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples,\" quoth Conan, with his mouth full, \"and jab them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than any other chunk of beef."
    ],
    "immovable": [
        "Red jets of agony shot through Conan's brain, yet he held himself immovable; not by the twitching of a muscle or the flicker of an eyelash did he betray the pain of the hurt that left a scar he bore to the day of his death."
    ],
    "impatient": [
        "Slowly Hadrathus shook his head, and Conan slammed the beef-bone down on the table in a gust of impatient wrath.",
        "\"It must be Beloso,\" muttered Conan, feeling the pulse in his temples pounding with impatient eagerness."
    ],
    "imperial": [
        "Through his princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presence of Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do him honor, he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops, and Prospero, King Conan's right\u00adhand man.",
        "In the forgetfulness of the moment Conan had used his imperial tone, and the brute in leather instinctively obeyed the knife-edge of command in that voice."
    ],
    "imperious": [
        "\"You have my leave to go!\" answered the false goddess, with an imperious gesture of dismissal that set Conan grinning again, and the priests backed out, ostrich plumes and torches rising and falling with the rhythm of their genuflexions."
    ],
    "impersonal": [
        "Conan watched in an almost impersonal fascination, envying the monster his inhuman strength."
    ],
    "importunate": [
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion."
    ],
    "impossible": [
        "Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which demoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation of sanity.",
        "The stallion reared above him, neighing terribly, hoofs lifted, eyes and teeth flashing and ears laid back, but Conan leaped and caught his mane with a display of sheer strength that seemed impossible, and dragged the beast down on his forelegs.",
        "Amalric found it impossible to obtain more than vague general tidings about Conan's movements."
    ],
    "impresonal": [
        "Muriela's voice came plainly to Conan's ears in the breathless silence, and it seemed cold, detached, impresonal, though he winced at the Corinthian accent."
    ],
    "impressed": [
        "Conan snorted at this bit of necromancy, but he was nevertheless impressed.",
        "Somewhat impressed, Conan tried the keys dubiously, expecting to meet only failure and a burst of mocking laughter."
    ],
    "impulsive": [
        "Man or demon, the suffering of the captive touched Conan's wayward and impulsive heart."
    ],
    "incoherent": [
        "At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas for mercy and protection with piteous protestations of her innocence of any malign intention.",
        "Incoherent sounds issued from behind the gag and Conan bent and tore it away, evoking a bellow of fear from the captive; for his action caused the iron ball to lurch down until it nearly touched the broad breast."
    ],
    "incredible": [
        "When he had first stirred, Conan had thought that by some incredible chance the eunuch was alive; but the man was dead--had been dead for hours."
    ],
    "indebted": [
        "Conan decided that he was indebted to Murilo and, since he was a man who discharged his obligations eventually, he determined to carry out his promise to the young aristocrat."
    ],
    "ineffective": [
        "Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and swords of the priests were ineffective."
    ],
    "inevitable": [
        "Conan's wolves braced themselves for the inevitable concussion.",
        "Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep."
    ],
    "inexorable": [
        "He let go of Conan's throat and grasped his wrists, trying to tear away those inexorable fingers.",
        "Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep."
    ],
    "inexplicable": [
        "Many of Conan's ways were inexplicable to the civilized people he ruled, and one of them was his insistence on sleeping alone in his chamber or tent.",
        "Conan sensed an inexplicable something about him that set him apart-an alien aura of Time and Space, a sense of tremendous and sinister antiquity.",
        "The leader carried an ebon staff Which supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong-and often sinister-part in the Stygian religion."
    ],
    "inferior": [
        "They evidently thought that they were herding him into the corner themselves, and Conan found time to reflect that they probably looked on him as a member of a lower order, mentally inferior to themselves."
    ],
    "inhuman": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "With an inhuman cry Conan caught up his fallen sword and leaped into the path of the hurtling horror.",
        "Conan's poniard had sunk again and again into his torso, shoulders, and bull-like neck; he was streaming blood from a score of wounds; but, unless the blade quickly reached some absolutely vital spot, Thak's inhuman vitality would survive to finish the Cimmerian and, after him, Conan's companions.",
        "The black man gave no heed to Conan's shout as he charged, eyes rolled up to display the whites, teeth gleaming, face an inhuman mask.",
        "Conan watched in an almost impersonal fascination, envying the monster his inhuman strength.",
        "Then with one frenzied crescendo of inhuman ululation they stiffened and lay still, and Conan knew that they were dead.",
        "Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of the slayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers and swords of the priests were ineffective.",
        "Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image-the image of a bearded face of calm inhuman beauty.",
        "Before the inhuman feet behind him could resume their slithering advance at the fading of the distant illumination, Conan was running down the corridor."
    ],
    "inland": [
        "\"This is one of the many islands that dot this inland sea,\" said Conan."
    ],
    "inner": [
        "He showed Conan where the hook had caught--a fraction of an inch of the point had sunk under a great blazing jewel on the inner side of the rim.",
        "Tarascus was turning toward an inner door when Conan tore aside the hangings and leaped like a blood-mad panther into the room."
    ],
    "inscrutable": [
        "So Publio sat and shook with terror of the silent, inscrutable figure which watched him, until the three Khitans filed back into the room, with the news that Conan's body did not lie upon the sands."
    ],
    "insolent": [
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion."
    ],
    "instant": [
        "The chair glanced from Thak's slanted black skull; but the stunned monster momentarily relaxed his rending grasp, and in that instant Conan, gasping and streaming blood, plunged forward and sank his poniard to the hilt in the ape-man's heart."
    ],
    "instinctive": [
        "Conan's answer was neither kingly nor dignified, but characteristically instinctive in the man, whose barbaric nature had never been submerged in his adopted culture.",
        "Conan's manner of fighting was unorthodox, but instinctive and natural as that of a timber wolf.",
        "Conan glared at her with instinctive antagonism; she was not looking at him, but at the woman opposite him."
    ],
    "insurmountable": [
        "Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found no insurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Keshani priests."
    ],
    "intact": [
        "The very garments she wore were intact--and Conan scowled at that, a vague uneasiness stirring at the back of his mind."
    ],
    "intense": [
        "As for Conan, it will afford me intense pleasure, if we take him alive, to impale him on the palace steps.\"",
        "Conan had been told dark tales of hidden temples where intense smoke drifted up incessantly from black altars where kidnaped humans were sacrificed before a great coiled serpent, whose fearsome head swayed for ever in the haunted shadows."
    ],
    "intensive": [
        "Conan was feeling his way by instinct and an intensive familiarity with the river."
    ],
    "intent": [
        "Conan played idly with her curly yellow locks, seemingly intent only upon his conquest."
    ],
    "intolerable": [
        "Gagging with intolerable repugnance, Conan turned to flee the sight; and he was suddenly aware that the pinnacles of Dagon no longer glimmered through the trees."
    ],
    "invincible": [
        "Conan went with it, bruised, battered, invincible, hanging on like a bulldog to the hilt of his saber which he could not withdraw, tearing and ripping at the shuddering bulk with the poniard in his left hand, goring it to ribbons."
    ],
    "invisible": [
        "Conan urged him on impatiently, and the horse snorted and threw his head up and down, quivering and straining as if against an invisible barrier.",
        "The third Irakzai was a decapitated corpse, and the hideous finger was lifting again when Conan felt the bursting of the invisible barrier.",
        "Conan strode like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past.",
        "But Conan's practised fingers, stealing over it, pressed here and there knobs invisible to the casual eye."
    ],
    "involuntary": [
        "He cast his staff and it fell at the feet of Conan, who recoiled with an involuntary cry.",
        "They would slay him merely for being a stranger; if he were recognized as Amra, the corsair chief who had swept their coasts with steel and flame-an involuntary shudder twitched Conan's broad shoulders."
    ],
    "iridescent": [
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain."
    ],
    "ivory": [
        "Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the vampire that was Akivasha shrinking back from the glow of the jewel; and with her, other less human shapes scuttled or shambled into the darkness."
    ],
    "jagged": [
        "Conan the Cimmerian sat at the head of that column, near the jagged end of a wooden beam that stuck up out of the ground."
    ],
    "jeweled": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "Conan saw a yellow-skinned woman, loaded with jeweled ornaments but otherwise nude, staring at him with wide eyes.",
        "The jeweled giant rose, taking his pipes from his lips--and at that instant Conan was among the startled blacks with a tigerish bound.",
        "Conan got one glimpse of her as they thundered by--a slim, dark girl in silk trousers and a jeweled breast-band, flattening herself against the ravine wall.",
        "Olgerd Vladislav filled his jeweled goblet with crimson wine from a golden jug and thrust the vessel across the ebony table to Conan the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "keen": [
        "In the center space a marble pyramid was spired by a slim column, and on its pinnacle sat or squatted something that Conan supposed to be an image until his keen eyes detected life in it.",
        "But the keen blade whickered between side and lifted arm, and to Yasmina it seemed that Khemsa merely brushed his open palm lightly against Conan's bull-neck."
    ],
    "kingly": [
        "Conan's answer was neither kingly nor dignified, but characteristically instinctive in the man, whose barbaric nature had never been submerged in his adopted culture."
    ],
    "known": [
        "Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep."
    ],
    "kothic": [
        "The hill steed reared wildly under the unfamiliar clash of the Kothic armor, and Conan's gusty laugh rose above the din as he led them to where the eastern ridge branched away from the plateau.",
        "\"Aye, send your dogs at me, big-belly,\" sneered Conan with bitter scorn, \"You were always a coward, you Kothic cur.\""
    ],
    "kushite": [
        "These figures, not much longer than a man's hand, represented men, and so cleverly were they made that Conan recognized various racial characteristics in the different idols, features typical of Zingarans, Argoseans, Ophireans and Kushite corsairs."
    ],
    "laden": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "Conan made no more noise laden with their grim burden than he had made when unencumbered."
    ],
    "lambent": [
        "She called to the wolf and it trotted to her side like a great dog and rubbed its giant shoulder against her knee, while it gazed at Conan with great green lambent eyes.",
        "He passed on down the alley in the direction of the beach, and once Conan thought he must be carrying a lantern among his garments, for he caught a flash of lambent light, just as the man vanished."
    ],
    "large": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "His hands were the largest Conan had ever seen.",
        "All that Amalric knew certainly was that a large force of Gundermen and northern Bossonians was somewhere to the north of him, beyond the Shirki, and that Conan with a smaller force of Poitanians and southern Bossonians was somewhere to the south-west of him."
    ],
    "last": [
        "Conan thought of Tsotha's last abominable threat, and groaned in sick fury, knowing it was no idle boast.",
        "\"I found it necessary to leave the rendezvous at Tortage before moonrise last night,\" answered Conan.",
        "Conan knew, and as he saw the broad line slip into the waves and stream through the water toward them, without altering its shape or course, he called up his last ounce of reserve strength so fiercely that the oar snapped in his hands.",
        "As he passed that of Conan, his sense of propriety was shocked and outraged to see the prisoner free of his chains and in the act of gnawing the last shreds of meat from a huge beefbone.",
        "As a delicious languor stole over her relaxing limbs and she sank into foamy billows of slumber, her last waking thought was a drowsy recollection of the firm touch of Conan's fingers on her soft flesh.",
        "But on the deck of the Tigress, on a pyre of broken benches, spear-shafts and leopardskins, lay the Queen of the Black Coast in her last sleep, wrapped in Conan's scarlet cloak.",
        "One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat--to fall back dead, even as Conan felt the tearing agony of its grip.",
        "Conan of Cimmeria leaned on his great sword upon the white beach, watching the Tigress swinging out on her last voyage.",
        "Even Conan sighed with relief when the horses scrambled up over the last rim.",
        "\"There was a difference last night,\" growled Conan.",
        "When the last huddled village fell behind him, Conan left the road, which was beginning to bend toward the northwest, toward the distant passes.",
        "\"I'll ride to Poitain, if it may be,\" Conan said at last.",
        "\"Then I'm headed in the direction I wanted to go, after all,\" muttered Conan, heedless of that last remark.",
        "Conan fell in behind the last man and suited his gait to their measured pace.",
        "\"Conan is wiser than you,\" he said at last.",
        "Conan had tamed a bay in the Goralian hills, which had more than once before served as the last Stand of an Aquilonian king.",
        "\"Black last night against the moon,\" grunted Conan, his eys clouding with the abysmal superstition of the barbarian.",
        "\"We crossed it last night, and slept in the open without seeing any,\" returned Conan.",
        "Conan bent over Topal, seeing that the man was at his last gasp."
    ],
    "late": [
        "Conan delayed the blow he was loth to deliver, until it was too late.",
        "Conan stared at that expanse of empty waste shimmering tawnily in the late sunlight as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky.",
        "But Conan had already killed one of the two he had chosen, and the leap of the Aquilonian was a second late."
    ],
    "latter": [
        "Conan, hurrying through the darkness as swiftly as he dared, felt the latter Wall for doors or windows, but found none.",
        "But Conan had seen no signs to indicate the latter possibility."
    ],
    "leafy": [
        "Suddenly tenser than a tiger who stalks his prey, Conan glided deeper into the thicket, and a moment later drew aside a leafy branch and glared at the face that had not moved.",
        "As Valeria plunged into the leafy screen a backward glance showed her the titan rearing up fearsomely on his massive hindlegs, even as Conan had predicted."
    ],
    "lean": [
        "Before Tsotha could toss the globe in his left hand, Conan's sword sheared through his lean neck.",
        "He was a tall man, tall as Conan, though of leaner build.",
        "The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-nailed fingers clawed at Conan's mightily-muscled arm as he croaked his warning.",
        "Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for Messantia."
    ],
    "least": [
        "To Conan the serpent was the least horror of them; he almost felt a kinship with it when he remembered the weeping, tittering obscenity, and the dripping, mouthing thing that came out of the well.",
        "Sure that life had fled, at least life as he understood it, Conan set to work on his grisly task and quickly brought forth something that he felt must be the strange being's heart, though it differed curiously from any he had ever seen.",
        "\"It was not a shadow, at least,\" answered Conan cryptically.",
        "Xaltotun had assured him that he was not to be harmed, and Conan believed that it was in the man's interest to preserve him, at least for the time being."
    ],
    "left": [
        "But even as the hosts cried out, the wizard stepped in, too quick for the eye to follow, and apparently merely laid an open hand on Conan's left forearm, from the ridged muscles of which the mail had been hacked away.",
        "Before Tsotha could toss the globe in his left hand, Conan's sword sheared through his lean neck.",
        "Conan went with it, bruised, battered, invincible, hanging on like a bulldog to the hilt of his saber which he could not withdraw, tearing and ripping at the shuddering bulk with the poniard in his left hand, goring it to ribbons.",
        "Natala obeyed, and holding the tiny point of light in his left hand and his bloody saber in his right, Conan started down the corridor.",
        "Yet Conan was not dead; breaking his fall with his left hand, he slashed at Khemsa's legs even as he went down, and the Rakhsha avoided the scythe-like swipe only by a most unwizardly bound backward.",
        "Conan charged after it, up the left-hand stair, uncertain as to just what he had seen whip up those steps, but in a berserk mood that drowned the nausea and horror whispering at the back of his consciousness.",
        "Conan's left arm was pinioned among the bone-crushing folds, but his right was free.",
        "Sparks flashed blue as Conan parried the blade, and the next instant the madman was stretched senseless in the dust from a thundering buffet of Conan's left fist.",
        "Suddenly Conan's long left arm shot out and ripped the mask from the man's head, disclosing the pallid features.",
        "It glows like living flame--\" But Conan sprang suddenly up and smote his right fist into his left palm like a thunderclap."
    ],
    "legged": [
        "Conan and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door, and between them and the ring of warriors another man sat cross-legged.",
        "\"We encountered a bench-legged monstrosity about the size of a mastodon,\" said Conan casually, holding out his wine goblet which Techutl filled with evident pleasure."
    ],
    "legitimate": [
        "All Conan secretly desired was employment to give him legitimate excuse for remaining in Keshan long enough to locate the hiding place of the Teeth of Gwahlur."
    ],
    "leisurely": [
        "Conan brained him with the beef bone, took his poniard and his keys, and made a leisurely departure.",
        "Conan saddled and rode westward at a more leisurely gait."
    ],
    "leprous": [
        "As the monstrous shape with it leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow."
    ],
    "less": [
        "Roars and howls and yells set the black warriors to trembling, but all this noise, Conan noted, came from farther back in the jungle, as if the beasts no less than men shunned the black waters of Zarkheba.",
        "Conan was rising slowly, shaken and dazed by the cruel craft of that blow which, delivered with an art forgotten of men before Atlantis sank, would have broken like a rotten twig the neck of a lesser man.",
        "Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them.",
        "And in the excitement tongues buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for which he had sought for weeks--the overheard whisper of a lesser priest that sent the Cimmerian stealing out of Keshia the night before the dawn when the priests were to start.",
        "Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the vampire that was Akivasha shrinking back from the glow of the jewel; and with her, other less human shapes scuttled or shambled into the darkness."
    ],
    "lethal": [
        "Conan's head jerked up and a lethal flame lit his blue eyes."
    ],
    "level": [
        "Conan did not leave the gate until he was sure all his men who yet lived were out of the castle and started across the level meadow."
    ],
    "lifeless": [
        "Glaring down at his lifeless enemy, dripping poniard in hand, sweat glistening on his broad breast, Conan poised like a statue, listening intently."
    ],
    "lighted": [
        "Swearing luridly, Conan ran back down the passage and into the alcove, glaring out into the lighted corridor, just as Zenobia came running up it, her dark eyes dilated with terror.",
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction.",
        "These Conan and Valeria avoided, keeping always to the lighted chambers."
    ],
    "like": [
        "Conan had a glimpse of his vulture-like figure through the thick-set bars, as he slid home the grate; then the heavy outer door clanged, and silence fell like a pall.",
        "In the silence that followed, Conan heard a sudden beat of wings in the stars, and recoiled as a huge bat-like creature alighted beside him.",
        "Conan's poniard had sunk again and again into his torso, shoulders, and bull-like neck; he was streaming blood from a score of wounds; but, unless the blade quickly reached some absolutely vital spot, Thak's inhuman vitality would survive to finish the Cimmerian and, after him, Conan's companions.",
        "\"I'll dress Conan's hurts, if you will fetch me bandages and the like,\" said Murilo, and Nabonidus nodded, and moved toward the door that led into the corridor.",
        "A frantic chorus of expostulation rose, which Conan silenced with a lion-like roar.",
        "Yet Conan was not dead; breaking his fall with his left hand, he slashed at Khemsa's legs even as he went down, and the Rakhsha avoided the scythe-like swipe only by a most unwizardly bound backward.",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "The dust was not so thick, nor Conan's hawk-like sight so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial characteristics.",
        "Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river.",
        "Conan threw up his right arm, and the dog-like jaws closed on it, driving the mail links into the hard flesh.",
        "Conan ripped a heavy ax from the rail and wheeled cat-like to meet the rush of the sailors.",
        "But with a lion-like bound Conan left the bridge and hit like a cat on his feet on the runway between the benches."
    ],
    "likely": [
        "A short life and a merry one, say I--and with Conan the Throat-slitter in command, life is likely to be both merry and short."
    ],
    "limbed": [
        "He was as tall as Conan, though not so heavy-limbed.",
        "Conan recognized them by their straighter features and hah-, their rangier, cleaner-limbed build."
    ],
    "limp": [
        "The world was swimming to Conan's sight, when with a convulsive shudder the frame that strained against his stiffened and then went limp.",
        "Sancha went up on Conan's broad shoulder, hanging limp as a corpse, to be dumped unceremoniously on to the deck as the Barachan took the wheel, gasping orders to his skeleton of a crew.",
        "Conan bounded from the bushes, wrenched his ax free and dragged the limp body in among the trees, concealing it from the casual glance.",
        "At a word from Zabibi, Conan gave the limp body into the black's arms and saw the young officer laid on a velvet divan.",
        "\"I had to do that much, for my own self-respect!\" panted Valeria, facing Conan across the limp corpse."
    ],
    "lipped": [
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion."
    ],
    "lithe": [
        "It was like traversing a tunnel, and Conan felt Albiona's lithe limbs trembling in his arms."
    ],
    "little": [
        "There was little favor in the gaze he bent on Conan.",
        "For a little space Conan stood motionless.",
        "\"Why, you sacrilegious little hussy!\" rumbled Conan.",
        "Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women.",
        "Even the elements seemed to work for Conan now; the broad purple sail bellied to a stiff breeze that held day by day, needing little aid from the oars."
    ],
    "live": [
        "Conan leaped high, clearing a couch--with a quick wheel the fiend ran up the wall, and the strand, leaping off the floor like a live thing, whipped about the Cimmerian's ankle.",
        "Conan waded through the mist as through a surf, and his knife lunged upward like a live thing.",
        "Conan sprang up, his eyes like live coals.",
        "Tascela sprang--not toward Conan, but toward the wand where it shimmered like a live thing on the floor."
    ],
    "livid": [
        "As a thunderbolt strikes, Conan struck, hurtling through the ranks by sheer power and velocity, until he came to Strabonus, livid among his palace troops.",
        "Those of the Seers were not good to look at; as they lay twisted and contorted, their hands and feet were exposed to view, and at the sight Yasmina went livid and hid her face against Conan's powerful shoulder."
    ],
    "loaded": [
        "Then the blacks had lifted Conan-for so loaded with chains was he that he could not walk-and carried him from the chamber."
    ],
    "lofty": [
        "The sun was sinking toward the distant crags when Conan, his garments hacked to tatters and the mail under them reeking and clotted with blood, his knife dripping and crusted to the hilt, strode over the corpses to where Yasmina Devi sat her horse among her nobles on the crest of the ridge, near a lofty precipice.",
        "Conan passed into a broad, lofty hall, lined with tall columns, between which arches gaped, their doors long rotted away.",
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world.",
        "Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river."
    ],
    "logical": [
        "It was not because of any logical reasoning process that Conan remained motionless, since reason might have told him--since he was doomed anyway--to goad the snake into striking and get it over with; it was the blind black instinct of self-preservation that held him rigid as a statue blasted out of iron.",
        "Conan wondered if it was following him, though he could think of no logical reason for such a supposition."
    ],
    "long": [
        "Conan faced them, not a naked man 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 his long sword in his hand.",
        "She could dimly see that Conan still sat on the boulder; she glimpsed the long blue glimmer of his blade.",
        "Conan, standing frozen, heard her frenzied scream as Natohk's long arm swept her up into the chariot.",
        "She obeyed without question, and when she turned from her task she saw Conan rapidly tying together the long tough strips of silk to make a rope, one end of which he fastened to the leg of the massive ivory table.",
        "These figures, not much longer than a man's hand, represented men, and so cleverly were they made that Conan recognized various racial characteristics in the different idols, features typical of Zingarans, Argoseans, Ophireans and Kushite corsairs.",
        "Under the ebon skin long, rounded muscles rippled, and Conan did not doubt that the monster could rend an ordinary man limb from limb.",
        "Thither Conan took his way, suiting his long stride to his companion's gait.",
        "Thrusting Belit aside, Conan bounded up, his sword a long silver glitter in the moonlight, his hair bristling at what he saw.",
        "The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms.",
        "Conan ripped out a sulfurous oath and the long blade quivered in his grip as the muscles rose in ridges on his brown arm.",
        "She glimpsed the flicker of steel, heard the lightning crack of stroke, parry and counterstroke, and the crunch of bone as Conan's long knife split the other's skull.",
        "Conan's long knife splintering through the teak panels roused the startled echoes.",
        "Then before Conan's gaze, the wizard vanished--simply disappeared like a burst bubble, and something long and undulating darted up one of the smaller stairs that led up to left and right from the landing.",
        "\"Constantius does not desire a long siege; so he will march with his warriors into the plain, where he expects to scatter Conan's forces at one stroke.",
        "Conan crouched inside the doorway for what seemed a long time.",
        "Conan's sword flailed down, crunching through flesh and bone, and then the Cimmerian was dragging Balthus around the altar, past a huddled shaggy bulk on the floor, to a door at the back of the long hut.",
        "\"They're not afraid of anything, very long,\" grunted Conan.",
        "Conan reached his long arm for the wine-jug.",
        "Noiselessly Conan coiled his long legs under him; his naked sword was in his right hand, and when he struck it was as suddenly and murderously as a tiger lunging out of the dark.",
        "OF THAT LONG ride in the chariot of Xaltotun, Conan knew nothing.",
        "Conan listened for what seemed a long time, but which could not have been, for the moon still shone down the hidden shaft, but he heard no further sound.",
        "Conan was panting as if after long conflict, trembling in every limb.",
        "The people cheered; long lines of steel-clad Nemedian warriors looked grimly on, and nobles long in disfavor at Conan's court strutted and swaggered with the emblem of Valerius on their sleeves.",
        "Suddenly Conan's long left arm shot out and ripped the mask from the man's head, disclosing the pallid features.",
        "Then she held the long sweep, cunningly bound in place by ropes to aid her, while Conan snatched a few hours of sleep.",
        "Conan scanned the shore-line closely, and finally swung the long sweep and headed inshore at a point where a neck of land jutted into the water, and fir trees grew in a curiously symmetrical ring about a gray, strangely shaped rock.",
        "It was a long start Zorathus had, but Conan rode steadily on, knowing that he was traveling faster than the burdened merchants could travel.",
        "But though Conan kept a man on the masthead day and night, they did not sight a long, low, black galley fleeing southward ahead of them.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man.",
        "They traversed a long, dark, vaulted corridor in which, Conan noticed uneasily, the skull on the staff glowed phosphorescently.",
        "Conan wondered if he dared fade into some dark alley; but hesitated, uncertain, and down the long dark street they padded silently, while such folk as they met turned their heads away and fled from them.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers.",
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "loose": [
        "A low bestial moaning drooled from the loose lips; the head rolled as if in unbearable agony, and the eyes looked full at Conan.",
        "The invaders' numbers had engulfed the nineteen hundred knights of Conan, but about this compact wedge, which hewed deeper and deeper into the looser formation of their foes, the knights of Koth and Ophir swirled and smote in vain.",
        "The thing glowed all over now with a weird phosphorous radiance, and this glow was in Conan's eyes, blinding him, as suddenly the heaving billowing mass fell away from beneath him, the saber tearing loose and remaining in his locked hand."
    ],
    "lost": [
        "So Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell.",
        "Conan sprang at him from behind, trying to catch him unaware and disarm him, but the madman wheeled and lunged at him, screaming like a lost soul."
    ],
    "loth": [
        "Conan delayed the blow he was loth to deliver, until it was too late."
    ],
    "loud": [
        "A louder clash of steel, a sliding rasp, a choking cry from the pirate horde a fierce yell split the morning as Conan's sword plunged through their captain's massive body.",
        "Conan lifted his knife and smote, and the watchers were dumbfounded to see his blow checked apparently in midair, with the loud clang of steel that meets an unyielding substance.",
        "Conan hurled his ax with deadly aim, but the warrior's mouth was already open for a yell of warning, and it rang loud above the din, cut short as he dropped with a shattered skull."
    ],
    "low": [
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "A low bestial moaning drooled from the loose lips; the head rolled as if in unbearable agony, and the eyes looked full at Conan.",
        "Natala saw it and gave a low choking cry, for which Conan did not punish her.",
        "They evidently thought that they were herding him into the corner themselves, and Conan found time to reflect that they probably looked on him as a member of a lower order, mentally inferior to themselves.",
        "The sight stirred some dim recollection in his mind; then Conan heeded the altar no longer, for on the lower steps of the stair stood four black-robed figures.",
        "Just as Balthus began to fear they would run into the savages who seemed to be howling just ahead of them, Conan swung away from the river in a wide semicircle that carried them to a low rise from which they could look over the forest.",
        "Only from beyond it came the muffled sounds of a struggle, a scream, faintly heard, and a low laugh that made Conan's blood congeal in his veins.",
        "Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel.",
        "A low tree, a few yards below the parapet, received Conan's weight, as he dropped noiselessly into the branches.",
        "But though Conan kept a man on the masthead day and night, they did not sight a long, low, black galley fleeing southward ahead of them.",
        "Over the cloak that was drawn about his lower features, the Stygian's piercing eyes regarded Conan sharply."
    ],
    "loyal": [
        "As if sensing his doubt, the leader touched his arm lightly and said: \"Fear not, King Conan; we are your loyal subjects.\""
    ],
    "luminous": [
        "Conan noticed that his eyes were wide, fixed, and of a peculiar luminous quality."
    ],
    "lurid": [
        "Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the walls reflecting the lurid glow of the torches.",
        "Conan's gaze, following the curve of the arch that swept away from the ledge on which they stood, caught a glint of light that was not the lurid phosphorus of the cavern."
    ],
    "lustful": [
        "So Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell."
    ],
    "luxuriant": [
        "No sound disturbed the morning quiet as Conan stole to the foot of the wall, which rose sheer from the luxuriant growth."
    ],
    "mad": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "That brain had crashed to dust beneath Conan's battle-axe on the night the king had fought for his life with the assassins the mad rhymer had led into the betrayed palace, but the shuddersome words of that grisly song still rang in the king's ears as he stood there in his chains.",
        "Conan tensed himself for one mad berserker onslaught--to thrust the glowing fagot into that fiendish countenance and throw his life into the ripping sword-stroke.",
        "Yet the mad black eyes glared up at Conan with no dimming of their feral light, the lips writhed awfully, and the hands groped, as if searching for the severed head.",
        "Across the sea of heads and spears Conan's madmen saw Amalric's riders forging steadily through the rout, to the rise and fall of axes and maces, and a mad joy of victory exalted each man's heart and made his arm steel.",
        "\"Are you mad, to ask?\" laughed Conan, coming swiftly toward his erstwhile chief.",
        "\"Beauty like yours might drive a man mad,\" quoth Conan, running his fingers experimentally through the glossy tresses.",
        "Tarascus was turning toward an inner door when Conan tore aside the hangings and leaped like a blood-mad panther into the room.",
        "Conan's ax rose and fell without pause, and with every stroke a frothing, screaming black giant broke free, mad with hate and the fury of freedom and vengeance.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers."
    ],
    "maddened": [
        "Conan cursed blackly, maddened by the sight of the stuff just out of his reach, and turned to look for some means of obtaining it.",
        "3 When Conan wheeled to see the tapestry settling back in place and to hear Natala's muffled cry, he hurled himself against the wall with a maddened roar."
    ],
    "maddening": [
        "Among the settlements of the Tauran he was accounted a good runner, but Conan was leaving him behind with maddening ease."
    ],
    "magnetic": [
        "Conan sensed that some unseen magnetic force was pulling Yara to the gem."
    ],
    "main": [
        "Conan had intended entering by the main entrance and forcing Servio to show him the room where the Zingaran slept."
    ],
    "malformed": [
        "A great spout of blood deluged the sward as the severed member fell, twitching horribly, but even as the sword bit through, the other malformed hand locked in Conan's black mane.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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."
    ],
    "malign": [
        "At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas for mercy and protection with piteous protestations of her innocence of any malign intention."
    ],
    "malignant": [
        "Conan sensed a malignant intelligence; the plant could see him, and he felt its hate emanate from it in almost tangible waves."
    ],
    "mangled": [
        "\"They may find the rope,\" grunted Conan, slinging the precious jars across his shoulders, wincing at the contact with his mangled flesh.",
        "Then, with a burst of fury that left a heap of mangled corpses along the gunwales, Conan was over the rail and on the deck of the Tigress.",
        "He tried to fumble with a mangled hand at his tatters, and Conan, understanding what he sought to convey, bent and drew from about his gory waist a girdle of curious aspect.",
        "The grim guardsmen about Conan's tent died where they stood, smiting and thrusting, and over their mangled corpses beat the hoofs of the conquerors."
    ],
    "manifest": [
        "A peculiar prickling made itself manifest among the sort hairs at the base of Conan's scalp."
    ],
    "manlike": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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."
    ],
    "many": [
        "\"This is one of the many islands that dot this inland sea,\" said Conan.",
        "Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings.",
        "It was the actual body of a woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form unblemished for so many ages Conan could not even guess.",
        "\"Not many of that breed this side of Velitrium,\" grunted Conan.",
        "He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is a nobody without royal or even noble blood.",
        "Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the throne of Aquilonia.",
        "Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the throne of Aquilonia.",
        "Many of Conan's ways were inexplicable to the civilized people he ruled, and one of them was his insistence on sleeping alone in his chamber or tent.",
        "Conan had handled many coins in the years of his plunderings, and had a good practical knowledge of them.",
        "Many who won't know me as king of Aquilonia will remember me as Conan of the Barachan pirates, or Amra of the black corsairs."
    ],
    "masked": [
        "As each masked priest passed through the gloomy portal he was halted briefly by the mysterious guardian and something passed between them, some word or gesture Conan could not make out."
    ],
    "massive": [
        "Conan felt the skin twitch between his massive shoulders.",
        "With an embarrassed grunt, Conan disengaged Thalis's clinging arms and put her aside with one massive arm.",
        "She obeyed without question, and when she turned from her task she saw Conan rapidly tying together the long tough strips of silk to make a rope, one end of which he fastened to the leg of the massive ivory table.",
        "Conan slept against his pillar, his head fallen upon his massive breast.",
        "A louder clash of steel, a sliding rasp, a choking cry from the pirate horde a fierce yell split the morning as Conan's sword plunged through their captain's massive body.",
        "On the pyramid among the fallen towers sat Conan the Cimmerian like an iron statue, chin propped on massive fists.",
        "She idly inspected her smooth bosom, and then sank upon Conan's lap and passed her supple arms about his massive neck.",
        "They did not see Yasmina, for she was hidden by Conan's massive body.",
        "Knots and bunches of muscle started out of the massive arms, and Conan beat his head forward and spat savagely at Constantius's face.",
        "It was not until they were poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voiced a startled yelp and would have fallen but for Conan's massive arm about her.",
        "\"I saw again in the battlefield whereon I was born,\" said Conan, resting his chin moodily on a massive fist.",
        "In an instant Conan had drawn the massive bolt that barred the door-too heavy for one ordinary man to have manipulated-and called hastily to Albiona, who ran staggering to him.",
        "With a muttered oath of surprize, Conan caught up Albiona in one massive arm, and followed his unknown befriender.",
        "As Valeria plunged into the leafy screen a backward glance showed her the titan rearing up fearsomely on his massive hindlegs, even as Conan had predicted.",
        "Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his massive shoulder against it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves and thighs."
    ],
    "material": [
        "Again Conan felt the presence of a grim reality behind the veil of material illusion."
    ],
    "meaningless": [
        "Happenings and events that had seemed meaningless before now flashed into his mind, with their true significance, bringing a realization that Conan spoke no idle boast."
    ],
    "measured": [
        "Conan fell in behind the last man and suited his gait to their measured pace."
    ],
    "mercenary": [
        "\"Conan, a captain of the mercenary spearmen,\" he answered, emptying the wine-cup at a gulp and holding it out for more."
    ],
    "merciless": [
        "Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel."
    ],
    "mere": [
        "They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam, but Conan stepped aside to avoid contact with the first."
    ],
    "merry": [
        "A short life and a merry one, say I--and with Conan the Throat-slitter in command, life is likely to be both merry and short.",
        "A short life and a merry one, say I--and with Conan the Throat-slitter in command, life is likely to be both merry and short."
    ],
    "mighty": [
        "I have marked you well, Conan of Cimmeria, and the stamp of mighty happenings and great deeds is upon you.",
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "It was a gust of deep laughter from Conan's mighty chest.",
        "\"His task is done, and hell gapes for him again,\" remarked Pelias pleasantly; politely affecting not to notice the strong shudder which shook Conan's mighty frame.",
        "In its mighty talons it snatched up the dripping head and soared skyward, and Conan stood struck dumb, for from the eagle's throat boomed human laughter, in the voice of Pelias the sorcerer.",
        "Conan saw the mighty form of prince Kutamun across the sea of swords, but the press held him hard, breast to breast with dark shapes that gasped and slashed.",
        "Natala moaned with terror and clasped Conan's mighty neck as if to resist an effort to drag her from her protector's side.",
        "The blade slit the skin of his back, and Conan straightened, driving his saber upward as a man might wield a butcher-knife, with all the power of his mighty shoulders.",
        "Conan laughed and spread his mighty arms as a great cat might stretch itself, and his gaze sought the deck above.",
        "Conan checked his headlong rush just in time to keep from toppling into the pool, and he sprang back, thrusting his men behind him with mighty swings of his arms.",
        "The path followed a fold of rock, winding interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarpment, and once, far below, Conan got a glimpse of the ruin that had fallen--a mighty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a gigantic cliff.",
        "Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird could flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles, and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck.",
        "Conan, his mighty chest heaving and glistening with sweat, the red ax gripped in his blood-smeared hand, glared about him as the first of men might have glared in some primordial dawn, and shook back his black mane.",
        "Conan planted his feet to the heave of the deck, breathed deep and spread his mighty arms.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers."
    ],
    "milky": [
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips."
    ],
    "mingled": [
        "Conan rose in his stirrups, striving to make himself heard above the tumult, and then, with a roar of mingled rage, defiance and disgust, he wheeled and galloped back up the trail."
    ],
    "miraculous": [
        "Impelled by some obscure reason, Conan dismounted and stood looking down at the ghastly shape, knowing that he was witness of a thing miraculous and opposed to nature."
    ],
    "misshapen": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "Then: \"Set!\" she screamed, and even as Conan leaped toward her, he saw that a great misshapen hand has fastened itself in her hair."
    ],
    "mistaken": [
        "Murilo had been mistaken when he assumed this arrest denoted discovery of Conan's planned escape."
    ],
    "misted": [
        "It halted some feet away and Conan glared at it, trying to distinguish its fire-misted outlines."
    ],
    "misty": [
        "It was dim and misty in the chamber, and Conan's hair began to lift on his scalp as he looked.",
        "But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, riverlaced jungle, and mountains."
    ],
    "mixed": [
        "She stopped short and the gourd fell from her hands when she saw them; she wavered as though to run, then realized that Conan was too close to her to allow her to escape, and so stood still, staring at them with a mixed expression of fear and curiosity."
    ],
    "mocking": [
        "Somewhat impressed, Conan tried the keys dubiously, expecting to meet only failure and a burst of mocking laughter."
    ],
    "momentary": [
        "Conan's wrath got the best of his momentary awe."
    ],
    "monstrous": [
        "Conan stared at the sweep of the monstrous shoulders, the breadth of swelling breast, the bands and ridges and clusters of muscles on torso and limbs.",
        "Only Conan seemed unaware what a monstrous dislocating and uprooting of accepted thought and action their invasion constituted, what an unprecedented violation of tradition.",
        "As the monstrous shape with it leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow.",
        "He could not refute the monstrous thing which Conan's words implied.",
        "And as the monstrous mouth gaped like that of a great snake, Conan drove his spear into the red angle of the jawbone hinge.",
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "moody": [
        "Conan was a Cimmerian by birth, one of those fierce moody hillmen who dwelt in their gloomy, cloudy land in the north."
    ],
    "moonlit": [
        "Conan stood in the moonlit silence, the dripping sword sagging in his hand, staring down at the remnants of his enemy."
    ],
    "more": [
        "\"Conan, a captain of the mercenary spearmen,\" he answered, emptying the wine-cup at a gulp and holding it out for more.",
        "Conan, it's more than flesh and blood we fight!\"",
        "Conan had shielded Natala all he could, and the rough life of the camp had given her more stamina and strength than the average woman possesses; but even so, she was not far from collapse.",
        "After more arguments, it was decided to bind Conan and take him along with them, his fate to be voted on later.",
        "A wind blowing across the green floor would have made more noise than Conan's slinking feet.",
        "She seemed to derive considerable amusement from this bit of rough horse-play, but Conan paid no more heed to her.",
        "Conan felt sure that the mummy and this parchment was more than a hundred years old.",
        "Conan made no more noise laden with their grim burden than he had made when unencumbered.",
        "\"Conan, more depends on you than you realize.",
        "It was in the darkness before dawn that King Conan stirred on his couch, which was no more than a pile of silks and furs thrown on a dais, and awakened.",
        "Conan wasted no more breath on his dusky betrayer.",
        "Even the drop of dynastic blood Valerius boasted had more hold on the minds of men than the memory of Conan and the freedom and power he had given the kingdom.",
        "It took more than one man, even such a man as Conan, to wreak all that slaughter in the alley outside the tower.",
        "Amalric found it impossible to obtain more than vague general tidings about Conan's movements.",
        "Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars."
    ],
    "mortal": [
        "Into that blackness she had seen Conan vanish, locked in mortal combat with the unknown demon, and the only sounds that had come to her straining ears had been the panting gasps of the barbarian, the impact of struggling bodies, and the thud and rip of savage blows.",
        "But the blow was not mortal, as Conan knew the instant he struck."
    ],
    "most": [
        "Conan dragged him to his feet and again the dagger slashed, and most of the curly beard fell to the floor.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Conan glared at it with some curiosity, noticing the state of the bare bones, most of which were splintered and broken; the skull which had fallen from the vertebrae, was crushed as if by some savage blow of tremendous force.",
        "Conan knew that most of the people lay on the flat roofs, among the palms of artificial gardens under the stars."
    ],
    "motionless": [
        "It was not because of any logical reasoning process that Conan remained motionless, since reason might have told him--since he was doomed anyway--to goad the snake into striking and get it over with; it was the blind black instinct of self-preservation that held him rigid as a statue blasted out of iron.",
        "As Conan came forward, his eyes fixed on the motionless idol, the eyes of the thing opened suddenly!",
        "For a little space Conan stood motionless.",
        "The Turanian slumped to the floor and lay motionless, and the Master laughed and hurled the object to fall before Conan's feet--a still-quivering human heart."
    ],
    "motley": [
        "It was a motley army Conan had assembled, in the wild hours following his return to his capital."
    ],
    "mouthed": [
        "Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor through which the sea-breeze swept."
    ],
    "much": [
        "Any other man would have already died there, and Conan himself did not hope to survive, but he did ferociously wish to inflict as much damage as he could before he fell.",
        "Evidently Conan had spent much time among civilized men, though that contact had obviously not softened him, nor weakened any of his primitive instincts.",
        "Conan was as much a part of this wilderness as Balthus was alien to it.",
        "Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for Messantia.",
        "This much Conan saw at a glance that likewise included the ship itself.",
        "\"I had to do that much, for my own self-respect!\" panted Valeria, facing Conan across the limp corpse."
    ],
    "muddy": [
        "\"It is true the water was muddy, and the people of Tanasul said that the river rose perhaps a foot yesterday; but that was not enough to prevent Conan's crossing.\""
    ],
    "muffled": [
        "3 When Conan wheeled to see the tapestry settling back in place and to hear Natala's muffled cry, he hurled himself against the wall with a maddened roar.",
        "Only from beyond it came the muffled sounds of a struggle, a scream, faintly heard, and a low laugh that made Conan's blood congeal in his veins.",
        "From beyond a door opposite the one by which Conan had entered there sounded a woman's scream, faint and muffled in the distance."
    ],
    "murderous": [
        "In juxtaposition to his girl, the sight sent a red wave of murderous fury through Conan's brain.",
        "He wheeled and launched his hoofs through the bars just as the tribesman, backing away from Conan's murderous swipes, stumbled against them."
    ],
    "murky": [
        "Thereafter Conan kept the lookout watch himself, but no other horror came crawling up from the murky depths, and as dawn whitened over the jungle, he sighted the black fangs of towers jutting up among the trees."
    ],
    "muscled": [
        "Conan turned to Yasmina, his red knife still in his hand, his blue eyes smoldering, blood oozing from wounds on his thickly muscled arms and thighs."
    ],
    "muscular": [
        "Conan pointed with a muscular brown arm toward the east, banded in dazzling gold by the lifting sun.",
        "Flinging aside the dying beast, Conan grappled the crippled horror and, with a muscular effort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, he heaved upright, gripping the struggling, bearing fiend in his arms.",
        "With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry from the wall and whirling it, with a muscular effort greater than that required for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head.",
        "Slightly taller than Conan and much heavier, Baal-pteor loomed before him, a daunting image of muscular development.",
        "With full realization of the odds, Conan matched his speed of eye and hand and his muscular power against the brute might and ferocity of the man-eater.",
        "Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his massive shoulder against it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves and thighs.",
        "Conan glanced back as he went out the door, at that shambles where the dead lay on the smoldering floor, blood-stained dark limbs knotted in attitudes of fierce muscular effort, dark faces frozen in masks of hate, glassy eyes glaring up at the green fire-jewels which bathed the ghastly scene in a dusky emerald witchlight.",
        "Conan had discarded the remnants of his tattered, blood-soaked shirt, and stood with his remarkable muscular development impressively revealed."
    ],
    "musical": [
        "Its musical tinkle reached Conan's ears through the silence of the starlight."
    ],
    "mute": [
        "For a brief space the assassins crowded him 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 king's fury, though Conan himself was bleeding from wounds on arm, neck and legs."
    ],
    "mysterious": [
        "With a slight start Conan realized that the mummy in the cavern must be the remains of the writer of the manuscript, the mysterious Pelishti, Bit-Yakin.",
        "An uneasy feeling rose in Conan that this had not happened by chance, or without design; a conviction that the mysterious Stygian galley had come into the harbor of Messantia on a definite mission.",
        "As each masked priest passed through the gloomy portal he was halted briefly by the mysterious guardian and something passed between them, some word or gesture Conan could not make out.",
        "They claim that word has come to them by some mysterious means that Conan is returning to reconquer his domain."
    ],
    "nailed": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-nailed fingers clawed at Conan's mightily-muscled arm as he croaked his warning."
    ],
    "naked": [
        "Conan faced them, not a naked man 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 his long sword in his hand.",
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "As it moved into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge sword and in the other a bunch of keys.",
        "Conan's steel-trap quickness of eye and muscle had kept him untouched, though the sticky loops had passed him so close they rasped his naked hide.",
        "Conan stared aghast; the image had the body of a man, naked, and green in color; but the head was one of nightmare and madness.",
        "Conan likened it in his mind to a great torrent, dwindling gradually as it rushed southward, to run dry at last in the sands of the naked desert.",
        "So Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell.",
        "Conan's hand fell heavily on her naked shoulder.",
        "In their midst, cringing and naked, stood a youth that Conan recognized as the youngest sailor aboard the Wastrel.",
        "Conan saw the white glimmer of his naked body amid the green water, as the black giant held his captive deep under the surface.",
        "Conan's eyes swept the bloody, naked group, and he cursed to see only a score.",
        "The oiled links of his armor did not clink, and Balthus knew Conan could glide through the deepest thicket or most tangled copse as noiselessly as any naked Pict that ever lived.",
        "A man sagged in his bonds there, naked except for his leathern breeks, whom Balthus recognized as one of Conan's woodsmen.",
        "Conan grunted and tossed his naked broadsword on the couch.",
        "Noiselessly Conan coiled his long legs under him; his naked sword was in his right hand, and when he struck it was as suddenly and murderously as a tiger lunging out of the dark.",
        "Conan caught the glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the day she was born.",
        "Conan, grabbing ineffectually at her, felt his fingers slip from a naked limb, and in an instant she had vanished and the wall showed black as before.",
        "In a winding street a short distance away, Conan halted and checked his companion with a heavy hand on her naked shoulder.",
        "Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul.",
        "On a rack a man was stretched naked, and a glance told Conan that he was dying.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers."
    ],
    "nameless": [
        "Conan, watching her, wondered if she had heard the sounds that might be made by a nameless monster stealing through the midnight chambers, and his skin crawled at the thought.",
        "\"Now listen to me, you sons of nameless dogs, while I tell you what the lord Conan and I have planned to fool the Kshatriyas.\"",
        "Conan strode through a garden, where great pale blossoms nodded in the starlight, and entered the taproom, where a Stygian with the shaven head of a student sat at a table brooding over nameless mysteries, and some nondescripts wrangled over a game of dice in a corner."
    ],
    "narrow": [
        "Conan kicked the window open and stepped out on that narrow band.",
        "Servius hurried on through the darkness without speaking, and with something resembling panic in his manner, and presently led Conan through a small side-door into a narrow, dimly illuminated corridor.",
        "But Conan turned into a narrow bystreet and quickened his pace.",
        "Knives flailed the air wildly as Conan broke through the stumbling, gasping mob and bounded to the narrow bridge that spanned the waist from poop to forecastle, just out of reach of the slaves below.",
        "In the wall near the door there was a complicated contrivance of mirrors which Conan guessed was the Eye Techotl had mentioned, so arranged that a narrow, crystal-paned slot in the wall could be looked through from within without being discernible from without."
    ],
    "native": [
        "Conan yelled, took a step into the tower, and then native caution jerked him back, just as a great block of stone fell crashing to the floor where his foot had been an instant before.",
        "Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found no insurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Keshani priests.",
        "They were high, meant to keep out the man-eaters; but Conan was no swamp-bred black man; his thews had been steeled in boyhood on the sheer cliffs of his native hills.",
        "He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is a nobody without royal or even noble blood."
    ],
    "natural": [
        "Conan's manner of fighting was unorthodox, but instinctive and natural as that of a timber wolf.",
        "Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river.",
        "Bloodshed and violence and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan knew; he could not, and would never, understand the little things that are so dear to civilized men and women."
    ],
    "near": [
        "Conan spat savagely at the word, and Xaltotun, ignoring his fury, took a crystal globe from a near-by table and placed it before him.",
        "Conan stepped out into the nearest square of moonlight, so as to have all the advantage of illumination that he could; for the beast, he knew, could see better than himself in the dark.",
        "Then, returning, he took a gold vessel of wine from a near-by table and was about to fill a slender goblet when Conan impatiently took the vessel from him and lifting it with both hands, drank deep and with gusto.",
        "Publio assented volubly, and Conan emptied the wine vessel, tossed it carelessly into a comer, and strode to a near-by casement, involuntarily expanding his chest as he breathed deep of the salt air.",
        "Conan seated himself on a near-by bench."
    ],
    "necessary": [
        "\"I found it necessary to leave the rendezvous at Tortage before moonrise last night,\" answered Conan."
    ],
    "necromantic": [
        "Perhaps the Stygian girdle about Conan's waist could have told why their necromantic spells had proven so weak and so quickly exhausted."
    ],
    "nemedian": [
        "\"What grudge had those Nemedian dogs against you?\" Conan demanded.",
        "The people cheered; long lines of steel-clad Nemedian warriors looked grimly on, and nobles long in disfavor at Conan's court strutted and swaggered with the emblem of Valerius on their sleeves.",
        "\"Who goes here?\" they shouted, and Conan grit his teeth at the hated Nemedian accent."
    ],
    "nervous": [
        "Conan snarled in nervous exasperation at this servile philosophy, and turned to his men."
    ],
    "neverending": [
        "The sea and the ways of the sea were neverending mysteries to Conan, whose homeland was among the high hills of the northern uplands."
    ],
    "new": [
        "Prince Arpello came before the distracted council and announced himself ready to take over the government of the city until a new king could be decided upon, Conan having no son.",
        "Conan gazed over the billowing waves of spears and wondered what new horror the sorcerer would invoke."
    ],
    "next": [
        "The black went down like a felled tree, gushing blood, and the next instant Conan was seized in a frantic grasp as Sancha sprang up and threw her arms around him in a frenzy of terror and hysterical relief.",
        "In the shadows of the prison walls, Conan paused to decide his next course of action.",
        "Bones snapped under the impact, and the next instant Conan slammed the bolts into place and whirled with desperate haste to meet the man who sprang from the floor and tore into action like a madman.",
        "Sparks flashed blue as Conan parried the blade, and the next instant the madman was stretched senseless in the dust from a thundering buffet of Conan's left fist.",
        "Conan's next move was the obvious one suggested by logic.",
        "Could we not then bring up our entire force at our leisure, catch Conan on this side of the river and crush him, and then, when the flood subsided, which I think it would do the next day, could we not cross the river and destroy the Gundermen?",
        "The next moment Conan was racing up the winding staircase, and through a door that stood open at the head."
    ],
    "nighted": [
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea."
    ],
    "noble": [
        "He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is a nobody without royal or even noble blood."
    ],
    "noiseless": [
        "Grasping his sword firmly, Conan entered, with the slouching gait of a hunting panther, sunken head and noiseless feet.",
        "Conan followed Aram down a corridor lighted by copper lamps, and it did not please him to note his host's noiseless tread."
    ],
    "nomadic": [
        "Far to the eastward, Conan knew, the meadowlands gave way to desert, where there were no cities and the nomadic tribes roamed unhindered."
    ],
    "normal": [
        "Conan's hands were swollen to almost twice their normal size."
    ],
    "northern": [
        "The sea and the ways of the sea were neverending mysteries to Conan, whose homeland was among the high hills of the northern uplands.",
        "And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and wondering what connection his master might have with this giant fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian.",
        "All that Amalric knew certainly was that a large force of Gundermen and northern Bossonians was somewhere to the north of him, beyond the Shirki, and that Conan with a smaller force of Poitanians and southern Bossonians was somewhere to the south-west of him.",
        "Tarascus maintained his position at Galparan, for he feared that Conan's maneuvers were intended to draw him southward, and so let the Gundermen into the kingdom at the northern crossing."
    ],
    "notched": [
        "In the midst of the melee the slaves in the pen broke down the walls and came surging up on the decks, and with fifty blacks freed of their benches Conan abandoned his iron-hewing and bounded up on the bridge to add his notched ax to the bludgeons of his partizans."
    ],
    "nude": [
        "Conan saw a yellow-skinned woman, loaded with jeweled ornaments but otherwise nude, staring at him with wide eyes."
    ],
    "numb": [
        "Conan dragged Balthus after him until the youth's numb brain awoke, and his legs began to move of their own accord."
    ],
    "numbed": [
        "Ferocious triumph surged through Conan's numbed brain."
    ],
    "oaken": [
        "Conan nodded somberly, staring at the red reflections of the firelight on the richly carved oaken panels."
    ],
    "obscure": [
        "Impelled by some obscure reason, Conan dismounted and stood looking down at the ghastly shape, knowing that he was witness of a thing miraculous and opposed to nature."
    ],
    "obvious": [
        "Arbanus' intent was obvious--to employ his footmen to sweep away the infantry of Conan, and open the way for an overpowering charge of his heavy cavalry.",
        "Conan's next move was the obvious one suggested by logic."
    ],
    "occasional": [
        "Their captives were the Freebooters; they hung slackly in their captors' arms, and but for an occasional vague movement or twitching, Conan would have believed them dead."
    ],
    "ogreish": [
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death."
    ],
    "oiled": [
        "The oiled links of his armor did not clink, and Balthus knew Conan could glide through the deepest thicket or most tangled copse as noiselessly as any naked Pict that ever lived."
    ],
    "old": [
        "Conan makes a bad mistake in letting men live who still boast descent from the old dynasty, from which he tore the crown of Aquilonia.",
        "Count Trocero, left by Conan in charge of the city, tried to reassure them, but in their unreasoning terror they remembered old civil wars, and how this same count had besieged Tamar fifteen years before.",
        "By Derketo, Conan, I am a prince of liars, but I do not lie to an old comrade.",
        "Conan went up the stairs and halted at a door he knew well of old.",
        "As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shaman attended to the cuts on his hands and limbs, the cargo of the ill-fated Argus was quickly shifted aboard the Tigress and stored in small cabins below deck.",
        "\"But who were these old ones?\" demanded Conan.",
        "A gaunt old chief elected himself to this position, shook his tulwar at Conan as a preamble, and shouted accusingly: \"You would not let us go raiding Peshkhauri to rescue our brothers!\"",
        "Conan felt sure that the mummy and this parchment was more than a hundred years old.",
        "Conan was animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old racial hate, but Balthus was afire with wrath.",
        "Conan was animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old racial hate, but Balthus was afire with wrath.",
        "He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is a nobody without royal or even noble blood.",
        "\"Crom!\" muttered Conan, staring at the old woman.",
        "\"Then the old witch's smoke showed the truth,\" muttered Conan, feeling a queer chill along his spine.",
        "Conan felt the old tug of the professional fighting-man, to turn his horse and plunge into the fighting, the pillaging and the looting as in the days of old.",
        "Conan felt the old tug of the professional fighting-man, to turn his horse and plunge into the fighting, the pillaging and the looting as in the days of old.",
        "From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the inns where he slaked his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he met upon the road, Conan sought for news of Beloso.",
        "All this Conan knew well, for had he not, in the days of old when he was a Barachan pirate, sailed by night into the harbor of Messantia to discharge strange cargoes?",
        "\"By Crom, Publio,\" said Conan, lowering the vessel but retaining it in his hands, \"you dwell in different quarters than of old.",
        "\"Well,\" retorted Conan, \"you can't put me off like an old cloak.",
        "I am the only man in Argos who knew that the king of Aquilonia was once Conan the buccaneer, in the old days.",
        "\"I know that dive of old,\" grunted Conan.",
        "Conan knew the place of old; he had hidden there before, in his corsair days.",
        "\"An old woman with a pet wolf has wandered up and down the land, proclaiming that King Conan yet lives, and will return some day to reclaim the crown."
    ],
    "oncoming": [
        "Conan stood poised, watching the oncoming monster without a quiver."
    ],
    "only": [
        "And in the great cold yellow eyes slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear--the only time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes.",
        "Into that blackness she had seen Conan vanish, locked in mortal combat with the unknown demon, and the only sounds that had come to her straining ears had been the panting gasps of the barbarian, the impact of struggling bodies, and the thud and rip of savage blows.",
        "Were Conan slain or carried away captive, her only choice would lie between giving herself up to the human wolves of the sea, or remaining alone on that devil-haunted island.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "Indeed, with Conan slain, the only center of the government would be gone.",
        "Somewhat impressed, Conan tried the keys dubiously, expecting to meet only failure and a burst of mocking laughter.",
        "I am the only man in Argos who knew that the king of Aquilonia was once Conan the buccaneer, in the old days.",
        "\"Then if Conan lives,\" muttered Amalric, \"this uprising will not be like the others, for he is the only man living who can unite the Aquilonians.",
        "The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he strove to tear his leg from the trap."
    ],
    "open": [
        "He rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him, shattered his sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of his open hand sent him reeling to the floor.",
        "But even as the hosts cried out, the wizard stepped in, too quick for the eye to follow, and apparently merely laid an open hand on Conan's left forearm, from the ridged muscles of which the mail had been hacked away.",
        "Conan lay stiffly, like a dead man, but his eyes glared up at them, wide open, and blazing with helpless fury.",
        "Conan turned to the open door.",
        "Conan, glaring at him, felt his blood turn to ice, and the marrow of his bones to water; for Shukeli's wide-open eyes were glassy and empty, and from the great gash in his belly his entrails hung limply to the floor.",
        "Pelias sauntered through the opened grille, and Conan crowded through behind him, sweat pouring from his body, shrinking away from the awful shape that slumped on sagging legs against the grate it held open.",
        "Conan, crouching like a panther at bay, saw nothing in the room behind the stricken Nemedian, in the brief instant the door was partly open--unless it was not a trick of the light which made it seem as if a shadow darted across the gleaming floor.",
        "Her yelp was induced by a resounding spank from Conan's open hand.",
        "The impact sent Conan crashing against the wall; the other, the saber torn through his body, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine from groin to broken breastbone.",
        "Conan kicked the window open and stepped out on that narrow band.",
        "As they stepped into the open there was a ripping crash in this thicket, and Conan, bounding aside and carrying the girl with him, narrowly saved them from something that rushed through the air and struck a tree-trunk with a thunderous impact.",
        "Voices boomed outside; then the door was kicked open, and Conan strode in.",
        "But the keen blade whickered between side and lifted arm, and to Yasmina it seemed that Khemsa merely brushed his open palm lightly against Conan's bull-neck.",
        "Conan took a swift stride toward the open doorway, and then halted short, baffled.",
        "Conan stared at that expanse of empty waste shimmering tawnily in the late sunlight as a trapped hawk stares at the open sky.",
        "Conan hurled his ax with deadly aim, but the warrior's mouth was already open for a yell of warning, and it rang loud above the din, cut short as he dropped with a shattered skull.",
        "But Conan knew now why people locked themselves in so securely at night, and why even beggars shunned the open alley and doorless ruins.",
        "Conan drew his sword and strode ahead of her as they advanced through the open gateway.",
        "Closing the door behind him, Conan returned to his horse, mounted, and turned westward, toward the open desert, swinging wide to skirt the sinister belt of palm groves.",
        "Conan's eyes were open; they blazed up at him with full intelligence and recognition.",
        "Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor through which the sea-breeze swept.",
        "Conan looked down into the open waist, whence wafted that sickening abominable odor.",
        "The next moment Conan was racing up the winding staircase, and through a door that stood open at the head.",
        "\"We crossed it last night, and slept in the open without seeing any,\" returned Conan."
    ],
    "opened": [
        "Pelias sauntered through the opened grille, and Conan crowded through behind him, sweat pouring from his body, shrinking away from the awful shape that slumped on sagging legs against the grate it held open."
    ],
    "ophidian": [
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly."
    ],
    "opposed": [
        "Impelled by some obscure reason, Conan dismounted and stood looking down at the ghastly shape, knowing that he was witness of a thing miraculous and opposed to nature."
    ],
    "opposite": [
        "Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river.",
        "Conan shot the bolt into place, crossed the room, opened the opposite door, and looked out.",
        "They glared about, bellowing, unable to penetrate the darkness which their torches served to illuminate for only a few feet in any direction, and then rushed down the alley at random-heading in the direction opposite to that taken by Conan and Albiona.",
        "Conan disappeared through the door opposite that one opening upon the gallery, and Valeria leaned back with her hands clasped behind her head, and thrust her booted legs out in front of her."
    ],
    "ordered": [
        "Through the belling of the voice, which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered laws of a sane planet, a human sound anchored Conan's mind from its flight through spheres of madness."
    ],
    "ordinary": [
        "Conan answered with a searing Cimmerian curse that would have burst the eardrums of an ordinary man, and Tsotha laughed thinly and withdrew.",
        "Under the ebon skin long, rounded muscles rippled, and Conan did not doubt that the monster could rend an ordinary man limb from limb.",
        "Conan was so much stronger than the Irakzai that in ordinary circumstances he could have broken his spine between his hands.",
        "In an instant Conan had drawn the massive bolt that barred the door-too heavy for one ordinary man to have manipulated-and called hastily to Albiona, who ran staggering to him."
    ],
    "other": [
        "Any other man would have already died there, and Conan himself did not hope to survive, but he did ferociously wish to inflict as much damage as he could before he fell.",
        "Whatever other cogitation might have passed through his mind is not to be known; for, leaving the sentence uncompleted, he ran lightly at Conan just as the Cimmerian was perforce employing his ax-arm to wipe the blood from his blinded eyes.",
        "As it moved into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge sword and in the other a bunch of keys.",
        "\"Did Tsotha dig these pits for no other reason than to house his cursed monstrosities?\" asked Conan.",
        "\"Conan, a Cimmerian,\" answered the other.",
        "Conan glared about, but no other horror appeared, and he set himself to working free of the web.",
        "The impact sent Conan crashing against the wall; the other, the saber torn through his body, fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine from groin to broken breastbone.",
        "\"I am Conan,\" the other answered imperturbably.",
        "Then there was a restless movement among the other blacks, and Conan ducked quickly below the balcony wall, not daring to raise his head lest he be seen.",
        "2 Shortly after Murilo left the dungeon where Conan the Cimmerian was confined, Athicus brought the prisoner a platter of food which included, among other things, a huge joint of beef and a tankard of ale.",
        "\"We should have brought fruit for food,\" muttered Conan; \"but doubtless we'll find other islands.",
        "A great spout of blood deluged the sward as the severed member fell, twitching horribly, but even as the sword bit through, the other malformed hand locked in Conan's black mane.",
        "Thereafter Conan kept the lookout watch himself, but no other horror came crawling up from the murky depths, and as dawn whitened over the jungle, he sighted the black fangs of towers jutting up among the trees.",
        "This was Conan, who had wandered into the armed camps of the kozaks with no other possession than his wits and his sword, and who had carved his way to leadership among them.",
        "In the stillness, Conan heard other noises on the landing outside--the beat of wings, and a muttering voice that was like the whining of wind through midnight branches.",
        "Conan half expected some other monstrosity to leap at him with the opening of the door, but in the dimmer light he saw only the vague sweep of the arch above, a dully gleaming block of gold, and a half-moon glimmer on the stone.",
        "She glimpsed the flicker of steel, heard the lightning crack of stroke, parry and counterstroke, and the crunch of bone as Conan's long knife split the other's skull.",
        "Conan stepped forward, sheathing his knife, and the other roared a greeting.",
        "The Turanian did not struggle; they sat their horses almost breast to breast, Conan's fingers locking the other's sword-arm.",
        "Conan narrowly scrutinized the other for a moment, and then nodded, releasing the Turanian's arm.",
        "Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings.",
        "Broken arches opened into other chambers and corridors, and Conan believed he was still in the great palace.",
        "Before they reached the double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the outer steps and was in the hall behind them.",
        "Conan cursed with passion and ran for the other side also.",
        "One falling object struck on one side of Conan and one on the other.",
        "\"Nor any other sane man,\" answered Conan grimly.",
        "Their pikes jangled against each other as they thrust shut the gate, chin on shoulder, and Conan asked testily: \"Have you never seen a headless body before?\"",
        "Conan scowled across at the other shore.",
        "But fear had fought for it when it slew its other victims and Conan was not afraid.",
        "Conan returned to the other door, lifted the bolt, and pressed against it.",
        "One of them was down, disemboweled, before he could strike, and wheeling catlike, Conan evaded the stroke of the other's cudgel and lashed in a whistling counter-cut.",
        "The other end was masked by a rich velvet curtain, and from beyond that curtain came the devilish strains of such music as Conan had never heard, not even in nightmares.",
        "Yet aftera while, after a period of time he had no way of estimating, a faint glow became apparent, a sort of slanting gray beam, by which Conan could see, vaguely, the bars of the door at his elbow, and even make out the skeleton of the other grille.",
        "Conan turned swiftly and ran the other way.",
        "\"How, 'came'?\" inquired Conan, but the other merely bowed again.",
        "\"Is Poitain in revolt then,\" asked Conan, watching the other closely, \"that a man in Aquilonian harness is halted and questioned like a foreigner?\"",
        "He lashed out with his heels at a slinking shadow that ducked and bobbed about him--and then about Conan other shadows moved: gray, furtive shadows that closed in on all sides.",
        "Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the vampire that was Akivasha shrinking back from the glow of the jewel; and with her, other less human shapes scuttled or shambled into the darkness.",
        "\"Have you wondered why the Shirki did not come down in flood and trap Conan on the other bank?",
        "Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side.",
        "A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly.",
        "\"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples,\" quoth Conan, with his mouth full, \"and jab them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than any other chunk of beef."
    ],
    "outer": [
        "Conan had a glimpse of his vulture-like figure through the thick-set bars, as he slid home the grate; then the heavy outer door clanged, and silence fell like a pall.",
        "The soft light bathed him, and they saw he was a counterpart of the man Conan had killed before the outer gate, except that his garments were richer, and ornamented with jewels which twinkled in the uncanny light.",
        "\"Well, get out of here!\" roared Conan, giving him a thrust that sent him staggering headlong toward the outer archway.",
        "CHAPTER 10 Yasmina and Conan Conan passed through the hall quickly enough, traversed the outer chamber and approached the door that led upon the gallery.",
        "Before they reached the double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the outer steps and was in the hall behind them.",
        "Conan blew out the light, stepped to the door and opened it, and ran his hand over the ornaments on the outer side.",
        "Still gripping his captive's throat--for a man can scream incoherently even with his throat slit--Conan dragged him out of the dark chamber and down the cypress-shadowed path, to the iron-bound door in the outer wall.",
        "Valeria and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door and shot a bolt across it--the first Conan had seen since they had left the outer gate."
    ],
    "outraged": [
        "As he passed that of Conan, his sense of propriety was shocked and outraged to see the prisoner free of his chains and in the act of gnawing the last shreds of meat from a huge beefbone."
    ],
    "outstretched": [
        "Striding back from the sentry lines, Conan halted as a slender cloaked figure stayed him with an outstretched hand."
    ],
    "overpowering": [
        "Arbanus' intent was obvious--to employ his footmen to sweep away the infantry of Conan, and open the way for an overpowering charge of his heavy cavalry."
    ],
    "own": [
        "Through his princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presence of Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do him honor, he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops, and Prospero, King Conan's right\u00adhand man.",
        "He is mazed with fear, and might bolt--might even rush to Conan in a panic, and reveal the whole plot, hoping thus to save his own hide.",
        "For a brief space the assassins crowded him 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 king's fury, though Conan himself was bleeding from wounds on arm, neck and legs.",
        "Conan blinked and shook the blood from his own eyes; it seemed to him that the thing was melting and disintegrating into a slimy unstable mass.",
        "\"Aye, when I had only my own life to consider,\" answered Conan.",
        "Conan gave no hint of what his own thoughts might be.",
        "He spat in Conan's face and snatched at his own sword.",
        "He had his opportunity to kill Conan, and he let it pass, engrossed in his own gloomy ruminations.",
        "They turned to their own amusement, and did not notice Conan when he glided like a stalking panther after the chieftain.",
        "Conan, who comprehended none of this, stirred restlessly, and growled something in his own tongue.",
        "Involuntarily he recoiled from the mirror, while Conan thrust his head truculently forward, till his jaws almost touched the surface, growling some threat or defiance in his own barbaric tongue.",
        "They were facing Khemsa, but behind them Conan felt his own blood turning to ice in his veins.",
        "\"I give you life, Olgerd, as you gave it to me,\" said Conan tranquilly, \"though it was for your own ends that you took me down from the cross.",
        "Standing erect, he head would scarcely top the Cimmerians shoulders; yet that face was on a level with Conan's own.",
        "Conan dragged Balthus after him until the youth's numb brain awoke, and his legs began to move of their own accord.",
        "Then he realized that Conan had called to the paddler in his own tongue.",
        "\"Some young couple just hitting out on their own,\" Conan was saying as he wiped his sword unemotionally.",
        "But the face was higher than his own, and there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes, a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before him.",
        "Conan wondered if his own bones would be found at some future date, hanging in their rusty chains.",
        "Three of the four were down, dying in their own blood, and the fourth was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, stumbling in headlong retreat as he parried frantically, when Conan's spur caught in the surcoat of one of the fallen men.",
        "But when he returned to Conan a short time later, bearing in his own hands a platter of fruit and meats, he presented a placid face to his unwelcome guest.",
        "Conan confronts us with an army nearly as strong as our own, and he has the advantage of position.",
        "Conan leaped from his own steed and ran at him, as the king of Nemedia disengaged himself and rose.",
        "Conan glanced down at her as she strode along beside him with her swinging stride that matched his own.",
        "Olmec did not bother to voice his belief that Conan's own gullet had already been severed according to his whispered command.",
        "\"I had to do that much, for my own self-respect!\" panted Valeria, facing Conan across the limp corpse."
    ],
    "painful": [
        "Conan's heart beat suffocatingly as he leaned over the writhing form, though he exhibited no evidence of his painful eagerness."
    ],
    "pale": [
        "Conan strode through a garden, where great pale blossoms nodded in the starlight, and entered the taproom, where a Stygian with the shaven head of a student sat at a table brooding over nameless mysteries, and some nondescripts wrangled over a game of dice in a corner.",
        "Conan caught the glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the day she was born.",
        "A fierce cry rose from Conan's lips as his sword went up; a pale oval of a face was turned toward him, a sword gleamed in a half-seen hand, and Beloso echoed the cry-and then the weary stallion, with a lurch and a groan, missed his footing in the shadows and went heels over head, hurling his dazed rider from the saddle."
    ],
    "pallid": [
        "Suddenly Conan's long left arm shot out and ripped the mask from the man's head, disclosing the pallid features."
    ],
    "pampered": [
        "Conan waited with some impatience while the Devi, for the first time in her pampered life, dressed herself."
    ],
    "paneled": [
        "Conan sprang after it, knife lifted, but his vicious swipe cut empty air as the serpent writhed away from him and struck its blunt nose against a paneled screen of sandalwood."
    ],
    "panicky": [
        "With a panicky curse Conan ripped out his sword.",
        "But Conan did not hesitate; he darted around a bend in the trail and disappeared, and Balthus, panicky at finding himself alone with that awful scream still shuddering through the forest in grisly echoes, put on an extra burst of speed and plunged after him.",
        "Conan was stabbing blindly in the dark, Tarascus screaming in a frenzy of panicky terror."
    ],
    "pantherish": [
        "\"There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of Cimmeria--\" she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish embrace--\"my love is stronger than any death!",
        "Conan stalked into the corridor with a pantherish tread, poised to strike right or left."
    ],
    "paralyzed": [
        "Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which demoralizes anyone who is confronted by an impossible negation of sanity."
    ],
    "passionate": [
        "Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul."
    ],
    "passionless": [
        "\"Where is Conan, he who was king of Aquilonia?\" demanded the tallest of the four in a passionless monotone that made Public shudder."
    ],
    "past": [
        "It was a much more elaborate chamber than Conan could have procured for the price nearer the center of the city--a fact that had first attracted him, when, that morning, he discoverd how slim a purse his roistering for the past few days had left him."
    ],
    "pathetic": [
        "What this monster was, Conan could not know, but the evidences of its sufferings were so terrible and pathetic that a strange aching sadness came over the Cimmerian, he knew not why."
    ],
    "patrician": [
        "Conan started and stared at Servius with such anger smoldering in his blue eyes that the patrician shrank back."
    ],
    "peculiar": [
        "Conan noticed that his eyes were wide, fixed, and of a peculiar luminous quality.",
        "A peculiar prickling made itself manifest among the sort hairs at the base of Conan's scalp."
    ],
    "penniless": [
        "You'll work your way aboard this galley--\" \"I'll buy your ship--\" began Conan, before he remembered that he was a penniless wanderer."
    ],
    "peremptory": [
        "And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and wondering what connection his master might have with this giant fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian."
    ],
    "perilous": [
        "The path they had traversed was a perilous one, even for hill-men, and for that reason Conan had avoided it that day when carrying Yasmina, though Kerim Shah, following him, had taken it supposing the Cimmerian had done likewise."
    ],
    "personal": [
        "The thought came vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the actors."
    ],
    "personified": [
        "Conan became stealth personified."
    ],
    "pet": [
        "\"An old woman with a pet wolf has wandered up and down the land, proclaiming that King Conan yet lives, and will return some day to reclaim the crown."
    ],
    "phosphorescent": [
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world."
    ],
    "physical": [
        "The monster below them, to Conan, was merely a form of life differing from himself mainly in physical shape.",
        "But for Conan's iron fingers gripping her arm she had no physical cognizance of her companions.",
        "\"Thanks to Conan and me, you bloody rogue!\" sneered Valeria, trembling with fury and the shame of physical coercion."
    ],
    "pieced": [
        "Instantly the jaws clashed convulsively together, severing the triple-pieced shaft and almost percipitating Conan from his perch."
    ],
    "pigmy": [
        "But still he dwindled, and Conan saw a tiny, pigmy figure rushing wildly about the ebony table-top, waving tiny arms and shrieking in a voice that was like the squeak of an insect."
    ],
    "pink": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat."
    ],
    "piratical": [
        "\"Long have I wished to meet you, Amra,\" the black gave Conan the name \u00ad Amra, the Lion--by which the Cimmerian had been known to the Kushites in his piratical days."
    ],
    "pitched": [
        "Conan, on the high-pitched poop, was on a level with the pirate's deck."
    ],
    "piteous": [
        "At the thought her legs refused to support her, and she collapsed in a shuddering heap, clasping Conan's knees and mingling incoherent pleas for mercy and protection with piteous protestations of her innocence of any malign intention."
    ],
    "placid": [
        "But when he returned to Conan a short time later, bearing in his own hands a platter of fruit and meats, he presented a placid face to his unwelcome guest."
    ],
    "plain": [
        "But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, riverlaced jungle, and mountains."
    ],
    "plentiful": [
        "As Conan came down the road, he wondered why the beggars, so plentiful in Zamboula, had not appropriated these empty houses for sleeping quarters."
    ],
    "plumed": [
        "Conan drew the shaft to his ear--then some whim or qualm stayed his hand and sent the arrow through the body of a tall plumed spearman beside her."
    ],
    "poised": [
        "\"Follow me,\" she directed and led the way, conscious of Conan's eyes fixed on her supple figure and perfectly poised carriage."
    ],
    "poisonous": [
        "\"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples,\" quoth Conan, with his mouth full, \"and jab them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than any other chunk of beef."
    ],
    "poitanian": [
        "\"The fools believe that Conan is alive, and coming at the head of a Poitanian army to reclaim his kingdom."
    ],
    "ponderous": [
        "Shukeli opened it, and as he swung back the ponderous portal, Conan noted the evident uneasiness among the black giants who guarded him; nor did Shukeli seem altogether devoid of nervousness as he peered into the darkness beyond."
    ],
    "poor": [
        "He was seeking to stir up the people against me, poor fool, telling them that Conan spoke the truth when he said I was not Taramis."
    ],
    "possible": [
        "Balthus took the rear end of the litter, onto which Conan unceremoniously dumped the unfortunate merchant, and they moved on down the trail as swiftly as possible."
    ],
    "postem": [
        "And in the midst of it all, none noticed Conan as he shot through the postem gate and thundered down the hill."
    ],
    "powerful": [
        "He rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him, shattered his sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of his open hand sent him reeling to the floor.",
        "Conan the Cimmerian stared out over the aching desolation and involuntarily drew the back of his powerful hand over his blackened lips.",
        "Those of the Seers were not good to look at; as they lay twisted and contorted, their hands and feet were exposed to view, and at the sight Yasmina went livid and hid her face against Conan's powerful shoulder.",
        "He cried out again as he saw Conan's powerful frame stretched out on the carpet."
    ],
    "practical": [
        "Conan had handled many coins in the years of his plunderings, and had a good practical knowledge of them."
    ],
    "practised": [
        "But Conan's practised fingers, stealing over it, pressed here and there knobs invisible to the casual eye."
    ],
    "precarious": [
        "Frankly, Conan, my situation is becoming precarious."
    ],
    "precious": [
        "\"They may find the rope,\" grunted Conan, slinging the precious jars across his shoulders, wincing at the contact with his mangled flesh."
    ],
    "prehistoric": [
        "Conan had seen rude images of them, in minature, among the idol huts of the Yuetshi, and there was a description of them in the Book of Skelos, which drew on prehistoric sources."
    ],
    "present": [
        "Conan and his host were a present menace against which Xaltotun's wizardry might well be needed before the play was all played."
    ],
    "previous": [
        "It was a snake that dwarfed all Conan's previous ideas of snakes."
    ],
    "primitive": [
        "Primitive fears whispered at the back of Conan's mind.",
        "Evidently Conan had spent much time among civilized men, though that contact had obviously not softened him, nor weakened any of his primitive instincts.",
        "Conan glared at the stranger, all his primitive instincts roused.",
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction.",
        "Somewhere in these primitive forests were the ruins of an ancient, accursed city, men whispered, and among its tombs slunk gray, anthropomorphic shadows-Conan shuddered strongly.",
        "This Conan felt rather than knew, his whetted primitive instincts sensing unrest about him.",
        "This exhibition of primordial fury chilled the blood in Valeria's veins, but Conan was too close to the primitive himself to feel anything but a comprehending interest."
    ],
    "primordial": [
        "Conan, his mighty chest heaving and glistening with sweat, the red ax gripped in his blood-smeared hand, glared about him as the first of men might have glared in some primordial dawn, and shook back his black mane.",
        "This exhibition of primordial fury chilled the blood in Valeria's veins, but Conan was too close to the primitive himself to feel anything but a comprehending interest."
    ],
    "princely": [
        "Through his princely kin in Nemedia, it was easy to persuade King Numa to request the presence of Count Trocero of Poitain, seneschal of Aquilonia; and of course, to do him honor, he'll be accompanied by an imperial escort, as well as his own troops, and Prospero, King Conan's right\u00adhand man."
    ],
    "pristine": [
        "Conan was reverting to his pristine type."
    ],
    "probable": [
        "If, which is more probable, Constantius prevails, and Conan is routed, we must steal out of the city with the queen and seek safety in flight."
    ],
    "professional": [
        "Conan felt the old tug of the professional fighting-man, to turn his horse and plunge into the fighting, the pillaging and the looting as in the days of old."
    ],
    "prostrate": [
        "The five women of the Xotalancas were down with thir throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull."
    ],
    "prowed": [
        "Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along the shore, seeking and finding that which Conan desired-a Stygian fisherman in his shallow, flat-prowed boat."
    ],
    "pure": [
        "And in the great cold yellow eyes slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear--the only time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes."
    ],
    "purple": [
        "But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black banner with its golden lion that floated above King Conan's pavilion.",
        "Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the purple and crimson and vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and carracks and galleys and dromonds.",
        "Even the elements seemed to work for Conan now; the broad purple sail bellied to a stiff breeze that held day by day, needing little aid from the oars."
    ],
    "puzzled": [
        "Presently Conan emerged, a puzzled scowl on his face."
    ],
    "queer": [
        "But Conan saw, looking over their shoulders, and a queer chill sensation crawled along his spine.",
        "\"Then the old witch's smoke showed the truth,\" muttered Conan, feeling a queer chill along his spine."
    ],
    "questing": [
        "The Return of the Oracle Conan wheeled supplely, sweeping the shadows with a fiercely questing stare."
    ],
    "quick": [
        "But even as the hosts cried out, the wizard stepped in, too quick for the eye to follow, and apparently merely laid an open hand on Conan's left forearm, from the ridged muscles of which the mail had been hacked away.",
        "Conan leaped high, clearing a couch--with a quick wheel the fiend ran up the wall, and the strand, leaping off the floor like a live thing, whipped about the Cimmerian's ankle.",
        "Conan, bleeding from a cut on the temple, cleared a space for an instant with a devastating sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a quick glance about for an avenue of escape.",
        "Quick as a great cat Conan caught up Olivia and ran.",
        "The cords fell from Conan's arms, and taking the dagger from her, he ripped the bonds from his legs with a single quick slash.",
        "His terrible arms flailed down, but Conan, quicker than the archers who had died beneath those awful flails, avoided their strokes and struck again and yet again.",
        "Conan's action was as quick as theirs.",
        "Quick, Conan!",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "But quick as the stroke of a great cat, Conan's arm shot across the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd's forearm.",
        "Conan bent swiftly, turned the man on his side, and ran quick fingers over him.",
        "A quick glance showed Conan the man was not from Darfar.",
        "The staff licked out like the dart of a viper, but the slash of Conan's knife was quicker.",
        "If he could keep out of the beast's way for a bit, prehaps that betraying wind would shift--but the wind held, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed Conan that the monster was almost upon them, coming like a war-galley in front of a hurricane.",
        "In sheer strength no three Tlazitlans were a match for Conan, and in spite of his weight he was quicker on his feet than any of them."
    ],
    "racial": [
        "These figures, not much longer than a man's hand, represented men, and so cleverly were they made that Conan recognized various racial characteristics in the different idols, features typical of Zingarans, Argoseans, Ophireans and Kushite corsairs.",
        "Conan was animated merely by his fighting spirit and an old, old racial hate, but Balthus was afire with wrath."
    ],
    "ragged": [
        "Feeling her shiver in the wind that moaned down the defiles, Conan jerked a ragged cloak from its owner's shoulders and wrapped it about her."
    ],
    "random": [
        "They glared about, bellowing, unable to penetrate the darkness which their torches served to illuminate for only a few feet in any direction, and then rushed down the alley at random-heading in the direction opposite to that taken by Conan and Albiona."
    ],
    "rangy": [
        "Conan recognized them by their straighter features and hah-, their rangier, cleaner-limbed build."
    ],
    "rare": [
        "\"A rare prize, Conan; fit mate for a chief of the Afghulis.\""
    ],
    "ready": [
        "Prince Arpello came before the distracted council and announced himself ready to take over the government of the city until a new king could be decided upon, Conan having no son.",
        "On the shimmering threshold Conan stared like a wolf in strange surroundings, ready to fight or flee on the instant.",
        "She was the first to spring ashore, closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinned pirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyes rolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.",
        "Conan's eyes began to smolder ominously, but he trod warily into the chamber, his sword ready.",
        "And still farther over its edge Conan bent him, back and back, until his spine was ready to snap.",
        "The five women of the Xotalancas were down with thir throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull."
    ],
    "rear": [
        "Balthus took the rear end of the litter, onto which Conan unceremoniously dumped the unfortunate merchant, and they moved on down the trail as swiftly as possible."
    ],
    "reasonable": [
        "\"Be reasonable,\" expostulated Conan."
    ],
    "rebellious": [
        "They wished to meet and crush Conan before he could be joined by the rebellious forces of the kingdom."
    ],
    "recent": [
        "His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked, in the Aquilonian tongue: \"Who is this madman?\""
    ],
    "reckless": [
        "In the swift rage roused by that cry, and the amazement of wondering what peril could wring such a shriek from Valeria's reckless lips, Conan forgot Olmec."
    ],
    "recognizable": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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."
    ],
    "red": [
        "He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land.",
        "Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece.",
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "Red jets of agony shot through Conan's brain, yet he held himself immovable; not by the twitching of a muscle or the flicker of an eyelash did he betray the pain of the hurt that left a scar he bore to the day of his death.",
        "A red mist of fury swept across Conan's eyes.",
        "In the swirling red chaos a terrible apparition suddenly appeared before Conan's rearing steed.",
        "Conan swore under his breath; Natala's red lips opened wide.",
        "Wheeling like a cat, Conan caught a descending wrist on his edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air scattering a shower of red drops.",
        "In juxtaposition to his girl, the sight sent a red wave of murderous fury through Conan's brain.",
        "Conan shook the red drops from his sword, grinned with unaffected pleasure, stretched like a huge cat--and abruptly stiffened, the expression of satisfaction on his face being replaced by a stare of bewilderment.",
        "Conan, though the blood thundered in his ears and the world swam red to his gaze, took an oar with the panting sailors.",
        "\"His blood was red, after all,\" grunted Conan.",
        "\"Let us come aboard, good Conan,\" whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "So passed the Queen of the Black Coast, and leaning on his red-stained sword, Conan stood silently until the red glow had faded far out in the blue hazes and dawn splashed its rose and gold over the ocean.",
        "So passed the Queen of the Black Coast, and leaning on his red-stained sword, Conan stood silently until the red glow had faded far out in the blue hazes and dawn splashed its rose and gold over the ocean.",
        "\"Kerim Shah!\" muttered Conan, red glints smoldering luridly in his eyes.",
        "Conan turned to Yasmina, his red knife still in his hand, his blue eyes smoldering, blood oozing from wounds on his thickly muscled arms and thighs.",
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion.",
        "Provided with a clue to the riddle, Conan pushed back the thick red lips and grunted as he stared down at teeth filed to points.",
        "Stirred to red rage by the ghoulishness of the episode, Conan raced across the road.",
        "Conan took a stride toward the door, then wheeled with his skin tingling, Baal-pteor was laughing at him, and that laugh was edged with menace that made the hackles rise on Conan's neck and sent a red wave of murder-lust driving across his vision.",
        "Conan nodded somberly, staring at the red reflections of the firelight on the richly carved oaken panels.",
        "The plain swam to Conan's gaze, the sunlight was a thick red haze and he reeled in his saddle, grasping the flowing mane with his hand.",
        "Conan, his mighty chest heaving and glistening with sweat, the red ax gripped in his blood-smeared hand, glared about him as the first of men might have glared in some primordial dawn, and shook back his black mane.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers.",
        "And as the monstrous mouth gaped like that of a great snake, Conan drove his spear into the red angle of the jawbone hinge.",
        "The plain ran red with the blood of their eternal warfare, and it was then that--\" He bit his tongue in the midst of the sentence, then presently continued, but Valeria and Conan felt that he had checked an admission he had considered unwise.",
        "Conan saw red.",
        "The red line leaped, searing Conan's flank as he twisted aside, and even as he shifted he hurled the knife."
    ],
    "reluctant": [
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him."
    ],
    "remarkable": [
        "Conan had discarded the remnants of his tattered, blood-soaked shirt, and stood with his remarkable muscular development impressively revealed."
    ],
    "repellent": [
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "resilient": [
        "\"Well,\" Conan was recovering some of his resilient confidence, \"there's no assurance that the thief will throw it away."
    ],
    "resonant": [
        "\"Men say King Conan died beneath the stones and dirt when the cliffs crumbled by Valkia,\" she said in a deep, strong, resonant voice."
    ],
    "resounding": [
        "Her yelp was induced by a resounding spank from Conan's open hand.",
        "There was a resounding clash at the foot of the stairs, and Conan stiffened, grasping his sword."
    ],
    "resplendent": [
        "Conan the Cimmerian, restless in his plate-armor, stared at the bedecked camel with no great approval, and spoke to Amalric, who rode beside him, resplendent in chain-mail threaded with gold, golden breastplate and helmet with flowing horsehair crest."
    ],
    "restless": [
        "Conan the Cimmerian, restless in his plate-armor, stared at the bedecked camel with no great approval, and spoke to Amalric, who rode beside him, resplendent in chain-mail threaded with gold, golden breastplate and helmet with flowing horsehair crest.",
        "Then there was a restless movement among the other blacks, and Conan ducked quickly below the balcony wall, not daring to raise his head lest he be seen.",
        "Conan grew restless.",
        "Conan grew restless.",
        "In thick darkness Conan came upon the strand, straining his eyes out across the black restless water."
    ],
    "rhythmical": [
        "Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound."
    ],
    "rich": [
        "The soft light bathed him, and they saw he was a counterpart of the man Conan had killed before the outer gate, except that his garments were richer, and ornamented with jewels which twinkled in the uncanny light.",
        "The other end was masked by a rich velvet curtain, and from beyond that curtain came the devilish strains of such music as Conan had never heard, not even in nightmares.",
        "Conan cursed as he rode over blackened expanses that had been rich fields, and saw the gaunt gable-ends of burned houses jutting against the sky.",
        "Conan sat on a silken divan in a rich chamber whose filmy curtains the warm breeze billowed.",
        "\"Meaning you're rich as hell,\" snorted Conan."
    ],
    "riderless": [
        "A yell that had nothing of the human in its timbre rang from his lips as Conan rebounded from the bloody earth and seized the rein of a riderless horse that raced past him, throwing himself into the saddle without bringing the charger to a halt."
    ],
    "ridged": [
        "But even as the hosts cried out, the wizard stepped in, too quick for the eye to follow, and apparently merely laid an open hand on Conan's left forearm, from the ridged muscles of which the mail had been hacked away.",
        "Doubtfully Conan clambered upon the ridged back, gripping the arched neck, still convinced that he was in the grasp of a fantastic nightmare."
    ],
    "right": [
        "\"You are right,\" agreed Conan.",
        "Conan reined the horse aside and followed it southward, going almost at right angles to their former course.",
        "With a grunt of approval Djebal bent over him with a pair of pincers used to draw horse-shoe nails, and gripped the head of the spike in Conan's right hand, tearing the skin to get a grip on the deeply embedded head.",
        "But Conan was convinced no enemies were near, and the Cimmerian was right.",
        "Noiselessly Conan coiled his long legs under him; his naked sword was in his right hand, and when he struck it was as suddenly and murderously as a tiger lunging out of the dark.",
        "And like an iron rampart they held the right bank of the stream, and at last the squire gave Conan the news that the Nemedians were falling back from the river.",
        "A dark, cloaked shape sprang toward Conan, who heaved up his sword, catching a gleam of steel in the right hand.",
        "It glows like living flame--\" But Conan sprang suddenly up and smote his right fist into his left palm like a thunderclap.",
        "\"You were not in my tent before Valkia,\" answered Conan grimly, involuntarily glancing at his right wrist, on which blue marks still showed faintly.",
        "Conan threw up his right arm, and the dog-like jaws closed on it, driving the mail links into the hard flesh.",
        "Even as the dagger flashed in the dim light, Conan caught the dusky wrist and smashed his clenched right fist against the Stygian's jaw."
    ],
    "rigid": [
        "It was not because of any logical reasoning process that Conan remained motionless, since reason might have told him--since he was doomed anyway--to goad the snake into striking and get it over with; it was the blind black instinct of self-preservation that held him rigid as a statue blasted out of iron.",
        "Conan made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head back hard against the wood and held it rigid there.",
        "\"Dead!\" muttered Conan, stooping to pick up the jewel where it rolled on the floor from Valbroso's rigid hand."
    ],
    "ripe": [
        "Conan's sword sheared through his skull as through a ripe melon."
    ],
    "ripping": [
        "Conan tensed himself for one mad berserker onslaught--to thrust the glowing fagot into that fiendish countenance and throw his life into the ripping sword-stroke."
    ],
    "ritualistic": [
        "The leader carried an ebon staff Which supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong-and often sinister-part in the Stygian religion."
    ],
    "riverlaced": [
        "But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, riverlaced jungle, and mountains."
    ],
    "robed": [
        "The sight stirred some dim recollection in his mind; then Conan heeded the altar no longer, for on the lower steps of the stair stood four black-robed figures."
    ],
    "rocky": [
        "Conan had seated himself on a rocky projection at the foot of the spire."
    ],
    "rotten": [
        "Conan was rising slowly, shaken and dazed by the cruel craft of that blow which, delivered with an art forgotten of men before Atlantis sank, would have broken like a rotten twig the neck of a lesser man."
    ],
    "rough": [
        "He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land.",
        "Conan had shielded Natala all he could, and the rough life of the camp had given her more stamina and strength than the average woman possesses; but even so, she was not far from collapse.",
        "She seemed to derive considerable amusement from this bit of rough horse-play, but Conan paid no more heed to her."
    ],
    "round": [
        "Conan stared at the wide flaring ears, the curling proboscis, on either side of which stood white tusks tipped with round golden balls.",
        "Conan turned to the gold and ivory altar indicated, and took up a great round jewel, clear as crimson crystal; and he knew that this was the Heart of the Elephant.",
        "Conan dazedly realized that he lay on the brink of a great round well, the edge of which was slimy stone."
    ],
    "rounded": [
        "Under the ebon skin long, rounded muscles rippled, and Conan did not doubt that the monster could rend an ordinary man limb from limb."
    ],
    "roving": [
        "\"We have each a roving foot,\" answered Conan carelessly."
    ],
    "royal": [
        "\"I strangled him on his throne the night I took the royal city,\" answered Conan.",
        "I knew from his maunderings that Conan of Ghor had been in Khurum with his royal captive.",
        "He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is a nobody without royal or even noble blood.",
        "He had been driven into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is a nobody without royal or even noble blood.",
        "But on his dais in the royal pavilion Conan groaned in anguish of spirit, and cursed with strange heathen oaths.",
        "\"I have no royal blood,\" ground Conan.",
        "Even now, in the royal hall of Tarantia--\" Abruptly Conan was looking into the great coronation hall."
    ],
    "rude": [
        "Conan had seen rude images of them, in minature, among the idol huts of the Yuetshi, and there was a description of them in the Book of Skelos, which drew on prehistoric sources."
    ],
    "rugged": [
        "As she tore her tender skin and bruised her soft limbs on the rugged boulders over which Conan had so lightly lifted her, she realized again her dependence on the iron-thewed barbarian."
    ],
    "russet": [
        "Presently Conan grunted in pleasure at the sight of golden and russet globes hanging in clusters among the leaves."
    ],
    "rusty": [
        "Conan wondered if his own bones would be found at some future date, hanging in their rusty chains.",
        "With a rasping screech of rusty hinges the gate moved ponderously inward, and Conan straightened and drew his sword."
    ],
    "sacred": [
        "\"I've heard that there's an ancient grove sacred to Jhebbal Sag somewhere in this forest,\" said Conan."
    ],
    "sacrilegious": [
        "\"Why, you sacrilegious little hussy!\" rumbled Conan."
    ],
    "sad": [
        "But Conan doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, he had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which men told him was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle."
    ],
    "safe": [
        "\"As long as Yar Afzal lives, Conan will bide safe among the Wazuli fighting-men.",
        "\"Your families are safe,\" grunted Conan.",
        "But while Conan lives I am not safe."
    ],
    "sainted": [
        "Already they openly sing _The Lament for the King_ in which Rinaldo lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.'"
    ],
    "salty": [
        "Blood trickled over Conan's mouth, and he licked his lips involuntarily, spat at the salty taste."
    ],
    "same": [
        "Count Trocero, left by Conan in charge of the city, tried to reassure them, but in their unreasoning terror they remembered old civil wars, and how this same count had besieged Tamar fifteen years before.",
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "On a venture Conan replied in Stygian, and the stranger answered in the same tongue: \"Who are you?\"",
        "Conan bent above him, seeking the cause of his death, and discovered him to be merely sunk in the same deep sleep as the girl in the chamber.",
        "\"There-\" Conan had sprung back, wheeling to face the door at the same instant, lips asnarl.",
        "At the same instant Conan was aware of a sinister slithering ahead of him.",
        "Perhaps something of the same feeling occurred to Conan, for he stopped, glanced about him, and grunted: \"We'll stop here."
    ],
    "sandaled": [
        "The five women of the Xotalancas were down with thir throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull."
    ],
    "sandalled": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\""
    ],
    "sane": [
        "With his skin crawling with the horror that madness always instils in the sane, Conan passed his sword through the black man's body; then, avoiding the hooked hands that clawed at him as N'Gora sank down, he strode to the edge of the cliff.",
        "Through the belling of the voice, which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered laws of a sane planet, a human sound anchored Conan's mind from its flight through spheres of madness.",
        "\"Nor any other sane man,\" answered Conan grimly."
    ],
    "sashed": [
        "\"Let us come aboard, good Conan,\" whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods."
    ],
    "savage": [
        "Volmana, flinging the attackers right and left in his savage impatience, came plowing through and hacked murderously at Conan's unprotected head.",
        "\"Shukeli knows nothing of my coming, white man,\" answered the black, craning his thick neck to peer into Conan's savage eyes.",
        "Conan snarled in savage satisfaction; but he was still a prisoner.",
        "It was Conan's savage instinct which made him wheel suddenly; for the death that was upon them made no sound.",
        "Into that blackness she had seen Conan vanish, locked in mortal combat with the unknown demon, and the only sounds that had come to her straining ears had been the panting gasps of the barbarian, the impact of struggling bodies, and the thud and rip of savage blows.",
        "In an instant the affair had changed from a daring game to a battle of life and death, and Conan's savage nature responded with all the fury of the wild.",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "This statement brought a savage grin to Conan's hard lips.",
        "Conan snarled a savage curse and hurled his ax with ferocious will.",
        "Conan glared at it with some curiosity, noticing the state of the bare bones, most of which were splintered and broken; the skull which had fallen from the vertebrae, was crushed as if by some savage blow of tremendous force.",
        "Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited."
    ],
    "scaly": [
        "Conan admired the scaly torso, thick as his thigh and obviously of great length, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing."
    ],
    "scant": [
        "Conan saw scant reason in this, and a faint suspicion of his companion touched his wary soul, but he did as Taurus requested.",
        "If your Majesty would deign--\" \"The light is sufficient,\" grunted Conan, seating himself with scant ceremony, and drawing his poniard."
    ],
    "scanty": [
        "But her familiarity with such matters was scanty compared to that of Conan."
    ],
    "scarce": [
        "Of Conan's mounted infantry, scarce a hundred and fifty remained in the saddle."
    ],
    "scarlet": [
        "Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conan was a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel.",
        "But on the deck of the Tigress, on a pyre of broken benches, spear-shafts and leopardskins, lay the Queen of the Black Coast in her last sleep, wrapped in Conan's scarlet cloak.",
        "Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the purple and crimson and vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and carracks and galleys and dromonds."
    ],
    "scarred": [
        "Conan's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armor was hacked to tatters and splashed with blood; his great sword red to the cross-piece.",
        "Conan made no comment; his scarred dark countenance was immobile.",
        "With a grunt of annoyance Conan dragged on the bulky headpiece, and the girl nodded as if in approval as she scanned his dark scarred face and blazing eyes."
    ],
    "searing": [
        "Conan answered with a searing Cimmerian curse that would have burst the eardrums of an ordinary man, and Tsotha laughed thinly and withdrew."
    ],
    "senseless": [
        "Bending quickly, she drew a dagger from its senseless owner's belt, and set to work on Conan's bonds.",
        "Conan dumped the senseless black on the floor, and lifted his sword.",
        "Sparks flashed blue as Conan parried the blade, and the next instant the madman was stretched senseless in the dust from a thundering buffet of Conan's left fist.",
        "The Cimmerian contemptuously struck it aside with his sword-at the instant of contact there was a sharp explosion, a flare of white, blinding flame, and Conan pitched senseless to the ground.",
        "How long Conan lay senseless he never knew."
    ],
    "sensitive": [
        "The sensitive trunk stretched toward him, and Conan's horror froze him again when the being spoke, in a strange, stammering voice that never changed its key or timbre."
    ],
    "sensuous": [
        "The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms."
    ],
    "sepulchral": [
        "Conan's hair rose up and he grasped his sword, but the figure spoke in sepulchral tones."
    ],
    "serrated": [
        "The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe."
    ],
    "servile": [
        "Conan snarled in nervous exasperation at this servile philosophy, and turned to his men."
    ],
    "set": [
        "This Aram lifted and showed the Cimmerian into a well-appointed chamber, the windows of which, Conan instantly noted, were small and strongly set with twisted bars of iron, tastefully gilded."
    ],
    "several": [
        "The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century."
    ],
    "severed": [
        "It passed so close to Conan that he felt the wind of rushing wings, but it was an Irakzai who staggered and fell, blood jetting from a severed jugular."
    ],
    "shadowed": [
        "Conan strode like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past.",
        "\"They talk each night,\" reminded the governor, his fine eyes shadowed, as he stared closely at Conan.",
        "Still gripping his captive's throat--for a man can scream incoherently even with his throat slit--Conan dragged him out of the dark chamber and down the cypress-shadowed path, to the iron-bound door in the outer wall."
    ],
    "shadowy": [
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him.",
        "Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great shadowy palace.",
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction.",
        "The leader of the band made straight for the doorway, in the deep well of which Conan saw a shadowy figure."
    ],
    "shaggy": [
        "Conan's sword flailed down, crunching through flesh and bone, and then the Cimmerian was dragging Balthus around the altar, past a huddled shaggy bulk on the floor, to a door at the back of the long hut."
    ],
    "shallow": [
        "Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along the shore, seeking and finding that which Conan desired-a Stygian fisherman in his shallow, flat-prowed boat."
    ],
    "shambling": [
        "If Conan was a figure out of the dawn of time, Olmec was a shambling, somber shape from the darkness of time's pre-dawn."
    ],
    "shaped": [
        "\"A shell-shaped bowl of gold on a black altar in a deep cavern,\" Conan muttered, frowning as he sought to capture the illusive image."
    ],
    "sharp": [
        "The Cimmerian contemptuously struck it aside with his sword-at the instant of contact there was a sharp explosion, a flare of white, blinding flame, and Conan pitched senseless to the ground.",
        "From the men that worked the fields, from the garrulous old men in the inns where he slaked his thirst with great leathern jacks of foaming ale, from the sharp-eyed silk-clad merchants he met upon the road, Conan sought for news of Beloso."
    ],
    "shaven": [
        "Conan strode through a garden, where great pale blossoms nodded in the starlight, and entered the taproom, where a Stygian with the shaven head of a student sat at a table brooding over nameless mysteries, and some nondescripts wrangled over a game of dice in a corner."
    ],
    "sheer": [
        "As a thunderbolt strikes, Conan struck, hurtling through the ranks by sheer power and velocity, until he came to Strabonus, livid among his palace troops.",
        "No sound disturbed the morning quiet as Conan stole to the foot of the wall, which rose sheer from the luxuriant growth.",
        "The stallion reared above him, neighing terribly, hoofs lifted, eyes and teeth flashing and ears laid back, but Conan leaped and caught his mane with a display of sheer strength that seemed impossible, and dragged the beast down on his forelegs.",
        "They were high, meant to keep out the man-eaters; but Conan was no swamp-bred black man; his thews had been steeled in boyhood on the sheer cliffs of his native hills.",
        "In sheer strength no three Tlazitlans were a match for Conan, and in spite of his weight he was quicker on his feet than any of them.",
        "Where Conan beat down opposition by the sheer weight and power of his blows, breaking spears, splitting skulls and cleaving bosoms to the breastbone, Valeria brought into action a finesse of swordplay that dazzled and bewildered her antagonists before it slew them."
    ],
    "shemite": [
        "The girl was Brythunian, whom Conan had found in the slave-market of a stormed Shemite city, and appropriated."
    ],
    "shocked": [
        "As he passed that of Conan, his sense of propriety was shocked and outraged to see the prisoner free of his chains and in the act of gnawing the last shreds of meat from a huge beefbone."
    ],
    "short": [
        "He rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him, shattered his sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of his open hand sent him reeling to the floor.",
        "Conan's laugh was like the deep short bark of a timber wolf.",
        "Conan saw his plan, and asked no questions as the Nemedian gripped the line a short distance below the hook, and began to swing it about his head.",
        "A short life and a merry one, say I--and with Conan the Throat-slitter in command, life is likely to be both merry and short.",
        "A short life and a merry one, say I--and with Conan the Throat-slitter in command, life is likely to be both merry and short.",
        "Wheeling like a cat, Conan caught a descending wrist on his edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air scattering a shower of red drops.",
        "A yell of dismay went up at this mischance, and Conan allowed himself a short bark of laughter as he bounded aside from a whistling cut and slashed under the guard of yet another man of Xuthal.",
        "Taking her hand with a thoughtfulness unusual for him, Conan strode out across the sands, suiting his stride to the shorter legs of his companion.",
        "And with the cry she sprang through a crevice in the wall, burst madly through the hindering vines, and ran, ran, ran blind, screaming, witless--until a grasp on her arm brought her up short and she shrieked and fought against the arms that caught her, until a familiar voice penetrated the mists of her terror, and she saw Conan's face, a mask of bewilderment in the moonlight.",
        "She stopped short and the gourd fell from her hands when she saw them; she wavered as though to run, then realized that Conan was too close to her to allow her to escape, and so stood still, staring at them with a mixed expression of fear and curiosity.",
        "Conan took a swift stride toward the open doorway, and then halted short, baffled.",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "Conan could make out the dark tuft below that was the short black beard.",
        "\"No use to try to follow a demon,\" grunted Conan, drawing a short woodman's ax from his girdle.",
        "Conan glanced back at him, but made no objection, though he did not moderate his pace to accommodate the shorter legs of his companion.",
        "Conan hurled his ax with deadly aim, but the warrior's mouth was already open for a yell of warning, and it rang loud above the din, cut short as he dropped with a shattered skull.",
        "Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lipped Ghanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step, and frowned down at his importunate companion.",
        "In a winding street a short distance away, Conan halted and checked his companion with a heavy hand on her naked shoulder.",
        "\"Whoever called it into being knew how to cut it short at will,\" answered Conan.",
        "And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and wondering what connection his master might have with this giant fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian.",
        "But when he returned to Conan a short time later, bearing in his own hands a platter of fruit and meats, he presented a placid face to his unwelcome guest.",
        "Conan glared in silence, feeling the short hairs bristle at the back of his neck."
    ],
    "shredded": [
        "Conan stared down on the travesty of a man, a broken, shredded, bloody heap that gibbered and gnashed splintered teeth."
    ],
    "shrill": [
        "A young page came running from Yasmela's pavilion, crying to Conan in a shrill, eager voice."
    ],
    "shuddersome": [
        "That brain had crashed to dust beneath Conan's battle-axe on the night the king had fought for his life with the assassins the mad rhymer had led into the betrayed palace, but the shuddersome words of that grisly song still rang in the king's ears as he stood there in his chains."
    ],
    "sick": [
        "Conan thought of Tsotha's last abominable threat, and groaned in sick fury, knowing it was no idle boast.",
        "At the sick horror of that cry from a bestial throat, Conan involuntarily relaxed his grip."
    ],
    "sickening": [
        "Conan looked down into the open waist, whence wafted that sickening abominable odor."
    ],
    "sightless": [
        "Tears rolled from the sightless eyes, and Conan's gaze strayed to the limbs stretched on the marble couch.",
        "Conan was aware of a vague uneasiness as he stared at the dumb sightless figures."
    ],
    "silent": [
        "Conan was silent.",
        "\"Let us come aboard, good Conan,\" whined a red-sashed Zamorian, glancing fearfully over his shoulder at the silent woods.",
        "Along the dark, silent tunnel Conan groped, momentarily dreading a fall into some unseen pit; but at last his feet struck steps again, and he went up them until he came to a door on which his fumbling fingers found a metal catch.",
        "Conan strode like a silent phantom through the great halls, with a sensation of being stared at from the shadowed recesses by invisible ghosts of the past.",
        "Conan reeled upright in the silver-ceilinged room, with a gray mist coiling about his feet, and saw Baal-pteor lolling on the divan, shaking with silent laughter.",
        "Conan released the hilt of his imprisoned sword and fell silent, watching his enemy thorugh slitted lids.",
        "Conan was silent, while in his mind floated an image-the image of a bearded face of calm inhuman beauty.",
        "Conan glared at the silent, black, moon-dappled woods which ringed him, and felt cold moisture bead his flesh.",
        "So Publio sat and shook with terror of the silent, inscrutable figure which watched him, until the three Khitans filed back into the room, with the news that Conan's body did not lie upon the sands.",
        "Now if ever, thought Conan, was his time to escape his silent companions.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers.",
        "Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep.",
        "The blow, firece and silent, was aimed at the base of Conan's brain."
    ],
    "silken": [
        "She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in disorder over her white shoulders.",
        "Conan sat on a silken divan in a rich chamber whose filmy curtains the warm breeze billowed."
    ],
    "silled": [
        "Conan glanced through an arched, golden-silled window that let out upon a broad balcony, and swore in surprize to see the dark-blue star-flecked sky."
    ],
    "silver": [
        "Thrusting Belit aside, Conan bounded up, his sword a long silver glitter in the moonlight, his hair bristling at what he saw."
    ],
    "simple": [
        "Conan hurried them up; his method was simple."
    ],
    "simultaneous": [
        "Conan's sight and action were simultaneous."
    ],
    "single": [
        "The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century.",
        "The cords fell from Conan's arms, and taking the dagger from her, he ripped the bonds from his legs with a single quick slash."
    ],
    "sinister": [
        "Closing the door behind him, Conan returned to his horse, mounted, and turned westward, toward the open desert, swinging wide to skirt the sinister belt of palm groves.",
        "Conan sensed an inexplicable something about him that set him apart-an alien aura of Time and Space, a sense of tremendous and sinister antiquity.",
        "At the same instant Conan was aware of a sinister slithering ahead of him.",
        "The leader carried an ebon staff Which supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong-and often sinister-part in the Stygian religion."
    ],
    "sinuous": [
        "The blow knocked the great black body clear across the corridor and horribly the gigantic sinuous shape whipped around it in glistening coils that hid it from view, and the snap and splintering of bones came plainly to Conan's ears."
    ],
    "skeptical": [
        "\"And Xaltotun draws his power from this symbol?\" asked Conan, still skeptical."
    ],
    "skewered": [
        "The process was repeated, and then Djebal turned his attention to Conan's skewered feet."
    ],
    "skinned": [
        "Conan saw a yellow-skinned woman, loaded with jeweled ornaments but otherwise nude, staring at him with wide eyes.",
        "She was the first to spring ashore, closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinned pirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyes rolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle."
    ],
    "slanted": [
        "The chair glanced from Thak's slanted black skull; but the stunned monster momentarily relaxed his rending grasp, and in that instant Conan, gasping and streaming blood, plunged forward and sank his poniard to the hilt in the ape-man's heart."
    ],
    "slavering": [
        "Conan could sense the great slavering jaws, the tufted tails lashing tawny sides.",
        "Inexorably Conan's arm bent under the strain; nearer and nearer he was drawn to the slavering jaws that gaped for his life."
    ],
    "sleek": [
        "Conan had heard no sound of fighting--saw no blood-stains or wounds on the sleek ebon limbs of the giants.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips."
    ],
    "sleepy": [
        "The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms."
    ],
    "slender": [
        "Striding back from the sentry lines, Conan halted as a slender cloaked figure stayed him with an outstretched hand.",
        "Then, returning, he took a gold vessel of wine from a near-by table and was about to fill a slender goblet when Conan impatiently took the vessel from him and lifting it with both hands, drank deep and with gusto."
    ],
    "slight": [
        "With a slight start Conan realized that the mummy in the cavern must be the remains of the writer of the manuscript, the mysterious Pelishti, Bit-Yakin.",
        "A slight sound ahead of them jumped his heart into his throat, and Conan's sword gleamed in the air.",
        "A slight blurring of the picture, that might have denoted a passing of tune, and then Conan saw Prospero and his knights filing out of the gates and spurring southward."
    ],
    "slim": [
        "Then all was swept away by the crimson tide that rode madly in Conan's soul, as he crushed fiercely in his iron arms the slim white body that shimmered like a witch-fire of madness before him.",
        "Supported on her elbows, her chin resting on her slim hands, she gazed up into the face of Conan, who lounged beside her, his black mane stirring in the faint breeze.",
        "In the center space a marble pyramid was spired by a slim column, and on its pinnacle sat or squatted something that Conan supposed to be an image until his keen eyes detected life in it.",
        "Belit's slim fingers dug into Conan's arm-muscles.",
        "Conan got one glimpse of her as they thundered by--a slim, dark girl in silk trousers and a jeweled breast-band, flattening herself against the ravine wall.",
        "It was a much more elaborate chamber than Conan could have procured for the price nearer the center of the city--a fact that had first attracted him, when, that morning, he discoverd how slim a purse his roistering for the past few days had left him.",
        "When the door closed, Conan saw only one man standing before him-a slim figure, masked in a black cloak with a hood."
    ],
    "slimy": [
        "Conan blinked and shook the blood from his own eyes; it seemed to him that the thing was melting and disintegrating into a slimy unstable mass.",
        "Conan dazedly realized that he lay on the brink of a great round well, the edge of which was slimy stone.",
        "Gripping his great knife under his mantle, Conan hoped the slimy brute would pass him by."
    ],
    "slit": [
        "Then they regarded Conan cryptically, slit-eyed ebony giants, the torch striking highlights from their glossy skin."
    ],
    "slow": [
        "The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian.",
        "Conan realized why their progress had been so slow.",
        "Conan felt slow fury swell his heart as he looked silently down and saw the ruffians dragging her toward a tree whose low-spreading branches were obviously intended to act as a gibbet."
    ],
    "small": [
        "As Conan sat with his back against the poop-rail, while the old shaman attended to the cuts on his hands and limbs, the cargo of the ill-fated Argus was quickly shifted aboard the Tigress and stored in small cabins below deck.",
        "Then before Conan's gaze, the wizard vanished--simply disappeared like a burst bubble, and something long and undulating darted up one of the smaller stairs that led up to left and right from the landing.",
        "Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river.",
        "This Aram lifted and showed the Cimmerian into a well-appointed chamber, the windows of which, Conan instantly noted, were small and strongly set with twisted bars of iron, tastefully gilded.",
        "With a sudden lunge Conan bore him backward until the small of his back crashed against the table.",
        "Servius hurried on through the darkness without speaking, and with something resembling panic in his manner, and presently led Conan through a small side-door into a narrow, dimly illuminated corridor.",
        "Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along the shore, seeking and finding that which Conan desired-a Stygian fisherman in his shallow, flat-prowed boat.",
        "All that Amalric knew certainly was that a large force of Gundermen and northern Bossonians was somewhere to the north of him, beyond the Shirki, and that Conan with a smaller force of Poitanians and southern Bossonians was somewhere to the south-west of him."
    ],
    "smoky": [
        "And suddenly he sank into the very heart of the jewel, as a man sinks into a sea, and Conan saw the smoky waves close over his head."
    ],
    "smooth": [
        "Conan laid his ear to the smooth wall and listened, but could hear nothing.",
        "Bending close, Conan saw Yara clamber up the smooth, curving surface, impossibly, like a man climbing a glass mountain.",
        "She idly inspected her smooth bosom, and then sank upon Conan's lap and passed her supple arms about his massive neck."
    ],
    "soft": [
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "The soft light bathed him, and they saw he was a counterpart of the man Conan had killed before the outer gate, except that his garments were richer, and ornamented with jewels which twinkled in the uncanny light.",
        "As she knotted the silk length about her supple body, Conan turned to the window and with a contemptuous wrench tore away the soft gold bars that guarded it.",
        "As a delicious languor stole over her relaxing limbs and she sank into foamy billows of slumber, her last waking thought was a drowsy recollection of the firm touch of Conan's fingers on her soft flesh.",
        "As she tore her tender skin and bruised her soft limbs on the rugged boulders over which Conan had so lightly lifted her, she realized again her dependence on the iron-thewed barbarian.",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "\"King Conan!\" a soft voice intoned urgently."
    ],
    "solid": [
        "He 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 King Conan's skin crawled.",
        "Conan made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head back hard against the wood and held it rigid there.",
        "\"Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyborian horsemen fighting in a solid wedge such as I could teach them,\" answered Conan.",
        "With a choking cry Conan lurched backward, reeled, felt the solid wall against his back."
    ],
    "solitary": [
        "These swept Conan with their searching gaze but rode on, for the solitary rider's harness promised no plunder, but only hard strokes.",
        "She imagined Conan similarly situated across the corridor, but her feminine vanity prompted her to visualize him as scowling and muttering with chagrin as he cast himself on his solitary couch, and she grinned with gleeful malice as she prepared herself for slumber."
    ],
    "somber": [
        "Conan leaned on the sweep, his somber gaze fixed on the cloak-wrapped shape that lay in state on the pyre the richness of which was equal to the ransom of an empress.",
        "If Conan was a figure out of the dawn of time, Olmec was a shambling, somber shape from the darkness of time's pre-dawn."
    ],
    "soundless": [
        "Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doom, or returns to everlasting sleep."
    ],
    "southern": [
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him.",
        "Conan's fame had preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms.",
        "All that Amalric knew certainly was that a large force of Gundermen and northern Bossonians was somewhere to the north of him, beyond the Shirki, and that Conan with a smaller force of Poitanians and southern Bossonians was somewhere to the south-west of him.",
        "\"Conan is advancing the Shirki river with ten thousand Poitanians, three thousand southern Bossonians, and barons of the west and south with the retainers to the number of five thousand."
    ],
    "southwestern": [
        "Conan drew Sancha toward the southwestern arch, and they silently crossed the sward and entered the court beyond."
    ],
    "sparkling": [
        "Conan climbed over the sparkling rim."
    ],
    "speechless": [
        "Conan stood speechless, his brain snared by the blaze."
    ],
    "speeding": [
        "Through the gigantic shades of lurking death and grim desolation Conan was a speeding glimmer of scarlet and blue steel."
    ],
    "spellbound": [
        "Conan stared, spellbound; then a sound brought him round, sword lifted."
    ],
    "splendid": [
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips."
    ],
    "splintered": [
        "Conan stared down on the travesty of a man, a broken, shredded, bloody heap that gibbered and gnashed splintered teeth."
    ],
    "split": [
        "Either was within arm's length; for the fraction of a split second the chest teetered ont he edge of the bridge, and Muriela clung by one arm, her face turned desperately toward Conan, her eyes dilated with the fear of death and her lips parted in a haunting cry of despair."
    ],
    "square": [
        "In the center of the court rose the square curb of a well, and the sight stung Conan, whose mouth felt caked with dry dust."
    ],
    "staggering": [
        "In an instant Conan had drawn the massive bolt that barred the door-too heavy for one ordinary man to have manipulated-and called hastily to Albiona, who ran staggering to him."
    ],
    "stammering": [
        "The sensitive trunk stretched toward him, and Conan's horror froze him again when the being spoke, in a strange, stammering voice that never changed its key or timbre."
    ],
    "stark": [
        "As it moved into the light of the torch over Conan's head, the king saw that it was a gigantic black man, stark naked, bearing in one hand a huge sword and in the other a bunch of keys."
    ],
    "starlit": [
        "The black craned his neck to stare into the starlit road behind Conan; but he opened the gate without comment and closed it again behind the Cimmerian, locking it and bolting it.",
        "Then the bronze doorway was before him, and Conan felt the night wind blowing across the desert, and saw the stars, and the starlit desert across which streamed the great black shadow of the pyramid."
    ],
    "startled": [
        "The jeweled giant rose, taking his pipes from his lips--and at that instant Conan was among the startled blacks with a tigerish bound.",
        "They froze in their places, and Conan, bending to aid them, wheeled with a startled curse.",
        "Conan's long knife splintering through the teak panels roused the startled echoes.",
        "It was not until they were poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voiced a startled yelp and would have fallen but for Conan's massive arm about her.",
        "\"Awake, you dogs!\" roared Conan, knocking aside the spear the startled lookout thrust at his breast.",
        "The woman beside him sprang to her feet with a startled exclamation as the strangers entered, and her eyes, passing over Conan, fixed themselves with burning intensity on Valeria."
    ],
    "stately": [
        "There was but one grim splotch on the landscape-a charred expanse of ashes and blackened stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the stately villa of one of his staunchest supporters."
    ],
    "staunch": [
        "There was but one grim splotch on the landscape-a charred expanse of ashes and blackened stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the stately villa of one of his staunchest supporters."
    ],
    "steady": [
        "Conan wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a hand that was not entirely steady."
    ],
    "stealth": [
        "Conan became stealth personified."
    ],
    "stealthy": [
        "I know I have heard stealthy footfalls padding about me--oh, Conan, take me away with you!"
    ],
    "sticky": [
        "Conan's steel-trap quickness of eye and muscle had kept him untouched, though the sticky loops had passed him so close they rasped his naked hide."
    ],
    "stiff": [
        "Even the elements seemed to work for Conan now; the broad purple sail bellied to a stiff breeze that held day by day, needing little aid from the oars."
    ],
    "stifled": [
        "It struck the ledge between Conan and Khemsa, and the Rakhsha gave back with a stifled cry."
    ],
    "still": [
        "But she could not bring herself to plunge the Cimmerian poniard into that still bosom, and at last she drew back the hanging and returned to Conan, who lay where she had left him, seemingly only partly conscious.",
        "And obeying that peremptory command the page stood still, staring after Conan as the latter climbed a short flight of marble steps, and wondering what connection his master might have with this giant fighting-man who had the aspect of a northern barbarian."
    ],
    "storied": [
        "\"A four-storied house,\" grunted Conan, \"and this hall extends to the roof."
    ],
    "straight": [
        "Conan recognized them by their straighter features and hah-, their rangier, cleaner-limbed build."
    ],
    "strange": [
        "Wondering, Conan 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.",
        "On the shimmering threshold Conan stared like a wolf in strange surroundings, ready to fight or flee on the instant.",
        "The sensitive trunk stretched toward him, and Conan's horror froze him again when the being spoke, in a strange, stammering voice that never changed its key or timbre.",
        "What this monster was, Conan could not know, but the evidences of its sufferings were so terrible and pathetic that a strange aching sadness came over the Cimmerian, he knew not why.",
        "Sure that life had fled, at least life as he understood it, Conan set to work on his grisly task and quickly brought forth something that he felt must be the strange being's heart, though it differed curiously from any he had ever seen.",
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain.",
        "\"A strange stone to find on an uninhabited island,\" growled Conan.",
        "Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight.",
        "Once she heard a strange rushing above them that was not the sweep of the wind, and from the way Conan looked up, she knew it was not a common sound to him, either.",
        "The Rakhsha lifted his gory head, and his strange eyes, glazed with agony and approaching death, rested on Conan with recognition.",
        "Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the throne of Aquilonia.",
        "But on his dais in the royal pavilion Conan groaned in anguish of spirit, and cursed with strange heathen oaths.",
        "Conan stared at the great beast with strange fascination as he moved to take the food Zelata offered him.",
        "All this Conan knew well, for had he not, in the days of old when he was a Barachan pirate, sailed by night into the harbor of Messantia to discharge strange cargoes?"
    ],
    "striated": [
        "The path followed a fold of rock, winding interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarpment, and once, far below, Conan got a glimpse of the ruin that had fallen--a mighty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a gigantic cliff."
    ],
    "stricken": [
        "Conan, crouching like a panther at bay, saw nothing in the room behind the stricken Nemedian, in the brief instant the door was partly open--unless it was not a trick of the light which made it seem as if a shadow darted across the gleaming floor."
    ],
    "strong": [
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "\"His task is done, and hell gapes for him again,\" remarked Pelias pleasantly; politely affecting not to notice the strong shudder which shook Conan's mighty frame.",
        "It was night, and a strong wind was blowing through the star-filled skies, stirring Conan's black mane.",
        "Conan, you are strong keep me with you!",
        "These Conan ignored, grasping the meat-joints in his fingers and tearing them with his strong teeth.",
        "\"There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of Cimmeria--\" she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish embrace--\"my love is stronger than any death!",
        "As mists vanish before a strong wind, the cobwebs vanished from Conan's brain.",
        "A strong shudder shook Conan as he handled it, and he turned as though to cast it over the precipice; then he hesitated, and finally buckled it about his waist, under the Bakhariot girdle.",
        "Conan was so much stronger than the Irakzai that in ordinary circumstances he could have broken his spine between his hands.",
        "\"Men say King Conan died beneath the stones and dirt when the cliffs crumbled by Valkia,\" she said in a deep, strong, resonant voice.",
        "The leader carried an ebon staff Which supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong-and often sinister-part in the Stygian religion.",
        "Conan confronts us with an army nearly as strong as our own, and he has the advantage of position."
    ],
    "stubborn": [
        "Conan did not know the merchant, but any man who was stubborn enough to try to traverse the Zingaran road in times like these would very probably be stubborn enough to defy torture.",
        "Conan did not know the merchant, but any man who was stubborn enough to try to traverse the Zingaran road in times like these would very probably be stubborn enough to defy torture.",
        "\"He is stubborn,\" muttered Beloso, shooting a glance of suspicion at Conan."
    ],
    "stumbling": [
        "Words came in a stumbling rush: \"Conan camps at the head of the Valley of Lions."
    ],
    "stunning": [
        "Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited."
    ],
    "stunted": [
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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."
    ],
    "sturdy": [
        "Without pause Conan pushed on northward, at a pace that made Balthus' sturdy legs ache."
    ],
    "stygian": [
        "Perhaps the Stygian girdle about Conan's waist could have told why their necromantic spells had proven so weak and so quickly exhausted.",
        "An uneasy feeling rose in Conan that this had not happened by chance, or without design; a conviction that the mysterious Stygian galley had come into the harbor of Messantia on a definite mission.",
        "\"Have you sighted a Stygian galley--\" began Conan, but the beard of the burly, brutal-faced captain bristled.",
        "Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along the shore, seeking and finding that which Conan desired-a Stygian fisherman in his shallow, flat-prowed boat.",
        "Conan shivered; he was in a temple of some Stygian god, if not Set himself, then someone only less grim.",
        "The leader carried an ebon staff Which supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong-and often sinister-part in the Stygian religion."
    ],
    "subterranean": [
        "This trail had led him away from the place where Muriela had disappeared, but a belief was growing in Conan that each part of the valley was connected with that palace by subterranean passages."
    ],
    "subtle": [
        "Conan believed that this consulting of the oracle was but a ruse to persuade the king of Keshan to accede to Thutmekri's wishes--for he never for a moment doubted that Gorulga was as subtle and devious as all the rest mixed up in this grand swindle."
    ],
    "such": [
        "\"Such is not the custom of my people,\" Conan growled, \"nor of Natala's either.",
        "But her familiarity with such matters was scanty compared to that of Conan.",
        "With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Conan had only a confused impression of a gigantic manlike 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.",
        "Conan's admiration increased to see how well she had recovered her poise after having endured such frantic terror.",
        "At such headlong speed had Conan covered the ground that before the clattering echoes of that fall had died away, he was hacking at the door.",
        "At such times accustomed habits sway men strongly, and the warriors, who were used to seeing Conan in their vanguard, were heartened mightily, despite their distrust of him.",
        "\"Not if there were three thousand desperate Hyborian horsemen fighting in a solid wedge such as I could teach them,\" answered Conan.",
        "Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length from the black breast.",
        "The other end was masked by a rich velvet curtain, and from beyond that curtain came the devilish strains of such music as Conan had never heard, not even in nightmares.",
        "Conan started and stared at Servius with such anger smoldering in his blue eyes that the patrician shrank back.",
        "It took more than one man, even such a man as Conan, to wreak all that slaughter in the alley outside the tower.",
        "How such damage could have been wrought so violently without awakening everyone in the neighborhood Conan could not imagine, but he felt sure that it had been done that night.",
        "Conan wondered if he dared fade into some dark alley; but hesitated, uncertain, and down the long dark street they padded silently, while such folk as they met turned their heads away and fled from them.",
        "As it was, Conan swayed backward, but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him as he fell."
    ],
    "sudden": [
        "In the silence that followed, Conan heard a sudden beat of wings in the stars, and recoiled as a huge bat-like creature alighted beside him.",
        "she screamed in sudden frenzy, and Conan caught her hands, fearing that she would harm herself.",
        "Conan started toward him to finish the job--for he knew that the black's sudden movement had caused the blade to strike flat--but Muriela threw her arms convulsively about him.",
        "With a sudden lunge Conan bore him backward until the small of his back crashed against the table.",
        "Conan did not reply, but the sudden rigidity of his form betrayed his interest.",
        "It had been a shoulder or front leg that struck Conan, and blind monster rushed on, forgettnig the victims whose scent it had been following, in the sudden agony of its death throes."
    ],
    "sufficient": [
        "If your Majesty would deign--\" \"The light is sufficient,\" grunted Conan, seating himself with scant ceremony, and drawing his poniard."
    ],
    "sulfurous": [
        "Conan ripped out a sulfurous oath and the long blade quivered in his grip as the muscles rose in ridges on his brown arm."
    ],
    "sullen": [
        "Hither came Conan, 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 his sandalled feet.\"",
        "But of the plunder of the accursed city, only the sullen waters of Zarkheba could tell where Conan had thrown it with a heathen curse."
    ],
    "sunken": [
        "Grasping his sword firmly, Conan entered, with the slouching gait of a hunting panther, sunken head and noiseless feet."
    ],
    "superstitious": [
        "Strabonus was screaming an order, Amalrus another, and through all ran the superstitious dread the sight of Conan had awakened.",
        "Conan grunted uncertainly; fearless as a wounded tiger as far as human foes were concerned, he had all the superstitious dreads of the primitive."
    ],
    "supine": [
        "Conan jerked the supine body out of the panel entrance and stepped through, pulling the panel shut after him."
    ],
    "supple": [
        "\"Follow me,\" she directed and led the way, conscious of Conan's eyes fixed on her supple figure and perfectly poised carriage.",
        "As she knotted the silk length about her supple body, Conan turned to the window and with a contemptuous wrench tore away the soft gold bars that guarded it.",
        "She idly inspected her smooth bosom, and then sank upon Conan's lap and passed her supple arms about his massive neck.",
        "The sleepy murmur faded away; the dusky eyes closed, the long lashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms.",
        "\"Are you a magician, that you have conquered the Black Seers of Yimsha, Conan of Ghor?\" she asked, as they went down the path, with his heavy arm about her supple waist.",
        "Conan caught the glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the day she was born.",
        "The girl clutched Conan's arm and he felt the terrified quivering of her supple body against his.",
        "She saw no way of escape, and Conan seemed to be concerned only with her supple waist and curly tresses."
    ],
    "sure": [
        "Sure that life had fled, at least life as he understood it, Conan set to work on his grisly task and quickly brought forth something that he felt must be the strange being's heart, though it differed curiously from any he had ever seen.",
        "Conan did not leave the gate until he was sure all his men who yet lived were out of the castle and started across the level meadow.",
        "Conan felt sure that the mummy and this parchment was more than a hundred years old.",
        "While Conan watched him with a flicker of grim amusement in his eyes, the merchant rose and hurriedly shut the door, first craning his neck up and down the corridor to be sure that no slave was loitering about.",
        "How such damage could have been wrought so violently without awakening everyone in the neighborhood Conan could not imagine, but he felt sure that it had been done that night.",
        "Conan thought the prince muttered something to the warrior, but he could not be sure."
    ],
    "surprised": [
        "As Conan strode down the winding path, he was surprised to note the position of the sun."
    ],
    "suspicious": [
        "Conan crept about the rim of the tower, returning to his starting-point without having seen any suspicious movement in the vaguely waving sea of leaves below.",
        "But it was Conan's nature to be suspicious and wary."
    ],
    "swift": [
        "Conan stood like one turned to stone, watching until the swift reeling figure faded in the dusk that purpled the meadows.",
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "Conan took a swift stride toward the open doorway, and then halted short, baffled.",
        "The group rode like swift ghosts toward the river; among them Conan swayed like a drunken man in the saddle, bloodshot eyes glazed, foam drying on his blackened lips.",
        "Conan sprang up, galvanized into swift activity.",
        "In the swift rage roused by that cry, and the amazement of wondering what peril could wring such a shriek from Valeria's reckless lips, Conan forgot Olmec."
    ],
    "swollen": [
        "The first impact of the battle-ax against the wood and its accompanying vibrations sent lances of agony through Conan's swollen feet and hands.",
        "Conan's hands were swollen to almost twice their normal size."
    ],
    "symmetrical": [
        "Conan scanned the shore-line closely, and finally swung the long sweep and headed inshore at a point where a neck of land jutted into the water, and fir trees grew in a curiously symmetrical ring about a gray, strangely shaped rock."
    ],
    "tall": [
        "He was a tall man, tall as Conan, though of leaner build.",
        "He was a tall man, tall as Conan, though of leaner build.",
        "Conan mentally termed the creatures black men, for lack of a better term; instinctively he knew that these tall ebony beings were not men, as he understood the term.",
        "There he had seen the tall black place something--cold sweat broke suddenly out on Conan's brown hide.",
        "Straight as an arrow sped the stone to its mark, and Conan reeled and fell as a tall tree falls to the woodsman's ax.",
        "Conan drew the shaft to his ear--then some whim or qualm stayed his hand and sent the arrow through the body of a tall plumed spearman beside her.",
        "The Wazuli chief was as tall as Conan, and of greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Cimmerian.",
        "He was as tall as Conan, though not so heavy-limbed.",
        "Conan passed into a broad, lofty hall, lined with tall columns, between which arches gaped, their doors long rotted away.",
        "Slightly taller than Conan and much heavier, Baal-pteor loomed before him, a daunting image of muscular development.",
        "\"Where is Conan, he who was king of Aquilonia?\" demanded the tallest of the four in a passionless monotone that made Public shudder.",
        "Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact hardness of the Cimmerian."
    ],
    "taloned": [
        "The taloned hands spread and clutched, but Conan ducked beneath their swoop and drove his sword through the giant's groin.",
        "Conan knew that if he fell foul of that mass of taloned muscle and bone, there could be but one culmination."
    ],
    "tangible": [
        "Conan sensed a malignant intelligence; the plant could see him, and he felt its hate emanate from it in almost tangible waves."
    ],
    "tangled": [
        "In strong contrast stood Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.",
        "The sun beat fiercely on Conan's tangled black mane.",
        "The oiled links of his armor did not clink, and Balthus knew Conan could glide through the deepest thicket or most tangled copse as noiselessly as any naked Pict that ever lived."
    ],
    "tapestried": [
        "All this rolled in a terrible panorama before Conan's consciousness as he crouched beside the tapestried wall."
    ],
    "tattered": [
        "Conan had discarded the remnants of his tattered, blood-soaked shirt, and stood with his remarkable muscular development impressively revealed."
    ],
    "taut": [
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers."
    ],
    "tawny": [
        "Conan could sense the great slavering jaws, the tufted tails lashing tawny sides."
    ],
    "tender": [
        "Conan had brought a great armful of tender branches, well leafed.",
        "As she tore her tender skin and bruised her soft limbs on the rugged boulders over which Conan had so lightly lifted her, she realized again her dependence on the iron-thewed barbarian."
    ],
    "tense": [
        "Suddenly tenser than a tiger who stalks his prey, Conan glided deeper into the thicket, and a moment later drew aside a leafy branch and glared at the face that had not moved.",
        "The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he strove to tear his leg from the trap."
    ],
    "tenth": [
        "\"Today is the tenth day of the month Yuluk, of the year of the Gazelle,\" answered Conan."
    ],
    "terrible": [
        "With a terrible curse Conan struck as a cobra strikes; the great blade hissed between the bars and Shukeli's laughter broke in a death-scream.",
        "And while the gleaming ranks milled in confusion, the trumpets of Conan sounded, and through the opening ranks of the archers crashed the terrible charge of the Aquilonian knights.",
        "What this monster was, Conan could not know, but the evidences of its sufferings were so terrible and pathetic that a strange aching sadness came over the Cimmerian, he knew not why.",
        "In the swirling red chaos a terrible apparition suddenly appeared before Conan's rearing steed.",
        "With a terrible shout he hurled his broken hilt full into Conan's face, and leaping, seized the stallion's bridle.",
        "He only knew that a stone in the Stygian's hand crashed again and again on his basinet, filling his sight with flashing sparks, as Conan drove his dagger again and again into his foe's body, without apparent effect on the prince's terrible vitality.",
        "An onslaught of Zingarans caused a slackening of the press, and Conan threw aside the corpse and rose, blood-smeared and terrible.",
        "All this rolled in a terrible panorama before Conan's consciousness as he crouched beside the tapestried wall.",
        "His terrible arms flailed down, but Conan, quicker than the archers who had died beneath those awful flails, avoided their strokes and struck again and yet again.",
        "Conan drew his head back as far as he could, waiting with terrible patience.",
        "Conan bestrode two of his attackers, shorn half asunder by that terrible broadsword."
    ],
    "terrific": [
        "He rushed in, hacking madly, but Conan, recognizing him, shattered his sword with a short terrific chop and with a powerful push of his open hand sent him reeling to the floor.",
        "Terrific winds screamed past Conan, tugging at him, striving to wrench him from his feet, to drag him into the vortex that spun madly before him."
    ],
    "terrified": [
        "A chorus of threatening yells broke on his ear, but his stallion pinned a terrified horse hard against the rock, and Conan caught the arm of the rider in an iron grip, checking the lifted sword in midair.",
        "The girl clutched Conan's arm and he felt the terrified quivering of her supple body against his."
    ],
    "thick": [
        "Conan threw up his head like a lion tossing back its mane, and his voice was thick with the growl of the angry lion.",
        "Conan had a glimpse of his vulture-like figure through the thick-set bars, as he slid home the grate; then the heavy outer door clanged, and silence fell like a pall.",
        "\"Shukeli knows nothing of my coming, white man,\" answered the black, craning his thick neck to peer into Conan's savage eyes.",
        "Conan paused a moment on the very edge, fascinated by the great frosty jewels whose gleams dazzled his eyes\u00addiamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, set thick as stars in the shimmering silver.",
        "Was it from that door that death had come?--and having struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?  It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death.",
        "These strands were thick as ropes, and Conan knew that once they were coiled about him, his desperate strength would not be enough to tear him free before the monster struck.",
        "With a curse, Conan caught her thick tresses near her head and shook her until the walls danced to her dizzy sight.",
        "Conan rushed into the bows, and swinging his great sword, hewed nearly through the giant trunk, which was thicker than a man's body.",
        "Underbrush was not so thick as Conan had anticipated.",
        "Conan admired the scaly torso, thick as his thigh and obviously of great length, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips.",
        "The dust was not so thick, nor Conan's hawk-like sight so clouded, that he could not perceive the man's facial characteristics.",
        "Conan bent and peered toward the ground below the spot where the face showed, but his vision was blocked by undergrowth and the thick boles of the trees.",
        "He was pushing through the thick bushes that hinged the bank when Conan pulled him back.",
        "Provided with a clue to the riddle, Conan pushed back the thick red lips and grunted as he stared down at teeth filed to points.",
        "The plain swam to Conan's gaze, the sunlight was a thick red haze and he reeled in his saddle, grasping the flowing mane with his hand.",
        "Conan's throbbing head crashed against a stone, and the stars were blotted out in a thicker night.",
        "In thick darkness Conan came upon the strand, straining his eyes out across the black restless water.",
        "Conan squatted beside the cactus, cutting off the thick pears and dexterously twitching out the spikes.",
        "Finishing his meal, Conan wiped his hands in the sand, rose, ran his fingers through his thick black mane, hitched up his sword belt and said: \"Well, let's go."
    ],
    "thin": [
        "It was the impact of the charge Conan feared, when the huge wedge should crash against his thin ranks.",
        "The smile seemed to broaden on Conan's thin lips.",
        "\"Pirates!\" whispered Conan, a grim smile on his thin lips.",
        "Conan's thin lips drew back from his teeth in a grinning snarl."
    ],
    "thir": [
        "The five women of the Xotalancas were down with thir throats cut before Conan and Valeria entered the fray, and when a man or woman went down under the stamping feet, there was always a knife ready for the helpless throat, or a sandaled foot eager to crush the prostrate skull."
    ],
    "third": [
        "As the third tribesman clumped his way past Conan to his death, the Cimmerian, his veins bulging in his temples with his efforts to break past the unseen barrier that held him, was suddenly aware of allied forces, unseen, but waking into life about him.",
        "The third Irakzai was a decapitated corpse, and the hideous finger was lifting again when Conan felt the bursting of the invisible barrier.",
        "Then they fastened Conan's chains to that ring, and the third black turned his key in the lock of the farther door, grunting when he had assured himself that it was properly fastened."
    ],
    "thirsty": [
        "Conan rose, kicking himself free of the tangling tapestries and the broken table, cursing with the bitterness of his blood-thirsty disappointment."
    ],
    "threatening": [
        "A chorus of threatening yells broke on his ear, but his stallion pinned a terrified horse hard against the rock, and Conan caught the arm of the rider in an iron grip, checking the lifted sword in midair."
    ],
    "thunderous": [
        "As they stepped into the open there was a ripping crash in this thicket, and Conan, bounding aside and carrying the girl with him, narrowly saved them from something that rushed through the air and struck a tree-trunk with a thunderous impact.",
        "Steel flashed blindingly in the sun, clashed loudly, and blue sparks flew; then a clang of armor as Tarascus measured his full length on the earth beneath a thunderous stroke of Conan's broadsword.",
        "A confused torrent of sound rose, deep and thunderous as the sea-surf: \"Hail, Conan, king of Aquilonia!\""
    ],
    "tigerish": [
        "Conan sprang to meet him, and all his tigerish strength went into the arm that swung the sword.",
        "The jeweled giant rose, taking his pipes from his lips--and at that instant Conan was among the startled blacks with a tigerish bound.",
        "The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Devi's soft neck, but Conan was quicker--a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below.",
        "Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes."
    ],
    "tiny": [
        "But still he dwindled, and Conan saw a tiny, pigmy figure rushing wildly about the ebony table-top, waving tiny arms and shrieking in a voice that was like the squeak of an insect.",
        "But still he dwindled, and Conan saw a tiny, pigmy figure rushing wildly about the ebony table-top, waving tiny arms and shrieking in a voice that was like the squeak of an insect.",
        "She did not go the way they had come, but before Conan's suspicions could be roused, she halted in a wide ivory-cased chamber, and pointed to a tiny fountain which gurgled in the center of the ivory floor.",
        "Natala obeyed, and holding the tiny point of light in his left hand and his bloody saber in his right, Conan started down the corridor.",
        "Conan woke in the chill whiteness of early dawn, to see Zelata crouched beside the tiny fire.",
        "It was intricately carved, with tiny skulls and writhing dragons curiously intertwined, but Conan saw no catch or hasp that might serve to unlock the lid."
    ],
    "topped": [
        "Conan glanced at the sun, just beginning to dip behind the flat-topped houses on the western side of the bazaar, and hitching once more at his belt, moved off in the direction of Aram Baksh's tavern."
    ],
    "total": [
        "Whether there was one behind it, Conan cound not ascertain, because some trick of the light, or the sweep of the wall, left the space behind the altar in total darkness."
    ],
    "tough": [
        "She obeyed without question, and when she turned from her task she saw Conan rapidly tying together the long tough strips of silk to make a rope, one end of which he fastened to the leg of the massive ivory table."
    ],
    "tousled": [
        "So Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell."
    ],
    "transcosmic": [
        "Then, like the bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of iridescent gleams, and the ebony table-top lay bare and deserted--as bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-kosha and Yogah had lain."
    ],
    "tremendous": [
        "Conan sensed an inexplicable something about him that set him apart-an alien aura of Time and Space, a sense of tremendous and sinister antiquity.",
        "Conan glared at it with some curiosity, noticing the state of the bare bones, most of which were splintered and broken; the skull which had fallen from the vertebrae, was crushed as if by some savage blow of tremendous force."
    ],
    "triple": [
        "Instantly the jaws clashed convulsively together, severing the triple-pieced shaft and almost percipitating Conan from his perch."
    ],
    "true": [
        "Happenings and events that had seemed meaningless before now flashed into his mind, with their true significance, bringing a realization that Conan spoke no idle boast.",
        "In sorrow I say it, but it is true: King Conan, you are a king without a kingdom.\"",
        "\"It is true the water was muddy, and the people of Tanasul said that the river rose perhaps a foot yesterday; but that was not enough to prevent Conan's crossing.\""
    ],
    "tufted": [
        "Conan could sense the great slavering jaws, the tufted tails lashing tawny sides."
    ],
    "turanian": [
        "Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings."
    ],
    "turbulent": [
        "\"That's Conan the northron, the most turbulent of all my rogues!"
    ],
    "twin": [
        "And like the stroke of twin cobras, the great hands closed on Conan's throat."
    ],
    "twisted": [
        "This Aram lifted and showed the Cimmerian into a well-appointed chamber, the windows of which, Conan instantly noted, were small and strongly set with twisted bars of iron, tastefully gilded."
    ],
    "typical": [
        "These figures, not much longer than a man's hand, represented men, and so cleverly were they made that Conan recognized various racial characteristics in the different idols, features typical of Zingarans, Argoseans, Ophireans and Kushite corsairs."
    ],
    "ultimate": [
        "For an instant a dimming witchfire glimmered in those dusky depths; then it disappeared and Conan lay staring down into the blackness of the ultimate abyss from which no sound came."
    ],
    "unable": [
        "They glared about, bellowing, unable to penetrate the darkness which their torches served to illuminate for only a few feet in any direction, and then rushed down the alley at random-heading in the direction opposite to that taken by Conan and Albiona."
    ],
    "unaffected": [
        "Conan shook the red drops from his sword, grinned with unaffected pleasure, stretched like a huge cat--and abruptly stiffened, the expression of satisfaction on his face being replaced by a stare of bewilderment."
    ],
    "unarmed": [
        "Conan faced them, not a naked man 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 his long sword in his hand."
    ],
    "unaware": [
        "Only Conan seemed unaware what a monstrous dislocating and uprooting of accepted thought and action their invasion constituted, what an unprecedented violation of tradition.",
        "Conan sprang at him from behind, trying to catch him unaware and disarm him, but the madman wheeled and lunged at him, screaming like a lost soul."
    ],
    "unbandaged": [
        "Conan of Aquilonia, blood from unbandaged wounds caking his huge limbs, faced his captors."
    ],
    "unbearable": [
        "A low bestial moaning drooled from the loose lips; the head rolled as if in unbearable agony, and the eyes looked full at Conan."
    ],
    "unblemished": [
        "It was the actual body of a woman, and by what dark art the ancients had preserved that form unblemished for so many ages Conan could not even guess."
    ],
    "unbreakable": [
        "Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars."
    ],
    "uncanny": [
        "The soft light bathed him, and they saw he was a counterpart of the man Conan had killed before the outer gate, except that his garments were richer, and ornamented with jewels which twinkled in the uncanny light."
    ],
    "uncertain": [
        "Conan charged after it, up the left-hand stair, uncertain as to just what he had seen whip up those steps, but in a berserk mood that drowned the nausea and horror whispering at the back of his consciousness.",
        "\"If I can get within ax-throwing distance of him I'll settle that question,\" growled Conan, helping himself to the governor's wine and pushing a glass toward Balthus, who took it hesitatingly, and with an uncertain glance toward Valannus.",
        "Conan wondered if he dared fade into some dark alley; but hesitated, uncertain, and down the long dark street they padded silently, while such folk as they met turned their heads away and fled from them."
    ],
    "unchained": [
        "And as the door closed behind him, Conan moved with the devastating fury of unchained blood-lust."
    ],
    "uncompleted": [
        "Whatever other cogitation might have passed through his mind is not to be known; for, leaving the sentence uncompleted, he ran lightly at Conan just as the Cimmerian was perforce employing his ax-arm to wipe the blood from his blinded eyes."
    ],
    "unconcealed": [
        "This they set before Conan, bowing low, and the king wiped his hands on the damask, and smacked his lips with unconcealed relish."
    ],
    "undulating": [
        "Then before Conan's gaze, the wizard vanished--simply disappeared like a burst bubble, and something long and undulating darted up one of the smaller stairs that led up to left and right from the landing."
    ],
    "uneasy": [
        "Conan made his way along the alley, and as he reached the house he had an uneasy feeling that he was being spied upon.",
        "An uneasy feeling rose in Conan that this had not happened by chance, or without design; a conviction that the mysterious Stygian galley had come into the harbor of Messantia on a definite mission."
    ],
    "unencumbered": [
        "Conan made no more noise laden with their grim burden than he had made when unencumbered."
    ],
    "unerring": [
        "Conan could see in the dark no better than she, but he possessed a sort of instinct that made his course unerring."
    ],
    "unfamiliar": [
        "The hill steed reared wildly under the unfamiliar clash of the Kothic armor, and Conan's gusty laugh rose above the din as he led them to where the eastern ridge branched away from the plateau.",
        "Gorulga was booming forth some kind of a chant in an accent unfamiliar to Conan, and which was probably some invocation in the ancient tongue of Alkmeenon, handed down from generation to generation of high priests."
    ],
    "unfortunate": [
        "Balthus took the rear end of the litter, onto which Conan unceremoniously dumped the unfortunate merchant, and they moved on down the trail as swiftly as possible."
    ],
    "unguarded": [
        "\"Conan sleeps unguarded.",
        "Conan thought of the girl, Muriela, alone and unguarded in that great shadowy palace."
    ],
    "unhindered": [
        "Far to the eastward, Conan knew, the meadowlands gave way to desert, where there were no cities and the nomadic tribes roamed unhindered."
    ],
    "unhuman": [
        "Before him rose up the ancient ruins, and with a shriek that froze the blood in Conan's veins, the unhuman charioteer cast Natohk and the girl from him.",
        "As the monstrous shape with it leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow."
    ],
    "unifying": [
        "So long as Conan lives he is a threat, a unifying factor for Aquilonia, that might be used to compel us into courses we would not otherwise follow."
    ],
    "uninhabited": [
        "\"A strange stone to find on an uninhabited island,\" growled Conan.",
        "\"I saw it carved in the rock of a cave no human had visited for a million years,\" muttered Conan, \"in the uninhabited mountains beyond the Sea of Vilayet, half a world away from this spot.",
        "Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from the stunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with this fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited."
    ],
    "unintelligible": [
        "In the few seconds Conan stood frozen, hitherto unintelligible phrases in the parchment manuscript blazed in his brain with chilling clarity."
    ],
    "unknown": [
        "Into that blackness she had seen Conan vanish, locked in mortal combat with the unknown demon, and the only sounds that had come to her straining ears had been the panting gasps of the barbarian, the impact of struggling bodies, and the thud and rip of savage blows.",
        "With a muttered oath of surprize, Conan caught up Albiona in one massive arm, and followed his unknown befriender.",
        "Conan's heart beat quicker as he gazed at the grim black wedge that stood etched against the stars, and his impatience to close with Thutothmes in whatever conflict the meeting might mean was not unmixed with a fear of the unknown."
    ],
    "unlighted": [
        "Conan spat in disgust, and a moment later led his companion out into the road which was becoming a street, with still, unlighted houses on each side."
    ],
    "unnatural": [
        "What that something was, Conan had no idea, but an aura of unnatural horror hung over those dim-lit chambers.",
        "Glaring down into the blazing eyes, Conan knew these creatures were not beasts; it was not merely in their unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference.",
        "And suddenly Conan was aware of something unnatural."
    ],
    "unorthodox": [
        "Conan's manner of fighting was unorthodox, but instinctive and natural as that of a timber wolf."
    ],
    "unperturbed": [
        "Conan listened unperturbed."
    ],
    "unprecedented": [
        "Only Conan seemed unaware what a monstrous dislocating and uprooting of accepted thought and action their invasion constituted, what an unprecedented violation of tradition."
    ],
    "unprotected": [
        "Volmana, flinging the attackers right and left in his savage impatience, came plowing through and hacked murderously at Conan's unprotected head."
    ],
    "unreal": [
        "Conan found the scene gloomy and unreal; the silence of the people, their furtive haste, the great black stone walls that rose on each side of the streets."
    ],
    "unreasoning": [
        "Count Trocero, left by Conan in charge of the city, tried to reassure them, but in their unreasoning terror they remembered old civil wars, and how this same count had besieged Tamar fifteen years before.",
        "They cringed back, unreasoning horror in their eyes, and Conan pushed past them and strode into Xotalanc."
    ],
    "unsatiated": [
        "Conan shook his head as a lion shakes its mane and growled his unsatiated blood lust."
    ],
    "unseen": [
        "Conan sensed that some unseen magnetic force was pulling Yara to the gem.",
        "Along the dark, silent tunnel Conan groped, momentarily dreading a fall into some unseen pit; but at last his feet struck steps again, and he went up them until he came to a door on which his fumbling fingers found a metal catch.",
        "As the third tribesman clumped his way past Conan to his death, the Cimmerian, his veins bulging in his temples with his efforts to break past the unseen barrier that held him, was suddenly aware of allied forces, unseen, but waking into life about him.",
        "As the third tribesman clumped his way past Conan to his death, the Cimmerian, his veins bulging in his temples with his efforts to break past the unseen barrier that held him, was suddenly aware of allied forces, unseen, but waking into life about him."
    ],
    "unstable": [
        "Conan blinked and shook the blood from his own eyes; it seemed to him that the thing was melting and disintegrating into a slimy unstable mass."
    ],
    "untamed": [
        "Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul."
    ],
    "untouched": [
        "The rogues drew back momentarily, as their leader seized several and thrust them toward the single door, and in that brief respite Conan leaped to the wall and tore therefrom an ancient battle-ax which, untouched by time, had hung there for half a century.",
        "Conan's steel-trap quickness of eye and muscle had kept him untouched, though the sticky loops had passed him so close they rasped his naked hide."
    ],
    "unusual": [
        "Taking her hand with a thoughtfulness unusual for him, Conan strode out across the sands, suiting his stride to the shorter legs of his companion."
    ],
    "unwelcome": [
        "But when he returned to Conan a short time later, bearing in his own hands a platter of fruit and meats, he presented a placid face to his unwelcome guest."
    ],
    "unwise": [
        "The plain ran red with the blood of their eternal warfare, and it was then that--\" He bit his tongue in the midst of the sentence, then presently continued, but Valeria and Conan felt that he had checked an admission he had considered unwise."
    ],
    "unyielding": [
        "Conan lifted his knife and smote, and the watchers were dumbfounded to see his blow checked apparently in midair, with the loud clang of steel that meets an unyielding substance."
    ],
    "upper": [
        "\"All these upper chambers seem to be lighted,\" said Conan."
    ],
    "uppermost": [
        "On the uppermost of these terraces Conan's army held its position, awaiting the attack."
    ],
    "upright": [
        "Conan and Kerim Shah still stood upright, and four of the Irakzai."
    ],
    "upturned": [
        "She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in disorder over her white shoulders.",
        "Conan bounded out on the bridge and stood poised above the upturned black faces, ax lifted, black mane blown in the wind."
    ],
    "urgent": [
        "But they attempted no reprisal, nor did they accept Conan's urgent invitation to approach within reach of the bloody chain in his hand."
    ],
    "useless": [
        "Flinging down his useless sword, Conan caught up a heavy bench and hurled it with all his power.",
        "As it was, Conan swayed backward, but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him as he fell."
    ],
    "utter": [
        "After that there was a bewildering succession of dim courts and shadowy alleys and winding corridors, all traversed in utter silence, until at last they emerged into a broad lighted chamber, the location of which Conan could not even guess, for their devious route had confused even his primitive sense of direction."
    ],
    "vague": [
        "Conan was aware of a vague uneasiness as he stared at the dumb sightless figures.",
        "Their captives were the Freebooters; they hung slackly in their captors' arms, and but for an occasional vague movement or twitching, Conan would have believed them dead.",
        "Conan half expected some other monstrosity to leap at him with the opening of the door, but in the dimmer light he saw only the vague sweep of the arch above, a dully gleaming block of gold, and a half-moon glimmer on the stone.",
        "The very garments she wore were intact--and Conan scowled at that, a vague uneasiness stirring at the back of his mind.",
        "Whirling, he glared back the way he had come, and was startled to see a vague ghostly glow vanishing into the forest in the direction Conan had taken.",
        "Amalric found it impossible to obtain more than vague general tidings about Conan's movements."
    ],
    "vain": [
        "The invaders' numbers had engulfed the nineteen hundred knights of Conan, but about this compact wedge, which hewed deeper and deeper into the looser formation of their foes, the knights of Koth and Ophir swirled and smote in vain."
    ],
    "valved": [
        "Halting before the great bronze-valved door, Conan caught Octavia by her shoulders and shook her in his intensity.",
        "Before they reached the double-valved door at the other end, Conan had mounted the outer steps and was in the hall behind them."
    ],
    "various": [
        "These figures, not much longer than a man's hand, represented men, and so cleverly were they made that Conan recognized various racial characteristics in the different idols, features typical of Zingarans, Argoseans, Ophireans and Kushite corsairs.",
        "But the face was higher than his own, and there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes, a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before him.",
        "Conan stood waiting expectantly, staring at the various black arches which opened into the chamber."
    ],
    "vast": [
        "But these misty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vast distances of plain, riverlaced jungle, and mountains.",
        "Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges that banded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridge of stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavern to join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river.",
        "But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black banner with its golden lion that floated above King Conan's pavilion.",
        "But for the handful in the secret, no one else in the vast host knew that it was not Conan who rode on the great stallion at the head of the army.",
        "To Conan's ears came a vast torrent of sound, rising and rising in frenzy: \"The king is dead!",
        "Then these fell behind, and Conan, topping a wooded crest, saw a vast expanse of bare slopes sweeping up and away before him."
    ],
    "vaulted": [
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world.",
        "They traversed a long, dark, vaulted corridor in which, Conan noticed uneasily, the skull on the staff glowed phosphorescently."
    ],
    "velvet": [
        "At a word from Zabibi, Conan gave the limp body into the black's arms and saw the young officer laid on a velvet divan.",
        "\"Send my squires to me!\" exclaimed Conan, rising with alacrity and casting off his velvet night-garment"
    ],
    "vengeful": [
        "Conan drove his sword between the dusky shoulders with such vengeful fury that the broad blade stood out half its length from the black breast.",
        "Conan's vengeful fingers strangled the yell in his throat."
    ],
    "vermilion": [
        "Conan still stood at the casement, staring down into the harbor at the purple and crimson and vermilion and scarlet sails of galleons and carracks and galleys and dromonds."
    ],
    "very": [
        "Conan paused a moment on the very edge, fascinated by the great frosty jewels whose gleams dazzled his eyes\u00addiamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, set thick as stars in the shimmering silver.",
        "And suddenly he sank into the very heart of the jewel, as a man sinks into a sea, and Conan saw the smoky waves close over his head.",
        "The very garments she wore were intact--and Conan scowled at that, a vague uneasiness stirring at the back of his mind.",
        "At the very ledge the brute paused in mid-flight--and Conan saw it too--Muriela, with the jewel chest under her arm, stood staring wilding in the mouth of the tunnel."
    ],
    "vicious": [
        "Conan sprang after it, knife lifted, but his vicious swipe cut empty air as the serpent writhed away from him and struck its blunt nose against a paneled screen of sandalwood."
    ],
    "visible": [
        "Taking Sancha's hand, Conan glided down the stair, stooping so that his head would not be visible above the wall.",
        "\"She is my captive,\" Conan warned, glancing pointedly at the feet of the man he had slain, just visible within the ring of light."
    ],
    "vital": [
        "Conan's poniard had sunk again and again into his torso, shoulders, and bull-like neck; he was streaming blood from a score of wounds; but, unless the blade quickly reached some absolutely vital spot, Thak's inhuman vitality would survive to finish the Cimmerian and, after him, Conan's companions."
    ],
    "vizored": [
        "And while the fallen king stared with burning eyes that reflected the bitter rage and humiliation that ate his heart, the squires stripped Valannus of mail shirt, burganet and leg-pieces, and clad him in Conan's armor of black plate-mail, with the vizored salade, and the dark plumes nodding over the wivern crest."
    ],
    "volcanic": [
        "Conan's volcanic temper, never long at best, burst into explosion."
    ],
    "voluminous": [
        "And he saw that in spite of the handicap of Conan's first hold, and the voluminous robe that lashed and wrapped about the ape-man's limbs and body, Thak's giant strength was swiftly prevailing.",
        "The common men of Stygia were not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminous enough to hide the Cimmerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanta knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt to the south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man."
    ],
    "warm": [
        "Conan sat on a silken divan in a rich chamber whose filmy curtains the warm breeze billowed."
    ],
    "wary": [
        "Conan followed him, and lying flat on the broad top, they spoke in wary whispers.",
        "Conan's wary soul felt the aura of waiting menace that brooded over it.",
        "Conan saw scant reason in this, and a faint suspicion of his companion touched his wary soul, but he did as Taurus requested.",
        "But it was Conan's nature to be suspicious and wary."
    ],
    "wattled": [
        "Its beak flashed down, ripping the skin on Conan's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird could flash away, Conan's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles, and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck."
    ],
    "wayward": [
        "Man or demon, the suffering of the captive touched Conan's wayward and impulsive heart."
    ],
    "weak": [
        " IV When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed.",
        "Perhaps the Stygian girdle about Conan's waist could have told why their necromantic spells had proven so weak and so quickly exhausted."
    ],
    "weary": [
        "And down in the desert the slaughter continued, where the survivors of the horde had reached their horses and streamed out across the waste, pursued by the weary victors--and Conan stood appalled as he noted how few of these were left to pursue.",
        "Conan swung from his weary steed and dropped down the face of the rocks, landing with a clang of mail on the grass.",
        "A fierce cry rose from Conan's lips as his sword went up; a pale oval of a face was turned toward him, a sword gleamed in a half-seen hand, and Beloso echoed the cry-and then the weary stallion, with a lurch and a groan, missed his footing in the shadows and went heels over head, hurling his dazed rider from the saddle.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers.",
        "As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he trembled with the mad urge to rush among those silent priests, clear his way with mighty blows of naked steel, and grasp the red gem with passion-taut fingers."
    ],
    "weird": [
        "The thing glowed all over now with a weird phosphorous radiance, and this glow was in Conan's eyes, blinding him, as suddenly the heaving billowing mass fell away from beneath him, the saber tearing loose and remaining in his locked hand.",
        "Tolkemec was coming toward him, his weird eyes ablaze, but he hesitated at the gleam of the knife in Conan's hand."
    ],
    "well": [
        "Conan mentally termed the creatures black men, for lack of a better term; instinctively he knew that these tall ebony beings were not men, as he understood the term.",
        "\"A dozen men are better for a job like that than a regiment,\" answered Conan.",
        "\"Well,\" said Conan harshly, \"is it not better to die honorably than to live in infamy?",
        "But Conan's was the broad tolerance of the barbarian, and he had refused to persecute the followers of Asura or to allow the people to do so on no better evidence than was presented against them, rumors and accusations that could not be proven."
    ],
    "western": [
        "Conan looked to see Amalric's lancers rounding the western ridge, but they did not come, and the pikemen began to reel back under the shocks.",
        "Scouts have reported that the Zuagirs have siege engines, built, undoubtedly, according to the instructions of Conan, who learned all the arts of war among the Western nations.",
        "Conan glanced at the sun, just beginning to dip behind the flat-topped houses on the western side of the bazaar, and hitching once more at his belt, moved off in the direction of Aram Baksh's tavern.",
        "Conan knew that Aram Baksh slept in a chamber that opened into a cypress-bordered path that led to the door in the western wall.",
        "But the shadow of the western cliffs fell like a vast purple pall across the tents and the army of Aquilonia, and upon the black banner with its golden lion that floated above King Conan's pavilion.",
        "The Black Ring was a fable and a lie to most folk of the western world, but Conan knew of its ghastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abominable sorceries amid the black vaults of Stygia and the nighted domes of accursed Sabatea.",
        "Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for Messantia."
    ],
    "whetted": [
        "Only the whetted instincts of barbarism could have sensed it, but Conan knew, without seeing or hearing him leave, that the master of Dagon no longer stood outside the door.",
        "This Conan felt rather than knew, his whetted primitive instincts sensing unrest about him."
    ],
    "white": [
        "Wondering, Conan 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.",
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "\"Shukeli knows nothing of my coming, white man,\" answered the black, craning his thick neck to peer into Conan's savage eyes.",
        "Conan stared at the wide flaring ears, the curling proboscis, on either side of which stood white tusks tipped with round golden balls.",
        "Then all was swept away by the crimson tide that rode madly in Conan's soul, as he crushed fiercely in his iron arms the slim white body that shimmered like a witch-fire of madness before him.",
        "So Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell.",
        "Conan saw the white glimmer of his naked body amid the green water, as the black giant held his captive deep under the surface.",
        "The southern night swept down quickly, littering the dark blue sky with great white stars, and Conan entered the shadowy ruins, drawing the reluctant Olivia after him.",
        "Then, as the white stars glimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseleted breast.",
        "She was the first to spring ashore, closely followed by Conan, and after them trooped the ebon-skinned pirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyes rolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.",
        "Conan of Cimmeria leaned on his great sword upon the white beach, watching the Tigress swinging out on her last voyage.",
        "She was on her knees, clutching at Conan hysterically, her beautiful tear-stained face upturned to him, her dark silken hair flowing in disorder over her white shoulders.",
        "The Cimmerian contemptuously struck it aside with his sword-at the instant of contact there was a sharp explosion, a flare of white, blinding flame, and Conan pitched senseless to the ground.",
        "Dawn was still white on the peaks when Conan rode westward.",
        "Conan burst out into the wide white road without warning, and saw the stallion plunging and rearing in the moonlight, his ears laid back, his eyes and teeth flashing wickedly.",
        "The leader carried an ebon staff Which supported a grinning white skull, and Conan knew it was one of the ritualistic processions so inexplicable to a foreigner, but which played a strong-and often sinister-part in the Stygian religion."
    ],
    "whitish": [
        "The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe."
    ],
    "whole": [
        "He is mazed with fear, and might bolt--might even rush to Conan in a panic, and reveal the whole plot, hoping thus to save his own hide.",
        "Separated from his mates by the whole mass of the enemy, Conan had been enveloped in a black wave of arms and bodies, and dragged down.",
        "With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry from the wall and whirling it, with a muscular effort greater than that required for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head.",
        "Conan made his whole body a solid knot of iron-hard muscle, jammed his head back hard against the wood and held it rigid there.",
        "\"When they smoke my head the whole river will know,\" grunted Conan.",
        "We shall have to fall back to Tarantia to defend what we have taken; and we may have to fight our way through a country in rebellion, with Conan's whole force at our heels, and then stand siege in the city itself, with enemies within as well as without.",
        "\"Move with your whole strength against Conan,\" answered the man from Acheron.",
        "\"If we caught Conan in Shirki valley with the hill ridges to his right and the river in flood to his left,\" he admitted, \"without whole force we could annihilate him.",
        "In his rage Conan felt capable of accounting for the whole clan single-handed."
    ],
    "wicked": [
        "At the end of the procession there stalked a huge Negro with an unusually wicked cast of countenance, at the sight of whom Conan scowled."
    ],
    "wide": [
        "He 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 King Conan's skin crawled.",
        "With the thud of the stroke, Conan saw the life go out of the wide black eyes with the suddenness of a candle blown out.",
        "Conan stared at the wide flaring ears, the curling proboscis, on either side of which stood white tusks tipped with round golden balls.",
        "Conan swore under his breath; Natala's red lips opened wide.",
        "She did not go the way they had come, but before Conan's suspicions could be roused, she halted in a wide ivory-cased chamber, and pointed to a tiny fountain which gurgled in the center of the ivory floor.",
        "Conan saw a yellow-skinned woman, loaded with jeweled ornaments but otherwise nude, staring at him with wide eyes.",
        "Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear, wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips.",
        "Conan noticed that his eyes were wide, fixed, and of a peculiar luminous quality.",
        "The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlight played out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty, vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, as Conan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world.",
        "Just as Balthus began to fear they would run into the savages who seemed to be howling just ahead of them, Conan swung away from the river in a wide semicircle that carried them to a low rise from which they could look over the forest.",
        "Reeling on wide-braced legs Conan drunkenly tore the door-flap open and staggered out under the canopy.",
        "Conan burst out into the wide white road without warning, and saw the stallion plunging and rearing in the moonlight, his ears laid back, his eyes and teeth flashing wickedly.",
        "Menials at their tasks halted and gaped open-mouthed as Conan crossed a wide, cool balcony overlooking the court and entered a broad corridor through which the sea-breeze swept.",
        "Yet it was Conan who halted them as they were crossing an unusually wide chamber."
    ],
    "wierd": [
        "His head was lowered, but Conan caught the wierd gleam of eery eyes regarding them unblinkingly."
    ],
    "wild": [
        "\"He is dead,\" muttered Conan, ill at ease to hear these wild words.",
        "It was a motley army Conan had assembled, in the wild hours following his return to his capital.",
        "Conan dismounted the archers and ranged them along the ridges, with the wild tribesmen.",
        "Had Conan not possessed the steel-spring quickness of a wild thing, that falling portcullis would have skewered him.",
        "Conan was fighting like a wild beast himself, in silence except for his gasps of effort.",
        "Then, as the white stars glimmered through the blue velvet dusk, making her whirling body a blur of ivory fire, with a wild cry she threw herself at Conan's feet, and the blind flood of the Cimmerian's desire swept all else away as he crushed her panting form against the black plates of his corseleted breast.",
        "\"It is that devil Conan; he is even wilder than the kozaks, yet he is crafty as a mountain lion.\"",
        "Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devilish will that opposed them.",
        "Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, and of many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom of Keshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoard of the Turanian kings.",
        "Pallantides knew that Conan had walked many strange roads in his wild, eventful life, and had been many things before a twist of Fate set him on the throne of Aquilonia.",
        "Conan did not at once reply; wild and passionate and untamed he was, yet any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul.",
        "He began to grow fearful that if he and Valerius advanced farther into the wild country, Conan might elude them entirely, march around them and invade the central provinces behind them."
    ],
    "winding": [
        "In a winding street a short distance away, Conan halted and checked his companion with a heavy hand on her naked shoulder."
    ],
    "winged": [
        "The winged one came on again, and Conan sprang to meet it, his veins on fire with madness."
    ],
    "wiry": [
        "Stories were conflicting, but this much Conan learned: that a lean, wiry Zingaran with the dangerous black eyes and mustaches of the western folk was somewhere on the road ahead of him, and apparently making for Messantia."
    ],
    "wise": [
        "\"Conan is wiser than you,\" he said at last.",
        "\"It was madness to plunge southward as you did,\" commented Conan, \"but it was wise, too, for Zarallo's patrols never thought to look for you in this direction."
    ],
    "witless": [
        "And with the cry she sprang through a crevice in the wall, burst madly through the hindering vines, and ran, ran, ran blind, screaming, witless--until a grasp on her arm brought her up short and she shrieked and fought against the arms that caught her, until a familiar voice penetrated the mists of her terror, and she saw Conan's face, a mask of bewilderment in the moonlight."
    ],
    "wolfish": [
        "But the face was higher than his own, and there was a demoniac aspect about it--Conan had noted various abnormalities about Zogar Sag's features--an obliqueness of the eyes, a sharpness of the ears, a wolfish thinness of the lips: these peculiarities were exaggerated in the apparition which swayed before him."
    ],
    "wooded": [
        "Then these fell behind, and Conan, topping a wooded crest, saw a vast expanse of bare slopes sweeping up and away before him."
    ],
    "wooden": [
        "Conan the Cimmerian sat at the head of that column, near the jagged end of a wooden beam that stuck up out of the ground."
    ],
    "woolly": [
        "They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam, but Conan stepped aside to avoid contact with the first."
    ],
    "wounded": [
        "Conan grunted uncertainly; fearless as a wounded tiger as far as human foes were concerned, he had all the superstitious dreads of the primitive.",
        "As the monstrous shape with it leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhuman idol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, with every ounce of thew and fury behind the blow.",
        "The baron knew that Conan was like a wounded lion that rends and tears even in his death-throes."
    ],
    "yellow": [
        "Conan felt his soul shrivel and begin to be drawn out of his body, to drown in the yellow wells of cosmic horror which glimmered spectrally in the formless chaos that was growing about him and engulfing all life and sanity.",
        "The great yellow eyes burned into his, and Conan gave back the glare of a trapped wolf.",
        "And in the great cold yellow eyes slowly the hate died out in a glitter of pure fear--the only time Conan ever saw such an expression in a reptile's eyes.",
        "Conan saw a yellow-skinned woman, loaded with jeweled ornaments but otherwise nude, staring at him with wide eyes.",
        "Conan played idly with her curly yellow locks, seemingly intent only upon his conquest."
    ],
    "yonder": [
        "\"Bid the keeper see to my steed which is tied behind yonder oak,\" requested Conan, and Servius nodded, drawing the king up the path."
    ],
    "young": [
        " IV When the world was young and men were weak, and the fiends of the I strove with Set by fire and steel and the juice of the upas-tree; Alone in the great sleeping-chamber with its high golden dome King Conan slumbered and dreamed.",
        "Soft white hands that had caressed him, red lips that had been pressed to his, dainty white bosoms that had quivered to his hot fierce kisses, to be stripped of their delicate skin, white as ivory and pink as young petals--from Conan's lips burst a yell so frightful and inhuman in its mad fury that a listener would have stared in horror to know that it came from a human throat.",
        "A young page came running from Yasmela's pavilion, crying to Conan in a shrill, eager voice.",
        "In their midst, cringing and naked, stood a youth that Conan recognized as the youngest sailor aboard the Wastrel.",
        "Conan decided that he was indebted to Murilo and, since he was a man who discharged his obligations eventually, he determined to carry out his promise to the young aristocrat.",
        "\"Some young couple just hitting out on their own,\" Conan was saying as he wiped his sword unemotionally.",
        "Conan caught the glimmer of pale limbs writhing in the starlight, even as, with a convulsive wrench, the captive slipped from the grasp of the brutal fingers and came flying up the road, a supple young woman, naked as the day she was born.",
        "At a word from Zabibi, Conan gave the limp body into the black's arms and saw the young officer laid on a velvet divan."
    ],
    "zugite": [
        "He tossed back his veil, and Conan looked into the features he had seen depicted on the Zugite coin."
    ]
}