Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard

Lemurian. Yet he looked more a Valusian than a Lemurian as he sat his horse, for he was built differently from most of his race, being tall and leanly but strongly built. His strange eyes alone betrayed his race.
    Another dawn found them riding down from the foothills that debouched out into the Camoonian desert, a vast wasteland, uninhabited, a dreary waste of yellow sands. No trees grew there, nor even bushes, nor were there any streams of water. All day they rode, stopping only a short time at midday to eat and rest the horses, though the heat was almost intolerable. The men, enured as they were, wilted beneath the heat. Silence reigned save for the clank of stirrups and armor, the creak of sweating saddles, and the monotonous scruff of hoof through the deep sands. Even Brule hung his corselet on his saddle bow. But Kelkor sat upright and unmoved, under the weight of full armor, seemingly untouched by the heat and discomfort that harried the rest.
    “Steel, all steel,” thought Kull in admiration, secretly wondering if he could ever attain the perfect mastery over himself that this man, also a barbarian, had attained.
    Two days’ journey brought them out of the desert and into the low hills that marked the confines of Zarfhaana. At the border line they were stopped by two Zarfhaana’an riders.

     
    “I am Kull, of Valusia,” the king answered abruptly. “I ride on the trail of Felgar. Seek not to hinder my passing. I will be responsible to your emperor.”
    The two horsemen reined aside to let the cavalcade pass and as the clashing hoofs faded in the distance, one spoke to the other:
    “I win our wager. The king of Valusia rides himself.”
    “Aye,” the other replied. “These barbarians avenge their own wrongs. Had the king been a Valusian, by Valka, you had lost.”
    The vales of Zarfhaana echoed to the tramp of Kull’s riders. The peaceful country people flocked out of their villages to watch the fierce war-men sweep by and word went to the north and the south, the west and the east, that Kull of Valusia rode eastward.
    Just beyond the frontier, Kull, having sent an envoy to the Zarfhaana’an emperor to assure him of their peaceful intention, held council with Brule, Ka-yanna and Kelkor.
    “They have the start of us by many days,” said Kull, “and we must lose no time in searching for their trail. These country people will lie to us; we must scent out our own trail, as wolves scent out the spoor of a deer.”
    “Let me question these fellows,” said Ka-yanna, with a vicious curl of his thick, sensual lips. “I will guarantee to make them speak truthfully.”
    Kull glanced at him inquiringly.

     
    “There are ways,” purred the Valusian.
    “Torture?” grunted Kull, his lips writhing in unveiled contempt. “Zarfhaana is a friendly nation.”
    “What cares the emperor for a few wretched villagers?” blandly asked Ka-yanna.
    “Enough.” Kull swept aside the suggestion with true Atlantean abhorrence, but Brule raised his hand for attention.
    “Kull,” said he, “I like this fellow’s plan no more than you but at times even a swine speaks truth–” Ka-yanna’s lips writhed in rage but the Pict gave him no heed. “Let me take a few of my men among the villages and question them. I will only frighten a few, harming no one; otherwise we may spend weeks in futile search.”
    “There spake the barbarian,” said Kull with the friendly maliciousness that existed between the two.
    “In what city of the Seven Empires were you born, lord king?” asked the Pict with sarcastic deference.
    Kelkor dismissed this by-play with an impatient wave of his hand.

     
    “Here is our position,” said he, scrawling a map in the ashes of the camp-fire with his scabbard end. “North, Felgar is not likely to go–assuming as we do that he does not intend remaining in Zarfhaana–because beyond Zarfhaana is the sea, swarming with pirates and sea-rovers. South he will not go because there lies Thurania, foe of