From a thicket on the edge of the crest came a somber old woman in peasant garb, her hair flowing over her shoulders, a great gray wolf following at her heels. 'Witch, priest and wolf,' muttered Xaltotun grimly, and laughed. 'Fools, to pit your charlatan's mummery against my arts! With a wave of my hand I brush you from my path!' 'Your arts are straws in the wind, dog of Python,' answered the Asurian. 'Have you wondered why the Shirki did not come down in flood and trap Conan on the other bank? When I saw the lightning in the night I guessed your plan, and my spells dispersed the clouds you had summoned before they could empty their torrents. You did not even know that your rain-making wizardry had failed.' 'You lie!' cried Xaltotun, but the confidence in his voice was shaken. 'I have felt the impact of a powerful sorcery against mine--but no man on earth could undo the rain-magic, once made, unless he possessed the very heart of sorcery.' 'But the flood you plotted did not come to pass,' answered the priest. 'Look at your allies in the valley, Pythonian! You have led them to the slaughter! They are caught in the fangs of the trap, and you cannot aid them. Look!' He pointed. Out of the narrow gorge of the upper valley, behind the Poitanians, a horseman came flying, whirling something about his head that flashed in the sun. Recklessly he hurtled down the slopes, through the ranks of the Gundermen, who sent up a deep-throated roar and clashed their spears and shields like thunder in the hills. On the terraces between the hosts the sweat-soaked horse reared and plunged, and his wild rider yelled and brandished the thing in his hands like one demented. It was the torn remnant of a scarlet banner, and the sun struck dazzlingly on the golden scales of a serpent that writhed thereon. 'Valerius is dead!' cried Hadrathus ringingly. 'A fog and a drum lured him to his doom! I gathered that fog, dog of Python, and I dispersed it! I, with my magic which is greater than your magic!' 'What matters it?' roared Xaltotun, a terrible sight, his eyes blazing, his features convulsed. 'Valerius was a fool. I do not need him. I can crush Conan without human aid!' 'Why have you delayed?' mocked Hadrathus. 'Why have you allowed so many of your allies to fall pierced by arrows and spitted on spears?' 'Because blood aids great sorcery!' thundered Xaltotun, in a voice that made the rocks quiver. A lurid nimbus played about his awful head. 'Because no wizard wastes his strength thoughtlessly. Because I would conserve my powers for the great days to be, rather than employ them in a hill-country brawl. But now, by Set, I shall loose them to the uttermost! Watch, dog of Asura, false priest of an outworn god, and see a sight that shall blast your reason for evermore!' Hadrathus threw back his head and laughed, and hell was in his laughter. 'Look, black devil of Python!'