Too quickly for the sight to follow, Conan caught up a stool and hurled it. Nabonidus instinctively threw up his arm with a cry, but not in time. The missile crunched against his head, and the Red Priest swayed and fell face-down in a slowly widening pool of dark crimson.
“His blood was red, after all,” grunted Conan.
Murilo raked back his sweat-plastered hair with a shaky hand as he leaned against the table, weak from the reaction of relief.
“It is dawn,” he said. “Let us get out of here, before we fall afoul of some other doom. If we can climb the outer wall without being seen, we won’t be connected with this night’s work. Let the police write their own explanation.”
He glanced at the body of the Red Priest where it lay etched in crimson, and shrugged his shoulders.
“He was the fool, after all; had he not paused to taunt us, he could have trapped us easily.”
“Well,” said the Cimmerian tranquilly, “he’s travelled the road all rogues must walk at last. I’d like to loot the house, but I suppose we’d best go.”
As they emerged into the dimness of the dawn-whitened garden, Murilo said: “The Red Priest has gone into the dark, so my road is clear in the city, and I have nothing to fear. But what of you? There is still the matter of that priest in The Maze, and –”
“I’m tired of this city anyway,” grinned the Cimmerian. “You mentioned a horse waiting at the Rat’s Den. I’m curious to see how fast that horse can carry me into another kingdom. There’s many a highway I want to travel before I walk the road Nabonidus walked this night.”
Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian: The Stories That Inspired the Movie
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