Conan of Venarium (24 page)

“I’d better bring you back to the village,” said Conan. He cast a longing glance toward Stercus’ great horse, which was tied to a young pine at the far edge of the clearing. He would have liked nothing better than to return to Duthil aboard the nobleman’s charger. But he had never been on horseback, and bringing the destrier back to Duthil would have told the nearby garrison that Stercus had come to grief. Regretfully, he shook his head. Even more regretfully, he realized he had to leave behind Stercus’ armor, which lay discarded beside the horse. The back-and-breast would be too small for him, but the helm might well fit. Even so —no. Better to sneak back and get them under cover of darkness. The sword he would keep now.

“Duthil will be all in an uproar,” predicted Tarla. “That— that wretch killed Wirp and another boy who tried to keep him from stealing me. He cut one of them down, and the horse struck the other with its hoof.” She shuddered at the memory and interlaced her fingers with Conan’s.

He squeezed her hand, several different excitements warring in his breast. “Our folk will not bear an outrage like that,” he said. “If there is to be an uprising against the Aquilonians at last, let the bards sing that it began in Duthil.”

“Aye,” said Tarla softly. “I — I was wrong to let Stercus have anything to do with me. I did it partly to make you jealous. I’m—I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Conan’s voice was rough. “He got what he deserved. Now we’ll get you home to your father, and we’ll spread the word of what happened to you in Duthil, and then” —he brandished Stercus’ blade—“then let Aquilonians look to their lives!” Hand in hand, he and Tarla started down the track toward the village.

A trumpeter blew a long blast on a battered horn. Mordec, by then, had grown used to the bugle calls that rang out from the Aquilonian encampment by Duthil. Those were sweet and musical. This was only noise, and harsh, discordant noise at that. But the sweet, musical calls belonged to the invaders, while this was of Cimmeria. He did not need to wonder which he preferred.

Not far away from him, Herth scrambled onto a lichen-covered boulder that thrust its way up through the grass of the meadow. The trumpeter’s call blared out again. All through the vast, disorderly Cimmerian encampment, fierce eyes —some gray, others piercing blue —swung toward the northern chieftain.

“Hear me, men of Cimmeria!” cried Herth in a great voice. “Hear me, men of valor! We have come, many of us, from afar to right a great wrong and to drive the foul invaders from the south out of our land forevermore.” He pointed southward, over the hills Mordec and Balarg and Nectan had crossed not long before. “Well, warriors? Shall we set our brothers free?”

“Aye!” Like a wave, the answering shout swelled and swelled, until at last it filled the great encampment. That one ferocious, indomitable word came echoing back from the hills, again and again: “Aye! Aye! Aye!”

Mordec turned to Nectan and Balarg, who stood beside him. “Now let Stercus reap what he has sown.”

Both his fellow villagers nodded. Balarg’s response in no way differed from Nectan’s. Mordec also nodded, in sober satisfaction. Unless he was altogether mistaken, the weaver made as true and trusty a Cimmerian as any warrior here who had traveled far to spill Aquilonian blood.

Herth pointed toward the south once more. “Forward, then!’” he shouted.

And forward the Cimmerians went. No Aquilonian army could have done the like. Aquilonians, civilized men, traveled with an elaborate baggage train. The Cimmerians simply abandoned everything they could not carry with them. They had briefly paused here to gather in full force. For that, lean-tos and tents had proved desirable. Now the Cimmerians forgot them. They would eat what they carried in belt pouches and wallets. They would sleep wrapped in wool blankets, or else on bare ground.

But they would march like men possessed. And they would fight like men insane. Past that, what else mattered?

They had no generals, no colonels, no captains. They had clan chiefs —and listened to them when they felt like it. In long, straggling columns, they followed several tracks that led into and through the hills separating them from the province the Aquilonians had carved out of their country. They had only the vaguest notion of what they would find there. They cared very little. If it was not of Cimmeria, they would slay it.

Mordec and his companions from Duthil had come a long way. Most of the warriors streaming south had come from farther still. If they did not need rest, Mordec sternly told himself he did not need it, either. He watched Nectan and Balarg brace themselves With him, they began to retrace their steps.

How many men tramped toward the Aquilonian province? Mordec had no idea. Enough, though. He was pretty sure they would be enough.

This time, he and Balarg and Mordec took the straight road, the road through the valley, that led back toward Duthil. It was shorter and involved less climbing than the track they had followed to reach the great Cimmerian camp. Mordec thought he had earned that much relief. And the straight road had Aquilonian patrols on it. The blacksmith carried an axe whose head he had forged himself. He intended to blood that axe again. It had been thirsty too long.

He pushed the pace, wanting to be among the first who came upon the Gundermen and Bossonians. His fellow villagers kept up with him, though they lacked his iron endurance and had to force themselves along. They were not at the very forefront when Cimmerians met Aquilonians, but they were close enough to join in the fight.

That fight was short and savage. The Aquilonians put up the best struggle they could, but before long Cimmerian numbers simply overwhelmed them. Mordec did indeed blood his axe —a Gunderman’s head stared up glassily beside his body. Someone said, “A couple of the devils got away.”

“Not good,” said Mordec. “They’ll warn their countrymen.”

The other Cimmerian shrugged. “Let them. We’ll be upon them soon enough, come what may.”

“But— ” Mordec gave it up. He had spent too much time in the company of the civilized Aquilonians. The future would be what it was, warning or no. He nodded. “Aye. We’ll be upon them soon enough.”

Conan and Tarla walked hand in hand down the track toward Duthil. In his other hand Conan clutched Count Stercus’ sword. He had plunged it into the ground again and again to cleanse it of the blood of his fellow villager. Soon enough, he hoped, it would drip with Aquilonian gore. It was a rich weapon, the blade chased with gold and the hilt wrapped in gold wire. Conan cared little for the richness. That the sword was long and sharp mattered more.

“You saved me,” said Tarla for perhaps the dozenth time. Her eyes glowed.

He squeezed her hand. He had no words to show her what he felt; pretty speeches were not in him. But he knew, and he thought Tarla knew, too. Nothing else made any difference.

“Almost there now,” said Tarla.

Conan nodded; he knew the landmarks on the trail as well as he knew the backs of his own hands. He fretted about Nectan’s sheep, for he knew they might fall into danger without him there to watch over them. But Tarla was more important. Once he brought her back to Balarg’s house, he would hurry back to the meadow and resume the duty his father had set him.

Suddenly he halted, the inborn alertness of one who lived close to nature warning him something ahead was amiss. Tarla would have walked on, but his grip on her hand checked her. “Something’s not right,” he said, cocking his head to one side to listen.

After imitating his gesture, Tarla frowned in pretty confusion. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.

“Nor do I,” answered Conan. “And we should—we’re close enough to Duthil by now. Where’s all the usual village noise? Too quiet by half, if you ask me.”

“It’s not always noisy there,” said Tarla.

“No, but — ” Conan broke off. He let himself be persuaded. If the girl he cared about more than anything in the world —at least for the moment—thought everything was all right, then all right everything was likely to be, merely because she thought so. Squeezing her hand again, he went forward once more.

In back of Duthil, the woods grew close to the village. He and Tarla were no more than ten or twenty yards from the closest houses when they came out into the open. They both stared in astonished horror at what they saw. Blood and bodies were everywhere. The stench of all that blood, a heavy iron stink that might almost have come from the smithy, filled Conan’s nostrils. More ravens and vultures and carrion crows spiraled down by the moment.

But scavenger birds were not all that moved in Duthil. A pair of Bossonian archers spotted Conan and Tarla as they came forth from the forest. “Mitra!” exclaimed one. “We missed a couple of these damned barbarians.”

“Well, we’ll get them now,” answered the other. Both reached over their shoulders for arrows, nocked them, and, in the same instant, let fly.

Both Bossonians aimed for Conan. He was plainly the more dangerous of the two —and, if they shot him, they might have better sport with Tarla. The bowmen were well trained and long practiced in what they did. Both shafts flew straight and true —but Tarla sprang in front of the blacksmith’s son and took them full in the breast.

“A life for a life, Conan,” she said. “Make us free.” If she knew any pain, she did not show it. She fell with a smile on her face.

“No!” howled Conan. But as he stooped beside her, two more arrows hissed over his head. He turned then, and ran for the woods. Had Tarla not said those last three words, he would have thrown his life away charging the Bossonians. Now he could not, not when he had her last wish —no, her last command —ringing in his ears. He had to live. He had to avenge.

Yet another arrow thudded into the trunk of a pine by the side of the track, while the fletching of one more brushed his shoulder as the shaft flew ever so slightly high. Then he was out of sight of the Bossonians. If they came after him, he intended to double back and ambush them. He paused to listen. When he heard the clink of mailshirts, he cursed and began running hard again. That meant they had pikemen with them, in numbers too great for one to assail.

“My own bow, then,” muttered Conan as he pounded up the track. Fitting a new string would be but a minute’s work. His own bow —and Count Stercus’ head. No symbol would be more likely to rouse Cimmeria to rebellion against the invaders from the south than proof the hated governor was dead. But Conan would gladly have given even the abominable Stercus his life back again in exchange for Tarla’s if Crom but granted such bargains.

Only after he was well away from Duthil did he stop again, cursing as foully as he knew how. If the Aquilonians had worked a massacre in his home village, what of his father? What of his mother? That last thought almost sent him running back down the track, straight toward the Gundermen and Bossonians. But no —they demanded a greater vengeance than he alone could wreak.

He found the clearing in which he had rescued Tarla. Count Stercus lay where he had fallen, an expression of anguish and horror still imprinted upon his dead features. Grimly, Conan hewed the head from the Aquilonian’s body. Stercus’ narrow blade was not the ideal tool for the job; a Cimmerian claymore would have been better. But the blacksmith’s son did what he had to do.

Even as he lifted Stercus’ head by the hair, a man called to him from the far edge of the clearing: “A fine prize, that. Whose would it be?”

He whirled, Stercus’ head in his left hand, Stercus’ sword in his right. The newcomer was another Cimmerian, but not a man he had seen before. He said, “It is the head of Stercus himself, the Aquilonians’ accursed commander. However great a prize it may be, it was far too dearly won.”

“Count Stercus’ head? Crom!” exclaimed the stranger, who was lean and strong and worn from much travel. He wore an iron cap on his head and carried a formidable pike. Gathering himself, he went on, “This is great news, if true. Bring it straightaway to Herth, for he has with him men from the south who will know if you lie.”

Conan raised his sword. “If you say I lie, you will lie yourself—lie stark and dead,” he growled. “Take me to Herth.” By the way he spoke, he might have been a chief himself.

And the other Cimmerian nodded, accepting and even honoring his touchy pride. The fellow pointed to Stercus’ charger and back-and-breast and helm. “Did those belong to the Aquilonian wretch?”

“They did,” said Conan indifferently. “Take the horse and the corselet, if they suit you. They are of no use to me. Let me try the helmet first.” When he found it fit, he laughed grimly. “It will do better on my head now than on Stercus’.” He shook his ghastly trophy.

“You give with both hands, like the leader of a clan,” said the other Cimmerian.

“I am not. I am only a blacksmith’s son,” said Conan. “Take me to Herth. If he has men from the south in his company, they will know I am no liar.”

When they came upon the meadow where Conan had warded Nectan’s flock, he found more strangers taking charge of the sheep. “We must eat,” said the man with him. “We have come far and traveled hard.”

Though Conan would have liked to protest, he found he could not. “Better you than the Aquilonians,” he said.

“You speak truth. Ah, there.” His new companion pointed. “There is Herth, coming out of the forest. He has the southern men with him. Do you know any of them?”

“The biggest is my father,” answered Conan. He ran toward Herth and Mordec. Dread clogged his heart when he saw Balarg with then, but he kept going.

“Conan!” cried Mordec, who lumbered forward to greet him. “What have you got there?” An amazed smile of pure delight spread over his father’s face. “That is Stercus’ head, Stercus’ and no one else’s.” He turned back to shout at Herth: “Here’s the Aquilonian leader dead, slain by my son. What wonderful news!”

But Conan shook his head. “No. Everything else I have to say is bad. Let Balarg only come up to hear, and I will tell it all.”

Balarg recognized the head as quickly as Mordec had. “This is bravely done,” he said. “Most bravely done indeed. If you seek Tarla’s hand, how can I say no now?”