Conan of Venarium (26 page)

He shrugged again. “I know not. All I know is, this is my land. If I must die for it, then die I will, and be buried on it.” He quickly kissed her. “Get out while you can, dear.”

She shook her head. “If I can find someplace to leave the children, I’ll fight beside you. This is not your land alone.”

One of the pikemen came over to them. “Vulth thinks he has a better chance in Venarium,” said Granth. “Me, I’d sooner make my stand as far north as I can. I’m with you, if you’ll have me.”

“Gladly,” said Melcer. Evlea nodded. The bell tolled out its warning
cry
. Melcer went on, “We’re to make for it when it rings, and do what needs doing once we’re gathered there.”

Melcer hoped he could find a place to leave his children — and his wife —in safety before they came to the bell. But he discovered none, none he would trust against an assault by more than a handful of barbarians. By all the signs, far more than a handful were loose in the land. The bell rang in front of the house of a farmer named Sciliax. Pointing to the cabin, a bigger, fancier, stronger building than Melcer’s, Sciliax said, “Women and children in there. We’ll defend it with all we have.”

All they had, at the moment, consisted of about thirty farmers armed with the sort of weapons farmers carried, plus perhaps half a dozen real soldiers like Granth. More men were coming their way. Would they be enough? Melcer saw, recognized, and worried about the expression on Granth’s face: the pikeman did not like the odds. Slowly, Melcer said, “Maybe we ought to serve out swords and spears and whatever else we’ve got to the women who will take them.”

“Yes, by Mitra!” cried Evlea.

But Sciliax said, “What if they’re taken?”

“What if we lose?” returned Melcer. “They’ll surely be taken then, and they won’t have us at their sides to save them.”

Sciliax was older than most of the settlers who had come north out of Gunderland, and plainly set on old ways of doing things. But he glanced toward Granth, as if wondering what a real soldier thought of the question. Granth did not hesitate. “This fellow’s right,” he said, pointing Melcer’s way. “Whatever you do—whatever we do, I should say—our chances are bad. The more fighters we have, the better we’re likely to fare. I’ve seen Cimmerian women fight. Are ours weaker than theirs?”

Before Sciliax could answer, Evlea said, “I’ll see to it, then.” She rushed into the farmhouse. Women began spilling out of it, women tough enough to make a go of things beyond the frontier of Gunderland. They all clamored for weapons. Some were young, some not so young. Before long, most of them had spears and axes and swords. Some of the men who wore helms gave them to women. With a sort of bow, Granth presented his to Melcer’s wife.

“Here they come!” Suddenly, the cry rose from a dozen throats. Melcer’s gaze went to the woods north of Sciliax’s farm. Black-haired Cimmerians loped out from among the trees. They saw the defenders mustered in front of the farmhouse, saw them and swarmed toward them. The barbarians advanced in no neat formation, but they were ready —more than ready—to fight.

“Form a line!” shouted Granth. “Everyone — help your neighbor. If you save him, he may save you next. No point in running. They’ll just slay you from behind.” No one had appointed him general of this little force. He simply took the job —and the embattled farmers and their wives obeyed him.

Here came a Cimmerian swinging a scythe. He was lean and dirty and looked weary, as if he had traveled a long way with nothing more in mind than murdering Melcer. He shouted something in his own language. Melcer could not understand it, but doubted it was a compliment. The Cimmerian swung back the scythe —and Melcer speared him in the belly.

The soft, heavy resistance of flesh tugged at the pike. For a moment, the barbarian simply looked very surprised. Then he opened his mouth wide and shrieked. Melcer felt like shrieking, too. He had never killed a man before. He had to kick out with his foot to clear the Cimmerian from his pike.

Another Cimmerian swung a two-handed sword, a stroke that would have taken off Melcer’s head had it connected. But the weapon was as cumbersome as it was frightful, and he easily ducked under it. He had gone a lifetime without killing anyone, but claimed his second victim only moments after the first.

He had no time to look around and see how the fight as a whole was going. He could only do his best to stay alive himself and make sure any barbarian who came near him fell. Some of the screams and shouts on the battlefield in front of Sciliax’s house came from women’s throats. Melcer could not even look to see if Evlea remained hale. “Please, Mitra,” he whispered, and fought on.

Cimmerians fell. So did Gundermen. Some lay still, and would never rise again. Others thrashed and wailed and moaned, crying out their torment to the uncaring sky. The wounded on both sides sounded much alike. At first, the sounds of anguish tore at Melcer; as the fight went on, though, he heard them less and less.

After what seemed like forever, the Cimmerians sullenly drew back. Melcer had a chance to lean on his pike and draw a breath and look around. Evlea still stood. The axe in her hands had blood on the head. Granth’s helmet sat dented and askew on her head. Granth himself was also on his feet. And so was Sciliax, though a scalp wound left his face bloody.

But the fight, very likely, was not over. As Melcer watched in dismay, more barbarians emerged from the trees to the north. He looked around in growing despair. Where would his own side find reinforcements?

Panting, Conan glared at the stubborn Gundermen who defended a sturdy farmhouse with a ferocity he had not thought any folk but his own could display. Beside him, flanks also heaving, stood his father. Mordec said, “They’ll have their wives and their brats in there. If anything will make them stand fast until we cut them down, that’s it.”

“I know a couple of them,” said Conan. His father looked at him in surprise. He pointed. “That one pikeman is from the garrison by Duthil.”

“Oh, him. Aye.” Mordec nodded. “He almost did for me a little while ago.”

“And that other fellow, the tall farmer near him, worked lands not far from here,” continued Conan. “He’s not a bad man, or he wouldn’t be if only he’d stayed in his own country. That’s his woman there, with the axe.”

“I mislike killing women, but if they try to kill me — ” Mordec broke off and looked over his shoulder. “We have more men coming, I see. But those accursed Aquilonians will still take a deal of killing.”

Off to one side, Herth was wrapping a rag around his head. His helm had kept a blow from smashing his skull, but the rim, driven down by the dint, left him with a long cut on his forehead. Wiping blood away from his eyes, the clan chief said, “That’s what we’ve come for—to kill them.”

The Cimmerians mustered themselves in a ragged line out of the range of the hunting bows a few of the Gundermen carried. Several of the men who had been in the fight before bore minor wounds. This had been Conan’s first real taste of battle. He had dealt hard blows. He burned to deal more.

Ranged in front of the farmhouse, the yellow-haired farmers and soldiers waited. They were badly outnumbered now, but still stood defiant. “Why don’t they go inside?” asked Conan. “They could give us a harder fight that way.”

“They could for a little while,” said Mordec. “Then we’d fire the place, and they’d burn with their families.”

Conan grimaced, then nodded. Burning foes from a fortress—yes, he could see the need. Burning foes and families alike —he could, perhaps, see the need for that as well, but it raised his gorge even so. The women and children had done nothing to deserve such a fate but accompany their men into this land. Was that enough? Maybe it was.

Herth pointed toward the Gundermen. “Come on, lads!” he called to the Cimmerians around him. “Let’s finish the job!”

Roaring and shouting, the Cimmerians surged forward. Mordec and Conan trotted side by side. Conan noted that his father did not waste his breath on war cries. He simply scanned the enemy line until he chose an opponent. Then he pointed at the man and spoke two words to Conan: “That one.”

“The tall one with the pitchfork?” asked Conan, wanting to be sure. His father nodded. The two of them had fought as a team in their first clash with the embattled farmers. Few men, no matter how doughty, lasted long when beset by such a pair.

Shouting in Aquilonian, the man with the pitchfork thrust at Mordec. The blacksmith beat aside the makeshift weapon with his axe. Conan drove Stercus’ sword deep into the Gunderman’s vitals. Blood spurted; its iron stink filled his nostrils. The Gunderman howled. Even with his dreadful wound, he tried to skewer Conan with the pitchfork. Mordec’s axe —not a tool for felling trees, but a broad-headed war axe for cutting down men —descended. The sound of the blow reminded Conan of those made when cutting up a pig’s carcass. The pitchfork flew from the farmer’s suddenly nerveless hands. The fellow crumpled, his head all but severed from his body.

Another Gunderman fell to the two of them, and another. The farmers’ line wavered. They still fought bravely, but bravely did not serve when each had to face more than one foe. In a furious, cursing knot, they fell back toward the farmhouse door. The three or four pikemen in mailshirts still on their feet defended the door, while some of the farmers —and the handful of women who had not fallen —ran inside.

One of the pikemen—the one Conan had recognized — nodded in an almost friendly way to Mordec and him. “I knew the two of you were trouble,” the soldier said. “Now I see how right I was.”

Some of the Aquilonians at the camp by Duthil had been dreadful. Some had merely been hard. A few, this fellow among them, had been decent enough. “If you stand aside, Granth, we will spare you,” said Mordec.

Granth shook his head. “No. These are my people. If you try to harm them, I’ll kill you if I can.”

“Honor to your courage.” Mordec might have been a man passing sentence. The fight grew fierce again, the Cimmerians battling to push past the last few defenders. Granth went down. Conan did not see how. He only knew that he fought his way into the farmhouse.

That was worse than any of the fighting outside had been. Women and children screamed like lost souls. Egged on by the presence of their loved ones, the Gundermen battled with reckless disregard for their own lives. From outside came a shout: “Clear away, you Cimmerians! We’ll burn the farmhouse over their heads!”

Conan, by then, was caught up in the struggle. The fury of battle upon him, he did not want to break it off. His father dragged him out of the farmhouse by main force. Mordec was the only man there who could have overmastered him. Conan came close to striking out at the blacksmith, too. “We’ll find more fighting later, never you fear,” said Mordec, which helped resign the boy to turning aside from this clash.

Cimmerian archers shot fire arrows at the wooden walls and thatched roof of the farmhouse. Before long, the flames caught and began to spread. But even as some of the Cimmerians exulted, others pointed to the trees on the far side of the house and exclaimed, “They’re fleeing there!”

“How can they?” demanded Conan. “We’ve got them cordoned off.”

His father shook his head in what could only be admiration. “That damned Aquilonian must have dug himself an escape tunnel. What a sneaky wretch he has to be. He thought of everything—except he didn’t run it quite far enough from the house.”

The Cimmerians pounded after their prey. The fighting in amongst the trees was more confused than the battle before the farmhouse — more confused, but no less savage. Here and there, two or three Gundermen would turn at bay and sell their lives dear, allowing their comrades and their wives and children to escape the catastrophe that had befallen the colony.

Along with his father, Conan helped smash down one of those rear-guard efforts. More Aquilonians blundered along ahead of them. Now the invaders had a taste of defeat, a taste of terror. Conan wanted them to drink that cup to the very dregs.

He and Mordec swiftly gained on the running family ahead. The woman had a baby on her hip and held a boy by the hand. “Go on, Evlea!” said the man. “I’ll hold them off. Go on, I tell you.” Pike in hand, Melcer turned and set himself. “Come on, barbarians!’” he snarled. But then he recognized Conan. “You!”

“Go right, lad. I’ll go left,” said Mordec. “We’ll take him down.”

But Conan found himself with no great hunger for the blood of a man he did not hate. “Wait,” he told his father. Mordec eyed him in astonishment, but did not charge ahead, as he had been on the point of doing. Conan spoke to Melcer in Aquilonian: “You leave this land? You leave our land?”

“Aye, curse you,” growled the farmer.

“You leave and never come back?” persisted Conan. “You swear you leave and never come here again?”

“By Mitra, Cimmerian, this land will never see me again if I get out of it,” said Melcer, adding, “Damn you! Damn you all!”

Conan shrugged off the curse and nodded at the oath. “Then go,” he said. He spoke with authority a grown man — indeed, a clan chief—might have envied. The farmer from Gunderland and his family hurried off to the south.

They had not gone far before more Cimmerians hard on the heels of Conan and Mordec came trotting up. The newcomers, by the weave of their breeks, were men from the far north. They pointed indignantly at Melcer and his wife and children. “Are you daft? They’re getting away!” cried one.

“Let them go,” said Conan. “They have sworn an oath by their god to leave this land and never return. The farmer is a good man. What he has promised, he will do. It is enough, I say.”

“And who do you think you are?” howled the Cimmerian from the north. “The King of Aquilonia?” He brandished his sword, as if to go after Melcer and Evlea and the children regardless of the oath the Gunderman had given.

“I am Conan son of Mordec,” answered Conan proudly, “of the village of Duthil.” That gave the other Cimmerians pause; they knew what had happened in Duthil, what had happened to Duthil, Conan added, “And anyone who would slay those Aquilonians will have to slay me first.”