Conan of Venarium (27 page)

“And me.” Mordec ranged himself alongside his son. They stood there, alert and watchful, waiting to see whether their own countrymen would charge them.

“Madness!” said the Cimmerian with the sword. The angry black-haired men shouted at one another and nearly began to fight among themselves, some wanting to slay Conan and Mordec, others respecting their courage even when that courage came for the sake of a foe. At last, that second group prevailed without any blows being struck. “Madness!” repeated the swordsman, but he lowered his blade.

“Let us go on,” sad Mordec. “Plenty of other invaders loose in the woods, even if we give this handful their lives.” In a low voice, he asked Conan, “Would you really have fought your own folk for the sake of a few Aquilonians?”

“Of course,” answered Conan in surprise. “The farmer gave his oath, and I my word. Would you make me out a liar?”

“Did I not stand with you?” said his father. “But that northern man may have had the right of it even so when he spoke of madness.” He clapped his son on the back. “If so, it’s a brave madness. When Stercus’ soldiers came in, I did not think you were a warrior. By Crom, my son, a warrior you are now.”

“As I have need to be,” said Conan. “My mother still wants vengeance.” He cursed. “I could murder every accursed Aquilonian from here to Tarantia, and it would not be vengeance enough.”

“You slew Stercus,” said Mordec. “Everyone who had to live under him will envy you for that. And Verina died with blood on her blade. I think she was gladder to fall so than to let her sickness kill her a thumb’s breadth at a time.”

“It could be,” said Conan
reluctantly,
after considerable thought. “But even if it is, the Aquilonians deserve killing.” His father did not quarrel with him.

Melcer did not know who had owned the horse he acquired before it came to him. It was an Aquilonian animal, bigger and smoother-coated than the Cimmerian ponies he had occasionally seen in these parts. He put Tarnus on the horse’s back, and sometimes Evlea and the baby as well. That let him head south faster than he could have with his whole family afoot.

And speed was of the essence. As long as he and his loved ones stayed ahead of the wave of Cimmerian invaders, they kept some chance of escaping the land that had risen against the settlers. If that wave washed over them, if too many barbarians were ahead of them on the road to Gunderland, they were doomed.

Conan and his father could have killed them all. Melcer knew as much. That the young barbarian had chosen to spare them instead still amazed the farmer. He had not thought any Cimmerian knew the meaning of mercy.

When he said that aloud, his wife shook his head. “Mercy had nothing to do with it,” maintained Evlea.

“What name would you use, then?” asked Melcer.

“Friendship,” she said.

He thought it over. “You may be right,” he said at last, “although whenever I asked Conan if we were friends, he always told me no.”

“He did not want to admit it,” said Evlea. “Like as not, he did not want to admit it even to himself. But when the time came, he found he did not have it in him to slay a woman and children if he knew and liked their man.”

That last phrase, no doubt, held the key. Melcer wondered what had happened back at Sciliax’s farmhouse after his family and he used the escape tunnel. The memory of that terrifying journey through pitch blackness would stay with him until the end of his days. Clumps of dirt had fallen down on the back of his neck and his shoulders between the support beams. He had banged the top of his head on more than one of those beams, too, once or twice almost knocking himself cold. Every step of the way, he had gone in fear that the tunnel would collapse, burying him and his family forever. And screams of hatred and despair and agony had echoed from behind, driving him on like strokes of the lash. Better not to know, perhaps, what had chanced after he got out.

The horse stumbled. He yanked at the lead rope. “Keep going, you cursed thing,” he growled. “If you don’t keep going, we’re ruined.”

“Will we travel all night?” asked his wife.

“Unless that animal falls down dead under you, we will,” answered Melcer. Then he shook his head. “No, not so: even if it dies, we go on, except then we go on afoot.” He muttered under his breath. “These past two years, I’ve welcomed the long days and short nights of this northern summer. Now, though, now I would thank Mitra for less light and for more darkness to cloak us.”

“Mitra does as he pleases, not as we please,” said Evlea.

“Don’t I know it!” Melcer looked around. Columns and puffs of black smoke rose all along the northern horizon, pyre after pyre marking the memory of Aquilonian hopes. Even as he looked, a fresh plume of smoke went up west and a little north of him. But the Cimmerians had not yet begun burning forts and steadings to the south. Therein lay his hope.

As the day wore on, he saw ever more settlers placidly working in their fields, men who did not yet realize peace here lay forever shattered. He shouted out warnings to them. Some cursed. Others laughed and called him a liar, thinking he was playing a joke on them. He wished he were.

The sun set in blood. Melcer kept going. He intended to keep going as long as breath was in him, for he was sure the Cimmerians would do the same. The moon rose two hours after the sun set. He rejoiced and cursed at the same time: it would light his way, but it would also let marauding barbarians spy him. Where were the mists, where were the fogs, of Cimmeria? If they were not here, all he could do was go on, and go on he did.

He came to Venarium as the sun was rising again after too brief a night. His wife and children nodded and half dozed on the back of the horse, which tramped along as if worn unto death. He wished he could have treated the luckless animal better, but that would have endangered his family and him. The horse had to pay the price.

“What are you doing?” asked Evlea when he took the horse off the road that led to Venarium. He made for the river upstream from the town.

“They must know there that the blow has fallen,” answered Melcer. “If they see me, they’ll dragoon me into the army to try to hold Venarium. I swore an oath to the Cimmerian to leave his land —and I don’t think we’ll hold the place. So I’ll skirt it if I can.”

His wife did not have to think long before nodding. Melcer let the horse drink and crop the grass when it got down to the riverbank. He looked for a ford. About a mile east of Venarium, he found one. The water came up to his midsection; it barely wet the horse’s belly. After he led the horse up onto the south bank, he did not make for the road again. Instead, he went straight into the middle of a dense patch of woods. He tied the weary horse to a sapling, then lay down, careless of his wet clothes. “We can rest here,” he said. “With Venarium behind us, now we can rest.”

Conan scratched at the rag bound to his left arm. The cut itched, but no longer pained him much. The Aquilonian soldier who had given him the wound was dead; the palisaded camp the man defended had gone up in smoke. Along with the other Cimmerians on the southbound road, Conan topped a last hill and stared ahead. “That must be Venarium,” he said.

“No doubt,” agreed his father. Mordec yawned. For all his iron strength, the marching and righting had cruelly told on him.

Fresher because he was younger, Conan kept on looking at the town, and at the fortress at its heart. “How will we take this place?” he asked. That they would take it he had no doubt.

“This band alone won’t do it,” said Mordec. “We’ll need to wait until more men come up. Then I suppose we storm it. What else can we do? We know nothing of siegecraft, and the Aquilonians might bring a new army against us while we sit in front of their fort.”

Nectan the shepherd scowled at the houses and shops as much as he did at the fortress. “We’ll burn all of it,” he said, “and so we should. This was prime forest before the Aquilonians came.”

“If we burn the houses and shops, the soldiers in the fortress won’t be able to see what we’re doing because of the smoke,” said Conan.

His father eyed him. “Spoken like a true war leader,” said Mordec. “Take that notion straight to Herth and put it in his ear. He needs to hear it. By Crom, my son, you may make a chieftain yourself one day.”

Conan cared nothing about being a chieftain. He cared nothing about what might happen one day. Vengeance was the only thing that burned in him. The road to vengeance ran through Venarium. Knowing that, he went in search of Herth. The war leader was not hard to find. He had stayed at the forefront of the Cimmerian host ever since it burst upon the province the Aquilonians had stolen.

Herth heard Conan out, then nodded. “Here is a thought with some weight behind it,” he said. “We already have plenty of reasons to burn Venarium. What need have we for such a place in our midst? It would only make us more like accursed King Numedides’ men. And now you have told me precisely when and where the fires should be set. For this, I thank you.”

Not all the Cimmerians were firmly under Herth’s control. Such was the way of life among the warriors of the north. So many of them did as they pleased, not as any chieftain told them. More than a few did as they pleased in despite of what any chieftain told them. Having fought to the outskirts of the Aquilonian stronghold, they saw no reason why they should not fight their way straight into it.

The Aquilonians inside Venarium gave them such a reason. The defenders were not yet inclined to withdraw to the fortress. Archers lurked among the buildings at the outskirts of the town. As soon as Cimmerians drew within range, the archers began to shoot. They killed several men and wounded even more before the Cimmerians sullenly drew back.

“Here is what we will do,” said Herth after fresh troop of black-haired barbarians came down from the north to augment his force. “We will all charge together at one signal. That way, the enemy cannot shoot many of us before we gain a lodgement in the town. Once we have done that, we can hunt down the bowmen —and any others who stand against us — because we have far more men than the Aquilonians. Wait for the signal, mind you, and then everyone forward together.”

For once, no one quarreled, as often chanced when a war chief tried to impose his will on the men he more or less led. The bodies lying in front of Venarium spoke eloquently of the folly of every man’s going forward for himself. The Cimmerians gathered themselves, looking to their weapons and looking for their friends and kinsmen. They had never been in the habit of marching or attacking in neat lines, but they all moved up to where they could hear the signal.

A bugle blared. The Cimmerians roared. They swarmed forward toward Venarium. A great excitement seized Conan, as if he had poured down too much ale. Here at last was the enemy’s great stronghold. If Venarium fell, the Aquilonian hold on southern Cimmeria would be broken forever. He looked at the host of his countrymen dashing along to either side of him. How could the town, how could the fortress, keep from falling under such a weight of warriors?

Arrows arced out from the town toward the attackers. Here and there, a man fell, to lie thrashing or to lie still. But Herth had known what he was about. Too many men went forward for all, or even very many, of them to fall. On they came, roaring out their hatred of the foreigners who had tried to subject their land. And as soon as they got in among the homes and shops, the fight for the town of Venarium was as good as won.

Not that the Aquilonians in the town believed as much. Archers kept shooting from inside buildings. Pikemen would rush out of doorways, spear passing Cimmerians, and then try to get back to defend the entrances before other Cimmerians could cut them down. Sometimes they succeeded; sometimes they fell. But Venarium had plenty of defenders, and they were stubborn enough to make it a tough nut to crack.

Conan rapidly discovered that a sword did not make the ideal weapon with which to assail a pikeman. The soldiers who carried pikes had a longer reach than he did; he almost spitted himself on a pike, trying to get at the Gunderman who wielded it. But when another Cimmerian distracted the foe, Conan leaped close and drove the blade into his neck. He fell, blood spurting from the ghastly wound. Another Gunderman sprang forward to try to keep Conan’s countrymen out of a shop. Someone from the street flung a rock at the Gunderman. He shrieked and staggered, his face a gory mask. He did not suffer long; Conan’s thrust pierced his heart.

Before long, a cry went up in both Cimmerian and Aquilonian: “Fire!” Conan wondered whether Herth was using the ploy he had suggested, or whether some Cimmerian had simply concluded that burning out Venarium’s defenders was the easiest and least costly way to flush them from the fine cover the buildings in the town afforded. He also wondered whether he would ever know, and doubted it very much.

“Ha!” shouted a Cimmerian, savage glee filling his voice. “Here’s how we roast Numedides’ swine!”

Smoke quickly thickened the air. Fighting fires was hard, even hopeless, work in the best of circumstances. Fighting fires in the middle of a desperate battle was impossible. As wooden buildings began to burn, the Aquilonian defenders came forth, either to fight in the streets or to flee back toward the fortress of Venarium.

Open space separated the fortress from the town. Count Stercus had not permitted taverns and saddleries to encroach on the palisade. Whatever else he had been, he had made a competent military engineer. Bossonian archers on a walkway inside the palisade shot at any Cimmerian who ventured into the cleared area.

The archers also shot at Aquilonians who ventured into the cleared area. By then, the town’s attackers and defenders were inextricably mixed. Realizing as much, the Aquilonian officer in command ordered the gates shut against his countrymen outside, lest those gates also admit Cimmerians who would bring ruin with them.

Forced to fight out in the open in front of the fortress, the Gundermen and Bossonians who had been defending the town of Venarium realized only one thing was left to them: to sell their lives as dearly as they could. They turned at bay against the Cimmerians, fighting with the mad courage of men with nothing left to lose. Wild to crush the invaders, the Cimmerians battled back as ferociously.