Conan The Freebooter

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Conan The Freebooter

  L. Sprague De Camp

  Conan the Freebooter is a 1968 collection of five fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp, featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. Most of the stories originally appeared in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s.

  In these stories from Conan's late twenties, the Cimmerian is a mercenary with the Free Company in the city-states of Shem and the lands to the north and east, a war leader of the steppe-raiding Kozaki, and finally a soldier in the service of the kingdom of Kauran.

  Chronologically, the five short stories collected as Conan the Freebooter fall between Conan of Cimmeria and Conan the Wanderer.

  Chronological order of the CONAN series:

  CONAN

  CONAN OF CIMMERIA

  CONAN THE FREEBOOTER

  CONAN THE WANDERER

  CONAN THE ADVENTURER

  CONAN THE BUCCANEER

  CONAN THE WARRIOR

  CONAN THE USURPER

  CONAN THE CONQUEROR

  CONAN THE AVENGER

  CONAN OF AQUILONIA

  CONAN OF THE ISLES

  THE FREEBOOTER

  Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp

  Introduction

  Robert E. Howard (1906-36), the creator of Conan, was born in Peaster, Texas, and spent most of his life in Cross Plains, in the center of Texas. During his short life (which ended in suicide at the age of thirty) Howard turned out a large volume of popular fiction: sport, detective, western, historical, adventure, science-fiction, weird, and ghost stories, besides his verse and his many fantasies. Of his several series of heroic fantasies, the most popular have been the Conan stories. Eighteen of these were published in Howard's lifetime; eight others, from mere fragments and outlines to complete manuscripts, have been found among his papers since 1950. The incomplete stories have been completed by my colleague Lin Carter and myself.

  In addition, in the early 1950s, I rewrote four unpublished Howard manuscripts of oriental adventure, to convert them into Conan stories by changing names, deleting anachronisms, and introducing a supernatural element. This was not hard, since Howard's heroes were pretty much all cut from the same cloth, and the resulting posthumous collaborations are still about three-quarters or four-fifths Howard. Two of these converted stories appear in the present volume: "Hawks over Shem" (originally called "Hawks over Egypt"), a story laid in eleventh-century Egypt, in the reign of the mad Caliph Hakim; and "The Road of the Eagles," originally placed in the sixteenth-century Turkish Empire.

  Moreover, my colleagues Lin Carter and Bjorn Nyberg and I have collaborated on several Conan pastiches, based upon hints in Howard's notes and letters.

  The Conan stories are laid in Howard's fictional Hyborian Age, about twelve thousand years ago between the sinking of Atlantis and the beginnings of recorded history. Conan, a gigan­tic barbarian adventurer from the backward northern land of Cimmeria, arrived as a youth in the kingdom of Zamora (see the map) and for several years made a precarious living there and in neighboring lands as a thief. Then he served as a mercenary soldier, first in the oriental realm of Turan and then in the Hyborian kingdoms.

  Forced to flee from Argos, Conan became a pirate along the coasts of Kush, in partnership with a Shemitish she-pirate, Belit, with a crew of black corsairs. After Belit's death and some hairsbreadth adventures among the black tribes, he re­turned to the trade of mercenary in Shem. Here the present volume begins.

  Nearly twenty years ago, my old friend John D. Clark, a chemist and a Conan buff long before I was, edited the then-known Conan stories for the volumes published by Gnome Press. He wrote an eloquent introduction to the first volume of this series to be issued, Conan the Conqueror. This essay gives a free-swinging impression of Howard's fiction in general and the Conan stories in particular. Dr. Clark has allowed me to quote it here:

  It was almost seventeen years ago when I collided with the Hyborian Age. It was a notable collision, occurring when I was caught by the somewhat juicy cover on the September 1933 Weird Tales, read "The Slithering Shadow," and met Conan for the first time. It was an introduction that stuck, and from then on I fol­lowed the adventures of that slightly unconventional character with more than casual interest. A little later (1935 or so) Schuyler Miller and I decided to make a try at plotting out Conan's world. It turned out to be ridiculously easy. The countries flopped out on the paper, squirmed about a bit, and clicked together into an indubitable and obviously authentic map. We wrote to Howard then and found that his own map was practically identical with ours; his biography of Conan was also identical in all important respects with the one Miller and I had concocted from the internal evidence in the stories. As I remember, the most important point ot disagreement was a two years' difference in Conan's age at one point in the stories.

  We knew then that we had a story-teller on our hands who knew his business. And when we read the manuscript of "The Hyborian Age," some time before it was first published, we were sure of it.

  Anyhow, in the next few years I managed to pick up the rest of Howard's fantasies, including King Kull and all the rest. It was obvious, of course, that although some of them had apparently been written before that gorgeous concept filtered into his mind, they might be fitted into the pattern with a little stretching. . . .

  Among the Conan stories are fragments of the biography of that remarkable character, as deduced by Miller and myself, account­ing for most of Oman's travels and adventures that are not re­counted in the tales themselves. They do not, however, explain how he managed to get rid of the woman of which he was usually possessed by the end of a story in time for him to acquire another in the next. I might, by the way, recommend that question as a subject for literary research to some budding Ph.D. in English. The results of the inquiry might be at least as useful as a publica­tion purporting finally to decide whether Francis Bacon or the Earl of Oxford really wrote the works of the alleged W. Shake­speare. . . .

  I do not intend to write about Robert E. Howard himself. I never knew him personally and those who did can do a better job than I. I knew him only as the writer of some incredibly good fantasy. The parts of a writer that don't die with his body are his stories—and Howard's yarns are not going to die among those who frankly and whole-heartedly like adventure on the grand scale. You are proba­bly one of those readers or you wouldn't have bought this book in the first place.

  Howard was a first-rate teller of tales, with a remarkable techni­cal command of his tools and with a complete lack of inhibitions. With a fine and free hand he took what he liked from the more spectacular aspects of all ages and climes: proper names of every conceivable linguistic derivation, weapons from everywhere and everywhen under the sun. customs and classes from the whole ancient and medieval world, and fitted the whole together into a coherent and self-consistent cosmos without a visible joint. Then he added a king-sized portion of the supernatural to add zest to the whole, and the result was a purple and golden and crimson universe where anything can happen—except the tedious.

  His heroes are never profound—but they are never dull. Kull, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Conan himself, walk and talk and are alive and of one piece. They may not be exactly the types of persons whom we would invite to a polite party, but they're not exactly the sort of persons whom we would forget if they came anyway. Conan, the hero of all Howard's heroes, is the armored swashbuckler, indestructible and irresistible, that we've all wanted to be at one time or another; the women, in appearance, manner, and costume (or lack of it) are the inmates of the sort of harem that harems ought to be but aren't (and isn't it a shame, and wouldn't it be nice, if they were commoner?); the villains
are villainous as only perfect villains can be; the sorcerers are sorcer­ers in spades; and the apparitions they conjure up, or who appear under their own power, are (thank God!) out of this world.

  And above all Howard was a story-teller. The story came first, last, and in between. Something is always happening, and the flow of action never hesitates from beginning to end, as one incident flows smoothly and inevitably into the next with never a pause for the reader to take breath. Don't look for hidden philosophical meanings or intellectual puzzles in the yarns—they aren't there. Howard was a story-teller. The tales are the sword-and-cloaker carried to the ultimate limit and a little beyond, with enough extra sex to keep the results off the more tedious library shelves

  So here is the book. If you have read of Conan before, you know what to expect. If you haven't, and are addicted to fantastic adventure, you can repair the omission and sit down now and read of the gods and demons and of the warriors and their women and of their adventures in a world that never was but should have been. If the history propounded doesn't agree with what you know of history—if the ethnology is remarkable and the geology more so—don't let it worry you. Howard was writing of another Earth than this one—one painted in brighter colors and on a grander scale.

  If, on the other hand, you insist on realism in your reading—if you must have novels about introverts suffering in a brutal world—if your meat is something "close to the soil" or concerned with psychopathology or the state of the world, then, my friend, this book is not for you. You'd better find yourself a hole and read Crime and Punishment. But I won't be there with you—I have an engagement in the Hyborian Age, and will be busy all evening.

  John D. Clark, Ph.D New York City April 5, 1950.

  For further information on and opinions about Howard, the Conan stories, and heroic fantasy in general, see the other volumes of this series.

  L. Sprague de Camp

  Hawks over Shem

  Following the events of the story The Snout in the Dark, Conan, dissatisfied with his accomplishments in the black countries, wanders northward across the deserts of Stygia to the meadowlands of Shem. Dur­ing this trek, his reputation stands him in good stead. He presently finds himself in the army of King Sumu-abi of Akkharia, one of the southerly Shemitish city-states. Through the treachery of one Othbaal, cousin of the mad King Akhirom of Pelishtia, the Akkharian forces are ambushed and wiped out—all but Conan, who survives to track the renegade to Asgalun, the Pe-lishti capital.

  The tall figure in the white cloak wheeled, cursing softly, hand at scimitar hilt Not lightly did men walk the nighted streets of Asgalun, capital of Shemitish Pelishtia. In this dark, winding alley of the unsavory river quarter, anything might happen.

  "Why do you follow me, dog?" The voice was harsh, slurring the Shemitic gutturals with the accents of Hyr-kania.

  Another tall figure emerged from the shadows, clad, like the first, in a cloak of white silk but lacking the other's spired helmet.

  "Did you say, 'dog'?" The accent differed from the Hyrkanian's.

  "Aye, dog. I have been followed—"

  Before the Hyrkanian could get further, the other rushed with the sudden blinding speed of a pouncing tiger. The Hyrkanian snatched at his sword. Before the blade cleared the scabbard, a huge fist smote the side of his head. But for the Hyrkanian's powerful build and the protection of the camail of ring mail that hung down from his helmet, his neck might have been broken. As it was, he was hurled sprawling to the pavement, his sword clattering out of his grasp.

  As the Hyrkanian shook his head and groped back to consciousness, he saw the other standing over him with drawn saber. The stranger rumbled: "I follow nobody, and I let nobody call me dog! Do you understand that, dog?"

  The Hyrkanian glanced about for his sword and saw that the other had already kicked it out of reach. Think­ing to gain time until he could spring for his weapon, he said: "Your pardon if I wronged you, but I have been fol­lowed since nightfall. I heard stealthy footsteps along the dark alleys. Then you came unexpectedly into view, in a place most suited for murder."

  "Ishtar confound you! Why should I follow you? I have lost my way. I've never seen you before, and I hope never to—"

  A stealthy pad of feet brought the stranger round, spring­ing back and wheeling to keep both the Hyrkanian and the newcomers before him.

  Four huge figures loomed menacingly in the shadows, the dim starlight glinting on curved blades. There was also a glimmer of white teeth and eyeballs against dark skins.

  For an instant there was tense stillness. Then one mut­tered in the liquid accents of the black kingdoms: "Which is our dog? Here be two clad alike, and the darkness makes them twins."

  "Cut down both," replied another, who towered half a head above his tall companions. "We shall then make no mistake and leave no witness."

  So saying, the four Negroes came on in deadly silence.

  The stranger took two long strides to where the Hyr-kanian's sword lay. With a growl of "Here! he kicked the weapon at the Hyrkanian, who snatched it up; then rushed upon the advancing blacks with a snarling oath.

  The giant Kushite and one other closed with the stran­ger while the other two ran at the Hyrkanian. The stran­ger, with that same feline speed he had shown earlier, leaped in without awaiting attack. A quick feint, a clang of steel, and a lightning slash sheared the head of the smaller black from his shoulders. As the stranger struck, so did the giant, with a long forehand sweep that should have cut the stranger in two at the waist.

  But, despite his size, the stranger moved even faster than the blade as it hissed through the night air. He dropped to the ground in a crouch so that the scimitar passed over him. As he squatted in front of his antag­onist, he struck at the black's legs. The blade bit into muscle and bone. As the black reeled on his wounded leg and swung his sword up for another slash, the stranger sprang up and in, under the lifted arm, and drove his blade to the hilt in the Negro's chest Blood spurted along the stranger's wrist The scimitar fell waveringly, to cut through the silken kaffia and glance from the steel cap beneath. The giant sank down dying.

  The stranger tore out his blade and whirled. The Hyr­kanian had met the attack of his two Negroes coolly, re­treating slowly to keep them in front of him. He suddenly slashed one across the chest and shoulder so that he dropped his sword and fell to his knees with a moan. As he fell he gripped his foe's knees and hung on like a leech. The Hyrkanian kicked and struggled in vain. Those black arms, bulging with iron muscles, held him fast, while the remaining Negro redoubled the fury of his strokes.

  Even as the Kushite swordsman drew breath for a stroke that the hampered Hyrkanian could not have parried, he heard the rush of feet behind him. Before he could turn, the stranger's saber drove through him with such fury that the blade sprang half its length out of his chest, while the hilt smote him fiercely between the shoulders. Life went out of him with a cry.

  The Hyrkanian caved in the skull of his other antag­onist with his hilt and shook himself free of the corpse. He turned to the stranger, who was pulling his saber out of the body it transfixed.

  "Why did you come to my aid after nearly knocking my head off?" he asked.

  The other shrugged. "We were two men beset by rogues. Fate made us allies. Now, if you like, well take up our quarrel again. You said I spied upon you."

  "I see my mistake and crave your pardon," answered the Hyrkanian promptly. "I know now who has been skulking after me."

  He wiped and sheathed his scimitar and bent over each corpse in turn. When he came to the body of the giant, he paused and murmured:

  "Soho! Keluka the Sworder! Of high rank the archer whose shaft is paneled with pearls!" He wrenched from the limp black finger a heavy, ornate ring, slipped the ring into his sash, and laid hold of the garments of the dead man. "Help me to dispose cf this carrion, brother, so that no questions shall be asked." ,

  The stranger grasped a bloodstained jacket in each hand and dragged the bodies after the Hyrk
anian down a reek­ing black alley, in which rose the broken curb of a ruined and forgotten well. The corpses plunged into the abyss and struck far below with sullen splashes. With a light laugh the Hyrkanian turned.

  "The gods have made us allies," he said. "I owe you a debt"

  "You owe me naught," answered the other in a surly tone.

  "Words cannot level a mountain. I am Farouz, an archer of Mazdak's Hyrkanian horse. Come with me to a more seemly spot, where we can converse in comfort. I hold no grudge for the buffet you dealt me, though, by Tariml my head still rings from it"

  The stranger grudgingly sheathed his saber and fol­lowed the Hyrkanian. Their way led through the gloom of reeking alleys and along narrow, winding streets. As-galun was a contrast of splendor and decay, where opulent palaces rose among the smoke-stained ruins of buildings of forgotten ages. A swarm of suburbs clustered about the walls of the forbidden inner city where dwelt King Akbl-rom and his nobles.

  The two men came to a newer and more respectable quarter, where the latticed windows of overhanging bal­conies almost touched one another across the street.

  "All the shops are dark," grunted .the stranger. "A few days ago the city was lighted like day, from dusk to sun­rise."

  "One of Akhirom's whims. Now he has another, that no lights shall burn in Asgalun. What his mood will be to­morrow, Pteor only knows."

  They halted before an iron-bound door in a heavy stone arch, and the Hyrkanian rapped cautiously. A voice chal­lenged from within and was answered by a password. The door opened, and the Hyrkanian pushed into thick dark­ness, drawing his companion with him. The door closed behind them, A heavy leather curtain was pulled back, revealing a lamplit corridor and a scarred old Shemite.

  "An old soldier turned to wine-selling," said the Hyrka­nian. "Lead us to a chamber where we can be alone, Khan-non."

  "Most of the chambers are empty," grumbled Khannon, limping before them. "I'm a ruined man. Men fear to touch the cup, since the king banned wine. Pteor smite him with gout!"