Conan the Swordsman

by L. Sprague De Camp

  "Not yet, Flavius. Look yonder, on the distant meadow. Not a quarter of the painted ones have yet crossed the stream. This is but a skirmish to probe for our weakness. They'll draw off presently."

  Soon whistles sounded. The Picts trotted back across the meadow and swam the creek, pursued by Aquilonian arrows.

  "Archers!" shouted Conan. 'Two men from each squad harvest arrows."

  The archers hastened to push through the pikemen and pull spent shafts from the ground or from the blood-soaked bodies of the fallen, while the remainder cleansed their equipment or drank deeply from the waterskins.

  "Whew!" said Flavius, doffing his helmet to wipe his blood-spattered face. "If that be but a skirmish, I hate to contemplate the onslaught How knew you when the fiends would fall back?"

  'When savages find a plan that work's, they often repeat it blindly," replied the Cimmerian. "Sagayetha's earlier attack destroyed us, so belike he follows the same scheme now. Some civilized officers do likewise."

  "Then will the next assault be one of serpents?"

  "No doubt. Hark!"

  From the deep woods came the distant sound of a drum and a rattle pounded in the same rhythm as that which preceded the magical assault of the previous battle.

  "Twill soon be full dark," said Flavius, fearfully. "We shall not see the Picts to shoot nor the snakes to burn."

  "You can do your best," growled Conan. "I'm going after that devil Sagayetha. Pass the word to the other officers."

  Conan strode swiftly down the line to the glade wherein Glyco stood. To this seasoned veteran, Conan repeated his intention.

  "But, Conan ..."

  "Seek not to dissuade me, man! I, alone, may hope to discover the lair of this hyena. The rest of you have orders; to you I give command till I return."

  "If you return," muttered Glyco, but he found himself addressing empty air. Conan had vanished.

  -

  7 • Serpent Magic

  The night air throbbed with the songs of insects. Skirting the lines of Aquilonians, Conan picked up the trail to Velitrium and jogged along it until he was well away from combatants. When the trail wandered close to South Creek, he left it and forded the stream, cursing beneath his breath as he stepped into a hole and went in up to his neck. Wading and swimming, he gained the other side and pushed through heavy undergrowth along the waterway until he reached the open aisles of the virgin forest beyond.

  The moon, grown to a great silver disk since the defeat on South Creek, rode high in the sky. Guiding his steps by her light, Conan followed a circular course, calculated to bring him around to the rear of the Pictish army. He walked softly, pausing from time to time to listen and taste the air. Although afire with impatience to confront the wizard, he was enough of a seasoned warrior to know that haste would gain him only a swift demise.

  Presently he picked up the sound of the drum and rattle, and stood, holding his breath and cocking his head to locate the direction whence it came. Then he set forth once more.

  The rumble of the Pictish army reached his ears, as the bulk of the savages continued to gather on the northeast side of Massacre Meadow, across the creek from the Aquilonian force. Conan moved with more care than before, lest Pictish sentries discover him.

  He met no Picts until the drumming and rattling became loud enough to locate the precise source of the clatter. Conan felt sure that in daylight he could have seen the wizard's tent from afar. But he was almost upon it before he found it, standing in the deepest gloom between two giant oaks in a glade feebly lit by a few dots of moonlight. Conan's nerves tingled in the presence of magic, like those of a jungle beast at the throat of unknown danger.

  Then his keen eyes spied a Pict, leaning against a tree and staring in the direction of the massing savages. With exquisite care, Conan approached the fellow from the rear. The savage heard a twig snap behind him and whirled just in time to receive Conan's axe full in his war-painted face. The savage fell, twitching, his head split open like a melon.

  Conan froze, fearing the sound of the blow and the fall might have alerted Sagayetha. There was, however, no immediate letup in the rhythmic pounding.

  Conan approached the tent, but as he raised his hand to lift the flap, the ear-splitting sounds died away. At the former battle of the serpents, this silence presaged the serpentine attack from the trees.

  Conan lifted the tent flap and stepped in, his nostrils quivering from the reptilian stench. The dim red glow from the coals of a small fire in the center of the tent provided the only illumination, and beyond the fire, vaguely visible in the roseate dimness, sat a hunched figure.

  As Conan stepped around the fire, preparing a swift blow that should end this menace once and for all, the silent figure remained motionless. He saw that it was indeed Sagayetha, in breech clout and moccasins, sitting upright with his eyes closed. He must, thought Conan, be in a trance, sending his spirit out to control the snakes. So much the better! Conan took another step.

  Something moved on the floor of the tent. As Conan bent to see more closely, he felt a sharp sting on his left arm below the short sleeve of his mailshirt.

  Conan jerked back. A huge viper, he saw, had its fangs imbedded in his forearm. This must be king of all Pictish vipers; the creature was longer by a foot than the giant Cimmerian was tall. As he jerked back, he dragged the serpent half clear of the earthen floor.

  With a gasp of revulsion. Conan struck with his axe. Although ragged and notched from the day's fighting, the blade sheared through the reptile's neck a foot below its head. With a violent shake of his injured arm, he sent the head and neck flying, while the serpent's severed body squirmed and coded upon the earthen flooring. In its writhings, it threw itself into the fire, scattering coals; and the smell of roasting flesh filled the confined space.

  Conan stared at his forearm, cold sweat beading his brow. Two red spots appeared where the fangs had pierced his naked flesh, and a drop of blood oozed from each puncture. The skin around the punctures was darkening fast, and a fierce pain spread to his shoulder.

  He dropped the axe so that the spike on its head buried itself in the dirt. Then he drew his knife to incise the skin at the site of the wounds. Before he could do so, the seated figure stirred. Sagayetha's eyes opened, cold and deadly as the eyes of serpents.

  "Cimmerian!" said the shaman. The word sounded like the hiss of a monstrous snake. "You have slain that into which I sent my soul, but I shall..."

  Conan hurled his knife. The wizard swayed to one side, so that the implement struck the skin of the tent and stuck there. Sagayetha rose and pointed a skinny arm.

  Before the wizard could utter a curse, Conan snatched up his axe and reached him with a single bound. A whistling blow ended in a meaty thud. Sagayetha's head flew off, rolled toward the embers, and came to rest on the hard-packed dirt. Blood poured from the collapsing body, soaking into the earth and hissing as it flooded over the hot coals in the center of the tent. Sinister vapors rose in the dim rosy light.

  Conan recovered his knife and slashed at his bitten arm. He sucked blood from the wound and spat it out, sucked and spat, again and again. The dark discoloration had spread over most of his forearm, and the pain was agonizing. He took but an instant to strip the corpse of the belt that supported its loin cloth and made of it a crude tourniquet, which he placed on his upper arm.

  As he continued to suck the venom from the wound, the rising roar of battle came to him from afar. Evidently the Picts, impatient at the delay of their serpentine allies, had launched their own attack. Conan fretted to be gone, to join in the slaughter. But he knew that for a man freshly bitten by a venomous snake to set out at a run would mean immediate death. With a mighty effort of will, he forced himself to continue sucking and spitting.

  At last the purplish stain seemed to spread no further. When it receded a little, he bandaged the arm with cloth found among the wizard's effects. Carrying his axe in his good hand and swinging Sagayetha's head by its hair in the other, he left the
tent.

  -

  8 • Blood on the Moon

  Under the high-riding, heartless moon, an endless stream of Picts crossed South Creek to assail the embattled Aquilonians. Bodies of Aquilonians joined those of Picts in heaps on Massacre Meadow.

  "Laodamas!" said a deep, harsh voice in the shadows. Sitting his horse, the cavalry commander turned in his saddle.

  "Mitra save us!" he cried. "Conan!"

  "Whom did you expect?" growled Conan.

  As the full moon, now near its zenith, fell on Conan's upturned face, Laodamas saw that Conan staggered as he approached. In that face, he saw signs of exhaustion, as if Conan had pushed himself beyond the limits of endurance. Perhaps it was a trick of the silvery light, he thought, but Conan's mien was deathly pale.

  "Why in Hell haven't you charged?" continued Conan. "More than half the Picts have crossed the creek."

  "I will not!" said Laodamas. 'To take such advantage of the foe while he is thus divided, were un-knightly conduct. 'Tis clean against the rules of chivalry."

  "Ass!" shouted Conan. "Then we must do it another way!"

  Setting down his grisly burden and his weapons, he grasped Laodamas' ankle, jerked it out of the stirrup, and heaved it up.

  "What ..." cried Laodamas. Then he was tossed out of the saddle, to fall with a crash of armor into the soft soil on the far side of his horse.

  An instant later, Conan swung into the empty saddle. He raised his axe on the spike of which he had impaled Sagayetha's head.

  "Here's your Pictish wizard!" he roared. "Come on, my friends, by squads, advance!"

  The trumpter winded his horn. Aquilonian horsemen, chafing at Laodamas' long delay, spurred their mounts with a clatter of armor and a creaking of harness. Conan bellowed:

  "Cry 'Sagayetha is dead!' Sound the charge, trumpter!"

  Conan held his gruesome banner high as the troop poured out of the forest, yelling at the footmen to get out of the way. They scrambled off, and the cavalry thundered through the gap.

  The squads of mailed horsemen plowed through the loose knots of Picts, like an armored thunderbolt At their fore rode Conan, his gory axe held in the crook of his left arm, so that the wizard's severed head thrust up above his shoulder, a ghastly standard. With his good right hand, he held the reins and guided the charger he had commandeered.

  At his swift heels hurtled the iron-sheathed cavalry, thrusting and smiting to right and left. As they smote the reeling ranks of the foe, they chanted hoarsely the battle-song, "Sagayetha is dead! Sagayetha is dead!" Although the Picts knew not their words, the moonlight silvered the grisly visage of the dead shaman affixed to the shaft of Conan's axe, and they understood the meaning.

  Now the infantry took up the chant in a deep, resonant cry. Stout Gunderman and sturdy Aquilonian yeomen armed with pikes splashed across the ford behind the horsemen. Yammering at one another, the savages pointed to the hideous head atop the shaft of Conan's axe; and, wailing in dismay, they broke away on every side, ignoring the shouting of their chiefs. The battle turned into a rout. The lines of painted, howling savages disintegrated into fleeing forms, glimpsed through the shafts of moonlight among the distant trees.

  In a single broad front, the troop pounded through the marsh and meadow, riding down the masses of fleeing Picts. The Aquilonian pikemen and archers advanced behind the horse, spearing and stabbing, like avenging angels; and the Pictish army dissolved into a panicky mob. The face of the moon, reflected in the surface of the creek, was red with the blood of the dead and dying.

  At length, Conan drew his horsemen up and shouted orders to the trumpter. On signal, the riders wheeled into column of squads and cantered toward the sheltered field whence they had come. Conan knew that at night in dense forest, horsemen would be useless.

  "Press on, Glyco!" he shouted. "Give them no chance to rally!"

  Glyco waved acknowledgement as he and his men charged into the woods after the fleeing Picts. Conan spurred his borrowed mount to overtake the head of the column. Then the world dissolved in whirling blackness. He had pressed himself too far—beyond the limits of his fading vigor.

  -

  Glyco and Flavius sat in Conan's bedroom in the barracks at Velitrium. Propped up in bed, Conan with dl grace accepted the ministrations of the army's physician. Old Sura fussed about his patient, changing dressings on Conan's left arm, which bore from wrist to shoulder a rainbow pattern of red, blue, and purple discolorations.

  "The wonder is to me," said Glyco, "how you managed to support that axe with the wizard's head upon it, with such an arm as this."

  Conan spat. "I did what I had need to do." Then, turning to the doctor, he asked: "How long will you keep me here, swaddled like an infant, good Sura? I have things to do."

  "A few days of care will see you restored to duty, General," said the gray-haired doctor. "If you overdo before then, you risk a relapse."

  Conan growled a barbaric oath. "What was the final tale of the battle?"

  Glyco replied: "After you swooned and fell from your horse—Laodamas' horse, I should say—we harried the painted devils till the last of them vanished, like smoke, into the forest depths. While we lost not a few good men, we slaughtered many more."

  "I must be getting old," said Conan, "to faint from a mere snakebite and a bit of action. Who was it called me 'general'?"

  Flavius spoke: "Whilst you lay here unconscious, we sent a messenger to the king bearing a report of our successes in the province of Schohira, and a memorial praying him to confirm you as our new commanding officer. Our choice was unanimous—albeit we put no small pressure on Laodamas to make him sign it He was much angered with you for usurping his horse and his authority and talked of challenging you to a duel."

  Conan laughed enormously—a laugh that spread and resonated like the sound of trumpets blown at dawn. "I'd have been sorry to carve up the young ninnyhammer. The lad means well, but he lacks sense."

  A knock preceded the opening of the door, and a lean man in the tight leather garments of a royal messenger entered.

  "General Conan?" he asked.

  "Aye. What is it?"

  "I have the honor to deliver this missive from His Majesty." The messenger handed over a scroll with a deferential bow.

  Conan broke the seal, unrolled the scroll, and peered at the writing thereon.

  "Bring that candle nearer, Sura," he said. "This light is poor for reading." His friends watched with eager interest as he sat in silence, moving his lips.

  "Well," he drawled at last, "the king confirms my appointment. What's more, he bids me to Tarantia for an official investiture and a royal feast."

  Conan grinned and stretched his great body beneath the bedclothes.

  "After a year of dodging Picts through trackless forests and unmasking traitorous commanders, the fleshpots of Tarantia sound tempting. Whatever Numedides' shortcomings, 'tis said his cooks are superb. And I could use some fine wine and a bouncing, highbred damsel in place of the bellywash we get here and our slatternly camp followers!"

  "My patient must rest now, sirs," said the doctor.

  Glyco and Flavius rose. The old soldier said: "Till later, then, Conan. But have a care. At court, they say, there's a scorpion under every silken cushion."

  "I'll take care, fear not. But if neither Zogar Sag nor Sagayetha, for all their uncanny powers, could slay me, I think the hero of Velitrium will be in little peril at the court of Aquilonia's king!"

  -

  HYBORIAN NAMES

  In choosing names for the people and places in his stories of the Hyborian Age, Robert E. Howard revealed a number of facts about his sources, his reading, and the writers who had influenced him. Concerning these names, H. P. Lovecraft once remarked (in a letter to Donald A. Wollheim about Howard's essay 'The Hyborian Age," reprinted in The Coming of Conan): "The only flaw in this stuff is R. E. H.'s incurable tendency to devise names too closely resembling actual names of ancient history— names which, for us, have a very different set
of associations. In many cases he does this designedly—on the theory that familiar names descend from the fabulous realms he describes—but such a design is invalidated by the fact that we clearly know the etymology of many of the historic terms, hence cannot accept the pedigree he suggests."

  Many of the personal names used by Howard in his Conan stories are ordinary Latin personal names (Publius, Constantius, Valeria) or Greek names (Dion, Pelias, Tiberias) or modern Italian versions of these (Publio, Tito, Demetrio). Others are modern Asiatic or Arabic names, sometimes modified (Aram Baksh, Yar Afzal, Jungir Khan, Bhunda Chand, Shah Amurath) while still others are apparently made up (Thak, Thaug, Thog, Yara, Yog, Yogah, Zang, Zogar Sag). In RN occur a number of Aztec or pseudo-Aztec names; in BR, TT, and BB, pseudo-Iroquois names.