The Conan Compendium

by Various Authors

  When the five were no more than a hundred paces away, he stood, brandished the sword above his head, and shouted: "I am Conan of Cimmeria! If you would slay me, here I am! Come and try me, lowland swine!"

  The horsemen reined in and stared up the mound in wonderment. Of all things, this was the last they had expected. Such challenges rightly belonged to the age of heroes, and everyone knew that that age was long gone. After a hurried conference as to who should go first, they very sensibly decided to charge all at once.

  Conan grinned when he saw five horses spring forth as one. This was just what he had hoped for. Only in a well-disciplined army could five men fight as a well-drilled team, and these men showed no sign of such training. They were clearly of different nations, each armed and armored in his own fashion.

  As the ragged line approached him, Conan darted to his left to engage the last man on that side, putting the rider between himself and the others. While to his opponents he seemed bent on suicide by dismounting thus to fight, in reality he had gained an advantage. Without a horse to manage he could concentrate on killing, and this suited his headlong style of combat.

  The lefthand rider was a man of Shem, with curly beard and billowing trousers. He wore no armor and rode without stirrups, a slender lance held low at his right side and a small buckler on his left forearm. With a gobbling war cry he lowered his point, intent upon skewering the Cimmerian.

  Conan ran down the mound and reached his range just as the horse changed gait to negotiate the rise in ground. The sudden change in motion threw the rider slightly off balance for a moment, and that was all the time Conan needed. As the point wavered he slapped it aside with his blade and leaped upward, holding his sword at full extension and turning his whole body into a spear. The Shemite tried to bring his buckler across, but with so much weight and momentum behind the sword, the act was futile. The point caught the man beneath the jaw and he all but flew backward over his cantle, spraying blood in a crimson arc.

  Immediately, Conan ran back to the crest of the mound. The others circled in confusion, trying to decide just what had happened. First to see Conan was a Turanian in spired helm, and that one set spurs to his mount, waving a heavy, curved talwar as he sought to ride the Cimmerian down. Conan darted to the man's shield side at the last possible instant and swung his sword as he did so, hewing the Turanian's left leg off. The man toppled screaming from his saddle.

  Before Conan could regain his balance after the mighty blow, two more horses were upon him, and he was knocked sprawling to the ground. As he tried to scramble up, a Zamoran leaped onto Conan's shoulders and sought to wrestle him to the ground while stabbing at him with a long, curved dagger. Conan dropped his sword to deal with the man, and managed to seize the Zamoran with both hands just as he felt the dagger burn like a hot iron across his shoulder.

  From the corner of his eye Conan saw a sword swinging at his back, and with a speed and strength unknown among civilized men, he swung the Zamoran around, using him as a shield to intercept the whistling blade. The Zamoran screamed thinly as the sword cleft his spine, and Conan heaved the body into the face of the Argossian swordsman, whose visage still bore a look of confusion. Both bodies thudded to the ground as Conan darted to the Argossian, seized him by his wide helmet, and twisted until a faint snap informed him that further effort was unnecessary.

  Quickly, he looked for the fifth.

  The man was perhaps twenty paces away, sitting his horse with grim patience. The rider wore a cuirass of hardened leather straps, studded with iron, and on both forearms bracers of stiff leather. The sword at his waist was straight, its handle long enough for both hands. Beneath his nasaled black helmet spilled locks of tawny hair, and his eyes were as blue as Conan's own. Except for his clean-shaven face, the man might have been Aesir, but Conan knew that he was from farther south.

  "You've had a good morning's sport, Cimmerian dog," the man said as he dismounted. "But the men of Gunderland are harder to kill than these eastern weaklings."

  Conan found his sword and picked it up, first making sure that its grip was not slippery with dew or blood. "Gundermen die as easily as other men. I slew many at Venarium, and I was only fifteen then."

  "Venarium!" spat the Gunderman. "I've sworn to kill a dozen Cimmerians for every kinsman I lost in that slaughter. Their blood calls out for appeasement. I will send them another blackhaired servant this day!"

  The two northerners met atop the mound. They fought without art or subtlety, swinging their broad blades two-handed. Blue sword and gray met and rang, shedding sparks with each terrific impact. Boasting and challenge were over now, and the only sounds they made were snarls of rage and grunts of effort wrenched from their bodies with each massive chop. It was swing and block without pause, but the fight was not slow nor ponderous despite the size of the men and the weight of their weapons.

  The swords licked out to cut or block too swiftly for any but the most experienced eye to see.

  Conan broke into a profuse sweat and breathed like a blacksmith's bellows. It had been years since he had tested himself against a fellow northerner, and the hard-living men of Aquilonia's Gunderland frontier grew up every bit as swift and powerful as any Nordheimer or Cimmerian.

  But Conan was mighty even for a Cimmerian. Preparing a terrible overhand slash, the Gunderman swung the blade a fingersbreadth too far back, giving Conan an instant in which to step aside. As his blade met no resistance, the Gunderman leaned forward, fighting to regain his balance, but it was too late for that. The Cimmerian's sword came across horizontally, biting into the man's side through the hard leather. Yanking his blade free, Conan raised it and sent it in a great half-circle, splitting

  cuirass and flesh from shoulder to waist, shearing bones and entrails relentlessly.

  Sheer animal unwillingness to die kept the Gunderman standing for a moment; then he toppled like a falling tree. Conan, panting like a winded horse, ripped a scrap of cloth from one of the bodies and began carefully cleaning his sword. The others were all dead, the man he had unlegged having bled to death during his fight with the northerner. Conan walked back to the Gunderman, who was still breathing faintly.

  "Who hired you, Gunderman?" the Cimmerian asked when he once again had breath to speak.

  "Are we friends that I owe you such a favor?" the man gasped. "I do not betray those who hire me."

  "Well, what is your name, then?" Conan asked.

  "Is it not enough you have slain me, but you want power over my spirit as well?"

  "You know Cimmerians better than that!" Conan said angrily. "We slay our foes in fair battle and leave the demons of Hell to any further vengeance. I want your name for the song I shall make when my wanderings are at an end. That was a good fight, and it will be remembered in the song my women shall sing around my funeral pyre."

  "I am Hagen," the man wheezed. "Now ask me no more. What little breath I have left I wish to expend in cursing you."

  Not wishing to deny the man this final pleasure, Conan examined his sword, and was gratified to see that it bore no slightest nick, and the edges were still shaving-keen. Re-sheathing the blade, he rounded up the five mounts, then bound up the knife wound on his shoulder. In searching the bodies he found on each of them three heavy, square coins of gold stamped with strange script. He had seen such coins before; they came from Vendhya. He chuckled to think that what had been intended as the price of his life would instead enrich his purse.

  The five horses he took with him to sell in Belverus. He left the rest with the bodies. Any man might sell five horses, but the personal effects of five men would arouse unwelcome official attention. Behind him he left the

  bloody mound. In a year's time the gnawed bones would be scattered abroad, cloth and leather would have rotted, and there would be nothing to mark the battle except some rusting bits of iron and a slightly greener patch of grass. Later, even those would be gone, leaving only the limitless plain, which had drunk the blood of uncounted thousands.

/>   Conan was feverish and reeling in his saddle as he arrived within sight of the walls of Belverus. Happily, he noted that there was no besieging army encamped outside its walls. Just now he had no time for such things.

  It was midday, and the gates of the city stood wide. A guard held up a restraining hand as Conan rode through the gate. The guard held a wooden tablet bearing a panel of wax, and a bronze stylus was tucked behind his ear.

  "What is your name and your business, stranger?" the guard demanded.

  "I am Conan of Cimmeria, and I need lodging for the night, and a horse market to sell my stock." His face was flushed and his voice unsteady.

  "What ails you?" the guard asked suspiciously. "You may not enter the city if you bear any contagion."

  Wordlessly, Conan let his cloak fall, exposing the raw and angry cut which festered upon his shoulder. Fierce streaks of red and black radiated from the puckered, swollen wound, and it seeped an unhealthy fluid.

  "Mitra!" swore the guard. "You need a leech, man, else you'll lose that arm, if not your life. Leave your beasts here the nonce, I'll give you a receipt for them, then get you to the house of Doctor Romallo. It is but two streets distant."

  It galled Conan to have to seek the aid of a leech. In normal times he preferred to let his body heal itself. On the few occasions that he had sought such professional services, it had been to have a bad wound stitched. He harbored a suspicion that leeches did far more harm than good. This time, though, he knew he had no choice.

  An oversized bleeding knife over the entrance proclaimed the house of Romallo. Conan pounded on the door and an elderly, bearded man opened it. "You desire treatment?" he asked.

  "I need something, by Crom!" Conan said, baring his wound once more.

  "Hmm. A most interesting injury. Come in, young man, and we'll see what's to be done." The leech's house was full of strange objects. Stuffed beasts dangled on cords from the rafters, and vaguely obscene marine creatures were preserved in jars of spirits. Instruments of bronze and glass abounded, and the air smelled of herbs. Strange as the place was, Conan at least felt no sorcery here. The leech directed him to a bench near a window, and Conan sat, bearing his pain in stoic silence as the man poked and prodded.

  "I can lance and clean this wound," the leech announced at last, "bind it with a stitch or two, and put a healing poultice on it, but I fear that these things might not prove to be sufficient."

  "Why not?" Conan groused. "Is that not your art?"

  "It is. However, this infection is not of natural origin. I can tell by the tone of your flesh how rugged is your constitution, and such a gash as this should not be causing you such agony."

  "True," Conan agreed, "I've been wounded far worse without trouble.

  Have I been wounded with an envenomed weapon?"

  "No, in that case the characteristics of the inflammation would be quite different. I think you lie under the influence of some baleful spell, and I can only wonder that it has not killed you long since."

  Chills ran through Conan's powerful frame, chills that were not part of his fever. Who had cursed him? And what was protecting him? Then he understood. In spite of his ills, he began to laugh.

  "Odd time for mirth," the leech said, frowning.

  "I've just realized that I'm paying for my own greed. Do what you can, and leave the rest to me. I'll need a moneychanger when you are through."

  Mystified, the leech set to his task. Despite his pain, Conan wore a grim smile. How subtle was his enemy! Not content merely to set five killers on his trail, the man had paid them with cursed money, knowing that should Conan survive the attack, he would surely take their gold and doom himself.

  What had protected him? From beneath his tunic he fished the talisman the ancient Khitan had given him. He was not sure, but the color seemed subtly altered. In stony silence he sat enduring the doctor's painful ministrations. More and more he felt like the playing-piece of the game board of a god the old Khitan had spoken of.

  By the time he had exchanged the unclean gold for other money and sold the five horses, the day was almost over. Conan stabled his mount and, exhausted, collapsed into a bed at an inn. His wound was less virulent, but he was still in a weakened condition. He knew that he would have to wait for several days in Belverus until his full strength returned.

  The delay did not fret him. After all, he would still be able to reach Ben Morgh by the equinox. It was a mission he had undertaken, not a race.

  The waterfront tavern was filled with voices speaking boisterously in many languages. Most of one wall was open, revealing the serried masts crowding the great harbor of Messantia. Through the huge window blew a salt-scented offshore breeze, causing the torches to flicker.

  Messantia sprawled along the mouth of the Khorotas River, where it joined the Western Sea. It lay on the Zingaran side of the river, but it was as international as most seaports. The fact that Argos claimed this piece of land concerned the inhabitants not at all. Hemmed in by the bulk of the Rabirian Mountains to the north and the river to the south, the bulk of the city lay on a wide floodplain that constituted a minor nation in itself. At any given time, at least half the population was transient, consisting mainly of sailors from the multitude of nations and islands that drew a living from the sea.

  The occupants of the tavern were a cross-section of the maritime life of the area: besides the local Zingarans and Argossians, there were Shemites with hooked noses and curling beards; quiet Stygians, who wore black silk; sinister Barachans, whose belts were festooned with the daggers and short swords favored for combat at sea. One table held a party of Kushites, feathers woven into their elaborate hairdos, their black skins glossy with the scented palm oil which they prized. Two red-haired Vanir seamen had already passed out in a corner. The torchlight glittered on earrings, nose rings, and other ornaments favored by seagoing men.

  On a small platform in the center of the room a Zamoran girl was performing one of the lascivious dances of her nation to the music of a flute and a tabour. Her clothing consisted of a great many bangles and a

  single small veil. Many of the sailors clapped in time to the music and shouted their appreciation of her performance.

  "I had thought," Gopal said, "that we had reached the nadir of civilization in Khorshemish. I see now that it was the epitome of culture compared to this place." The young man and his uncle sat at a tiny table as near as they could get to the window.

  "You must enjoy this cosmopolitan atmosphere while you can, nephew," said Jaganath with his usual complacent smile. "Where we are going, there has never even been a word for civilization. After all, there are booksellers in this town. There are some scholars of small repute and even a few second-rate sorcerers. Our destination is a howling wilderness of barbarians and savages as primitive as those Kushites over there."

  "The very thought fills me with dismay," Gopal said. He took a sip of the wine which he had watered heavily. A platter of spicy meats wrapped in vine leaves lay before them, but the tedious, inactive journey by barge down the river had left him with little appetite.

  "If you would be a mage," said Jaganath, "you must tread some very strange paths indeed. No man who quails at hardship or danger can succeed in the quest for knowledge and power." He picked up a tidbit and popped it into his mouth. "At least their cooking is tolerable here. A port like this affords access to spices of variety and high quality." Like most Vendhyans of high caste, Jaganath and Gopal ate meat but rarely, and then only in small quantities, highly spiced.

  A newcomer entered the tavern and scanned the room for a moment.

  Spotting the two Vendhyans, he crossed to their table. His boots and short tarry breeks identified him as a seaman, and his arrogant stride bespoke authority. His features were scarred and badly pockmarked, but they bore an aristocratic cast. Jaganath quickly typed him as the scion of decayed Zingaran nobility.

  "You are the two who seek passage northward?" asked the newcomer.

  "We are," said Jaganath. "Pl
ease join us."

  The man sat and poured himself a cup of wine from the pitcher on the table. He ignored the pitcher of water that stood beside it. After draining the cup he refilled it and picked up a handful of the stuffed vine leaves. He

  stuffed three into his mouth and said around the mouthful: "I am Kasavo, from the Barachan Isles, captain of the Songbird. I heard on the wharf today that two Vendhyans sought passage north, and that they were to be contacted here at the Sailor's Delight."

  "We must travel in haste to Vanaheim," Jaganath said. "Do you go so far north?"

  Kasavo laughed. "To Vanaheim? Nobody sails that far from here. In any case, it is late in the year to be traveling north. I can take you to Kordava, the last civilized port before the Pictish Wilderness. From there, if luck is with you, you may find a Vanir merchant who has stayed until the very end of the season, braving the storms for the sake of picking up late-season goods at bargain prices. I warn you, though, that a northern passage at this time of year can be very dangerous. Best to winter in Kordava. It is a very wicked port. Most diverting." He grinned and toyed nervously with a large, fiery, teardrop-shaped ruby that dangled from his earlobe on a short chain.

  "I do not fear storms," Jaganath said. "When do you sail?"

  "With the morning tide, about an hour after sunrise to take advantage of the inland winds. Have your belongings aboard by sunrise. I have a cabin you can use. There is the matter of payment for your passage."

  Jaganath waved a pudgy hand in dismissal. "We can settle that during the voyage. I have abundant funds."

  The man's eyes sparkled for a moment with greed, which he tried to cover with a feigned curiosity. "Why do you wish to go to a place like Vanaheim? From the look of you, you've little love for cold climes."

  "We are scholars," Jaganath told him. "I am writing a book about far lands for the king of Vendhya."