The Conan Compendium

by Various Authors

  With every eye locked into a stare upon him, the old man calmly smiled, raised the cup to his lips, and drank.

  Beak-nose's two minions suddenly decided they had business elsewhere, that they were late for such business, and that further delay would be disastrous. At least it seemed that way to Conan as he watched the two men scramble over each other in order to be first to reach the door.

  Behind the Cimmerian someone uttered an oath and muttered, "Magic!"

  At that moment the girl seated next to the old man leaped up. She tossed a moldy sunfruit into the air. Conan saw her set and guessed what would happen. A heartbeat later the girl pulled the short sword from its sheath smoothly and slashed it back and forth at the falling fruit. At first it might have appeared she had missed with her strokes, but Conan's sharp eyes beheld the truth and he grinned even as the fruit continued its fall―now in four pieces instead of one.

  The Cimmerian chewed another bite of bread. Here was a message for all who chose this particular morning to breakfast at the Milk of Wolves

  Inn: this old man and girl were not so helpless as they might appear; best to tread elsewhere for easy pickings.

  Beak-nose was not amused. He glowered at the old man, his own cup of wine clutched so tightly that the knuckles of his dark hand were chalk-white.

  Someone at the door gasped again. A second spider appeared, this time heading for the foot of the beak-nosed man's table. Without preamble the hairy arachnid scrambled up onto the rough wood and leaped into beak-nose's wine.

  Conan laughed. A challenge! Would beak-nose dare to drink?

  Uttering a cry of wordless rage, beak-nose leaped up and tossed the mug away with a backhanded flinging motion. The mug and its contents flew straight at Conan's face.

  There was no danger, the Cimmerian knew. He raised one muscled arm to bat the mug away; unfortunately, the hand he chose contained the loaf of bread, the better part of which was as yet uneaten. The wine drenched the bread as the mug struck it, knocking Conan's breakfast onto the filth of the much-trodden sawdust floor. He stared at the bread as it rolled over three times, covering itself with a layer of grime.

  In better times such an occurrence might be amusing, especially were it to happen to someone else; but at the moment Conan failed to see the humor. First his horse and all his gold had been lost; now, his food. The young giant took a deep breath, and the air fed his quick rage as wind feeds a hot fire.

  Beak-nose had drawn his own blade and was advancing upon his intended victim. The child bravely pulled her own small sword and moved to cover the white-haired man, who tried to pull her back to safety.

  Conan's broadsword hissed as the leather sheath stroked it in its passage. He raised his blade and clenched the handle with both hands.

  "You―you scum!" he roared.

  Beak-nose turned in surprise. What he saw must have surely alarmed him, for he spun and tried to position his sword for a block or parry. At the same time the dark man tried to backstep away. He managed neither.

  Conan's sword caught him in the middle of the breastbone and a hand's span of sharp steel sliced its way downward, opening the man as might a vivisectionist, from sternum to crotch. The man's face contorted in shock as his entrails spilled through the massive rent in his body. He fell backward, his spirit already on its way to join his ancestors.

  Conan's rage was only partially spent. He looked around for the fourth member of the band. This one, however, was not in evidence. The Cimmerian glared at the inn's patrons, who all shrank away from the big youth with the bloody sword. All save one.

  The young girl approached Conan, smiling. She had sheathed her sword and when she drew near he saw that the girl barely reached his chest in height. With great reluctance he lowered his broadsword. He stared at the child. "Well?"

  "Thank you, sir, for saving us." Her voice was warm. Indeed, the very air seemed to grow warmer as she stood there staring up at the Cimmerian.

  "Do not thank me," Conan said, his voice still rough and angry. "The scum destroyed my breakfast. Would that he had put up a better fight, so that I might have made him suffer for it."

  The girl's mouth opened into an O as Conan spoke, her face filled with shock and puzzlement.

  The murmur of voices began to rise, to fill the inn.

  "―you see that strike? Such power―!"

  "―split him like a chicken―"

  "―foreigner from some backwoods―"

  A thin man with a jagged scar that lifted both his lip and left nostril came closer, warily watching the Cimmerian's unsheathed blade. He wore a splattered apron that might have once been white but now displayed the remains of too many spilled wine cups and meals to be more than a splotched gray. Likely the owner of the inn, Conan judged.

  The innkeep glanced down at the dead man. His perpetual sneer

  seemed to increase a bit. "So, Arsheva of Khemi has finally picked the wrong victim." The man looked up at Conan. "Few men deserve such an exit from this life so much as he; he shall not be missed, and no mistake about that." He pulled a rag from the pocket of his apron and tendered it to Conan. "Here, wipe your blade, sir, lest Arsheva's gore chew with teeth of rust upon the steel."

  Conan took the greasy rag and methodically cleaned his sword.

  "Still," the man said, "the Senate's Deputation will no doubt eventually arrive for an investigation of Arsheva's passing. I trust you had sufficient reason to dispatch him to the next world?"

  Conan slid his sword into his leathern home. "Aye," he began, "my reasons were just. This offal―"

  "―intended to attack myself and my assistant," the old white-haired man said. "This man is our bodyguard; he was merely performing his job in protecting us."

  Conan stared at him. What was he about? He started to speak, but the old man interrupted again.

  "We shall finish our breakfast whilst awaiting the deputies. If you would bring my friend here a tray to replace the meal he lost, along with a bottle of your better wine, I should be most grateful." Here the old man raised a wrinkled and age-twisted hand bearing a small coin of silver.

  "And the balance of this for your trouble in this matter."

  Scar-face took the coin, and nodded. "Aye. Obviously, a gentleman of means such as yourself will have no difficulties convincing the Senate's Deputation of your position in this matter." He drew back a chair for Conan at the old man's table. "I'll tend to your meal, sir."

  Seated with the old man and girl, Conan waited for answers to his unasked questions. Earlier, he had held his tongue, reasoning that the old man had some purpose in coming to his aid. Perhaps it was merely to thank him for splitting the blackguard who would have attacked the girl.

  While unintentional, Conan had served them, certainly. But the barbarian now suspected there was more to be said than words of thanks.

  The old man waited until the inn's patrons focused their attention

  elsewhere before he spoke. "I am Vitarius and this"―he waved his arm in its voluminous sleeve toward the girl―"this is Eldia, my assistant. I am a conjurer of small talent, an entertainer of sorts. We wish to thank you for taking our part in this matter."

  Conan nodded, waiting.

  "I sensed you were about to speak of your true reason for slaying our would-be assassin―he who slew your loaf of bread―which is why I injected my remarks."

  Conan nodded again. The old man was not without sharpness of sight and wit.

  "The deputies who will come to speak with us are corrupt for the most part. A few pieces of silver will expedite the resolution in our favor without a doubt; still, carving a man for knocking a loaf of bread to the floor is hardly considered just punishment in the minds of the Mornstadinosian Senate. Protecting a patron from attack by a cutthroat thief is sufficient reason to draw steel, however."

  The young giant nodded. "I am Conan of Cimmeria. I have done you a favor and you have thus returned it; let us then consider the scales balanced."

  "So be it," Vitarius said. "After
breakfast, at least."

  "Aye, that I will allow."

  A serving girl arrived with a tray of hard rolls, fruit, and a greasy cut of pork, along with another cup of wine of a vintage better than the first drink Conan had partaken of. He ate with gusto, and washed the food down with gulps of the red liquid.

  Vitarius watched Conan intently. When the barbarian was done with his meal, the conjurer spoke. "We are quits on debts; still, 1 have a proposition in which you might find some merit. Eldia and I demonstrate our simple illusions at street fairs and market gatherings and we could use a man such as yourself."

  Conan shook his head. "I truckle not with magic."

  "Magic? Surely you do not think my illusions are magic? Nay, I work with the simplest of the arts, no more. Would I be in such a place as this were I a real magician?" Conan considered that. The old man had a point.

  "Still, of what use could I be to a conjurer?" Vitarius glanced at Eldia, then looked back at Conan. "That blade of yours, for one. Your strength, for another. Eldia and I are hardly capable of protecting ourselves from such as the one you slew. She is adept with her own sword, for demonstrating speed and skill, but hardly a match for a fully grown man in a duel. My illusions might scare the superstitious, but in the end can hardly sway a determined assassin, as you have just seen."

  Conan chewed on his lower lip. "I am bound for Nemedia."

  "Surely such a considerable journey would be easier were you mounted and well-appointed with supplies?"

  "What makes you think I lack such things?" Vitarius peered around the inn, then back at Conan. "Would a man of property be spending his time in such a place?"

  That reasoning was sound, but Conan followed the line a step further.

  "Then, good conjure artist, why are you in such a place?"

  Vitarius laughed, and slapped his thigh. "Ah, forgive me for underestimating you, Conan of Cimmeria. That a man is a barbarian does not mean he lacks wits. As it happens, we are conserving our money for supplies; we, too, intend to leave this fair city, to travel westward. Our path will veer southward, toward Argos. We wish to―ah―travel in some style, in an armed caravan, and thus avoid possible encounters with the bandits along the Ophir Road."

  "Ah." Conan studied Vitarius and Eldia. He had been a thief, to be sure, but he had nothing against honest work for a brief enough time. Besides, he was in no great hurry to reach Nemedia. In any event, the journey would be a great deal easier astride a good horse than on foot.

  "A silver coin a day," Vitarius said. "We shall be ready to leave within the month, I should think, and surely such a short diversion would not inconvenience you greatly?"

  Conan considered the sorry state of his money pouch. A good horse and supplies could be had for twenty or thirty pieces of silver, certainly. And

  such work, guarding a conjurer and his assistant from sneak thieves for a moon or two, could not be too taxing.

  Conan smiled at Vitarius. "Master of glowing spiders, you have engaged a bodyguard."

  The Frost Giant's Daughter

  The clangor of the swords had died away, the shouting of the slaughter was hushed; silence lay on the red-stained snow. The bleak pale sun that glittered so blindingly from the ice-fields and the snow-covered plains struck sheens of silver from rent corselet and broken blade, where the dead lay as they had fallen. The nerveless hand yet gripped the broken hilt; helmeted heads, back-drawn in trie death throes, tilted red beards and golden beards grimly upward, as if in last invocation to Ymir the frost-giant, god of a warrior-race.

  Across the red drifts and mail-clad forms, two figures glared at each other. In that utter desolation only they moved. The frosty sky was over them, the white illimitable plain around them, the dead men at their feet. Slowly through the corpses they came, as ghosts might come to a tryst through the shambles of a dead world. In the brooding silence they stood face to face.

  Both were tall men, built like tigers. Their shields were gone, their corselets battered and dented. Blood dried on their mail; their swords were stained red. Their horned helmets showed the marks of fierce strokes. One was beardless and black-maned. The locks and beard of the other were red as the blood on the sunlit snow.

  "Man," said he, "tell me your name, so that my brothers in Vanaheim may know who was the last of Wulfhere's band to fall before the sword of Heimdul."

  "Not in Vanaheim," growled the black-haired warrior, "but in Valhalla will you tell your brothers that you met Conan of Cimmeria."

  Heimdul roared and leaped, and his sword flashed in a deathly arc. Conan staggered and his vision was filled with red sparks as the singing blade crashed on his helmet, shivering into bits of blue fire. But as he reeled he thrust with all the power of his broad shoulders behind the humming blade. The sharp point tore through brass scales and bones and heart, and the red-haired warrior died at Conan's feet.

  The Cimmerian stood upright, trailing his sword, a sudden sick weariness assailing him. The glare of the sun on the snow cut his eyes like a knife and the sky seemed shrunken and strangely apart. He turned away from the trampled expanses where yellow-bearded warriors lay locked with red-haired slayers in the embrace of death. A few steps he took, and the glare of the snow-fields was suddenly dimmed. A rushing wave of blindness engulfed him and he sank down into the snow, supporting himself on one mailed arm, seeking to shake the blindness out of his eyes as a lion might shake his mane.

  A silvery laugh cut through his dizziness, and his sight cleared slowly. He looked up; there was a strangeness about all the landscape that he could not place or define - an unfamiliar tinge to earth and sky. But he did not think long of this. Before him, swaying like a sapling in the wind, stood a woman. Her body was like ivory to his dazed eyes, and save for a light veil of gossamer, she was naked as the day. Her slender bare feet were whiter than the snow they spurned. She laughed down at the bewildered warrior. Her laughter was sweeter than the rippling of silvery fountains, and poisonous with cruel mockery.

  "Who are you?" asked the Cimmerian. "Whence come you?"

  "What matter?" Her voice was more musical than a silver-stringed harp, but it was edged with cruelty.

  "Call up your men," said he, grasping his sword. "Yet though my strength fail me, they shall not take me alive. I see that you are of the Vanir."

  "Have I said so?"

  His gaze went again to her unruly locks, which at first glance he had thought to be red. Now he saw that they were neither red nor yellow, but a glorious compound of both colors. He gazed spell-bound. Her hair was like elfin-gold; the sun struck it so dazzingly that he could scarcely bear to look upon it. Her eyes were likewise neither wholly blue nor wholly grey, but of shifting colors and dancing lights and clouds of colors he could not define. Her full red lips smiled, and from her slender feet to the blinding crown of her billowy hair, her ivory body was as perfect as the dream of a god. Conan's pulse hammered in his temples.

  "I cannot tell," said he, "whether you are of Vanaheim and mine enemy, or of Asgard and my friend. Far have I wandered, but a woman like you I have never seen. Your locks blind me with their brightness. Never have I seen such hair, not even among the fairest daughters of the JEsir. By Ymir"

  "Who are you to swear by Ymir?" she mocked. "What know you of the gods of ice and snow, you who have come up from the south to adventure among an alien people?"

  "By the dark gods of my own race!" he cried in anger. "Though I am not of the golden-haired yesir, none has been more forward in sword-play! This day I have seen four score men fall, and I alone have survived the field where Wulfhere's reavers met the wolves of Bragi. Tell me, woman, have you seen the flash of mail out across the snow-plains, or seen armed men moving upon the ice?"

  "I have seen the hoar-frost glittering in the sun," she answered. "I have heard the wind whispering across the everlasting snows."

  He shook his head with a sigh.

  "Niord should have come up with us before the battle was joined. I fear he and his fighting-men have been amb
ushed. Wulfhere and his warriors lie dead.

  "I had thought there was no village within many leagues of this spot, for the war carried us far, but you cannot have come a great distance over these snows, naked as you are. Lead me to your tribe, if you are of Asgard, for I am faint with blows and the weariness of strife."

  "My village is further than you can walk, Conan of Cimmeria," she laughed. Spreading her arms wide, she swayed before him, her golden head lolling sensuously, her scintillant eyes half shadowed beneath their long silken lashes. "Am I not beautiful, oh man?"

  "Like Dawn running naked on the snows," he muttered, his eyes burning like those of a wolf.

  "Then why do you not rise and follow me? Who is the strong warrior who falls down before me?" she chanted in maddening mockery. "Lie down and die in the snow with the other fools, Conan of the black hair. You cannot follow where I would lead."

  With an oath the Cimmerian heaved himself up on his feet, his blue eyes blazing, his dark scarred face contorted. Rage shook his soul, but desire for the taunting figure before him hammered at his temples and drove his wild blood fiercely through his veins. Passion fierce as physical agony flooded his whole being, so that earth and sky swam red to his dizzy gaze. In the madness that swept upon him, weariness and faintness were swept away.

  He spoke no word as he drove at her, fingers spread to grip her soft flesh. With a shriek of laughter she leaped back and ran, laughing at him over her white shoulder. With a low growl Conan followed. He had forgotten the fight, forgotten the mailed warriors who lay in their blood, forgotten Niord and the reavers who had failed to reach the fight. He had thought only for the slender white shape which seemed to float rather than run before him.

  Out across the white blinding plain the chase led. The trampled red field fell out of sight behind him, but still Conan kept on with the silent tenacity of his race. His mailed feet broke through the frozen crust; he sank deep in the drifts and forged through them by sheer strength. But the girl danced across the snow light as a feather floating across a pool; her naked feet barely left their imprint on the hoar-frost that overlaid the crust. In spite of the fire in his veins, the cold bit through the warrior's mail and fur-lined tunic; but the girl in her gossamer veil ran as lightly and as gaily as if she danced through the palm and rose gardens of Poitain.