After what seemed like forever, the Cimmerians sullenly drew back. Melcer had a chance to lean on his pike and draw a breath and look around. Evlea still stood. The axe in her hands had blood on the head. Granth’s helmet sat dented and askew on her head. Granth himself was also on his feet. And so was Sciliax, though a scalp wound left his face bloody.
But the fight, very likely, was not over. As Melcer watched in dismay, more barbarians emerged from the trees to the north. He looked around in growing despair. Where would his own side find reinforcements?
chapter xii
THE FALL OF VENARIUM
Panting, Conan glared at the stubborn Gundermen who defended a sturdy farmhouse with a ferocity he had not thought any folk but his own could display. Beside him, flanks also heaving, stood his father. Mordec said, “They’ll have their wives and their brats in there. If anything will make them stand fast until we cut them down, that’s it.”
“I know a couple of them,” said Conan. His father looked at him in surprise. He pointed. “That one pikeman is from the garrison by Duthil.”
“Oh, him. Aye.” Mordec nodded. “He almost did for me a little while ago.”
“And that other fellow, the tall farmer near him, worked lands not far from here,” continued Conan. “He’s not a bad man, or he wouldn’t be if only he’d stayed in his own country. That’s his woman there, with the axe.”
“I mislike killing women, but if they try to kill me—” Mordec broke off and looked over his shoulder. “We have more men coming, I see. But those accursed Aquilonians will still take a deal of killing.”
Off to one side, Herth was wrapping a rag around his head. His helm had kept a blow from smashing his skull, but the rim, driven down by the dint, left him with a long cut on his forehead. Wiping blood away from his eyes, the clan chief said, “That’s what we’ve come for—to kill them.”
The Cimmerians mustered themselves in a ragged line out of the range of the hunting bows a few of the Gundermen carried. Several of the men who had been in the fight before bore minor wounds. This had been Conan’s first real taste of battle. He had dealt hard blows. He burned to deal more.
Ranged in front of the farmhouse, the yellow-haired farmers and soldiers waited. They were badly outnumbered now, but still stood defiant. “Why don’t they go inside?” asked Conan. “They could give us a harder fight that way.”
“They could for a little while,” said Mordec. “Then we’d fire the place, and they’d burn with their families.”
Conan grimaced, then nodded. Burning foes from a fortress—yes, he could see the need. Burning foes and families alike—he could, perhaps, see the need for that as well, but it raised his gorge even so. The women and children had done nothing to deserve such a fate but accompany their men into this land. Was that enough? Maybe it was.
Herth pointed toward the Gundermen. “Come on, lads!” he called to the Cimmerians around him. “Let’s finish the job!”
Roaring and shouting, the Cimmerians surged forward. Mordec and Conan trotted side by side. Conan noted that his father did not waste his breath on war cries. He simply scanned the enemy line until he chose an opponent. Then he pointed at the man and spoke two words to Conan: “That one.”
“The tall one with the pitchfork?” asked Conan, wanting to be sure. His father nodded. The two of them had fought as a team in their first clash with the embattled farmers. Few men, no matter how doughty, lasted long when beset by such a pair.
Shouting in Aquilonian, the man with the pitchfork thrust at Mordec. The blacksmith beat aside the makeshift weapon with his axe. Conan drove Stercus’ sword deep into the Gunderman’s vitals. Blood spurted; its iron stink filled his nostrils. The Gunderman howled. Even with his dreadful wound, he tried to skewer Conan with the pitchfork. Mordec’s axe—not a tool for felling trees, but a broad-headed war axe for cutting down men—descended. The sound of the blow reminded Conan of those made when cutting up a pig’s carcass. The pitchfork flew from the farmer’s suddenly nerveless hands. The fellow crumpled, his head all but severed from his body.
Another Gunderman fell to the two of them, and another. The farmers’ line wavered. They still fought bravely, but bravely did not serve when each had to face more than one foe. In a furious, cursing knot, they fell back toward the farmhouse door. The three or four pikemen in mailshirts still on their feet defended the door, while some of the farmers—and the handful of women who had not fallen—ran inside.
One of the pikemen—the one Conan had recognized—nodded in an almost friendly way to Mordec and him. “I knew the two of you were trouble,” the soldier said. “Now I see how right I was.”
Some of the Aquilonians at the camp by Duthil had been dreadful. Some had merely been hard. A few, this fellow among them, had been decent enough. “If you stand aside, Granth, we will spare you,” said Mordec.
Granth shook his head. “No. These are my people. If you try to harm them, I’ll kill you if I can.”
“Honor to your courage.” Mordec might have been a man passing sentence. The fight grew fierce again, the Cimmerians battling to push past the last few defenders. Granth went down. Conan did not see how. He only knew that he fought his way into the farmhouse.
That was worse than any of the fighting outside had been. Women and children screamed like lost souls. Egged on by the presence of their loved ones, the Gundermen battled with reckless disregard for their own lives. From outside came a shout: “Clear away, you Cimmerians! We’ll burn the farmhouse over their heads!”
Conan, by then, was caught up in the struggle. The fury of battle upon him, he did not want to break it off. His father dragged him out of the farmhouse by main force. Mordec was the only man there who could have overmastered him. Conan came close to striking out at the blacksmith, too. “We’ll find more fighting later, never you fear,” said Mordec, which helped resign the boy to turning aside from this clash.
Cimmerian archers shot fire arrows at the wooden walls and thatched roof of the farmhouse. Before long, the flames caught and began to spread. But even as some of the Cimmerians exulted, others pointed to the trees on the far side of the house and exclaimed, “They’re fleeing there!”
“How can they?” demanded Conan. “We’ve got them cordoned off.”
His father shook his head in what could only be admiration. “That damned Aquilonian must have dug himself an escape tunnel. What a sneaky wretch he has to be. He thought of everything—except he didn’t run it quite far enough from the house.”
The Cimmerians pounded after their prey. The fighting in amongst the trees was more confused than the battle before the farmhouse—more confused, but no less savage. Here and there, two or three Gundermen would turn at bay and sell their lives dear, allowing their comrades and their wives and children to escape the catastrophe that had befallen the colony.
Along with his father, Conan helped smash down one of those rear-guard efforts. More Aquilonians blundered along ahead of them. Now the invaders had a taste of defeat, a taste of terror. Conan wanted them to drink that cup to the very dregs.
He and Mordec swiftly gained on the running family ahead. The woman had a baby on her hip and held a boy by the hand. “Go on, Evlea!” said the man. “I’ll hold them off. Go on, I tell you.” Pike in hand, Melcer turned and set himself. “Come on, barbarians!” he snarled. But then he recognized Conan. “You!”
“Go right, lad. I’ll go left,” said Mordec. “We’ll take him down.”
But Conan found himself with no great hunger for the blood of a man he did not hate. “Wait,” he told his father. Mordec eyed him in astonishment, but did not charge ahead, as he had been on the point of doing. Conan spoke to Melcer in Aquilonian: “You leave this land? You leave our land?”
“Aye, curse you,” growled the farmer.
“You leave and never come back?” persisted Conan. “You swear you leave and never come here again?”
“By Mitra, Cimmerian, this land will never see me again if I get out of it,
” said Melcer, adding, “Damn you! Damn you all!”
Conan shrugged off the curse and nodded at the oath. “Then go,” he said. He spoke with authority a grown man—indeed, a clan chief—might have envied. The farmer from Gunderland and his family hurried off to the south.
They had not gone far before more Cimmerians hard on the heels of Conan and Mordec came trotting up. The newcomers, by the weave of their breeks, were men from the far north. They pointed indignantly at Melcer and his wife and children. “Are you daft? They’re getting away!” cried one.
“Let them go,” said Conan. “They have sworn an oath by their god to leave this land and never return. The farmer is a good man. What he has promised, he will do. It is enough, I say.”
“And who do you think you are?” howled the Cimmerian from the north. “The King of Aquilonia?” He brandished his sword, as if to go after Melcer and Evlea and the children regardless of the oath the Gunderman had given.
“I am Conan son of Mordec,” answered Conan proudly, “of the village of Duthil.” That gave the other Cimmerians pause; they knew what had happened in Duthil, what had happened to Duthil, Conan added, “And anyone who would slay those Aquilonians will have to slay me first.”
“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 res
t.”
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 fighting 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.”
Conan of Venarium Page 21