The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  'Then why did you avoid the border post?'

  'So as not to waste time answering foolish questions,' grated Conan.

  The captain reddened with quick anger. As he paused before replying, the lieutenant spoke again: 'I do not think this man can be the renegade Conan, Captain, even though he somewhat answers the description. First, he does not have the King's lady with him. Second, he does not try to flatter or conciliate us, as would a guilty fugitive. And finally, Conan is said to have such keen senses and mighty strength that we could not so easily have taken him alive.'

  The captain pondered for a moment, then said: 'Very well; you seem to have the right of it. But I am still minded to have him flogged for insolence and for putting us to needless trouble.'

  Pray, sir, the men are weary. Besides, if he be truly a soldier on leave - which he may well be - such a course might cause us trouble with the commander of his unit.'

  The captain sighed. 'Release his bonds. Next time, Master Corin, do not try such tricks upon us, and count yourself lucky to get off without at least a beating. You may go.'

  Growling a surly word of thanks, Conan recovered his sword from the soldier who held it and started for the door. He was crowding past the troopers when another lieutenant appeared in the hallway before him. This man's eyes widened.

  'Why, Conan!' cried the newcomer. 'What do you here? Don't you remember Khusro, your old -'

  Conan reacted instantly. Lowering his head in a bull-like rush, he. lunged at the lieutenant, giving him so violent a push in the chest with his open hand that the man, hurled back, crashed against the wall and fell supine. Leaping over the sprawling body, Conan dashed out into the night.

  Ymir was tied to a hitching post in front of the blockhouse. Without taking time to draw sword or dagger, Conan snapped the stout leather reins with a terrific jerk, vaulted into the saddle, and savagely pounded his heels against the horse's ribs.

  By the time the shouting troopers had bolted out of the blockhouse, run to the paddock, saddled their mounts, and set out in pursuit, Conan was a distant speck in the starlight. As soon as a roll in the landscape hid him from view, he galloped off at right angles to the narrow road. Before the sun had thrust its ruddy limb above the level eastern horizon, he had shaken off his pursuers.

  In the Zamorian language, the word maul denoted the most shabby, disreputable part of the city. Each of the two principal cities of Zamora, Shadizar and Arenjun, had its maul; and even some of the smaller towns boasted such unwholesome districts. The maul was an area of bitter poverty; a slum of tumbledown old houses ripe for razing; a section of starving folk defeated by life and sinking into oblivion; a quarter for new arrivals, fresh from the village and desperately struggling for a foothold in the life of the community; a haunt of thieves and outlaws who preyed alike on the rich outside the maul and on the poor within; and the repository of ill-gotten wealth.

  The stench of the winding alleys of the maul of Shadizar brought Conan vivid memories of his days as a thief in Zamora. Although he had adapted himself to a soldier's life during the past two years, the smell of the maul in his nostrils roused the lawless devil in his blood. He felt a nostalgic yearning for the days when he owed no master and yielded to no discipline, save as his vestigial conscience and barbaric sense of honour dictated. Impatient of all restraint, he had often thought, during his employment as a mercenary, that the perfect freedom he dreamed of was worth the periods of starvation he had suffered as a thief.

  Following directions received at Eriakes's Inn, Conan strode through the forbidding alleys, lit feebly by cressets and lamps set into the walls at distant, irregular intervals. His boots squidged in mud and refuse as he brushed aside beggars and pimps. A couple of knots of bravos eyed him with hostile or predatory stares. When he scowled at them, they turned away; his towering size and the stout scimitar at his side dissuaded them from their felonious intentions.

  He reached a doorway over which, illuminated by a pair of smoking cressets, hung a dark board on which a yellow dragon was crudely depicted. The sign identified the Golden Dragon, a wine shop and alehouse. Shouldering his way in, Conan swept the common room with his wary glance.

  Suspended from the low, soot-blackened ceiling, a pair of brass lamps, burning liquid bitumen, cast a cheerful glow. At the tables and benches sat the usual raffish crowd: a pair of drunken soldiers, loudly boasting of herculean feats of bravery; a trio of desert duagirs in kaifiyyas, who revealed by nervous sidelong glances that they were strange to cities; a poor mad creature talking to himself in an endless mumbling monotone; a well-dressed man who, Conan guessed, was the head of a local syndicate of thieves; a dedicated astrologer working celestial calculations on a sheet of papyrus...

  Conan headed for the counter, behind which stood a brawny middle-aged woman. 'Is Tigranes in?' he asked.

  'He just stepped out. He'll be hack soon. What will you have?'

  'Wine. The ordinary.'

  The woman uncovered a tub, dipped up a scoop, and filled a leathern drinking jack, which she pushed toward Conan. The Cimmerian put down a coin, took his change, and surveyed the room. Only one seat was vacant, at a small table for two. The other occupant was a young Zamorian, slight and dark, who stared unseeingly over his mug of ale. Conan walked to the table and sat clown. When the young man frowned at him, he growled: 'Mind?'

  The youth shook an unwilling head. 'Nay; you are welcome.'

  Conan drank, wiped his mouth, and asked: 'What's news in Shadizar these days?'

  'I know not. I have just come from the North.'

  'Oh? Tell me then, what news from the North?'

  The young man grunted. 'I was in the temple guard at Yezud, but the god-rotted priests have dismissed all the native guardsmen. They say Feridun will hire only foreigners, curse him.' With a glance at Conan, the Zamorian added. 'Excuse me, I see you are a foreigner. Naught personal.'

  'It matters not. Who is Feridun?'

  'The High Priest of Zath.'

  Conan searched his memory. 'Is not Zath the spider-god of Yezud?'

  'Aye.'

  'But why should the priesthood prefer to be guarded by foreigners?'

  The Zamorian shrugged. 'They say they want men of larger stature, but I suspect some power manoeuvre in the ceaseless war of the priesthoods.'

  'So they're knifing one another in the back as usual?'

  'Aye, verily! For the moment, the priests of Urud have the ear of the King, and the priests of Zath are fain to oust them and usurp their place.'

  'In a confrontation between the Zathites and the King,' mused Conan, 'perchance the Zathites think they would find foreign mercenaries more trustworthy than native Zamorians. What do you now?'

  'Look for employment. I am Azanes the son of Vologas, and I have been thought a good man of my hands, even though I lack your bulk. Do you know of any openings?'

  Conan shook his head. 'I, too, have just arrived in Shadizar the Wicked; so I am in as fine a fix as you. They say the Turanians are recruiting mercenaries in Aghrapur -hold; there's the man I came to see.'

  Conan gulped his wine, rose, and returned to the counter, where a bald, pot-bellied fellow had taken the place of the brawny matron. Conan said: 'Hail, Tigranes!'

  The bald man, beaming, started to cry: 'Co -' but Conan stopped him with an upraised hand. 'My name is Corin,' he said, 'and forget it not. How do you? You still had hair on your pate when last I saw you.'

  'Alas, it's gone the way of all things mortal, friend. How

  long have you been in Shadizar? Where dwell you? How did you find me?'

  'One at a time,' grinned Conan. 'First, let's find a place where we can talk less publicly.'

  'Right you are. Atossa!' When the woman took Tigranes's place behind the counter. Tigranes grasped Conan by the elbow and steered him into a curtained cubicle behind the counter.

  'This one is on the house,' he said, pouring two goblets of wine. 'Now tell me about yourself. What have you been doing the last few years?'

&nb
sp; 'I've been a soldier in Turan, hut I had to leave in haste.'

  The taverner chuckled. 'Same old Conan - I mean Corin. Where are you staying?'

  'At Eriakes's Inn, on the edge of the maul. I asked after you, and they directed me hither.'

  'What are you doing now?'

  'Looking for gainful employment, honest or otherwise.'

  'If you seek a fence to dispose of your loot, do not look at me! I gave all that up after the Chief Inquisitor had me arrested. I escaped the scaffold only by bribing him with all I'd saved, to the last farthing. Well, almost to the last farthing.' Tigranes cast a significant glance toward the curtained doorway.

  Conan shook his head. 'I've had enough of that starveling life, save as a last resort. But I have soldiered all the way from Shahpur to Khitai, and that should count for something.'

  'Speaking of Turan,' said Tigranes, 'a party of Turanians were here yesterday, asking questions. They said they were looking for a man of your description, accompanied by a woman. Has that aught to do with you?'

  'It might or it might not. How looked these Turanians?'

  'The leader was a short, square fellow with a little grey beard, who called himself Parvez. He had several fellow countrymen in tow, and an escort of a brace of King Mithridates' guards. His snooping evidently has our King's approval.

  'I know who Parvez is,' said Conan. 'One of Yildiz's diplomats. A gang of Zamorians abducted Yildiz's favourite wife, and the king is frantic for her return. I had naught to do with that jape, but the Turanians seem to think I did. Methinks I had better shake the dust of Shadizar from my boots.'

  'That was not the only reason,' said Tigranes. 'The law ii-members you all too well, despite the years you have been away. And your size makes you conspicuous, no matter by what name you call yourself.' Tigranes's eyes narrowed speculatively, and the demon of greed peered out from his small, pig-like orbs.

  'I had thought of going to -' began Conan, but paused as suspicion crackled in his mind. His experience with the Zamorian underworld had taught him that the 'honour amongst thieves,' to which the denizens of the maul paid lip service, was in fact as rare as fur on serpents or feathers on fish.

  'No matter,' he said negligently. 'I'll remain in hiding here for a few days ere I decide upon my next move. I shall visit you again.'

  Concealing his apprehension with a rough jest, Conan left the Golden Dragon and returned to Eriakes's Inn. Instead of going to bed, he roused Eriakes, paid his scot, got his horse from the stable, and by dawn was well away on the road to Yezud.

  Next morning Tigranes, who had mulled things over during the night, went to the nearest police post. He told the sergeant that the notorious Conan, wanted for sundry breaches of Zamorian law in years gone by as well as for questioning by the Turanian envoy, was to be found at Eriakes's Inn.

  But when the sergeant with a squad of regulars invaded Eriakes's establishment, they found that Conan had departed hours before, leaving no word of his destination. Thus Tigranes, instead of an informer's fee, received a beating for tardiness in reporting his news. Nursing his bruises, he returned to his inn, vowing vengeance on the Cimmerian, whom he illogically blamed for his mishap.

  Meanwhile, Conan sped north on Ymir as fast as he dared push his sturdy steed.

  At Zamindi, the villagers were preparing for a spectacle. All the folk, in their patched brown and grey and rusty black woollens, had turned out; some boosted their children to their shoulders, the better to view the event. The much-anticipated spectacle was the burning of Nyssa the witch.

  The old woman had been tied to a dead tree a bow-shot from the outskirts of the town. In a ragged shift, her white hair blowing, she watched in sullen silence as a dozen men piled sticks and faggots around her. The ropes bound her tightly, but they did not sink into her flesh only because her withered form retained no fat beneath her mottled skin.

  So intent upon the sight were the villagers that none remarked the clop of hooves along the path that led from the road to Shadizar. As the headman thrust his torch into the pile of firewood, the horse, a stocky Hyrkanian sorrel, nosed his way among the rearmost members of the crowd.

  The smaller sticks caught fire and blazed up with a cheerful crackle. Nyssa looked down silently, her rheumy old eyes glazed with resignation.

  Feeling a nudge and hearing a snuffling sound, one villager, munching an apple, turned and recoiled. The nudge was from the velvety nose of Ymir, who was begging for a bit of the apple. The man's startled gaze travelled along the horse's back to encompass a giant figure astride the beast. Conan rasped:

  'What goes on here?'

  'We burn a witch,' replied the man shortly, with a scowl of suspicion.

  'What has she done?'

  'Put a curse upon us, that's what, so three children and a ow died, all in the same night. Who are you, stranger, to question me?'

  'Had there been a feud between you?'

  'Nay, if it be any of your affair,' replied the man testily. 'She used to be our healer; but some devil possessed her and caused these deaths.'

  The large faggots were now catching fire, and the rising smoke made Nyssa cough.

  'Men and beasts die all the time,' ruminated Conan. 'What makes you think these deaths unnatural?'

  The man turned to confront Conan. 'Look you, stranger, you mind your business whilst we mind ours. Now get along, if you would not be hurt!'

  Conan had no love of witches. Neither had he any idea of civilised laws and rules of evidence. But still it seemed to him that the villagers were venting their grief on the aged crone more because she was old, ugly, and helpless than I because they had reason to think her guilty. The Cimmerian seldom interfered in others' affairs where neither honour drove nor profit beckoned. If the villager had spoken him fair, he might have shrugged and gone his way.

  But Conan was impulsive and easily roused to anger. And the protection of women, regardless of age, form, or station, was one of the few imperatives of his barbarian code. The villager's threat tipped the balance in the old woman's favour.

  Conan backed his horse a few steps, wheeled the animal, and rode away from the crowd. Then he swung Ymir around, swept out his scimitar, and heeled the horse. As Ymir broke into a canter, headed straight for the tree to which the witch was tied, Conan uttered a fearful scream - the ancient Cimmerian war cry.

  Startled faces turned; the villagers scrambled out of the

  way. Several were knocked down by the plunging beast.

  Reaching the fire-ringed victim, the frightened animal rolled its eyes and reared. Conan soothed Ymir as he leaned into the smoke to smite the bindings that encircled the tree. The strands parted easily, for the villagers had thriftily chosen old and rotten rope for the burning.

  As a collective growl arose from the thwarted peasants, Conan extended his free arm, roaring: 'Catch hold, grandmother!'

  Nyssa seized the brawny forearm and clung to it as, with a mighty heave, Conan swung her up on the horse's withers, before the saddle.

  'Hold on!' shouted Conan, pressing the oldster against his chest and urging Ymir into a run again.

  Once more the crowd, which had started to converge and advance, parted and scattered, even as Conan ploughed through them, he saw some of the more active men run to their crofts. As Ymir carried his double burden away from the village, Conan glanced back. Raging, the men were re-emerging with scythes, pitchforks, and a couple of spears.

  'Where do you want to go?' Conan asked the witch.

  'I have no home to call my own,' she replied in a quavery voice. 'They have already burned my hut.'

  'Then whither?'

  'Pray, whither you go, sir.'

  'I'm bound for Yezud; but I cannot take you with me all the way.'

  'If you will return to the main road and turn left, you will soon come upon another track, which leads uphill to my hiding place. Though I know not if your horse can bear the both of us up so steep a slope.

  'Can he walk if I lead him?'

  'A
ye, sir; of that I am sure. But hurry! I do hear the dogs barking behind us.'

  A distant baying, wafted to Conan's ears. Keen though his senses were, those of the old woman had earlier identified the sound.

  Your hearing is good for one of your years,' he remarked.

  'I have ways of reinforcing my mortal senses.'

  'If they have set dogs after us, what's to stop them from following us to your hideaway?'

  'They cannot once we reach the place, and I have means to lead them astray.'

  As they came out upon the main road, the sounds of pursuit grew louder, for Ymir was slowed by the weight of the double burden. Another quarter-hour, and Nyssa indicated the track to her refuge.

  For a while, Ymir trotted up the steep path, which rose and dipped and wound through broken country. The baying increased apace, and Conan more and more disliked the nation. On the flat, with room to manoeuvre, he did not fancy himself again a village full of yokels armed with improvised weapons. Even on this uncertain footing, if the pursuers were brave enough to close in even after he had slain the foremost, they could swarm around him, hamstring his mount, and cut him to pieces.

  'Those fellows must have horses,' he muttered between clenched teeth.

  'Aye, sir; the village breeds them and has a score of the beasts. And the lads are spry afoot; they beat the other sprinters in foot races at every fair. I used to be proud of my village.'

  Conan knew that, if he abandoned Nyssa, he could escape his pursuers even if they tried to run him to earth after they had recaptured the aged witch. But having committed himself to the crone's rescue, he gave no thought to any other course. In such matters he could be obstinate indeed.

  The track thrust upward, ever steeper and more rugged, she pulled up and swung off the weary horse, saying: 'I'll walk; you ride. How much further goes this path?'

  'A quarter of a league. Near the end, I needs must also walk.'

  On they plodded, Conan leading Ymir by the reins, behind them the baying waxed louder as men and dogs gained on their quarry. Conan expected to sight their pursuers at any time.