The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  With what the queen might say to this plan Rigello was not much concerned. Surely, she would prefer a virile man like him to that effeminate noodlehead now huddled on the throne. If she resisted, there were less pleasant methods of persuasion. He smiled again.

  Rigello stood for an instant in the hallway, admiring his stalwart figure in a full-length mirror. Then drawing on his other gauntlet, he strode down the palace stairs to the courtyard.

  'Barras! Fetch my horse. We ride at once!' he barked.

  VI

  'This is Theringo Castle'

  Conan left his horse with Garus below the crest of the hill and crept to the summit. He did not show his head above the bushes but, instead, gently parted the foliage to study.

  Anxiously, Marala asked, 'Why does he move so slowly? We are in haste to reach the Aquilonian border.'

  Garus replied: 'He is the man who can bring you to safety if anyone can, my lady. Although I take him to be little more than half my age, he has crowded into his youthful years a ' lifetime of battles and escapes. Trust him!'

  Conan beckoned. When Marala and Garus reached the crest of the rise, they looked down upon a broad plain. In the middle distance, on a small hill, stood the ruins of a castle. Beyond, at the edge of the flatland, a distant river snaked its silvered way among the feet of the forested hills that rose against the skyline.

  'I know not whose seat this was,' whispered Marala.

  Studying the countryside, Conan said, 'Once we cross that plain and, after that, the river, we shall be close upon the border of Aquilonia. I believe the line is drawn along the crest of yonder mountain range. Your king's men would have trouble capturing us there; for the Aquilonians have no love of armed invaders.'

  Swiftly, they returned to their horses and, mounting, laboured up the rise and cantered down the other side. As they reached the plain, Conan caught the faint sound of rhythmic thudding. He turned in his saddle, then cried:

  'Spur your horses! As fast as you can! Ophirean cavalry!'

  The three beasts broke into a furious gallop toward the ruined castle and the safety of the river beyond. Yet the pursuing horsemen swiftly gained upon them. Instead of! pounding down the road behind the fugitives, the pursuers spread out into a wide, crescent-shaped formation, with the horns of the crescent pointing forward.

  'Damned Hyrkanian trick!' muttered Conan, driving his heels into his lathered beast.

  The queen, a splendid horsewoman, rode hard between her escorts. Yet as they neared the ruined castle, the riders at the far ends of the pursuing crescent, travelling on light, , fresh mounts, passed the structure and began to close a circle round about it.

  Nearing the ruined castle, Conan roared: 'Come, here's a place we can defend! if this is to he our end. We'll take a sortie of those bastards with us!'

  They splashed through a small stream and pounded up the gentle slope. Dismounting, they led their winded animals through the rubble-clogged main gate. Within the crumbling curtain walls stood the keep, a massive cylinder of heavy masonry. The upper parts of the keep had fallen, leaving a talus of broken stone at its feet, but the walls of the lower storeys still raised protecting masonry too high to scale without ladders. Although the guard towers that flanked the gate had fallen into ruin, spilling masonry into the space where the valves had been, man and beast could pick their way among the broken stones of the heaped remains.

  'Mean you to make a stand here?' panted Marala, as they reached the inner courtyard.

  'Nay; they'd climb the outer wall somehow and come at us from behind. The keep looks sound; that is our place to stand.' The wooden door had disappeared, but the arched doorway was narrow enough to ensure the entrance of no more than one invader at a time. Slapping the rumps of the horses to send them around to the rear, Conan roughly pushed Marala into the doorway of the keep. He turned in time to parry the attack of two horsemen, who had forced their mounts over the broken stone at the main gate and now rode at them, gleaming swords upraised.

  Conan leaped up to slash one rider's sword arm and felt a satisfying crunch of cloven flesh and bone. He wheeled to meet the second, but Garus had already dived beneath the attacker's horse and ripped open its belly with an upward thrust of his knife. The screams of the rider echoed those of the plunging beast when Conan lopped off the fellow's leg as he toppled from the dying horse.

  The next Ophirean rider who rushed at them was hurled headlong as his mount stumbled on the detritus in the gateway, and he spilled out his brains against a jagged stone. As the thrashing, fallen animal blocked the entrance, Conan and Garus snatched up the weapons of the slain. Chief among them were a pair of crossbows with two quivers full of bolts.

  'Marala!' cried Conan and the two offenders scrambled through the doorway of the keep and turned to face the next attack. A few paces behind them, foot upon the winding stair, stood Marala, her lips curved in a happy smile, like one entranced. The Cimmerian turned and grasped her arm to waken her.

  'What is it, lass?' His rough voice grew gentle.

  'Know you where we are?' the queen replied.

  'Close to Aquilonia. What of it? They'll attack at any time, and we can't flee.'

  She waved a hand to indicate the crumbling masonry. 'Conan, this is Theringo Castle, where my ancestor Alarkar was betrayed.'

  Puzzled by her composure and the strange look in her amber eyes, Conan stepped back to the doorway to meet the next onslaught. Marala followed him, snatched up a crossbow, and said to Garus:

  'Cock me both crossbows; I am not strong enough to do it.'

  When the weapons were readied, she carried them up the worn stone stair, which spiralled high inside the ruined tower, At the first turning, she discovered a small landing, dim-lit by a narrow window, scarce wider than an arrow slit.

  Then the attack began.

  VII

  A Host on Horseback

  Conan, Marala, and Garus leaned wearily upon the doorway of the keep. Twice they had beaten off attackers. In the second assault, they were almost overwhelmed by a mass of men pushing in with levelled spears. But so narrow was the opening that the crowded enemy could not wield their weapons, while Conan and Garus above them on the stairs grasped at spear points and hacked at heads and hands. Whereas Conan and Garus wore coats of stout chain mail, the soldiers of Ophir were armoured in light leathern corselets to make possible a swift pursuit: and. unable to turn to the defenders' blows, many fell screaming in slippery pools of their own blood.

  Marala, from the second-storey window, picked off two attackers with her pair of crossbows. Although she was not a trained arbalester, the bolts she shot at the struggling mass of men near the doorway of the keep could not fail to find their mark. And after she discharged both weapons, she hurried down the stone stairs so that one or the other of her warriors could, in a moment of lull, recock them for her.

  This steady attrition of their forces at last sent the surviving attackers streaming back through the main gate, leaving behind a tangled mass of maimed and dying men. Their broken bodies half blocked the doorway to the keep, and their shrieks and groans were horrible to hear. Conan pushed his way out, shoving dead and wounded aside, to retrieve their weapons.

  Count Rigello, sitting his destrier on the slope below the ruin, received his officers impatiently. His black mail was dust-besmirched from the long ride, and his temper frayed by the ridiculous resistance of his quarry. A veteran captain, reining in his horse, saluted the count and said:

  'Sir, the donjon is invincible. We have lost two-score men in the attempt to storm it. Others of our lads are like to bleed lo death or to live crippled all their days. There is no way to bring our strength to bear.'

  'A hundred men against three, and one a woman?' sneered the count. 'Pity your prospects when we return to Ianthe!'

  'But, my lord,' said the captain earnestly, 'this barbarian warrior is incredible. None can stand before his sword. And the woman in that window with her crossbows - if you would let our arbalesters pick off the woma
n...'

  'Nay, she must be taken alive at any cost. But wait, how many arbalesters have we now?'

  'Belike a score in condition to fight.'

  'Then hark. Order the lads to cock and load their weapons, then charge up the hill afoot. Let them enter the gate bent double to present a negligible target, and spread out before

  the keep, loosing their quarrels upon a single signal. If only one defender falls, our swordsmen can rush in and overpower the other. Fail not to kill the men, but take the woman captive.'

  Brows creased in doubt, the captain withdrew to order the attack. Rigello watched the preparations, stroking his moustache and imagining the silken cushions of the throne already at his back. Nothing, he thought, could stop him now.

  The count's eyes suddenly grew wide. His men, dismounted, were advancing up the slope, when between them and the ruined castle walls appeared a host on horseback, clad in the armour of a fashion long gone by.

  Rigello's men recoiled, amazed, as the newcomers started down the slope at a brisk trot, lances levelled and swords swinging. The arbalesters threw down their bows and, running for their horses, scrambled to their saddles and flogged their mounts into a mad retreat. The swordsmen held a moment longer, then joined the headlong flight.

  'Mitra!' yelled Rigello, galloping against the ebbing tide of men. 'What ails you? Stand and fight, you cowards! To me! Tome!'

  With courage born of desperation, Count Rigello spurred his palfry up the slope, cutting a swathe through the wrack of his army, and rode into the thick of the oncoming knights. Then a crossbow bolt split his skull.

  8. 'Our Paths May Cross Someday'

  The three defenders stood, panting, at the ruined castle's gate, watching the rout of the Ophirean force.

  'Good shot, girl!' cried Conan. Laughing, he added: 'If I you tire of playing queen, you can hire out as an arbalester in any army I command.'

  Conan's mood changed and he frowned. 'But I cannot understand this army that appeared from nowhere, chased I away our foes, and vanished in a trice. Have you been working magic?'

  Marala smiled serenely. 'Aye, the magic of the Star of Khorala. The good men who fell here, two hundred years ago, were denied their chance to save their beloved kingdom. They waited till this day, when the Star and I - and you for giving it - released them to do their duty. Now Alarkar and his true men can rest at last.'

  'Those horsemen ... were they solid flesh and blood or conjured phantoms, ghosts through which a man could pass like smoke?'

  The queen raised her delicate hands, palms upward; and as she moved, the great jewel flashed its fire encased in azure ice.

  'T know not, and I think none shall ever know. But you are hurt. Let me clean and bind your wounds - and Garus's, too, as best I may.'

  She led the two, unarmoured now and limping wearily, clown the slope to the brook that gurgled merrily along the bottom before it disappeared into the distant river. She helped them wash their battle-sore bodies and bound their superficial wounds with strips of cloth torn from the garments of the dead.

  Refreshed at last, Conan asked: 'And what of you now, lady? Rigello is dead, but others will scramble to control the king.'

  Marala tied the final bandage and stood back, biting her lower lip in thought.

  'Mayhap the Star can rally the good men of the kingdom; but Ophir seems to lack good men - at least among the nobles of the realm. All the magnates whom I know are, like Rigello, greedy and unscrupulous. Of course, with the Star of Khorala ...' She broke off, staring at her hand. 'My ring! Where is it? It must have slipped off my finger whilst I dabbled in the chilly water!'

  Until sundown the three sought the great jewel within the stream and along its banks; but the Star was not to be found. The rushing waters must have carried it downstream, or playfully buried it in the silver sand. When the search was ended, Marala burst into tears.

  'Just when I had recovered it - to lose it again so soon!'

  Conan enfolded her in his strong arms to comfort her; saying: 'There, there, lass. I never much liked magic anyway. You cannot trust the stuff.'

  'That settles it,' said Marala, when at last her tears ran dry. 'I had but feeble chance in Ophir when I possessed the Star; without it I should have no chance at all. Nor do I think Mitra himself could make a man of Moranthes. I shall go to live in Aquilonia, where I have kin. Let the men of Opt settle their feuds without me. And may Mitra help the people of my realm!'

  'Have you money enough?' asked Conan with gruff concern.

  'A moment, and I'll show you,' said the queen with flicker of a smile.

  Turning away, she withdrew from her inner clothing damask belt into which were sewn many pockets, no larger than a fingernail. Tucked into these were sparkling jewels and coins of gold in dizzying profusion.

  'You'll manage,' growled Conan, 'if some thief with light fingers steals not your wealth.'

  'For that, I shall rely on Garus.' Turning to him prettily,; she said: 'You will go into exile with me, will you not?'

  'My lady,' smiled the old soldier, 'I would follow you into the very gates of Hell.'

  'I thank you, loyal friend,' said Marala with a regal nod. 'But what of you, Conan? I cannot offer you the promised generalship of Ophir's armies. Will you to Aquilonia with me?'

  Conan shook a sombre head. 'I, too, have changed my plans. I'll head north, to see my native land once more.'

  The queen studied Conan's solemn mien. 'You do not sound as if you liked the prospect. Do you fear to return?'

  Conan's harsh laugh rang out like the clash of steel on ' steel. 'Save for some sorcery and certain supernatural beings I have met, there's naught I fear. I may come home to trouble with an ancient feud or two - but that does not disturb me. It is just... well, Cimmeria is a dull country after the southerly kingdoms.'

  Taking both her hands in his, he surveyed her golden hair above her heart-shaped face, her splendid bosom, and her proud and graceful carriage. His eyes burned with desire and his voice grew intimate.

  'True it is that fair company shrinks the miles and warms the lonely heart.'

  Watching them, Garus tensed. Marala gently disengaged her hands and shook her lovely head.

  'While Moranthes lives and I am yet his wife, I will be faithful to my vows. But neither state will last forever.' She smiled a trifle sadly. 'Why go you to that bleak northland, if you enjoy it not? The Hyborian kingdoms offer many opportunities for a brave and generous man like you.'

  'I go to pay a visit.'

  To whom? Some sweetheart of former days?'

  Conan turned a cool glance on Queen Marala, but his blue eyes betrayed his painful disappointment. He replied: 'Say that I go to visit an old woman. Who she is, is my affair. Hut where in Aquilonia will you settle? Our paths may cross again someday.'

  Marala smiled fondly at the brawny Cimmerian. 'My Aquilonian kin dwell in the county of Albiona, near Taranl. They are old and childless and look upon me as a daughter. They intend to leave me title to their ancestral lands. I am no longer Queen of Ophir, but one day men may call me 'Countess Albiona!'

  Conan and the Amazon

  John Maddox Roberts

  I

  The town was called Leng. It lay in the hill country of eastern Brythunia, not far from the borders of Corinthia and Nemedia, at the convergence of two passes that allowed access through the mountains to the plains that lay to the east, west, and south. Once, much traffic had traversed the mountains by way of these passes and Leng had prospered. But trade routes had shifted, and for many years the greater part of the town had lain derelict: a place for the occasional caravan to camp within waits to break the wind that blew without cease among the hills. Herdsmen grazed their cattle and sheep on pastures that had once been the sumptuous gardens of the wealthy merchants of Leng.

  But now the town was beginning to fill up once more. Along the passes, in ones, twos, small bands and occasionally larger groups, people converged upon the town from four directions. Many were mounted, some on
horseback and others on camels. But some were on foot, and among these, some were chained neck-to-neck in slave coffles. Most of the new arrivals were men, but there were women among them as well.

  It was late afternoon when a lone figure strode over the crest of a final hill and looked down the winding, dusty road into the town below. The red sun cast long shadows and stained the western side of the taller buildings a lurid crimson. The walls of Leng were low, constructed of rough-hewn stone. Many of the rugged blocks had toppled from the ramparts, leaving sizable gaps. The massive gates had rotted away and left the town wide open to any who wished to enter.

  Most of the buildings that yet stood were close to the ground, but here and there rose towers four or five stories high, once the stronghouses of wealthy families. From several spots, plumes of smoke drifted into the clear sky. A few late travelers entered the walls even as the watcher studied the city.

  The man who stood atop the last slope was huge, with hard limbs and a scarred torso bared to the cutting breeze. He wore high, fur-topped boots and a breechclout of wolfhide. Over his massive shoulders was draped his only concession to the weather a short mantle of shaggy goatskin. His wrists and forearms were wrapped in bands of heavy, bronze-studded leather, and he wore a matching belt from which were suspended a long sword and a straight, broad-bladed dirk.

  The wind whipped the traveler’s straight, black hair around his face, which was angular, as scarred as his body, and as deeply tanned. Only his burning, blue eyes moved as he looked over the town.

  Nothing else about him shifted. Abruptly and decisively, he began to stride toward Leng.

  A hundred paces from the town, me black-haired man, who had come from the north, fell in with a small band of men approaching from the east They were well-armed and had a predatory look, but they offered him no challenge.