Conan Chronicles 2

by Robert Jordan

  Narus’ voice came to him, tinged with a bitter note. “Women should not be allowed to gamble. Almost I think you changed dice on me. At least let my buy back—”

  “No,” Karela cut him off as Conan rejoined his three companions. She wore Narus’ breeches, tight across the curves of her hips and voluminous in the legs, with his scarlet cloak wrapped about her shoulders and his sword across her knees. The inner slopes of her full breasts showed at the gap in the cloak. “I have more need of something to wear than of gold. And I did not switch the dice. You were too busy filling your filthy eyes and leering at the sight of me uncovered to pay mind of what you were doing.”

  Machaon laughed, and the gaunt man grunted, attempting to pull his hauberk down far enough to cover his bony knees.

  “We must be moving,” Conan announced. “There has been a battle, it seems, and whoever won there will be mercenaries without patrons or leaders, men to re-form the company. Crom, there may be enough for you each to have your own Free-Company.”

  Machaon, sitting with his back against one of the building stones that had once stood atop the mountain, shook his head. “I have been longer in this trade, Cimmerian, than you have lived, and this night past has at last given me my full. I own some land in Koth. I shall put up my sword, and become a farmer.”

  “You?” Conan said incredulously. “A month of grubbing in the dirt, and you’ll tear apart the nearest village with your bare hands, just for the need of a fight.”

  “ ’Tis not quite as you imagine,” the grizzled veteran chuckled. “There are ten men working the land now. I will be a man of substance, as such as counted among farmers. I shall fetch Julia from the city, and marry her if she will have me. A farmer needs a wife to give him strong sons.”

  Conan frowned at Narus. “And do you, too, intend to become a farmer?”

  “I’ve no love of dirt,” the hollow-faced man replied, snatching the dice from Karela, who had been examining them idly, “but … Conan, wizards I did not mind so much, and those men who looked like a snake had been at their mothers were no worse than a horde of blood-drunk Picts, but this god you found us has had my heart in my mouth more than I can remember since the Battle of Black River, when I was a fresh youth without need of shaving. For a time I seek a quiet city, with buxom wenches to bounce on a bed and,” he rattled the dice in cupped hands, rolled them on the ground, “young lads with more coin than sense.”

  “They had best be very young,” Karela laughed. “Do you intend to gain any of their coin. Eh, Cimmerian?” Narus glared at her and grumbled under his breath.

  As Conan opened his mouth, a flash of white caught his eye, cloth fluttering in the breeze down slope. “Crom!” he muttered. It was Boros and Julia. “I’ll wring his scrawny neck for bringing her here,” he growled. The others scrambled to their feet to follow him down the mountainside.

  When Conan reached the girl and the old man, he saw they were not alone. Julia knelt beside Taurianus, tearing strips from her white robes to try to staunch the blood oozing from a dozen rents in the Ophirean’s hauberk. The man’s hair was matted with dirt and blood, and a bubble of scarlet appeared at his lips with each labored breath.

  Boros flung up his hands as soon as he saw Conan. “Do not blame me. I tried to stop her, but I have not your strength. I thought it best to come along and protect her as best I could. She said she was worried about Machaon.”

  “About all of them,” Julia said, her face reddening. “Conan, we found him lying here. Can you not help him?”

  The Cimmerian needed no close examination of Taurianus’ wounds to see the man would not survive them. The ground about him was already blackened with his blood. “So the nobles lost,” he said quietly. A mercenary fighting on the victorious side would not have crawled away to die.

  The Ophirean’s eyes fluttered open. “We caught the Eagle,” he rasped, and continued with frequent pauses to struggle for breath. “We left our camp—with fires lit—and Iskandrian—fell on it—in the night. Then we took him—in the rear. We would have—destroyed him—but a giant flame—cleft the sky—and the white-haired devil—shouted the gods—were with them. Some cried—it was the Staff—of Avanrakash. Panic seized us—by the throat. We fled—and his warriors cut us down. Enjoy your time—Cimmerian. Iskandrian—is impaling—every mercenary—he catches.” Suddenly he lurched up onto one elbow and stretched out a clawed hand toward Conan. “I am a better man—than you!” Blood welled in his mouth, and he fell back. Once he jerked, then was still, dull eyes staring at the sky.

  “A giant flame,” Narus said softly. “You are a man of destiny, Cimmerian. You make kings even you do not mean to.”

  Conan shrugged off the words irritably. He cared not who wore the crown of Ophir, except insofar as it affected his prospects. With Iskandrian at Valentius’ side—perhaps, he thought, it was time to start thinking of the fopling as Moranthes II—there would be no chance to gather more men, and possibly no men left alive to gather. “’Twill be Argos for me,” he said.

  “You!” Machaon snapped abruptly, and Julia jumped. “Did I not tell you to remain in Ianthe? Must I fetch a switch for you here and now? The life of a poor farmer’s wife is hard, and she must learn to obey. Would you have our only pig die because you did not feed it when I told you?”

  “You have no right to threaten me,” the auburn-haired girl burst out. “You cannot …” Her words trailed off, and she sat back on her heels. “Wife? Did you say wife?” Taking a deep breath, she said earnestly, “Machaon, I will care for your pig as if it were my beloved sister.”

  “There’s no need to go so far as that,” Machaon laughed. His face sobered as he turned to Conan. “A long road we’ve traveled together, Cimmerian, but it has come to its ending. And as I’ve no desire to let Iskandrian rummage in my guts with a stake, I’ll take my leave now. I wish to be far from Ianthe before this day is done.”

  “And I,” Narus added. “ ’Tis Tarantia for me, for they do say the nobles of Aquilonia are free with their coin and love to gamble.”

  “Fare you well,” Conan told them. “And take a pull at the hellhorn for me, if you get there before me.”

  Julia ran to clasp Machaon’s arm, and, with Narus, they started down the mountain.

  “After that fool wench’s display,” Karela muttered, “I need a drink, or I’ll be sick to my stomach.”

  Conan eyed her thoughtfully. “Events hie me to Argos, for ’tis said Free-Companies are being hired there. Come with me, Karela. Together, in a year, we’ll rule the country.”

  The red-haired beauty stared at him, stricken. “Do you not understand why I cannot, Cimmerian? By the Teats of Derketo, man, you wake in me longings to be like that simpering wench, Julia! You make me embrace weakness, make me want to let you protect me. Think you I’m a woman to fold your blankets and cook your meals?”

  “I’ve never asked such of you,” he protested, but she ignored him.

  “One day I would find myself walking a pace behind you, silent lest I should miss your words, and I’d plant a dagger in your back for it. Then I would likely weep myself to madness for the doing of what you brought on yourself. I will not have it, Conan. I will not!”

  A sense of loss filled him, but pride would not allow it to touch his face. “At least you have gained one thing. This time I flee, and you remain in Ophir.”

  “No, Conan. The vermin that formed my band are not worth the effort of gathering them again. I go to the east.” Her head came up, and her eyes glowed like emeralds. “The plains of Zamora shall know the Red Hawk again.”

  He fumbled in his pouch and drew out half the gems he had taken from the scepter of Ophir. “Here,” he said gruffly. Karela did not move. “Can you not take a parting gift from a friend?” Hesitantly a slender hand came to his; he let the gems pour into it.

  “You are a better man than you know, Cimmerian,” she whispered, “and I am a fool.” Her lips brushed his, and she was gone, running with the cloak a scarlet banner behin
d her.

  Conan watched until she passed out of sight below.

  “Even the gods cannot understand the brain of a woman,” Boros crackled. “Men, on the other hand, rarely think with their brains at all.”

  Conan glared at the bearded man. He had forgotten Boros was still there. “Now you can return to the taverns and your drinking,” he said sourly.

  “Not in Ophir,” Boros said. He tugged at his beard and glanced nervously toward the ruined mountaintop. “A god cannot be killed as if it were an ordinary demon. Al’Kiir still lives—somewhere. Suppose his body is buried yet up there? Suppose another of those images exists? I will not be in this country if someone else attempts to raise him. Argos, I think. The sea air will be good for my lungs, and I can take ship for distant lands if I hear evil word from Ophir.”

  “Not in my company,” Conan growled. “I travel alone.”

  “I can work magicks to make the journey easier,” Boros protested, but the Cimmerian was already making his way down the mountain. Chattering continuously the gray-bearded man scrambled after Conan, who refused to respond to his importunings.

  Once more he was on his own, Conan thought, with only his sword and his wits, but he had been so often before. There were the gems in his pouch, of course. They would fetch something. And Argos lay ahead, Argos and thoughts he had never entertained before. If chance could bring a fool like Valentius to a throne, why could he not find a path? Why indeed? Smiling, he quickened his pace.

  Conan

  the

  Indestructible

  By L. Sprague de Camp

  The greatest hero of the magic-rife Hyborian Age was a northern barbarian, Conan the Cimmerian, about whose deeds a cycle of legend revolves. While these legends are largely based on the attested facts of Conan’s life, some tales are inconsistent with others. So we must reconcile the contradictions in die saga as best we can.

  In Conan’s veins flowed the blood of the people of Adanris, the brilliant city-state swallowed by the sea 8,000 years before his rime. He was born into a clan that claimed a homeland in the northwest corner of Cimmeria, along the shadowy borders of Vanaheim and the Pictish wilderness. His grandfather had fled his own people because of a blood feud and sought refuge with the people of the North. Conan himself first saw daylight on a battlefield during a raid by the Vanir.

  Before he had weathered fifteen snows, the young Cimmerian’s fighting skills were acclaimed around the council fires. In that year the Cimmerians, usually at one another’s throats, joined forces to repel the war-like Gundermen who, intent on colonizing southern Cimmeria, had pushed across the Aquilonian border and established the frontier post of Venarium. Conan joined the howling, blood-mad horde that swept out of the northern hills, stormed over the stockade walls, and drove the Aquilonians back across their frontier.

  At the sack of Venarium, Conan, still short of his full growth, stood six feet tall and weighed 180 pounds. He had the vigilance and stealth of the born woodsman, the iron-hardness of the mountain man, and the Herculean physique of his blacksmith father. After the plunder of the Aquilonian outpost, Conan returned for a time to his tribe.

  Restless under the conflicting passions of his adolescence, Conan spent several months with a band of Æsir as they raided the Vanir and the Hyperboreans. He soon learned that some Hyperborean citadels were ruled by a caste of widely-feared magicians, called Witchmen. Undaunted, he took part in a foray against Haloga Castle, when he found that Hyperborean slavers had captured Rann, the daughter of Njal, chief of the Æsir band.

  Conan gained entrance to the castle and spirited out Rann Njalsdatter, but on the flight out of Hyperborea, Njal’s band was overtaken by an army of living dead. Conan and the other Æsir survivors were led away to slavery (“Legions of the Dead”).

  Conan did not long remain a captive. Working at night, he ground away at one link of his chain until it was weak enough to break. Then one stormy night, whirling a four-foot length of heavy chain, he fought his way out of the slave pen and vanished into the downpour.

  Another account of Conan’s early years tells a different tale. This narrative, on a badly broken clay prism from Nippur, states that Conan was enslaved as a boy of ten or twelve by Vanir raiders and set to work turning a grist mill. When he reached his full growth, he was bought by a Hyrkanian pitmaster who traveled with a band of professional fighters staging contests for the amusement of the Vanir and Æsir. At this time Conan received his training with weapons. Later he escaped and made his way south to Zamora (Conan the Barbarian).

  Of the two versions, the records of Conan’s enslavement by the Hyrkanians at sixteen, found in a papyrus in the British Museum, appear much more legible and self-consistent. But this question may never be settled.

  Although free, the youth found himself half a hostile kingdom away from home. Instinctively he fled into the mountains at the southern extremity of Hyperborea. Pursued by a pack of wolves, he took refuge in a cave. Here he discovered the seated mummy of a gigantic chieftain of ancient times, with a heavy bronze sword across its knees. When Conan seized the sword, the corpse arose and attacked him (“The Thing in the Crypt”)

  Continuing southward into Zamora, Conan came to Arenjun, the notorious. “City of Thieves.” Green to civilization and, save for some rudimentary barbaric ideas of honor and chivalry, wholly lawless by nature, he carved a niche for himself as a professional thief.

  Being young and more daring than adroit, Conan’s progress in his new profession was slow until he joined forces with Taurus of Nemedia in a quest for the fabulous jewel called the “Heart of the Elephant.” The gem lay in the almost impregnable tower of the infamous mage Yara, captor of the extraterrestrial being Yag-Kosha (“The Tower of the Elephant”).

  Seeking greater opportunities to ply his trade, Conan wandered westward to the capital of Zamora, Shadizar the Wicked. For a time his thievery prospered, although the whores of Shadizar soon relieved him of his gains. During one larceny, he was captured by the men of Queen Taramis of Shadizar, who sent him on a mission to recover a magical horn wherewith to rescurrect an ancient, evil god. Taramis’ plot led to her own destruction (Conan the Destroyer).

  The barbarian’s next exploit involved a fellow thief, a girl named Tamira. The Lady Jondra, an arrogant aristocrat of Shadizar, owned a pair of priceless rubies. Baskaran Imalla, a religious fanatic raising a cult among the Kezankian hillmen, coveted the jewels to gain control over a fire-breathing dragon he had raised from an egg. Conan and Tamira both yearned for the rubies; Tamira took a post as lady’s maid to Jondra for a chance to steal them.

  An ardent huntress, Jondra set forth with her maid and her men-at-arms to slay Baskaran’s dragon. Baskaran captured the two women and was about to offer them to his pet as a snack when Conan intervened (Conan the Magnificent).

  Soon Conan was embroiled in another adventure. A stranger hired the youth to steal a casket of gems sent by the King of Zamora to the King of Turan. The stranger, a priest of the serpent-god Set, wanted the jewels for magic against his enemy, the renegade priest Amanar.

  Amanara’s emissaries, who were hominoid reptiles, had stolen the gems. Although wary of magic, Conan set out to recover the loot He became involved with a bandette, Karela, called the Red Hawk, who proved the ultimate bitch; when Conan saved her from rape, she tried to kill him. Amanar’s party had also carried off to the renegade’s stronghold a dancing girl whom Conan had promised to help (Conan the Invincible).

  Soon rumors of treasure sent Conan to the nearby ruins of ancient Larsha, just ahead of the soldiers dispatched to arrest him. After all but their leader, Captain Nestor, had perished in an accident arranged by Conan, Nestor and Conan joined forces to plunder the treasure; but ill luck deprived them of their gains (“The Hall of the Dead”).

  Conan’s recent adventures had left him with an aversion to warlocks and Eastern sorceries. He fled northwestward through Corinthia into Nemedia, the second most powerful Hyborian kingdom. In Nemedia he resumed his prof
ession successfully enough to bring his larcenies to the notice of Aztrias Petanius, ne’er-do-well nephew of the governor. Oppressed by gambling debts, this young gentleman hired the outlander to purloin a Zamorian goblet, carved from a single diamond, that stood in die temple-museum of a wealthy collector.

  Conan’s appearance in the temple-museum coincided with its master’s sudden demise and brought die young thief to the unwelcome attention of Demetrio, of the city’s Inquisitorial Council. This caper also gave Conan his second experience with the dark magic of the serpent-brood of Set, conjured up by the Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon (“The God in the Bowl”).

  Having made Nemedia too hot to hold him, Conan drifted south into Corinthia, where he continued to occupy himself with the acquisition of other persons’ property. By diligent application, the Cimmerian earned the repute of one of the boldest thieves in Corinthia. Poor judgment of women, however, cast him into chains until a turn in local politics brought freedom and a new career. An ambitious nobleman, Murilo, turned him loose to slit the throat of the Red Priest, Nabonidus, the scheming power behind the local throne. This venture gathered a prize collection of rogues in Nabodinus’s mansion and ended in a mire of blood and treachery (“Rogues in the House”).

  Conan wandered back to Arenjun and began to earn a semi-honest living by stealing back for their owners valuable objects that others had filched from them. He undertook to recover a magical gem, the Eye of Erlik, from the wizard Hissar Zul and return it to its owner, the Khan of Zamboula.

  There is some question about the chronology of Conan’s life at this point. A recently-translated tablet from Asshurbanipal’s library states that Conan was about seventeen at the rime. This would place the episode right after that of “The Tower of the Elephant,” which indeed is mentioned in the cuneiform. But from internal evidence, this event seems to have taken place several years later. For one thing, Conan appears too clever, mature, and sophisticated; for another, the fragmentary medieval Arabic manuscript Kitab al-Qunn implies that Conan was well into his twenties by then.