He tossed the Picts’ severed heads at his father’s feet, then spat out the egg. He looked up into his father’s eyes. “The only thirst I know is for blood. The only cold I know is the cold edge of steel. My courage is tempered. I fear not death. I do not rush foolishly toward it. Speed and strength, cunning and balance. I am ready to train as a warrior.”
Corin smiled. You are indeed ready, my son. “How many?”
“Four, only four.” Conan toed a head. “Exhausted, no supplies, so they have a camp somewhere.”
Corin looked around at the warriors. “I want warriors to scour the hills. Go!”
“Me, too, Father?”
Corin nodded. “Yes, my son, I called for warriors, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Father.” Conan beamed and the sight of his joy warmed his father’s heart. The boy turned to run off back the way he’d come.”
“Conan.”
“Yes, Father?”
“Go get your Aquilonian sword.” Corin nodded solemnly. “You’re a warrior, by Crom, and I fear, by the end of this day, your blade will have drunk its fill.”
CHAPTER 7
CONAN, SWORD BARED, ran into the hills west of the village. The other scouts had fanned out toward the south, but the boy headed toward where he had killed the Picts. He could start from there and then backtrack.
Pure joy bubbled through him. He imagined himself—now properly armed—killing a dozen of the painted savages. Maybe the four he’d slain were the vanguard of a war band! While he knew this wasn’t true, given their ragged condition, he could wish it were true. It would make for a better telling of the story.
That thought sobered him. Though he cared only for what his father thought, he couldn’t help but notice the looks on the other faces. Ardel and the other young men looked shamed—as well they should—and resentful. They’d given in to panic while a younger man had not. Even at that young age, Conan recognized that they would eventually forget their shame, and instead revel in remembering that they had been present when Conan brought his trophies to the village.
The others—the warriors—their reactions had been easy to read as well. Some refused to believe. Some of them had been in combat, but had never killed an enemy. Others, knowing just how difficult that was, couldn’t believe so young a man had done it alone. But the vast majority remembered the omen of his birth. For them, his return, his accomplishment, only confirmed their belief in his destiny. While this made most of them happy, a few had looked away from him, believing that such a great destiny would afford Conan a life poor in peace and happiness.
Had he been older, he would have understood that sentiment, but even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Crom gave men courage. Crom meant for men to survive by their wits and the strength of their arms. Crom guaranteed nothing more, and certainly no peace or happiness. Conan was a Cimmerian warrior, and a warrior’s life he would lead.
Conan cut through the forest and scaled the rock face leading toward the meadow where he had placed his traplines. As he clambered to the top and crouched to rest, he heard the jingle of tack and the creak of leather. Below, along the track at the cliff’s base, came a half-dozen riders, armored in leather and light mail. Conical steel caps covered their heads and bloodred scarves half hid their faces.
Conan crouched behind a fallen tree. He’d never seen such men before, not even on the trip south with his father to visit a market town. Even so, something about their swarthiness and the shape of their helmets struck a chord with him. His grandfather had spoken of such men from his travels. Zamora? Zingara? It was someplace distant and exotic.
The riders slowed as they cut across his track. The leader glanced toward the rock face, where the tracks ended, and shook his head. Then he studied Conan’s back trail, but the forest and hills, with their deep drifts of snow, provided no easy passage for horsemen. With the wave of a hand and a harsh command, he started his men farther down the game trail that would, a mile or so farther north, cut across a road that led to the village.
Outrage, contempt, and fear warred in Conan’s breast. That such men would dare come into Cimmeria infuriated him. They had to be very foolish, though a small part of him imagined they might have come north to settle some generational blood feud with his grandfather.
The way the lead rider studied the tracks and didn’t even bother to glance up at the top of the cliff fortified Conan’s suspicion that they were stupid. Sure, the size of his track, the length of his stride, suggested that he was still a boy, but to so casually imagine that a rock face could not be climbed was folly. Steppes dwellers! Conan spat disgustedly, then cut down and around off the hill. Though going back down the cliff face would be faster, if the horsemen returned, he’d be trapped.
He picked his way across the horsemen’s back trail, stepping only in the tracks they’d left, then plunged through brush and cut slightly south. If he ran fast, if he encountered no trouble, he could reach the village before the horsemen and warn his father. Noting that he’d heard no blasts from the signal horns the other Cimmerians carried, he felt a surge of courage—not because he had a desire to be a hero, but because he did not want to leave his village unprotected.
At no point had it occurred to him that the riders might be innocent travelers. They’d had the look of hard men about them. They had no remounts or pack animals in tow, which meant they’d entrusted those things to others. They had to have known his tracks were fresh, yet they did not call out in a friendly manner. And the trail they rode branched off from the larger trade route to the south, which would have afforded them a direct and easy path to the village.
No, he was certain that they were part of something larger and, worse yet, imagined they were part of a cordon to make sure no one got away. His grandfather had talked about having had such duties, but had never said too much or anything good about them.
Conan burst from the woods, his lungs burning, aghast at the sight of his village.
Flaming arrows rose from the south, arcing down like falling stars. They landed among the southernmost huts, sticking deep in thatched roofs. The huts began to burn. The breeze swirled dark smoke through the rest of the village, washing it over the Cimmerian defensive lines.
And there, at the center, stood Corin, magnificent, the great sword he’d forged for his son held high. He directed the defenses, pointing men and women to their places in the lines. Conan instinctively understood what his father was doing and desperately wished he were at his side. A couple hundred yards of snowy fields separated him from the village, so he rose to sprint.
A loud metallic hiss to his right stopped him. Armored men in closed ranks were stepping from the forest. Aquilonians, surely, for Conan had seen their like before. The short swords they unsheathed in unison were not unlike the sword he bore. And their shields, tall ovals, were standard in Aquilonian legions, though he’d never seen the crest before. A human face, or so it appeared, with tentacles writhing around it—the very sight of the crest set Conan’s flesh to crawling.
The Aquilonians began a measured march toward the village. Two drummers paced behind them, hammering out a rhythm to which the soldiers marched. Conan’s heart pounded double time to that beat, and he sprinted twice as fast, quickly outdistancing the Aquilonians.
Then trumpets blasted and horsemen broke from the wood lines, racing across the snowy fields. No lightly armed scouts these, but heavily armored cavalry, with horses encased in layers of steel armor. The warriors bore curved swords with heavy points, equally suited to slashing or stabbing. The warriors would have towered over Conan were they on foot, but in the saddle, they became juggernauts of destruction.