Conan of Venarium

Nectan poured himself some ale and started gnawing on a strip of mutton. When he pulled a stool close to the fire, Mordec slid aside to make room for him. He had been out in the cold and the wind for a long time, and had earned the warmth now.

Herth said, "A tinker named Loarn told me what had passed here. I decided to come down and see for myself, and I find it is so. Yellow-haired soldiers who spoke in grunts and trills put their hands on me not far north of here, and I had to bear the insult, for they were many and I but one. Yet though I had to bear it then, I shall not forget it."

"As you say, they are many," answered Mordec. "For now, we also have to bear it, though we shall not forget, either."

"But the longer we bear it, the stronger the Aquilonians become," said Balarg.

"Aye, that's so, curse them," said Nectan, and the other men of Duthil nodded. The shepherd went on, "The fortress they build, the place they call Venarium"—he pronounced the foreign name with an odd kind of contemptuous care —"has already grown harder to take than any hill fort of our folk." He sipped from his ale, then inclined his head to Herth. "Have you seen it?"

"Not yet," replied the northern chieftain. "No, not yet, though I intend to before I go back to my own country."

"Now that you have seen this much, what will you do up in the north?" asked Mordec.

"What needs doing," said Herth. "Loarn spoke somewhat of rousing the clans. By Crom, he roused me, but not everyone cares to hearken to a landless wanderer who makes his living, such as it is, by patching pans and fixing broken jugs."

"What he does, he does well," observed Mordec. "When you speak of a man, you could say worse."

Herth's gaze might have been a swordblade. The blacksmith's might have been another. When they clashed, sparks flew. From off to one side, Balarg said, "Here, friends, it is of no great importance."

Mordec did not reply. He kept his eyes on Herth. After a few heartbeats, the chieftain was the one who looked away, saying, "Well, perhaps it is not. But I say this, and say it true: when I travel through Cimmeria, men will hearken to me." He had a clan chiefs pride, sure enough.

"Hearkening is one thing," said Nectan. "Moving is another. Once they have hearkened, will they move?"

"Oh, yes." Herth spoke softly, but with great certainty. "You may rely on that, friend shepherd. Once they have hearkened, they will move."

Conan stood on a hilltop, watching the sheep on the hillside pawing their way down through the snow to get at the grass beneath it. He also watched the woods not far away. If wolves came trotting forth, he had his bow and he had Nectan's stout staff with which to fight them. The staff was of some hard, dark wood with which Conan was unfamiliar. It was shod with silver. "Keep it safe, lad," the shepherd had said when he handed it to Conan. "You'd leave me a poorer man if you should lose it."

A small fire burned close by, sheltered from the north wind by several tall stones. Conan stooped and tossed a few more branches onto the flames. The fire did not give a great deal of warmth, but Nectan had kept it going, and Conan wanted to maintain everything as the shepherd had had it. Nectan doubtless cooked over it and slept beside it. Having to start it afresh in this raw weather would be a nuisance for him.

For that matter, if Nectan did not come back from Duthil until the morrow, the blacksmith's son would have to cook on the fire and sleep by it himself. Nectan had said he would return before sundown, but Conan had seen that promises, however well meant when made, were not always to be relied upon.

Something flew past overhead. Conan did not pay much heed. The greatest eagle might perhaps carry off a newborn lamb, but lambing season was still months away, and no bird ever hatched could hope to seize a full-grown sheep and fly away with it. So Conan thought, at any rate, but the flying thing stooped like a falcon. A stout ewe let out a sudden bleat of agony.

Whatever the creature struggling to lift the sheep into the air was, it was no bird. Its huge wings were black and membranous, while a pair of pointed ears pricked up above its fiercely glowing red eyes. When it snarled, it showed a mouth full of teeth like needles and razors and knives.

Bat? Demon? Conan could not have said, nor did he much care. All he knew was that the thing was harming one of Nectan's sheep. Stringing his bow was the matter of a moment. Letting fly took even less time. His arrow flew straight and true, and sank to the fletching in the flying thing's flank.

It sank to the fletching—but the creature, apparently unharmed, kept right on flapping, trying to take off with the ewe it had chosen. Conan shot again. The second shaft struck within a palm's breadth of the first, but had no more effect. No normal living thing could have withstood such wounds without woe.