Conan of Venarium

"Demon! Filthy, cursed demon from the darkest pits of hell!" cried Conan. He threw down his bow, snatched up a blazing brand from the fire, and ran not away from the thing but towards it, shouting his defiance of anything from this plane or any other that tried to steal what he had vowed to protect. It screamed, let go of the ewe, and flapped toward him.

The foul stench of it almost knocked him off his feet. Reeling, he lashed out with Nectan's staff. The silver at the base of that length of wood thudded against the creature's ribs. Iron-tipped arrows had done Conan no good, but the demon shrieked in anguish at the touch of silver.

"Ha!" cried Conan. He swung again, and again struck home. Suddenly, the demon wanted no more of this man-thing who dealt it such cruel blows. However hungry it might have been, no meal was worth the torment it took from silver. Screaming now in fright, it turned to flee.

But Conan struck again, this time with the burning branch he bore in his left hand. He let out a great bull roar of triumph, for the demon caught fire and burned like a torch. It flew off, still screaming and still burning. Somewhere up above the woods, it could fly no more, and plunged to earth. Conan thought he heard a hiss arise when it slammed into the snow, a hiss like that when his father plunged hot iron into a tempering bath. He might have been wrong, but he believed as much until the end of his days.

Having driven off the demon, he hurried to the sheep it had tried to steal. He tended the cuts and bites as best he could, pouring ale from his drinking flask over them to try to keep the wounds from going bad. The ewe repaid his kindness by kicking him just below the knee. The sheep's thick coat of winter wool had likely gone a long way toward saving its life by shielding it from some of the damage the flying demon's teeth and talons might otherwise have worked.

When Nectan returned not long before sunset, he saw at once the blood on the ewe's flanks. "By Crom, Conan, did you fall asleep here?" he demanded angrily. "I'll thump you with my staff if you did."

"By Babd, Morrigan, Macha, and Nemain, I did not!" exclaimed Conan, and told the tale of the fight with the demon.

Nectan listened without a word. Then he went to the ewe and stooped to examine its injuries. When he straightened, his face was troubled. "Those are not the marks of wolf or panther, nor yet of any eagle," he said slowly. "Perhaps you speak truth, where I thought you lied."

"I do," said Conan. "It most misliked the silver at the end of your staff."

"Silver and fire are sovereign against demons, or so I've heard." Nectan shook his head in wonder. "I own I never thought to put it to the test."

Chapter Six

The Hunters

Spring came late to Cimmeria, especially to one used to the warmer clime of Aquilonia. Indeed, to Count Stercus what the calendar called spring hardly seemed worthy of the name. True, the sky was gray longer than it was black, where the opposite had held true through the seemingly unending winter. True also, the snow at last stopped falling and then, with even more reluctance, began to melt.

But there was no great burgeoning of life, as there would have been farther south. The trees did not burst into bright green leaf. They were evergreens, and had kept such gloomy color as they originally owned all through the winter, though snow had hidden much of it. Little by little, fresh grass did begin to poke up through the dead and yellow growth of the previous year, but the process was so gradual that days went by without much perceptible change. And birdsongs other than owls' hoots, hunting hawks' harsh cries, and the croaking and chirring calls of grouse and ptarmigan started to sweeten the air.

Birdsongs, however, left Stercus cold. Almost everything that had to do with Cimmeria left Stercus cold. He had written at least a score of letters to King Numedides and to everyone else in Tarantia who might have had influence with the King of Aquilonia, all of them requesting, pleading—begging—that he be recalled to a civilized country once more.

Even' one of those letters had fallen on deaf ears. Oh, through one of his secretaries Numedides had replied, but only to say that, as Stercus had done such a fine job in the north up to this time, who better to continue to oversee the growth of the Aquilonian settlements there? Count Stercus would not soon see civilization again.

For a little while longer, his sport with Ugaine sufficed to amuse him, to distract him. But the Cimmerian girl was not exactly what he wanted, and for Stercus anything that was not exactly what he wanted soon became something he wanted not at all. When he tired of Ugaine, he sent her back to her home village, though she protested he did her no favors by returning her.