Conan of Venarium

At that Tarla's chin came up in defiance. She shook her head again, more firmly this time. "No. I belong to myself, and to no one else," she declared, as full of native love of freedom as any other Cimmerian ever born.

Count Stercus cared nothing for the freedom of Cimmerians. "By Mitra, you are mine!" he cried, and, leaning down, snatched her up onto his saddlebow. The bucket went flying, water splattering the already muddy street. Tarla shrieked. Stercus cuffed her. She shrieked again. He hit her once more, harder this time.

One of the boys playing ball in the street threw a rock at Stercus. It clanged off his backplate and did him no harm. Another youngster ran toward Count Stercus with a stick of firewood —the first weapon he could find —in his hand. Stercus' sword sprang free. He swung it in a shining arc of death. The Cimmerian boy tried to block it with the wood, but to no avail. The blade bit. The boy fell, spouting blood, his head all but severed from his body.

"Wirp!" cried Tarla. But Wirp would never answer.

The rest of the barbarians in the street roared. They ran not away from Stercus but toward him, intent on pulling him from the saddle. He set spurs to the destrier. Snorting, the great horse sprang forward. Lashing out with its hooves, it stretched another boy dead in the street, his skull smashed. Left arm encircling Tarla's supple waist, Stercus thundered out of Duthil and into the woods.

Granth son of Biemur knelt on one knee in a soldiers' hut. The dice had been going his way—he was up twelve lunas, and hoped to make it more on his next cast. Before he could throw, though, a trumpeter blew the assembly call. "Damnation!" he said, scooping up the silver he had won. "Why did the captain have to decide to hold a drill now?"

"We'll get back to the game soon enough," said Vulth, "and then I'll clean you out."

"Ha!" said Granth. He got to his feet. "Come on —let's get it over with."

Gundermen and Bossonians hurried out to the open space between huts and palisade. They clapped helms on their heads, fastened mailshirts, and had pikes and bows ready. If by some accident this were no drill, they were ready for war.

"Foolishness," grumbled Benno. But his bow was strung and his quiver full.

"No doubt," said Granth. Then Captain Treviranus strode out in front of the Aquilonians. Seeing his grim countenance, Granth began to wonder how foolish the horn call was.

"Something's gone wrong in Duthil," said Treviranus bluntly. "Count Stercus rode into the village a while ago, and he hasn't come out—at least, not this way. And the barbarians in there have been whooping and hollering ever since he did ride in. We'd better find out why they're in an uproar and calm them down —if we can."

"What if we can't?" called someone. Granth could not see who it was, but the same question had crossed his mind. What would he and his friends have to do to pull Stercus' chestnuts out of the fire?

Treviranus faced the question squarely. "If they want trouble, we'll give them all they want and more. We can't let them think they can rise up against us. If they do, the whole countryside is liable to boil over." He waited to see if any more questions would come. When none did, he nodded. "All right, then. Let's go."

He led the Bossonians and Gundermen — the whole garrison except for a handful of men left behind to hold the camp —toward Duthil. That he led made the archers and pikemen follow willingly. Some officers would simply have sent the soldiers forth, but Treviranus was not one of that stripe.

Even before leaving the fortified encampment, Granth could hear the Cimmerians shouting and their women keening. A man came out of Duthil and strode straight at the oncoming Aquilonians. One man against a company of soldiers—but such was his fury that Granth almost halted and did tighten his grip on his pikestaff.

"Two!" shouted the Cimmerian in bad but understandable Aquilonian. "He kill two boys, steal girl. He pay! You all pay!"

"Count Stercus did this?" demanded Treviranus.

"Aye, he do! Dog and son of dog!" the Cimmerian said. "We catch, we kill."

Granth knew Captain Treviranus had no more love for Stercus than any other Aquilonian did. Treviranus might have been able to soothe the villagers — except that they did not want to be soothed. The man who had advanced on the soldiers stopped, picked up a stone, and flung it at them.

The stone thudded off a pikeman's buckler. The response of the Bossonian archers was altogether automatic. Bowstrings thrummed. Half a dozen shafts whistled through the air. They all pierced the Cimmerian. He took a couple of staggering steps toward the men from the south, as if still intending to assail them, then slowly crumpled.

"Damnation," said Treviranus quietly. "I wish that hadn't happened. Well, no help for it now. Forward, men. Battle line —pikemen in front of the archers. We're likely going to have a fight on our hands now."