Conan of Venarium

Conan did not mind watching Nectan's sheep. As it often did, getting out of Duthil for a while appealed to him. If he did not have to see Tarla—and, most especially, if he did not have to see Count Stercus —he did not have so great a need to brood about what might have passed between them.

Keeping an eye on the new year's lambs pleased him better. They were too large now for any eagle to hope to carry off, but they wandered farther from their mothers than they had when they were smaller. That made them easier for wolves to take —or so it would have, at any rate, had the blacksmith's son not been vigilant.

On the little hillcrest from which he watched the flock, the air was crisp and clean and clear. It smelled of the meadow, and of the forests that were never far away in Cimmeria. The village stinks Conan was used to might have belonged to a different world. A slow smile stretched across his face. This was the life a man was meant to lead. If he could have spent the rest of his days herding sheep on the hillsides and meadows of his native land, he was sure he would have been happy.

He leaned back on the soft green grass, folded his hands behind his head, and smiled up at the sun, which had peeped out for a little while from behind the usually all-enshrouding Cimmerian mist. Some would have taken that pasture as an invitation to fall asleep, but Conan knew the sleeping shepherd was the one whose flock faced misfortune.

Regardless of what he knew, a yawn escaped his lips. He might have let himself doze, there in the fitful sunshine. He might have —but a sudden scream in the distance sent him scrambling to his feet.

The cry rang out again. It had to have burst from a woman's throat—and from the throat of a woman who knew herself to be in desperate peril. Conan snatched up his bow and quiver and began to run. He spared the sheep one brief glance over his shoulder as he dashed into the forest. For the next little while, they would have to fend for themselves.

Yet another scream dinned in Conan's ears. He nearly cried out himself, to tell the woman to keep screaming. Each shriek gave him a clearer notion of where she was. But if what harried her was man, not beast, Conan knew he would only warn that rescue was on the way. He held his tongue, but ran harder than ever.

At that pace, not even such a woodswise hunter as Conan could hope to travel silently. He heard small animals bounding away in all directions. He even saw a fox turn tail and flee. He remembered as much later. At the time, the fox scarcely registered.

Before long, he paused, panting, and cocked his head to one side. He knew he was close now, and did not want to run too far. A squawking commotion among the jays off to his left sent him hurrying in that direction. A moment later, another scream told him he had guessed well.

When he burst into the little clearing, he saw a girl on the ground, her tunic torn off, her bare skin white and glowing in the sun, her hands cruelly tied behind her, one of her ankles bound to a sapling. Above her towered a man who, by his swarthy coloring and light brown hair, had never been born in Cimmeria. The fellow looked up in surprise at Conan's arrival.

"Stercus!" cried Conan. "Die like the beast you are, you filthy Aquilonian devil!" He nocked an arrow, raised the bow, and drew it with all the fury in him — drew it with too much fury, in fact, for the bowstring snapped and the arrow spun away uselessly.

Count Stercus' sword already had blood on it. He gave Conan a mocking bow. "You see how Mitra favors me," he said. "I had not thought to combine two pleasures here, but since you are kind enough to give me the chance — " He slid forward in a fencer's crouch.

"Run, Conan! Save yourself!" called the girl.

"Tarla!" said Conan. Her words had on him the effect opposite the one she had intended. As long as she was in danger, he would not, could not, dream of fleeing. Throwing aside the bow, which was no good to him now, he quickly stooped and grubbed two stones out of the dirt. He hurled one, the smaller, at Stercus' head.

The Aquilonian nobleman was swift and supple as a serpent. Laughing a mocking laugh, he ducked the flying stone. But even as he ducked, Conan flung the other stone at his right hand, and it stuck squarely. Stercus let out a sudden, startled howl of pain. His sword spun through the air, to land well out of reach. Roaring like a panther, Conan charged him.

Stercus matched the blacksmith's son in inches, but Conan was already wider through the shoulders than the invader. He thought to bear Stercus down and crush or choke the life from him. But what he thought was not what happened, for the nobleman was wise in ways of wrestling he had never imagined. Conan found himself lifted and flipped and slammed to the ground, the arrows flying out of his quiver to land all around him.