Conan of Venarium

Conan and Tarla walked hand in hand down the track toward Duthil. In his other hand Conan clutched Count Stercus' sword. He had plunged it into the ground again and again to cleanse it of the blood of his fellow villager. Soon enough, he hoped, it would drip with Aquilonian gore. It was a rich weapon, the blade chased with gold and the hilt wrapped in gold wire. Conan cared little for the richness. That the sword was long and sharp mattered more.

"You saved me," said Tarla for perhaps the dozenth time. Her eyes glowed.

He squeezed her hand. He had no words to show her what he felt; pretty speeches were not in him. But he knew, and he thought Tarla knew, too. Nothing else made any difference.

"Almost there now," said Tarla.

Conan nodded; he knew the landmarks on the trail as well as he knew the backs of his own hands. He fretted about Nectan's sheep, for he knew they might fall into danger without him there to watch over them. But Tarla was more important. Once he brought her back to Balarg's house, he would hurry back to the meadow and resume the duty his father had set him.

Suddenly he halted, the inborn alertness of one who lived close to nature warning him something ahead was amiss. Tarla would have walked on, but his grip on her hand checked her. "Something's not right," he said, cocking his head to one side to listen.

After imitating his gesture, Tarla frowned in pretty confusion. "I don't hear anything," she said.

"Nor do I," answered Conan. "And we should—we're close enough to Duthil by now. Where's all the usual village noise? Too quiet by half, if you ask me."

"It's not always noisy there," said Tarla.

"No, but — " Conan broke off. He let himself be persuaded. If the girl he cared about more than anything in the world —at least for the moment—thought everything was all right, then all right everything was likely to be, merely because she thought so. Squeezing her hand again, he went forward once more.

In back of Duthil, the woods grew close to the village. He and Tarla were no more than ten or twenty yards from the closest houses when they came out into the open. They both stared in astonished horror at what they saw. Blood and bodies were everywhere. The stench of all that blood, a heavy iron stink that might almost have come from the smithy, filled Conan's nostrils. More ravens and vultures and carrion crows spiraled down by the moment.

But scavenger birds were not all that moved in Duthil. A pair of Bossonian archers spotted Conan and Tarla as they came forth from the forest. "Mitra!" exclaimed one. "We missed a couple of these damned barbarians."

"Well, we'll get them now," answered the other. Both reached over their shoulders for arrows, nocked them, and, in the same instant, let fly.

Both Bossonians aimed for Conan. He was plainly the more dangerous of the two —and, if they shot him, they might have better sport with Tarla. The bowmen were well trained and long practiced in what they did. Both shafts flew straight and true —but Tarla sprang in front of the blacksmith's son and took them full in the breast.

"A life for a life, Conan," she said. "Make us free." If she knew any pain, she did not show it. She fell with a smile on her face.

"No!" howled Conan. But as he stooped beside her, two more arrows hissed over his head. He turned then, and ran for the woods. Had Tarla not said those last three words, he would have thrown his life away charging the Bossonians. Now he could not, not when he had her last wish —no, her last command —ringing in his ears. He had to live. He had to avenge.

Yet another arrow thudded into the trunk of a pine by the side of the track, while the fletching of one more brushed his shoulder as the shaft flew ever so slightly high. Then he was out of sight of the Bossonians. If they came after him, he intended to double back and ambush them. He paused to listen. When he heard the clink of mailshirts, he cursed and began running hard again. That meant they had pikemen with them, in numbers too great for one to assail.

"My own bow, then," muttered Conan as he pounded up the track. Fitting a new string would be but a minute's work. His own bow —and Count Stercus' head. No symbol would be more likely to rouse Cimmeria to rebellion against the invaders from the south than proof the hated governor was dead. But Conan would gladly have given even the abominable Stercus his life back again in exchange for Tarla's if Crom but granted such bargains.

Only after he was well away from Duthil did he stop again, cursing as foully as he knew how. If the Aquilonians had worked a massacre in his home village, what of his father? What of his mother? That last thought almost sent him running back down the track, straight toward the Gundermen and Bossonians. But no —they demanded a greater vengeance than he alone could wreak.