Conan of Venarium

Off to one side, Herth was wrapping a rag around his head. His helm had kept a blow from smashing his skull, but the rim, driven down by the dint, left him with a long cut on his forehead. Wiping blood away from his eyes, the clan chief said, "That's what we've come for—to kill them."

The Cimmerians mustered themselves in a ragged line out of the range of the hunting bows a few of the Gundermen carried. Several of the men who had been in the fight before bore minor wounds. This had been Conan's first real taste of battle. He had dealt hard blows. He burned to deal more.

Ranged in front of the farmhouse, the yellow-haired farmers and soldiers waited. They were badly outnumbered now, but still stood defiant. "Why don't they go inside?" asked Conan. "They could give us a harder fight that way."

"They could for a little while," said Mordec. "Then we'd fire the place, and they'd burn with their families."

Conan grimaced, then nodded. Burning foes from a fortress—yes, he could see the need. Burning foes and families alike —he could, perhaps, see the need for that as well, but it raised his gorge even so. The women and children had done nothing to deserve such a fate but accompany their men into this land. Was that enough? Maybe it was.

Herth pointed toward the Gundermen. "Come on, lads!" he called to the Cimmerians around him. "Let's finish the job!"

Roaring and shouting, the Cimmerians surged forward. Mordec and Conan trotted side by side. Conan noted that his father did not waste his breath on war cries. He simply scanned the enemy line until he chose an opponent. Then he pointed at the man and spoke two words to Conan: "That one."

"The tall one with the pitchfork?" asked Conan, wanting to be sure. His father nodded. The two of them had fought as a team in their first clash with the embattled farmers. Few men, no matter how doughty, lasted long when beset by such a pair.

Shouting in Aquilonian, the man with the pitchfork thrust at Mordec. The blacksmith beat aside the makeshift weapon with his axe. Conan drove Stercus' sword deep into the Gunderman's vitals. Blood spurted; its iron stink filled his nostrils. The Gunderman howled. Even with his dreadful wound, he tried to skewer Conan with the pitchfork. Mordec's axe —not a tool for felling trees, but a broad-headed war axe for cutting down men —descended. The sound of the blow reminded Conan of those made when cutting up a pig's carcass. The pitchfork flew from the farmer's suddenly nerveless hands. The fellow crumpled, his head all but severed from his body.

Another Gunderman fell to the two of them, and another. The farmers' line wavered. They still fought bravely, but bravely did not serve when each had to face more than one foe. In a furious, cursing knot, they fell back toward the farmhouse door. The three or four pikemen in mailshirts still on their feet defended the door, while some of the farmers —and the handful of women who had not fallen —ran inside.

One of the pikemen—the one Conan had recognized — nodded in an almost friendly way to Mordec and him. "I knew the two of you were trouble," the soldier said. "Now I see how right I was."

Some of the Aquilonians at the camp by Duthil had been dreadful. Some had merely been hard. A few, this fellow among them, had been decent enough. "If you stand aside, Granth, we will spare you," said Mordec.

Granth shook his head. "No. These are my people. If you try to harm them, I'll kill you if I can."

"Honor to your courage." Mordec might have been a man passing sentence. The fight grew fierce again, the Cimmerians battling to push past the last few defenders. Granth went down. Conan did not see how. He only knew that he fought his way into the farmhouse.

That was worse than any of the fighting outside had been. Women and children screamed like lost souls. Egged on by the presence of their loved ones, the Gundermen battled with reckless disregard for their own lives. From outside came a shout: "Clear away, you Cimmerians! We'll burn the farmhouse over their heads!"

Conan, by then, was caught up in the struggle. The fury of battle upon him, he did not want to break it off. His father dragged him out of the farmhouse by main force. Mordec was the only man there who could have overmastered him. Conan came close to striking out at the blacksmith, too. "We'll find more fighting later, never you fear," said Mordec, which helped resign the boy to turning aside from this clash.

Cimmerian archers shot fire arrows at the wooden walls and thatched roof of the farmhouse. Before long, the flames caught and began to spread. But even as some of the Cimmerians exulted, others pointed to the trees on the far side of the house and exclaimed, "They're fleeing there!"

"How can they?" demanded Conan. "We've got them cordoned off."