Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

"Then we need to strike all their camps on the same night," declared Conan. "If we do, they would be gone forever."

"If we could, they would be gone forever," said Mordec. "How do you propose to bring it off?"

"Send men to all the villages," answered Conan. "Tell them to attack on such and such a night. When that night comes, the Aquilonians go." He made a fist to show exactly what he meant.

But Mordec shook his head, which made his square-cut mane of graying hair flip back and forth in front of his eyes. "The Aquilonians might go," he said. "But some of the villagers would say they lost too many men in the first fight, and they will stay home. And some would promise the sun and moon and stars —and then stay home, too. And some would attack, but in a halfhearted way, and be defeated. And King Numedides would send more soldiers, to punish us for our rebellion. And what's an uprising worth when all that's likely to lie at the other end of it?"

Such bitter cynicism took Conan's breath away. "Why did you fight the invaders in the first place, if you felt like that?" he asked. "Why not bend the knee straightaway?"

"If we could have beaten them at once, they likely would have given up the campaign as a bad job and gone home," said Mordec. "They've done that before. Now they've won, though. Now they're settled on the land."

"All the more reason to drive them away," said Conan.

"All the more reason for them to stay," returned Mordec.

They eyed each other in perfect mutual incomprehension. "I never thought you'd turn coward," said Conan.

His father cuffed him, not as prelude to a beating like the one he'd had when he tried to go off to fight with the defeated Cimmerian host but simply as a warning to watch his tongue. "You have no call to use that word for me," said Mordec. "After you have fought in war, you may say what you please, and I will bear it. Until then, you are only bleating out things you do not understand."

"You would not let me fight in war," said Conan sulkily. "Now you blame me because I have not." He did not speak of his exploit with the serpent. He was not sure his father would believe him. He was not altogether sure he believed it himself, and that despite the sinister stains on the shafts in his quiver.

"I do not blame you," answered Mordec. "I say that you are a boy, and I say that war is not a sport for boys."

That dismissal felt like a slight to the younger Cimmerian. Conan decided he would speak of what he had done after all, if only to show his father he was someone to be reckoned with. He asked, "Do you know of an ancient temple lost in the woods not far from Duthil?"

Mordec, though, only shook his head. "No. There is none," he said positively. "If there were, someone would have found it." His eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask? Do the Aquilonians search for such a place?"

"Not that I know of," answered Conan.

"Well, what nonsense are you spouting, then?" demanded his father.

"Nothing. Never mind," said Conan. No, the blacksmith would not believe him. Since that was so, no point to going on. Mordec would but thrash him for telling fables, and he had had enough of his father's hard hands on him.

When Conan kept silence, Mordec nodded in dour approval. "All right," he rumbled. "If you're going to settle down and be sensible, you can finish grinding this axehead. I have a great plenty of other work to do. Get busy!"

From the bedchamber came Verina's weak voice: "Are you nagging the boy again, Mordec? Can't you leave him in peace?"

Muttering under his breath, Mordec answered, "There is no peace in this land, nor will there be until the invaders are gone."

"That's not what you told me just now," exclaimed Conan.

"By Crom, it is," said his father. "I tell you it is useless to strike too soon, and it is. But we shall have a day of reckoning with the foe. Oh, yes—we shall have a day of reckoning indeed." None of the Gundermen or Bossonians in the camp near Duthil would have cared to hear Mordec's voice when the blacksmith made that vow. Conan's father went on, "Meanwhile, though, there's work to be done. Get on with it."

"Don't carp endlessly at Conan," said Verina. "He's a good boy."

Such praise Conan could have done without. More than anything else, he wanted to be reckoned a man, a warrior, a hero. After his battle with the serpent in the temple from out of time, he thought he had earned the right to be so reckoned. But his father would not even hear of the fight. And hearing his mother call him a good boy made him feel as if he peeked out from behind her skirts. He knew she loved him, but it was a love that simultaneously satisfied and suffocated.

He began pumping the foot pedal on the grinding wheel for all he was worth. A coruscating shower of sparks flew from the axehead as he held it to the rapidly spinning wheel. Mordec chuckled grimly as he fed the fire in the forge. Soon the axehead boasted an edge sharp enough for shaving. Conan tested it with his thumb, nodded, and thrust it at his father. "Here."

Not even Mordec could find anything to criticize.

Chapter Four

Enemies

When Granth went back to Fort Venarium with a message from Captain Treviranus, he was amazed to see how much the place had changed. A lot more of the forest around the encampment had gone down under the axes of the soldiers still stationed there. The tents had been replaced by barracks halls. A real keep, even if made of wood, was going up in the center of the encampment. A bridge of boats and boards linked Fort Venarium with the way south, the way down to Aquilonia.

Cimmeria was not so safe as to let Aquilonians travel alone with any confidence they would get where they were going. Along with Granth tramped Vulth and the two Bossonian archers, Daverio and Benno. Pointing to a string of wagons coming toward Venarium from the south, Vulth said, "Look. Some of the first settlers."

"Good to see 'em," said Granth. "They may not be soldiers, but the men will know how to fight. Anybody who can draw a bow or swing a sword against these damned barbarians is welcome."

"Pot hunters," said Benno scornfully. "Half of those poor fools can't hit the side of a barn."

"Well, at least they'll be aiming at the Cimmerians," said Vulth. "I'm with my cousin on this." He clapped Granth on the back.

"And they'll be building houses and barns," added Granth. "If we're going to settle this land, we'll have to make it our own."

The horses and oxen that drew the settlers' wagons would soon plow fields in what had been forest. More cattle, along with sheep and goats, traveled behind the wains. They would graze in meadows and crop tender shoots. If the new arrivals also had dogs and cats and swine and hens and ducks, they carried them inside the wagons.

Daverio did not seem very happy to see the settlers coming up toward Fort Venarium. When Granth asked the Bossonian why, he answered, "Because the Cimmerians will want to murder them even more than they want to murder us. We don't take the land itself away from them. These fellows do."

"Too bad," said Vulth. "This is why we came up into Cimmeria, after all: to make it a place where Aquilonians can live and to drive back the barbarians."

"Yes, that's why we came, all right," agreed Daverio. "Now we get to find out whether we've done it."

Sentries at the gate of the encampment gave Granth and his comrades a careful once-over before standing aside and letting them go in. That only irritated the Gundermen and Bossonians. Granth wondered if the gate guards feared they were Cimmerians in disguise. He laughed at the idea. Even with their hair dyed blond, the northern barbarians would have a hard time passing for men of Aquilonian blood.

He had to ask several times before finding out that Captain Nario, the officer to whom Captain Treviranus had written his letter, stayed in a barracks hall not far from what would soon be the keep. The hall had its own guards, which struck Granth as excessive. His disgust must have shown on his face, for one of the guardsmen said, "You'd better wipe off that frown, soldier. We're here on account of this is where Count Stercus makes his headquarters."