Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

"Why, the blacksmith's son." Nectan pointed toward Mordec.

"Is he?" said Mordec. "Just as well, by Crom. Otherwise, Conan would insist on being here."

"Yes, so he would." Balarg's voice had an edge to it, though one so slight that Mordec thought he was the only man in the room who caught it. The weaver must have noticed the way Conan looked at his daughter. One of these days, he and Mordec would have to sit down and decide what would spring from that—if Conan didn't take matters into his own hands by running off with the girl.

Nectan poured himself some ale and started gnawing on a strip of mutton. When he pulled a stool close to the fire, Mordec slid aside to make room for him. He had been out in the cold and the wind for a long time, and had earned the warmth now.

Herth said, "A tinker named Loarn told me what had passed here. I decided to come down and see for myself, and I find it is so. Yellow-haired soldiers who spoke in grunts and trills put their hands on me not far north of here, and I had to bear the insult, for they were many and I but one. Yet though I had to bear it then, I shall not forget it."

"As you say, they are many," answered Mordec. "For now, we also have to bear it, though we shall not forget, either."

"But the longer we bear it, the stronger the Aquilonians become," said Balarg.

"Aye, that's so, curse them," said Nectan, and the other men of Duthil nodded. The shepherd went on, "The fortress they build, the place they call Venarium"—he pronounced the foreign name with an odd kind of contemptuous care —"has already grown harder to take than any hill fort of our folk." He sipped from his ale, then inclined his head to Herth. "Have you seen it?"

"Not yet," replied the northern chieftain. "No, not yet, though I intend to before I go back to my own country."

"Now that you have seen this much, what will you do up in the north?" asked Mordec.

"What needs doing," said Herth. "Loarn spoke somewhat of rousing the clans. By Crom, he roused me, but not everyone cares to hearken to a landless wanderer who makes his living, such as it is, by patching pans and fixing broken jugs."

"What he does, he does well," observed Mordec. "When you speak of a man, you could say worse."

Herth's gaze might have been a swordblade. The blacksmith's might have been another. When they clashed, sparks flew. From off to one side, Balarg said, "Here, friends, it is of no great importance."

Mordec did not reply. He kept his eyes on Herth. After a few heartbeats, the chieftain was the one who looked away, saying, "Well, perhaps it is not. But I say this, and say it true: when I travel through Cimmeria, men will hearken to me." He had a clan chiefs pride, sure enough.

"Hearkening is one thing," said Nectan. "Moving is another. Once they have hearkened, will they move?"

"Oh, yes." Herth spoke softly, but with great certainty. "You may rely on that, friend shepherd. Once they have hearkened, they will move."

Conan stood on a hilltop, watching the sheep on the hillside pawing their way down through the snow to get at the grass beneath it. He also watched the woods not far away. If wolves came trotting forth, he had his bow and he had Nectan's stout staff with which to fight them. The staff was of some hard, dark wood with which Conan was unfamiliar. It was shod with silver. "Keep it safe, lad," the shepherd had said when he handed it to Conan. "You'd leave me a poorer man if you should lose it."

A small fire burned close by, sheltered from the north wind by several tall stones. Conan stooped and tossed a few more branches onto the flames. The fire did not give a great deal of warmth, but Nectan had kept it going, and Conan wanted to maintain everything as the shepherd had had it. Nectan doubtless cooked over it and slept beside it. Having to start it afresh in this raw weather would be a nuisance for him.

For that matter, if Nectan did not come back from Duthil until the morrow, the blacksmith's son would have to cook on the fire and sleep by it himself. Nectan had said he would return before sundown, but Conan had seen that promises, however well meant when made, were not always to be relied upon.

Something flew past overhead. Conan did not pay much heed. The greatest eagle might perhaps carry off a newborn lamb, but lambing season was still months away, and no bird ever hatched could hope to seize a full-grown sheep and fly away with it. So Conan thought, at any rate, but the flying thing stooped like a falcon. A stout ewe let out a sudden bleat of agony.

Whatever the creature struggling to lift the sheep into the air was, it was no bird. Its huge wings were black and membranous, while a pair of pointed ears pricked up above its fiercely glowing red eyes. When it snarled, it showed a mouth full of teeth like needles and razors and knives.

Bat? Demon? Conan could not have said, nor did he much care. All he knew was that the thing was harming one of Nectan's sheep. Stringing his bow was the matter of a moment. Letting fly took even less time. His arrow flew straight and true, and sank to the fletching in the flying thing's flank.

It sank to the fletching—but the creature, apparently unharmed, kept right on flapping, trying to take off with the ewe it had chosen. Conan shot again. The second shaft struck within a palm's breadth of the first, but had no more effect. No normal living thing could have withstood such wounds without woe.

"Demon! Filthy, cursed demon from the darkest pits of hell!" cried Conan. He threw down his bow, snatched up a blazing brand from the fire, and ran not away from the thing but towards it, shouting his defiance of anything from this plane or any other that tried to steal what he had vowed to protect. It screamed, let go of the ewe, and flapped toward him.

The foul stench of it almost knocked him off his feet. Reeling, he lashed out with Nectan's staff. The silver at the base of that length of wood thudded against the creature's ribs. Iron-tipped arrows had done Conan no good, but the demon shrieked in anguish at the touch of silver.

"Ha!" cried Conan. He swung again, and again struck home. Suddenly, the demon wanted no more of this man-thing who dealt it such cruel blows. However hungry it might have been, no meal was worth the torment it took from silver. Screaming now in fright, it turned to flee.

But Conan struck again, this time with the burning branch he bore in his left hand. He let out a great bull roar of triumph, for the demon caught fire and burned like a torch. It flew off, still screaming and still burning. Somewhere up above the woods, it could fly no more, and plunged to earth. Conan thought he heard a hiss arise when it slammed into the snow, a hiss like that when his father plunged hot iron into a tempering bath. He might have been wrong, but he believed as much until the end of his days.

Having driven off the demon, he hurried to the sheep it had tried to steal. He tended the cuts and bites as best he could, pouring ale from his drinking flask over them to try to keep the wounds from going bad. The ewe repaid his kindness by kicking him just below the knee. The sheep's thick coat of winter wool had likely gone a long way toward saving its life by shielding it from some of the damage the flying demon's teeth and talons might otherwise have worked.

When Nectan returned not long before sunset, he saw at once the blood on the ewe's flanks. "By Crom, Conan, did you fall asleep here?" he demanded angrily. "I'll thump you with my staff if you did."

"By Babd, Morrigan, Macha, and Nemain, I did not!" exclaimed Conan, and told the tale of the fight with the demon.

Nectan listened without a word. Then he went to the ewe and stooped to examine its injuries. When he straightened, his face was troubled. "Those are not the marks of wolf or panther, nor yet of any eagle," he said slowly. "Perhaps you speak truth, where I thought you lied."