Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

Without hesitation, Mordec knocked him down. When he got up, the blacksmith flattened him again. Afterwards, Mordec helped him to his feet. "That was to remind you the Aquilonians will decide Hondren had a mishap in the woods —if you do not brag of what you did. It is a brave and bold thing, a boy beating a warrior trained. But it is your life and nine more if you ever breathe a word of it. Silence, or you die! This is no game. Do you understand?"

"I do, Father." Conan shook his head to clear it; Mordec had not held back with either blow. "You have a hard hand with your lessons."

"And you have a thick skull to drive them through," said the blacksmith with rough affection. "I have to make sure they get home."

"I'll keep quiet," said Conan. "I know what I did. I don't have to shout it in the street—I'm not Balarg."

Mordec threw back his head and laughed. That was his opinion of the weaver, too, although Balarg, no doubt, also had a low opinion of him. Their rivalry did not keep them from working together when they had to. Since the coming of the Aquilonians, they had to ever more often.

But laughter quickly faded. Setting a hand on his son's shoulder, Mordec said, "You did well, son, as well as you could once he attacked you. Now we hope all the invaders are as woodsblind as you say. I think they may be." Even saying that, though, he wished Crom were the sort of god who hearkened to his worshipers' prayers.

Chapter Seven

The Weaver's Daughter

When the Aquilonian army advanced into Cimmeria, it had come through the woods. It had had to; without coming through the woods, it could not have penetrated the country. But pioneers with axes had widened the forest tracks so good-sized columns of men could advance along them, and all of the Gundermen and Bossonians could see one another and draw strength from seeing one another.

Now Granth son of Biemur picked his way along a game trail hardly wider than the spread of his shoulders. He clutched his pike with both hands, ready to impale anything that burst out from among the trees. Behind him tramped his cousin Vulth, who hung on to his pike just as tight. And behind them strode Benno the Bossonian, an arrow nocked in his bow. As far as Granth knew, no other Aquilonians were within a mile or two of his comrades and him.

"Hondren!" he called. "Hondren! You out there? You hear me?" In lower tones, he muttered, "If we do find the stinking dog, we ought to beat his brains in for making us go through this nonsense."

"What makes you think he's got any brains to beat in?" asked Vulth. He too raised his voice: "Hondren! Where are you, you mangy hound?"

Benno spat. "Who cares if we find him or not? I can't stand that bad-tempered bastard, and I don't know anybody who can."

Granth wished the archer had not said that. He did not like Hondren, either, and also knew not a single man who did. Hondren was nothing but trouble for everyone around him. That had been true in the Aquilonian encampment next to Duthil. From things Granth had heard and others he had seen, it had been true in Duthil itself. And it was certainly true now that Hondren had gone missing in the woods.

"We're not looking for him for his sake —Mitra knows that's true," said Vulth. "'We're trying to find out what the devil happened to him. If the Cimmerians knocked him over the head, they've got to pay for it or they'll think we're soft."

That only made Benno spit again. "If it were up to me, I would have paid them to get rid of him."

"He was a good man in a fight," said Granth: as much praise as Hondren was ever likely to get now. He had been missing for three days. None of the search parties had found any trace of him.

"He did like fights," agreed Vulth, but that was not the compliment it might have been, for he went on, "He liked them so well, he'd start them himself."

"If he started one out here, he didn't win it," said Benno. "Something's gnawing the meat off his bones right now." Somber satisfaction filled his voice.

"Something or somebody," said Vulth. "I wouldn't put it past these barbarians to eat man's-flesh."

"Anybody who ate Hondren would sick him up afterwards." Benno made horribly real-sounding retching noises.

After another hour's trudge through the dark, gloomy forest, Granth stopped caring what had happened to Hondren. All he cared about was making sure the same thing, whatever it had been, did not happen to him. He said, "We'll never prove the Cimmerians did him in."

"Maybe we'll kill ten of them anyway, just for the sport of it," said Benno. "We ought to start with the cursed smith in that village. You know the fellow I mean? Big, ugly bruiser, and his eyes measure you for a coffin every time you walk past his doorway. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who knocked Hondren over the head."

"He doesn't hunt much himself," said Granth. "He usually sticks close to the forge and sends his son out instead."

"Maybe the boy did for Hondren," suggested Vulth. "That lad will be bigger than the blacksmith when he's done."

"He's not small now," said Granth.

"His beard hasn't even begun to sprout," said Benno with a scornful laugh. "If he put paid to Hondren, to hell with me if Hondren didn't deserve to die." That was cruel, but not too far from what Granth was also thinking.

A goldfinch fluttered across the game trail, a bright splash of color against the endless dark greens of the Cimmerian forest: warm brown back, black and white head, crimson face, and broad yellow chevrons on black wings. Three or four others danced through the air behind it, calling sweetly. Then they were gone, and shadows and silence ruled once more.

No, not quite silence, for a stream murmured and splashed just on the edge of hearing. Granth cocked his head to one side, to gauge the direction. "Shall we go over there?" he asked, pointing. "My water bottle is about empty."

"Well, have a swig from mine." Vulth took it off his belt and held it out to Granth. "I don't want to waste any time with side trips, and Hondren won't be in that stream unless he went and drowned himself."

"He wouldn't do anything like that," said Benno. "Too many people would thank him if he did."

Granth raised his cousin's water bottle to his lips, tilted back his head, and drank. Sweet, strong Poitanian wine ran down his throat. He took a long pull, then gave the bottle back to Vulth, saying, "I made a good trade, for my bottle held nothing but water."

"Wine is sovereign against a flux of the bowels," said Vulth solemnly.

"No doubt," said Benno. "It also goes down smoother than water."

Laughing, the three Aquilonians went on down the track. Not a bowshot away, the stream chuckled to itself. Whatever secrets it held, secret they would stay.

Conan knew the invaders were beating the woods for their missing fellow. He saw search parties going into the forest ever)' morning. He slipped in amongst the tall trees himself more than once, shadowing the Gundermen and Bossonians as he had shadowed Hondren. Here, though, he remained but a shadow. Had he revealed himself to the blundering Aquilonians, they might have wondered if he had done the same to their missing soldier.

He wanted to brag about what he had done. He wanted to clamber up on his rooftop and shout out the news to all of Duthil —no, to all of Cimmeria. Making himself keep silent might have been harder than slaying Hondren. But the thought of what the invaders would do to his village —and, even more, the thought of what his father would do to him — held his lips sealed.

Mordec noticed how much trouble he had keeping quiet. After a few days, Conan's father asked, "How would you like to go and spend some time with Nectan, boy? If you're helping him watch his sheep, you'll be keeping your secret from only one man, not from the whole village. Maybe that will be easier for you."