Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

Vulth prowled the wreckage of the village. The carrion birds that had already begun to settle flew up again, croaking in annoyance, when he walked past. They came fluttering down again after he went by. When he came back to Granth and Treviranus, his face bore a worried expression. "What's wrong?" asked Granth.

"I've been looking for the blacksmith's body," said his cousin. "He's big as a bear—he shouldn't be hard to spot. But he's not here."

"Are you sure?" asked Treviranus. Vulth nodded. Granth could not remember seeing the smith in the brief, bloody, uneven battle. By Captain Treviranus' frown, neither could he. The garrison commander said, "Where is he, then?" In Duthil, the Aquilonians found no answers.

Mordec and Balarg and Nectan the shepherd tramped north — farther north than they were used to going. Nectan laughed and grinned at Mordec. "For one so grim, you've got a rare sneaky streak in you. Setting your son to guard the sheep is the best way I know to keep him from coming with us."

"I told him he could fight when war came again," answered Mordec. "Soon we'll know if it is here. That will be time enough to blood the boy in battle." He did not say that Conan was already blooded. The time for battle might not yet be at hand. If it were not, what point to spilling his son's secret and risking betrayal? Two had some small hope of keeping silent. Four, as far as he could see, had none — especially when he had brought Balarg with him not least to make sure the weaver spoke to no Bossonians or Gundermen. Maybe he did the man an injustice. If he did, he would apologize when the time came. Meanwhile —

Balarg pointed ahead, past the next line of evergreen-clad hills on the northern horizon. "Do you think they will be there?" he asked.

"Crom! They had better be there!" exclaimed Nectan.

"Even the invaders have begun to get wind of them," said Mordec. "If the accursed Aquilonians think they're there, there they're likely to be." He tossed his head, dismissing the question. "No point fretting about it, not now. Sooner or later, one way or the other, we'll know."

The most widely traveled of the men from Duthil, the blacksmith led the weaver and the shepherd along a winding trail over the side of one of those steep hills to the north. A broader, easier path went through a valley below, but Mordec steered his comrades away from it. They had already evaded two or three Aquilonian patrols. Being so obvious even ignorant foreigners could not miss it, the track in the valley was a logical place to find another.

Evade the Aquilonians they did. But the hill had not yet begun sloping down toward the north before a Cimmerian voice came out of nowhere: "Halt, dogs! Halt or you die!"

"We are of your own folk," said Mordec. But he halted, a step in front of Balarg and Nectan.

A harsh laugh answered him. "I've already slain three Aquilonians trying to sneak up this way. The last one wore a black wig and spoke our language as well as I do. He died anyway— and he died hard."

"Come and see who we are," said Mordec calmly. "We seek Herth's men, if they be near." He stood ready to spring into the woods if the first arrow missed him —and if it did, he aimed to avenge himself on the man who shot it, regardless of whether that man sprang from Aquilonia or Cimmeria.

After a moment, the Cimmerian came out into the track. He had a lean, pantherish build, and held a sword ready to use. His breeks were woven in the same checked pattern as Herth's had been. "I have friends behind me," he warned as he strode up to the men from Duthil. He prowled around them, then grudgingly nodded. "You're of my folk, all right. But how do you come to have Herth's name in your mouth, when the clan he heads dwells far from these parts?"

Balarg swelled with indignation. "Did I not guest him in my own house? Did these my comrades not speak with him there?"

"I don't know. Did you? Did they?" The Cimmerian scout was unmoved. "If you did, say your names, and maybe I will know them." One by one, Mordec, Balarg, and Nectan told him who they were. At that, for the first time, the scout stopped sneering. "Aye, he spoke of you. Come with me, then, and I'll take you to him." He ducked back into the woods, to return a moment later carrying a yew-wood longbow almost as tall as he was. Without looking back, he hurried north. The three men from Duthil matched him stride for stride.

After a while, Mordec asked. "Did you truly have friends back there?"

That made the man from Herth's clan stop and grin. "You'll never know, will you?"

Not too much later, the blacksmith realized he was heading downhill: he and his comrades had reached the north-facing slope at last. But the trees were so thick around him that he could not see very far. He tramped on. Sooner or later, he would learn what he needed to know.

About two thirds of the way down the hillside, the forest abruptly gave way to meadow. The Cimmerian scout pressed on. Mordec stopped dead in his tracks. So did Balarg and Nectan. Their eyes were wide with astonishment. After a moment, Mordec realized his were, too.

The encampment sprawled over more than a mile of land, tents and lean-tos thrown up in the wildest disorder and men picking their way between them. The disciplined Aquilonians would have laughed themselves sick at the chaos. But they would have laughed out of the other side of their mouths at the great swarm of Cimmerians mustered here. Mordec had never dreamt so many of his countrymen could come together in one place without starting to murder one another. "Crom!" murmured Nectan, at least as astonished.

That soft exclamation made the scout realize he had lost the men he was supposed to be guiding. He looked back over his shoulder and saw them staring at the ragged but huge gathering of the clans. "Not bad, eh?"

"No." At the sight of such a host, Mordec's weariness fell from him like a discarded cloak. "Not bad at all."

Conan did not mind watching Nectan's sheep. As it often did, getting out of Duthil for a while appealed to him. If he did not have to see Tarla—and, most especially, if he did not have to see Count Stercus —he did not have so great a need to brood about what might have passed between them.

Keeping an eye on the new year's lambs pleased him better. They were too large now for any eagle to hope to carry off, but they wandered farther from their mothers than they had when they were smaller. That made them easier for wolves to take —or so it would have, at any rate, had the blacksmith's son not been vigilant.

On the little hillcrest from which he watched the flock, the air was crisp and clean and clear. It smelled of the meadow, and of the forests that were never far away in Cimmeria. The village stinks Conan was used to might have belonged to a different world. A slow smile stretched across his face. This was the life a man was meant to lead. If he could have spent the rest of his days herding sheep on the hillsides and meadows of his native land, he was sure he would have been happy.

He leaned back on the soft green grass, folded his hands behind his head, and smiled up at the sun, which had peeped out for a little while from behind the usually all-enshrouding Cimmerian mist. Some would have taken that pasture as an invitation to fall asleep, but Conan knew the sleeping shepherd was the one whose flock faced misfortune.

Regardless of what he knew, a yawn escaped his lips. He might have let himself doze, there in the fitful sunshine. He might have —but a sudden scream in the distance sent him scrambling to his feet.

The cry rang out again. It had to have burst from a woman's throat—and from the throat of a woman who knew herself to be in desperate peril. Conan snatched up his bow and quiver and began to run. He spared the sheep one brief glance over his shoulder as he dashed into the forest. For the next little while, they would have to fend for themselves.