Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

"No!" howled Conan. But as he stooped beside her, two more arrows hissed over his head. He turned then, and ran for the woods. Had Tarla not said those last three words, he would have thrown his life away charging the Bossonians. Now he could not, not when he had her last wish —no, her last command —ringing in his ears. He had to live. He had to avenge.

Yet another arrow thudded into the trunk of a pine by the side of the track, while the fletching of one more brushed his shoulder as the shaft flew ever so slightly high. Then he was out of sight of the Bossonians. If they came after him, he intended to double back and ambush them. He paused to listen. When he heard the clink of mailshirts, he cursed and began running hard again. That meant they had pikemen with them, in numbers too great for one to assail.

"My own bow, then," muttered Conan as he pounded up the track. Fitting a new string would be but a minute's work. His own bow —and Count Stercus' head. No symbol would be more likely to rouse Cimmeria to rebellion against the invaders from the south than proof the hated governor was dead. But Conan would gladly have given even the abominable Stercus his life back again in exchange for Tarla's if Crom but granted such bargains.

Only after he was well away from Duthil did he stop again, cursing as foully as he knew how. If the Aquilonians had worked a massacre in his home village, what of his father? What of his mother? That last thought almost sent him running back down the track, straight toward the Gundermen and Bossonians. But no —they demanded a greater vengeance than he alone could wreak.

He found the clearing in which he had rescued Tarla. Count Stercus lay where he had fallen, an expression of anguish and horror still imprinted upon his dead features. Grimly, Conan hewed the head from the Aquilonian's body. Stercus' narrow blade was not the ideal tool for the job; a Cimmerian claymore would have been better. But the blacksmith's son did what he had to do.

Even as he lifted Stercus' head by the hair, a man called to him from the far edge of the clearing: "A fine prize, that. Whose would it be?"

He whirled, Stercus' head in his left hand, Stercus' sword in his right. The newcomer was another Cimmerian, but not a man he had seen before. He said, "It is the head of Stercus himself, the Aquilonians' accursed commander. However great a prize it may be, it was far too dearly won."

"Count Stercus' head? Crom!" exclaimed the stranger, who was lean and strong and worn from much travel. He wore an iron cap on his head and carried a formidable pike. Gathering himself, he went on, "This is great news, if true. Bring it straightaway to Herth, for he has with him men from the south who will know if you lie."

Conan raised his sword. "If you say I lie, you will lie yourself—lie stark and dead," he growled. "Take me to Herth." By the way he spoke, he might have been a chief himself.

And the other Cimmerian nodded, accepting and even honoring his touchy pride. The fellow pointed to Stercus' charger and back-and-breast and helm. "Did those belong to the Aquilonian wretch?"

"They did," said Conan indifferently. "Take the horse and the corselet, if they suit you. They are of no use to me. Let me try the helmet first." When he found it fit, he laughed grimly. "It will do better on my head now than on Stercus'." He shook his ghastly trophy.

"You give with both hands, like the leader of a clan," said the other Cimmerian.

"I am not. I am only a blacksmith's son," said Conan. "Take me to Herth. If he has men from the south in his company, they will know I am no liar."

When they came upon the meadow where Conan had warded Nectan's flock, he found more strangers taking charge of the sheep. "We must eat," said the man with him. "We have come far and traveled hard."

Though Conan would have liked to protest, he found he could not. "Better you than the Aquilonians," he said.

"You speak truth. Ah, there." His new companion pointed. "There is Herth, coming out of the forest. He has the southern men with him. Do you know any of them?"

"The biggest is my father," answered Conan. He ran toward Herth and Mordec. Dread clogged his heart when he saw Balarg with then, but he kept going.

"Conan!" cried Mordec, who lumbered forward to greet him. "What have you got there?" An amazed smile of pure delight spread over his father's face. "That is Stercus' head, Stercus' and no one else's." He turned back to shout at Herth: "Here's the Aquilonian leader dead, slain by my son. What wonderful news!"

But Conan shook his head. "No. Everything else I have to say is bad. Let Balarg only come up to hear, and I will tell it all."

Balarg recognized the head as quickly as Mordec had. "This is bravely done," he said. "Most bravely done indeed. If you seek Tarla's hand, how can I say no now?"

"I cannot seek Tarla's hand, however much I might want to," said Conan, and he went on to tell how he and Tarla had gone back to Duthil, and what they had seen there, and how Tarla had met her end. He looked at his father. "Had I known that you and Balarg were away from the village, I would have taken her north, not south, and then she might yet breathe."

Mordec's face might have been a mask of suffering cut from stone. "So she might. Not all my choices have turned out well, however much I wish they would have. I fear for your mother, lad."

"So do I," said Conan. "I came away for the sake of revenge alone, for Tarla and for her. Without that to think of, I would gladly have died there."

"No. It is for the Aquilonians to die," said Balarg in a voice like iron. Conan had never heard the like from him. "If they will slaughter innocents, they have sealed their fate. Blood and death and ruin to them!" Tears ran down his cheeks, though Conan did not think he knew he shed them.

Herth stepped forward and nodded to Conan. The clan chief and the blacksmith's son were much of a height. Herth said, "Lead us to this Duthil place, boy, and you'll have your vengeance. I promise you that.

"With my father and Balarg and Nectan, I would go back to Duthil whether you and your men come or not," said Conan. "But come if you care to. The Aquilonians have a fortified camp beyond the village with enough archers and pikemen in it to glut you all on gore."

"Forward, then," said Herth, and forward they went.

Sickened by the sights and stinks of death all around him, Granth son of Biemur finally threw up his hands in disgust. "Enough!" he said. "Plundering a battlefield after a fight is one thing. Plundering a place like this — " He shook his head. "If only these folk had a little more, we might be robbing the houses we grew up in. It makes me want to retch."

"Then go away," said Benno the archer, who had no such qualms. "More for the rest of us."

Maybe he thought he would shame Granth into going after booty with the other soldiers from the garrison. If he did, he was wrong. Granth turned and strode back toward the palisaded camp just south of Duthil. Benno had been pulling the wool stuffing out of a mattress in the hopes the Cimmerians who had slept on it had also secreted some of their valuables inside it. So far, his hope looked likely to be disappointed.

Granth almost ran into Vulth, who came out of the blacksmith's house carrying a heavy hammer. "What good is that?" demanded Granth.

"Not much, probably," admitted his cousin. "You look sour enough to spit vinegar. What's your trouble?"

"This." Granth's wave encompassed it all. "Are we a pack of ghouls out of the desert, to batten on the dead?"

"The Cimmerians won't miss it any more," said Vulth. "None of them left alive except maybe the blacksmith's son."

"He shouldn't have got away, cither," said Granth gloomily. "He'll cause trouble for us."

"What can one boy do?" asked Vulth with a dismissive shrug.