Harry Turtledove - Conan of Venarium

The archers also shot at Aquilonians who ventured into the cleared area. By then, the town's attackers and defenders were inextricably mixed. Realizing as much, the Aquilonian officer in command ordered the gates shut against his countrymen outside, lest those gates also admit Cimmerians who would bring ruin with them.

Forced to fight out in the open in front of the fortress, the Gundermen and Bossonians who had been defending the town of Venarium realized only one thing was left to them: to sell their lives as dearly as they could. They turned at bay against the Cimmerians, fighting with the mad courage of men with nothing left to lose. Wild to crush the invaders, the Cimmerians battled back as ferociously.

Quarter was neither asked nor given in that wild struggle. Little by little, the Cimmerians fought their way toward the palisade. They did not have greater courage than their foes. They did have more men to throw into the fight. In the end, that sufficed.

Not far from Conan, Mordec's axe rose and fell, rose and fell. Red drops flew from it as he cut down one Aquilonian after another. "To me!" he roared again and again. "To me, you wolves of the north!"

And then, to Conan's surprise, the gates of the fortress flew open once more. Out stormed the knights of Aquilonia, of whom he had heard so much. He had seen how fearsome Stercus seemed, riding into Duthil on his great horse in his helmet—the very helmet now topping Conan's head —and back-and-breast. Twoscore knights thundered forth now, their lances couched, their faces —what could be seen of them — grim. "Numedides!" they cried, and, "Aquilonia!"

But their charge now proved less than it might have. For one thing, many of the men in front of the gates were Gundermen and Bossonians; the knights had to ride them down or force them aside before they could get to the Cimmerians. And, for another, the open space in front of the fortress of Venarium was so tightly packed with men, any charge quickly lost its momentum.

That left the knights an armored island in the midst of a Cimmerian sea. Many of them quickly threw aside their lances. They drew their swords and slashed away at the barbarians hemming them in on every side. But they could not keep all the Cimmerians away from them and their horses. Stallions screamed as they were stabbed. Knights were dragged from the saddle. Swords and daggers found the joints in their armor. The Aquilonians exacted a fearful toll from their foes, but more Cimmerians kept coming forward. The knights were irreplaceable. Once they went down to death, the men inside the fortress could send out no other such force.

Conan hurled a rock at an archer up on the wall. His aim had been true against Stercus, and his aim was true now. The Bossonian clapped both hands to his left eye. He screamed loud enough to be heard above the din of battle. Screaming still, he staggered backward and fell off the walkway.

Not far from him, another Bossonian also went down, struck in the chest by a shaft from a Cimmerian bow. That left a gap in the defense, a gap the Aquilonians, beset everywhere, could not set right at once. "Come on!" cried Conan. "Boost me up, you men! If we once gain the palisade, Venarium's ours!"

Willing hands heaved him aloft. His own hands gained a purchase at the top of the palisade. He pulled himself up. He pulled himself over. He swung down onto the walkway, the first Cimmerian inside the Aquilonian stronghold. Soldiers rushed toward him, desperate to cut him down. At their van came a skinny little Bossonian. He shot at Conan. The arrow kissed the sleeve of the Cimmerian's tunic and flew harmlessly past.

As the archer nocked another shaft, Conan sprang forward. With tigerish quickness, he seized the little man and used his body as a shield and a flail, battering other Aquilonians and knocking several of them to the ground a dozen feet below. Then, roaring, he flung the luckless Bossonian down with them.

He was not the only Cimmerian on the walkway for long. Where he had gone, his countrymen were quick to follow. Soon a knot of northern warriors stood up there, hacking and smiting. More Gundermen and Bossonians came to try to slay them. The enemy knew what would happen if they held their ground.

"Stand aside, by Crom!" That great bass roar could only have come from Mordec. The blacksmith shouldered his way forward, to stand side by side with Conan once more. The blade of his axe was dented and all over blood. A wider smile than Conan had ever seen on him wreathedhis usually somber features. He pointed to the foe. "At them!" he shouted, and Conan was not slow to join his charge.

As they had outside the fortress, the Aquilonians on the walkway fought with desperate bravery. Conan had doubted their courage before this uprising broke out. He doubted it no more. What flesh and blood could do, the Gundermen and Bossonians did. But flesh and blood could do only so much. He and Mordec, fighting side by side, were a host in themselves. And they had ever-growing weight behind them. The top of a ladder cleared the palisade. Cimmerians swarmed up it and onto the walkway.

"There's a stair." Mordec pointed with his axe. "We'll get down into the courtyard. Then this whole fortress will be ours."

A Gunderman lunged at him with a pike. Light on his feet despite his bulk, he sidestepped. Conan's sword bit into the Gunderman's wrist. The soldier's severed hand fell to the planks of the walkway with his spear. The Gunderman screamed. Mordec pushed him off the walkway, then surged forward once more.

Conan hacked and slashed and thrust. He was bigger and stronger and quicker than most of the men he faced, even if only down grew on his cheeks. Step by gory step, the head of the stairs grew closer. An arrow shot from the ground hissed past him and thudded into the logs of the palisade. Another shaft struck a Cimmerian behind him. His countryman's yells of anguish differed little from those of the Gunderman he had mutilated.

More of Numedides' soldiers rushed up the stairs to try to stem the Cimmerian tide. Mordec's axe swept the head from a Bossonian's shoulders, then took off a Gunderman's arm above the elbow. "Come on!" shouted the blacksmith in Aquilonian. "Who's next to die?"

However brave the enemy soldiers were, such carnage could not help but daunt them, at least momentarily. Conan still at his right hand, Mordec set foot on the first step leading down into the fortress of Venarium. A moment later, they gained another step, and then another. After that, their foes recovered some of their spirit, and nothing came easy any more.

Easy or not, though, they and the rest of the Cimmerians cleared the stairway of Bossonians and Gundermen one hard-fought step at a time. "Forward!" bellowed Mordec again and again. Forward the men of the north went, over the hacked and bleeding bodies of those who would stand in their way— and over not a few of the bodies of their own countrymen. With a deep-throated roar of triumph, Mordec leaped from the last stair down to the ground within the fortress. He shouted again, this time with words in the cry: "Venarium is fallen! Venarium is ours!"

An arrow smote him, just to the left of the middle of his chest.

He stood there for a moment, a look of absurd surprise on his face. Then he turned to Conan, as if remembering something important he needed to say. Whatever it was, it never passed his lips. His eyes rolled up in his head. Like a toppling tree, he crumpled, the axe falling from fingers that suddenly would not hold it.

"Noooo!" shouted Conan, a long howl of despair and fury. That his father should fall in the moment of victory— "Curse you, Crom!" he cried, and threw Stercus' sword in a startled Gunderman's face. Then he snatched up the axe Mordec had wielded so well.

He swung that axe with a madman's fury. No Aquilonian could stand against him. No one could come close enough even to engage him. And he wounded more than one Cimmerian he did not recognize as a countryman because of his berserk grief. The men with whom he had fought his way into Fort Venarium grew as wary of him as the Gundermen and Bossonians they opposed.