Michael Stackpole - Conan the Barbarian

Tamara came over the hillcrest and down the other side, smiling happily. The night’s chill nibbled at her, but she could still feel her lover’s warmth. Girlishly she skipped down part of the trail, laughing lightly to herself, allowing her this excess of joy simply because it balanced the horror through which she had so recently lived.

The whirring buzz was the first clue that something was amiss. The sound was not wholly out of place in the jungle. Something flew past her, then came around again. It was only when the sound centered itself on her that she realized she was a target.

She spun, her first instinct sending her back toward her lover, which was when the mechanical insect hit her shoulder and stung. Tamara slapped at it, shattering delicate wings and scattering bronze gears. Too late . Fire burned through her flesh and her right arm immediately went numb. She staggered back several steps, tethered to gravity, then twisted and fell in the sand at the mouth of a path that led deeper into the jungle.

She struggled to get up, but her right arm collapsed, leaving her on her belly, staring up at Marique and the nightmare creature upon which she was perched.

Part of the animal defied description. Tamara told herself this was because the insect’s poison affected her ability to reason. But the rational part of her mind knew this was untrue. Part of the beast was beyond understanding. Though she saw its forequarters clearly, with the shiny black reptilian scales covering what resembled a horse, and the forehooves that had been split and transformed into a raptor’s claws, the creature remained indistinct behind the rider. A shadowed form only, it seemed a thick protoplasm which reflected the night’s sky—though each star became a bright spot on a long thread that twisted and stretched to infinity. Though she was fading quickly, she realized the beasts—for there was more than one—were dying. The magick that had changed them was killing them, and for Marique not only was this not a concern, it was an active source of pleasure.

Marique pointed her quirt at Tamara. “Two of you, fetch her. We are to be away.”

Rough hands jerked her up. They tossed her over the shoulders of one beast and tied her into place. Until Marique leaned down to sniff her hair, Tamara did not know upon which beast she had been placed. The witch’s sibilant whisper chilled her.

“You are now mine. I shall deliver you to my father. You will make him great.” Marique chuckled lightly. “And you shall make me greater.”

Tamara tried to reply, but her tongue had become a dead thing. She could only listen as Marique dispatched a half dozen of her riders to kill Conan. “Bring me the barbarian’s head; I have a use for it. If you return without it, I will find an unpleasant use for yours.”

TAMARA’S ABSENCE REGISTEREDin Conan’s consciousness the second he came awake. It, however, was not the reason he’d wakened. Something was amiss. He felt it. He’d heard something and he did not need to identify it before he filled his hand with steel and rolled to a crouch in the shelter’s corner. Another man, naked save for the shadow that cloaked him, might have felt vulnerable. While Conan would have preferred to have pulled on his mail and his boots, his current condition did not inspire fear—as it would not have inspired fear in a tiger setting itself to hunt.

Only the distant surf broke the silence. All the jungle creatures remained quiet. Anticipation grew like storm clouds on the horizon. That he was being hunted Conan did not doubt. That meant that Tamara was in danger; but her safety was not his primary concern. To do anything to help her, he had to survive; and survival, for Conan, meant killing his enemies as quickly as possible.

In the darkness beneath a vine-screened window, the Cimmerian grinned. Who would Khalar Zym have sent to kill him? His best troops—at least, the best of those yet alive? Proud men, city-bred men whose sense of confidence came from the superiority of numbers and the livery they wore. Driven by fear or visions of profit. They had the confidence of hunters, the arrogance of civilization.

But they are only men. Mortal men. It is time to show them what this truly means.

Their caution betrayed them. One man crept up to the window beneath which Conan crouched. He used a dagger to move a leaf aside so he could spy the shelter’s interior. Conan waited until the blade stopped moving, then stabbed his sword up and back. The point hit. Something popped, something cracked, then the Cimmerian hauled forward on the blade. He pulled the man—transfixed through the eye—in by that window, and left him thrashing his life out on the dark floor.

The other assassins came for the doorway, knowing only that their fellow had disappeared within. They’d not seen enough to decide if he had plunged in after their prey, or something sinister had befallen him. The first two burst in, one ducking low, the other leaping, so that any cut intended to bisect a man would miss both.

But before they had reached the doorway, the Cimmerian had gone out through the window. His first slash cut a man’s spine at his pelvis, leaving him to scream in terror as he collapsed, the lower half of his body dead. The barbarian’s second cut carved deep into a thigh, hamstringing an assassin and severing an artery. He spun down over his companion, shouting in panic, and Conan vanished into the jungle.

He did not go far, and though he secreted himself in a thicket, ignoring the painful caress of thorns and nettles; his concealment was not intended as defense. Conan had hunted in jungles before, and had been hunted by men far more used to these conditions than Khalar Zym’s assassins. A legion of Picts would have made less noise than the trio of men pursuing him. Savage tribes throughout the Black Kingdoms had sought Conan through rain forests and savannas, coming closer to discovering him than did these civilized men.

Had it been in his nature, the Cimmerian might have pitied them, but the wolf does not pity the sheep. The lion does not wonder if an antelope is loved or will be mourned. These were the concerns of civilized men, thoughts they used to insulate themselves from reality. For civilization was but a slender mask concealing savagery. Though desperation and a desire to live might strip it away, and while these assassins might choose to abandon it, Conan, the hunter, would not give them that chance.

Remaining low within the brush, Conan waited for one of them to slip past. The Cimmerian stabbed out, slicing through the back of the man’s boot, severing the tendon. Going down to a knee, the man thrust blindly into the thicket. Conan grabbed his wrist and dragged him deeper, where the man struggled against thorns while the barbarian opened his throat.

He did not stop to imagine the others’ reactions to what they heard, or their reactions when they discovered the body. Had he any strategem in mind, he might have chosen to climb a tree and leap down upon them. Any of that, all of that, smacked of trickery; and trickery was what the hunted used. All Conan really needed was to keep moving, restlessly and relentlessly.

So he did, pausing only briefly to listen for his prey. One made far too much noise in an obvious ruse to attract him. Conan circled higher and around. A hunter wanted higher ground, and Conan found the assassin waiting. Not high enough.

The distraction masked the dying man’s sigh. Conan had approached from the left, and as the man spread branches to peer through, the Cimmerian thrust deep into his armpit. He felt the man’s life flee through tremors communicated by the steel linking them. He laid the man down, sliding his sword from him, then again moved through the jungle and back to the shelter.