Conan of Venarium

"Bring your swords and spears and axes to the smithy," said Mordec. "I'll sharpen them for you, and I'll ask nothing for it. What we can do to drive out the Aquilonians, let each man do, and count not the cost. For whatever it may be, it is less than the cost of slavery."

"Mordec speaks like a clan chief." That was Balarg the weaver, whose home stood only a few doors down from Mordec’s. The words were respectful; the tone was biting. Mordec and Balarg were the two leading men of Duthil, with neither willing to admit the other might be the leading man in the village.

"I speak like a man with a notion of what needs doing," rumbled Mordec. "And how I might speak otherwise — " He broke off and shook his big head. "However that might be, I will not speak so now, not with the word the shepherd brought."

"Speak as you please," said Balarg. He was younger than Mordec, and handsomer, and surely smoother. "I will answer—you may rely on it."

"No." Mordec shook his head again. "The war needs both of us. Our own feuds can wait."

"Let it be so, then." Again, Balarg sounded agreeable. But even as he spoke, he turned away from the blacksmith.

Conan burned to avenge the insult to his father. He burned to, but made himself hold back. For one thing, Mordec only shrugged —and, if the fight against the invaders meant his feud with Balarg could wait, it surely meant Conan's newly discovered feud with the weaver could wait as well. And, for another, Balarg's daughter, Tarla, was just about Conan's age —and, the past few months, the blacksmith's son had begun to look at her in a way different from the way he had looked at any girl when he was smaller.

Men began going back into their houses. Women began exclaiming when their husbands and brothers gave them the news Fidach had brought. The exclamations were of rage, not of dismay; Cimmerian women, no strangers to war, loved freedom no less than their menfolk.

Mordec set a large hand on Conan's shoulder, saying, "Come back to the smithy, son. Until the warriors march against the Aquilonians, we will be busier than we ever have."

"Yes, Father." Conan nodded. "Swords and spears and axes, the way you said, and helms, and mailshirts —

"Helms, aye," said Mordec. "A helm can be forged of two pieces of iron and riveted up the center. But a byrnie is a different business. Making any mail is slow, and making good mail is slower. Each ring must be shaped, and joined to its neighbors, and riveted so it cannot slip its place. In the time I would need to finish one coat of mail, I could do so many other things, making the armor would not be worth my while. Would it were otherwise, but— " The blacksmith shrugged.

When they walked into the smithy, they found Conan's mother standing by the forge. Conan exclaimed in surprise; she seldom left her bed these days. Mordec might have been rooted in the doorway. Conan started toward Verina to help her back to the bedchamber. She held up a bony hand. "Wait," she said. "Tell me more of the Aquilonians. I heard the shouting in the street, but I could not make out the words."

"They have come into our country," said Mordec.

Verina's mouth narrowed. So did her eyes. "You will fight them." It was no question; she might have been stating a law of nature.

"We will all fight them: everyone from Duthil, everyone from the surrounding villages, everyone who hears the news and can come against them with a weapon to hand," said Mordec. Conan nodded, but his father paid him no heed.

His mother's long illness might have stolen her bodily vigor, but not that of her spirit. Her eyes flamed hotter than the fire inside the forge. "Good," she said. "Slay them all, save for one you let live to flee back over the border to bring his folk word of their kinsmen's ruin."

Conan smacked a fist into the callused palm of his other hand. "By Crom, we will!"

Mordec chuckled grimly. "The rooks and ravens will feast soon enough, Verina. You would have watched them glut themselves on another field twelve years gone by, were you not busy birthing this one here." He pointed to Conan.

"Women fight their battles, too, though men know it not," said Verina. Then she began to cough again; she had been fighting that battle for years, and would not win it. But she mastered the fit, even though, while it went on, she swayed on her feet.

"Here, Mother, go back and rest," said Conan. "The battle ahead is one for men."

He helped Verina to the bedchamber and helped her ease herself down into the bed. "Thank you, my son," she whispered. "You are a good boy."

Conan, just then, was not thinking of being a good boy. Visions of blood and slaughter filled his head, of clashing swords and cloven flesh and spouting blood, of foes in flight before him, of black birds fluttering down to feast on bloated bodies, of battles and of heroes, and of men uncounted crying out his name.