Conan the Barbarian (5 page)

Nor did Toghrul treat his favourite slaves badly. Like the owner of prized horses or dogs, his master saw that they had plenty to eat and drink: rich roasts, thick wheaten bread, and mugs of foaming black ale. Yet Toghrul took care to see that his fighters did not escape. Armed guards watched them constantly and chained them up whenever their master thought there might be a chance of their making a break.

Even more intoxicating than the strong ale, the generous portions of food, and the praise of his master, were the frenzy of the audience and the adulation of the crowd.

Conan learned that life gains an added dimension of intensity when each sunrise may be the last. After each Pit fight, he would sleep like an exhausted beast. Yet from time to time, his dreams became nightmares, in which he found himself lying, disembowelled, spilling out his guts on soil slimy with blood, while a jeering throng above spat down upon him. Then he would wake at dawn in a cold sweat, glad to find himself alive and full of vigour.

No, it was not quite the worst of lives; but the life of a Pit fighter nonetheless dulled Conan’s spirit. Seeing so much of death, he became indifferent to it and cared little whether he himself lived or died, so long as the crowd greeted him with roars of lust and fury.

As the white blanket of winter settled down on Asgard, the business of Pit fighting slowed to a halt. Most of the slaves were kept occupied building huts to replace their abodes; but Uldin the trainer continued to teach Conan the use of weapons other than fists, teeth, and feet. He introduced the youth to the simple staff, a six-foot length of hardwood us thick as a dog’s leg, such as Conan had seen men use in his Cimmerian village. Eventually Conan graduated to the spear, using it in both hands like a quarterstaff but giving emphasis to thrusting with the metal spearhead. For such lethal practice sessions, he and Uldin wore protective padding and wielded blunt weapons.

From the spear, the Cimmerian went on to the javelin, the axe, and the sword. The first time Uldin placed a sword in Conan’s hand, he turned the blade over thoughtfully. It was but a lath of iron without an edge, to which was attached an iron cross-guard set into a simple wooden hilt.

“Not much of a sword,” growled Conan. “Not like those my father made.”

“Your father was a smith, then?”

“Aye. He knew the secret of steel. To him, steel was a gift from the gods. ‘A blade of well-forged steel,’ he said, ‘is the only thing in the world a man can count on.’” Uldin grunted. “The real measure of a man lies not in the steel he carries, but in himself.”

“What do you mean?” asked Conan.

“In a manner of speaking, it’s the man who is forged, not the blade. I know, for I am a forger of men. Come, take the first guard position! Raise your shield, so!”

By spring, when Toghrul pulled up stakes and moved to another section of the country, the young Cimmerian had a working knowledge of all the elementary weapons. So skilful was he in their use that he no longer flung himself on his pallet each night an aching mass of bruises from Uldin’s blows and thrusts.

Yet, for all the trainer’s well-intentioned discipline, Conan’s lot did not grow easier. To satisfy their lust for sadistic spectacles, the Northlanders had devised many cunning ways to rip out a man’s life. Sometimes Conan and his opponents fought chained together, distanced only by a girdle’s length, each man being furnished with a short dirk and a firm grip on his foe's wrist. For variety, Toghrul and the other pit masters would dress their fighters as animals, encasing them in hides or furs and homed helmets in the likeness of beasts, and attaching metal claws to hands and feet.

Nor were his adversaries always men. One day Uldin told Conan, “You’re to fight a Hyperborean tonight.”

“What manner of folk are they?" asked Conan, who had heard vaguely that Hyperborea was a land lying east of Asgard. “I saw one once when we were both slaves of the Wheel; but we had no speech in common.”

“A tall, lean, light haired people, for the most part,” said the trainer. "Dangerous foes, reputed to be wizards and sorcerers."

On this occasion, Conan and his antagonist were sent into the Fit in loincloths and sandals, with short swords in their hands and bucklers on then left arms.

Conan was amazed to discover that he faced a woman. She was slim and long legged, and almost the height of Conan himself, who, now full-grown, towered a head above even the tall Vann. The woman’s hair, the colour of moonbeams, was woven into a thick braid, and her small breasts were bare. Although her supple body exuded an aura of sensuality, her green eyes were deathly cold. From the way she grasped her weapon, Conan sensed that she was well-practised in her art.

The whistle blew, and the light was on. The combatants circled warily, then engaged. Steel rang on steel and thudded against the wood and leather of the shields, the clatter resounding above the shouts of the spectators. Despite the sinewy strength in the warrior-woman’s arms, Conan’s musculature, toughened at the Wheel and hardened in the Pit, was decisive. For all her skill, and speed, and subtlety, Conan stolidly batted her sword aside time after time.

A heavy blow knocked the sword from the woman’s hand. From the benches above rose a yell of “Drep! Kill!” For an instant, the woman presented a wide opening, standing immobile as if reconciled to death.

Conan hesitated. Among the compelling customs of the Cimmerians, drilled into the boy Conan, was that a man’s foremost duty was to protect the women and children of the tribe. Although Cimmerians might cheerfully ambush and murder the men of another clan with whom they were at war, deliberately to slay a woman who had done no crime was an unheard-of brutality.

Conan’s hesitation lasted no longer than two heartbeats. Then the Hyperborean woman sprang back, retrieved her fallen sword, and rushed upon Conan with renewed fury. When one of her blows gashed his forehead and blood dripped into his eyes, he was hard put to defend himself.

At last, fatigue slowed the warrior-woman’s attacks. Striking alternately with sword and shield, Conan beat her back against the wall of the Pit. A powerful backhand stroke split her shield and ploughed into her side. As blood gushed forth, staining her white flesh, the young woman cried out and slumped to the rough dirt floor, pressing her hand against the gaping wound, as if to hold back her entrails.

Conan stepped back and glanced up. Toghrul caught his eye, pointed, and made a chopping motion with one blunt-fingered hand. When Conan still hesitated, the Pit-master repeated the unequivocal gesture with greater emphasis.

The young barbarian bent over the crumpled woman, who seemed to have lost consciousness. His sword swung up and fell in a chopping blow. Still bent, he thrust the point of his sword into the earth, grasped the blonde braid, and raised the severed head for the enjoyment of the chieftains. The crowd roared its satisfaction.

“At that moment," the king related to me, “I hated myself. Never have I told this tale before, for the deed is one of the few of which I am ashamed. True, the woman was dying, and the death I dealt her was perhaps more merciful than letting her die slowly; but still, the deed was vile and cowardly to a Cimmerian. Then I bethought me of Toghrul, who had made me thus to despise myself. All my hatred focused on him, and I swore that one day I would repay him for my shame.”

The welled scum along his brow, etched by the Hyperborean woman's sword, was only one of several that scarred Conan's face and body during that summer in the Pit. The barbarian youth became a good rough-and-ready fighter, making up hi sheer strength and reach what he lacked in the more subtle understanding of the martial arts. But his lack of these refinements worried Toghrul. Some day, he feared, Ins youthful champion would be pitted against a swordsman of comparable strength but of superior skills. Then Conan would be maimed or slain and, in either case, would have no further value to the games-man.

So, as autumn once more painted the forests red and gold, Toghrul took his troupe far to the east, across the bleak plains of Hyperborea to a town called Valamo, near the farthest reaches of that land. There dwelt a master swordsman, whom Toghrul meant to hire to teach the Cimmerian more skilful handling of his blade. There, too, Toghrul looked to buy potential Pit fighters in the local slave market; for death had thinned the troupe to half its former number.

They made the two month's journey in a well-guarded caravan. At every stopping place, first the Æsir and later the Hyperboreans gathered to admire Toghrul’s champion, who had become famous for his exploits and gigantic strength. On these occasions, the Pit master, a showman to the core, would strip the young barbarian and display him naked on a revolving platform from which four iron chains extended upward to the slave collar that he wore. Nordheimers and their women gladly paid their copper coins to stare with curious, appraising eyes at Conan's magnificent physique.

Conan returned their stares with stolid indifference. He guessed that it would have amused them to witness the arousal of his body by the seductive smiles and sidelong glances of the women; but he was determined to deny them even this small pleasure, lie hated them all.

At Valamo, on the distant borders of Hyrkania, the master swordsman, a Hyrkanian named Oktar, imparted his secrets to the Cimmerian. All through the winter, the youth drilled and practised under Oktar’s direction. By the time spring melted winter’s heavy snows, Toghrul was satisfied that nothing remained to teach his champion.

During his stay, Conan learned much about these eastern lands of which he had heard only the scantiest of rumours. As Toghrul’s most favoured Pit fighter, he was often allowed to spend the evening hours in the Pit master’s yurt, when his master entertained the warlords and chieftains who drifted into Valamo from time to time to buy and sell or to trade gossip. Sometimes Toghrul was honoured by the presence of Turanians, men of Hyrkanian stock who had drawn ahead of their nomadic fellows in the arts and sciences of civilization, and who, on the western shores of the Vilayet Sea, had reared glittering cities and learned the ways of urban life.

Most of the time, Conan sat cross-legged and silent on the carpeted floor of his master’s yurt. But when opportunity arose, he would ply these strangers with questions about methods of organized warfare. His questions amused the war leaders, who thought the principles of strategy and tactics of little use to a mere Pit slave, whose fate it was to fight a single adversary again and again, until death overtook him.

Yet Conan realized that the more he knew of matters such as these, the better would be his chances of survival. He began to think ahead. He would not, he resolved, be a Pit slave forever. Since the world appeared to be a place of constant conflict, where the strong took whatever they had the power to take, he would learn to do likewise.

On one occasion, after rolling up the large hide map that he had spread out across the carpet, it pleased a Hyrkanian general to query those who sat late in Toghrul’s yurt over cups of fine white wine.

“What is the best thing in life?” he asked a Turanian princeling, resplendent in silken trousers and boots of scarlet leather strapped in silver.

Gems sparkled in the lamplight as the Turanian spread his hands in a graceful gesture. “The good life is on the open steppe, under a clear sky, with a fleet horse between your knees, a well-trained falcon on your wrist, and a cold, fresh wind in your hair.”

The general shook his head and smiled. “Wrong, Highness! What say you to this, Khitain?”

He shot the question at a small, elderly man who had spoken little. Conan understood that the man had come from a land called Khitai, a year’s journey to the east. The small man had a wrinkled, parchment-yellow skin, stretched over a flat, slant-eyed face. He huddled in his quilted robes, which were drawn tightly to protect his thin frame from the evening's chill. Slowly, he murmured, “I say that life is best when a man can boast a love of learning, and has acquired wisdom and an appreciation for fine poetry.”

Again the general shook his head. Then he caught the intense gaze of Conan, who sat cross-legged on a low, circular dais in the centre of the yurt, clad in a warm tunic, but chained as before. With ill-concealed amusement, the Hyrkanian general asked, “What says the young barbarian giant in answer to my question?”

Conan’s mouth twitched in a shadow of a smile as he replied, “The best of life is to confront your enemy face to face, to see his hot blood spill upon the earth, and to hear the lamentations of his women!”

Approval lit the dark eyes of the general. “The Pit has not broken the spirit of your champion, O Toghrul. Neither has it sapped his will. Beware lest this young tiger some day turn and rend you!”

“He wears chains so that he cannot,” said Toghrul, chuckling.

Conan said nothing more; but a strange volcanic fire smouldered briefly in his fierce blue eyes.

With the coming of spring, Toghrul gathered his people and horses for another trek. This time he headed into the west wind, back across Hyperborea to the lands of the Æsir and Vanir. Once again he had a full complement of Pit fighters; and he looked forward to a profitable season among the Nordheimers.

At length the caravan stopped at the village of Kolari, a mere crossroads encampment. Here, in the lone tavern, traders from near and far rested before continuing on across the steppes and tundras. Kolari lay in a region of rolling hills; and in a hillside cave, Toghrul found a place to keep and exploit his champion during his few days’ halt. The cave had once been the abode of a holy hermit, who had brought to it some amenities and, to deter unwanted petitioners, had fitted a door of iron bars across the entrance. To make the place more comfortable, Toghrul added wall hangings and cushions from his own yurt. He locked the Cimmerian within; and for hours every day he stood outside collecting fees from people who wished to gaup at his famous Pit-fighting champion.

One evening at sunset, the curious departed for their evening meal. Conan, his massive physique contrasting sharply with the dainty comfort of his furnishings, sat with his back to the wall of the cave, trying by candlelight to decipher the words on a scroll. He had picked up a smattering of written Hyrkanian; now, with knotted brow, slowly moving his lips, he was puzzling out each word written in the spidery script of Turan. The writing on the scroll was a love poem, which mightily perplexed the youth even when he understood most of the words. He had never before heard sentiments like these.