Conan of Venarium

Chapter Eleven The Rising

A trumpeter blew a long blast on a battered horn. Mordec, by then, had grown used to the bugle calls that rang out from the Aquilonian encampment by Duthil. Those were sweet and musical. This was only noise, and harsh, discordant noise at that. But the sweet, musical calls belonged to the invaders, while this was of Cimmeria. He did not need to wonder which he preferred.

Not far away from him, Herth scrambled onto a lichen-covered boulder that thrust its way up through the grass of the meadow. The trumpeter's call blared out again. All through the vast, disorderly Cimmerian encampment, fierce eyes —some gray, others piercing blue —swung toward the northern chieftain.

"Hear me, men of Cimmeria!" cried Herth in a great voice. "Hear me, men of valor! We have come, many of us, from afar to right a great wrong and to drive the foul invaders from the south out of our land forevermore." He pointed southward, over the hills Mordec and Balarg and Nectan had crossed not long before. "Well, warriors? Shall we set our brothers free?"

"Aye!" Like a wave, the answering shout swelled and swelled, until at last it filled the great encampment. That one ferocious, indomitable word came echoing back from the hills, again and again: "Aye! Aye! Aye!"

Mordec turned to Nectan and Balarg, who stood beside him. "Now let Stercus reap what he has sown."

Both his fellow villagers nodded. Balarg's response in no way differed from Nectan's. Mordec also nodded, in sober satisfaction. Unless he was altogether mistaken, the weaver made as true and trusty a Cimmerian as any warrior here who had traveled far to spill Aquilonian blood.

Herth pointed toward the south once more. "Forward, then!'" he shouted.

And forward the Cimmerians went. No Aquilonian army could have done the like. Aquilonians, civilized men, traveled with an elaborate baggage train. The Cimmerians simply abandoned everything they could not carry with them. They had briefly paused here to gather in full force. For that, lean-tos and tents had proved desirable. Now the Cimmerians forgot them. They would eat what they carried in belt pouches and wallets. They would sleep wrapped in wool blankets, or else on bare ground.

But they would march like men possessed. And they would fight like men insane. Past that, what else mattered?

They had no generals, no colonels, no captains. They had clan chiefs —and listened to them when they felt like it. In long, straggling columns, they followed several tracks that led into and through the hills separating them from the province the Aquilonians had carved out of their country. They had only the vaguest notion of what they would find there. They cared very little. If it was not of Cimmeria, they would slay it.

Mordec and his companions from Duthil had come a long way. Most of the warriors streaming south had come from farther still. If they did not need rest, Mordec sternly told himself he did not need it, either. He watched Nectan and Balarg brace themselves With him, they began to retrace their steps.

How many men tramped toward the Aquilonian province? Mordec had no idea. Enough, though. He was pretty sure they would be enough.

This time, he and Balarg and Mordec took the straight road, the road through the valley, that led back toward Duthil. It was shorter and involved less climbing than the track they had followed to reach the great Cimmerian camp. Mordec thought he had earned that much relief. And the straight road had Aquilonian patrols on it. The blacksmith carried an axe whose head he had forged himself. He intended to blood that axe again. It had been thirsty too long.

He pushed the pace, wanting to be among the first who came upon the Gundermen and Bossonians. His fellow villagers kept up with him, though they lacked his iron endurance and had to force themselves along. They were not at the very forefront when Cimmerians met Aquilonians, but they were close enough to join in the fight.

That fight was short and savage. The Aquilonians put up the best struggle they could, but before long Cimmerian numbers simply overwhelmed them. Mordec did indeed blood his axe —a Gunderman's head stared up glassily beside his body. Someone said, "A couple of the devils got away."

"Not good," said Mordec. "They'll warn their countrymen."

The other Cimmerian shrugged. "Let them. We'll be upon them soon enough, come what may."

"But— " Mordec gave it up. He had spent too much time in the company of the civilized Aquilonians. The future would be what it was, warning or no. He nodded. "Aye. We'll be upon them soon enough."

Conan and Tarla walked hand in hand down the track toward Duthil. In his other hand Conan clutched Count Stercus' sword. He had plunged it into the ground again and again to cleanse it of the blood of his fellow villager. Soon enough, he hoped, it would drip with Aquilonian gore. It was a rich weapon, the blade chased with gold and the hilt wrapped in gold wire. Conan cared little for the richness. That the sword was long and sharp mattered more.

"You saved me," said Tarla for perhaps the dozenth time. Her eyes glowed.

He squeezed her hand. He had no words to show her what he felt; pretty speeches were not in him. But he knew, and he thought Tarla knew, too. Nothing else made any difference.

"Almost there now," said Tarla.

Conan nodded; he knew the landmarks on the trail as well as he knew the backs of his own hands. He fretted about Nectan's sheep, for he knew they might fall into danger without him there to watch over them. But Tarla was more important. Once he brought her back to Balarg's house, he would hurry back to the meadow and resume the duty his father had set him.

Suddenly he halted, the inborn alertness of one who lived close to nature warning him something ahead was amiss. Tarla would have walked on, but his grip on her hand checked her. "Something's not right," he said, cocking his head to one side to listen.

After imitating his gesture, Tarla frowned in pretty confusion. "I don't hear anything," she said.

"Nor do I," answered Conan. "And we should—we're close enough to Duthil by now. Where's all the usual village noise? Too quiet by half, if you ask me."

"It's not always noisy there," said Tarla.

"No, but — " Conan broke off. He let himself be persuaded. If the girl he cared about more than anything in the world —at least for the moment—thought everything was all right, then all right everything was likely to be, merely because she thought so. Squeezing her hand again, he went forward once more.

In back of Duthil, the woods grew close to the village. He and Tarla were no more than ten or twenty yards from the closest houses when they came out into the open. They both stared in astonished horror at what they saw. Blood and bodies were everywhere. The stench of all that blood, a heavy iron stink that might almost have come from the smithy, filled Conan's nostrils. More ravens and vultures and carrion crows spiraled down by the moment.

But scavenger birds were not all that moved in Duthil. A pair of Bossonian archers spotted Conan and Tarla as they came forth from the forest. "Mitra!" exclaimed one. "We missed a couple of these damned barbarians."

"Well, we'll get them now," answered the other. Both reached over their shoulders for arrows, nocked them, and, in the same instant, let fly.

Both Bossonians aimed for Conan. He was plainly the more dangerous of the two —and, if they shot him, they might have better sport with Tarla. The bowmen were well trained and long practiced in what they did. Both shafts flew straight and true —but Tarla sprang in front of the blacksmith's son and took them full in the breast.

"A life for a life, Conan," she said. "Make us free." If she knew any pain, she did not show it. She fell with a smile on her face.

"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.

Before Granth could even begin to answer, the soldiers at the northern edge of the village, the edge closest to the endless forest, cried out in surprise and alarm. And other cries mingled with those of the Bossonians and Gundermen: fierce shouts in a language Granth had never bothered to learn. They filled the pikeman's ears, and seemed to swell like approaching thunder.

"Cimmerians!" yelled someone, and then the storm fell on Captain Treviranus' men.

More barbarians than Granth had imagined there were in the world came loping out of the woods. As had the northern men in the fight at Fort Venarium, they wielded a wild variety of weapons. Here, though, they took the Aquilonians altogether by surprise —and here, too, no knights would come to the rescue of the pikemen and archers. One of the barbarians brandished Stercus' staring head.

"Form up, men! Form up!" shouted Treviranus desperately. "If we fight them all together, we still may win!"

But the Aquilonians never got the chance to follow their commander's good advice. The enemy was upon them too suddenly and in numbers too great, while they themselves were scattered all through Duthil and not looking for battle. But whether they sought it or not, it found them, and they had to do what they could. Many of them, beset from front and rear and sides all at the same time, simply fell. Others gathered in struggling knots, islands in a sea of Cimmerians, islands bloodily overwhelmed one by one.

Granth and Vulth, near the southern edge of the village, had a few moments longer to ready themselves for the onslaught than most of their comrades. "Side by side and back to back to the palisade," said Vulth. "It's the only hope we've got, and it's a long one."

Side by side and back to back it was: a savage business, but somehow less so than Granth had expected. In point of fact, he had never expected to reach the palisade at all. But after he and Vulth stretched a couple of Cimmerians lifeless on the grass of the meadow, most of the barbarians ran past them rather than attacking. Had they seemed cowards, they would have been quickly dragged down and killed. The appearance of courage meant they soon required less of the genuine article.

But by the time they reached the palisade, reaching it did them no good. Cimmerians were already boosting one another up to the top and dropping down into the fortress that had held down Duthil and the surrounding countryside for the past two years. With the whole garrison inside, the fortified encampment might have put up a stout defense. With only a few men within, it would not last long.

"What do we do? Where do we go?" asked Granth, seeing that the fortress would not save them.

"Into the woods," said Vulth. "They're our only hope. If we can get to a settler's farm, we may hold out against these howling devils."

Granth laughed wildly. "We'll make them pay for hunting us down, anyhow."

Into the woods they plunged.

Adore blood flooded Duthil's muddy main street. Here, though, Conan watched in delight, not horror, for these were Aquilonians who fell. And the blacksmith's son used Count Stercus' sword to wicked effect, bringing down a pair of Bossonian archers and a Gunderman who relied on the length of his pike to hold foes at bay but who fatally underestimated his foe's pantherish quickness.

Before long, the only Aquilonians left in Duthil lay dead in the street. Few of the invaders had tried to surrender; none had succeeded. Cimmerians plundered the corpses, taking for their own weapons and armor finer than what they had brought south with them.

Herth strode along the street. The clan chief bled from a cut on his forehead and another on his leg. He said, "They are men after all. When I saw they'd put a village to the sword, I took them for cowards and murderers and nothing more. But they are warriors as well, and they did not flee."

"They are brave enough," said Mordec. "They beat us in battle once. And belike the village was roused against them after Stercus stole Balarg's daughter."

"He paid with his life, as he deserved to," said Conan.

Balarg nodded. "He did indeed. And yet I would have let him live, if only that would bring back Tarla with him."

"And I." Conan nodded, too.

"That cannot be now," said Herth. "Now there is vengeance, a great glut of vengeance, to take."

Mordec went into the smithy. When he came out, grief etched his harsh-featured face. His great shoulders slumped. As he strode toward Conan, fear suddenly filled the youth's heart—fear not of danger, nor of foes, but of the news he was about to hear. That fear must have shown on his face, for Mordec nodded heavily. "She's dead, boy. Your mother's dead," he said hoarsely. But a somber admiration also filled his voice: "She took up a sword and made them earn what they took. And there's blood on the blade, so they paid a price for it."

Herth set a hand on the blacksmith's shoulder. "Any warrior can take pride in such a wife."

"I do," said Mordec. He turned to Conan. "And so should you."

"Pride?" Conan shook his head. "After today, what care I for pride? After today, with my mother dead" —he did not misspeak of Tarla, who was Balarg's to mourn, and whose place in his affections was more recent—"what care I if I live or die?"

"I will tell you, if you truly need telling," answered his father. "Herth had the right of it: to be sure she did not die for nothing, and to be sure the accursed Aquilonians will pay dearly for robbing us of what they had no right to touch. Do you suppose Crom would care to hear you snivel? You know better, and so do I. We still have a job of work to do before we can die content."

Conan considered. He looked down at the gold-chased, gold-hiked blade he held in his hand. Slowly, he nodded. Stercus' sword had not yet slaked its full thirst for Aquilonian blood. "Let it be as you say, Father. For vengeance's sake, I will live. I will live, and the invaders shall die."

"Why else do you think I still walk and breathe?" returned Mordec.

"Come, then." Herth pointed ahead. The gate to the palisaded Aquilonian encampment had come open. Cimmerians poured in, although the mere fact that those gates had opened argued that there was no need for more fighting men within the palisade. The clan chief saw as much, saying, "Let us go south. And wherever we meet them, death to the Aquilonians."

There was a war cry Conan would eagerly shout. He went into the smithy. Mordec took a step toward him and reached out as if to halt his progress, but Conan twisted past. The blacksmith started to go after him, then checked himself. To Herth, he said, "Best he should see, I suppose."

"Belike," said the clan chief. "If he needs one more reason to fight, what better?" After a moment, as if reminding himself, Herth added, "I'm sorry, Mordec."

"So am I," answered Conan's father. "She did not fear death, not when she'd been battling it for years. This might have been quicker and cleaner than she would have got in the natural course of things. Still, though, the invaders will pay for robbing her of the time she would have had left."

When Conan came out into the street once more, his face was as set and grim as Mordec's. His eyes burned with a dry, terrible fire. "Death to the Aquilonians," he said. In his mouth, it was not a war cry after all. It was simply a promise.

Two men burst out of the woods at the edge of Melcer's field of barley. The farmer threw down his hoe and snatched up his pike. The men were so ragged and haggard and dim', he thought they had to be Cimmerians. But the hair peeping out from under their helmets was as blond as his own, which meant they were Gundermen like himself. He did not set down the pike even so. Gundermen too could be robbers and brigands.

"Who are you?" he asked sharply. "What are you doing on my land? Answer me right this minute, or by Mitra I'll run you off it."

They could not answer him immediately. They both stood there panting, as if they had run a long, long way. At last, the younger one, a fellow with formidably wide shoulders and a face friendly despite its weariness, managed to gasp out, "The Cimmerians are over the border."

To Melcer, that was the worst news in the world. "Are you sure?" he said. "How many of them?"

The newcomers carried pikes, too, the pikes of foot soldiers. They held them out, not threateningly but so that Melcer could see the fresh bloodstains on the spearshafts. "We're sure, all right," said the older one. "How many?" He turned to his comrade. "How many do you suppose, Granth?"

"Oh, about a million," answered Granth, the broad-shouldered one. "Maybe more."

"They ran us out of Duthil," added the other Gunderman. "To hell with me if I know whether anybody else from the garrison is left alive. Stercus is dead, not that he's any great loss. And those barbarian devils have been baying at our heels ever since. If you're going to save yourself, you'd better do it now, or you're a dead man. You may be a dead man anyhow."

Melcer looked around his farm. He saw all the work of the past two years: stout cabin, barn, garden, fields. Then he looked to the north. He knew where he was likely to see smoke rising, and how much. More fires were burning than could be accounted for by the settlers' usual business, and some of the columns of smoke rising from the accustomed places were thicker and blacker than they should have been, as if rising from buildings rather than chimneys. Melcer was not afraid to make a stand if that stand had some hope of success. Dying to no purpose was something else again.

He nodded to the two pikemen. "My thanks. Go on and warn more folk." Even as the words left his mouth, a southbound horseman galloped past winding a horn and shouting out danger to all who would heed him. Melcer nodded again. Now he had confirmation, not that he truly needed it. "Aye, go on, both of you. I'll tend to my business here."

On the very edge of hearing came howls that might have burst from wolves' throats —that might have, but had not. Those were the war cries of barbarians, barbarians on the loose, such swarms of savages had no business running loose within the bounds of the province. They had no business running loose, but here they came.

"We're off, then," said the older pikeman. "We'll make for Fort Venarium, I expect. If we can throw back the Cimmerians anywhere, that will be the place. And what of you?"

"If things go ill, perhaps I'll see you there," said Melcer. Above the uproar of the barbarians, a bell began to ring, loudly and insistently. "That is the signal for the yeomen of the countryside to gather. You only garrisoned this land. We live on it, and we will not give it up."

"They'll smash you," said Granth. "You don't know their numbers."

Melcer answered with a shrug. "If they do, then they do. But if they take us down to hell, you had best believe we'll have a fine Cimmerian escort to lead the way."

The two pikemen began arguing. Melcer had no time for them. He ran back toward the farmhouse — and met his wife hurrying his way, with their baby daughter on one hip and Tarnus, their son, hurrying beside her. "The alarm bell!" exclaimed Evlea.

"Sure enough," said Melcer. "The Cimmerians are over the border—over the border in a great horde, all too likely. We can flee or we can fight. I aim to fight."

"What are the odds?" asked Evlea.

He shrugged again. "I know not. All I know is, this is my land. If I must die for it, then die I will, and be buried on it." He quickly kissed her. "Get out while you can, dear."

She shook her head. "If I can find someplace to leave the children, I'll fight beside you. This is not your land alone."

One of the pikemen came over to them. "Vulth thinks he has a better chance in Venarium," said Granth. "Me, I'd sooner make my stand as far north as I can. I'm with you, if you'll have me."

"Gladly," said Melcer. Evlea nodded. The bell tolled out its warning cry. Melcer went on, "We're to make for it when it rings, and do what needs doing once we're gathered there."

Melcer hoped he could find a place to leave his children — and his wife —in safety before they came to the bell. But he discovered none, none he would trust against an assault by more than a handful of barbarians. By all the signs, far more than a handful were loose in the land. The bell rang in front of the house of a farmer named Sciliax. Pointing to the cabin, a bigger, fancier, stronger building than Melcer's, Sciliax said, "Women and children in there. We'll defend it with all we have."

All they had, at the moment, consisted of about thirty farmers armed with the sort of weapons farmers carried, plus perhaps half a dozen real soldiers like Granth. More men were coming their way. Would they be enough? Melcer saw, recognized, and worried about the expression on Granth's face: the pikeman did not like the odds. Slowly, Melcer said, "Maybe we ought to serve out swords and spears and whatever else we've got to the women who will take them."

"Yes, by Mitra!" cried Evlea.

But Sciliax said, "What if they're taken?"

"What if we lose?" returned Melcer. "They'll surely be taken then, and they won't have us at their sides to save them."

Sciliax was older than most of the settlers who had come north out of Gunderland, and plainly set on old ways of doing things. But he glanced toward Granth, as if wondering what a real soldier thought of the question. Granth did not hesitate. "This fellow's right," he said, pointing Melcer's way. "Whatever you do—whatever we do, I should say—our chances are bad. The more fighters we have, the better we're likely to fare. I've seen Cimmerian women fight. Are ours weaker than theirs?"

Before Sciliax could answer, Evlea said, "I'll see to it, then." She rushed into the farmhouse. Women began spilling out of it, women tough enough to make a go of things beyond the frontier of Gunderland. They all clamored for weapons. Some were young, some not so young. Before long, most of them had spears and axes and swords. Some of the men who wore helms gave them to women. With a sort of bow, Granth presented his to Melcer's wife.

"Here they come!" Suddenly, the cry rose from a dozen throats. Melcer's gaze went to the woods north of Sciliax's farm. Black-haired Cimmerians loped out from among the trees. They saw the defenders mustered in front of the farmhouse, saw them and swarmed toward them. The barbarians advanced in no neat formation, but they were ready —more than ready—to fight.

"Form a line!" shouted Granth. "Everyone — help your neighbor. If you save him, he may save you next. No point in running. They'll just slay you from behind." No one had appointed him general of this little force. He simply took the job —and the embattled farmers and their wives obeyed him.

Here came a Cimmerian swinging a scythe. He was lean and dirty and looked weary, as if he had traveled a long way with nothing more in mind than murdering Melcer. He shouted something in his own language. Melcer could not understand it, but doubted it was a compliment. The Cimmerian swung back the scythe —and Melcer speared him in the belly.

The soft, heavy resistance of flesh tugged at the pike. For a moment, the barbarian simply looked very surprised. Then he opened his mouth wide and shrieked. Melcer felt like shrieking, too. He had never killed a man before. He had to kick out with his foot to clear the Cimmerian from his pike.

Another Cimmerian swung a two-handed sword, a stroke that would have taken off Melcer's head had it connected. But the weapon was as cumbersome as it was frightful, and he easily ducked under it. He had gone a lifetime without killing anyone, but claimed his second victim only moments after the first.

He had no time to look around and see how the fight as a whole was going. He could only do his best to stay alive himself and make sure any barbarian who came near him fell. Some of the screams and shouts on the battlefield in front of Sciliax's house came from women's throats. Melcer could not even look to see if Evlea remained hale. "Please, Mitra," he whispered, and fought on.

Cimmerians fell. So did Gundermen. Some lay still, and would never rise again. Others thrashed and wailed and moaned, crying out their torment to the uncaring sky. The wounded on both sides sounded much alike. At first, the sounds of anguish tore at Melcer; as the fight went on, though, he heard them less and less.

After what seemed like forever, the Cimmerians sullenly drew back. Melcer had a chance to lean on his pike and draw a breath and look around. Evlea still stood. The axe in her hands had blood on the head. Granth's helmet sat dented and askew on her head. Granth himself was also on his feet. And so was Sciliax, though a scalp wound left his face bloody.

But the fight, very likely, was not over. As Melcer watched in dismay, more barbarians emerged from the trees to the north. He looked around in growing despair. Where would his own side find reinforcements?