"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."