Conan the Barbarian

wrapping them was. And when he tried to tense his fingers, he couldn’t move them much, but something inside the cloth squished and a noxious scent poured out.

A stick clacked against the foot of the bed. “Boy, if you pull those poultices apart again, I will let your hands rot off.”

He looked and could only see a silhouette moving through the hut’s darkened interior. Still, there was no mistaking the voice. “Grandfather?” Conan meant to ask the question forcefully—befitting a warrior—but it came out as a croak, and a weak one at that.

“No other fool would take you in, Conan.” The old man stirred coals in the hearth, then tossed on more wood. A little blaze began to flare. Connacht, leaning heavily on the stick, walked to the bedside and peered down at the boy. He placed a hand on his forehead. “Good. I think the fever’s broken. Death wanted you, boy, but we cheated him, we did.”

“Water?”

The old man helped Conan sit up and drink. He didn’t let the boy have too much, or drink it quickly. With his bandaged hands he couldn’t have managed the cup anyway, so Conan drank at the dictated pace. He nodded when done.

“How long?”

“A week, though now’s the first you’re right in the head.” Connacht shook his head. “Came in fevered. Burns on your hands all infected. Had the blood poison. Lucky for you I remembered what a Shemite healer did for me once. Had to use bear fat instead of goat. Smells worse, seems to work the same.”

Conan stared at his hands as they lay like lifeless lumps in his lap. “A week?”

“Came crashing through the bush wild-eyed and burning up.”

My father burned up . . .

“Weren’t in your right mind. Went for me with your sword, you did.”

Conan’s eyes widened. “I didn’t . . . ?”

“Hurt me?” Connacht laughed. “You were too weak to break an egg with a hammer, boy. How in the name of Crom did you get here?”

Conan closed his eyes. Is my father really dead? Are they all dead?

“Conan?”

The young Cimmerian shook himself. “Raiders destroyed the village. I was the only one who survived.”

Connacht’s face became graven. “I know you didn’t run, boy.”

“I wasn’t a coward, Grandfather. But . . .” Conan’s throat closed.

Connacht poured more water. Conan drank, both because he was thirsty and to soften the lump in his throat. Yet even when his grandfather took the cup away, he couldn’t say anything.

The old man nodded slowly. “Seen a lot of people die. Many of them friends. Had more than one in my arms, just talking to him, easing the passage. Never an easy thing.”

Conan shook his head.

“My son?”

“I . . . I tried to save him.”

“And he wanted you to live.”

Conan nodded.

“You think he was wrong? You think he was stupid?”

The young Cimmerian looked up horrified. “No.”

“If there weren’t no saving him, and there was a chance of saving you, he did right.” Connacht scratched at his throat. “Like as not, you won’t see that, but it’s true.”

“I killed some of them, Grandfather.” Conan remembered the last raider. “One was a big man, cavalry. He was taking a scalp. I took his knife.”

The old man crossed to where a belt hung on the wall and drew the dagger from its sheath. “Turanian. Long way from home.”

“Kushites, too, and Aquilonians. And female archers.”

“Easy, son. Excite yourself and the fever will come back.” Connacht’s eyes narrowed. “All those people this far north. Taller tale than I’ve ever told.”

Conan snarled. “I’m not lying.”

“Didn’t say you were.”

“They wanted something. A piece of a mask. Ashuran, I think. Is there such a place?”

Connacht returned to the stool by the bed. “Not Ashuran. Acheron, maybe, but it’s long-ago gone. Thousands of years.”

“They found it. They found what they wanted.”

“Who?”

Conan frowned. “Klarzin. He has a daughter, Marique. And there is an Aquilonian named Lucius.”

Connacht laughed. “There’s hundreds of Aquilonians named Lucius, boy.”

“This one has no nose.”

“Don’t know that narrows it down much.”

“I took his nose. Cut it right off.”

“Did you, now?” His grandfather nodded solemnly. “Taking the nose off an Aquilonian makes any day a good day.”

Conan smiled, then remembered why it had been so terrible a day. He shivered and sank down again in the bed.

His grandfather brushed a lock of black hair from his forehead. “You’ve told me enough for now. You’ll be telling me the rest later. We’ll figure it all out.”

“Good.” Conan stared at his hands. “When we do, I’m going to kill them all.”

CONNACHT REPACKED THE poultices over the next week and a half, and Conan didn’t fight him. He didn’t have the strength. The boy wanted to be up and tracking his enemies, but it was all he could do to throw off the auroch hide and sit up when his grandfather brought him broth. After several days of that, the old man switched him to stew.

Aside from eating, all Conan could do was sleep. Sometimes nightmares had him crying out in the middle of the night, but Connacht was always there by his side. He’d listen to Conan, then tell him a story. Not quite the same stories he used to tell during his visits to the village—these were a bit more gentle—but the sound of his voice was enough to allow Conan to drift back into sleep.

A couple of times Conan woke up during the day, and on one of those occasions, he thought he heard his grandfather talking to someone outside the hut. Later that afternoon he asked if he’d been right.

Connacht nodded. “Aiden came up from the south to tell me your village is gone. The tribes had some skirmishes with your horde. They backtracked to the village. They burned all the bodies, hauled what they could away. They brought me some things of your father’s; said they didn’t find you among the dead.”

“Did you tell them I was alive?”

“He didn’t ask, but likely knew. No matter. No one else will.”

“Good. They won’t expect me.”

“Conan, you are not even certain who they are.”

“How many march under the crest of the tentacled mask?”

“None.”

Conan frowned. “What?”

“I have traveled the lands, Conan. No nation bears such a crest.”

“What of this Acheron?”

Connacht brought his grandson a bowl of stew and loosened enough of the bandages to slip the poultice out, but left enough to cover the burns. “Feed yourself and I’ll tell you of Acheron.”

“You’ve been there?”

The older man laughed. “I’m not that old, Conan. Acheron fell in ancient days, before there was a Cimmeria. It was an evil place, so they say. Swing a dead cat, you’d hit a necromancer or three. Put four of them in a hut together and you’d have a dozen plots hatched. An evil people wanting to take over the world. So they went and