Conan the Barbarian

Conan could not bring himself to meet his father’s gaze. He considered the man’s words and wanted to deny their truth. He couldn’t, at least not about men in general. But Conan wanted to be more. He was destined to be something special. Great warrior and more, as his mother desired. And yet his father was right. He didn’t like asking questions just in case he revealed ignorance about something everyone else knew.

Does that make me weak? Conan frowned. Maybe just stubborn.

He looked up. “Which were you, Father?”

Corin roared with laughter. “Your grandfather was a man of great passions and tempers. He did not reward failure in himself or anyone else. So I would watch. I would maybe ask a question—though, I admit, with him I asked for a story to hide my intention. I learned to do things correctly and sought never to fail. When I have, however, I survived and have learned.”

A certain melancholy had entered his father’s voice. Conan’s eyes narrowed. “Is this why you have never taken another wife?”

Corin folded his arms over his chest. “Your mother, and her death, were not a failure. We have you as proof of that. But when she died, my heart ached terribly. I survived. It may make me a coward, but I never dared love again. When you find that one woman, Conan, the one who fires your heart, who makes you feel alive and makes you want to be a better man than you are, never let her go. I was that fortunate once. It would not have been fair to hold anyone else up to comparison with your mother.”

Conan’s father fell silent, and the boy said nothing to break the silence. He’d seen his father turn reflective before—often while watching him, but at times when Conan didn’t think his father knew the boy could see him. His father had always displayed serenity and wisdom, but this time pain creased his brow. Conan did not see this as weakness, however. To surrender to it would have been weakness.

Survive. Learn. The boy nodded solemnly. “I will make you proud, Father.”

Corin’s expression lightened. “You already have—even though there are times you disappoint me.”

“Father, I won’t ever again.”

Corin crouched and looked up at his son. “Don’t make promises you cannot keep, Conan. We all disappoint others. If we never do, it’s because we never take a chance, we never live. What your mother wanted, what I want, is for you to live and live wonderfully large.”

The smith rose to his full height and tousled the boy’s hair with a scarred hand. “You’re not yet the man for that sword, but tomorrow we begin getting you there.”

OVER THE NEXT month Corin began training his son. “The first thing you must remember, Conan, is that men call it ‘sword fighting’ but it is really ‘man fighting.’ A blade is only as keen as the mind driving the arm.”

To make his point, Corin extended the sword they’d made full out, resting the tip at the top of his son’s breastbone. “Cut me with your sword.”

The black-haired boy, eager, thrust toward his father. The man’s longer reach, and the length of his sword, brought Conan’s effort up short. The boy ducked away from Corin’s sword, but Corin merely retreated a step and again pressed the tip to his son’s chest. The boy’s eyes narrowed, then he beat Corin’s blade aside with a great clang and clash of metal.

Yet before he could get close, Corin had slipped back again. He met every harsh parry with a retreat, every bulllike rush with a sidestep. Conan’s face flushed. Lips peeled back from teeth in a feral snarl. The boy knocked the blade aside, then spun, but Corin likewise pivoted, then slapped the boy across the buttocks with the flat of the sword. Conan slipped and flew headlong into a snowbank.

He came up sputtering, spitting out snow. “You’re not fighting fair!”

The smith stabbed the blade into the ground and rested his hands on the pommel. “Do you think anyone you ever face across a blade will fight fairly?”

“Men fight honorably.”

“No. If you choose to believe that, you’ll die in your very first battle.” Corin shook his head slowly. “Men who survive tell other men that they fought honorably. They lie. Remember all the tales your grandfather has told? Has he ever mentioned a Kothian or Gunderman or Shemite who fought honorably?”

Conan shook himself like an animal, flinging snow off his clothes. “No.”

“And you do think anyone who survived fighting against him ever described him as honorable?”

“No.”

“If you remember nothing else, my son, remember this: it’s not the man who slays the most who wins a battle; it’s the man who survives who wins it.”

The boy, frowning, rubbed his bottom. “And what if I kill them all? ”

“Then you are the only survivor.” Corin pulled the blade from the snow. “So, first I shall show you how to survive, then I shall train you in how to kill.”

Conan watched him warily, but did as he was told. Corin began by showing his son how to retreat and keep his footing. He showed him the four gates—up-right, up-left, down-right, down-left—that would block all slashes. He showed him the five sweeps to turn lunges and the brushes to guide blades wide.

The boy’s natural speed and agility made him adept at all of them, but his impatience to strike back diluted his focus. More than once, when Conan tried a clumsy riposte, Corin bound his sword and knocked him to the ground. The boy would bounce up again, fury blazing in those blue eyes, and would come on. Because of his size, skill, and reach, Corin never feared injury. He knocked his son down again and again, until the boy could no longer rise—which took well into the night on some occasions.

Corin stood over him one night as large snowflakes drifted down. “Do you know why I keep beating you?”

Conan spat blood from a split lip. “Because you will not teach me to attack.”

“It takes no skills and no intelligence to stick something sharp into someone. A scorpion can do it. A wasp. An elk.” The smith sighed. “All the times we have trained, what have you learned?”

“You don’t fight fair.”

“The whispers of ghosts bother me not at all. What have you learned?”

The boy sat up in the snow, his sullen eyes covered in shadows. “You have a longer reach than me. You move too quickly for me to close.”

“And what does that tell you?”

“I have to be quicker. I have to be stronger.”

“No, son.” Corin shook his head. “It means you shouldn’t be fighting me with a sword.”

The boy blinked.

“Every man you face will have his strengths and weaknesses. Every group of men. Every army—anything you will ever fight will have strengths and weaknesses. If you attack his strengths, you will lose. If you bring your strength to bear on his weakness, you will win.”

Conan scowled. “You don’t have a weakness.”

Corin sank to a knee and rested his hands on his son’s shoulders. “I do have a weakness, Conan. You don’t see it as such, but I do. It’s not one you’ll ever be able to use against me, but it is there.”

The boy looked up. “Then I will never be able to beat you.”

“You will.” Corin smiled. “Tomorrow, in fact, I shall teach you how.”

CORIN MOVED ONTO the sheath of ice that covered the river and waved his son out after him. Winds had scoured the ice clean of snow, so he spread his feet carefully, setting himself. “Two weeks you’ve spent learning to attack, Conan. Do you really think you’ve earned this blade?”

The youth nodded, setting himself.

“Then come take it. Take it and it’s yours.”

Conan’s eyes widened for a moment, then he darted forward, roaring a war cry. He slashed low, but Corin blocked low-left. The smith brought the hilt up, deflecting the quick high slash, then shoved.