Conan: If it bleeds...
Chapter One: The Pyres on the Road.
The blinding white orb of the sun was at its zenith, throwing squat shadows of the colossal statues of grim forgotten kings onto the endless road of dust that shimmered in the midday heat. Conan shielded his eyes from the stark light, and took a satisfying draught of cool water from his canteen to ease his parched throat. He spat the last mouthful as a spray over the thick neck of his mount, and rubbed the liquid into its course hair, cooling the animal, which was greasy with sweat from its half day of hard riding from the Nemedian marches, over the hilly borderlands, and finally into highlands of Corinthia.
The beast was a fine northron gelding, shoulder high to Conan at its withers, wide hoofed, with a thick mane over its smoky black hide. Its powerful flanks were strong enough to haul a war chariot, or bear a fully armoured warrior, and yet it was not so hot blooded for its temperament to cause the Cimmerian any concern. It was a rare beast in these southern lands, bred from northern stock; a considerably more robust animal than the lithe Khitan breeds that he had come to find even as far north and west as Brythunia, though it was considerably outpaced by its eastern cousins. Its hooves kicked dry dust up from the road as Conan peered to the south-east, looking for any nearby signs of settlement, and though it had been a tough ride for an animal not bred for sustained flight, the cimmerian knew that he had not yet depleted its stamina.
From the hilly country in the Nemedian marches, Conan had fortuitously stumbled onto the Road of Kings, though his escape from Nemedia had been almost aimless except for his situation demanding that he head south. He knew his pursuers would more than likely be searching this route once they ascertained the geography of the lands, but he had confidence enough to believe that they would be at least a half-day behind him; the high craggy lands of the border were cold and icy and tough to cross on lesser breeds of horse than that which bore Conan on its back. They would have to back-track and ride east before they came to the Road of Kings—a half day's journey at least, even on the quickest of beasts—before they could continue their pursuit in earnest. By the time they caught up, Conan intended to be drinking a foaming jug of ale and wenching in some cheap tavern, anonymous among the other drunks, spending his bounty of purloined coins and gems that had led to the trouble in Nemedia in the first place. All he needed was to reach a settlement before they could reach him, but none yet seemed forthcoming.
Fat barons and crooked swine! He thought darkly. Gutless dogs banding together to buy the loyalties of hired soldiers to set at my heels!
He checked the route behind him, as if expecting the party of paid assassins to come charging over the crests and give chase again. But only pilgrims and traders leading donkey- and oxen-driven carts were upon the road, each on their way through the trading artery of the mid-southern lands to sell their wares and seek their fortunes. Satisfied he could now set a more gentle pace for the horse, Conan set off again, ever southwards; to head west or north was all but a foolish invitation to death itself, for word would surely have spread of the bounty now placed on his head, and the plentiful brigands of those lands, coupled with the mercenaries at his heels would be like the closing jaws of an avaricious beast, eager to consume him for naught but profit. The east bore little better: tough mountain ranges leading into vast expanses of barren desert where a man could wander endlessly in search of water and food, and perish within a few short days to become a feast for the vultures and flies. South it was.
On the journey he had seen intermittent funeral pyres here and there near the roadsides, and when he had made a few more leagues into Corinthia true, he came to notice more and more, some still smouldering embers, and others mere ash, scattered by the lazy winds. Sullen pilgrims in rags would pass by, heading north, some hauling small carts under their own labours, deprived of beasts of burden to take the load. More than once he had seen shrouded corpses borne in the back of those carts, summoning images and memories of blasted harbingers of death borne on the wind itself, and his mind turned to that most dire of civilization's afflictions: Plague.
There had been no word in the north of plague in the southern lands of late, but outbreaks were not uncommon. If the first town he came upon was blighted, he would have to pass by and keep searching, no matter how safe a refuge from prying eyes a pestilent town may be; Conan's business was staying alive, and no plague pit had ever been welcoming of guests, nor a considerate host at that.
The terrain was beginning to roll gently downhill now from the uplands of the borders, and the land was slowly transforming from rocky plains where little grew, to lush loamy soils, plains of tall grasses, glades of sweet flowers and thick, dense woodland, carrying refreshing scents of pine and cedar and eucalyptus. The wind had begun to pick up a little, and tousled his thick, black mane, ruffling the loose fabric of his sark. Conan began to doubt a plague in any land where the wind was so freshly scented, and in the heat of the afternoon sun took another satisfying draught of water. In these southern lands the heat grew steadily more intense, and the sun bronzed his skin quickly each time he headed south or east from the northlands of Aquilonia or Cimmeria itself, though he returned to his homelands seldomly since leaving. The horse, being a northron breed, was beginning to swelter and lag now, and would have to be sold to someone heading back to the chillier climates; it would not last long in close humidity of these lands.
Another funeral pyre, this one in full vigour of flames which licked skyward. The shroud concealing the dead within had just began to blacken and scorch. The thin gathering of mourners with downcast eyes watched the Cimmerian pass wordlessly, neither entreating him for help or charity, or warning him to avoid any settlements nearby. Conan let them be, and passed on by without making the enquiries of them he had at first thought to make as regards of their plight.
As he crested a peak on the undulating road, a small city was revealed to him: high walls and weathered ramparts, and stunted sandstone towers of no particular note, topped by tarnished copper domes. It was surrounded by agricultural plains where roamed many heads of assorted livestock, and tilled fields of crops that grew well in the sun. Along its northern ranges lay the great cedar forest that Conan had skirted for many leagues on his journey. To the south and east, the land dropped away sharply again, towards the inner kingdoms where the greatest concentrations of over-taxed peasant men turned to soldiery as a way of escaping the crushing fiscal burdens of their covetous rulers; Corinthian mercenaries were well known and well regarded throughout the known world. As was the way in Corinthia, rival kingdoms lay claim to lands all over, resulting in scattered city states throughout, like the unremarkable settlement he now observed. Relations between each ruler in the tense alliance was soured by squabbling and skirmishes over their boundaries, and high taxes imposed on traders travelling through the outlying ranges to reach the more prosperous and secure lands deeper within; for it was the lords of the outlying lands who always complained that they held the front against raiders and outland invading forces—especially when Kothan generals were sent to the borders to collect shortfalls in due tribute from their vassals.
To his surprise the city seemed to be bustling outwith like any stable trading post. At the city gates stood many trader stands and bazaars of all kinds, and the people flocked among them keenly. Shepherds moved livestock from pasture to pasture, or penned them in corrals of thickly woven thorns, as now the day was growing late, and even these lands were not without opportunistic predators that would snatch an untended lamb or calf and leave nothing but bones for the crows to pick clean. These was no plague here, he was sure.
But why then, his keen sense of judgement asked, so many bodies on the road? Why so many women and children traipsing in the dust to the north?
As he approached the crossroad that forked both towards the rambling city, or plunged ever southward, Conan also came to notice teams of men emerging from the forest, leading pairs of oxen which dragged behind them skids laden with lengths of roughly hewn lumber. The men looked over their shoulders to the thick, dark forest worriedly, as if fearing some unseen force may be stalking them. They pulled so hard on their halters that the Cimmerian could see the steel rings punched through the nose of each oxen stretch their very flesh as the weary oxen strived to keep pace with their pallid masters. The oxen teams were led to within a few feet of the city walls, where Conan saw more teams of men hurriedly digging up earthworks to reinforce a sturdy palisade that was under swift construction, each post hewn to sharp tips on both ends and driven deeply onto the ground before being shored up by the spoil from the earthworks at the rear. And more men yet, digging deep wolf pits and lining the bottoms with stakes, each sharpened to lethal points, then covered over again with thin twigs and disguised with fern fronds.
The aftermath of a siege, thought Conan, dead men burning on those pyres.
Then why leave the livestock? Why not torch the crops and salt the earth? His heavy brow drew over his smouldering blue eyes with consternation, and Conan pulled at the reins, drawing his horse from the road and set to following the oxen teams.
Expecting a siege, then? His mind proffered another solution, and just as quickly dismissed it: why would the crops not be harvested by now with fearful abandon, filling the silos to stave off the possibility of a long siege and slow starvation? Why wasn't the livestock protected within the walls?
With consternation twisting into sheer puzzlement, Conan approached the nearest of the oxen drovers-a wiry man with thinning grey hair, who started with unbidden fright at his appearance. "Ishtar spare me!" he wailed. "I thought you were the beast for a moment!"
"What is this? What has all you menfolk cowering over your backs like lily-livered eunuchs?" Conan demanded.
"Charity, please!" the oxen drover pleaded. "We're set upon by a terrible beast! It lurks in those dark woods, and slinks as a shadow within the city at night! It is a phantom... a wraith!"
Conan felt his blood cool a little at the mention of some otherwordly beast. Of no man was he afraid, but magics and sorcery and weird beasts borne from the hellish underworlds set a chill in his bones, though the man's cowardice soon heated his blood again. "This phantom has unmanned you! Speak on like you have a spine, damn you!" Conan barked.
"I have good reason to be afraid! Always men it takes! We hear screams in the night, terrible and hopeless. Footsteps on our rooftops in the dark. You may call me spineless, stranger, but I have seen the ruined husks of men it leaves behind. Our boldest and strongest—they are the ones left spineless! Their backbones and skulls ripped from their bodies while they yet draw breath enough to scream!" the oxen drover shuddered. "Others... flayed... skinned alive... and left dangling by their heels from arches and vaults like slaughtered pigs... The phantom runs hiding into the woods ere dawn breaks."
"Why doesn't your king send hunters and warriors after it? Chase it into the open and slaughter it as you would a bear?"
The drover halted, and his face turned to the Cimmerian fully now. His eyes were white orbs of fear, glimmering with tears of hopelessness, and his bottom lip quivered. "We have too few warriors left, stranger. After the first few weeks the city was out of its wits, and people were ready to abandon it and run to the surrounding kingdoms. But none of them will have us... The king gathered up all fit men of a fighting age and sent them into the forest." He began sobbing in earnest now, bitter, stinging tears that he shed shamelessly. "Only one returned alive. Wrought with wounds so terrible that he didn't survive the night... and my son! My son... "
"This man who returned... your son?" asked Conan sternly, but with a more charitable tone than he had addressed the man with to start.
The drover shook his head weakly. "My son never returned to us. And the beast roams the city still. Widows leave the city in a trickle, burning their men on the road," He pointed back up the dusty road Conan had approached from. "Traders ply their wares and take to their heels in fear of their lives ere the sun sets. And the king grows desperate. Besides the widows and orphans the king has forbade any citizen to leave the city, and sent riders to recruit mercenaries to fight for us."
"Mercenaries?" Conan growled. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword in its scabbard. He wheeled his horse and his keen eyes searched all around for anyone approaching, ready to cleave their skulls if his suspicions demanded it. "When do they come? Use the tongue in your god put in your head, man!"
The drover stiffened, now more affright than ever, and his trembling, palsied hand pointed to a few sparse men overseeing the toil on the earthworks and stockade near the city walls. "They came from the east early in the morning! Kushites, Hyrkanians...! Some malcontented Aquilonians and returning Corinthians... A pride of cut-thoats and boasters, Stranger!"
"East, you say?"
"Aye. Being paid a prince's ransom, too: Half the treasury! The Kushite warlords will come with fire and battering rams to our gates for their tribute, which these dogs will pocket and piss up a wall!"
"Half the treasury..." Conan mused, the gold and jewel laden purse lashed to his side now seeming paltry by comparison. "Who leads them?"
The drover's look darkened now, as if he found repeating the very name itself repugnant. "A craven serpent of a man called Xectloth."
"A stygian?"
"Aye." the drover almost sneered. "A perfumed and bejewelled fiend in satin. It was he who set the king's mind to send the city folk into the wood for lumber to build the stockade, while his men tarry and joke at the walls and that heathen stupefies himself on ale and women!" He spat on the ground, expunging the words he had spoke of the mercenaries.
Conan took up the reins of his horse again, and nodded westward, where the golden disk of the sun dreamily hovered on the horizon. "Make best time, man; dark will fall soon." With that he heeled the ribs of the horse, and took off at a canter heading towards the city gates, where the traders were now quickly packing their carts and streaming away in a steady column southwards.
Finding Xectloth would be no hard task, for if his life among mercenaries had taught him one thing, it was that mercenaries, given free time and enough to drink, became boisterous and belligerent. All he would need do is follow the sounds of heartily sung lewd songs and brawling.