1,152 words
The Fire of Crom
Prologue:
Crom, the chief God of the Cimmerians, sat on the dark cloud wreathed wind whipped summit of his great craggy mountain and looked out upon the world.
A gloomy, savage deity--useless it was to pray to him, for he hated weaklings, and answered all prayers with dooms and death-- he granted a man naught but strength, courage and the will to slay his enemies yet he did not ignore the world of men, and oft turned his one good eye on those who honored him with their brave and bloody deeds, and in this there was none who did better in his sight than Conan the Cimmerian.
And so Crom did look out, across the savage Cimmerian lands, and the Bossonian Marches and Gundlerland to the land of Aquilonia and Tarantia, that nation's capital, and he did peer into a murky den of iniquity in that fabulous city's red light district.
The reputation of The Drunken Ass as a house of unparalleled debauchery was unsurpassed by any other in all the Hyborian nations. Decent Tarantians shunned it like the plague and the City's guards would enter only in force. It was said that there a woman's virtue could be had for a farthing and a man's throat slit for a song.
Dyonoso the Gluttonous was the owner and proprietor of that fleshpot by light of day, and by night was Lord of the Tarantian Underworld. This night he was engaged in negotiations of a dubious nature that were about to turn sour.
"Five gold coins"?" the swarthy ruffian known as Zangaros bellowed at him. "A mere five gold coins for a king's ransom in Turanian silks?"
"Perhaps you would prefer to haggle with their rightful owners," sneered the fat man
At once Dyonoso realized he had made an unpardonable error. Zangaros and his three henchmen were Zamorans, princes among thieves and, in trying to play them cheap he had insulted their professional pride in a manner that could be satisfied only with his blood. Zangaros whipped out a wicked blade with and the four started toward him.
"Dog! I'll have your liver on a spit—" the Zamoran snarled.
"Don't be hasty friend," Dyonoso said backing away mopping his brow with a filthy kerchief. "How about ten? Fifteen?"
Suddenly someone stepped between them. A giant of a man wearing tunic of one of King Numedides' mercenary captains. He was no Aquilonian, but barbarian born. A Cimmerian, broad and heavy shouldered, with massive chest and heavy arms.
His huge scarred brown hand rested on the well worn pommel of the broadsword strapped to his side, an unruly mane of black hair hung low on his craggy forehead and his blue eyes, icy as the lands of his birth in the winter, smoldered with an animal's ferocity.
"This is no quarrel of yours," Zangaros said, shrinking back warily.
"I don't give a damn for you or whatever jackal's brew you and this fat pimp are stewing!" the mercenary roared. "But I have come here to slake my thirst with his rotgut wine, laugh at some bawdy ballads and set a buxom wench or two upon my knee. Do as you will with him on the morrow but this night you'll not disturb my peace!"
The toughs hesitated. They were veteran robbers and cutpurses and their instincts told them that a fair fight with the swordsman would result in one or more of their souls screaming on the red-hot floors of Hell.
"On the morrow then," Zangaros mumbled and they turned slunk out the front door.
"May the Gods always smile on you," Dyonoso said, grabbing Conan's hand and slobbering kisses on it. "May you marry and have many sons! May—"
"The Devil take you!" the Cimmerian snarled, snatching his hand away. He plopped down in a chair at a vacant table and pounded on it with a massive ham like fist "Wine, damn you! Would you that I die of thirst?"
"Devils take me if I don't!" Dyonoso said. "Bucephera! Drink for friend Conan here! I say, you weren't serious about not caring what they did with me-- "
The serving wench came just then with a wooden tray bearing a goblet of wine so huge it would make three men drunk. Conan swept it up and emptied it with a gulp. "Shut up and keep it flowing or I'll skewer you myself!"
When indoors Conan always sat so that he faced the entrance to a building. He did not know that his back was to an unguarded rear window or that the Zamorans had circled around the building and entered through it to take him from behind--and had he been born in civilized climes, they might have.
The giant Cimmerian possessed the instincts of a cornered tiger. As Zangaros plunged dagger down at his broad back Conan threw himself to the side so that the blade sliced ought but air. Leaping to his feet with catlike agility the Cimmerian brought his empty wine goblet down on the man's skull, crushing it like an eggshell, then, all in one lightning move, he grabbed the table, overturned it, swept it into the path of the remaining three thugs and drew his broadsword.
Propelled by their own momentum they tumbled into the room and fell over the table. Before they could right themselves Conan had bounded over it and was among them slashing stabbing like a man possessed and he did not stop until all the Zamorans were down; one moaning and clutching a blood spurting stump where his arm had been, another's staring with dead eyes at his gashed belly and his guts spilling out across his splayed legs, and the last lying cloven almost in twain, slashed clean through the left shoulder almost to his waist.
"Mitra and Set," hissed Dyonoso. "Never have I seen such slaying! Never have I--"
"Stow it you fat pig," snarled Conan, wiping off his blade on the shirt of one of the slain thieves. "I'll wager with this night's work I've saved you a pretty penny. I'll take my payment in food, drink and the attentions of your finest hussies if you please!"
Dyonoso called for more wine, a rack of beef and two women for Conan, and for some lackeys to drag the dead thugs out and toss them in the gutter
When the carnage began most of the patrons of the Drunken Ass had rushed for the doors and were only now trickling back—save for one, a tall white haired and white bearded stranger in a gray cloak who had calmly kept his seat throughout the bloody affray.
Dyonoso's customers tended to mind their own business--they found it healthier to do so--so none asked him why, nor did any ask whither he was bound when he paid for his fare and walked out of The Drunken Ass into the night.