Conan the Savage

by Leonard Carpenter

  “It is a rogue, a lone beast in its prime,” Aklak breathed to the others. “No family group, no easy kills... this will be a hunt to remember.”

  His whisper was drowned by a near-explosive wrenching and tearing of living wood as the tree-eater had its irresistible way; half of the trunk that it had been mauling split and twisted aside, buckling to earth amid billowing foliage. This brought Yugwubwa’s forequarters back down into view: the bony, muscle-wedged torso, the nearly non-existent neck, and the long, broad, ugly head. The latter appendage was armour-plated, with six irregularly shaped horns paired along its length from tufted, mule-like ears to wet, snorting nostrils.

  Those horns, some sharply hooked and some blunt or mushroom-tipped, were undoubtedly useful for snapping and levering the limbs off trees. Their bases were flattened and joined into an ungainly, elongated plate from beneath which blinked the beast’s small pig-eyes. Its broad lips formed a splay-toothed, thick-tongued muzzle that flexed greedily to fold in sheaves and bundles of foliage, twigs, branches, and strips of peeled, curling bark.

  “Beware,” Aklak murmured to Conan as they crept up behind. “Yugwubwa is easily angered.”

  Conan said nothing, concentrating on picking his way quietly through broken, scattered foliage. It might have been opportune to attack while the creature was occupied so high up in the ruined tree; now that its forelegs were back on the ground, it could turn and discover them the moment they moved too far from cover. It devoured the greenery ravenously, yet the continuous twitches of its short, tufted tail suggested wary irritability.

  “Our best tactic is to wound it,” Aklak continued, “then hunt it back toward the main party. For that, we need a pair of strong spear-casters at the fore.” His hand rested briefly on Conan’s muscular shoulder, indicating his choice. “May the badger-spirit watch over us.”

  While the others edged through foliage at either side of the broken path, Conan followed Aklak forward, ducking from shattered stump to sagging limb. The noise of the monster’s feeding was truly cataclysmic; its stench would have seemed much worse had the stalkers not already been pasted with it. Dropping to all fours and advancing at a crawl, the two advanced within spear-cast of the brute’s scraggly hindquarters.

  Slowly and lithely, Aklak rose to a crouch. Conan waited for him to poise for a throw, or else make some commotion to turn the beast around. But the latter proved unnecessary, since a wild orbit of one of the monster’s eyes caught their movement. With a braying snort and a swift, tumultuous thrashing of foliage, the creature half-turned to face the intruders, bracing its mighty legs and swinging its head for a charge.

  The Atupan’s spear-cast was swift and fluid, with Conan’s weapon hurtling close behind. The Cimmerian aimed for the leathery expanse of throat that looked softest and most flexible, but his point stuck instead in the hairy musculature of the monster’s breast. Aklak’s spear, aimed fairly for the eye or snout, glanced off one of the foremost, smallest horns of the oscillating head, its stone point shattering on impact.

  Whether the weapon’s force was enough even to make its victim sneeze was doubtful. Conan’s shaft was snapped off by an angry swipe of one fore claw; yet the stub-end hanging in the creature’s chest must have remained an irritant, as indicated by Yugwubwa’s sudden, trumpeting bray and furious forward lunge.

  “Conan, stay clear!” Songa’s slightly panicky cry rang from the forest.

  The two stalkers retained one spear each. Yet further throws were impossible as the monster lunged at them, kicking up log splinters and shattered limbs before it. The two men’s weapons instead served them as balance poles to help them cross the littered ground, racing and scurrying to keep ahead of the enraged monster. Hearing more cries from either side, they glanced over their shoulders and saw spears hurled by their comrades—but without any visible effect on great Yugwubwa. The infuriated beast did not noticeably falter or turn aside; once its attention was fixed on them, it followed relentlessly on their track, its rhythmic snorts battering at their eardrums, its ponderous gait shaking the turf of the meadow under their feet.

  “What of your plan?” Conan panted to his brother-in-law as they broke into open meadowland. “Is this what you call driving the beast into a trap?”

  “It is well,” Aklak gasped. “Just lead him back the way we came. Yugwubwa is slow and lumbering, with his heavy horns and short hind legs. If he decides to give up the chase, jab him some more with your spear!”

  The notion was laughable in view of the beast’s furious, plunging pursuit, even across the open ground. Its charge was as fierce and reckless, to Conan’s recollection, as that of an armoured homnose of Kush—a shade slower perhaps, hut also harder to dodge because of Yugwubwa’s tree-grappling nimbleness. The two spearmen were given scant opportunity to pace themselves for a long run, much less to turn and fight the menace that slavered at their heels. In swift, backward glances, Conan saw his five companions, with the exception of Songa, fall progressively farther behind. It was understandable, he allowed—since their steps weren’t hastened by the imminent prospect of being crushed or champed alive by Yugwubwa’s straining horns and teeth.

  Crossing the plain from an unfamiliar angle, with dung-tainted sweat smarting in his eyes and the friction of dry air scorching his throat, Conan could not determine exactly the way they had come. Aklak seemed to know the terrain, so Conan stayed near him. Before them spread a patchy expanse of brush—potentially a dangerous snare for the fugitives, though it was unlikely to trouble their giant pursuer. It might, at any rate, provide cover; against his best judgement, Conan paced Aklak as he ran in between the stands of shrub.

  The bushes forced the two a little way apart. It was Conan whom the monster followed, and as he feared, undergrowth soon hampered his steps. The chest-high foliage necessitated costly turns and leaps for Conan, while it only magnified the behemoth’s progress with crashings and thunderings ever closer behind. Ahead, abruptly, there loomed a tangled hedge of flowering bushes Conan must either crash or slither through; holding his spear level, he ducked his head and dove into it—

  —only to see the land fell away before him. Darting out an arm, he grabbed hold of a-bush stem that promptly sagged downward, suspending him over the rim of a gully. Immediately overhead, the pursuing monster thundered, its speed carrying it far enough outward to miss Conan and strike the farther bank. Tumbling hom-over-hoof, it landed at the bottom with a bleat of stunned rage.

  From nearby, Aklak uttered a triumphant howl, waving his bannered spear aloft to summon the others. Conan, meanwhile, clambered nimbly to escape Yugwubwa; his feet slid on loose earth as the beast hurled itself up the low embankment. By clawing at shrubbery, the huntsman dragged himself free even as chisel blows of the monster’s horns and claws tore loose a small avalanche behind him.

  The Atupans, it seemed, had planned for this outcome and had fanned out along the gullies bordering the plateau. Now they came hurrying along the rim of the ravine, bearing logs and stones to hurl down on their quarry, and fresh spears to harry it with.

  “Conan, my mate! How I feared for you and Aklak!” Songa was at his side, embracing him as he regained his breath. “I put a spear into the monster’s flank, but it did not even slow him!” Brandishing the stone-headed spear she still carried, she peered down through the broad gap in the brush whence snorting and pawing sounds issued.

  “I will kill the devil yet, I swear it by all the nature-spirits!”

  “We must slay it soon,” Aklak affirmed, “before it finds its way out of the ravine. Stay near Yugwubwa,” he called out to the others, ‘ ‘and spear him when he tries to climb up!”

  The advice was easily given, yet it was no simple matter for one or two hunters, standing atop the shallow declivity, to drive back the frantic lunges of the trapped beast. The face it showed to its tormentors, for one thing, was a horrific one: slavering and splay-tusked, with curling snout, writhing purple tongue, and red, beady eyes gyrating beneath thick armour ridges. Sur
mounting it all, the bony crest of jagged horns could easily shatter spears; they might also hook a man and grind him to giblets if they caught him unwary. Luckily, the banks of the ravine were made of loose earth that crumbled away beneath the monster’s massive weight, providing it with no solid footholds.

  Fortunate it was, too, that Yugwubwa had a fierce temper, and hurled itself at the Atupans again and again in slavering rage. Otherwise, it might easily have followed the ravine out to the level plain, where the hunters would have been even less a match for it.

  “Come, Yugwubwa! Try and bite me! I’ll poke you in the eye!” Youths eager to earn fame goaded Yugwubwa, while the more seasoned hunters waited for the beast to turn aside and afford them a heart-thrust. Some few cast spears down into the pit; but even those weapons that struck the thick, jointed hide did not pierce it deeply. They were scraped off and forgotten because of the creature’s restless, violent movements in the narrow space.

  Glubal, trying to jab the hairy fiend in the neck, made the mistake of standing too close to the gully’s crumbling edge. He tumbled in with the monster, his fighting-yell changing to a terrified shriek; moments later he was tossed out by Yugwubwa’s flailing horns. His limp body twisted high overhead, to land with a crash in a flower-bush and slide brokenly to earth.

  “Demon! Man-killer! Come taste my spear, foul Yugwubwa!” Songa, having run some distance along the gully to a stone outcrop that gave her a vantage over the beast, now waved and gesticulated to attract it. Her sharp cries and frantic motions succeeded; as the monster snorted and turned, Conan ran along the rim to join her.

  “Here, tree-eater! Come and try to crack my limbs! Peel my bark, you lumbering clump!” Kneeling on the stone overhang, Songa bent forward and jabbed with her spear, which clashed and scraped against the homed mantle of the lunging, straining creature. The beast blatted in rage; it tried to catch and crush the spear point between its nose-horns and the pale, chalky stone buttress. But the woman was too deft, driving her weapon instead at the creature’s ear and starting a trickle of blood down Yugwubwa’s dusty flank.

  Most of the others, moving closer to the fight, raised a cheer at this. But Conan saw a danger that his mate could not: the prey-beast, ever wily and treacherous, was butting and clawing at the cliff side beneath the overhanging stone where its tormentress stood.

  “Songa, be careful—”

  Conan’s warning came too late. As he watched, the pale stone ledge, really just an embedded rock slab, began to shift and settle toward the monster’s raking, scrabbling clutch. Songa turned and sprang for level ground, vaulting across her spear-pole, but earth and stones slumping in the boulder’s wake slipped loosely and bore her downward. Grasping and lighting for balance, silent and earnest, she disappeared into the dust cloud rising from beneath Yugwubwa’s trundling feet.

  “Aiaa!” Conan, in a reflex born of inarticulate rage, felt his shoulder spasm and his arm lash powerfully. His spear, its hide banner trailing, hurtled through air to strike the brute’s back just behind the foreleg. It lodged there, loose in the muscle-slabbed flesh, giving rise to only a small, spreading bloodstain; the monster responded with a mere sidelong toss of its horns and a snort of irritation.

  Conan, meanwhile, cast about frenziedly for another weapon. Sliding down the lip of the ravine, he seized hold of a pointed chunk of rock and dragged it loose from the earthen wall. Clutching it in two hands, he bounded out along the broken slope to a jagged fin of soil that protruded over the prey. Once there, careless of the spears flying down to strike the monster, he launched himself out into space and onto Yugwubwa’s back.

  He landed with a grunt across the knobby spine, near the place where a more graceful creature would have had a neck. Clinging tight with knees and elbows, using embedded Atupan spears as footholds, he worked himself astride the massive back. Then, wielding the pointed rock in both hands, he began battering at the plate of bony armour and the heavily corded muscles just behind Yugwubwa’s eye-ridges and rearmost horns.

  The beast’s reaction was to lunge and toss, braying and snorting raucously while trying to dislodge the intruder from its back. Try as it might, it could not arch its mushroom-shaped horns around far enough to reach its own nape; instead, lurching sideways with scuffing steps, it rammed and scraped the gully wall in an effort to grind its attacker to pulp. But vainly, for the slope was not steep enough. Clinging tight with his knees, Conan continued to club and jab with his chisel-pointed weapon.

  He strove desperately, clinging and pounding in frantic hatred while his skin dripped sweat and his nostrils sucked in the animal’s dusty reek. Then, to his joy, he saw that Songa still lived, plying her spear agilely somewhere beyond Yugwubwa’s flailing horns and fore-claws. Now other Atupans—reluctant, perhaps, to cast their spears down from long range and risk striking their hunt-mates—were clambering into the gully to harry the beast from its walls, or even from the level bottom. And the monster’s reactions appeared different to Conan now. They were more scattered against the threats from all sides, with what sounded like a note of plaintive confusion in the thunderous bellows.

  All at once, striking savagely with his stone bludgeon, Conan felt something give. Blinking amid stinging dust, he saw bright-purplish blood well up from a spot at the edge of Yugwubwa’s bony head-plate. A sudden impulse seized him: abandoning the stone chunk, letting it slide away down the sloping back, he reached behind him to one of the spears that lolled in the monster’s thick hide. A tug and a sharp twist were sufficient to dislodge it. Then, digging its point into the oozing wound, he gripped the shaft two-handed and bore down with all his strength. The effort, aided by an upward toss of Yugwubwa’s convulsing back, was successful; the stone leaf-blade sank in a hands-breadth and more, meeting small resistance once it was past the tough hide and fractured horn.

  That same instant, the monster’s bleatings took on a choking, rasping tone. Looking down, Conan saw Songa clinging heroically to her bucking, tossing spear shaft—which must, he realized, be lodged deep in Yugwubwa’s throat.

  Whatever the cause, their quarry had stopped fighting; it reeled, its legs faltering beneath its vast weight. It lurched sideways, fetching up against the gully wall with a slapping thud. Then it slid to earth and lay motionless, surrendering without even enough violence to dislodge the enemy who clung to its back.

  Beneath him, Conan felt deep tremors and a shuddering heave: massive heartbeats, he slowly understood, and the breath of Yugwubwa. As he crouched there listening, they gradually ceased.

  About him in the gully bottom, there reigned a wary silence. Then, all at once, a plaintive cry sounded. The wailing, mournful voice promptly became a chorus.

  “Yugwubwa is dead! Oh, pity! Alas!”

  “Our great friend of the forest, the Eater of Trees, is no more!”

  “We are sorry, dear friend, for your misfortune!” This last voice, Conan dimly grasped, was Songa’s.

  “How sad for us all—oh, sorrowful day!”

  The moans and laments rained down on all sides now, from cliff top, slope, and canyon bottom. Conan, suddenly impatient, arose and jumped down from the hulking corpse. “What in Crom’s name is all this blubbering for?” He made the demand of his mate, who stood near Yugwubwa’s snout with her hands respectfully clasped together. “This stinking brute is finally murdered, and you’re still alive— and a hero, to boot! Why must you mourn and carry on so?” “But Conan, do you not see? It is a terrible loss, a tragedy! A cherished Mend is gone this day, a great heart has been stilled—”

  “River-man has a point, after all,” Aklak spoke up abruptly. “My sister is now a great hero, indeed. And none of us died in the hunt—not many, anyway. Our tribe will have a great feast, and food for the coming winter! It is a time for rejoicing!”

  “Yes, rejoice!” Now this cry was taken up along the cliff top and spread through the canyon.

  “We have food. Yugwubwa is dead!”

  “Songa is a hero!”

  The mo
od of the hunters abruptly changed to what Conan would first have expected, with backslapping, frolicking, and excited pummelling of the huge carcass. Even Glubal appeared on the cliff top, grinning and waving excitedly— though from a prone position, having presumably dragged his broken nether limbs behind him.

  With ritual celebration, a cup was brought forward and held to the spear wound in Yugwubwa’s throat. The hunters, beginning with Songa, were allowed to drink the steaming blood of their slaughtered prey.

  Then, to everyone’s delight, more faces appeared on the cliff top. The rest of the tribe, moving far slower than the hunters and bringing with them appliances for food preparation, had followed on their track. They descended into the ravine, and the butchery of the fallen beast became a festival. The hide was stripped and cut into usable shapes, teeth and tusks were extracted, and long fillets of meat were removed and staked out in the noon sun to dry. Fires were built and carefully maintained, with choice parts of Yugwubwa set out roasting and smoking on an array of racks and spits; Water vessels, too, were filled from a nearby stream, with an ample supply made available for necessary washing and boiling. The hunters were even able, with the many hands present, to turn over the massive carcass so that the meat on the bottom side was not wasted.

  As it happened, the tribe did not return to its former camp. The Elder Council decreed that it was time to move, so only a few small parties were sent back to strip the village of its remaining portables and put the place in order. Several nights were spent at the site of the kill. Then the tribe, burdened down with its fresh provisions, moved downriver to a new camp, a lower and more southerly one that promised good hunting and milder weather as leaf-fall approached. Conan and Songa shared the labour of carrying their belongings, bound up in a litter between two padded spear-poles they alternately rested on their shoulders or slung in their hands.