The Conan Chronology

by J. R. Karlsson

  A bar of blue fire burst from the chest of the black-robed sorcerer, tearing his robe asunder, to connect him with the great golden god-demon. In unison their screams rose, Amanar's and Morath-Aminee's, higher, higher, drilling the brain, boring into bone and gristle. Then Amanar was a living statue of blue fire, but screaming still, and the great golden form of Morath-Aminee was awash with blue flame for all that length stretching into infinity. And that scream, too, continued, a sibilant shriek in the mind, wrenching !t the soul.

  The man's cry ended, and Conan looked up to find that Amanar was gone, leaving but a few greasy ashes and a small pool of molten metal. But Morath-Aminee still burned, and now the great blue flaming form thrashed in its agony. It thrashed, and the mountains trembled.

  Cracks opened across the ceiling of the room, and the floor tilted and pitched like a ship in a storm at sea. Fighting to maintain his balance, Conan hurried to the black marble altar, beneath the very burning form of the god-demon in its death-throes. Velita was unconscious. Swiftly the Cimmerian cut her loose and, throwing her naked form across his shoulder, he ran. The ceiling of the sacrificial chamber thundered down as he ran clear, and dirt filled the air of the passage. The mountain shook still, ever more and more violently, twisting, yawing. Conan ran.

  In the keep above, he found madness. Columns fell and dark towers toppled, long gaps were opened in the great outer wall, and in the midst of it all the S'tarra killed anything that moved, including each other.

  The massive Cimmerian ran for the gate, his shimmering blade working its murderous havoc among those S'tarra which dared face him. Behind him Amanar's tower, flame roaring from its top as from a furnace, cracked down one side and fell into a thousand shards of obsidian stone. The ground shook like a mad thing as Conan fought to the gate.

  The portcullis stood open, and as Conan started through, the lissome dancing girl still suspended across his broad shoulder, the barbican door burst open. Haranides hurried out, tulwar in hand and dark face bloodied, followed by half a dozen men in Zamoran armour.

  'I held the gate for a time,' he shouted above the din of earthquake and slaughter, 'but then it was all we could do to keep from being shaken into jelly. At least the accursed lizards became too busy killing each other to pay us any mind. What madness has taken them?'

  'No time!' Conan shouted back. 'Run, before the mountain comes down on us.'

  They pounded down the ramp as the barbican and portcullis collapsed in a heap of rubble.

  The floor of the valley was a charnel house, the ground soaked with blood and the moans of the dying filling the air. Savagely hacked S'tarra lay tangled with bleeding hillmen corpses in a hideous carpet, here and there dotted with the body of a bandit. From the mountains around, despite the trembling of the earth, the sounds of battle floated, as those who fled the horror of the keep and the valley fought still.

  Conan saw Hordo near the bandit campsite, sitting beside Karela's crumpled red-striped pavilion as if nothing had happened. With Velita still dangling over his shoulder, the Cimmerian stopped before the one-eyed brigand. Haranides, having left his men a short distance back, stood to one side. Rock slides rumbled loudly as the earth still shook. But at least, Conan thought, the death screams of the god-demon had faded from his mind.

  'Did you find her, Hordo?' he asked as quietly as the noise would allow. They were in the safest spot there, so far as the earthquake was concerned, well away from the danger of the mountain coming down on them.

  'She's gone,' Hordo replied sadly. 'Dead, I don't know, gone.'

  'Will you search for her?'

  Hordo shook his head. 'After this shaking I could search for years and not find her if she was right under my nose. No, I'm for Turan, and a caravan guard's life, unless I can find an agreeable widow who owns a tavern. Come with me, Conan. I've about two coppers, but we can sell the girl and live off that for a while.'

  'Not this girl,' Conan replied. 'I promised to set her free, and I will.'

  'A strange oath,' Haranides said, 'but then you're a strange man, Cimmerian, though I like you for it.

  Look you, having decided there's no point to going back to Shadizar to lose my head, I, too, am going to Turan, with Resaro and such other few of my men as survived. Yildiz dreams of empire. He's hiring mercenaries. What I am trying to say is, join us.'

  'I cannot,' Conan laughed, 'for I'm neither soldier, nor guard, nor tavern keeper. I'm a thief.' He studied his surroundings. Half of the black keep was covered beneath a mound ripped from the side of the mountains. The tremors had lessened too, till a man could stand with ease, and walk without too much difficulty. 'And as I'm a thief,' he finished, 'I think it's time for me to steal some horses before the hillmen decide to return.'

  The reminder of the hillmen stirred them all to action. Quick farewells were said, and the three parted ways.

  Epilogue

  Conan walked his mount back up the hill to where Velita sat her own horse, watching the caravan make ready to move below on the route to Sultanpur. This was the caravan that had been spoken of, the big caravan that would drive through despite those that had disappeared. It stretched out of sight along the winding path that led through the pass. Conan did not believe they would have any trouble at all.

  'Your passage is booked,' he told Velita. She was swathed in white cotton from head to foot. It was a cool way to dress for travel in the hot sun, and they had decided it was best she not advertise her beauty until she got to Sultanapur. 'I gave the caravan master a gold piece extra to look after you, and a threat to find him later should anything untoward befall.'

  'I still don't understand how you have the money for my way,' she said. 'I seem to recall waking just enough to hear you tell a one-eyed man that you had no money.'

  'This,' Conan said, pressing a purse into her hands, 'I took from Amanar's chamber. Eighteen gold pieces left, after your passage. If I had told the others of it-and I didn't lie, Velita, I just didn't tell them-they'd likely have wanted a share. I'd have had to kill them to keep it for you, and I liked them too much for that.'

  'You are a strange man, Conan of Cimmeria,' she said softly. She leaned forward to brush her lips delicately against his. Holding her breath, she waited.

  Conan brought his hand down on her horse's rump with a loud slap. 'Fare you well, Velita,' he shouted as her horse galloped toward the caravan. 'And I am likely a thrice-accursed idiot,' he added to himself.

  He turned his horse down the caravan, on the way that would lead him west out of the Kezankians into Zamora. He now had about enough coppers left for two jacks of sour wine when he got back to Abuletes.

  'Conan!'

  He pulled his horse around at the hail. It seemed to come from a slave coffle. The caravan contained sorts that would have formed their own if not for the fear of those caravans that had disappeared. As he rode closer, he began to laugh.

  The slaver had arranged his male and female slaves separately, to avoid trouble. The women knelt naked in the slight shade of a long strip of cotton, linked to the coffle line by neck chains. And kneeling in the centre of that line was Karela.

  As he reined in before her, she leaped to her feet, her lightly sunburned breasts swaying. 'Buy me out of here, Conan. We can go back and take what we want of Amanar's treasure. The hillmen will have gone by now, and I doubt they'll want anything of his.'

  Conan mentally counted the coppers in his purse again, and thought of an oath extracted not too many days before. Oaths were serious business. 'How came you here, Karela? Hordo thought you dead.'

  'Then he's all right? Good. My tale is a strange one. I awoke in Amanar's keep, feeling as if I had had a monstrous nightmare, to find an earthquake shaking the mountains down, hillmen attacking and the S'tarra gone mad. It was almost as if my nightmare had come true.'

  'Not quite,' Conan murmured. He was thankful she did not remember. At least she was spared that.

  'Speak on.'

  'I got a sword,' she said, 'though not mine. I couldn
't find it. I regret losing that greatly, and I hope we find it when we go back. In any case, I fought my way out of the keep, through a break in the wall, but before I could reach the camp that fool sword broke. It wasn't good steel, Conan. I stole a horse then, but hillmen chased me south, away from the valley. I was almost to the caravan route before I lost them.'

  She shook her head ruefully.

  'But that doesn't explain how you ended up here,' he said.

  'Oh, I was paying so much heed to getting away from the hillmen that I forgot to mind where I was going.

  I rode right into half a dozen of this slaver's guards, and five minutes later I was tied across my own horse.' She tried to manage a self-deprecating laugh, but it sounded strange and forced.

  'In that case,' Conan said, 'any magistrate will free you on proof of identity, proof that you aren't actually a slave.'

  Her voice dropped, and she looked carefully at the women on either side of her to see if they listened.

  'Be not a fool, Conan! Prove who I am to a magistrate, and he'll send my head to Shadizar to decorate a pike. Now, Derketo take you, buy me free!'

  To his surprise, she suddenly dropped back to her kneeling position. He looked around and found the reason: the approach of a plump man with thin, waxed mustaches and a gold ring in his left ear with a ruby the size of his little fingernail.

  'Good morrow,' the fellow said, bowing slightly to Conan. 'I see you have chosen one of my prettiest.

  Kneel up, girl. Shoulders back. Shoulders back, I say.' Red-faced and darting angry glances at Conan, Karela shifted to the required position. The plump man beamed as if she were a prime pupil.

  'I know not,' Conan said slowly.

  Karela frowned in his direction, and the slave dealer suddenly ran a thoughtful eye over the Cimmerian's worn and ragged clothes. The plump man opened his mouth, then a second glance at the breadth of Conan's shoulders and the length of his sword made the slaver modify his words.

  'In truth, the girl is quite new, and she'll be cheap. I maintain my repu- tation by selling nothing without letting the buyer know everything there is to know. Now, I've had this girl but two days, and already she has tried to escape twice and nearly had a guard's sword once.' Conan was watching Karela from the corner of his eye. At this she straightened pridefully, almost into the pose the slave dealer had demanded.

  'On the other hand, all that was the first day' Karela's cheeks began to colour. 'A good switching after each, longer and harder each time, and she's been a model since.' Her face was bright scarlet. 'But I thought I should tell you the good and the bad.'

  'I appreciate that,' Conan said. 'What disposition do you intend to make of her in Sultanapur?' Her green eyes searched his face at that.

  'A zenana,' the slaver said promptly. 'She's too pretty for the work market, too fine for a bordello, not fine enough for Yildiz, neither a singer nor a dancer, though she knows dances she denied knowing. So, a zenana to warm some stout merchant's bed, eh?' He laughed, but Conan did not join in.

  'Conan,' Karela said in a strangled whisper, 'please.'

  'She knows you,' the plump slaver said in surprise. 'You'll want to buy her, then?'

  'No,' Conan said. Karela and the slaver stared at him in consternation.

  'Have you been wasting my time?' the slaver demanded. 'Do you even have the money for this girl?'

  'I do,' Conan answered hotly. He reflected that a lie to a slaver was not truly a lie, but now there was no way to let Karela know the entire truth of the matter. 'But I swore an oath not to help this woman, not to raise a hand for her.'

  'No, Conan,' Karela moaned. 'Conan, no!'

  'A strange oath,' the slaver said, 'but I understand such things. Still, with those breasts she'll fetch a fair price in Sultanapur.'

  'Conan!' Karela's green eyes pleaded, and her voice was a breathy gasp. 'Conan, I release you from your oath.'

  'Some people,' the Cimmerian said, 'don't realise that an oath made before gods is particularly binding.

  It's even possible the breaking of such an oath is the true reason she finds herself kneeling in your coffle.'

  'Possibly,' the slaver said vaguely, losing interest now that the chance of a sale was gone.

  Karela reached out to pluck at Conan's stirrup leather. 'You can't do this to me, Conan. Get me out of here. Get me out of here!'

  Conan backed his horse away from the naked red-head. 'Fare you well, Karela,' he said regretfully.

  'Much do I wish that things could have ended better between us.'

  As he rode on down the caravan her voice rose behind him. 'Derketo take you, you Cimmerian oaf!

  Come back and buy me! I release you! Conan, I release you! Derketo blast your eyes, Conan! Conan! Conan!'

  As her cries and the caravan faded behind him, Conan sighed. Truly he did not like to see her left in chains. If he had had the money, or if there had not been the oath .... Still, he could not entirely suppress a small tinge of satisfaction. Perhaps she would learn that the proper response for a man saving her life was neither to have him pegged out on the ground nor to abandon him to a sorcerer's dungeon without so much as a glimmer of a protest. An he knew Karela, though, no zenana would hold her for long. Half a year or so, and the Red Hawk would be free to soar again.

  As for himself, he thought, he was in as fine a position as a man could ask for. Four coppers in his pouch and the whole wide world in front of him. And there were always the haunted treasures of Larsha. With a laugh he kicked his horse into a trot for Shadizar.

  The Hall of the Dead

  Robert E. Howard & L. Sprague de Camp

  The gorge was dark, although the setting sun had left a band of orange and yellow and green along the western horizon. Against this band of colour, a sharp eye could still discern, in black silhouette, the domes and spires of Shadizar the Wicked, the city of dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery—the capital of Zamora.

  As the twilight faded, the first few stars appeared overhead. As if answering a signal, lights winked on in the distant domes and spires.

  While the light of the stars was pale and wan, that of the windows of Shadizar was a sultry amber, with a hint of abominable deeds.

  The gorge was quiet save for the chirping of nocturnal insects.

  Presently, however, this silence was broken by the sound of moving men.

  Up the gorge came a squad of Zamorian soldiers—five men in plain steel caps and leather jerkins, studded with bronze buttons, led by an officer in a polished bronze cuirass and a helmet with a towering horsehair crest. Their bronze-greaved legs swished through the long, lush grass that covered the floor of the gorge. Their harness creaked and their weapons clanked and tinkled. Three of them bore bows and the other two, pikes; short swords hung at their sides and bucklers were slung across their backs. The officer was armed with a long sword and a dagger.

  One of the soldiers muttered: 'If we catch this Conan fellow alive, what will they do with him?'

  'Send him to Yezud to feed to the spider god, I'll warrant,' said another. 'The question is, shall we be alive to collect that reward they promised us?'

  'Not afraid of him, are you?' said a third.

  'Me?' The second speaker snorted. 'I fear naught, including death itself. The question is, whose death? This thief is not a civilised man but a wild barbarian, with the strength of ten. So I went to the magistrate to draw up my will—'

  'It is cheering to know that your heirs will get the reward,' said another. 'I wish I had thought of that.'

  'Oh,' said the first man who had spoken, 'they'll find some excuse to cheat us of the reward, even if we catch the rascal.'

  'The prefect himself has promised,' said another. 'The rich merchants and nobles whom Conan has been robbing raised a fund. I saw the money—a bag so heavy with gold that a man could scarce lift it. After all that public display, they'd not dare to go back on their word.'

  'But suppose we catch him not,' said the second speaker. 'There was some
thing about paying for it with our heads.' The speaker raised his voice. 'Captain Nestor! What was that about our heads—'

  'Hold your tongues, all of you!' snapped the officer. 'You can be heard as far as Arenjun. If Conan is within a mile, he'll be warned. Cease your chatter, and try to move without so much clangor.'

  The officer was a broad-shouldered man of medium height and powerful build; daylight would have shown his eyes to be grey and his hair light brown, streaked with grey. He was a Gunderman, from the northernmost province of Aquilonia, fifteen hundred miles to the west. His mission—to take Conan dead or alive—troubled him. The prefect had warned him that, if he failed, he might expect severe punishment—perhaps even the headsman's block. The king himself had demanded that the outlaw be taken, and the king of Zamora had a short way with servants who failed their missions. A tip from the underworld had revealed that Conan was seen heading for this gorge earlier that day, and Nestor's commander had hastily dis patched him with such troopers as could be found in the barracks.

  Nestor had no confidence in the soldiers that trailed behind him. He considered them braggarts who would flee in the face of danger, leaving him to confront the barbarian alone. And, although the Gunderman was a brave man, he did not deceive himself about his chances with this ferocious, gigantic young savage. His armour would give him no more than a slight edge.

  As the glow in the western sky faded, the darkness deepened and the walls of the gorge became narrower, steeper, and rockier. Behind Nestor, the men began to murmur again:

  'I like it not. This road leads to the ruins of Larsha the Accursed, where the ghosts of the ancients lurk to devour passers-by. And in that city, 'tis said, lies the Hall of the Dead—'

  'Shut up!' snarled Nestor, turning his head. 'If—'

  At that instant, the officer tripped over a rawhide rope stretched across the path and fell sprawling in the grass. There was the snap of a spring pole released from its lodgment, and the rope went slack.