BEYOND THE BLACK RIVER

[Transcriber's Note: This text was first published in Weird Tales in May and June 1935. Extensive research found no evidence that the U.S. copyright for this publication was renewed.]

The quiet of the forest trail felt so ancient that the sound of a soft-booted footfall was a shocking interruption. At least that’s how it seemed to the traveler, even though he was moving cautiously along the path, which anyone would do when venturing beyond Thunder River. He was a young man of average height, with an open face and a messy mop of light brown hair that wasn’t held back by a cap or helmet. His clothing was typical for that area—a rough tunic belted at the waist, short leather pants underneath, and soft buckskin boots that stopped just below the knee. The hilt of a knife peeked out from one boot-top. His wide leather belt held a short, heavy sword and a buckskin pouch. There was no anxiety in his wide eyes as they scanned the green walls lining the trail. Though not tall, he was well-built, and the arms left bare by the short, wide sleeves of the tunic were thick with muscle.

He walked steadily along, even though the last settler's cabin was miles behind him, and each step brought him closer to the dark danger that loomed like a heavy shadow over the old forest.

He wasn't making as much noise as he thought he was, even though he knew that the soft sound of his booted feet would be a serious warning to any fierce ears that might be hiding in the dangerous green thicket. His relaxed demeanor wasn't true; his eyes and ears were intensely alert, especially his ears, since no sight could see through the leafy maze for more than a few feet in either direction.

But it was more of an instinct than any warning from his surroundings that made him stop suddenly, his hand on his weapon. He stood frozen in the middle of the path, unconsciously holding his breath, questioning what he had heard, and wondering if he had heard anything at all. The silence felt complete. Not a single squirrel chattered or bird chirped. Then his eyes locked onto a cluster of bushes a few yards ahead of him. There was no wind, yet he saw a branch shake. The hair on his neck stood up, and for a moment he hesitated, convinced that any movement in either direction would result in death charging at him from the bushes.

A loud chopping sound came from behind the leaves. The bushes shook violently, and at the same time, an arrow flew out in a wild arc from among them and disappeared into the trees along the path. The traveler caught sight of its flight as he hurriedly dove for cover.

Crouching behind a thick stem, his sword shaking in his fingers, he watched as the bushes parted and a tall figure stepped casually onto the trail. The traveler stared in surprise. The stranger was dressed like him in terms of boots and pants, though the latter were made of silk instead of leather. But he wore a sleeveless hauberk of dark mesh-mail instead of a tunic, and a helmet rested on his black hair. That helmet caught the other’s attention; it had no crest but was decorated with short bull’s horns. No civilized hand ever crafted that headpiece. Nor was the face beneath it that of a civilized man: dark, scarred, with smoldering blue eyes, it was a face as wild as the ancient forest that served as its backdrop. The man held a broadsword in his right hand, the blade smeared with crimson.

'Come on out,' he called, in an accent the traveler didn't recognize. 'It's all safe now. There was only one dog. Come on out.'

The other stepped out with uncertainty and looked at the stranger. He felt strangely powerless and useless as he took in the size of the forest man—the massive iron chest and the arm that held the bloodstained sword, darkened by the sun and thick with muscles. He moved with the effortless danger of a panther; he was too intensely agile to be a product of civilization, even that outskirts of civilization that made up the outer frontiers.

Turning, he stepped back to the bushes and pulled them apart. Still unsure about what had happened, the traveler from the east moved forward and looked down into the bushes. A man lay there, a short, dark, heavily-muscled guy, naked except for a loincloth, a necklace made of human teeth, and a brass armlet. A short sword was tucked into the waistband of the loincloth, and one hand still held a heavy black bow. The man had long black hair; that was about all the traveler could make out about his head, since his face was a mess of blood and brain matter. His skull had been split wide open.

'A Pict, by the gods!' shouted the traveler.

The fiery blue eyes focused on him.

'Are you shocked?'

'Why, they told me at Velitrium and again at the settlers' cabins along the road that these devils sometimes snuck across the border, but I didn't expect to run into one this far inland.'

'You're just four miles east of Black River,' the stranger told him. 'They were shot within a mile of Velitrium. No settler between Thunder River and Fort Tuscelan is truly safe. I picked up this dog's trail three miles south of the fort this morning, and I've been tracking him ever since. I got to him right as he was about to shoot an arrow at you. One more moment and there would have been a stranger in Hell. But I ruined his shot.'

The traveler was staring in disbelief at the bigger man, shocked by the realization that he had actually found and killed one of the forest-devils without being noticed. That showed an incredible level of skill in the woods, something even Conajohara had never imagined.

'Are you part of the fort's garrison?' he asked.

'I'm not a soldier. I get paid and receive rations like an officer, but my work is in the woods. Valannus knows I'm more useful patrolling along the river than stuck inside the fort.'

Casually, the killer pushed the body further into the bushes with his foot, pulled the branches together, and walked away down the path. The other person followed him.

'My name is Balthus,' he said. 'I was at Velitrium last night. I haven't decided whether to claim a piece of land or join the fort service.'

'The best land near Thunder River is already taken,' grunted the hunter. 'There's a lot of good land between Scalp Creek—you passed it a few miles back—and the fort, but that's getting way too close to the river. The Picts sneak over to burn and kill—as that one did. They don't always come alone. Someday they'll try to drive the settlers out of Conajohara. And they might succeed—probably will succeed. This colonization thing is crazy, anyway. There's plenty of good land east of the Bossonian borders. If the Aquilonians would break up some of the big estates owned by their barons, and plant wheat where only deer are hunted now, they wouldn't have to cross the border and take the Picts' land from them.'

'That's strange talk coming from a man working for the Governor of Conajohara,' Balthus said.

"It's nothing to me," the other replied. "I'm a mercenary. I sell my sword to the highest bidder. I’ve never farmed wheat and never will, as long as there are other battles to be fought with my sword. But you Hyborians have expanded as far as you’re going to. You’ve crossed the borders, burned some villages, wiped out a few clans, and pushed the frontier back to the Black River; but I doubt you’ll even be able to hold what you’ve taken, and you’ll never push the frontier any further west. Your foolish king doesn’t understand the situation here. He won’t send you enough reinforcements, and there aren’t enough settlers to handle the backlash from a coordinated attack across the river."

'But the Picts are separated into small clans,' Balthus insisted. 'They'll never come together. We can defeat any one clan.'

'Or any three or four clans,' the slayer admitted. 'But someday, a man will come along and unite thirty or forty clans, just like what happened with the Cimmerians when the Gundermen tried to push the border north years ago. They attempted to colonize the southern edges of Cimmeria, wiped out a few small clans, and built a fort-town called Venarium—you've heard the story.'

'Yeah, I really did,' Balthus replied, flinching. The memory of that bloody disaster is a dark spot in the history of a proud and warlike people. 'My uncle was at Venarium when the Cimmerians overwhelmed the walls. He was one of the few who managed to escape that massacre. I've heard him tell the story many times. The barbarians came down from the hills in a savage wave, out of nowhere, and attacked Venarium with such rage that no one could resist them. Men, women, and children were slaughtered. Venarium was left as a pile of burnt ruins, just like it is today. The Aquilonians were pushed back across the borders and haven't tried to settle in the Cimmerian lands since then. But you talk about Venarium like you know it well. Were you there?'

'I was,' the other grunted. 'I was one of the crowd that rushed over the hills. I hadn't even seen fifteen winters, but already my name was being spoken around the council fires.'

Balthus instinctively pulled back, staring. It seemed unbelievable that the man walking calmly beside him could have been one of those screaming, blood-crazed monsters that had overwhelmed the walls of Venarium on that distant day, turning its streets red.

'Then you are a barbarian too!' he exclaimed without thinking.

The other nodded, not taking offense.

"I'm Conan, a Cimmerian."

'I've heard of you.' A spark of interest lit up Balthus' eyes. It was no surprise that the Pict had fallen prey to his own kind of cleverness. The Cimmerians were as fierce as the Picts but much smarter. Clearly, Conan had spent a lot of time around civilized people, though that exposure hadn’t dulled him or weakened his natural instincts. Balthus’ unease transformed into respect as he observed Conan's smooth, cat-like stride and the effortless silence with which the Cimmerian navigated the path. The oiled links of his armor didn’t make a sound, and Balthus realized that Conan could move through the thickest underbrush or most tangled brush just as quietly as any bare Pict that ever lived.

'You're not a Gunderman?' It was more of a statement than a question.

Balthus shook his head. "I'm from the Tauran."

'I've seen skilled woodsmen from the Tauran. But the Bossonians have kept you Aquilonians away from the rough wilds for too many centuries. You need to toughen up.'

That was true; the Bossonian marches, with their fortified villages full of determined archers, had long acted as a buffer for Aquilonia against the surrounding barbarians. Now, among the settlers beyond Thunder River, a new kind of forest-dweller was emerging who could compete with the barbarians on their own terms, but they were still few in number. Most of the frontiersmen were like Balthus—more settlers than woodsmen.

The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was out of view, concealed behind the thick forest. The shadows were stretching and growing darker in the woods as the group made their way down the path.

'We'll reach the fort after dark,' Conan said nonchalantly; then: 'Listen!'

He stopped suddenly, crouching slightly, sword drawn, turned into a fierce figure of suspicion and threat, ready to leap and attack. Balthus had heard it too—a wild scream that peaked at its highest note. It was the cry of a man in extreme fear or pain.

Conan took off in an instant, sprinting down the path, each step increasing the gap between him and his struggling companion. Balthus muttered a curse. Among the settlements of the Tauran, he was known as a decent runner, but Conan was effortlessly leaving him behind. Then Balthus forgot his annoyance as he was hit by the most terrifying scream he’d ever heard. This was not human; it sounded like a demonic wail of horrifying victory that seemed to revel in the downfall of humanity and reverberate in dark abysses beyond human understanding.

Balthus stumbled in his pace, sweat forming on his skin. But Conan didn’t hesitate; he quickly turned a corner on the path and vanished. Balthus, feeling frantic at being alone with that terrifying scream still resonating through the forest, pushed himself to run faster and chased after him.

The Aquilonian skidded to a stop, nearly bumping into the Cimmerian who was standing in the path over a crumpled body. But Conan wasn't looking at the corpse lying in the blood-soaked dirt. He was staring intently into the dense woods on either side of the trail.

Balthus muttered a horrified curse. There, lying in the trail, was the body of a man—a short, heavyset man, dressed in ornate boots and (despite the heat) an ermine-trimmed tunic typical of a wealthy merchant. His fat, pale face was locked in a stare of frozen terror; his thick throat had been cut from ear to ear as if by a razor-sharp blade. The short sword still in its scabbard suggested that he had been attacked without a chance to fight for his life.

'A Pict?' Balthus whispered, as he turned to look into the darkening shadows of the forest.

Conan shook his head and straightened up to glare down at the dead man.

'A forest devil. This is the fifth one, by Crom!'

'What do you mean?'

'Have you ever heard of a Pictish wizard named Zogar Sag?'

Balthus shook his head nervously.

He lives in Gwawela, the closest village across the river. Three months ago, he hid by this road and stole a bunch of pack mules from a caravan heading to the fort—somehow drugging their drivers. The mules belonged to this guy—Conan casually pointed to the corpse with his foot—Tiberias, a merchant from Velitrium. They were loaded with kegs of ale, and old Zogar stopped to drink before he crossed the river. A woodsman named Soractus followed him and led Valannus and three soldiers to where he lay passed out in a thicket. At Tiberias's insistence, Valannus locked Zogar Sag in a cell, which is the biggest insult you can give a Pict. He managed to kill his guard and escape, then sent word that he planned to kill Tiberias and the five men who caught him in a way that would make Aquilonians shudder for centuries.

'Well, Soractus and the soldiers are dead. Soractus was killed by the river, the soldiers right in the shadow of the fort. And now Tiberias is dead. No Pict killed any of them. Each victim—except for Tiberias, as you can see—was missing his head—which is probably now decorating the altar of Zogar Sag's specific god.'

'How do you know they weren't killed by the Picts?' Balthus asked.

Conan pointed at the merchant's corpse.

'You think that was done with a knife or a sword? Look closer and you'll see that only a claw could have made a gash like that. The flesh is torn, not cut.'

'Maybe a panther——' started Balthus, lacking confidence.

Conan shook his head in annoyance.

'A man from Tauran couldn't mistake the mark of a panther's claws. No. It's a forest devil summoned by Zogar Sag to carry out his revenge. Tiberias was a fool to head for Velitrium alone, especially so close to dusk. But each of the victims seemed to be driven mad just before doom hit them. Look here; the signs are clear enough. Tiberias came riding along the trail on his mule, maybe with a bundle of choice otter pelts tied behind his saddle to sell in Velitrium, and the thing jumped him from behind that bush. See where the branches are crushed down.

'Tiberias let out one scream, and then his throat was ripped open and he ended up selling his otter skins in Hell. The mule ran off into the woods. Listen! You can still hear him thrashing around under the trees. The demon didn't have a chance to take Tiberias' head; it got scared when we approached.'

'As you came up,' Balthus corrected. 'It can't be that scary if it runs away from one armed man. But how do you know it wasn't a Pict with some sort of hook that tears instead of slices? Did you actually see it?'

'Tiberias was a tough guy,' Conan grunted. 'If Zogar Sag can summon demons to help him, he can decide which men to take out and which to spare. No, I didn't see it. I only saw the bushes rustle as it left the path. But if you want more proof, look here!'

The killer had stepped into the pool of blood where the dead man lay. Under the bushes at the edge of the path, there was a footprint, created in blood on the hard soil.

"Did a man create that?" Conan asked.

Balthus felt a tingle on his scalp. No man or animal he had ever encountered could have made that odd, monstrous three-toed print, which oddly resembled both a bird and a reptile, yet was truly neither. He spread his fingers over the print, making sure not to touch it, and let out a frustrated grunt. He couldn't grasp the size of it.

'What is it?' he whispered. 'I've never seen a creature that left tracks like that.'

'Nor any other sane person,' Conan replied grimly. 'It's a swamp demon—they're as common as bats in the swamps beyond Black River. You can hear them howling like tortured souls when the wind blows strong from the south on hot nights.'

'What should we do?' asked the Aquilonian, anxiously looking into the deep blue shadows. The frozen fear on the dead face haunted him. He wondered what horrifying figure the unfortunate person had seen leering from among the leaves, sending chills of terror through him.

'There's no point in trying to follow a demon,' Conan grunted, pulling a small woodsman's axe from his belt. 'I tried tracking him after he killed Soractus. I lost his trail after just a few steps. He might as well have grown wings and flown away, or sunk down into the earth and gone to Hell. I don’t know. I'm not chasing the mule either. It'll either find its way back to the fort or to some settler's cabin.'

As he talked, Conan was working at the edge of the path with his axe. With a few quick chops, he cut down a couple of saplings that were about nine or ten feet long and stripped them of their branches. Then he took a length of a snake-like vine that was winding through the nearby bushes, tied one end to one of the poles a couple of feet from the tip, and looped the vine over the other sapling, weaving it back and forth. In just a few moments, he had built a basic but sturdy litter.

'The demon isn't going to take Tiberias' head if I can stop it,' he growled. 'We'll bring the body into the fort. It's no more than three miles. I never liked the fat fool, but we can't let Pictish devils get away with taking white men's heads like that.'

The Picts were a white race, although they had darker skin, but the people on the border never referred to them that way.

Balthus grabbed the back end of the stretcher where Conan had unceremoniously dumped the unfortunate merchant, and they moved quickly down the path. Conan made no more noise with their grim cargo than he had when he was unburdened. He’d looped the merchant's belt around the ends of the poles and carried his part of the load with one hand while his other held his bare broadsword, his restless gaze scanning the ominous surroundings. The shadows were thickening. A darkening blue mist blurred the outlines of the trees. The forest deepened in the twilight, becoming a blue realm of mystery hiding unknown things.

They had covered over a mile, and the muscles in Balthus's strong arms were starting to ache a bit, when a shout echoed from the woods, where the blue shadows were turning deeper into purple.

Conan jolted, and Balthus nearly dropped the poles.

'A woman!' shouted the younger man. 'Wow, a woman just cried out then!'

'A settler's wife wandering in the woods,' snarled Conan, putting down his end of the stretcher. 'Probably looking for a cow, and—stay here!'

He dove into the leafy wall like a hunting wolf. Balthus's hair stood on end.

'Stay here alone with this dead body and a devil lurking in the woods?' he shouted. 'I'm coming with you!'

And putting his words into action, he dove after the Cimmerian. Conan looked back at him, but said nothing, even though he didn’t slow down to keep pace with his shorter companion. Balthus wasted his breath cursing as the Cimmerian pulled away from him again, like a ghost disappearing among the trees, and then Conan burst into a shadowy clearing and stopped, crouching, lips curled in a snarl, sword raised.

'What are we stopping for?' Balthus panted, wiping the sweat from his eyes and gripping his short sword tightly.

'That scream came from this clearing, or nearby,' replied Conan. 'I can pinpoint sounds, even in the woods. But where—'

Abruptly, the sound rang out again—behind them; in the direction of the trail they had just left. It rose sharply and sorrowfully, a woman's cry in frantic terror—and then, shockingly, it shifted to a yell of mocking laughter that could have come from the lips of a fiend from lower Hell.

'What in Mitra's name——' Balthus' face was a pale blur in the darkness.

With a fierce curse, Conan turned and sprinted back the way he had come, and the Aquilonian stumbled after him in confusion. He crashed into the Cimmerian when the latter suddenly stopped, bouncing off his muscular shoulders like he had hit an iron statue. Gasping from the impact, he heard Conan's breath hiss through his teeth. The Cimmerian appeared to be frozen in place.

Looking over his shoulder, Balthus felt his hair stand on end. Something was moving through the thick bushes next to the trail—something that neither walked nor flew, but seemed to glide like a snake. But it wasn't a snake. Its shape was hard to make out, but it was taller than a man and not very heavy. It emitted a strange, glowing light, like a faint blue flame. In fact, the eerie fire was the only real thing about it. It could have been a living flame moving with intention through the darkening woods.

Conan let out a fierce curse and threw his ax with intense determination. But the figure moved on without changing its path. In fact, they only caught a brief glimpse of it—a tall, shadowy figure of misty flame moving through the bushes. Then it disappeared, and the forest fell into a tense silence.

With a snarl, Conan pushed through the thick plants and stepped onto the path. His curses, as Balthus struggled to keep up, were intense and fiery. The Cimmerian stood over the debris where Tiberias's body lay. And that body no longer had a head.

'It deceived us with its annoying howling!' shouted Conan, swinging his huge sword above his head in anger. 'I should have known! I should have suspected a trick! Now there will be five heads to decorate Zogar's altar.'

'But what can cry like a woman and laugh like a devil, and shines like witch-fire as it moves through the trees?' gasped Balthus, wiping the sweat from his pale face.

'A swamp devil,' Conan replied gloomily. 'Grab those poles. We'll bring in the body, anyway. At least our load's a bit lighter.'

With a dark determination, he grabbed the worn loop and walked down the trail.

Fort Tuscelan stood on the eastern bank of Black River, where the tides washed against the base of the stockade. The stockade was made of logs, just like all the buildings inside, including the keep (if we can call it that), which housed the governor's quarters, overseeing the stockade and the gloomy river. Beyond that river stretched a vast forest, growing thicker and more jungle-like along the soft shores. Guards paced the walkways along the log walls day and night, watching that dense green barrier. Rarely did a threatening figure appear, but the sentries knew they were also being watched, intensely and hungrily, with the relentless fury of ancient hate. To an untrained observer, the forest across the river might look empty and lifeless, but it was alive with not only birds, animals, and reptiles but also humans, the most dangerous of all the predators.

There, at the fort, civilization ended. Fort Tuscelan was the last outpost of a civilized world; it marked the westernmost edge of the dominant Hyborian races. Beyond the river, the primitive still thrived in shadowy forests, thatched huts where the grinning skulls of men hung, and mud-walled enclosures where fires flickered and drums echoed, and spears were sharpened in the hands of dark, silent men with tangled black hair and serpent-like eyes. Those eyes often glared through the bushes at the fort across the river. Once, dark-skinned men had built their huts where that fort now stood; indeed, their huts had existed where the fields and log cabins of fair-haired settlers now are, beyond Velitrium, the raw, turbulent frontier town on the banks of Thunder River, to the shores of the other river that bounds the Bossonian marches. Traders had arrived, as well as priests of Mitra who walked barefoot and empty-handed, most of them dying horribly; but soldiers followed, along with men wielding axes and women and children in ox-drawn wagons. Back to Thunder River, and still further back, beyond Black River, the native people had been pushed out, through slaughter and massacre. But the dark-skinned people did not forget that Conajohara had once belonged to them.

The guard at the eastern gate shouted a challenge. Through a barred opening, torchlight flickered, reflecting off a steel helmet and the wary eyes beneath it.

'Open the gate,' Conan huffed. 'You can see it's me, right?'

Military discipline frustrated him.

The gate swung open and Conan and his friend walked through. Balthus noticed that the gate was flanked by a tower on each side, the tips of which rose above the fence. He saw openings for arrows.

The guardsmen grunted when they saw the weight carried between the men. Their pikes clanked together as they pushed the gate closed, chin on shoulder, and Conan asked impatiently, 'Haven't you ever seen a headless body before?'

The soldiers' faces were pale in the torchlight.

'That's Tiberias,' one of them exclaimed. 'I recognize that fur-trimmed tunic. Valerius here owes me five lunas. I told him that Tiberias had heard the call of the loon when he rode through the gate on his mule, with that blank stare. I bet he'd come back without his head.'

Conan grunted mysteriously, signaled Balthus to set the litter down, and then walked off toward the governor's quarters, with the Aquilonian following closely behind. The messy-haired young man looked around eagerly and curiously, taking in the rows of barracks along the walls, the stables, the small merchant stalls, the towering blockhouse, and the other buildings, with the open square in the center where soldiers drilled, and where, now, fires flickered and off-duty men relaxed. These soldiers were now rushing to join the grim crowd gathered around the litter at the gate. The tall figures of Aquilonian pikemen and forest runners mixed with the shorter, stockier forms of Bossonian archers.

He wasn't too surprised that the governor met with them personally. An autocratic society with strict caste laws was situated east of the borders. Valannus was still a young man, fit, with a sharply defined face that had already been shaped into a serious expression by hard work and responsibility.

"You left the fort before dawn, I heard," he said to Conan. "I was starting to worry that the Picts finally got you."

'When they take my head, the whole river will know it,' grunted Conan. 'They'll hear Pictish women mourning their dead all the way to Velitrium—I was on a solo scout. I couldn't sleep. I kept hearing drums echoing across the river.'

"They talk every night," the governor reminded him, his sharp eyes dimmed as he looked intently at Conan. He had learned the hard way not to underestimate the instincts of wild men.

'Something was different last night,' Conan grumbled. 'It has been ever since Zogar Sag returned from across the river.'

'We should have either given him gifts and sent him home, or just hanged him,' sighed the governor. 'You suggested that, but——'

'But it's tough for you Hyborians to understand the ways of the outlands,' said Conan. 'Well, there's no changing that now, but there won't be peace on the border as long as Zogar is alive and remembers the cell he suffered in. I was tracking a warrior who slipped away to add a few white notches to his bow. After I took him out, I teamed up with this guy named Balthus, who's come from the Tauran to help defend the frontier.'

Valannus looked at the young man's honest face and well-built body with approval.

'I’m happy to welcome you, young sir. I wish more of your people would come. We need men who are experienced in forest life. Many of our soldiers and some of our settlers are from the eastern provinces and know nothing about woodcraft, or even about farming.'

'Not many of that kind around here near Velitrium,' grunted Conan. 'That town's full of them, though. But listen, Valannus, we found Tiberias dead on the trail.' And in a few words, he recounted the gruesome incident.

Valannus turned pale. 'I didn't know he had left the fort. He must have been crazy!'

'He was,' Conan replied. 'Just like the other four; each one, when their time came, went crazy and ran into the woods to meet their end like a rabbit diving into the mouth of a python. Something was calling them from the depths of the forest, something the men refer to as a loon, for lack of a better name, but only those who were doomed could hear it. Zogar Sag has created a magic that Aquilonian civilization can't defeat.'

To this remark, Valannus said nothing; he wiped his forehead with a trembling hand.

'Do the soldiers know about this?'

'We left the body at the eastern gate.'

'You should have kept it a secret, hidden the body somewhere in the woods. The soldiers are already on edge.'

'They would have figured it out eventually. If I had hidden the body, it would have been brought back to the fort just like Soractus's corpse was—tied up outside the gate for the men to discover in the morning.'

Valannus shivered. He turned and walked over to a window, staring silently out at the river, which looked black and shiny under the starlight. Beyond the river, the jungle loomed like a dark wall. The distant screech of a panther shattered the silence. The night closed in, muffling the sounds of the soldiers outside the blockhouse and dimming the fires. A breeze rustled through the dark branches, causing ripples on the shadowy water. On its wings came a low, rhythmic pulsing, as ominous as a leopard's tread.

'After all,' Valannus said, as if he were voicing his thoughts, 'what do we really know—what does anyone know—about what the jungle might be hiding? We’ve heard vague rumors about massive swamps and rivers, and a forest that goes on forever over endless plains and hills until it finally reaches the shores of the western ocean. But what lies between that river and the ocean is something we wouldn't even dare to imagine. No white man has ever ventured deep into that wilderness and come back alive to share what he found. We may be knowledgeable in our civilized way, but our understanding only goes so far—to the western bank of that ancient river! Who knows what earthly and unearthly shapes might be hiding beyond the faint light of our knowledge?

'Who knows what gods are worshipped in the shadows of that pagan forest, or what demons emerge from the dark muck of the swamps? Who can be sure that all the people in that dark land are truly human? Zogar Sag—a wise man from the eastern cities would mock his primitive magic as nothing more than the tricks of a fraud; yet he has driven five men mad and killed them in a way that nobody can explain. I wonder if he is entirely human himself.'

'If I can get close enough to throw an axe at him, I'll sort that out,' grumbled Conan, pouring himself some of the governor's wine and sliding a glass toward Balthus, who took it cautiously, glancing uncertainly at Valannus.

The governor looked at Conan and regarded him thoughtfully.

'The soldiers, who don’t believe in ghosts or demons,' he said, 'are almost in a full-blown panic. You, who believe in ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and all sorts of creepy things, don’t seem afraid of any of the things you believe in.'

'There's nothing in the universe that cold steel won't cut,' Conan replied. 'I threw my axe at the demon, and it didn't hurt him, but maybe I missed in the dusk, or a branch changed its course. I'm not actively seeking out demons, but I wouldn't move out of my way to let one pass by.'

Valannus raised his head and met Conan's gaze directly.

'Conan, more depends on you than you realize. You know the weakness of this province—a narrow wedge pushed into the wild wilderness. You know that the lives of everyone west of the borders rely on this fort. If it were to fall, red axes would be breaking down the gates of Velitrium before a rider could cross the borders. His majesty, or his majesty's advisers, have ignored my request for more troops to secure the frontier. They have no idea about the conditions at the border and don't want to spend any more money in this area. The fate of the frontier rests on the men who currently defend it.'

'You know that most of the army that conquered Conajohara has been pulled back. You know the force left with me is not enough, especially since that devil Zogar Sag managed to poison our water supply, and forty men died in one day. Many of the others are sick, or have been bitten by snakes or attacked by wild animals that seem to be increasing in number around the fort. The soldiers believe Zogar's claim that he could summon the forest beasts to kill his enemies.'

'I have three hundred pikemen, four hundred Bossonian archers, and maybe fifty men who, like you, are skilled in woodworking. They’re worth ten times their number in soldiers, but there are so few of them. Honestly, Conan, my situation is getting dangerous. The soldiers are talking about deserting; they’re feeling demoralized, thinking Zogar Sag has sent demons after us. They’re afraid of the black plague he threatened us with—the terrible black death from the swamps. When I see a sick soldier, I panic at the thought of watching him turn black, shrivel up, and die right in front of me.'

'Conan, if the plague breaks out, the soldiers will all desert! The border will be unprotected and nothing will stop the dark-skinned hordes from reaching the gates of Velitrium—maybe even beyond! If we can't hold the fort, how can they defend the town?

'Conan, Zogar Sag has to die if we want to keep Conajohara. You've explored the unknown deeper than anyone else in the fort; you know where Gwawela is and a bit about the forest paths across the river. Will you take a group of guys tonight and try to kill or capture him? I know it sounds crazy. There's probably less than a one in a thousand chance that any of you will make it back alive. But if we don't take him out, we're all done for. You can bring as many men as you want.'

'A dozen men are better for a job like that than a whole regiment,' Conan replied. 'Five hundred men couldn't fight their way to Gwawela and back, but a dozen might sneak in and out. Let me choose my team. I don't want any soldiers.'

'Let me go!' Balthus eagerly exclaimed. 'I've been hunting deer on the Tauran my whole life.'

'Okay. Valannus, we'll eat at the spot where the foresters meet, and I'll choose my guys. We'll leave in an hour, take a boat down the river to a point just below the village, and then sneak up on it through the woods. If we survive, we should be back by morning.'

The river was a faint line between dark walls. The paddles that moved the long boat quietly through the thick shadows of the eastern bank dipped gently into the water, making no more sound than a heron's beak. The broad shoulders of the man in front of Balthus were just a shadow in the thick darkness. He knew that not even the sharp eyes of the man kneeling at the front would see anything more than a few feet in front of them. Conan was guiding the boat by instinct and a deep familiarity with the river.

No one said a word. Balthus had taken a good look at his companions in the fort before they slipped out of the stockade and down the bank into the waiting canoe. They were part of a new breed emerging in the world on the raw edge of the frontier—men hardened by tough circumstances who had learned the skills of the wilderness. Aquilonians from the western provinces, they shared a lot in common. They dressed similarly—in buckskin boots, leather pants, and deerskin shirts, with wide belts that held axes and short swords; and they were all lean, scarred, and hard-eyed; muscular and quiet.

They were wild men, in a way, but there was still a big gap between them and the Cimmerian. They were sons of civilization who had slipped back into a sort of semi-barbarism. He was a barbarian with a lineage of a thousand generations of barbarians. They had learned to be stealthy and crafty, but he was born with those qualities. He outperformed them even in graceful movement. They were wolves, but he was a tiger.

Balthus admired them and their leader and felt a surge of pride at being included in their group. He was proud that his paddle was just as quiet as theirs. In that one way, he was their equal, even though the skills he learned while hunting in Tauran could never compare to the deep understanding of survival that was ingrained in those who lived on the harsh border.

Below the fort, the river curved widely. The outpost lights disappeared quickly, but the canoe continued on its path for nearly a mile, skillfully dodging snags and floating logs with almost eerie accuracy.

Then a low grunt from their leader, and they turned its head around and glided toward the opposite shore. Coming out of the dark shadows of the brush along the bank and into the open water created a strange sense of reckless exposure. But the stars provided very little light, and Balthus knew that unless someone was specifically looking for it, it would be nearly impossible for even the sharpest eye to see the shadowy shape of the canoe crossing the river.

They swung in under the overhanging bushes of the western shore, and Balthus reached for and found a sticking-out root that he grabbed onto. No one spoke a word. All the instructions had been given before the scouting party left the fort. Silent as a giant panther, Conan slid over the side and disappeared into the bushes. Just as quietly, nine men followed him. To Balthus, holding the root with his paddle resting on his knee, it felt unbelievable that ten men could fade into the tangled forest without making any noise.

He settled in to wait. No words passed between him and the other man who had been left with him. Somewhere, about a mile to the northwest, Zogar Sag's village was surrounded by thick woods. Balthus understood his orders; he and his companion were to wait for the raiding party to return. If Conan and his men hadn't come back by the first light of dawn, they were to race back up the river to the fort and report that the forest had once again claimed its price from the invading race. The silence was heavy. No sounds came from the dark woods, hidden beyond the dense masses of overhanging bushes. Balthus could no longer hear the drums; they had been silent for hours. He kept blinking, unconsciously trying to peer through the deep gloom. The damp night smells of the river and the wet forest weighed on him. Nearby, he heard a sound as if a large fish had flopped and splashed in the water. Balthus thought it must have jumped so close to the canoe that it had hit the side, causing a slight tremor in the craft. The boat's stern began to swing slightly away from the shore. The man behind him must have released the grasp he was holding onto. Balthus turned his head to hiss a warning and could just make out the figure of his companion, a slightly darker shape in the darkness.

The man didn't respond. Thinking he might have dozed off, Balthus reached out and touched his shoulder. To his shock, the man collapsed under his touch and fell back in the canoe. Turning his body partially around, Balthus searched for him, his heart racing. His clumsy fingers brushed against the man's throat—only the young man's tense jaw clenched tight kept the scream from escaping his mouth. His fingers found a wide, oozing wound—his companion’s throat had been slit from ear to ear.

In that moment of fear and chaos, Balthus jumped up—then a powerful arm from the darkness wrapped tightly around his throat, cutting off his scream. The canoe swayed wildly. Balthus had his knife in hand, though he had no recollection of pulling it from his boot, and he stabbed wildly and without aim. He felt the blade plunge deep, and a monstrous scream echoed in his ear, a scream that was horrifyingly echoed back. The darkness around him seemed to come alive. A savage uproar rose all around, and other arms seized him. Overwhelmed by a mass of flailing bodies, the canoe tipped sideways, but just before he was pulled under with it, something smashed against Balthus' head, and the night was briefly lit up by a blinding flash before it faded into a darkness where not even stars shone.

Fires dazzled Balthus once more as he gradually regained his senses. He blinked and shook his head. Their brightness stung his eyes. A chaotic mix of sounds surrounded him, becoming clearer as his awareness returned. He lifted his head and looked around in confusion. Dark figures surrounded him, outlined by the flickering red flames.

Memory and understanding hit him all at once. He was tied upright to a post in an open area, surrounded by fierce and frightening figures. Beyond the circle, fires blazed, tended by naked, dark-skinned women. Past the fires, he noticed mud and wattle huts covered with brush. Further back, there was a stockade with a wide gate. But he only saw these things as an afterthought. Even the mysterious dark women with their unusual hairstyles barely registered with him. His complete focus was horror-struck on the men glaring at him.

Short men, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and lean-hipped, were naked except for minimal loincloths. The firelight highlighted the bulging muscles in striking detail. Their dark faces were still, but their narrow eyes sparkled with the intensity of a stalking tiger. Their messy hair was tied back with copper bands. They held swords and axes in their hands. Some had rough bandages on their limbs, and dried blood streaked their dark skin. There had been a recent and brutal fight.

His gaze shifted away from the intense stare of his captors, and he stifled a scream of terror. A few feet away stood a low, grotesque pyramid: it was made of bloodied human heads. Lifeless eyes stared up blankly at the dark sky. He numbly recognized the faces turned toward him. They belonged to the men who had followed Conan into the forest. He couldn't tell if the Cimmerian's head was among them. Only a few faces were visible to him. It seemed to him there were at least ten or eleven heads. A wave of nausea hit him. He fought the urge to vomit. Beyond the heads lay the bodies of half a dozen Picts, and he felt a fierce sense of triumph at the sight. The forest runners had at least taken their share.

Twisting his head away from the gruesome scene, he noticed another post nearby—a stake painted black like the one he was tied to. A man hung there in his restraints, naked except for his leather pants, whom Balthus recognized as one of Conan's woodsmen. Blood dripped from his mouth, slowly seeping from a wound in his side. He lifted his head and licked his pale lips, muttering just loud enough to be heard over the hellish noise of the Picts: 'So they got you, too!'

'Sneaked up in the water and cut the other guy's throat,' groaned Balthus. 'We never heard them until they were right on us. Mitra, how can anything move so quietly?'

'They're devils,' muttered the frontiersman. 'They must have been watching us since we left midstream. We walked right into a trap. Arrows were hitting us from all sides before we even realized it. Most of us went down at the first wave. Three or four of us fought our way through the bushes and got into hand-to-hand combat. But there were too many of them. Conan might have escaped. I haven't seen his head. It would have been better for you and me if they'd just killed us right away. I can't blame Conan. Normally, we would have reached the village without being spotted. They don't have spies along the riverbank this far down. We must have stumbled into a large group coming up the river from the south. Something is definitely wrong. There are too many Picts here. These aren't all Gwaweli; there are men from the western tribes and from all along the river.'

Balthus stared at the fierce shapes. Although he didn’t know much about Pictish customs, he realized that the number of men gathered around them was too large for the size of the village. There weren’t enough huts to house them all. Then he noticed that there were variations in the savage tribal designs painted on their faces and chests.

'Some kind of trouble,' muttered the forest runner. 'They might have gathered here to see Zogar's magic show. He'll create some wild magic with our bodies. Well, a border-man doesn't expect to die in bed. But I wish we had gone out with the others.'

The wolf-like howling of the Picts grew louder and more joyful, and from the movement in their ranks, with people eagerly pushing and jostling, Balthus realized that someone important was arriving. Turning his head around, he noticed that the stakes were placed in front of a long building, bigger than the other huts, adorned with human skulls hanging from the eaves. Through the door of that structure, a bizarre figure now danced.

'Zogar!' whispered the woodsman, his bloodied face twisted in a wolfish grimace as he instinctively pulled at his bindings. Balthus spotted a thin figure of average height, nearly concealed by ostrich feathers attached to a leather and copper harness. From among the feathers peeked a horrifying and sinister face. The feathers confused Balthus. He knew they came from halfway across the world to the south. They fluttered and rustled malevolently as the shaman jumped and danced around.

With amazing jumps and prancing, he entered the arena and spun around in front of his tied-up and silent captives. With anyone else, it would have looked silly—a mindless savage dancing around aimlessly in a swirl of feathers. But that fierce face glaring out from the flowing mass gave the scene a dark seriousness. No man with a face like that could ever seem foolish or anything other than the devil he was.

Suddenly, he froze in place; the plumes rippled once and settled around him. The howling warriors went silent. Zogar Sag stood tall and still, and he appeared to grow even taller. Balthus had the strange feeling that the Pict was towering over him, looking down at him with disdain, even though he knew the shaman wasn't actually taller than him. He struggled to shake off the illusion.

The shaman was speaking now, his voice rough and guttural but still carrying the hiss of a snake. He leaned his long neck toward the injured man on the stake; his eyes glowed red like blood in the firelight. The frontiersman spat right in his face.

With a chilling howl, Zogar leaped into the air, and the warriors let out a yell that echoed up to the stars. They charged toward the man on the stake, but the shaman pushed them back. A snarled command sent men running to the gate. They threw it open, then turned and dashed back to the circle. The ring of men split, quickly dividing to the right and left. Balthus saw the women and naked children rushing toward the huts. They peeked out from doors and windows. A wide path was clear to the open gate, beyond which the dark forest loomed, pressing ominously in on the clearing, unlit by the fires.

A tense silence filled the air as Zogar Sag turned toward the forest, rose up on his tiptoes, and let out an eerie, inhuman call that echoed into the night. Somewhere deep in the dark forest, a deeper cry responded to him. Balthus shivered. From the sound of that cry, he knew it didn’t come from a human throat. He recalled what Valannus had said—that Zogar claimed he could call wild beasts to do his bidding. The woodsman was furious beneath his mask of blood. He licked his lips nervously.

The village held its breath. Zogar Sag stood completely still, like a statue, his plumes trembling slightly around him. But suddenly, the gate was no longer empty.

A shuddering gasp went through the village, and the men quickly crowded back, pushing against each other between the huts. Balthus felt the short hair on his neck stand up. The creature standing in the gate looked like a living nightmare. Its color had a strange pale quality that made it seem ghostly and unreal in the dim light. But there was nothing unreal about the low-hanging savage head and the large curved fangs that shone in the firelight. It approached silently on padded feet, like a phantom from the past. It was a remnant of an older, darker time, the ogre from many ancient legends—a saber-tooth tiger. No Hyborian hunter had seen one of those primordial beasts for centuries. Ancient myths gave these creatures a supernatural aura, enhanced by their ghostly color and their fierce ferocity.

The beast that moved toward the men on the stakes was longer and heavier than a regular striped tiger, almost as bulky as a bear. Its shoulders and front legs were so huge and muscular that it gave off a strangely top-heavy appearance, while its back legs were even more powerful than a lion's. Its jaws were enormous, but its head was shaped in a brutal way. Its brain was small, leaving space for nothing but instincts for destruction. It was a freak of carnivorous evolution, a terrifying example of evolution gone wrong with fangs and talons.

This was the monstrous creature Zogar Sag had brought forth from the forest. Balthus no longer questioned the reality of the shaman's magic. Only dark arts could exert control over that small-brained, powerful monster. A vague memory of an ancient god of darkness and primal fear surfaced in the back of his mind, a deity to whom both men and beasts once bowed, and whose offspring—people whispered—still hid in the shadows of the world. A fresh horror colored the glare he directed at Zogar Sag.

The monster walked by the pile of bodies and the stack of bloody heads without seeming to notice them. He wasn't a scavenger. He only hunted the living, living for the sole purpose of killing. A terrible hunger glowed in his wide, unblinking eyes; it was more than just the emptiness of his stomach; it was the desire for death. His open jaws dripped with saliva. The shaman took a step back; his hand motioned towards the woodsman.

The great cat crouched down, and Balthus remembered stories of its terrifying ferocity: how it would leap onto an elephant and drive its sword-like fangs so deep into the giant's skull that they could never be pulled out, leaving it stuck to its prey to die of starvation. The shaman screamed loudly, and with a deafening roar, the monster jumped.

Balthus had never imagined such a spring, such a rush of destruction embodied in that massive bulk of iron muscle and tearing claws. It hit the woodsman squarely in the chest, and the stake shattered and broke at the base, crashing to the ground from the impact. Then the saber-tooth moved toward the gate, half dragging, half carrying a grotesque crimson figure that barely resembled a man. Balthus stared in shock, his mind struggling to accept what his eyes had witnessed.

In that leap, the massive beast not only broke the stake but also tore the mangled body of its victim from the post it was tied to. In that instant of contact, its huge claws had disemboweled and partially dismembered the man, and its giant fangs had ripped off the entire top of his head, slicing through the skull as easily as through flesh. Thick rawhide straps had snapped like paper; where the straps held, flesh and bones did not. Balthus suddenly felt sick. He had hunted bears and panthers, but he had never imagined a creature existed that could turn a human body into such a bloody mess in the blink of an eye.

The saber-tooth disappeared through the gate, and a few moments later, a deep roar echoed through the forest, fading away in the distance. But the Picts still huddled against the huts, and the shaman remained standing, facing the gate that seemed like a dark opening inviting the night in.

Cold sweat suddenly broke out on Balthus’ skin. What new nightmare would come through that gate to turn his body into carrion? A sick panic overwhelmed him, and he strained helplessly against his bindings. The night outside the firelight was dark and terrifying. The fires themselves glowed a sinister red like the flames of hell. He felt the eyes of the Picts on him—hundreds of hungry, cruel eyes reflecting a primal desire devoid of humanity as he understood it. They didn’t seem like men anymore; they were devils of this dark jungle, as inhuman as the creatures that the fiend in the feathered headdress screamed at through the darkness.

Zogar sent out another call that echoed through the night, and it was completely different from the first cry. There was a terrifying hiss in it—Balthus felt a chill at the thought. If a snake could hiss this loudly, it would sound just like that.

This time there was no answer—only a moment of breathless silence during which the pounding of Balthus' heart felt suffocating; and then there was a swishing sound outside the gate, a dry rustling that sent chills down Balthus' spine. Once more, the firelit gate had a terrifying occupant.

Again, Balthus recognized the creature from ancient legends. He saw and identified the old and wicked serpent that swayed there, its wedge-shaped head, as massive as a horse's, towering as high as a tall man's head, with its pale, shining body rippling out behind it. A forked tongue flicked in and out, and the firelight sparkled on its exposed fangs.

Balthus became unable to feel anything. The terror of his destiny left him frozen. That was the creature the ancients called Ghost Snake, the pale, horrifying terror that once slithered into homes at night to consume entire families. Like a python, it squeezed its prey, but unlike other constrictors, its fangs were venomous, carrying madness and death. It had long been thought to be extinct. But Valannus had spoken the truth. No white man knew what forms lurked in the vast forests beyond Black River.

It came silently, rippling over the ground, its ugly head level with the ground, its neck curving back slightly for the strike. Balthus stared with a glazed, hypnotized look into that disgusting maw he would soon be swallowed by, and he felt nothing except a vague sense of nausea.

And then something that sparkled in the firelight shot out from the shadows of the huts, and the huge reptile spun around and started convulsing. As if in a dream, Balthus saw a short throwing spear impaling the powerful neck, just below the wide-open jaws; the shaft stuck out from one side, the steel tip from the other.

Knotting and looping wildly, the enraged reptile rolled into the group of men who tried to back away from it. The spear hadn’t cut through its spine but had only pierced its huge neck muscles. Its wildly thrashing tail knocked down a dozen men, and its jaws snapped violently, splashing others with venom that burned like liquid fire. Howling, cursing, screaming, frantic, they scattered in fear, knocking each other down as they fled, trampling the fallen, and bursting through the huts. The giant snake rolled into a fire, scattering sparks and embers, and the pain drove it to even more chaotic efforts. A hut wall buckled under the force of its whipping tail, sending terrified people tumbling out.

Men charged through the flames, pushing the logs aside. The fire flared up, then died down. A dull reddish glow was the only light in that chaotic scene where the massive reptile thrashed and twisted, and men clawed and screamed in panic.

Balthus felt something tug at his wrists, and then, surprisingly, he was free, and a strong hand pulled him behind the post. Dazed, he saw Conan and felt the forest man's iron grip on his arm.

There was blood on the Cimmerian's armor, dried blood on the sword in his right hand; he appeared dark and huge in the dim light.

'Come on! Before they calm down!'

Balthus felt the handle of an ax pushed into his hand. Zogar Sag was gone. Conan pulled Balthus along until the kid's foggy mind woke up and his legs started moving on their own. Then Conan let him go and dashed into the building where the skulls were displayed. Balthus followed him. He caught a glimpse of a grim stone altar, dimly lit by the light outside; five human heads grinned on that altar, and there was a disturbing familiarity about the features of the freshest one—it was the head of the merchant Tiberias. Behind the altar stood an idol, shadowy and indistinct, animalistic yet vaguely human in shape. Then fresh terror gripped Balthus as the figure suddenly rose with a clatter of chains, lifting long misshapen arms in the darkness.

Conan's sword swung down, slicing through flesh and bone, and then the Cimmerian was pulling Balthus around the altar, past a huddled, shaggy figure on the floor, to a door at the back of the long hut. They burst through it and back into the enclosure. Just a few yards ahead, the stockade loomed.

It was dark behind the altar-hut. The crazy rush of the Picts hadn’t driven them that way. Conan stopped at the wall, grabbed Balthus, and lifted him into the air as if he were a child. Balthus grabbed onto the upright logs set in the sun-dried mud and climbed up, ignoring the damage to his skin. He reached down to Conan when a fleeing Pict suddenly appeared around the corner of the altar-hut. The Pict skidded to a stop, catching sight of the man on the wall in the dim glow of the fires. Conan threw his ax with deadly precision, but the warrior was already opening his mouth to yell a warning, and his shout rang out above the chaos, abruptly cut off as he fell with a crushed skull.

Blinding terror hadn't drowned out all their instincts. When that wild yell rose above the noise, there was a moment of silence, and then a hundred voices roared back fiercely, and warriors sprang into action to counter the impending attack signaled by the warning.

Conan jumped high, grabbing not Balthus' hand but his arm near the shoulder, and hoisted himself up. Balthus gritted his teeth against the effort, and then the Cimmerian was on the wall next to him, while the fleeing ones dropped down on the other side.

'Which way is the river?' Balthus was puzzled.

'We can’t risk going for the river now,' grunted Conan. 'The woods between the village and the river are crawling with fighters. Let’s go! We'll head in the last direction they'll expect us to take—west!'

Looking back as they stepped into the dense underbrush, Balthus saw the wall speckled with dark heads as the savages peered over. The Picts were confused. They hadn't reached the wall in time to see the escapees find shelter. They had rushed to the wall, expecting to fend off a large attack. They had noticed the body of the fallen warrior. But there was no enemy in sight.

Balthus understood that they still didn’t know their prisoner had gotten away. From the other noises, he figured that the warriors, led by Zogar Sag’s piercing voice, were shooting arrows at the injured serpent. The creature was no longer under the shaman's control. A moment later, the tone of the shouts changed. Angry screams filled the night.

Conan laughed darkly. He was leading Balthus along a narrow path that stretched west beneath the dark branches, moving as quickly and confidently as if he were walking down a well-lit street. Balthus stumbled behind him, using the thick walls on either side to guide himself.

'They'll be after us now. Zogar found out you’re gone, and he knows my head wasn’t in the pile before the altar hut. That guy! If I had another spear, I would have thrown it at him before I dealt with the snake. Stick to the trail. They can’t track us by torchlight, and there are plenty of paths leading out of the village. They’ll follow the ones to the river first—setting up warriors for miles along the bank, expecting us to try to escape that way. We won’t head into the woods until we have to. We can move faster on this trail. Now, focus and run like you’ve never run before.'

'They quickly got over their panic!' panted Balthus, speeding up again.

'They're not afraid of anything, very long,' grunted Conan.

For a while, they didn’t say anything to each other. The fugitives focused completely on putting distance between themselves and their starting point. They were going deeper and deeper into the wilderness, moving further away from civilization with every step, but Balthus didn’t question Conan’s judgment. The Cimmerian eventually took a moment to grunt, "Once we’re far enough from the village, we’ll make a big circle back to the river. There’s no other village for miles around Gwawela. All the Picts are gathered in that area. We’ll go wide around them. They won’t be able to track us until daylight. They’ll pick up our trail then, but before dawn, we’ll leave the path and head into the woods."

They kept running. The shouts faded behind them. Balthus was breathing hard through his teeth. He felt a sharp pain in his side, and running turned into agony. He stumbled into the bushes on either side of the path. Conan suddenly stopped, turned around, and stared back down the dark trail.

Somewhere, the moon was rising, a faint white light among a tangle of branches.

"Should we head to the woods?" huffed Balthus.

'Hand me your axe,' Conan whispered quietly. 'There's something nearby.'

'Then we should get off the trail!' exclaimed Balthus.

Conan shook his head and pulled his friend into a thick bush. The moon climbed higher, casting a faint light on the path.

'We can't take on the entire tribe!' whispered Balthus.

'No one could have picked up our trail so quickly or tracked us down so fast,' muttered Conan. 'Stay quiet.'

A tense silence followed, and Balthus felt like his heart was pounding loud enough to be heard miles away. Then, suddenly, without any warning, a fierce head appeared in the dim path. Balthus’ heart jumped into his throat; at first glance, he was afraid to look at the terrifying head of the saber-tooth. But this head was smaller and more slender; it was a leopard standing there, silently snarling and glaring down the trail. Whatever wind there was blew toward the hiding men, hiding their scent. The beast lowered its head and sniffed the trail, then moved forward uncertainly. A chill ran down Balthus' spine. The creature was definitely tracking them.

And it was suspicious. It lifted its head, its eyes glowing like fireballs, and growled low in its throat. At that moment, Conan threw the ax.

All the weight of his arm and shoulder went into the throw, and the ax was just a flash of silver in the dim moonlight. Almost before he realized what had happened, Balthus saw the leopard rolling on the ground in its final moments, the handle of the ax sticking out from its head. The head of the weapon had split its narrow skull.

Conan jumped out from the bushes, pulled his axe free, and dragged the lifeless body into the trees, hiding it from any casual observer.

'Let's move, and quickly!' he grunted, leading the way south, off the trail. 'Warriors will be coming after that cat. As soon as he got his senses back, Zogar sent him after us. The Picts would chase after him, but he'd leave them in the dust. He'd circle the village until he picked up our trail and come after us in a flash. They wouldn't be able to keep up with him, but they'd have a general idea of where we're headed. They'd follow, listening for his call. Well, they won't hear that, but they'll spot the blood on the trail, and look around to find the body in the brush. They'll pick up our scent there, if they can. Move carefully.'

He effortlessly dodged thorny bushes and low-hanging branches, smoothly moving between trees without brushing against the trunks and always placing his feet where they would leave the least trace of his passage; but with Balthus, it was a slower, more difficult process.

No sound came from behind them. They had covered more than a mile when Balthus said, "Does Zogar Sag catch leopard cubs and train them to be bloodhounds?"

Conan shook his head. "That was a leopard he called out of the woods."

'But,' Balthus insisted, 'if he can command the animals to do what he wants, why doesn’t he just wake them all up and send them after us? The forest is full of leopards; why send just one after us?'

Conan didn't respond for a moment, and when he finally did, it was with a strange reluctance.

'He can't control all the animals. Only those that remember Jhebbal Sag.'

'Jhebbal Sag?' Balthus repeated the old name uncertainly. He had only heard it mentioned a few times in his entire life.

'Once, all living things worshipped him. That was a long time ago, when animals and humans spoke the same language. Humans have forgotten him; even the animals forget. Only a few still remember. The people who remember Jhebbal Sag and the creatures who remember are like brothers and share the same language.'

Balthus didn't respond; he had struggled against a Pictish stake and watched the dark jungle reveal its terrifying creatures at a shaman's summon.

'Civilized people laugh,' said Conan. 'But not one of them can explain how Zogar Sag can summon pythons, tigers, and leopards from the wild and make them obey him. They would call it a lie if they had the courage. That's just how it is with civilized people. When they can't make sense of something with their limited science, they refuse to accept it.'

The people on the Tauran were more primitive than most Aquilonians; superstitions lingered, their origins lost to time. Balthus had experienced something that still made his skin crawl. He couldn’t deny the horrifying thing that Conan’s words suggested.

"I've heard there's an ancient grove that's sacred to Jhebbal Sag somewhere in this forest," said Conan. "I don't know. I've never seen it. But there are more beasts remember in this country than in any I've ever seen."

'So, will others be following us?'

'They are now,' was Conan's unsettling answer. 'Zogar would never trust our tracking to just one beast.'

'What are we supposed to do now?' Balthus asked anxiously, gripping his ax as he looked up at the dark arches above him. He felt a shiver run through him at the thought of sharp claws and teeth suddenly appearing from the shadows.

'Hold on!'

Conan turned, crouched down, and started carving a strange symbol into the dirt with his knife. Balthus bent to look at it over his shoulder and felt a shiver run down his spine, though he didn't know why. He didn't feel any wind on his face, but there was a rustling of leaves above them, and an eerie moaning floated through the branches. Conan looked up with an unreadable expression, then stood up, staring seriously down at the symbol he had created.

'What is it?' whispered Balthus. It seemed old-fashioned and pointless to him. He thought that his lack of knowledge about art was what kept him from recognizing it as one of the typical designs of some dominant culture. But even if he had been the most knowledgeable artist in the world, he still wouldn't have been any closer to the answer.

'I saw it carved into the rock of a cave that hadn’t been visited by humans in a million years,' Conan muttered, 'in the empty mountains beyond the Sea of Vilayet, half a world away from here. Later, I saw a black witch-finder from Kush scratch it in the sand of an unnamed river. He told me part of its meaning—it’s sacred to Jhebbal Sag and the creatures that worship him. Watch!'

They pulled back into the thick bushes a few yards away and held their breath in tense silence. To the east, drums rumbled, and somewhere to the north and west, other drums responded. Balthus shivered, even though he knew that long miles of dark forest stood between him and the ominous drummers whose dull rhythm created a sinister introduction that prepared the scene for a bloody drama.

Balthus found himself holding his breath. Then, with a slight rustle of the leaves, the bushes parted and a magnificent panther came into view. The moonlight filtering through the leaves shone on its glossy coat, rippling with the movement of the powerful muscles beneath it.

With its head down, it glided toward them, picking up their scent. Then it stopped suddenly, its muzzle almost touching the symbol carved in the mold. For a long time, it crouched still; it flattened its long body and rested its head on the ground in front of the mark. Balthus felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The great carnivore's posture was one of awe and reverence.

Then the panther stood up and backed away cautiously, its belly nearly touching the ground. With its hindquarters in the bushes, it turned as if startled and vanished like a streak of spotted light.

Balthus wiped his forehead with a shaking hand and looked at Conan.

The barbarian's eyes were burning with a fire that never lit the eyes of those raised in civilized society. In that moment, he was completely wild and had forgotten the man beside him. In his fiery stare, Balthus caught a glimpse of pure images and faint memories, shadows from the beginning of Life, forgotten and rejected by advanced cultures—ancient, primal phantoms without names.

Then the deeper fires were hidden, and Conan was quietly guiding the way further into the forest.

'We don't have to worry about the beasts anymore,' he said after a moment, 'but we've left a sign for others to see. They won’t easily follow our trail, and until they find that symbol, they won't know for sure that we headed south. Even then, it won't be easy for them to track us down without the beasts helping them. But the woods south of the trail will be filled with warriors searching for us. If we keep moving after daylight, we're bound to run into some of them. As soon as we find a good spot, we’ll hide and wait until night to head back and make it to the river. We need to warn Valannus, but it won’t do him any good if we end up getting killed.'

'Alert Valannus?'

'Hell, the woods by the river are full of Picts! That’s why they caught us. Zogar's cooking up some war magic; this isn't just a simple raid. He’s done something no Pict has done in my memory—united as many as fifteen or sixteen clans. His magic did it; they'll follow a wizard further than they will a war chief. You saw the crowd in the village; there were also hundreds hiding along the riverbank that you didn’t see. More are coming from the distant villages. He’ll have at least three thousand fighters. I lay in the bushes and heard them talking as they passed. They plan to attack the fort; I don't know when, but Zogar doesn’t dare wait too long. He’s gathered them and whipped them into a frenzy. If he doesn’t lead them into battle soon, they’ll start fighting among themselves. They’re like blood-crazed tigers.

'I don't know if they can take the fort or not. Anyway, we need to get back across the river and send a warning. The settlers on the Velitrium road have to either get into the fort or return to Velitrium. While the Picts are laying siege to the fort, war parties will patrol the road far to the east—they might even cross Thunder River and raid the heavily populated areas behind Velitrium.'

As he talked, he led the way deeper into the ancient wilderness. Soon, he grunted with satisfaction. They had arrived at a spot where the underbrush was thinner, and a visible outcrop of stone stretched off to the south. Balthus felt safer as they followed it. Not even a Pict could track them over bare rock.

'How did you escape?' he asked after a moment.

Conan tapped his chainmail and helmet.

'If more people on the border wore armor, there’d be fewer skulls hanging on the altar-huts. But most guys make too much noise when they wear it. They were just waiting on either side of the path, completely still. And when a Pict stands still, even the animals of the forest pass by him without noticing. They had seen us crossing the river and got into position. If they had set up an ambush after we left the bank, I would have sensed something. But they were just waiting, and not even a leaf moved. The devil himself wouldn’t have suspected a thing. The first hint I had was when I heard an arrow being drawn back in a bow. I dropped down and shouted for the guys behind me to drop too, but they were too slow, caught off guard like that.'

'Most of them went down at the first volley that hit us from both sides. Some of the arrows flew across the trail and struck Picts on the other side. I heard them scream.' He smiled with cruel satisfaction. 'Those of us who were still standing rushed into the woods and confronted them. When I noticed that everyone else was down or captured, I broke free and outpaced the painted devils through the darkness. They were everywhere around me. I ran, crawled, and sneaked, and sometimes I lay flat under the bushes while they passed by on all sides.'

'I aimed for the shore and saw it filled with them, ready for exactly this kind of move. But I would have fought my way through and risked swimming if I hadn't heard the drums beating in the village, and realized they had taken someone alive.

'They were all so caught up in Zogar's magic that I was able to climb the wall behind the altar-hut. There was a warrior supposed to be on watch there, but he was crouched behind the hut, peering around the corner at the ceremony. I snuck up behind him and snapped his neck before he realized what was happening. It was his spear that I threw into the snake, and that's his ax you're holding.'

'But what was that—that thing you killed in the altar-hut?' asked Balthus, shivering at the memory of the shadowy horror.

'One of Zogar's gods. One of Jhebbal's children who forgot and had to be kept chained to the altar. A bull ape. The Picts believe they're sacred to the Hairy One who lives on the moon—the gorilla-god of Gullah.'

'It's getting bright out. This looks like a good spot to hide until we figure out how close they are to tracking us. We'll probably need to wait until night to head back to the river.'

A low hill sloped upward, surrounded and covered with thick trees and bushes. Near the top, Conan slid into a jumble of protruding rocks, topped with dense shrubs. Lying among them, they could see the jungle below without being seen. It was a good spot to hide or defend. Balthus didn’t think even a Pict could have followed them over the rocky terrain for the last four or five miles, but he was worried about the beasts that served Zogar Sag. His trust in the strange symbol wavered a bit now. But Conan had ruled out the chance of beasts tracking them.

A ghostly whiteness spread through the dense branches; the patches of sky visible changed color, shifting from pink to blue. Balthus felt the gnawing hunger, even though he had quenched his thirst at a stream they had passed. There was complete silence, except for the occasional chirp of a bird. The drums could no longer be heard. Balthus's thoughts returned to the grim scene before the altar hut.

'Those are ostrich feathers Zogar Sag is wearing,' he said. 'I've seen them on the helmets of knights who came from the East to see the barons of the borderlands. There aren't any ostriches in this forest, are there?'

"They came from Kush," Conan replied. "West of here, a long way off, there's the seashore. Ships from Zingara occasionally come and trade weapons, jewelry, and wine with the coastal tribes for animal skins, copper ore, and gold dust. Sometimes they even trade ostrich feathers that they got from the Stygians, who, in turn, got them from the black tribes of Kush, located south of Stygia. The Pictish shamans value them highly. But there's a lot of risk in this kind of trade. The Picts are likely to try to seize the ship, and the coast is treacherous for vessels. I've sailed along it when I was with the pirates from the Barachan Isles, which are southwest of Zingara."

Balthus admired his friend.

'I knew you hadn't spent your life on this frontier. You've talked about several distant places. Have you traveled a lot?'

'I’ve traveled far; farther than any other man of my race ever has. I’ve seen all the great cities of the Hyborians, the Shemites, the Stygians, and the Hyrkanians. I’ve wandered through the unknown lands south of the black kingdoms of Kush, and east of the Sea of Vilayet. I’ve been a mercenary captain, a pirate, a kozak, a broke wanderer, a general—heck, I’ve been everything except a king, and I might be that before I die.' The thought amused him, and he grinned wryly. Then he shrugged his shoulders and stretched his powerful frame on the rocks. 'This is as good a life as any. I don’t know how long I’ll stay on the frontier; a week, a month, a year. I have a restless spirit. But it’s as good on the border as anywhere.'

Balthus settled in to watch the forest below them. For a moment, he thought he might see fierce painted faces pushing through the leaves. But as the hours went by, no sneaky footsteps broke the heavy silence. Balthus figured the Picts had lost their trail and given up the pursuit. Conan became restless.

'We should have seen groups searching the woods for us. If they've given up the chase, it's because they're after something bigger. They might be coming together to cross the river and attack the fort.'

'Would they come this far south if they had lost the trail?'

'They've definitely lost the trail; otherwise, they would have been on our tails by now. Normally, they would search the woods for miles in every direction. Some of them should have come into view from this hill. They must be getting ready to cross the river. We need to take a risk and head for the river.'

Creeping down the rocks, Balthus felt a chill run down his spine as he briefly anticipated a sudden barrage of arrows from the surrounding greenery. He was afraid the Picts had spotted them and were lying in wait to ambush. But Conan was sure there were no enemies nearby, and the Cimmerian was correct.

"We're miles south of the village," Conan said with a grunt. "We'll head straight for the river. I have no idea how far down the river they've spread. Let's hope we reach it before they do."

With a speed that felt reckless to Balthus, they rushed eastward. The woods seemed devoid of life. Conan thought that all the Picts were gathered near Gwawela, if they hadn't already crossed the river. However, he didn't think they would cross during the day.

'Some woodsmen will definitely see them and raise the alarm. They'll cross both above and below the fort, staying out of sight of the guards. Then others will hop in canoes and head directly for the river wall. As soon as they launch their attack, those hiding in the woods on the east side will hit the fort from other directions. They've attempted that before and were seriously hurt. But this time, they have enough men to really go for it.'

They kept moving without stopping, even though Balthus watched longingly as the squirrels darted among the branches, ones he could easily take down with a swing of his ax. With a sigh, he tightened his broad belt. The unchanging silence and darkness of the dense forest was starting to get him down. He found himself reminiscing about the open groves and sunlit meadows of the Tauran, the warm cheer of his father's steep-roofed, diamond-paned house, the fat cows grazing in the thick, lush grass, and the solid camaraderie of the strong, bare-armed farmers and herdsmen.

He felt lonely, even with his companion. Conan was as much a part of this wilderness as Balthus was an outsider to it. The Cimmerian might have spent years in the great cities of the world; he might have walked among the rulers of civilization; he might even one day fulfill his wild dream and rule as king of a civilized nation; stranger things had happened. But he was still a barbarian. He cared only about the raw essentials of life. The warm closeness of small, kind things, the feelings and delightful little details that make up so much of civilized people’s lives were meaningless to him. A wolf is no less a wolf just because chance led him to run with the watchdogs. Bloodshed, violence, and savagery were the natural elements of the life Conan understood; he could not, and would never, grasp the little things that are so precious to civilized men and women.

The shadows were getting longer when they reached the river and looked through the thick bushes. They could see about a mile up and down the river in either direction. The gloomy stream looked bare and empty. Conan glared across at the opposite shore.

'We have to take another chance here. We need to swim across the river. We have no idea if they've crossed or not. The woods over there could be full of them. We have to take the risk. We're about six miles south of Gwawela.'

He turned and ducked as a bowstring snapped. A white flash of light shot through the bushes. Balthus realized it was an arrow. Then, with a powerful leap, Conan burst through the bushes. Balthus caught the glint of steel as he swung his sword and heard a scream of death. In the next moment, he broke through the bushes after the Cimmerian.

A Pict with a smashed skull was lying face down on the ground, his fingers twitching as they clawed at the grass. About half a dozen others surrounded Conan, swords and axes raised. They had thrown away their bows, pointless at such close range. Their lower jaws were painted white, sharply contrasting with their dark faces, and the designs on their muscular chests were unlike anything Balthus had ever seen.

One of them threw his ax at Balthus and rushed after it with a raised knife. Balthus ducked and then grabbed the wrist that was driving the knife toward his throat. They fell to the ground together, rolling around. The Pict was like a wild animal, his muscles as hard as steel.

Balthus was trying to keep his grip on the wild man's wrist and bring his axe into action, but the fight was so intense and chaotic that every time he tried to strike, it was countered. The Pict was thrashing violently to free his knife hand, grabbing at Balthus' axe, and thrusting his knees at the young man's groin. Suddenly, he tried to switch his knife to his other hand, and in that moment, Balthus, rising up on one knee, struck the painted head with a desperate blow of his axe.

He jumped up and looked around wildly for his friend, expecting to see him overwhelmed by enemies. Then he understood the full power and ferocity of the Cimmerian. Conan stood over two of his attackers, cut in half by that terrible broadsword. As Balthus watched, he saw the Cimmerian knock aside a thrusting shortsword, dodge an ax with an agile sideways leap that brought him within arm's reach of a short savage reaching for a bow. Before the Pict could stand up straight, the red sword swung down and struck him from shoulder to mid-chest, where the blade got stuck. The remaining fighters rushed in, one from either side. Balthus threw his ax with the precision that left just one attacker, and Conan, giving up on freeing his sword, turned and faced the last Pict with his bare hands. The stocky warrior, a head shorter than his tall opponent, charged in, swinging his ax while stabbing viciously with his knife. The knife shattered against the Cimmerian's mail, and the ax stopped mid-swing as Conan's grip tightened like iron on the descending arm. A bone cracked loudly, and Balthus saw the Pict flinch and hesitate. In the next moment, he was lifted off his feet, hoisted high above the Cimmerian's head—he struggled in midair for a brief moment, kicking and thrashing, then was slammed to the ground with such force that he bounced and lay still, his limp body hinting at shattered limbs and a broken spine.

'Come on!' Conan pulled his sword out and grabbed an ax. 'Get a bow and some arrows, and hurry! We need to run again. They heard that shout. They'll be here any minute. If we try to swim now, they'll shoot us with arrows before we even get halfway across!'

Conan didn't go deep into the forest. A few hundred yards from the river, he changed his angle and ran alongside it. Balthus saw a fierce determination in him—not to be driven away from the river, which they needed to cross to warn the men in the fort. The shouts of the forest men grew louder behind them. Balthus thought the Picts had reached the clearing where the dead bodies were. Then more shouts suggested that the savages were rushing into the woods after them. They had left a trail that any Pict could follow.

Conan picked up the pace, and Balthus gritted his teeth, staying on his tail, even though he felt like he could collapse at any moment. It felt like ages since he had last eaten. He pushed himself forward more by sheer willpower than anything else. His heart was racing so loudly in his ears that he didn’t even notice when the shouts faded away behind them.

Conan stopped abruptly. Balthus leaned against a tree, catching his breath.

'They've quit!' the Cimmerian grunted, frowning.

"Sneaking up on us!" gasped Balthus.

Conan shook his head.

'A short chase like this, they'd shout every step of the way. No. They've turned back. I thought I heard someone yelling behind them just a few seconds before the sound started to fade. They've been called back. That’s good for us, but really bad for the guys in the fort. It means the warriors are being brought out of the woods for the attack. The men we ran into were warriors from a tribe downriver. They were definitely on their way to Gwawela to join the assault on the fort. Damn it, we're farther away than ever now. We need to get across the river.'

Turning east, he rushed through the bushes without trying to hide. Balthus followed him, for the first time feeling the pain of cuts on his chest and shoulder where the Pict's vicious teeth had marked him. He was pushing through the dense plants along the riverbank when Conan pulled him back. Then he heard a steady splashing and, peering through the leaves, saw a dugout canoe coming up the river, its single paddler working hard against the current. He was a strong Pict with a white heron feather tucked into a copper band that held back his square-cut hair.

'That's a Gwawela man,' muttered Conan. 'Emissary from Zogar. The white plume shows that. He’s brought a peace message to the tribes down the river and now he’s trying to get back and join in the slaughter.'

The lone ambassador was now nearly at their hiding spot, and suddenly Balthus almost jumped out of his skin. Right by his ear, he heard the harsh sounds of a Pict. Then he realized that Conan was speaking to the paddler in his own language. The man jumped, looked around the bushes, and replied, then cast a startled look across the river, bent down, and paddled the canoe quickly toward the western bank. Confused, Balthus watched as Conan took the bow he had picked up in the glade from his hand and nocked an arrow.

The Pict had paddled his canoe close to the shore and, looking up into the bushes, shouted something. His response came in the twang of the bowstring and the swift flight of the arrow that buried itself deep in his broad chest. With a choking gasp, he slumped sideways and rolled into the shallow water. In an instant, Conan was down the bank, wading into the water to grab the drifting canoe. Balthus stumbled after him and somewhat dazedly crawled into the canoe. Conan scrambled in, grabbed the paddle, and sent the craft speeding toward the eastern shore. Balthus watched with envious admiration as the powerful muscles played beneath the sunburned skin. The Cimmerian looked like an iron man, who never seemed to tire.

"What did you say to the Pict?" Balthus asked.

'Told him to pull into shore; said there was a white forest runner on the bank trying to take a shot at him.'

'That doesn't seem fair,' Balthus protested. 'He thought a friend was talking to him. You imitated a Pict perfectly—'

'We needed his boat,' grunted Conan, not stopping his work. 'The only way to draw him to the shore. What's worse—to betray a Pict who'd love to skin us both alive, or to betray the guys across the river whose lives depend on us making it over?'

Balthus thought about this tricky ethical question for a moment, then shrugged and asked, "How far are we from the fort?"

Conan pointed to a creek that flowed into Black River from the east, a few hundred yards below them.

'That's South Creek; it's ten miles from where it flows into the river up to the fort. It marks the southern edge of Conajohara. There are marshes for miles to the south of it, so there's no threat of a raid coming from across them. Nine miles above the fort, North Creek creates the other boundary. There are marshes beyond that as well. That's why any attack would have to come from the west, across Black River. Conajohara is just like a spear, with a point that’s nineteen miles wide, thrust into the Pictish wilderness.'

'Why don't we stick with the canoe and travel by water?'

'Because, given the current we have to deal with and the twists in the river, we can walk faster. Plus, don’t forget Gwawela is south of the fort; if the Picts are crossing the river, we’d run straight into them.'

Dusk was settling in as they reached the eastern bank. Without stopping, Conan continued northward at a pace that made Balthus's strong legs ache.

'Valannus wanted a fort built at the mouths of North and South Creeks,' grunted the Cimmerian. 'Then the river could be constantly patrolled. But the Government wouldn’t allow it.

'Soft-bellied fools lounging on plush cushions with naked girls serving them iced wine on their laps—I know their type. They can't see beyond their palace walls. Diplomacy—please! They'd take on Picts with just theories about expanding territory. Valannus and people like him have to follow the commands of a bunch of damn fools. They'll never capture more Pictish land, just like they'll never rebuild Venarium. The day will come when they see the barbarians flooding over the walls of the Eastern cities!'

A week ago, Balthus would have laughed at any ridiculous suggestion like that. Now he said nothing. He had witnessed the untameable ferocity of the men who lived beyond the borders.

He shivered, glancing at the gloomy river, barely visible through the bushes, and at the branches of the trees that crowded close to its banks. He kept thinking that the Picts might have crossed the river and could be hiding in ambush between him and the fort. It was getting dark quickly.

A faint noise ahead made his heart race, and Conan's sword shone in the air. He lowered it when a dog, a large, thin, scarred animal, crept out of the bushes and stared at them.

'That dog belonged to a settler who tried to build his cabin by the river a few miles south of the fort,' Conan grunted. 'The Picts came over and killed him, of course, and burned his cabin. We found him dead among the ashes, and the dog lying unconscious next to three Picts he had killed. He was almost chopped to pieces. We took him to the fort and treated his wounds, but once he got better, he ran off into the woods and went wild—What now, Slasher, are you hunting the men who killed your owner?'

The huge head moved back and forth, and the eyes glowed green. It didn’t growl or bark. Quiet as a ghost, it slipped in behind them.

"Let him come," Conan said under his breath. "He can sense the demons before we even spot them."

Balthus smiled and gently placed his hand on the dog's head. The dog’s lips instinctively curled back to reveal its shiny fangs; then the big creature lowered its head, looking a bit embarrassed, and its tail wagged awkwardly, as if its owner had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be friendly. Balthus compared the dog’s lean, tough body to the fat, shiny hounds playfully wrestling with each other in his father's kennel yard. He sighed. The frontier was just as tough for animals as it was for people. This dog had nearly forgotten what kindness and friendship meant.

Slasher moved ahead smoothly, and Conan let him take the lead. The last hint of twilight disappeared into complete darkness. The miles slipped away beneath their steady steps. Slasher appeared silent. Suddenly he stopped, tense, ears perked up. A moment later, the men heard it—a demonic scream echoing up the river ahead of them, faint as a whisper.

Conan swore like crazy.

'They've attacked the fort! We're too late! Let’s go!'

He picked up his pace, relying on the dog to sniff out any ambushes ahead. In a rush of tense excitement, Balthus forgot his hunger and tiredness. The shouts grew louder as they moved forward, and above the haunting screams, they could hear the deep calls of the soldiers. Just when Balthus started to worry they might run into the savages who seemed to be howling right in front of them, Conan veered away from the river in a wide arc that brought them to a low rise where they could overlook the forest. They spotted the fort, illuminated by torches that were raised over the parapets on long poles. These flickering lights cast an unsteady glow over the clearing, revealing crowds of naked, painted figures at the edge of the clearing. The river was filled with canoes. The Picts had completely surrounded the fort.

An unending shower of arrows fell against the stockade from the woods and the river. The deep twang of bowstrings drowned out the howling. Yelling like wolves, several hundred naked warriors with axes rushed from under the trees and sprinted toward the eastern gate. They were just a hundred and fifty yards from their target when a devastating barrage of arrows from the wall filled the ground with bodies and sent the survivors running back to the trees. The men in the canoes sped their boats toward the river-wall and faced another hail of arrows and a volley from the small ballistas mounted on towers on that side of the stockade. Stones and logs flew through the air, crashing into and sinking half a dozen canoes, killing the people inside, while the other boats retreated out of reach. A deep roar of victory erupted from the walls of the fort, met by howls from all around.

"Should we try to break through?" Balthus asked, shaking with excitement.

Conan shook his head. He stood with his arms crossed, his head slightly tilted down, a serious and contemplative figure.

'The fort is finished. The Picts are out for blood and won’t stop until they’ve killed everyone. There are too many of them for the men in the fort to fight off. We couldn’t break through, and if we did, all we’d do is die alongside Valannus.'

'Is there nothing we can do except look out for ourselves, then?'

'Yes. We need to alert the settlers. Do you know why the Picts aren't using fire arrows to burn down the fort? Because they don’t want a signal that could warn the people to the east. They intend to capture the fort quickly and then move east before anyone is aware of its fall. They might cross Thunder River and take Velitrium before anyone realizes what has happened. At the very least, they'll wipe out everything between the fort and Thunder River.'

'We didn't manage to warn the fort, and now I realize it wouldn’t have made a difference even if we had. The fort is severely understaffed. After a few more attacks, the Picts will be over the walls and crashing through the gates. But we can send the settlers toward Velitrium. Let’s go! We’re outside the circle the Picts have set around the fort. We’ll avoid it.'

They swung out in a wide arc, hearing the yells get louder and softer, signaling each advance and retreat. The soldiers in the fort were holding their ground, but the screams of the Picts didn’t lose any of their ferocity. They resonated with a tone that suggested certain victory.

Before Balthus realized it, they turned onto the road heading east.

"Now go!" grunted Conan. Balthus clenched his teeth. It was nineteen miles to Velitrium, a solid five to Scalp Creek, beyond which the settlements began. To the Aquilonian, it felt like they had been fighting and running for ages. But the nervous excitement coursing through his veins pushed him to make tremendous efforts.

Slasher ran ahead of them, head down, growling softly, the first sound they had heard from him.

'Picts ahead of us!' Conan growled, dropping to one knee and scanning the ground in the starlight. He shook his head, confused. 'I can't tell how many. Probably just a small group. Some that couldn't wait to take the fort. They've gone ahead to kill the settlers in their sleep! Let's go!'

Ahead of them, they saw a small fire through the trees and heard wild, fierce chanting. The trail curved there, and leaving it, they moved across the bend, pushing through the thickets. A few moments later, they found themselves looking at a horrifying scene. An ox cart stood in the road, filled with scant household items; it was on fire, and the oxen lay nearby with their throats cut. A man and a woman lay in the road, naked and mutilated. Five Picts danced around them with wild leaps and bounds, waving bloody axes; one of them waved the woman's blood-stained gown.

At the sight, a red haze swirled before Balthus. Raising his bow, he aimed at the prancing figure, silhouetted against the fire, and released the arrow. The attacker jumped suddenly and collapsed, dead with the arrow through his heart. Then the two white men and the dog charged at the shocked survivors. Conan was driven only by his fighting spirit and an ancient, deep-seated hatred, but Balthus was fueled by rage.

He faced the first Pict who opposed him with a fierce swipe that split the painted skull, then leaped over the falling body to tackle the others. But Conan had already taken down one of the two he had chosen, and the Aquilonian's leap was a moment too late. The warrior was down with the long sword through him just as Balthus raised his ax. Turning to the last Pict, Balthus saw Slasher rise from his victim, his huge jaws dripping blood.

Balthus remained silent as he looked down at the tragic figures in the road next to the burning wagon. Both were young, with the woman barely more than a girl. By some twist of fate, the Picts had left her face untouched, and even in the agony of a terrible death, it was beautiful. But her soft, youthful body had been brutally slashed with numerous knives—Balthus' eyes misted over and he choked back tears. The tragedy overwhelmed him for a moment. He felt like collapsing to the ground and crying and clawing at the earth.

'Some young couple just starting out on their own,' Conan was saying as he wiped his sword without any emotion. 'On their way to the fort when the Picts ran into them. Maybe the guy was going to join the army; maybe take up land by the river. Well, that's what will happen to every man, woman, and child this side of Thunder River if we don't get them into Velitrium quickly.'

Balthus' knees shook as he trailed behind Conan. But there was no sign of weakness in the Cimmerian's long, effortless stride. He felt a connection with the tall, lean brute that moved alongside him. Slasher had stopped growling, keeping his head level with the trail. The path in front of them was clear. The shouting from the river reached them faintly, but Balthus was convinced the fort was still standing strong. Suddenly, Conan came to a stop with a curse.

He showed Balthus a path that went north from the road. It was an old path, partly overgrown with new plants, and this growth had recently been trampled. Balthus sensed this more by touch than by sight, while Conan seemed to see like a cat in the dark. The Cimmerian pointed out where wide wagon tracks branched off the main path, deeply etched in the forest floor.

'Settlers are heading to the salt licks,' he grunted. 'They're at the edge of the marsh, about nine miles away. Damn it! They'll get cut off and slaughtered! Listen! One person can warn those on the road. Go on and wake them up and get them into Velitrium. I'll go and gather the men collecting the salt. They'll be camping by the licks. We won't return to the road. We'll go straight through the woods.'

With no further words, Conan veered off the trail and hurried down the dim path, and Balthus, after watching him for a moment, continued along the road. The dog stayed with him, gliding softly at his heels. After Balthus had walked a short distance, he heard the animal growl. Spinning around, he glared back the way he had come and was surprised to see a vague ghostly glow fading into the forest in the direction Conan had gone. Slasher rumbled deep in his throat, his hackles raised and his eyes shining like green fire. Balthus recalled the grim sight that had claimed the life of the merchant Tiberias not far from that place, and he hesitated. The thing must be following Conan. But the giant Cimmerian had consistently shown he could take care of himself, and Balthus felt his responsibility was toward the helpless settlers who were asleep in the path of the approaching devastation. The terror of the fiery phantom was overshadowed by the horror of those limp, violated bodies beside the burning ox-wagon.

He rushed down the road, crossed Scalp Creek, and spotted the first settler's cabin—a long, low building made of logs chopped with an axe. In a moment, he was banging on the door. A groggy voice asked what he wanted.

'Get up! The Picts are across the river!'

That got an immediate reaction. A low cry echoed his words, and then the door was thrown open by a woman in a revealing nightgown. Her hair hung messily over her bare shoulders; she held a candle in one hand and an axe in the other. Her face was pale, and her eyes were wide with fear.

'Come in!' she pleaded. 'We'll keep the cabin safe.'

'No. We need to head to Velitrium. The fort can't stop them. It might have already fallen. Don't take time to get dressed. Grab your kids and let's go.'

'But my man's gone with the others to get salt!' she cried, wringing her hands. Behind her, three messy kids peeked out, blinking and confused.

'Conan's gone after them. He'll bring them back safely. We need to speed up the road to warn the other cabins.'

Relief washed over her face.

'Mitra be thanked!' she exclaimed. 'If the Cimmerian is going after them, they're safe if any mortal can save them!'

In a flurry of movement, she quickly grabbed the smallest child and ushered the others out the door in front of her. Balthus took the candle and stamped it out under his heel. He paused for a moment, listening. No sounds came from the dark road.

'Do you have a horse?'

'In the stable,' she groaned. 'Oh, hurry up!'

He pushed her aside as she struggled with trembling hands at the bars. He led the horse out and lifted the kids onto its back, telling them to hold onto its mane and each other. They looked at him seriously, saying nothing. The woman took the horse's halter and started up the road. She still clutched her axe, and Balthus knew that if she felt trapped, she would fight with the fierce determination of a cornered panther.

He stayed back, listening. He felt weighed down by the thought that the fort had been attacked and captured; that the dark-skinned crowds were already rushing up the road to Velitrium, high on violence and craving blood. They would come as fast as starving wolves.

Currently, they spotted another cabin up ahead. The woman started to scream a warning, but Balthus stopped her. He rushed to the door and knocked. A woman's voice called back to him. He repeated his warning, and soon the cabin released its occupants—an old woman, two young women, and four children. Like the other woman’s husband, their men had gone to the salt licks the day before, unaware of any danger. One of the young women appeared dazed, while the other was prone to hysteria. But the old woman, a tough veteran of the frontier, silenced them firmly; she helped Balthus get the two horses that were kept in a pen behind the cabin and set the children on them. Balthus insisted that she should ride with them, but she shook her head and made one of the younger women take her place.

'She's pregnant,' grunted the old woman. 'I can walk—and I can fight, too, if it comes to that.'

As they started out, one of the women said: 'A young couple walked by around dusk; we suggested they stay the night at our cabin, but they wanted to reach the fort tonight. Did—did—'.

'They met the Picts,' Balthus replied shortly, and the woman cried out in fear.

They had barely gotten out of sight of the cabin when a long, high-pitched scream echoed from somewhere behind them.

'A wolf!' one of the women shouted.

'A painted wolf holding an ax,' Balthus murmured. 'Go! Wake up the other settlers on the road and bring them with you. I'll follow along behind.'

Without saying a word, the old woman guided the children in front of her. As they disappeared into the darkness, Balthus could see the pale shapes of their faces turned back to look at him. He thought of his own people on the Tauran, and a wave of dizzying nausea washed over him. For a brief moment, he groaned and dropped down onto the road; his strong arm fell over Slasher's huge neck, and he felt the dog's warm, wet tongue touch his face.

He raised his head and forced a grin despite the pain.

'Come on, kid,' he mumbled, getting up. 'We've got things to do.'

A red glow suddenly appeared through the trees. The Picts had set fire to the last hut. He smiled. How angry would Zogar Sag be if he knew his warriors had let their destructive instincts take over? The fire would alert the people further up the road. They would be awake and ready when the fugitives reached them. But his expression turned serious. The women were moving slowly, on foot and on the overloaded horses. The fast-running Picts would catch them within a mile, unless—he took his position behind a tangle of fallen logs next to the trail. The road to the west was lit by the burning cabin, and when the Picts approached, he spotted them first—dark, sneaky figures outlined against the distant light.

Drawing back the bowstring, he released an arrow, and one of the figures collapsed. The others disappeared into the woods on either side of the road. Slasher whimpered with the urge to kill beside him. Suddenly, a figure emerged at the edge of the trail, beneath the trees, and began moving toward the fallen logs. Balthus' bowstring twanged, and the Pict yelled, staggered, and fell into the shadows with an arrow through his thigh. Slasher jumped over the logs and leaped into the bushes. They rustled violently, and then the dog crept back to Balthus' side, his jaws stained red.

No one else showed up on the trail; Balthus started to worry they were sneaking past him through the woods, and when he heard a faint sound to his left, he shot blindly. He cursed when he heard the arrow hit a tree, but Slasher slipped away silently like a ghost, and soon Balthus heard thrashing and gurgling; then Slasher appeared through the bushes, pressing his large, blood-stained head against Balthus' arm. Blood was oozing from a cut on his shoulder, but the noises in the woods had stopped forever.

The men hiding on the sides of the road clearly felt the fate of their companion and decided that charging forward was better than being dragged down into the darkness by a creature they couldn’t see or hear. Maybe they figured out that only one man was behind the logs. They charged suddenly, breaking cover from both sides of the trail. Three fell with arrows in them—and the last two hesitated. One turned and ran back down the road, but the other jumped over the barricade, his eyes and teeth shining in the low light, his ax raised. Balthus' foot slipped as he jumped up, but that slip saved his life. The descending ax nicked a lock of hair from his head, and the Pict rolled off the logs from the force of his missed strike. Before he could get back on his feet, Slasher ripped his throat out.

Then came a stressful waiting period, during which Balthus wondered if the man who had escaped was the only survivor from the group. Clearly, it had been a small party that had either retreated from the fighting at the fort or was scouting ahead of the main group. With every moment that passed, the chances for the safety of the women and children rushing toward Velitrium increased.

Then, without warning, a flurry of arrows zipped over his escape. A wild howling erupted from the woods along the trail. Either the survivor had gone to get help, or another group had joined the first. The burning cabin still smoldered, providing a bit of light. Then they were pursuing him, moving silently through the trees next to the trail. He fired three arrows and discarded the bow. As if sensing his desperation, they advanced, no longer shouting, but in deadly silence except for the quick sound of many feet.

He tightly hugged the head of the big dog growling beside him, muttered, "All right, buddy, let’s show them!" and jumped to his feet, grabbing his axe. Then the shadowy figures poured over the barricades, attacking in a chaotic whirlwind of swinging axes, stabbing knives, and tearing fangs.

When Conan turned off the Velitrium road, he anticipated a run of about nine miles and got to work. But he had barely gone four miles when he heard a group of men ahead of him. From the sounds they were making, he knew they weren't Picts. He called out to them.

'Who's there?' demanded a harsh voice. 'Stay where you are until we recognize you, or you'll get an arrow shot at you.'

'You couldn't hit an elephant in this darkness,' Conan replied impatiently. 'Come on, idiot; it's me—Conan. The Picts are across the river.'

'We thought so,' replied the leader of the group, as they walked forward—tall, lean men, serious-looking, with bows in their hands. 'One of our team injured an antelope and tracked it almost to Black River. He heard them shouting down the river and hurried back to our camp. We abandoned the salt and the wagons, let the oxen go, and came as quickly as we could. If the Picts are surrounding the fort, war parties will be moving up the road toward our cabins.'

'Your families are safe,' grunted Conan. 'My friend went ahead to take them to Velitrium. If we go back to the main road, we might run into the whole horde. We'll head southeast, through the woods. Go on ahead. I'll check our back.'

A few moments later, the entire group was rushing southeast. Conan followed at a slower pace, staying just within earshot. He cursed the noise they were making; that many Picts or Cimmerians would have moved through the woods with no more sound than the wind does as it blows through the dark branches.

He had just crossed a small clearing when he suddenly sensed, driven by his gut instincts, that someone was following him. Standing still among the bushes, he heard the sounds of the departing settlers fade into the distance. Then a voice called faintly from behind him: 'Conan! Conan! Wait for me, Conan!'

'Balthus!' he said in confusion. Carefully he replied, 'Here I am.'

'Wait for me, Conan!' the voice came through more clearly.

Conan stepped out of the shadows, frowning. 'What the hell are you doing here?—Crom!'

He crouched slightly, the skin on his back tingling. It wasn't Balthus coming from the other side of the clearing. A strange glow flickered through the trees. It approached him, shimmering oddly—a green witch-fire that moved with determination and intent.

It stopped a few feet away, and Conan stared at it, trying to make out its fire-shrouded form. The flickering flame had a solid center; the flame was just a green covering that hid some living and malicious creature, but the Cimmerian couldn't discern its shape or appearance. Then, unexpectedly, a voice came from within the fiery column.

'Why are you standing there like a sheep waiting for the butcher, Conan?'

The voice sounded human, but it had strange vibrations that felt unnatural.

'Sheep?' Conan's anger overwhelmed his brief moment of awe. 'Do you really think I'm scared of a damn Pictish swamp devil? A friend called me.'

'I called in his voice,' the other replied. 'The men you're following belong to my brother; I wouldn't take their blood for his knife. But you are mine. Oh, fool, you’ve traveled from the distant gray hills of Cimmeria to face your fate in the forests of Conajohara.'

'You've had your chance with me before,' Conan scoffed. 'Why didn't you kill me then, if you could?'

'My brother didn't paint a skull black for you and throw it into the eternal fire on Gullah's dark altar. He hasn't whispered your name to the black ghosts that linger in the uplands of the Dark Land. But a bat has flown over the Mountains of the Dead and marked your image in blood on the white tiger's hide that hangs in front of the long hut where the Four Brothers of the Night sleep. The great serpents curl around their feet and the stars shine like fireflies in their hair.'

'Why have the dark gods sentenced me to death?' growled Conan.

Something—a hand, foot, or claw, he couldn't tell which, shot out from the fire and quickly made a mark on the mold. A symbol burned brightly there, etched in flames, and then faded, but not before he recognized it.

'You dared to make the sign that only a priest of Jhebbal Sag would dare to make. Thunder rolled through the dark Mountain of the Dead, and the altar-hut of Gullah was knocked down by a wind from the Gulf of Ghosts. The loon, which serves as a messenger to the Four Brothers of the Night, flew fast and whispered your name in my ear. Your head will hang in the altar-hut of my brother. Your body will be devoured by the black-winged, sharp-beaked Children of Jhil.'

'Who the hell is your brother?' Conan demanded. His sword was drawn in his hand, and he was subtly loosening the axe in his belt.

'Zogar Sag is a child of Jhebbal Sag who still visits his sacred groves occasionally. A woman from Gwawela slept in a grove that’s holy to Jhebbal Sag. Her baby was Zogar Sag. I am also a son of Jhebbal Sag, born from a fire-being from a distant realm. Zogar Sag called me out of the Misty Lands. With spells and magic and his own blood, he brought me into the flesh of his own planet. We are one, connected by invisible threads. His thoughts are my thoughts; if he gets hurt, I feel it. If I get cut, he bleeds. But I’ve said enough. Soon your spirit will communicate with the spirits of the Dark Land, and they will tell you about the old gods who are not dead, but sleeping in the outer depths, and every so often, they awaken.'

"I'd like to see what you look like," Conan said quietly, as he worked to free his ax, "you who leaves a trail like a bird, who burns like a flame and yet speaks with a human voice."

'You'll see,' replied the voice from the flame, 'see, and take the knowledge with you into the Dark Land.'

The flames flickered and faded, growing smaller and dimmer. A face started to emerge in the shadows. At first, Conan thought it was Zogar Sag himself, surrounded by green fire. But the face was higher than his own and had a demonic look—Conan had observed some oddities in Zogar Sag's features—slanted eyes, pointed ears, and a wolfish thinness to the lips; these differences were amplified in the figure swaying before him. Its eyes glowed like live coals.

More details became visible: a slim torso covered in slithery scales, that still had a human shape, with human-like arms from the waist up; below, long crane-like legs ended in splayed, three-toed feet like those of a giant bird. The blue fire flickered and danced along the monstrous limbs. He saw it through a shimmering haze.

Then suddenly it was looming over him, even though he hadn't seen it come closer. A long arm, which he noticed for the first time was equipped with curving, sickle-like claws, swung high and swooped down toward his neck. With a fierce shout, he snapped out of it and jumped aside, throwing his ax. The demon dodged the throw with an incredibly quick movement of its narrow head and lunged at him again with a hissing rush of leaping flames.

But fear had fought for it when it killed its other victims, and Conan was not afraid. He knew that any being made of flesh can be killed by physical weapons, no matter how horrific its shape might be.

One wild, clawing limb knocked his helmet off. If it had been a little lower, it would have taken his head off. But a rush of fierce joy filled him as his sword plunged deep into the monster's groin. He leaped back to dodge a wild swing, yanking his sword free as he jumped. The claws raked his chest, tearing through his armor like it was just fabric. But his spring back was like that of a hungry wolf. He got inside the flailing arms and drove his sword deep into the monster's belly—he felt the arms grab him and the claws ripping the armor from his back as they aimed for his insides—he was engulfed and stunned by blue flames that felt icy—then he forcefully broke free from the weakening grip, and his sword arced through the air in a massive swing.

The demon stumbled and fell to the side, its head barely hanging on by a strip of flesh. The flames that surrounded it shot up wildly, now bright red like spilling blood, obscuring the figure from sight. The smell of burning flesh filled Conan's nostrils. Wiping blood and sweat from his eyes, he spun around and staggered through the woods. Blood ran down his arms and legs. Somewhere, miles to the south, he saw the faint glow of flames that could be a burning cabin. Behind him, coming from the road, was a distant howl that pushed him to run faster.

There had been fighting on Thunder River; intense fighting before the walls of Velitrium; axes and torches had been stacked up and down the bank, and many settler's cabins were reduced to ashes before the painted horde was pushed back.

A strange quiet followed the storm, where people gathered and spoke in hushed tones, and men with red-stained bandages silently drank their beer in the taverns along the riverbank.

There, to Conan the Cimmerian, moodily drinking from a large wine glass, came a thin forester with a bandage around his head and his arm in a sling. He was the only survivor of Fort Tuscelan.

'You went with the soldiers to the ruins of the fort?'

Conan agreed.

"I couldn't," the other person replied softly. "Was there no fighting?"

'The Picts had retreated across the Black River. Something must have shaken their confidence, though only the devil who caused it knows why.'

The woodsman looked at his bandaged arm and let out a sigh.

'They say there were no bodies worth getting rid of.'

Conan shook his head. 'Ashes. The Picts had stacked them in the fort and set the fort on fire before they crossed the river. Their own dead and the men of Valannus.'

'Valannus was killed among the last—in the hand-to-hand fighting when they broke through the barriers. They tried to capture him alive, but he forced them to kill him. They took ten of the rest of us prisoner when we were so exhausted from fighting that we couldn't fight anymore. They slaughtered nine of us right then and there. It was when Zogar Sag died that I saw my chance to break free and run for it.'

"Zogar Sag is dead?" exclaimed Conan.

"Yeah. I saw him die. That's why the Picts didn't fight as hard against Velitrium as they did against the fort. It was strange. He wasn’t injured in battle. He was dancing among the dead, waving an ax with which he'd just killed the last of my friends. He came at me, howling like a wolf—and then he staggered, dropped the ax, and started to spin in a circle, screaming like I’ve never heard a man or beast scream before. He fell between me and the fire they’d made to roast me, gagging and foaming at the mouth, and suddenly he went stiff, and the Picts yelled that he was dead. It was in the chaos that I got free from my bindings and ran for the woods."

'I saw him lying in the firelight. No weapon had touched him. Yet there were red marks like the wounds of a sword in his groin, belly, and neck—the last one as if his head had been almost severed from his body. What do you think about that?'

Conan didn’t respond, and the forester, knowing that barbarians are often tight-lipped about certain things, went on: 'He lived through magic, and somehow, he died by magic. It was the mystery of his death that completely demoralized the Picts. Not a single person who witnessed it was in the battle before Velitrium. They rushed back across the Black River. The ones who fought at Thunder River were warriors who had arrived before Zogar Sag died. They weren’t enough to capture the city on their own.'

'I made my way down the road, staying behind their main force, and I know no one followed me from the fort. I slipped through their lines and got into the town. You successfully brought the settlers through, but their women and children got into Velitrium just ahead of those painted devils. If young Balthus and old Slasher hadn't held them up for a bit, they would have slaughtered every woman and child in Conajohara. I passed the spot where Balthus and the dog made their last stand. They were lying among a pile of dead Picts—I counted seven, killed by his axe or torn apart by the dog's fangs, and there were others in the road with arrows sticking in them. Gods, what a fight that must have been!'

'He was a man,' said Conan. 'I raise my drink to his memory, and to the memory of the dog, who felt no fear.' He gulped some of the wine, then poured the rest on the floor with an unusual, pagan gesture, and smashed the goblet. 'The heads of ten Picts will pay for his, and seven heads for the dog, who was a better warrior than many men.'

And the forester, looking into the deep, brooding blue eyes, knew that the fierce vow would be honored.

'They won't rebuild the fort?'

'No; Conajohara is lost to Aquilonia. The border has been pushed back. Thunder River will be the new boundary.'

The woodsman sighed and looked at his rough hand, worn from gripping the axe and sword. Conan reached over for the wine jug. The forester watched him, thinking about the men around them, the ones who had died by the lost river, and comparing him to those other wild men across that river. Conan didn’t seem to notice his stare.

'Barbarism is the natural state of humanity,' the borderer said, still looking seriously at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It's just a product of circumstance. And barbarism will always eventually win out.'