The Conan Chronology Page 4

  When his father began speaking again, his voice was low and thick. 'Your mother, Conan . . . your mother was a true Cimmerian woman. You have her eyes, the blue, but your black mane comes through me by my father. But your mother, so fierce and brave. Though swollen with you in her belly, when the Vanir broke through in the north, she charged out to meet them. She killed one man with a spear thrust, then knocked another down with the haft. Had our warriors not crumbled around her, she’d have held the line. But they ran and a Vanirman stabbed her in the belly, almost killing you.

  'She didn’t cry out, your mother. Not a sound. She’d not give the Vanir the victory. But I saw her go down. With one hand she held her belly, keeping you within her. With the other she reached for a sword, even as her killer stood above her.' Corin snorted. 'Stupid man hesitated. I don’t know why. I don’t care. It just gave your mother enough time to get that sword and drive it into him where he’d stabbed her. And before he could strike and finish her, I split him in half.'

  Corin’s hands tightened on the mantelpiece. His shoulders shook. Conan was certain it was from rage. His father could not cry, and yet as the boy made that determination, a tear rolled down his own cheek.

  Corin, his face shadowed, turned toward his son. 'Your mother was dying. She knew it. She drew a dagger from her belt and pressed it into my hands. ‘Take your son,’ she said.'

  The smith looked down at his hands. 'I tried to refuse her―never had before, and never after―but she would brook no resistance. ‘I will see my child before I die.’ And she watched me, Conan, steadied my hand as I finished what the Vanirman had done. I cut you from your mother’s womb and laid you on her breast. She kissed you. You tasted your mother’s blood, and never heard her scream.'

  Corin pressed his hands together. 'She knew she was dying and she said to me, ‘See that there will be more to his life than fire and blood.’ And then, with her last breath, she named you Conan.'

  The boy set his spoon down.

  Corin turned his face toward the door and the village beyond it. 'What they remember of your birth is that it came on the day of a great victory. Born on a battlefield, destined for glory. Suckled on blood, not milk. A wolf, not a dog, meant for wonders and miracles. You remember my father telling you stories of heroes and kings, where their scribes claimed they were born of virgins, or strangled monsters at birth, or made up any number of legends to make these men seem greater than they were. So our people have done with the truth of your birth.

  'And yet, had one more Vanirman had breath left in his lungs, had he slain me as I held you, then all the wonders and miracles would have been soon-forgotten tragedy. A life of great destiny may be nothing more than a life that avoids serial tragedy.' Corin sighed. 'But I see the day of your birth differently. I knelt in the snow, my beloved Fialla dead, her naked child so fragile, nestled in hands covered in blood: that of the Vanir and of your mother, mayhap even some of mine. I knelt on a battlefield where dying men wailed as if infants and called for their mothers―and you remained silent, and your mother would never answer your call. I heard men cheer victory and praise the gods for their survival; yet ’twas your mother’s wish that filled my head. For you, more than fire and blood.'

  Conan’s confusion drew his brows together. 'Are you saying she did not want me to be a great warrior?'

  Corin laughed and rested his hands on his son’s shoulders. 'Even as she died she knew there would be no preventing that. But she sensed in you, and I have seen in you, the potential for more. You can be the best warrior of your generation. You could be the best warrior of our village. You could make men forget that Connacht ever existed. But those are foothills, and you are destined for mountains, Conan, and the stars. Others see you as born to a great destiny, and I know you are born to great responsibility.'

  'What responsibility, Father?'

  'Responsibilities you will acquire when you are a man full grown. Nothing to worry about at the moment, but there will come a time . . .' Corin came around and sat at the table, stretching out his legs and facing his son. 'What you did today was irresponsible. It caused panic, and some of those boys, since panic was their first reaction, will always react that way. We may train that out of them, but you’ve made it that much harder.'

  'Yes, Father.'

  'The first lesson of a great leader, Conan, is not to expect his followers to do what he can do, but to learn what they are capable of, and teach them to do it as best they can. You shamed these boys. Your shame may push them to try harder to redeem themselves. So, this is what you will be doing from now on: you will continue your chores for me and the people in the village. You will not complain. When they tease you, you will hold your tongue and your fist. You will shame them into being better men than you are, and when they fail, you will say nothing.'

  Conan frowned deeply. 'Yes, Father.'

  Corin laughed, slapping his hand on the table. 'Your mother had that look. I only saw it once directed at me and vowed never to earn it again. Restraining yourself will not be the hardest thing you do in life, Conan; just the hardest thing you’ve done up to now. Aggression is a warrior’s virtue. Restraint is a leader’s. You must promise me to do this.'

  'I promise, Father.'

  'Good.' The smith nodded. 'You have half a bargain to keep, and I will offer you the other half. Tomorrow morning you’ll find your sword in the smithy. You’ll put an edge on it, only a hand span from the tip down.'

  The boy’s face lit up as his heart began to pound. 'And you will train me. We will fight?'

  'We will, Conan, we will. I have much to teach you, but not immediately.'

  Conan’s shoulders slumped. 'Why not?'

  'It’s very simple, my son.' Corin met his son’s blue gaze. 'You’re growing, and soon will outgrow that Aquilonian toy. It’s time you learned to forge a blade, a proper Cimmerian blade.'

  The boy stood, weariness forgotten. 'Crom made me to wield swords, not to hammer them.'

  'Crom has shaped you, as he shapes us all, to his own cold ends.' Corin shook his head. 'But if you want a blade to be part of you, if you want it to live in your hands, then you’re going to help bring it to life.'

  Over the next six weeks Corin marvelled at the fact that his son had not bristled or broken, had not cried or complained. The smith had no desire to see his son break; nor did it surprise him when Conan pushed himself beyond where Corin wanted him to go. The boy learned quickly, and while little mistakes and little frustrations might coax an oath from him or a glower, he always returned to his tasks with a singular determination that Corin had never seen even an adult display.

  The smith had not been easy on his son. He sent Conan out to the nearest mine to gather iron ore to smelt for the blade. Corin had borrowed a mule to aid him. Conan returned with two baskets of ore strapped to the beast, and another smaller one on his own back. The boy crushed the ore and prepared it for smelting, then worked the bellows until the iron became a red-gold river of molten metal.

  Corin watched Conan’s pride rise to his face, lit by the iron’s back glow as it poured into the mould. The boy gathered wood while the metal cooled, and chose leather to wrap the oak on the hilt. The boy helped Corin pour the bronze for the pommel cap and cross hilt. Then the boy took the cooled steel and plunged it into the forge, burying it in charcoal. He pumped the bellows until the blade glowed, then brought it to the anvil to begin the shaping.

  Here Conan encountered his greatest challenge, and watching him tightened a fist around Corin’s heart. The boy intended the sword to be perfect, but had no understanding of how much work that would entail.

  The hammering on one side had to be matched equally on the other. Stretching the metal made it too thin. Cracks appeared. Pieces broke off. And while the metal could always be reheated, and the pieces folded back in, frustration led to hard blows where subtle were required . . . and subtle always seemed to take too long.

  A boy forging a man’s weapon. Corin smiled as he watched, remembering his own
first clumsy efforts. Connacht hadn’t been terribly patient with him, but that was because his father had assumed Corin intended to travel and see the world. Though Connacht had his reasons for remaining in Cimmeria, more than once, when he told tales, Corin was certain his father would vanish again if the slightest chance arose.

  Corin’s father had been surprised when he realised the nature of Corin’s goal: it was not to create a sword he could take into battle, but to create the sword that was meant to be his in battle. Connacht could never understand that about his son, but at least he respected it. He was as proud of everything Corin did as he was of his own youthful adventuring.

  Conan plunged his sword into a trough. The water bubbled and steamed. He pulled the blade out again, rivulets running. Corin felt certain that his son was seeing blood.

  'Is it finished, Conan?'

  Conan looked over at his father, then nodded.

  Corin rose and crossed to the anvil. He took the blade from his son and turned it over. The boy had shaped it well. The forte would turn blades. The tang would not sheer off, yet was not so heavy as to unbalance the blade. It tapered to a point, but not too sharp a one.

  'Nicely done, boy.'

  Conan smiled, his soot-stained face streaked with sweat trails.

  'But let me ask you this: Which is most important when forging a blade? Fire or ice?'

  The boy snorted. 'Fire.'

  Corin raised an eyebrow as he continued to study his son’s handiwork.

  'Ice?'

  'Are you certain?'

  Conan nodded, but hesitantly.

  The smith smashed the blade against the anvil. It rang dully, then shivered into fragments. Conan stared down, his shocked expression mirrored in the metal shards. His expression darkened as he looked up at his father.

  ’Tis a lesson best learned now, my son. 'We’ll begin again, Conan.' Corin knelt and began gathering metal shards. 'You’ll learn what makes a great sword makes a great warrior. By the time you know that, you will be ready to wield the blade we shall make together.'

  V

  Conan watched expectantly as his father studied the blade. The boy had hoped it would be finished three weeks previously, but his father had made him rework the blade. 'You’re growing too fast,' Corin had complained. He redesigned the blade, lengthening it, making the tang and forte more stout so it would be a worthy sword for the man Conan was to become.

  But Conan wanted it now. 'What do you think, Father?'

  'Close, very close.' Corin bounced the blade on the anvil. The metal quivered and rang sweetly. He stabbed it into the fire again and nodded to his son. 'A little more heat.'

  Despite the aching in his limbs from all his chores and all the training, Conan pumped the bellows with all the vigour he could muster. Sparks flew and heat blossomed. Using tongs, his father turned the blade over amid the glowing coals, then drew it out. 'Get the small hammer.'

  Conan did as he was bidden and shaped the weapon where his father pointed. 'Gently, boy, but firmly. A smith, a swordsman, must maintain control of his tools. Smooth that out. And there, and there.'

  The boy hammered carefully, relishing the peal of metal on metal. Something about it bespoke strength. So unlike the hiss and skirl of steel on steel in battle, where strong blades became vipers. The sound coaxed from the sword and anvil by the hammer meant that he need never fear the blade betraying him. This he had come to understand.

  Corin inspected his handiwork, then glanced at the cooling trough. 'Go get more ice.'

  Conan ran out and chipped ice from a block, then carried it back into the forge and dumped it into the trough. 'When you asked me which is more important, fire or ice, you never told me the answer.'

  Corin raised the blade, and in the shadows beneath the forge’s roof, the metal still glowed dully. 'A blade must be like a swordsman. It must be flexible. A sword must bend, or it will break. And for that to happen, it must be tempered.'

  The smith plunged the sword into the trough. Ice melted, and water bubbled and steamed with the hiss of a thousand snakes. 'Fire and ice. Together. This is the mystery of steel.'

  'Is it done, Father?'

  Corin nodded. 'Yes, but you’re not.'

  'But you have taught me much.'

  'Do not misunderstand me, Conan. You have learned much―more than boys half again your age. But it is not in what you know, but how you apply it, that we will see how great a swordsman you will become.' Corin folded his arms over his chest. 'Do you remember when I asked you that question? When I shattered your sword?'

  Conan’s face flushed. He had been so proud of what he’d done, and then found it was worthless. In an instant he had gone from victorious to defeated. 'I remember.'

  'Did you think the question fair?'

  The boy shrugged.

  'Did you wonder why I had let you proceed without giving you the answer, and telling you something so important?'

  Conan glanced down. 'You wanted me to learn to hammer before I could make a sword?'

  His father leaned back against the anvil. 'In part, you are correct. But there is something you need to know, about men, about yourself. Men learn in one of two ways. Some observe, ask questions, think and act. Others act and fail, and if they survive their failure, they learn from it. Clever though you are, my son, you do not ask questions. You think of your ignorance as a failure.

  'So you failed at your first attempt to make a sword. Have you learned from it?'

  Conan could not bring himself to meet his father’s gaze. He considered the man’s words and wanted to deny their truth. He couldn’t, at least not about men in general. But Conan wanted to be more. He was destined to be something special. Great warrior and more, as his mother desired. And yet his father was right. He didn’t like asking questions just in case he revealed ignorance about something everyone else knew.

  Does that make me weak? Conan frowned. Maybe just stubborn.

  He looked up. 'Which were you, Father?'

  Corin roared with laughter. 'Your grandfather was a man of great passions and tempers. He did not reward failure in himself or anyone else. So I would watch. I would maybe ask a question―though, I admit, with him I asked for a story to hide my intention. I learned to do things correctly and sought never to fail. When I have, however, I survived and have learned.'

  A certain melancholy had entered his father’s voice. Conan’s eyes narrowed. 'Is this why you have never taken another wife?'

  Corin folded his arms over his chest. 'Your mother, and her death, were not a failure. We have you as proof of that. But when she died, my heart ached terribly. I survived. It may make me a coward, but I never dared love again. When you find that one woman, Conan, the one who fires your heart, who makes you feel alive and makes you want to be a better man than you are, never let her go. I was that fortunate once. It would not have been fair to hold anyone else up to comparison with your mother.'

  Conan’s father fell silent, and the boy said nothing to break the silence. He’d seen his father turn reflective before―often while watching him, but at times when Conan didn’t think his father knew the boy could see him. His father had always displayed serenity and wisdom, but this time pain creased his brow. Conan did not see this as weakness, however. To surrender to it would have been weakness.

  Survive. Learn. The boy nodded solemnly. 'I will make you proud, Father.'

  Corin’s expression lightened. 'You already have―even though there are times you disappoint me.'

  'Father, I won’t ever again.'

  Corin crouched and looked up at his son. 'Don’t make promises you cannot keep, Conan. We all disappoint others. If we never do, it’s because we never take a chance, we never live. What your mother wanted, what I want, is for you to live and live wonderfully large.'

  The smith rose to his full height and tousled the boy’s hair with a scarred hand. 'You’re not yet the man for that sword, but tomorrow we begin getting you there.'

  OVER THE NEXT month Corin began training
his son. 'The first thing you must remember, Conan, is that men call it ‘sword fighting’ but it is really ‘man fighting.’ A blade is only as keen as the mind driving the arm.'

  To make his point, Corin extended the sword they’d made full out, resting the tip at the top of his son’s breastbone. 'Cut me with your sword.'

  The black-haired boy, eager, thrust toward his father. The man’s longer reach, and the length of his sword, brought Conan’s effort up short. The boy ducked away from Corin’s sword, but Corin merely retreated a step and again pressed the tip to his son’s chest. The boy’s eyes narrowed, then he beat Corin’s blade aside with a great clang and clash of metal.

  Yet before he could get close, Corin had slipped back again. He met every harsh parry with a retreat, every bull-like rush with a sidestep. Conan’s face flushed. Lips peeled back from teeth in a feral snarl. The boy knocked the blade aside, then spun, but Corin likewise pivoted, then slapped the boy across the buttocks with the flat of the sword. Conan slipped and flew headlong into a snow bank.

  He came up sputtering, spitting out snow. 'You’re not fighting fair!'

  The smith stabbed the blade into the ground and rested his hands on the pommel. 'Do you think anyone you ever face across a blade will fight fairly?'

  'Men fight honourably.'

  'No. If you choose to believe that, you’ll die in your very first battle.' Corin shook his head slowly. 'Men who survive tell other men that they fought honourably. They lie. Remember all the tales your grandfather has told? Has he ever mentioned a Kothian or Gunderman or Shemite who fought honourably?'

  Conan shook himself like an animal, flinging snow off his clothes. 'No.'

  'And you do think anyone who survived fighting against him ever described him as honourable?'

  'No.'

  'If you remember nothing else, my son, remember this: it’s not the man who slays the most who wins a battle; it’s the man who survives who wins it.'