Conan: Blood of the Serpent, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Copyright
Dedication
Map
BLOOD OF THE SERPENT by S. M. Stirling
Part One: Slayers in Sukhmet
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Part Two: Rebellion at Wedi Shebelli
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Part Three: Death Beyond Stygia
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Part Four: Xuchotl
30
RED NAILS by Robert E. Howard
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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CONAN: BLOOD OF THE SERPENT
Print edition ISBN: 9781803361833
E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361871
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: December 2022
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Conan Properties International LLC. CONAN, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, HYBORIA, and related logos, names and character likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of Conan Properties International LLC. ROBERT E. HOWARD is a trademark or registered trademark of Robert E. Howard Properties LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Interior illustrations by Roberto De La Torre
S. M. Stirling asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
To Janet Cathryn Stirling, 1950–2021,
dearest of all.
BLOOD
OF THE
SERPENT
S. M. STIRLING
PART ONE
SLAYERS IN
SUKHMET
Eyes of Set!” The soldier sitting across the stained tavern table snarled as the dice bounced to a stop on the rough splintery-worn planks. It wasn’t just a curse—or from a Stygian point of view, a presumptuous prayer by an outland mercenary. Here in Stygia, “snake eyes” was the winning toss.
Here in Stygia’s dung-encrusted back end, where all the garbage gets thrown, Conan thought. Including us.
“Double or nothing, Anjallo?” the Cimmerian said aloud, draining his mug.
Anjallo was a Zingaran, part of the core of Zarallo’s Free Companions. Like Conan, an experienced fighting man, smaller but whipcord-strong and very quick, with a narrow olive hawk-face. An old scar drew one corner of his full mouth up in a perpetual sneer. Like many of the northern mercenaries here, he stubbornly stuck to the loose trousers, boots, baggy-sleeved linen shirt, and sleeveless leather jerkin that most ordinary men wore in the northern nations.
Conan was bare to the waist and wore only knee-length loose canvas breeks, seaman-style, and the naturally pale skin of his broad-shouldered, taut, heavily muscled torso was tanned the same nut-brown as his arms and legs and face, except where thin or puckered scars showed white. His hair fell to his shoulders, square-cut and as black as any Stygian’s, tied back with a strip of black silk. The eyes under his brows were volcanic blue and his features bluntly, ruggedly carved, with close-shaven jowls.
Not quite a bear of a man. More like a lion, big and immensely strong but deadly fast. Lounging at ease but with senses ever spread for threats, he was covered with sweat, the sort normally shed in fighting or working hard in more pleasant climates.
In Sukhmet he sweated just sitting in the shade, and it didn’t even dry off unless he was in the wind. It turned rancid until he sluiced himself down… whereupon he had a few blessed moments of coolness before being bathed in sweat again.
Conan didn’t have the Zingaran sense of propriety and so didn’t wear more than he had to in the sweltering heat, even if it meant he had to keep slapping at the buzzing flies and mosquitos that tried to use him as their tavern and beer-barrel.
Few threats presented themselves in the Claw and Fang Tavern, however. The innkeeper’s stout sons kept human beggars out with even stouter truncheons of a local timber called ironwood, and for good reason. The swarming cats suppressed rats and feasted on the huge flying cockroaches and the ever-present termites, leaving their shells and wings and legs in drifts in the corners.
The felines were insolent beasts though, and anyone who so much as nudged one aside with a foot risked a deadly serious human mob out to gut them. Cats were sacred to Stygians, and if one house-moggie died, the whole family from the grandparents down to the kitchen-maids shaved their heads in grief, mummified the dead beast, and buried it in their ancestral tomb as if it were a child.
They kept pythons, too, and sometimes cobras. Fortunately the big constrictors from the temples only came out at night, and weren’t as gigantic as the ones in far-off Khemi or Luxor. Those could be big enough to swallow a man whole, and Stygians considered it an honor to feed the Great God Set’s emissaries with their own flesh.
Though they prefer it when the god picks a foreigner, Conan thought with grim amusement. He’d had encounters with them himself, luckily without witnesses when he blasphemously refused to be devoured.
No witnesses except a dead snake.
Conan leaned his back against the rough mud-brick wall behind him and casually let a hand drop to his sword-hilt as the Zingaran glared with the quick surge of rage a bad toss could bring. The Cimmerian knew better than to relax in a dice-game, especially when he’d just won the round and was playing with men who earned their bread with sword and pike and face-to-face killing.
Sixes, the winning throw in the northlands, was the demons here. The soldier was wise enough not to invoke Mitra, even to swear. Stygians might hire his like for dirty jobs in dirty spots, but they didn’t like them, a feeling that was more than mutual. Set was a demon of the more northerly kingdoms, while Mitra of the Aquilonians or Nemedians was a figure of hate and terror this far south.
“Curse you, yes,” the other mercenary said finally, mastering himself and even giving a smile. “Double or nothing.” Then his crooked grin grew broader. “I can’t even blame the dice, since they’re mine.”
He pushed a few more thin, clipped coins into the center of the ale-stained planks and paused with his finger still on one.
Raised voices…
Then shouts, and the clash of steel on steel.
Conan and Anjallo pivoted smoothly, kicking their sword-scabbards to make sure the weapons wouldn’t tangle their legs, positioning the hilts to be just where they needed them.
A young brown-haired man Conan vaguely recalled as a pikeman was facing off against a fellow-member of the Free Companions, a Zamoran sword-and-buckler fighter—one of four who served in the ranks of the Free Companions. They both had blades in their hands—the pikeman with a dagger in his left fist and the Zamoran with the little leather-and-steel shield, gripped by the single handle in the middle.
“My dice are as honest as the word of the Great God Bel,” the Zamoran snarled, his words thickly accented.
“Bel, god of thieves!” the pikeman snarled. He was Brocas, a Corinthian, Conan remembered. “Zamora is a country of thieves. Thieves born to whores.”
With that he attacked, spitting more insults. He was quick, but an occasional misstep showed he’d been punishing the sorghum beer hard, particularly considering the sun wasn’t yet down. Using his buckler the Zamoran knocked aside a thrust, a sharp bang sounding under the growing brabble of voices. Men were yelling, demanding what was going on… or, increasingly, laying bets as the first rank shouldered the growing crowd away to give the fighters room.
“I’ll be back,” the Cimmerian said to Anjallo. He rose and went forward, elbowing his way to the front. Having lived in Zamora himself for a memorable year—and in the capital, Shadizar the Wicked—it was Conan’s considered opinion that Brocas’ judgment was more-or-less fair.
It didn’t do to underestimate Zamorans, though…
He eyed the fight warily. A little of the red wine was flowing already. Brocas had a cut on one cheek that sent blood running down his face and spattering as he shuffled and darted, while the Zamoran had a shallow gash on his upper left arm. This had gone past fighting out of sheer boredom—first blood might have satisfied honor, yet neither showed any sign of stopping. Both men were serious.
Their feet rutched on the packed dirt of the floor and the blades met again. Some of the spectators surged back, cursing as a backswing missed a man’s nose only because he jerked away.
Conan’s eyes narrowed. The Zamoran wasn’t as drunk as Brocas, and he also wasn’t fighting to kill, keeping a little more than optimum distance instead, which made him safer… but drew out the fight. He was pushing the Corinthian in a single direction, too.
Toward another Zamoran, Conan realized. He knew the four of them by sight, if not by name. The Zamoran spectator wasn’t shouting like the others, or just enjoying himself. He was wire-taut and crouched as the Corinthian was pushed back by a series of showy stamping lunge-thrusts.
There was a glint of steel in the second Zamoran’s hand. Not a knife, but a folding straight-razor; just right for shaving—which nearly all Zamoran men did—and ideal for cutting someone’s tendon just above the heel, crippling them for a killing stroke. To the average spectator, it would seem as if the lesser and more drunken swordsman had stumbled and lost.
It was a standard tactic in the Maul district of Shadizar, and had been tried on the Cimmerian more than once.
Face to face is one thing, Conan thought. Backstabbing is another.
The first Zamoran distracted everyone with a shout and a flourish of high-low-middle thrusts. The second Zamoran, still crouched, moved his hand forward.
Now.
Conan’s right hand snapped down, taking the crouched man’s wrist in its grip. With his left hand he took hold of the collar of the man’s openwork leather jerkin. Lifting him off his feet, he squeezed and wrenched sharply with his right. Bone cracked as muscle like steel cables writhed and twisted on the Cimmerian’s bare arms.
The Zamoran who’d been advancing abruptly stopped, his motion stuttering as his eyes bulged in shock at the abrupt end of the scheme.
Brocas was in a fighter’s trance of utter concentration, and he took instinctive, immediate advantage. His point flashed out, neatly bisected the Zamoran’s throat and withdrew with a twist. Blood shot from the wound, and from the Zamoran’s mouth and nose in froth and bubbles. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, and Brocas wheeled as he sensed something going on behind him.
He was in time to see the straight razor fly glittering out of the second Zamoran’s hand, turning in the air and making men shout and dodge. One of them scooped it up from the floor, closed it and slipped it into his belt-pouch. Good steel was always worth something, and it had a pearl handle.
“Quiet!” Conan shouted, a bellow from deep in his massive chest.
Something like silence fell, enough that they could all hear the quick panting of Brocas, brought on by the sudden extreme effort of a fight to the death. Conan spoke into the silence.
“Fair combat is a man’s own choice, if he wants to fight to the death, but striking at a comrade’s back is another thing. I won’t serve with a man who’d do that. Nor will any man of Zarallo’s Free Companions.” He scanned the crowd. “What say you, dog-brothers?”
There was a roar of approval, cut through with the Zamoran’s scream of agony as Conan wrenched and twisted and the man’s arm separated at the shoulder, broke at the wrist, and the bone of the upper arm snapped. The Cimmerian threw him down and kicked him in the ribs; it wasn’t the only kick the man received as he crawled through the strings of ebony beads on sisal cords that covered the doorway. Even the cats didn’t approach him.
He wouldn’t live long, Conan wagered.
The din of the tavern rose to its earlier levels, and Conan got a few slaps on the back. Nobody liked the thought of interference in a duel, especially backstabbing, though if it had erupted into a brawl, things would have been different. Someone on his way back to barracks grabbed the dead Zamoran by his heels and dragged him out. Two friends of Brocas handed the dead men’s swords and daggers and belts to Conan and the young Corinthian respectively, the customary victor’s prize. The belt Conan received held a pouch.
Brocas scowled, then shook himself and took a deep breath.
“You saved my life from treachery,” he said to Conan, his voice sullen with youth and its juices. “I owe you a debt.”
Conan shrugged. “If you choose,” he said. Then he grinned disarmingly. “You may save my life, someday, dog-brother.”
“Perhaps I will.” Brocas smiled, then laughed. “After I sleep this off.” He nodded and turned away.
Conan half-drew the dead Zamoran’s sword. It was quite fair-quality steel, and so was the dagger. The gilt-bronze buckle and fittings on the sword-belt were well-made. That made it a profitable evening, as well as one that broke the boredom of garrison duty. He went back to the table where he’d been dicing and threw the ivories again.
“Eyes of Set!” Conan said, happily echoing the other man’s earlier complaint. Anjallo swore, but he paid. Everyone in Zarallo’s Free Companions knew that the Cimmerian was a bad man to cross. That had been driven home by public exhibition.
“Damned if I’ll dice with you again tonight,” he said. “Your luck’s in—especially with women, I’d wager—if the dice favor you!” Anjallo slouched off without waiting for the mug the winner traditionally bought the loser.
Conan raked in ten coppers and a small, clipped silver coin the size of the nail on his little finger, dropping them into a pouch at his sword-belt. Then he checked the dead Zamoran’s pouch, which had about as much again. Adding that loot to his own, he carefully drew the strings tight. The sword, scabbard, dagger, and belt… he’d get four silver pieces at least for the whole of it.
The dicing bout had lasted all afternoon and to the beginnings of twilight. His winnings were about a week’s pay for a common spearman, and half what he made in the same time as a scout in Zarallo’s company… on those occasions when everyone was paid in full. Throw in what he’d gotten from the Zamoran and it made four months’ wages all up, which in turn meant he had as much money as he would have if the paydays had been as regular as an Argossean clock.
To celebrate he took a long swallow of the Claw and Fang’s rather sour, weak, lumpy beer. Even bad beer was better than the water from foul shallow town wells, and safer too. The greatest of heroes could still die of diarrhea.
Conan of Cimmeria had seen a great many taverns, inns, gambling dens and alehouses since he left his northern homeland more than… He counted on his fingers, then looked down at the bare toes on his sandaled feet, ticking off the years by memories and events… There were plenty of those.
More than ten years! Crom! How the seasons fly away. The friends and maidens I played with will be raising their families now, and the men growing their beards. The ones who haven’t been killed, that is.
Taverns were a feature of civilization, back where he’d grown to manhood—or at least to the young warrior with his first downy whiskers who’d helped sack and burn the fortress-city of Venarium. Cimmerians either brewed their own ale or bartered with a neighbor for it. Bartered food they’d raised or made or hunted themselves. Coined money was a rare thing among his home hills and forests. Those who traveled relied on hospitality, which was freely given—unless there was a blood-feud.
Or the loot was taken by force, he thought. Even sweeter then! He smacked his lips at the pleasant memory of the casks of wine and brandy in Venarium’s cellars and warehouses, of smashing in the head of one cask with the hilt of his sword then sticking his face up to the ears in the contents.
Things got blurry after that.
They could have killed us all, helpless as suckling babes while we slept it off. Good thing we’d killed all the clanless Aquilonian bastards first.
This tavern on an alleyway in the Stygian outpost city of Sukhmet was better than some he’d drunk in. Nobody was trying to rob or kill him right now, for example, and the outhouse stink from the alley beyond the door wasn’t too bad. The day before yesterday there had been a heavy rain to sluice things away. If he hadn’t spent a fair amount of time outside the walls in the countryside and wilderness, he might not have noticed the stench at all. Most didn’t, after they’d been in a city for a while—though coming in from outside, the stink was obvious from miles away.
