Conan The Indomitable

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CONAN

THE INDOMITABLE

BY

STEVE PERRY

TOR

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

 
NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely
coincidental.

CONAN THE INDOMITABLE

Copyright © 1989 by Conan Properties, Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form.

A TOR Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24th Street

New York
,
N.Y.
10010

Cover art by Kirk Reinert ISBN: 0-812-50860-2

First edition: October 1989

First mass market edition: September 1990

Printed in the
United States of America
0987654321

For
Dianne, naturally.

And for the boys and men:
Rusty Medley, Steve Scates,

Greg Brown, and Slick
Reaves, who would have helped

bury
the body with no questions.

There may be men who are islands, but I am not one of them; everything I
have written has been a product of what I have done, where I have gone, and
most important, who I have known. So it is with this novel. Mostly, the people
who have helped know who they are, but I’ll mention one in particular, since he
made me a gift of the setting for this book during a late-night, wine-fueled
discussion at his hilltop house in sunny Socal.
Thanks to
Michael Reaves, writer and sometime-collaborator, but chiefly friend.
I
owe you this one, Slick.

Hence, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest
Midnight
born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

‘Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and

sights
unholy…

John Milton L’Allegro

A man-high cairn marks the desolate juncture where the lands of Brythunia,
Corinthia and
Zamora
come together.
Centuries of wind and rain and snow and sun have worked their hot and cold
hands and weathered claws over the pillar, smoothing it into little more than a
soft-featured mound of stone rising from the barren ground. The mountain upon
which the cairn squats is most always covered with snow, continually subjected
to harsh storms, and it draws few
visitors
intent on
seeing a geographical marker of such plain visage.

Upon the narrow snowbound path that passes the cairn walked a man and a
woman.
Arguing.

“There were horses,” the woman said, “but naturally, it never
occurred to you to fetch a pair.”

The speaker of these words was named Elashi, a beautiful young woman born of
the Khauranian desert. While lush of breast, she had the supple muscles and
carriage developed by one familiar with hard work, and her legs were firm and
slim from much walking. She wore a heavy cloak over a woolen shirt and long
woolen skirt against the cold, and her feet were encased in high boots. A
short, curved sword dangled from a strap at her left hip.

“Most of the horses were either dead or about to be,” her
companion said, his
voice dry
. “Riding a dead
horse makes for slow going.”

The man was also young, but certainly fully grown. He stood tall and
wide-shouldered, with thickly muscled arms and a deep, heavy chest.
Clean-shaven, he wore his black hair in a square-cut mane, and his blue eyes
seemed to flash with a deep inner fire. Conan his name was, begotten of the
fierce barbarian mountain people from the cold lands of Cimmeria far to the
north. He too wore a woolen shirt and woolen pants under a winter’s cloak and
was shod in heavy boots, and the sheathed sword he carried was long and
straight, of ancient blued iron, its edges sharped like razors.

“A lot you know,” Elashi continued. “I sometimes wonder what,
if anything, you are good for, you great barbarian lout!”

Conan shook his head. Since meeting Elashi at the temple of the Suddah
Oblates, his life had certainly been less than dull. They had taken up with a
beautiful zombie woman, fought a necromancer’s blind priests and undead
minions, and nearly been skewered a dozen times along the way. He and Elashi
had shared sleeping robes for much of the time, but despite that, she continued
to harangue him at every opportunity. It seemed that she never tired of
extolling his faults, real or imagined.

Conan said, “I heard no complaints last night as the fire
dwindled.” He grinned widely at her.

After a few seconds, and seemingly against her will, Elashi returned Conan’s
grin. “Well, I suppose you
do
sometimes rise to certain
occasions.” She was silent for half a dozen steps and then said, “But
we would have more energy for such alliances had we horses to ride.”

“I noticed no lack of energy on
my
part,” Conan said.
“And as long as we are wishing for that which we do not have, why not wish
for a kingdom and servants?
Or perhaps a palace of
gold?”

“Oh, you, you—barbarian lout!”

He grinned again as she fell silent. After the death of Neg the Malefic, the
necromancer whom Conan had slain, the young Cimmerian and Elashi had agreed to
travel together until their paths parted. Conan intended to visit the wicked
city of
Shadizar
, in
Zamora
,
to ply the trade of thief, while Elashi’s plans would take her farther south,
to her native Khauran. From inquiries along the way thus far, Conan had learned
that the route would not be direct; the best road detoured into Corinthia for
perhaps several days’ journey before looping southeast into
Zamora
again. Even as he recalled this, the path upon which they trod turned to the
west and began to angle down the mountain.

Perhaps there was a village or town ahead in which he could practice his
thievery and obtain enough silver for two horses, thereby putting an end to
Elashi’s constant carping. He certainly hoped it would be so.

Snow lay thick upon the land save for the path, where it had been trodden
down. It was winter but clear, the blue skies sharp,
the
air cold and clean. Conan much enjoyed such places; towns offered much, but the
air inside a city stank of odors unknown in the mountains. A man had to balance
these things, of course. Meat and wine and lusty companions were more apt to be
found in civilization than along a snow-covered trail in the middle of nowhere.
While Conan’s god Crom lived inside a mountain, he had never ordained that men
were supposed to do the same.

From ahead on the trail there came a noise.

It was a small thing, the sound, and ears less sharp than Conan’s would have
dismissed it as perhaps a breeze-inspired shrub’s rustling or a small rock
dislodged by some tiny animal. The big Cimmerian stopped, and listened
intently.

“What are you—?”

Conan waved Elashi to silence. When he spoke, his voice was a deep whisper.
“Someone waits just ahead, around that large boulder.”

Elashi glanced at the house-sized rock Conan had just indicated. “I see
no sign of anyone,” she said, matching his whisper.

“There was a noise,” Conan insisted.

“I heard nothing. And I am a woman of the desert, do not forget.”

How could he forget? She reminded him of it at least once daily.
“Perhaps you need desert sand for your ears to work properly. I heard a
cough.”

That earned him a glare that, had it been a
blade,
would
have left him in small and bloody chunks upon the snowy ground. “Listen,
you barbarian oaf—”

“No more time for games,” he cut her off. He drew his sword.
“I sense that we are in danger.”

Elashi nodded. Despite her verbal abuse of her companion, she had been with
him long enough to understand that his senses were indeed sharper than those of
ordinary
men. She drew her own sword. “What
should we do?”

“You circle behind the rock while I proceed along the trail to draw
their attention. That way, you can take them unaware while they watch me.”

“I will
not
!” she said, her whisper increasing in volume.
“Just because I am a woman, you seek to shield me from risks! Never forget
that I am firstborn.”

Conan stared at her, amazed, as if she had suddenly sprouted wings and was
preparing to leap up and fly into the heavens. He was young, and he supposed
that he would learn more with age, but for the moment he did not think it
possible that he would ever understand the motivations of women. Perhaps no man
could. “Very well,” he said. “
You
proceed down the
trail while
I
circle behind the rock… and whoever it is that awaits
there.”

“Better,” she said. But after a moment of triumph, her grin faded
and she looked nervously at Conan. “You would actually send me along the
trail into the jaws of possible death?” Her stare was incredulous and her
voice quavered. She acted as if he had spat on her.

Conan shook his head and glanced around at the mountains. Was there some
demon hiding out there, sent to bedevil him? And what did Elashi want from him?
Disagree with her and she argued. Agree with her and she argued even more.
Crom! He felt the heat of anger rise within him.

Fighting to keep his voice level, he said, “All right. What is
your
suggestion?”

“Keep your voice down,” she ordered.

Conan’s anger increased as he stared helplessly at her. She was beautiful,
to be sure, but maddening!

“You proceed down the path and draw the attention of
whoever
or whatever is there,” she said. “I shall circle around the rock and
get behind them. That way, I may take them unaware.”

Conan stared, unable to speak in his frustrated rage.

“Isn’t that a better plan than the one you had?” she asked
sweetly. Warm goat butter would not have dissolved in her mouth, he thought.
Surely, surely I have offended some god and this is my punishment. He stood
silent for a moment,
then
stalked off without another
word. Whatever was on the other side of that boulder had better not be intent
on causing him grief.

When he rounded the shelter of the rock, Conan found himself facing trouble.
Five men stood before him; short, muscular, and swarthy, each held a
dagger-tipped pike. They wore cracked and sweat-stained leather armor and
gauntlets, and heavy boots.
Behind these five a single being
sat astride a tall black stallion.
This creature wore a heavy riding
cape, woolen shirt, and leather breeches, and held in a gauntleted hand a thin
sword across the front of the horse’s saddle.

Conan was somewhat puzzled about this last figure.

At first glance, it seemed a man from its dress and manner; on closer
examination, the beardless face was definitely female, this self-evident not
merely from its smoothness of complexion but from its shape and the bearer’s
use of cosmetics. The lips were rouged, the eyebrows partially plucked, and the
area around the eyes darkened with a bluish hue. The reddish-brown hair was
shorter than Conan’s own, and cut feathery on the ends. Additionally, the
creature’s shirt front jutted out in twin peaks that certainly seemed womanly…
but the crotch of the tight leather breeches revealed a bulge than seemed most
definitely male.

Conan’s examination of the horsed figure was interrupted by its speech.
“Stand and deliver!” it said. The voice added to his confusion. It was
deep, that of a strong man. Coming from those ruby lips, it sounded most odd
indeed.

“Stand and deliver what?” Conan asked. “Are you blind, that I
appear to be some fat merchant laden with gold or wares? What you see is all I
own, and that is little enough.”