Avenger, page 37
part #2 of Swords and Skulls Series
“What’s that mean? That you’ll vouch for me to Ragnum?”
“No. But I’ll not speak against you. How be you just disappear?”
“As in—?”
“I look the other way.”
Tas loosened the tethers and took his roan down to the bridge where he snatched up as many of the green bottles of maja as he could from the corpses strewn on the last timbers. He led the horse back, gave a grim, grateful salute and mounted his steed and was gone.
Basineus scratched his bleeding scalp, eyes troubled. “You let him off that easy? How are we to explain to Kalvium his absence?”
“Think again, Basineus. He saved our lives ten times over. The least we can do for him is grant him his life, however short it may be.” Vetra looked off into the thinning mist and shuddered, thinking of the painful road of addiction that valiant man would still have to face.
He shook his massive shoulders and the blood from his face. It was a long ride back to Lausern—it would be slower with Basineus in his injured state. Nor did he like breaking the news of the Lvendar casualties to Ragnum, but he could almost see the curl of vindication on the old Lord’s face when he told him that the plant king was dead, and his daughter avenged.
Vetravincus turned his eyes northward and a grim resolve flared in his breast: to attempt once more to track down those scum of raiders who had stolen his sister so long ago…
* * *
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed Vetravincus’s adventures, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review.
For more heroic adventures, be sure to read:
Icarus
The Huntress of Caerlin
Beastslayer : Rise of the Rgnadon
The Dragon of Skar
For bonus content, visit:
innersky.ca/freefantasy4
Sign up for new releases and free books in Chris’s newsletter
innersky.ca/newsletter
Browse all kindle titles by Chris Turner at
innersky.ca/kindle
Turn the page for excerpts from new releases.
NEW RELEASE : THE HUNTRESS OF CAERLIN
A clan overrun by foreign raiders. A fearless huntress faces the greatest challenge of her life...…
innersky.ca/huntress
A gentle breeze rustled the treetops and Risgan paused to take a breath. He clutched the handle to his enchanted wagon, a kind of barrow that carried the caged witch, Afrid. Her eyes glowered in distaste, rich with an unpleasant hue behind those dark withes of thorn. A godsend that her magic had been stripped by the piece of nephrite he kept stashed away in his pouch. But was the effect permanent? Her three foot height did not diminish her menace, despite confinement in that square cage of tough thorn.
“Seems Afrid’s in a rotten mood this morning,” mused Risgan, scratching the itch on his sweaty brow.
“Bully for her,” mumbled Jurna in a dark voice. His bushy brows dipped in a scowl. It seemed his memories of old wounds inflicted back at Thornkeep were still quite fresh.
Moeze looked back at the trees from where they had come. “Thornkeep, bah! Perhaps, I shall learn useful spells from this old hag before she gets her just desserts.”
“Young hag,” corrected Hape.
“Better luck talking to the devil,” grumbled Kahel, counting his precious arrows. Too few of them for the dangers that lurked ahead. He shook out his shaggy mop of red hair.
Afrid hissed between the thorn bars and rattled her cage with an unwholesome fervour. The witch’s baby face and youthful skin seemed uncanny for one so utterly wicked and cruel. Her snake-like hiss had Hape recoiling.
“Relax,” Moeze chided. He flicked his fingers in the gesture of a spell. A bright green spot grew on the witch’s brow. “Aiee!” she squealed in anguish. She clammed up after that.
Kahel and Hape just laughed.
Risgan only stared at Afrid with dislike. He recalled how the witch had turned on the philosopher Delpit and transformed him into a mindless slave. Left him some shell of a man, effectively killing him.
Risgan sighed. And what of his own fate? Pursued by Pantius’s bounty hunters across the lands, he was little more than an outlaw. They had chased him practically to Afrid’s doorstep. He and the others were lucky to have escaped Thornkeep, abode of the dark sorceress, and then only by the skin of their teeth. Aside from the fabulous gem in his pouch, he had only the black boots, leather breeches and jerkin on his back to his name.
He studied each of his four new companions with fresh wonder. Strange how fate had brought them together. Bonded after their narrow escape from the witch’s lair. Jurna, a journeyman, tracker, dark-haired and shaggy; young Moeze, a questionable magician, tall and spare, whose magic had not helped them much on their journey; Kahel, the grim-faced archer with a thick red beard, who was swift and strong; then Hape the Homeless, a thin-boned drifter, something of a vagrant whose rather meek temperament was offset by his knowledge of the wild lands.
Risgan turned his attention back to the witch. The powers of the nephrite had reversed her aging process, given her the face of a baby and the body of a four-year-old. He patted the sealed pouch at his side that housed the spell-laden nephrite. He too had handled the gem briefly and felt its taint. Mercifully, he hadn’t been affected as much, though he felt his skin softer than usual and an uncanny spryness in his step.
Hunger had struck early that day. They hunted quail and hare in the broadwood and scattered glades. Larger game if they could find it. A chill mist rose from the hollows and vales, leaving the lands naked. Before long they had a fire crackling in a sheltered lee by a small wooded hill, but had scored only two small hares to assuage the hungers of five ragged men. Few words were traded amongst the fugitives. It was time to move on, find more game and seek shelter before evening.
A glade of wild huckle-flowers loomed ahead with a lone dead elm in the centre. At the fringe of the clearing, twitch trees soared on high, green as firs, willowy as willows, soft as deadmusk, a screen for stags and elk to hide behind and creatures much more dangerous.
The air was fresh and spring birds chattered in numbers in the high boughs, adding a pleasant ambience to the dwindling dawn. Risgan knew better. These woods were as perilous as any in the four lands. He hoped to escape them before long.
Better hope for the devil! He scowled. Though Jurna’s tracking skills had, up till now, proven infallible, they found themselves utterly lost, heading in a northern direction at best. Their bellies growled with greater hunger. Moeze yawned and tugged at the hem of his wide sleeves. He fidgeted in his loose robe, grown rank and soiled from confinement in Afrid’s keep for days on end. Brows furrowed, he murmured anxious words, as if playing over some mispronounced spell in his mind. Hape doddered listlessly at his side, wrapped in his brown, tattered monk’s robe, mumbling to himself in no less cryptic manner. The tall twitchwood trees bore witness to the company’s passing, heedless as the wind, silent as ghosts.
Hape sighed. “We’d best drop lines into the creek and wait an hour for some trout, as I suggested.”
“Quiet,” grunted Kahel. He turned to Risgan. “What do you want today, falcon or hawk?” His face showed a facetious grin.
“Neither, I prefer wild boar. The meat has a succulent flavour, gamey but tasty. Roasted, of course.”
Kahel chuckled. “You’d not like to be surprised by one of those foul beasts.”
“Not as bad as isks—”
His words were cut off as a flutter of motion caught Risgan’s eye—at the edge of the glade where the twitch trees thinned. He pulled his comrades back into the brush.
A slender figure poised in a bent-kneed crouch, a hunting bow in her hand, scouting a distant quarry. Drawing an arrow from her quiver, she steadied her aim upon what looked like a majestic stag grazing a few dozen yards away. A smaller shape, a young foal with black and white pelt, ambled out of the bushes. It lifted its head then came trotting forward to brush its parent’s muzzle, as trusting as ever. Risgan’s jaw suddenly dropped. Not a stag, but a full grown unicorn. The huntress lowered her bow.
“Wait.” Risgan held Jurna firmly back.
Awestruck, the maiden advanced step by step, only to pause a few feet before the mother and her foal. The mother unicorn nudged her young one forth; it sidled closer to greet the newcomer. The huntress dropped to a knee, then began to pet its black mane. She cooed with delight as it snuggled closer.
The mare’s hide shimmered a purple hue; her proud white horn arched high. While the huntswoman patted the youngling’s mane, the mother wandered over, as if intuiting no great threat.
The woman wore brown breeches and leather jerkin that blended well into the surroundings; a cascade of brown curly hair trailed down her back.
“That lass looks as if she knows the land,” whispered Jurna. “Let’s go question her. I admit I’m lost.”
“And you the master tracker,” jeered Kahel.
“Be careful not to scare her,” warned Risgan. “The woman looks a bit skittish.” Though he noted she moved with a grace and a defiant upward tilt of chin.
“No more skittish than the unicorn,” said Jurna.
“Be careful not to spook the unicorn. I’ve never seen one up so close before, let alone a foal.”
“Maybe she possesses magic?” suggested Hape.
Moeze huffed out a laugh. “I detect no magic.”
The maiden, wild and beautiful as the forest, continued to charm the young animal and the mother moved closer but halted at Risgan’s approach. The mare lifted her head, cocked it on a suspicious angle then thumped her hooves. The young woman’s head turned in surprise. She snatched at her bow and gazed at the newcomers, no more than a shaggy band of forest rovers come out of nowhere. Her hand drew the bowstring taut. “Halt! Stay where you are.”
A flutter of wings echoed from above. Risgan’s head rose. A dark shape loomed out of the cloudless sky and his jaw tightened.
“Isks. I hate isks,” Kahel growled as he nocked an arrow.
The gigantic black bird dove toward the maiden and gave a raucous croak. The air seemed to bend with the advance of the predator, a monstrous raven creature, several times larger than a man, with a huge, tapered beak…
That’s the end of the excerpt. Read the rest of Huntress of Caerlin on kindle unlimited. innersky.ca/huntress
Turn the page for an excerpt from the The Dragon of Skar…
THE DRAGON OF SKAR excerpt, Conan fanfic
innersky.ca/skar
It was a cruel march for Conan and Subotai that day. They had set a monstrous pace for themselves and now they had covered long leagues through the bleak hill tundra of the Ashikar region. Twilight was almost upon them. The weather had taken a turn for the worse; a savage wind gusted and plied sheets of icy rain against their faces, which felt no less biting than pinpricks of hail. Fog-wisps obscured the landscape and despite the lashing rain, they could barely see ten feet ahead of them. The rocky path they trod was thin, unrelenting and twisted. One false step and a wayfarer could find himself tumbling down a steep defile or a bottomless pit. Jagged mountains reared around them like shark fins, but they could barely see these, being shrouded in vapourish clouds. Above the timber line, barely any vegetation grew to offer the two shelter from the biting rain. The sky grew darker by the minute, and they knew they would have to seek shelter soon or be prey to roving beasts.
Conan guessed before they tackled that mountain that it was not in their best interests to engage heights so late in the day, but youthful overconfidence shrouded his wisdom. It was not less than an hour ago that Subotai had agreed to plod onward, despite his qualms. Conan had seen the doubt in his companion’s eyes—such decision went against the easterner’s better judgement. The Hyrkanian’s trust in him was high enough that he would follow him to the grave. This was Subotai—thief and archer, lynxish renegade from faraway Hyrkania. The agile bowman carried a silver scimitar at his side, a deadly bow on his back and was the best archer this side of Zamora. Nigh a moon ago, he and Conan had together raided an accursed temple of Set, one of Thulsa Doom’s headquarters, right before the evil overlord Rexor’s astonished eyes.
It had been a grand adventure, and disastrous . . . culminating in the death of Valeria, his beloved mate.
The Cimmerian was proud to have Subotai as a travelling companion and would often look with approval out of the corner of his eye at his perfect practice shots. Subotai was not one to bandy words; he was quick and cunning, an intelligent and fearless hunter. There was something unspoken that hovered about him, like a voice whispering of a darker past, as if the warrior within guarded a secret that was both dark and mysterious. Conan made shrewd guesses that perhaps at one time, in another life, Subotai was not a thief, but a noble warrior plunged into the chaotic, cruel Hyborian world, grown up with the inflexible tenets of caste imposed on him and wounds that would never heal. Also aware that his current profession as thief and renegade was the least hypocritical, the least savage of paths he could have taken.
Conan himself stood two heads taller than the sleek, moustached Subotai. Even after such a brutish march, his blue eyes blazed opal-fire and the dark mantle of his hair ran wet with water. There was an aura of power about his figure; it was chiselled into his harsh features, not of cruelty, but of the grim memoirs of the goreish frenzy of a thousand battles. Clothed in high boots, tough leather trousers and a leather jerkin, the Cimmerian had discarded his helm long ago after the last battle with Thulsa Doom and his thugs. By his vengeful hand, Thror and Rexor had both perished in pools of blood, as they deserved: Thror, impaled by a Cimmerian-made trap, Rexor by the gleaming blade of the barbarian’s own bloody sword.
The rain poured down heavily and Conan’s jerkin was drenched. His boots squished at every stride. Both warriors fought to slosh through deep puddles and muddy streams that were quick to be fed by the moody storms. It made the going treacherous. With hair flattened to his skulls, the two together looked like a pair of drowned rats hobbling on a cow path.
The Mirdash range was where they were, particularly, the shins of Skar mountain. Had the Cimmerian known his geography better he could have turned east to better mountain passes. Nor did his Hyrkanian comrade guard such knowledge, for his experience with these far westlands was slim.
“By Crom!” muttered Conan. “We should have left this grizzly mountain behind long ago.”
Subotai grunted sourly.
Conan pondered his sudden whim to trek to such remote backward country when he could just as easily waste himself in the decadence and opulence of the cities, like Shadizar or Asgalun.
The hill barbarian grimaced blandly. He had given up the thought long ago . . . the life of pampered civilization was not his calling.
It was then that they spied a strange if not disquieting sight: a long stake driven into the centre of the path. It teetered in the wind and held various ghastly cargo. From top to bottom dangled a grotesque array of skulls—human—corded with their own dry-rotted flesh. The skulls all chimed against one another as the wind lashed them. Not fresh were these but still sickening-sweet, at least within any perception of reason.
For a long moment, the Cimmerian brooded idly. The sight was not pleasant, or altogether unfamiliar; indeed it brought up ghastly memories of a place far away—long moons ago . . .
That’s the end of the excerpt. Read the rest of The Dragon of Skar on kindle unlimited. innersky.ca/skar
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“No. But I’ll not speak against you. How be you just disappear?”
“As in—?”
“I look the other way.”
Tas loosened the tethers and took his roan down to the bridge where he snatched up as many of the green bottles of maja as he could from the corpses strewn on the last timbers. He led the horse back, gave a grim, grateful salute and mounted his steed and was gone.
Basineus scratched his bleeding scalp, eyes troubled. “You let him off that easy? How are we to explain to Kalvium his absence?”
“Think again, Basineus. He saved our lives ten times over. The least we can do for him is grant him his life, however short it may be.” Vetra looked off into the thinning mist and shuddered, thinking of the painful road of addiction that valiant man would still have to face.
He shook his massive shoulders and the blood from his face. It was a long ride back to Lausern—it would be slower with Basineus in his injured state. Nor did he like breaking the news of the Lvendar casualties to Ragnum, but he could almost see the curl of vindication on the old Lord’s face when he told him that the plant king was dead, and his daughter avenged.
Vetravincus turned his eyes northward and a grim resolve flared in his breast: to attempt once more to track down those scum of raiders who had stolen his sister so long ago…
* * *
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed Vetravincus’s adventures, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review.
For more heroic adventures, be sure to read:
Icarus
The Huntress of Caerlin
Beastslayer : Rise of the Rgnadon
The Dragon of Skar
For bonus content, visit:
innersky.ca/freefantasy4
Sign up for new releases and free books in Chris’s newsletter
innersky.ca/newsletter
Browse all kindle titles by Chris Turner at
innersky.ca/kindle
Turn the page for excerpts from new releases.
NEW RELEASE : THE HUNTRESS OF CAERLIN
A clan overrun by foreign raiders. A fearless huntress faces the greatest challenge of her life...…
innersky.ca/huntress
A gentle breeze rustled the treetops and Risgan paused to take a breath. He clutched the handle to his enchanted wagon, a kind of barrow that carried the caged witch, Afrid. Her eyes glowered in distaste, rich with an unpleasant hue behind those dark withes of thorn. A godsend that her magic had been stripped by the piece of nephrite he kept stashed away in his pouch. But was the effect permanent? Her three foot height did not diminish her menace, despite confinement in that square cage of tough thorn.
“Seems Afrid’s in a rotten mood this morning,” mused Risgan, scratching the itch on his sweaty brow.
“Bully for her,” mumbled Jurna in a dark voice. His bushy brows dipped in a scowl. It seemed his memories of old wounds inflicted back at Thornkeep were still quite fresh.
Moeze looked back at the trees from where they had come. “Thornkeep, bah! Perhaps, I shall learn useful spells from this old hag before she gets her just desserts.”
“Young hag,” corrected Hape.
“Better luck talking to the devil,” grumbled Kahel, counting his precious arrows. Too few of them for the dangers that lurked ahead. He shook out his shaggy mop of red hair.
Afrid hissed between the thorn bars and rattled her cage with an unwholesome fervour. The witch’s baby face and youthful skin seemed uncanny for one so utterly wicked and cruel. Her snake-like hiss had Hape recoiling.
“Relax,” Moeze chided. He flicked his fingers in the gesture of a spell. A bright green spot grew on the witch’s brow. “Aiee!” she squealed in anguish. She clammed up after that.
Kahel and Hape just laughed.
Risgan only stared at Afrid with dislike. He recalled how the witch had turned on the philosopher Delpit and transformed him into a mindless slave. Left him some shell of a man, effectively killing him.
Risgan sighed. And what of his own fate? Pursued by Pantius’s bounty hunters across the lands, he was little more than an outlaw. They had chased him practically to Afrid’s doorstep. He and the others were lucky to have escaped Thornkeep, abode of the dark sorceress, and then only by the skin of their teeth. Aside from the fabulous gem in his pouch, he had only the black boots, leather breeches and jerkin on his back to his name.
He studied each of his four new companions with fresh wonder. Strange how fate had brought them together. Bonded after their narrow escape from the witch’s lair. Jurna, a journeyman, tracker, dark-haired and shaggy; young Moeze, a questionable magician, tall and spare, whose magic had not helped them much on their journey; Kahel, the grim-faced archer with a thick red beard, who was swift and strong; then Hape the Homeless, a thin-boned drifter, something of a vagrant whose rather meek temperament was offset by his knowledge of the wild lands.
Risgan turned his attention back to the witch. The powers of the nephrite had reversed her aging process, given her the face of a baby and the body of a four-year-old. He patted the sealed pouch at his side that housed the spell-laden nephrite. He too had handled the gem briefly and felt its taint. Mercifully, he hadn’t been affected as much, though he felt his skin softer than usual and an uncanny spryness in his step.
Hunger had struck early that day. They hunted quail and hare in the broadwood and scattered glades. Larger game if they could find it. A chill mist rose from the hollows and vales, leaving the lands naked. Before long they had a fire crackling in a sheltered lee by a small wooded hill, but had scored only two small hares to assuage the hungers of five ragged men. Few words were traded amongst the fugitives. It was time to move on, find more game and seek shelter before evening.
A glade of wild huckle-flowers loomed ahead with a lone dead elm in the centre. At the fringe of the clearing, twitch trees soared on high, green as firs, willowy as willows, soft as deadmusk, a screen for stags and elk to hide behind and creatures much more dangerous.
The air was fresh and spring birds chattered in numbers in the high boughs, adding a pleasant ambience to the dwindling dawn. Risgan knew better. These woods were as perilous as any in the four lands. He hoped to escape them before long.
Better hope for the devil! He scowled. Though Jurna’s tracking skills had, up till now, proven infallible, they found themselves utterly lost, heading in a northern direction at best. Their bellies growled with greater hunger. Moeze yawned and tugged at the hem of his wide sleeves. He fidgeted in his loose robe, grown rank and soiled from confinement in Afrid’s keep for days on end. Brows furrowed, he murmured anxious words, as if playing over some mispronounced spell in his mind. Hape doddered listlessly at his side, wrapped in his brown, tattered monk’s robe, mumbling to himself in no less cryptic manner. The tall twitchwood trees bore witness to the company’s passing, heedless as the wind, silent as ghosts.
Hape sighed. “We’d best drop lines into the creek and wait an hour for some trout, as I suggested.”
“Quiet,” grunted Kahel. He turned to Risgan. “What do you want today, falcon or hawk?” His face showed a facetious grin.
“Neither, I prefer wild boar. The meat has a succulent flavour, gamey but tasty. Roasted, of course.”
Kahel chuckled. “You’d not like to be surprised by one of those foul beasts.”
“Not as bad as isks—”
His words were cut off as a flutter of motion caught Risgan’s eye—at the edge of the glade where the twitch trees thinned. He pulled his comrades back into the brush.
A slender figure poised in a bent-kneed crouch, a hunting bow in her hand, scouting a distant quarry. Drawing an arrow from her quiver, she steadied her aim upon what looked like a majestic stag grazing a few dozen yards away. A smaller shape, a young foal with black and white pelt, ambled out of the bushes. It lifted its head then came trotting forward to brush its parent’s muzzle, as trusting as ever. Risgan’s jaw suddenly dropped. Not a stag, but a full grown unicorn. The huntress lowered her bow.
“Wait.” Risgan held Jurna firmly back.
Awestruck, the maiden advanced step by step, only to pause a few feet before the mother and her foal. The mother unicorn nudged her young one forth; it sidled closer to greet the newcomer. The huntress dropped to a knee, then began to pet its black mane. She cooed with delight as it snuggled closer.
The mare’s hide shimmered a purple hue; her proud white horn arched high. While the huntswoman patted the youngling’s mane, the mother wandered over, as if intuiting no great threat.
The woman wore brown breeches and leather jerkin that blended well into the surroundings; a cascade of brown curly hair trailed down her back.
“That lass looks as if she knows the land,” whispered Jurna. “Let’s go question her. I admit I’m lost.”
“And you the master tracker,” jeered Kahel.
“Be careful not to scare her,” warned Risgan. “The woman looks a bit skittish.” Though he noted she moved with a grace and a defiant upward tilt of chin.
“No more skittish than the unicorn,” said Jurna.
“Be careful not to spook the unicorn. I’ve never seen one up so close before, let alone a foal.”
“Maybe she possesses magic?” suggested Hape.
Moeze huffed out a laugh. “I detect no magic.”
The maiden, wild and beautiful as the forest, continued to charm the young animal and the mother moved closer but halted at Risgan’s approach. The mare lifted her head, cocked it on a suspicious angle then thumped her hooves. The young woman’s head turned in surprise. She snatched at her bow and gazed at the newcomers, no more than a shaggy band of forest rovers come out of nowhere. Her hand drew the bowstring taut. “Halt! Stay where you are.”
A flutter of wings echoed from above. Risgan’s head rose. A dark shape loomed out of the cloudless sky and his jaw tightened.
“Isks. I hate isks,” Kahel growled as he nocked an arrow.
The gigantic black bird dove toward the maiden and gave a raucous croak. The air seemed to bend with the advance of the predator, a monstrous raven creature, several times larger than a man, with a huge, tapered beak…
That’s the end of the excerpt. Read the rest of Huntress of Caerlin on kindle unlimited. innersky.ca/huntress
Turn the page for an excerpt from the The Dragon of Skar…
THE DRAGON OF SKAR excerpt, Conan fanfic
innersky.ca/skar
It was a cruel march for Conan and Subotai that day. They had set a monstrous pace for themselves and now they had covered long leagues through the bleak hill tundra of the Ashikar region. Twilight was almost upon them. The weather had taken a turn for the worse; a savage wind gusted and plied sheets of icy rain against their faces, which felt no less biting than pinpricks of hail. Fog-wisps obscured the landscape and despite the lashing rain, they could barely see ten feet ahead of them. The rocky path they trod was thin, unrelenting and twisted. One false step and a wayfarer could find himself tumbling down a steep defile or a bottomless pit. Jagged mountains reared around them like shark fins, but they could barely see these, being shrouded in vapourish clouds. Above the timber line, barely any vegetation grew to offer the two shelter from the biting rain. The sky grew darker by the minute, and they knew they would have to seek shelter soon or be prey to roving beasts.
Conan guessed before they tackled that mountain that it was not in their best interests to engage heights so late in the day, but youthful overconfidence shrouded his wisdom. It was not less than an hour ago that Subotai had agreed to plod onward, despite his qualms. Conan had seen the doubt in his companion’s eyes—such decision went against the easterner’s better judgement. The Hyrkanian’s trust in him was high enough that he would follow him to the grave. This was Subotai—thief and archer, lynxish renegade from faraway Hyrkania. The agile bowman carried a silver scimitar at his side, a deadly bow on his back and was the best archer this side of Zamora. Nigh a moon ago, he and Conan had together raided an accursed temple of Set, one of Thulsa Doom’s headquarters, right before the evil overlord Rexor’s astonished eyes.
It had been a grand adventure, and disastrous . . . culminating in the death of Valeria, his beloved mate.
The Cimmerian was proud to have Subotai as a travelling companion and would often look with approval out of the corner of his eye at his perfect practice shots. Subotai was not one to bandy words; he was quick and cunning, an intelligent and fearless hunter. There was something unspoken that hovered about him, like a voice whispering of a darker past, as if the warrior within guarded a secret that was both dark and mysterious. Conan made shrewd guesses that perhaps at one time, in another life, Subotai was not a thief, but a noble warrior plunged into the chaotic, cruel Hyborian world, grown up with the inflexible tenets of caste imposed on him and wounds that would never heal. Also aware that his current profession as thief and renegade was the least hypocritical, the least savage of paths he could have taken.
Conan himself stood two heads taller than the sleek, moustached Subotai. Even after such a brutish march, his blue eyes blazed opal-fire and the dark mantle of his hair ran wet with water. There was an aura of power about his figure; it was chiselled into his harsh features, not of cruelty, but of the grim memoirs of the goreish frenzy of a thousand battles. Clothed in high boots, tough leather trousers and a leather jerkin, the Cimmerian had discarded his helm long ago after the last battle with Thulsa Doom and his thugs. By his vengeful hand, Thror and Rexor had both perished in pools of blood, as they deserved: Thror, impaled by a Cimmerian-made trap, Rexor by the gleaming blade of the barbarian’s own bloody sword.
The rain poured down heavily and Conan’s jerkin was drenched. His boots squished at every stride. Both warriors fought to slosh through deep puddles and muddy streams that were quick to be fed by the moody storms. It made the going treacherous. With hair flattened to his skulls, the two together looked like a pair of drowned rats hobbling on a cow path.
The Mirdash range was where they were, particularly, the shins of Skar mountain. Had the Cimmerian known his geography better he could have turned east to better mountain passes. Nor did his Hyrkanian comrade guard such knowledge, for his experience with these far westlands was slim.
“By Crom!” muttered Conan. “We should have left this grizzly mountain behind long ago.”
Subotai grunted sourly.
Conan pondered his sudden whim to trek to such remote backward country when he could just as easily waste himself in the decadence and opulence of the cities, like Shadizar or Asgalun.
The hill barbarian grimaced blandly. He had given up the thought long ago . . . the life of pampered civilization was not his calling.
It was then that they spied a strange if not disquieting sight: a long stake driven into the centre of the path. It teetered in the wind and held various ghastly cargo. From top to bottom dangled a grotesque array of skulls—human—corded with their own dry-rotted flesh. The skulls all chimed against one another as the wind lashed them. Not fresh were these but still sickening-sweet, at least within any perception of reason.
For a long moment, the Cimmerian brooded idly. The sight was not pleasant, or altogether unfamiliar; indeed it brought up ghastly memories of a place far away—long moons ago . . .
That’s the end of the excerpt. Read the rest of The Dragon of Skar on kindle unlimited. innersky.ca/skar
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Other books by Chris Turner,
writer of fantasy, adventure, and SF.
Visual artist, musician.
Dragon Sea Chronicles
Starhustler
The Dim Zone
The Isk Rider
Freebooter
Denibus Ar
Read all of Chris’s free books here with movie-style soundtracks:
innersky.ca/booktrack
Chris Turner, Avenger
