Any better than Kern and his outcasts were often treated. Once outside the clan, always outside. That was law.
And this was actually Kern’s story. How he had chased a Vanir party toward the Snowy River passes after being cast out of his village clan of Gaud, and rescued friends and village kin. Though certainly not alone. Reave had been there. Desa and Aodh and Wallach Graybeard. Ehmish had been the one to carry a stack of flaming brands along a distant path to draw out the raiders.
But Conan rarely needed help. Such had been the legend of the unlikely hero ever since he left a devastated Clan Conarch and began his travels as an outcast, a thief, a warrior, and, eventually, a king.
Because Kern knew the gist of the tale—had lived through it, after all—he hunkered down and studied those faces he saw were listening. Not all believed the story, of course. Some—like Nahud’r, like Ros-Crana—knew the truth. Others simply shook their heads at yet another implausible tale. In fact, the name of Conan was still frowned upon by many Cimmerians. They might marvel at his exploits—his feats of strength and cunning—but the truths always remained he had left his people, his land, and traveled for too long among “civilized” men. There were those who even challenged that “King” Conan had tried to enforce his own will upon Cimmeria, stationing garrisons in the southern reaches, then abandoned his people when they needed him most by withdrawing most of that occupying army just when the Vanir threat loomed largest.
First he is outcast for leaving to avenge his people. An invader for thinking to settle peace on southern Cimmeria. And then a coward and a traitor for freeing the same lands that had chafed under his attempted authority.
Cimmerian judgment was harsh, even in the best of times.
But there were enough who appreciated the tale for its own sake that the storyteller was encouraged to continue. Warriors who beat a fist against their own chests, in salute. And the Aquilonian soldiers, who knew Conan as their king and hung on every word as if hearing it from Conan’s own lips.
“Conan found the great warrior, the Ymirish, having roped the chieftain’s daughter to a strong watchtower tree where the frost-maned beast intended to ravage her. With a great, savage yell he rushed the great northerner with greatsword flashing in the moonlight.
“Back and forth they battled, and Conan bled over the frozen snows as he was finally knocked back into the same tree as the chieftain’s daughter, his lover”—Kern steeled himself against any reaction—“where he barely managed to block a lethal swipe that would have ripped open his own throat and taken his head as a Vanir trophy.”
Which Kern knew had been the point at which he’d had no strength left. No reason to hope to survive. Trapped against the tree, his own sword pinned between their bodies and only a single hand on the Ymirish’s arm to hold back that final blow.
“With a final heave, Conan threw back the Vanir. He dug the tip of his greatsword through the raider leader’s belly, spilling the northerner’s guts, which fell out onto the ground. Not steaming warm as a normal man’s would be. They were frozen. A great block of ice.”
A nice touch.
“The Ymirish staggered forward, and fell. And Conan took the chieftain’s daughter back to her people.”
There were a few hearty cheers, but more simple grunts by those less enthralled as the tale finally ended. A few men toasted the victory silently, raising their tankards and downing the last of their ale in mighty draughts.
Kern swallowed more of the bitter ale himself.
Then he nearly choked it up as Nahud’r leaned forward over the fire. “That not quite how it happen,” the Shemite said in broken Aquilonian, a language most Cimmerians recognized well enough. His eyes shone brightly out of a dark-skinned face. His teeth were large and his grin a savage white.
No, it hadn’t happened exactly that way. It completely brushed aside the pain and suffering Maev, Burok Bear-slayer’s daughter, had known under the hands of the Ymirish. And the fact that Kern would have died alongside her if Daol hadn’t tracked after them and fired a trio of arrows into the warrior’s back.
Cleverly fired a trio of arrows, Daol would say.
Even so, he had no desire for Nahud’r—who had been one of the rescued slaves—to set the storyteller straight. Maev’s shame did not need to be detailed, nor his own weakness. Nor anything that had passed between the two of them in the nights after. Let them add this tale into the legends of Conan, and welcome.
But Nahud’r’s ebony skin and odd dress were a draw all to themselves. A nomad from the fabled southern deserts of Shem, who later had been educated in Aquilonia, there wasn’t much about the man that was not unusual. When the Shemite spoke, he always gathered an audience.