Wyrd Tales: The Cult of the Black Pillars

In olden days,

Spurr’d on by golden ways,

Away from smoking keeps,

As into the deeps

Of Korax, as elsewhere,

Went whither

The tallest of Breizh’s Knights,

Brow bright as the stars’ of the night,

Blue-eyed and dark brow’d,

Back unbow’d,

Thither journey’d Conan the Knight…

Son of Hector the most bright,

I

Thunder split the heavens. At any other time this might have alarmed those within the keep by the sea. The great din was matched in volume only by the great roar of the sea as it battered against the great coast of the Scáilbeinn-Mountains the mountain ranges that were to be found all along the land of Korax, with these ones crossing all along the coast through the south-westernmost part of the Ogre kingdom.

Rain swept over the land drowning out alongside the lightning the noise of the screams that tore through the night. It was these very screams that had pulled the young man from his bed so that he traversed through the wilderness as speedily as he could. The plains that separated the keep from the mountains were not vast so that on horse-back it took most little more than an hour.

Through the worst of the tempest Leonid advanced up alongside the side of the greatest of the local mountains. Advancing up along the mountain-side he had but eyes for the mountain’s peak, having reached the foot of the mountain he had left his horse behind and journeyed through one of the larger caverns that was to be found some distance up the southern face of the mountain. Few ever treaded thither such was the infamy that the mountains enjoyed so that it was unlike their other hiding places throughout the realm hardly hidden. It was an almost public location so that it was a favourite place of worship for the Black Ring of Scáilbeinn.

The Black Ring had not been convened therein nigh on three years, the young traveller mused to himself with a great deal of satisfaction. He only hoped that it might be another three years before he was made to play host to another of these meetings.

The sound of thunder tearing through the night once more, gave the robed figure pause once more. He had not expected it.

What he also had not expected was for him to step out from deep within the black caverns of Scáilbeinn, advancing with sure-feet to the back of the cavern to find himself looking up along a long pathway that seemed carved out of the mountain even as it seemed a natural part of it. Pleased that his journey was drawing to an end, the youth continued along the road with an eagerness that might well have surprised those within the city who had never known him to be a man prone to emotions.

Still, he mused to himself, he was as much a man as the next one might well be, or the previous one. This last thought was one that amused him to no end; it filled him with a great deal of relish to know that this sacred place of the Cult of Malvoch had never and could never be discovered by the small-minded peasants that inhabited the region. All because of their dread borne from their certainty that the unknown, the shadows of the night might do them harm.

“-Which is right,” Leonid remarked to himself with a slight snigger.

“And to whom do you speak to, you detestable pup,” a voice suddenly growled from within the shadows of the mountain it seemed.

The voice that spoke up, uttered its words in the same tongue as that of Leonid which was to say the language of Zolus. Though where Leonid was himself a Zolusian, the other man was a Tigrun from the lands of Hespanya so that when he spoke the Zolusian tongue it was with a thick accent.

Covered in dark fur not unlike that of a panther, and with yellow shimmering eyes that glimmered most brightly in the dark. Running a hand through his thick beard that was darker than his hair and fur, he was visibly irritated.

“How is it that it took thee more than three hours to reach our circle?” the taller of the two figures demanded of the younger impatiently. “I had given instructions that you were to arrive hither before the storm struck.”

The younger of the two shrugged his shoulders in response, utterly indifferent to the other man’s accusatory tone. “It happens, that Baron Cillian’s feast lasted far longer than I had foreseen.”

“Pah, I doubt that Plamen will show himself half as tolerant of thy excuses as I,” the taller man growled at him.

Leonid considered the words of the other man, and the furious glare directed in his direction. The other mage had on more than one attempted to push him into a quarrel, so that the younger man had long ago learnt the importance of self-restraint.

Refusing to rise to the bait he was to ask of his fellow cultist, “What of Plamen? Why has he not as yet arrived hither?”

“He has been delayed,” Radko grunted unhappily.

“How so?”

“The Baron Eadan chose not to support our plot and attempted to send a messenger to warn the Cillian of our plot.” Radko told him, with the revelation drawing a gasp of amazement from the middle-aged mage.

He might well have uttered some remark about the suddenness and unexpectedness of this particular betrayal, but his sense of caution prevented him from doing so. It had been him who had helped to arrange Eadan’s invitation into their plot against Cillian. If the old baron had allowed himself to be dissuaded from it, they were all of them in danger. He could potentially reveal the plot before it had the opportunity to spring the trap and seize Aisling that they might sacrifice her as a pure maiden, and one of the ruling aristocracy of Korax.

“One of us ought to ride to the south-east to stop him before he could warn the baron or his sister of what we have in mind.” Leonid declared after some thought, “I would recommend this be your task given that I must report back to the keep before they found me missing again.”

“Why must I be the one to run errands as though I were a mere apprentice?” Radko demanded impatiently, only for his words to spark Leonid’s own temper.

Before he could snap though, a voice interrupted the two of them and made them both leap some thirty feet in the air. “I hope that the two of ye, do not intend to continue this fractious meaningless quarrel. Not when there is still so much for us to do, before the ceremony.”

“Plamen you have arrived at long last!”

“Fools, I have been here some time, it is only that I now choose to make my presence known to thee,” the leader of their cult retorted with a hint of scorn in his voice.

Plamen was the head of their cult, and a man of sixty-three years of age with a head of dark fur and grey eyes, and where Radko spoke with a thick accent that was harsh, he did so with a silkier one. It befitted the man who had ruled over the Cult of the Malvoch for more than forty years since he had usurped the founder, Syntharus.

In that time Plamen had grown the order from one that consisted of but twelve individuals into one that spanned more than a hundred members.

The last time that Leonid had seen Plamen, the old man had stood upright. Yet now he leant heavily on a large wooden staff. The man had begun to wither with age, he mused with more than a little interest so that where Radko was keen to assist the old man, Leonid held himself back.

In his other hand, the dark-robed heavily bearded elder held a large already lit torch.

“We must now ascertain if the Baron will be where we need him when the feast ends,” Plamen declared as he guided them along the past behind the great mountain. “We have waited too long for this moment. Malvoch will not continue to remain patient should we delay any further his return.”

This was how every meeting with the grandmaster of their order began, and as with every other time it had ended in mere debates and discussions. There was never much more to them, so that Leonid heaved another heavy indifferent sigh.

All knew that Malvoch spoke only to Plamen, and never any of the others. Or so it ordinarily went as far as all those of the order k new. It happened that little did they know that Leonid had not remained exactly faithful to all of the order’s creeds.

“Leonid it strikes me that we must have the Baron dealt with the day of the ritual, and his sister the beauteous Aisling here the same evening.” Plamen declared sharply at the lesser member of their order his tone sharp, and his eyes piercing.

Repressing a sneer, the younger man was to respond with a bow, “I assure you master that all is in readiness for the trap.”

“I certainly hope, for your sake that this is true. The Master will not tolerate failure on thy part,” Plamen retorted sharply, his eyes wide with disdain when he looked on the younger man once again, not that this bothered him.

Leonid knew all too well how fickle the old man could prove himself to be, so that he bowed his head. This meant that he would have to indeed devote himself to the death of the Baron, but also to the vision he had of what was to come.

“I will fulfill his vision,” Leonid promised.

“Very good, now do come along Radko, I will have need of thy assistance-”

“Oh wait, Master! I would have need of assistance for what I am to achieve, so if you could only spare Radko I could more easily provide you with the requested sacrifice.” Leonid pleaded interrupting the grandmaster of their cult who only nodded his head irritably.

“Oh very well then! I shall see to the preparations myself.”

Leonid bowed once more, while Radko did the same if rather more stiffly than the younger man did then. He was to glance at the feline, noting his youth, his strength as he moved and the curl of disdain.

He may not have known it then, but this was to be his final three days. Leonid would see to that, he thought with a smirk on his lips.

II

The court of Baron Cillian was a lively one. The new baron had taken up his place as the new Baron with an enthusiasm that neither his uncle nor his great-uncle had when they first took up their positions over the past two generations. In total the two prior barons had ruled over the lands of Kalvarian over the course of twenty-six years, a time-period during which the local inhabitants had dwindled in population and become ever more reclusive. The sheer decadence of the two Barons who unlike most others of Korax were not Ogres, had become infamous throughout the whole of the south-west of Korax, which were the lands most called Shralklands.

The barony for its part for its part was more than seven hundred years old with the current line of lords having ruled over it for but a mere two hundred and fifty-three years. The barony had been founded by a warrior by the name of Kalvan, so that the region had enjoyed rule from an unbroken line of lords, until now that is.

The Baron’s succession though had come as a surprise as he had followed after his elderly uncle had passed away a mere three years prior. The son of the younger illegitimate brother of the former Baron, who had wed a mere tanner’s daughter and preferred to abjure his brother’s house in favour of the life of a lesser knight in the house of the Baron of Vieldmar.

It was thus to the frustration of Sir Fiad that when presented with the Baron he found in him a man who knew only to fight and in his heiress a maiden who was gentle as a bird yet as knowledgeable of how to run a lord’s household as a peasant girl from the mountains.

This was the reason for which he fretted endlessly about the noble. He had served him now for three years and his predecessor for thirty years so that as a bald, sixty-year old man with a thick beard he found himself overseeing what felt to be a child aping at being a man.

“I say to you Baron Cillian, Leonid seeks your end,” Sir Fiad warned sharply, as he paced the length and breadth of the vast armoury.

The room was covered in a vast assortment of spears piled up within wooden containers with rounded holes through which the tips could be discerned. The spears were arranged in a series of six rows from left to right, and with swords leaning against the walls just beyond each of the rows of spears, with the axes having placed with their tips wrapped up in large bundles of slim cloth next to the sheathed swords.

The armour itself was two dozen meters long and wide so that it was a square room, with nigh on a dozen men circulating in and out of the room. It was hardly what Fiad would have described as the ideal place to have a sensitive discussion.

It did not matter to the Baron. A tall and strong man of some thirty years of age, with a thick moustache that fell a little past his strong jaw, and with long dark hair and a muscular five-foot ten build, he was a man who projected authority and power with every step and word he uttered. The trouble was that though he might project strength and vigour in his dark tunic, cloak and breeches.

“I doubt that,” Cillian retorted as he examined one sword, unsheathing it with a swift flick of his wrist.

His eyes glimmering with satisfaction when he saw the silver colour of the blade and how it shined in the torchlight. It was with more than a little satisfaction that he slid it back into place before placing the weapon back against the wall.

Sighing in frustration, Fiad growled, “But it is the truth milord, all know that he has been slipping in and out of the keep every second night.”

“I imagine he has a woman,” Cillian replied coolly without much interest.

It was with a sigh of exasperation that the captain of the guards at last ceased his pestering, realizing that it was impossible to persuade the youth of the truth of the dark-robed sorcerer. While he asked himself how best he might insist on this matter. He knew the sorcerer to be untrustworthy, he was to begin to speak only for his liege to interrupt him by addressing the newly arrived Knight who entered the armoury as though it were his own. “Ah, there you are, how might you judge the situation? Do you also think it likely that Leonid intends to betray and slay me?”

The man to whom he spoke was tall, and built in such a manner that he towered over those around him and dressed in a hauberk and greaves he was an intimidating figure. His blond hair was long and wild even as his eyes were so vividly blue as to remind one who looked on them of the sea itself. His voice when he spoke was profound and rough as though it had come from the lips of a lion rather than those of a man. “It has naught to do with me.”

“Come now Sir Conan, I would have you present your views on the matter of the upcoming festival and whether Leonid is a man to be trusted or not.” Cillian asked of the northerner who regarded him with piercing cerulean orbs.

It was however with an exchanged glance that he addressed himself to the other knight present then to the baron, “Only a fool would trust that viper.”

This caused Cillian to flush scarlet with anger, his dark brows drawing together as his eyes flashed with fury. “What? A fool am I?”

“Yes, if you do not lay a trap of your own,” Conan answered impatiently, “Brother Cathan, has said that he has need of your presence in the feast-hall.”

Cillian groaned before he ran a hand through his air grunting out as he did so, “Oh why? If that pompous old bag of hot air were to have it his own way I would never spend any time amongst the men or training in feats of arms, but rather waste the remainder of my years attending assizes and supervising table arrangements!”

“Be grateful for the aid and friends that you do have, Cillian,” Conan reprimanded the other man with a piercing look in his direction. “For you know not the hour in which your enemies might well strike.”

“And if I were to seek to make friends of them?”

This served only to amuse Conan who let loose a loud bark of mocking laughter that made his friend’s face turn scarlet once more. “Ha! A man, who makes friends of his enemies when they wish him dead, is a man who longs for death!”

“According to whom?” Cillian challenged furiously.

“According to history, my old friend,” The young knight retorted with placid amusement, “Remember you well what happened when Caesarius the Conqueror was warned of the Ides of Ziu, and how all went poorly for him and he was slain by three men he considered friends along with all those he had spared after a number of wars with them.”

“Bah he was a fool, where I am not for I know Leonid’s heart, know his mettle and tell you that the man has not the steel or the support for such a thing. And why would he slay me? What could he possibly gain?” Cillian retorted impatiently, looking from one man to the next, while his men exchanged an exasperated glance between themselves.

“No matter,” Fiad muttered seeking to change the subject; he was to turn to the newly arrived Conan, “How has the lady-heiress gotten on with the feast-preparations?”

Conan shrugged once more, his expression indifferent, “She is still haunted by her strange dreams.”

“Bah, that girl has truly fallen away, I do not see why so many suitors long for her,” Cillian complained throwing his hands in the air. “Those dreams of hers! Them along with her continuous prophecies of my doom have truly made her something of a disappointment for an heiress and sister.”

“Have a care when speaking of her, she is your sister,” Fiad retorted annoyed now by his liege’s fussing over the girl’s dreams. “And she is merely concerned for you.”

“Needlessly so, bah enough talk let us go out into the courtyard to enjoy ourselves! I would swing my claymore as I once did in olden days!” Cillian growled as he stamped his foot and made for the array of swords to one side. “What say you Conan?”

Another messenger though soon arrived to interrupt them just as the blond haired knight had bobbed his head eager to go out and knock his liege about a little. He missed combat and it had been nigh on a year since he had had the pleasure of unhorsing anyone on account of the peace and tranquility of the barony. The messenger for his part had come in the name of the lady Aisling who wished for Conan’s company to ‘assist with preparations with dinner’ which all knew really meant she was once more feeling frantic.

The cry of frustration that echoed from his friend’s lips, was one that Conan echoed as he grunted, “Nine hells, she has lost something of her wits! Since coming to this keep she has gone from the most charming of women to the most irritating of sorts.” Conan complained vociferously as he threw his hands in the air. Still though, he offered only this meek form of protest before he turned to go, with Cillian’s jeering laughter echoing behind him. “Mayhaps next time you shall have the pleasure of being humiliated and thrown down onto the dirt out in the courtyard.”

*****

While the men discussed the matter of Leonid’s disappearances, the plot against the likes of Cillian, life proceeded as it always had elsewhere. The cooks saw to the preparation of great plates of pork, beef and venison, all while the many chamberlains of the house of Kalvarian saw to the cleaning, the chasing out of mice and insects, the destruction of countless cobwebs and their interminable war on filth and negligence.

Alongside them racing all about were those men responsible for securing the tables necessary, the roster of guests and the space necessary in the courtyard within the castle walls and outside them for the great flow of guests that were expected to be present for the coming festivities. This was to be the Baron’s first time hosting so many guests and there was a sense that this was to prove itself a great and momentous moment in the history of the barony. Nothing could be left to chance, not one thread could be left out of place, not one tapestry or banner could afford to be misplaced. Everything had its proper place, and everything had to find its way to the perfect place.

A stone fortress that had stood for centuries, the castle had transformed itself it seemed overnight from a drab and cold place into a place of warmth, beauty and unrivalled decorum.

Anyone visiting could well have been excused for thinking that the fortress was that of a King rather than that of a lesser Baron. It was however a place that the High-King of Korax had never visited in all the years he had lived.

The reason for this lay in that the King had notion of the keep’s existence as he was at present little more than a child under the regency of his uncle, the Duke of Vhalthran. His father had also remained largely ignorant and indifferent as to the doings and comings and goings of this countryside barony. And why should he not have been? It was a backwater with little in the way to recommend it to kings when they might in place of visiting it have one of their justiciars visit it.

Still though there was a profound sense of satisfaction, of pride that the locals took in decorating the place with garlands, roses and other ornate flowers. These flowers were every imaginable colour from white, to purple, to crimson, to blue and to pink or yellow so that the place appeared no less beauteous than the scenes of Elysium depicted in one of the paintings on the walls.

While those banners occupied most of the walls in the feast-hall, with the green banners in question depicting a scarlet lion, there was still almost a dozen tapestries. The tapestries in question depicted mostly scenes of the heroic past of the baronial dynasty.

The first of those in the feast-hall, those nearest to the great doors to the hall depicted the great victory of the first Baron in the battle of the Redplains. The Baron in question was Kalvan who was famous for his heroic action in the battle of Redplains, in which he and a hundred of his knights had arrived in time to discover the King Grackus III on the cusp of defeat and surrounded just outside the gates of the great keep. The Ogre-King had fought as best he might to ensure as many of his men might retreat behind the keep gates, after the disaster in the Vermachairi. Hardly skilled as a general he had proven his courage with his excellent rear-guard action, when the Baron had arrived, and filled with fury charged straight into the enemy’s rear.

Thinking it a trap, the Collubar that is to say the Serpent-Men who had fought in the Second Wars of Darkness in the hopes that they might eradicate the Ogres from the face of Pangaea were caught between the two armies. This was the most splendid moment in the middle-aged nobleman’s entire life, and was the one in which he was given permission to wear atop his brow a crown of ash-branches and ash-leaves in honour of the trees that grew plentifully to the west of the great plains near to the battle.

The next tapestry showed the death of that same lord, and a splendid feast in which the man’s son had hosted the King and his son. There was another great tapestry near the back of the great hall, with it depicting the great charge of the Ogre foster-father of the fourth baron Ádhamh II, against the forces of the invading Voluria forces from the island to the south-east of Korax.

This was the hall in which the lady-heiress as the lady Aisling was called by many of the servants had found her way. At the helm of the cleaning of the great hall, broom in hand as always she was however to be of little help due to how wearied she was from countless nights of sleeplessness or the very worst of nightmares. So that each of those nightmares having ended to her horror in the death of her brother, so that she paced the length and breadth of the feast-hall.

“Ah! Sir Conan, have you spoken with my brother of the nightmares that I have had regarding the festival? If so what did he say?” Aisling asked of the knight, almost throwing herself against him when she saw him.

The blonde haired maiden had since some time ago struggled with a series of dark dreams that had kept her from properly enjoying any sort of rest. It was because of this that her lovely green eyes were so deeply marred by half-ringed shadows. Her once vibrant beauty such that it could still enchant all those around her though she had long since given into despair.

It was thus that she now turned to the mightiest of her brother’s warriors as she had a number of times prior to then. Such was her confidence in him, and the number of times that she had gone to him that many suspected an affair of sorts between them though it was something of a base accusation that could only have annoyed the hero from Breizh.

“You need not fear milady,” Conan assured her, hands on her petite shoulders.

“Will he listen?” the hope in her voice might well have made any other man’s heart melt or thaw.

It was however not to be with Conan who shrugged his shoulders, “I doubt it.”

“Oh!” she gasped blinking away tears, as she complained, “If only he would! I have to hope he will. However, he will not speak to me, or hear anything wrong about Leonid.”

Conan looked as though he might speak up, yet he was interrupted ere he could by the sudden sound of a familiar voice as a nearby figure stepped into the hall without making a sound.

“Indeed, you need not fear milady, for no harm shall befall your brother should I have a say in the matter,” Leonid uttered with a sly wink and a grin that could well have chilled the blood of even the most hardened warrior.

It was with more than a little difficulty that those around them swallowed the bile and chill that overtook them. None could ever see what it was that young Cillian had in the strange, gaunt sorcerer, they knew only that he was a wicked and dark figure. A figure that had little in the way of regard for any of them and carried dread about with him, as another might carry his cloak or sword or with respects to the servants mops.

Only Conan remained unafraid.

This in spite of how he had a nightmare the night prior to the fateful day when the festival was to begin and the baron of Kalvarian was to arrive, for the neighbouring baron had promised to come if only to bury the ancient feud that existed between the two baronies.

The dream that came to him was one that left him shaking and turning all about as he slumbered. Finding himself deep within an ancient forest one that he had hunted in time and again, with the youth making his way through it even as a light shined from ahead of where he found himself.

The light called to him, and had taken on the shape of an upturned sword, with it lighting up the night-sky high above him.

Awe-struck he sought to follow it on instinct rather than because he had had some legitimate thought for how it might bring him out from the forest. It was when he neared the Scáilbeinn Mountain that he was to find himself suddenly transported before great black pillars. Startled by this, he might well have reached out to touch one of them were he not suddenly addressed by a great voice that seemed as though it came from the bowels of the earth and the heavens all at once. It was the mightiest voice he had ever heard, and it called out to him, “Conan! Conan! Halt! Do not touch the pillars!”

Glancing about the warrior soon found himself amazed to discover standing before him, was a majestic warrior the likes of which he had only ever seen painted and carved into the great temple walls in Breizh and throughout the rest of Gallia. The figure wore a great helm, and armour that was the colour of gold and shone like a third sun, his was a mien and face that was tanned if still pale. His eyes glittered red as lava, and his blond hair and beard seemed to shimmer no less brilliantly. His intricate hauberk bore the image of a great lion upon it, one that had a pair of swords to either side of it.

Never before had Conan set eyes upon the divine, and never before had he ever dreamt he might someday kneel before Ziu himself. A god he had long known to be the protector of his people just as he was of Norençie. “Arise, Conan,” the great war-god bellowed out his voice booming across the land as he motioned with one hand for him to rise to his feet.

“Why have you appeared before me my laird?” the Knight asked of the deity as he did as bidden, rising from the kneeling position he had assumed in deference to his god, the one said to breathe courage into the hearts of all men of Gallia when they were born.
“I have need of thee; slay the pillars! Slay those stones that Malvoch planted herein ancient times, and Korax has since that time withered because of them. Set the people and this land free of them!” Ziu commanded with all the authority, all the fury of what he truly was; a war-god. “Leonid will come to thou, in the hopes to kill thee and the line of barons. Kill him before these pillars along with the others of his ilk.”

“How can one slay pillars?” Conan demanded of the sepulchral figure who loomed large over him, so that he was cast in his shadow.

The great and mighty deity was to raise one hand. Pointing past the warrior, so that when he followed the god’s finger with his eyes he was startled to find a blade embedded into one of the black pillars.

The last thing that the warrior could recall was reaching over to tear it from the pillar whereupon he saw it wither away, to reveal just past it a great altar. It was with more than a little amazement that when he pulled the blade from the pillar he then looked up to discover a great shimmering light.

“By this blade,” he heard Ziu breathe into his ears, “Thou shalt conquer…”

And then he awoke.

*****

The day of the feast was the following day. The day began with a great deal of rain, with the exterior of the castle black and grey so that there was a sense of darkness and foreboding that gripped the air. Most of those who lived within the proximity of the great keep could not remember a day so terrible and oppressive as that one. So wet and grey was it that not even the crows or ravens would dare crow or step out from where they hid.

The chief complaint a great many had was that the bells had failed to ring all day, as the Ogre responsible for ringing, them had overslept. The monk in question had of course been fiercely reprimanded by his betters ere that he tried to ring the bells at the top of the small temple to the Queen of the gods in the Koraxian faith.

It was thus with more than a little doubt and apprehension that the warriors of the keep, and the servants saw to presenting themselves as best they might despite their misgivings. They were not alone in this, as a number of guards wore their armour and their blades to the feast with some pleased by this and others more consternated.

“What is this, Sir Fiad? Why are so many armed when I ordered that they not be, when welcoming the delegation from Vieldmar?” Cillian demanded of the head of his guards, with the older warrior hesitating but briefly.

“It happens as it were milord, how shall I put it?” The warrior stuttered as they stood near the entrance hall in their finest ceremonial armour.

Waiting for an embassy from another state or baron had never been Cillian’s favourite activity and in this situation his already worn sense of patience was all the thinner by the second hour. It was this that caused him to ask, “Have they been sighted yet? When shall they arrive from beyond the rise?”

“In time milord,” Conan replied with no less impatience, growing ever more irritated by his friend’s inability to simply wait for the eastern baron. “He will arrive, never fear Cillian, it is not as though he does not need this alliance any less than you.”

“Oh really? And when might that be?”

“It will happen, remember that as with diligence patience never can fail you,” the younger man retorted evenly.

“Enough of your lessons Conan,” Cillian replied impatiently.

“Then start learning them.” The Breizhian answered with the same unbending air about him, even as his mind wandered back to when he had awoken that morning, to find his sword changed. It shone brighter than before, with a silver glimmering light and the slightest hint of crimson that ran beneath its metal, even as it bore the mark of the symbol of Awen.

They were soon joined by others such as Aisling, Leonid and a number of others. Each of them having taken their time preparing for the day so that they looked their finest, with the lady Aisling dressed in a fine blue dress, with silver trimmings. Leonid was as always dressed in black and stood near to the lady who glanced every few minutes, visibly disturbed by his presence. It also happened that she was surrounded by half a dozen ladies, including the head-chambermaid Riona. The old woman looked on the proceedings with visible eagerness and twinkling dark eyes. Doubtless she was eager to be given such a place of honour in the proceedings, as she was new to her post.

Cillian greeted them each with visible relief, whereupon he took to discussing matters with Leonid. Notably they spoke of the negotiations that were to come, the importance of the treaty between the two Barons and possible further discussions of a proper alliance between the two baronies.

Likely, Conan mused sullenly, Aisling would be part of those negotiations so that he began to ponder what it might mean to remove her from this place. It had been some time, he thought to himself if idly since he had done something like steal away a maiden, he doubted that Aisling would resist any more than the previous maiden had. That affair had ended poorly for the maiden as she had soon tired of life in the wilderness and had preferred to return to her castles, silk and giggling friends. This one would likely end far better, the youth mused to himself as he turned his gaze to the horizon once more.

“Look, over yonder! The Baron Eadan approaches!” one lad cried out from where he stood next to his mother a short distance from where the twenty-four knights of Kalvarian held themselves.

Observing the lad from the corner of his eyes, the Breizhian came near to chortling so amused was he by the tawny-haired nine year old. He was however interrupted by the approach of the twenty knights and baron.

The approaching embassy road hard for Castle-Kalvarian, with the black banner of the scarlet ox the emblem of the Baron of Vieldmar billowing in the wind high, held up by the man’s standard-bearer who rode not far behind him.

“At last!” Cillian breathed relieved to see them, stepping forward to welcome them within the courtyard as the other baron and his knights rode hither, so that they came to a halt before him.

Old Eadan was to descend from his great white horse, and stand before the twenty-four knights, the twenty servants. His lips trembling, the old man was white bearded with a near bald head and dressed in rich woollen black robes and trousers held himself upright. His dark eyes were blacker than night, and full of pain as he stumbled towards the baron.

“Here at last, what happened old man? Did you lose your way?” Cillian asked of the old man, a hint of scorn in his voice and eyes as he extended one hand to the old baron in greeting. The old man though, did not grip it.

“I-I-I cannot…” gasped the old baron as he clutched at his stomach.

“What is the matter old man?” Cillian demanded of the old man from the east.

To his surprise, the old man murmured, “Whatever it was that you gave me to eat- whatever was to be found in my porridge it… has wounded me! Leonid you bastard, you have tricked me! Poisoned me!”

“I did no such thing Radko, now reveal thyself and slay this fool that we might commence the day of Reckoning in full glory and blood!” Leonid yelled at the other man, who began to shed his skin for fur, and with his eyes rapidly becoming ever more feline and maddened to the fright of all those who stood before him.

“What?” Fiad gasped as he turned now to face the sorcerer.

Leonid for his part, a terrible grin on his lips drew as suddenly as the wind a shimmering dagger. So sudden was his pulling out of the knife that none knew how to react. The first though to react was Conan, who blade in hand made to hew him down. The sorcerer though soon vanished in a great black burst and an echoing laugh.

“I would look elsewhere Conan! But fear not, for I shall not harm the lady Aisling! For now that is!” The lady in question shrieked as she vanished from sight also.

It was with a curse that Conan looked over his shoulder, to those around him only to gape in dismay as most began to fall before their ‘guests’.

At the same moment that this took place a number of the guards that surrounded Eadan shaking and quaking as their master was, soon threw themselves upon the nearby guards. All gathered therein the courtyard stared in astonishment as men who had once sat astride proud white steeds, revealed themselves to be as apes with sharp wolfish incisors that chewed as easily through armour as they did through flesh.

The cry of astonishment that arose from their victims was as naught compared to the yell of pain that was torn from Cillian’s throat. No sooner had he become conscious of the fact that his sister had disappeared and

The battle that resulted was one of the most heated that Castle-Kaldarian had ever seen in all its existence. Men flew from the courtyard, whilst others flew towards it. Dwarves upon arrival, cursing into their beards drew hatchets and throwing themselves against the great apes attempted to cleave them from crown to chin. Others such as Wolframs, and Tigruns those faithful beast-folk of the keep attempted to bring steel and iron down upon the gathered invaders.

Most though fell before them, cries of death on their lips and their blood pouring out from a number of wounds. The apes when they had conquered their chosen victims usually preferred to begin devouring them.

This might well have been the fate of the likes of Cillian if it were not for Sir Fiad leaping thither at the formerly disguised Radko who threw himself back just as the man’s sword hewed through the air. Growling at him, he was to strangely to his assailants to prefer to depart from the open gates of the keep, for the distant fields.

“Wait! Hold! We need to clear away these beasts!” Conan reminded the impulsive old man, as he slashed through the outstretched arms of one of the apes that had thrown itself against one of the men nearest to him.

“But-”

“Fight old man!” Conan shouted at him.

No sooner had he screamed those words than the other man balked at giving chase, and looking around took stock of how badly the fight had gone by this time. Rallying those around him, he was to with the young man duck below two pouncing beasts. The two of them dug their blades into them, drawing death-cries from their respective foes.

Conan it was though who leapt forward, to slash apart the skull of one beast as it lunged at two nearby ladies. Revelling in the brutality of battle he was to run through another ape after that one, only to be startled by another. The warrior was knocked off his feet by another of the beasts, one with glistening fangs that came very near to burying themselves into his throat, as the beast wrestled with him for dominance. Grappling with the beast, the Knight was to jab his fist at its throat, aiming to knock the air from it, so that when he heard it gasp after four blows there he reached out with his right-hand for the blade he had woken to.

He was soon saved by Fiad, who growled at him after he ran through the monster. “Do hurry, Conan! I can hold these beasts in place now take that blade of yours and a horse and go whither and help Aisling!”

Gasping, with sweat pouring down his brow the youth was to nod his head hurriedly. Still winded he was grateful to find that one of the servants had already pulled his horse from the stables. An array of sixteen other warriors soon found their own way to their own horses just as the flashing of steel and the ravaging of corpses, male, female and child alike was drawing to an end.

After the enemy rode the warriors, pouring out from the castle walls and into the village, their brows furrowed and their eyes flashing furiously as they gave chase to rescue the heiress to the barony.

III

The warrior was to throw himself into the forest with nary a thought to his own safety, hardly caring that his companions had strayed. Each of them distracted as they bound after their own individual beast borne from the shadows that haunted each of their own minds long after they were ordinarily asleep.

The forest interior was a place that was ordinarily greener than an emerald, with tall trees of different sorts from aspen, oak, ash and redwood trees to spruce, birches, most of whom had thick trunks and long branches that seemed akin to arms reaching out to one another. The length and the outstretched quality of these ‘arms’ so impressive in the day filled most with a sense of unease long after the suns had descended in favour of the moon.

The foliage that covered the man’s vision might well have served to blind another, lesser knight but not one as experienced as Conan, who knew to slow his horse’s pace in spite of his sense of urgency. The assassination of the Baron left Aisling as the sole heiress of the barony and therefore the ‘Baroness’ so that the duty of the Knight was now to her, this was the knowledge that kept him on the road. It was the sole reason for why he drove his steed with mounting fury.

It was at this time that as he crossed through the forest that from seeming nowhere a great bellow was to be heard. The sound was akin to that of the bellow of a lion, so that the Knight was taken aback.

Any other man might well have leapt some twenty feet in the air due to fright. Not the warrior of Breizh though, for he felt no fear only disconcertment at the roar that resonated throughout the land. More surprised than frightened he reacted at once, with his right hand going at once to the sword-hilt girt to his waist.

The creature that threw itself against him did so with the force of a typhoon, even as its great battle-cry echoed across the forest, chilling the blood of all those within it and just outside of the woodlands. Terrible and bestial the creature bore the vaguest of resemblances to a Tigrun much to the momentary and highly transient confusion of the Knight.

“By Ziu!” Conan growled as he was thrown off his horse; with the animal also throw off its hooves with a shriek of terror that overtook his surprised cry.

Little knowing who or what this beast once was, he was to narrowly avoid as he fell the slashing claws of the beast that had pounced at him. Wicked slashes sundered through the air, however they did not cut through the wind alone. The marks of his blade-like nails were left thereupon his massive hauberk even as they fell from his steed.

Any other warrior might well have panicked or might have allowed themselves to fail to find their feet as quickly as he did. Yet still he somehow managed to push his assailant, even as they fell apart from one another. The bestial attacker was to land upon his four paws with a growl, feral eyes flashing with lightning at the warrior before him.

It took Conan a moment to realize where he had seen those eyes before; Radko. Awareness of who it was that was assailing him was something that though it flashed through his being within a heartbeat, he did not put much stock into it or importance to it. There were more important things to think of as he landed nimbly on his feet; such as drawing his sword and slashing at the beast.

Before he could do this he was however to be pounced upon, with the young warrior to leap to one side, evading in this manner with a nimbleness the claws of the monster.

It was thus with the first pounce of his own that he slashed at the monster, his own eyes flashing with fury and disgust towards the beast.

Tasting blood if through his silver shimmering steel even as his own filled his ears, he was to swipe once more at the monster’s back. It was a slash that hewed through the flesh of his back. This caused a shout of pain to be torn from it.

Radko growling furiously was to swipe once more at him, so that the warrior was forced to duck below his arm. Swift as lightning he attempted to slash upwards, with the possessed feline leaping back faster than even Conan could slash at it.

Any other man might well have relaxed or otherwise sought to escape from the beast that stood before him. But not the man from Breizh; his was the steeliest soul of all those that served Cillian.

Ever the warrior he was to decide to pounce next. This though proved to be the gravest mistake he made in the whole of the battle. He had hoped that he might bring this clash to a precipitous end however that desperate desire had proven itself to be little more than a mere wish.

The blow was avoided and the beast once more threw itself forward at him. Conan try as he might could not quite extricate himself from the monster.

He was aware that if he was not careful it might prove to be the last anyone saw or heard from him. Guided as he had been by battle-fury and impatience hitherto then, he forced himself to calm himself even as he gave his heart and soul fully over to his rage.

The result was that when he struck it was with the fullness of his strength with one hand bringing up his shield to protect his throat and face from the beast, even as he thrust up with his sword. The shield to his horror broke and was torn asunder as the fell-beast bit straight through the iron buckler with little paramount difficulty. Exactly how it was that its fangs could prove so sharp was a mystery to him, not that it mattered for long. The sword that had been given over to him by Ziu in hand he thrust it forward.

Overcome by desperation, Conan growling attempted to stab at the demonic Tigrun through the heart only to miss as his foe reeled back from him. Seeing the poised sword he had sought to avoid it only for him to prove unable to. Struck through the throat he let loose a stunned growl that might well have been intended to be a shriek or a roar yet could never be.

Leaping back to his feet, the young warrior was to glance all about where he stood worried over the possibility of another attack. When he concluded that there was to be no further ambushes he stared once more at the man that had attempted to kill him.

Conan stared hard at the corpse of the tiger-man that lay before him. Scornful of the now deceased warlock he was to turn away. Making to leave he was however to carry on, finding his horse within short order that he might give chase after the likes of Leonid.

*****

The victory of the mighty warrior did not go unnoticed by Leonid. He had thought he had properly estimated the skill and bravery of the northern warrior. How, the warlock asked himself was it that the Breizhian could possibly have overcome the metamorphosed Radko? The possibility that the deformed magii might well lose such a battle to an ordinary man was one that he had assumed to be impossible.

Studying the events of the battle in his goblet, he was to leap some fifty feet into the air when he heard from one side the voice of his master, Plamen, “Leonid what do you think that you are doing over yonder near the entrance of the cavern with that queer look on thy face? The lady has been brought hither let us prepare the ritual.”

“Yes indeed Master, I will do so at once.”

“And where is Radko? I have not been able to find him since he left to join you to oversee the completion of this plot of ours,” Plamen asked of his apprentice.

“I do not know whither he has gone, I know only that he fell behind whilst we fled from the castle. Something he ate left him feeling ill,” Leonid replied with a helpless shrug of his shoulders.

Plamen let slip a great hiss of disappointment, “That fool! I ought to have torn his heart from his chest when the opportunity lay before me!”

“For now, mayhap you and the others will assist me in preparing the lady Aisling for the ceremony,” Leonid requested with another nervous glance over his shoulder, though the lady was already chained to the altar it would necessitate more preparations.

“We have time ere we must begin.” Plamen replied surprised.

“One of the knights of Vieldmar could well be on his way hither, Master,” Leonid admitted a hint of embarrassment in his voice.

“What? Which of them?”

“Sir Conan.”

“Bah, what could that barbaric bull-headed blond haired youth know of our plans?” Plamen sneered contemptuously, “If he should reach this far he will die. It is that simple.”

“Yes, Master,” Leonid agreed at once, hiding a small smirk. Certainly he had reached the same conclusion that his master had; how could Conan possibly get the better of any of them without some sort of assistance or magic? The great brute was certainly not as cunning as they, and was liable to fall for one of the many illusionary traps that the warlock had left in the forest.

It was almost a shame he mused if absentmindedly so that Conan would never reach the Cult of Malvoch. The death of Plamen could be of use to him, the difficulty he told himself lay in how to accomplish it now that there were other cultists present?

The thought of exactly how occurred to him a few moments after he had made to follow his Master, so that when he did he let loose a quiet cackle. Reaching down with one finger he then stirred the contents of his goblet. This was all it would take he mused, to disturb the illusions not around the forest, but around the caverns. Those spells were far more ancient and difficult to hew through and he needed them gone if he was to accomplish his life-long dream of usurping Plamen.

*****

The last thing that Aisling had recalled as she was swept away from the castle was being carried off by Leonid, so that she had looked up at Leonid in horror. Crying out for Conan, she had attempted to wrestle herself free to no avail, wherefore she was slapped by the Knight. Stunned by the blow for it had been some time since she was struck by a man, Aisling blinked away a number of tears. She might well have tried to resist once more but the warlock predicting what she intended to do, was to strike her again this time with greater force so that when she blinked she saw stars.

Pleased by how she was temporarily stunned Leonid was to tear at his reins as he let out a sharp cry to his steed. That it might carry him faster along, thither to the distant mountains that lay before him and away from those in pursuit of them.

It was at this time that he had called out to Radko. It was a desperate act, one that was intended mostly to stall the knights behind him than to truly batter them down as he hurriedly cast an illusion.

The image he created was of him taking flight thither into the distant woodlands, which had a magic all their own. Long ago Plamen had cast a great many spells on and within the woods. The enchantments had melded with those that had already existed due in no small part to corrupted fairies that had lived there for millennia. In this way men were sure if they did not have supernatural aid, or some sort of sacred object capable of escaping it.

This done, and as he looked back on those giving his shadow chase rather than himself, Leonid let loose a great chilling chortle even as the lady Aisling queried. “Why do they gallop away to yon forest? We are here, why do they fly away so?”

“Simple milady; they follow whither they think we have galloped off to!” Leonid boasted cheerily chuckling darkly as he then made his way uneventfully towards the great mountain that loomed high to the south of the barony.

The lady began then to scream and kick out, desperate to call out to Conan and the others as they plunged away into the caverns of the mountain.

Once he had cast a sleep spell over his captive, he had her handed to a number of the cultists who had arrived the day prior to the assassination of Cillian. “Have her chained and prepared for the rite.”

“Wait no!” She cried out kicking and screaming with all her will.

This served only to amuse Leonid still further so that he was to follow after her with his eyes, his ears strained to hear her cries even as they receded up the path that led up alongside the mountain to the ritual site. Savouring her despair as another man might his wine, he was to with a start recall his wine goblet which he had not peered into in some time.

While Plamen departed to go begin the ritual with the rest of their cult, Leonid held back. Wary of a number of them, he was to once more glance down into his goblet. He was truly at a loss as to how the barbarian had made it as far as he had.

There is something there, he told himself even as he went back to studying the man as he approached the caverns. He would have to prepare accordingly for his arrival.

IV

The ritual was to begin just after the storm began. The rain fell not unlike arrows from the heavens as the sea rose up and battered itself against the shore with all the fury, and the wrath of ancient Tython against the likes of Zeus. The only source of shelter such as it was, for the Knight lay in the caverns within the mountain, which he found with little difficulty.

Treading a path forward through the darkness, as a blind man might along a path; Conan was to commit everything that he saw to memory. Eyes burning with fury and with caution as he held his sword tightly in one large, steady hand.

He was prepared for any one of Leonid’s tricks or illusions. He despised magic for a reason, and Leonid now personified every reason why this was.

“The cur cannot hide forever,” he told himself, finding a strange comfort in the sound of his own voice.

Still he trusted to the path before him, and to the glowing of his blade. Once it had seemed black and silver as any other blade, yet now it glimmered with a crimson light that served to kept back the darkness of the caves he had found his way into.

He was most relieved when he soon found his way forward past the shadows with their outstretched fingers. His own fears and uncertainties receding so that they vanished into the ether, whereupon the warrior searched about hurriedly for the way forward, he could faintly hear Aisling’s screams.

It took him some time before he found the passage so that when at last he did, he breathed a great sigh of relief.

Pleased he began his journey up the path of the warlocks. Any other man might well have been gripped by fear, or felt frozen by hesitancy. But not Conan. He felt none of the coldness, none of the terror that other men might well have suffered from at such a time.

To the contrary, he was exhilarated. It had been far too long, he thought since he was last in battle. This was also the only opportunity he might have to avenge Cilian, whom he had loved as one might a brother. And none of them not men, not gods and certainly not petty little warlocks with their demonic pretensions at bringing ancient devils into the world were permitted to slaughter his brothers in arms or in blood or by oaths with impunity.

*****

Caught up in their ritual it happened that a number of the warlocks were to set to work casting their chants into the ether. Their chants were a dark mirror to the Romalian tongue, so that the words they uttered could only be understood by those dark people of the distant south-east of Doria. It was therein the black lands where demons were still worshipped by the strangest and most violent of men that these spells were first heard by the races of men. It was thus that these varied people had banded together under the leadership of old Plamen to return to the world of Miðgarðr the demon Malvoch.

The black pillars that stood thereupon the cliff had been built more than seven thousand years prior in celebration of Malvoch who had early aligned himself with Hella. It was in reverence of him that the men of the land of Korax at that time, long before it bore that name. At that time the stones did not hold any great power or so it was said, so that the gods received little resistance when at last they threw Malvoch back into the realm from whence he had come. Left without their master’s protection the great pillars had been torn down whithersoever that the Ogres and those men who lived in the lands of Korax found them.

“We shall reverse this, reverse all that was done! For more than seven to nine thousand years,” Plamen proclaimed to those present with him, with Leonid and the others applauding him politely. “We survived for all those years that we might effect during the eclipse that which was done to our master!”

“Here, here!”

“Leonid, see to the defences and the preparations to hold off that barbarous Knight,” Plamen commanded the younger man after a moment’s thought when he noticed that the other man had joined them, this displeased him as all that Leonid did.

Leonid bowed and soon faded away into the shadows, disappearing from sight and from all the events that might soon befall them all.

After this they returned to their chanting for a time, losing themselves in the ritual they had interrupted to congratulate themselves as each man took out a great knife. Each of them prepared to slice apart a piece of Aisling who begged and pleaded with them.

Their eyes hungry, they stared down at her almost salivating as they advanced upon her.

Not one man foresaw the possibility that a shadow might well befall their circle. None of them realized before it was too late that that which inspired hope in the eyes of Aisling was not some work of her overwrought female mind. It was reality and had crept into their midst as might the west-wind or a vulture suddenly swooping down upon its prey whilst it was unaware.

The warrior crept forward from the shadows, having entered through the tunnels with such caution that none of the warlocks had even become aware of his arrival until it was too late. The veteran of a number of campaigns, and battles including a number of which that had necessitated that he slip into cities quietly in the dead of night. The noble knight had treated the caverns not unlike how one might a city under siege, and had for this reason slipped in quietly around one shadow after another.

So that the first any of them, Leonid included became aware of him, he was in their midst with his blade unsheathed and thrust forward through the barrier they had erected not unlike a girdle about themselves and through the back of their grandmaster.

“How could you find your way hither?” Plamen demanded of the newly arrived knight shaken.

“Ask your servant cur,” Conan retorted before he pulled his blade free from the man he had just run through with his sword.

Gasping and hissing from the pain, the old man was to be cast aside by the blond warrior who advanced with burning eyes towards the others. Most of them looked uncertainly from one to the next. None of them having expected to see him suddenly come upon them in the midst of their ritual.

“Conan!” Aisling shrieked as she pulled at the chains that bound her to the altar.

“Kill him!” One of the cultists shouted full of fury at the intruding warrior, for having slain their grandmaster.

The first of the mages pulled his staff with its crimson crystal from where he had stuck it in the ground next to one of the black pillars. Directing the flames that ensued from it in the direction of the warrior who threw himself behind one of the nearby pillars, the warlock in question cursed. His efforts to save his master had ended in disastrous failure with the old man struck with the full force of the flames. Screaming in response, he was soon thrown off his feet due in no small part to the force of the blast and thrust from the craggy rock he had stood upon, and down into the sea below.

“Damyan move thither, strike at him!” Ordered one of the warlocks to the one nearest to the pillar behind which the warrior had hidden himself.

“Me? Why must it be myself who goes to look and attack him? Why not yourself Eadward?” the man in question wondered fearful of the barbarian.

“Because I must complete the ritual, in Plamen and Leonid’s absences!”

They might well have argued at greater length if it were not for Conan moving to extract his dagger from its sheath. The man who had been ordered to make for where the Knight was to be found soon fell over as the blade in question embedded itself into the middle of his skull. There were still seven other warlocks to defeat and Conan only had one more knife. Consternated by this he was to however wait several seconds for his foes’ bickering to persist before he advanced once more.

The rite which Eadward had committed himself once more to was drawing to an end. This much Conan could discern. Consternated he was to make the decision of how best he might counter the sacrifice as quickly as he made all other combat decisions. Rolling away from behind the pillar to behind another, swift as the wind before he threw himself around the pillar in question and at the nearest of his enemies.

“He is attacking!” one of the warlocks shrieked in terror as Conan struck him down with all the ferocity of a previously caged lion.

The first of the men fell as quickly as Plamen had. He was not to fall alone as Damyan soon followed him into the realm of Erebus. It was with a great cry that he fell, with a number of the other warlocks left staring.

Aghast by how quickly the warrior had despatched two of their numbers, they were to all five of them glance at one another. The first to react was a Komodian warlock more than two feet shorter than his peers, red scaled, with a long tail and sharp fangs. His hair was a darker shade of crimson and his eyes which were a similar colour as his reptilian gaze flashed for a moment with a fiery light.

He chanted for a few moments in the old tongue, that of the Romalians as he called hither from the depths of the ether flames of an untold heat the likes of which only the suns’ could compare with. When he had finished his very brief chant, he gritted his fangs at the barbarian before him, “Now,” He hissed in a thick accent that sounded vaguely serpentine, “You perish northerner!”

The flames flew forward with not a soul prepared that the flames should be hewed apart and thrown all about the Knight.

Each of them stared in rapt horror. Their sorcery had been dispelled and their great power broken so that each of the bearded faces of Tigruns, Wolframs, Ursidon, Centaur and man all fell and began to twist into expressions of terror.

It was at this moment, a song upon his lips that Conan did as countless warriors of Gallia had done for countless millennia to their enemies; he wove the death-song of his enemies with the aid of his sword. The blade cut asunder the life of the scale covered Komodian Boyan so that he fell with a great shriek that chilled the blood of all those around him.

Conan never a man to stay idle, pleased and relieved that the blade had done as Ziu had implied it would leapt forward at the next warlock. The man in question was a Centaur who was soon cleaved in half. After him, it was time for the Wolfram who sought to leap at the man before him to sink his fangs into him. This decision by the black-furred jackal-headed Wolfram who was of the Ifriquyan ethnicity of his species was one that proved fatal… for him.

Silver steel flashed crimson and soon the pillar behind the jackal was painted crimson with the innards and blood of the warlock.

The next man fell also in a matter of seconds, so that soon the cult which had boasted of thirteen was reduced man by man until there was but three left. Among their numbers Eadward who had been preoccupied with the ceremony stared in stunned horror, his chant briefly interrupted by the sight of his companions falling one by one, with Dakarai, a dusky-skinned man with dark features, eyes and hair. Violent by nature and of a muscular build, the Ifriquyan was to round upon Eadward.

“Master Plamen has fallen as have all of our brothers we must complete the ritual now!” He urged the man next to him.

“Y-yes,” Eadward agreed at once, shaken.

“Conan!” Aisling called desperately, “Help me! They are about to complete the ritual!”

Conan who was in the midst of fending off and slitting the throat of one of the last of the warlocks rounded upon those near the altar. Whatever they expected him to do, it could not have been for his left hand to fall to his side and for him to stop to stare at them, his eyes alert as a wolf’s.

“That is correct, stay where thou are and do not move lest we kill young Aisling,” Dakarai taunted with a loud chortle.

Raising a brow, Conan’s left hand flashed forward wherefore the man to the right of Dakarai hissed, gurgled and reached up with both of his hands to his throat as he dropped his knife. Falling back, he fell over dead.

Horrified, Dakarai fell back only to dive forward for the fallen knife of Eadward. He was far slower than his foe who leapt up and over the altar and bound maiden there, in two bounds even as the suns’ became blotted out and darkness came to rule the land.

Dakarai’s dying scream as he was struck by the Knight’s foot. The intention was to knock him away from the knife.

Because of this Conan was far more surprised than anyone present when Dakarai fell back and toppled head over heels down the side of the cliff. Screaming as he fell to his doom, his last moments were to be wholly ignored by the warrior as he slashed apart the chains that bound Aisling, who once released threw herself against him.

“You are safe now, Aisling,” the Knight assured her, as she wept.

If her eyes were covered in tears, his were not. Surveying his surroundings he was to reach a simple conclusion and one that few others might well have reached. This entire rescue had been a simple affair for him. Too simple.

There were originally fourteen warlocks, thirteen with the death of Radko.

It was this that made his eyes flare with cerulean fury. One of them had survived! Revenge for the murder of Cilian was not yet at an end.

V

The battle was at an end. The storm had abated so that all that was left was the twin suns’ peaking out from behind the dark clouds that had kept them hidden. The chains they had wielded to hide the great shimmering light that they were capable of had rusted and left little in their wake. The only hint of what had been lay in how many of the flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees had ripened after the storm, and in how high above the land there was that ancient promise of a joyous day, the rainbow.

The men of the north, the Arns claimed it to be the bridge between the realm of Miðgarðr and that of the north-gods, the Æsir. It was a belief that many a knights and warriors of Arnish descent still believed in some places in Gallia. While he had travelled through those parts when he first left Breizh, Conan was not certain he truly believed in the Arnish faith. His doubt had only been further cemented after the recent visit from Ziu the War-God.

Victory had seemed far off when he first entered the caverns, and yet here they were still treading the path of the living, he mused with more than a little good humour. If his mood was bright and his mien radiant that of the Lady Aisling could only be described as overcast, as she looked on at him as he led the way out of the darkness and into the brightness of day with a spring to his step.

Whistling a tune, he was to shout for all to hear, “Ah! The suns are out for all to see! Really now, I must be away to ensure that everyone survived in the castle and to bring you back home.”

“I suppose,” Aisling replied morosely.

“What has soured thy lovely mien so?” Conan asked of the woman at his side, his bright white smile glimmering in the morning light.

Aisling caught her breath at the sight of it. Clever and magnificent the warrior before her was a man unlike any other, one who had fought in more than a thousand battles since he was a boy. Golden haired and with a short beard, he was of a ferocity that could daunt even the most fearless of Ogres.

She would have wished to have him stay therewith her forevermore, especially now that she was to become the Baroness and be made to wed the next Knight who arrived before her door, or whichever Count or Baron who might wish for her hand.

If only she told herself, she could convince him to stay or so she told herself. “Conan, if I may make a request.”

“But of course milady,” Conan agreed at once, with a great laugh that echoed across the land as he guided them back from whence they had come.

“Will you stay herewith me?” Aisling asked of him.

This made him frown.

“I cannot,” He informed her, “My work is not yet done.”

“What work?”

“The task of hunting those who arranged for Cilia to be slaughtered in the manner which he was,” Conan retorted quietly as he looked out to the horizon. “I will stay only long enough to hear from those who might know more of that foul warlock than I, and then I shall depart after him.”

“Oh, I see!” Once more the lady hid her face, as she did not wish him to see her tears. “It is only that it will be dreadfully lonely here without thy company Conan.”

It was only now that Conan observed the wan expression of the lady of Vieldmar and realizing just how wounded and lonesome she would be, he reached out with one hand. He raised her chin that he might meet her gaze whereupon he pulled her to him that he might embrace her. The Breizhian’s embraces were never soft or gentle things and this one was most certainly not.

And Aisling would remember it for the rest of her days; such was the passion and the sincerity of the kiss that he forced upon her and the joy she felt at that moment.

Happy Howard Days.

**********

Also Crown of Blood has a new edition, with maps, character bios and more!