Conan the Gladiator Read online

  “Yes, excellent,” Luddhew said with a nod to Conan. “After only three shows, you are doing tolerably well at taking Roganthus’s place.”

  “Filling in for him temporarily, you mean, while he recovers,” Conan said. He glanced to the former muscle man where he lay on a pile of tarpaulins, lounging disconsolately and swigging from a clay bottle. It was unclear to him whether Roganthus had heard his circus-master’s careless remark; but out of consideration for the injured man, Conan hoped not. Moments later, Luddhew was called aside to speak to some local visitor, a small dapper man dressed prosperously in silk fez and fur cape, along with stylish pantaloons and tassel-toed slippers.

  “I am not one,” Conan explained to Sathilda, “who takes naturally to strutting and posturing before an audience. Nor to play-acting and deceiving a crowd of gullible peasants, and being mocked by them. But I will do it, or any other task it may take, to go on travelling by your side.”

  “What you do, you do admirably,” Sathilda purred to him. “Better by far than any before you.” Standing up on tiptoe, she pecked a kiss onto the side of his neck. “As for the mummery... as strange and foreign as it may seem to you, you should enjoy it and learn from it. You could be at it for a good long time,” she added with a glance over her shoulder at Roganthus.

  When the magic act ended and the patrons were all driven out of the circus enclosure, the principal performers sat resting on the wheeled stage. Most of the circus hands were still occupied in tents and stalls along the roadway, conducting games of chance and deception. But these notable performers would have been mobbed in the market crowd, so they took the opportunity to eat their lunch in peace. Gnawing hunks of bread, cheese, fruit, and sausage, and washing the repast down with watery local wine, they sat talking of business concerns.

  “I would welcome the chance to enhance my magical skills,” Bardolph was saying. “Why not learn true magic, instead of all this mummery? It is rumoured that there are sorcerers in the great cities who can perform all sorts of spells and transmutations, levitate objects, predict future events, and so forth. But none of them ever displays his tricks for the public. Why is it that every travelling wizard is a sham, deceiving audiences with little better than sleight-of-hand?”

  Conan glanced up from the task before him. “From what I have seen, the seers who command such skills have slight interest in pleasing an audience. They pay a heavy price for the knowledge they gain, and then use it in secret ways to win earthly power or mystic goals of the obscurest sort, beyond the understanding of mere humans.” While he lunched, he wielded a light hammer, carefully tapping the single bent link from his chest-chain back into shape. “On the whole they are an unsavoury lot—half-human and half-devil, often as not, from their evil dealings—”

  “Yes, yes,” the little man said, “but even so, a few of their showier tricks might serve us well in the circus. Real magic would draw vast crowds, spread one’s fame as a performer... and pay off doubly in my gambling concessions.”

  “I would not dabble in it if I were you,” Conan earnestly warned him, testing the chain between his fists. “Why trouble about such things, anyway? Your act is a success, and you are guaranteed a place here, at all events—every circus needs a dwarf.”

  Bardolph’s instant movement brought him up near Conan where he sat leaning against the wagon’s bench. His bunched fist hovered opposite the Cimmerian’s nose. “I would have you know, Out-lander, I am no dwarf! That is not my reason for being here, nor my sole purpose in life. I am a musician, a prestidigitator, an odds-maker and healer, no mere freak to be displayed in a darkened tent! If I happen to lack your unnatural bulk, which makes you fit for public exhibition—just remember, my size gives me certain advantages in fighting as well.” He slapped the long knife sheathed at his belt. “A blow I strike is one you will long remember. So think carefully before you provoke me, Northerner.”

  “Enough, now, Bardolph. The man-titan meant you no insult.” Iocasta came up behind the small man and laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. “The outlander is new here and does not know our ways. Let him be, now.” Her careful, solicitous tone made it evident that she thought Conan the one in greatest danger.

  The Cimmerian, for his part, honoured Bardolph’s declaration with silence. As his challenger glared angrily, then turned contemptuously away, he did not apologize or try to justify himself. The others soon smoothed the matter over by resuming the conversation.

  “I myself do not crave to know the ways of the famed oracles and big-city soothsayers,” Iocasta said. “Their mouthings are always so vague and full of double meanings—I am happy enough with the second-sight that has been granted me by the gods. To predict a love match, find a lost coin or bauble, or forecast the spring rains—something tangible and precise—is more to my liking than the fates of nations and armies.”

  “Come, now, seeress,” the half-drunken Roganthus called out, lying back against a pile of sacking at the comer of the stage. “If you really believe in your own power of prophecy, you are as much a fool as the farmers! We have all seen you use the grossest deceit to put over your visions.”

  “What you refer to is showmanship, the merest trappings of my art,” Iocasta blithely told him. “At the core of it lies something mystical, something I know to be genuine. I sincerely feel I have been touched by the gods.”

  “Oh, aye, surely enough!” Roganthus ridiculed, tipping his clay flask high and draining its dregs. “I, too, believed I was charmed and invulnerable... until some hulking, careless, country lout jostled me the wrong way over a bench!” He ruefully rubbed his hunched shoulder. “Now I sit watching life go by, waiting for the gods to end their callous game of tormenting me. My fame and prowess are It.. I try to help in small ways, of course, wher-

  ever I can. But it may never be the same as it was—”

  The strongman’s wine-soaked lament was interrupted by a sound that quickly roused the circus folk: the din of harsh raised voices from the fairway. Bardolph and Sathilda sprang up at once and headed out through the canopy. Conan and Iocasta followed hurriedly, leaving Roganthus straining as if to haul himself upright from his bed of sacking, slowed by pain and drink.

  A few dozen paces from the arena, a dense knot of onlookers obstructed the foot traffic along the village street. They gathered near a long, roped-off enclosure that served as the stall for some exhibit or game of skill. There appeared to be an argument going on at the front, to which the crowd contributed lusty cheers and raucous dissent.

  “What do you mean by hurling your cloddish missiles and wrecking my display?” the stall’s proprietor shouted, doubtless intending to summon aid from nearby circus cronies. “This is a knife-throwing game, not an ax-fight! See how you have ruined my target!” The huckster held up a painted wooden disk for all to see; its centre-most planks were split and staved in, amid a scattering of tiny holes and splinterings made by knife points.

  “Aye,” his adversary calmly replied. “It was a true, straight cast, was it not?” The speaker, a slim, arrogant youth, glanced back to his nearest companions and the rest of the watchers. “Knives or hatchets, standing targets or running ones, I can best you or anybody in this mummers’-troupe of yours.”

  “Aye so, Dath!” spirited voices replied from the crowd. “We know it to be true! Give those cheap hucksters a trouncing for their money!”

  The lad was obviously a local village tough, not farm-like in his dress—and no stable hand either, with dung at his heels and oats in his hair. Rather, he looked like a tavern and crossroads idler, one who made his living by no honest toil. At his belt he had rehung a brace of axes, polished silver-bright; at his back stood two younger-looking ruffians of his same sort, as well as two village girls. The whole band of them smirked jauntily at one another, meanwhile sneering at the circus crew in wry contempt.

  Dath’s immediate adversary in the dispute was the young acrobat Phatuphar, one of Sathilda’s team who did knife-throwing exhibitions on the side. For penny
wagers, the lithe young performer challenged passers-by to strike a painted mark by casting two or three short, sharp-pointed steel knives. These he dispensed from a belt-pouch where he stood before the barrier. His target ordinarily hung from a post at the rear of the enclosure, backed up by curtains of tattered burlap to catch the misses.

  Mere moments before, while Phatuphar went to the back of the stall to collect the thrown knives, reckless young Dath had ambled up and hurled an ax past the concessionaire’s head, striking the target dead-centre and shattering it in the process.

  The controversy had not so far grown violent, and the circus folk who came running stood quietly mound the edges of the scene—except Luddhew, who moved to the centre, still in the company of his silk-hatted guest. The disputants now talked in terms of a wager, and the circus-master seemed to sense that there might be a chance for profit.

  “If it’s a contest you want, I would not hesitate for an instant,” Phatuphar declared. “This purse says I’ll better any toss you can make—five silver shekels, assuming you can match the bet!”

  ‘That should be easy,” Dath replied.

  The purse at the young challenger’s waist looked thin and slack to Conan’s eye. But when Dath turned around to face the crowd, a half dozen hands rose up in support of his bid, most of them clutching bright silver shekels. “Go on, Dath! Trounce him well!” voices shouted.

  “Give me five coppers on the Sendajan,” one eager investor cried out. “He may be an unholy terror, but the lad can fling an ax!”

  The original bet was soon covered; Luddhew held the stakes, while the fez-hatted man, obviously a figure of some respect, vouched for his honesty. The circus folk, knowing Phatuphar’s skill, busied themselves covering a number of side-bets. Meanwhile the two marksmen worked out the details. “Try any target you want,” Phatuphar challenged. “I’ll match or better your throw with my knives, two for one!”

  “You throw first, and I’ll match you with axes, one for one,” Dath replied. “But let’s liven up the show—we need a wench for sport.” He turned his eyes to the nearby crowd. “You, Jana,” he said. “You know I would not harm you.”

  The girl was one of the young ones who hovered behind him, slender and big-eyed, her hair hanging in oiled ringlets. She had dressed for the market fair in a coarse white cotton shift, and adorned herself with tortoiseshell hair-clasps and copper bangles that showed off her tan, slim arms and ankles to good advantage. She looked up at Dath and her other friends carelessly, without a flicker of doubt, before striding forward into the young man’s reach.

  Laying an arm familiarly around Jana’s waist, Dath led her back past the barricade at the front of the stall. “Come along, circus hand,” he said over his shoulder to Phatuphar. “Bring your target, and we three will give them a contest to remember.”

  Arriving at the vertical post, he let Phatuphar suspend the target from its metal hook at the top. Then, leading Jana up to the post, he wound a thong around both her wrists and bound her with it to the same hook—leaving her on tiptoe with arms raised against the post, facing the crowd.

  The wooden disk had five painted circles: a white one at its smashed centre and four red ones positioned at the top, bottom, and sides. With the girl strung up in front of it, only the red circles at either side were visible. “These will make good marks,” Dath announced, pointing at each of them. “You keep still,” he instructed the bound maiden. “Trust me.” After conferring on her a casual, one-sided embrace and a kiss, he led the way back to the throwing-place.

  “There, now, an easy enough target,” he told Phatuphar, pointing at the two red circles. “Do not let your fear of striking the woman spoil your aim,” he added nonchalantly. “She is but a village waif.”

  The market crowd looked excited and wide-eyed, caught by their own enthusiasm and their bets on the black sheep Dath. Evidently Jana’s family, if she had any, was absent—there were no cheers or catcalls as Phatuphar readied his knives either, but Conan guessed there would be trouble if one of the steel spikes so much as nicked the girl. He thought momentarily of intervening, but he had been impressed by his fellow trouper’s skill. Upon seeing it demonstrated, Dath might back down from his bluff.

  It was a respectable distance, ten paces and more. Phatuphar frowned in sullen concentration. Slowly he drew back his sinewy arm and, with a quick lash of his shoulder, sent the metal prong spinning through the air. It struck with an audible impact, standing out from the red-painted circle a mere finger-width from the girl’s armpit. There came from the crowd a murmuring sigh that sounded like relief, in spite of their bets. Then, with little warning, the acrobat drew back his arm and hurled the second knife, causing the watchers to swallow their gasps.

  The second cast was nearly as true as the first. It struck at the edge of the second circle a full hand’s-breadth away from the girl’s supple flesh, barely inside the red perimeter. Phatuphar’s nerve may have wavered, but not by much. This time a buzz rose from the crowd, not merely of relief but of eager speculation.

  Dath laughed aloud. “A pathetic show! You think I cannot place my ax between your blade and Jana’s pretty flank? Why, I could shave her fair armpits if I wanted to.” Reaching to his belt, he drew forth one of his axes, well-oiled and well-edged. “Nay, ’tis not enough. I prefer something of a challenge. With these two axes, I will set the girl free.” So saying, he flung back his arm with blinding speed and hurled the ax, its silver blade and sharkskin-wrapped handle whirling in a sun-bright disk of speed. To throw, Dath arched his whole body, showing Conan and the rest that the cast had been for maximum force and impact.

  The ax struck dead-centre, embedding itself in the target post where it stood up directly over Jana’s head. The whites of the poor girl’s eyes could plainly be seen orbiting upward in fear, and at the physical shock of the weapon driven in between her two upraised arms. It had not touched her flesh—nor, for that matter, severed the thong that bound her wrists to the eyelet. It could hardly do so, since her wrists were tied scarcely a finger-width apart, with the metal hook interposed between them. Perhaps realizing this, she began to writhe and tug at the thong, twisting and stretching on tiptoe to unhook her wrists.

  Dath, however, ignored her struggles. “A near success,” he cavalierly announced to the watchers. “The waif was almost set free of her miserable bondage. Now, one more cast ought to do the trick.”

  “Nay, do not throw!” Phatuphar cried, lunging forward. “It is too dangerous—”

  Dath paid no heed. Even as he spoke, with a convulsion of his arm that was almost too sudden to trace, the second hatchet left his belt, lashed backward in his grip, and hurtled through the air at the target. Seeing its flight, Jana could not help but duck her head aside and writhe violently against the post, anticipating the weapon’s impact.

  The movement should have cost the girl her life. Fortunately the ax arched high, almost missing the target entirely. Its blade lodged in the topmost edge of the vertical post—within easy reach, if Jana had wished it, of her fear-clenched fingers.

  Once again, it did not sever the thongs that bound her wrists; nor did it lie any nearer the target-marks pierced by the two daggers. The crowd, having witnessed their hero’s bluster and bravado, now muttered in doubtful consternation.

  “A good try,” Phatuphar grimly observed. “But a little off target, I would say. You missed both the painted marks and the thongs. The girl is not set free, either, not by any stretch of the imagination. So you can hardly pretend to claim the prize—”

  “Quiet, fool! By Set’s fangs, I told you I would free her!” Pushing past Phatuphar and stretching his lithe frame across the barrier, Dath straightened up holding yet another weapon—a long-handled iron hammer used by the circus crew to drive in ground-stakes and erect the stalls. Before any could interfere with him, he raised the clumsy metal implement in a two-handed grip and hurled it through the air—toward the hapless girl once again—oscillating wildly as it flew.

  The watc
hers flinched backward when it struck, fully expecting to see tender young brains spattered across the grass. The missile hit instead with the clank of steel, striking one of the axeheads already sunk into the post and rebounding off it, to fall down past the girl’s averted face and land with a thud at her feet.

  As a further consequence of the blow, the metal hook upholding the thongs loosened and pulled free of the split post—causing the target disk to thump to earth. As it did so, the maid Jana stumbled to her knees across the fallen hammer and fell forward—shaken, but evidently unharmed. At this, a murmur of amazement passed through the crowd, followed by yelps and strident shouts.

  “Dath freed her, did you see? And he did so with only two ax-throws! That means we win!” “He is a fine, clever lad! I knew he could do it!” “A well-thrown ax can accomplish more than any dart-toss!”

  Phatuphar was the first to raise a protest. “Wait, now! He made three casts, and none of them hit the target we agreed on! He cannot claim to have won—”

  “Quiet, show-boy! Dath’s skill is twice yours!” “You slippery circus hucksters cannot squirm out of this one—”

  With shouts and threatening gestures, the confrontation rapidly built toward a riot. The tight group of circus performers pressed in closer, watching belligerently. Conan, for one, judged that a brawl would be a safer risk now that Dath was disarmed. The wagering had deteriorated into a shouting-match centred on the tall figure who held the stakes, with his fezzed visitor standing close by, watching, but evidently taking no part.

  “Enough,” the circus-master loudly declared to the crowd. “The terms of the contest were never carried out! Your champion chose a different target, so the bet is void. I will refund your shekels, but not pay the bet.”

  “Liar!” the bettors raged in return. “Lousy sneaking vagabonds! We won the wager and you know it! Render us our silver, or we’ll take it out of your hides!”

  Then battle was joined, with the locals swarming in on Luddhew and Phatuphar and the circus folk moving to their defence. Fists and sticks flailed; fruit and rock-chunks whizzed overhead, and striving, lunging bodies were knocked to earth, to be kicked and trampled in the dust. Conan moved furiously through the mob, snatching up town yokels and hurling them back on their fellows. Occasionally he paused to drub some particularly menacing rioter to his knees with a body-blow from fist or elbow. Repressing his murderous instincts, he did not lay hold of a weapon or lash out deliberately to hurt anyone; after all, he was new to the circus and unsure of the protocol in this type of battle. Killing and maiming customers might be poor etiquette, so it seemed to him.