Conan the Barbarian Read Online Free PDF

this night.”
    Corin looked down at his son, his hand resting on Conan’s shoulder. “Eat, boy, this is a tale long in the telling.”
    Conan nodded and found hunger overwhelming shame.
    “We had little warning—even less than Ardel afforded us after your trick. The Reivers came from north and south. I led the defense in the south. Your grandfather, were he there that day, could have told you which ax clove which head, which spear impaled which warrior. He’d have kept count of his cuts taken and given, but I’ve never had that gift. I’ve never had the desire to remember. All I do know is that steel flashed and rang. I took pride in the fact that my sword, crafted by my hand, rang purely and notched Vanir steel. It whittled spear hafts and harvested fingers. It chopped men down and chopped them up.”
    Corin paused by the hearth, leaning against it with both hands, staring into the flames. He fell silent for a moment. For reasons he could not explain, Conan felt his own throat tighten.
    When his father began speaking again, his voice was low and thick. “Your mother, Conan . . . your mother was a true Cimmerian woman. You have her eyes, the blue, but your black mane comes through me by my father. But your mother, so fierce and brave. Though swollen with you in her belly, when the Vanir broke through in the north, she charged out to meet them. She killed one man with a spear thrust, then knocked another down with the haft. Had our warriors not crumbled around her, she’d have held the line. But they ran and a Vanirman stabbed her in the belly, almost killing you.
    “She didn’t cry out, your mother. Not a sound. She’d not give the Vanir the victory. But I saw her go down. With one hand she held her belly, keeping you within her. With the other she reached for a sword, even as her killer stood above her.” Corin snorted. “Stupid man hesitated. I don’t know why. I don’t care. It just gave your mother enough time to get that sword and drive it into him where he’d stabbed her. And before he could strike and finish her, I split him in half.”
    Corin’s hands tightened on the mantelpiece. His shoulders shook. Conan was certain it was from rage. His father could not cry, and yet as the boy made that determination, a tear rolled down his own cheek.
    Corin, his face shadowed, turned toward his son. “Your mother was dying. She knew it. She drew a dagger from her belt and pressed it into my hands. ‘Take your son,’ she said.”
    The smith looked down at his hands. “I tried to refuse her—never had before, and never after—but she would brook no resistance. ‘I will see my child before I die.’ And she watched me, Conan, steadied my hand as I finished what the Vanirman had done. I cut you from your mother’s womb and laid you on her breast. She kissed you. You tasted your mother’s blood, and never heard her scream.”
    Corin pressed his hands together. “She knew she was dying and she said to me, ‘See that there will be more to his life than fire and blood.’ And then, with her last breath, she named you Conan.”
    The boy set his spoon down.
    Corin turned his face toward the door and the village beyond it. “What they remember of your birth is that it came on the day of a great victory. Born on a battlefield, destined for glory. Suckled on blood, not milk. A wolf, not a dog, meant for wonders and miracles. You remember my father telling you stories of heroes and kings, where their scribes claimed they were born of virgins, or strangled monsters at birth, or made up any number of legends to make these men seem greater than they were. So our people have done with the truth of your birth.
    “And yet, had one more Vanirman had breath left in his lungs, had he slain me as I held you, then all the wonders and miracles would have been soon-forgotten tragedy. A life of great destiny may be nothing more than a life that avoids serial tragedy.” Corin sighed. “But I see the day of your birth