Conan the Barbarian Read Online Free PDF

travelled with his troupe, staging fights for the amusement of local chieftains and their gaming cronies. Sometimes he lured, with promises of gold, neighbourhood champions to do combat with his Pit fighters—slaves all, whose final adversary was always Death.
    As dusk turned the northern sky to steel and smudged the greenery along the narrow track, the sturdy ponies and the footsore young Cimmerian reached Toghrul’s encampment. Here, encircled by a rough log palisade, were several houses and sheds, a corral for the horses, and pens for the Pit slaves—men who had been selected as much for their savage truculence as for their powerful bodies and superior fighting skills.
    Toghrul halted before one of the slave pens and shouted a question to the armoured guards who lounged around the enclosure. Although Conan failed to comprehend all the Hyrkanian words, he gathered that his master was seeking someone named Uldin. Uldin proved to be a stocky, long-armed man with a shaven scalp, who, after exchanging words with Toghrul, the exact meaning of which the Cimmerian did not understand, unwound the chain from Toghrul’s pommel and grasped it firmly in large and sinewy hands.
    Speaking Vannish with a foreign accent, he muttered, | “Come along, you!”
    As he was led into an airless, stench-filled room, something akin to panic seized the young barbarian. He felt the presence of others, but their forms were only shadows in the darkness. Then Uldin lit the stub of a taper. In the flickering light of this pale candle, Conan saw his fellow slaves, ragged and unwashed, lying on the raw dirt floor. Silent, unmoving, they watched him, their fire-lit eyes reflecting scant humanity.
    Uldin unlocked Conan’s bulky collar and removed it. Then he faced the travel-worn youth. “What is your name?” he barked.
    “Conan.”
    “Whence come you?”
    “I am a Cimmerian. Why am I here?”
    “To learn to fight,” said Uldin. “What do you know of fighting?”
    “Nothing,” growled Conan. “I was captured eight summers past, and I’ve been pushing that cursed mill wheel ever since. Before that, sometime, I fought with other
    boys.”
    “Then we’ll start with bare hand fighting. Take off your shirt.”
    The Cimmerian obeyed, peeling off his coarse tunic carefully, lest the rotten fabric tear beyond utility. The trainer studied Conan’s body critically, raising the taper to complete his task.
    “The wheel gave you good shoulders,” he grunted. "Try to throw me.”
    Crouching, Conan moved toward the Hyrkanian trainer, his arms reaching out for a hold. He never understood what happened next. The short man slipped out of Conan's grasp as if he had been a column of smoke. A moment later, a foot caught the Cimmerian’s ankle and sent him sprawling.
    “Again!” commanded Uldin, as the befuddled youth struggled to his feet.
    Conan advanced cautiously, thinking: I’ll seize his neck and throw him across my hip, as we used to do as boys. But the trainer, instead of avoiding Conan’s clutching arms, allowed the Cimmerian to catch his head in the crook of an elbow. Then, lithe as a panther, Uldin threw himself backwards, pulling Conan forward above him. As Uldin fell supine, he doubled up his legs, planting his feet against Conan’s belly, and shoved violently upward. The youth flew over the trainer’s head, to land heavily on his back. Uldin rolled to his feet and stood looking down at him with a crooked grin.
    Conan rose, snarling like a wolf at bay. “Crom damn you!” he spat, and rushed upon Uldin again—only to go sprawling once more.
    This time, when Conan got up, he found Uldin grinning at him like a bald-headed ape. “Go on, hate me!” rasped the Hyrkanian. “Hate will make you a better fighter. But you have much to learn. Tomorrow we’ll get on with the first lesson.”
    Throughout that summer, Conan learned to fight for his life. In the Pit, it was fight or die. Conan fought and lived.
    Conan did not become intimate with