Conan the Barbarian Read Online Free PDF Page B

his fellow Pit fighters. As one of them confided early in his training, it was senseless to make friends with a man you might have to kill lest you be killed by him.
    The first time Conan was dropped into the Pit, he gave a swift, all-encompassing glance around the place of death or triumph. With others of Toghrul’s troupe, he had been taken in chains to Skaun, a town of the Vanir. Here the fighters were herded into a high-roofed, barn-like structure, wherein fires smouldered in beds of charcoal to lessen the biting chill of early autumn.
    The Pit was ten paces long, five wide, and as deep as the height of a man. The edges were hung with crudely-figured shields and standards of hide, painted in cranberry red, cerulean blue, and raw earth tones.
    Looking up from the enclosure, Conan saw a ring of Vanir chieftains, sitting on crude benches and guzzling ale from cups of horn. When they tired of handling these vessels, they thrust the horn points into the soft earth at their feet. Torches set in brackets encircled the upper reaches of the Pit. The fitful light gleamed on the red manes and ruddy faces of the men and glinted on their bracelets and pectorals of gold and silver, embellished with uncut gemstones. Smoke hung heavy in the air, commingling with the reek of ill-tanned hides and baggy woollens, stiff with dirt and rancid sweat.
    The chieftains laughed, hooted, drank heavily, and bawled obscene jests. But they eyed the fighters shrewdly before placing bets and displayed bars of gold, precious jewels, and fine weapons as earnest of their wagers.
    Half a dozen fighters stood against the far wall of the Pit, a group of powerful men, naked save for dirty clouts. Their deep chests, broad backs, and muscled limbs were smeared with grease, to afford scant hold to their opponents. Conan recognized none of these men. Since he had heard some muttered talk among Toghrul’s people of a rival Pit master, an Asa from Asgard named Ivar, the Cimmerian inferred that the strange fighters might be of Ivar’s troupe.
    A second glance upward at the swilling, shouting Vanir showed Toghrul standing to one side, talking with a fellow whose tawny beard was streaked with grey. Conan could not hear their words as they gestured and pointed to the line of slaves in the Pit. But presently Uldin and two other men clambered down a ladder and hustled out all save the fighter who had been chosen for Conan’s adversary. Those dismissed ascended the ladder and disappeared, leaving the barbarian alone with the remaining man, a gigantic Negro.
    Conan stared; he had never before seen skin of ebon hue. A thousand leagues or more to the south, in the land of Kush, his father had told him, such men were said to live. The Negro’s bullet head was shaven smooth. Deep in the shining mask of his heavy-featured face, the man’s eyes burned with feral fires. His jaws moved rhythmically as he chewed on a handful of leaves; and as the potent narcotic entered his blood stream and ascended to his brain, the look in his eyes became inhuman, the eyes of a beast of prey.
    Pretending to be feckless and bewildered, the young barbarian studied his opponent. The black was a magnificent specimen of savage manhood, his oiled body gleaming in the firelight like a statue carved from obsidian. Terrific strength slept in those massive shoulders and arms; while beneath the skin of torso and legs, muscles like writhing pythons tensed and relaxed.
    When the drug had taken full charge of the Negro’s brain, he sprang upon Conan like a charging tiger. In an instant his huge hands closed about the novice’s throat and clamped tight, sinking into the flesh and stifling the warning growl that rose from Conan’s chest. The Cimmerian’s hands locked on the wrists of the black, and the two struggled together in a dance of death, swaying back and forth in an embrace as intimate as that of lovers. The Vanir chieftains howled with excitement.
    Conan fought desperately for breath, tensing the