Conan the Marauder Read Online Free PDF Page B

made in the cities and villages bordering the steppes.
    The western peoples tended to lighter complexions, fairer hair and blue eyes, and they favoured heavy and elaborate tattooing of their skin. The eastern tribes were more squat of build, with flat features, tilted eyes and thin beards. All had the bandy legs formed by a lifetime in the saddle. The Hyrkanians admired strength, but unlike other peoples, they did not prize height. They held that a man on horseback was as a giant to any man on foot, however tall he might be.
    Boria halted to ask questions of several warriors, and they pointed upstream. Riding on, they eventually came to a pit that had been excavated near the centre of the camp of tents. The enclosure was perhaps twenty feet deep, with sheer sides and only a narrow ramp for access. Guards with strung bows paced their horses along its rim and conversed in bored tones. The floor of the pit was filled with men.
    Boria turned Conan over to a scarred warrior who stood next to a Khitan scribe. The Khitan sat behind a folding desk, with brushes, blocks of dry ink, and paper rolls before him.
    "Be careful of this one," Boria warned. "He is a fire-eater, for a village man."
    The warrior looked Conan over contemptuously. "This place takes the fire out of the toughest prisoner." He glanced at the elaborate bindings that held the Cimmerian. "He must be tough. You've used three slaves' worth of rope on him."
    Carefully Boria and his men retrieved their ropes from the Cimmerian's body. The cords had bitten deep, and Conan stretched his limbs to revive his circulation. He looked at the miserable mass of humanity in the pit below, then turned to the warrior in charge.
    "It's a waste of time putting me in there. Take me to Bartatua."
    The warrior stared at him in amazement, then turned to Boria. "You should have told me that he is mad as well as vicious."
    "You are the slave master," Boria said, grinning. "Do with him what you will. But I advise you not to turn your back on him." Except for Torgut, they all laughed as they wheeled their horses and rode in search of their fellow tribesmen.
    The slave master shook his head, frowning. "Those westerners are all crazy." He turned to Conan. "Tell the scribe your name and nation, slave."
    "I am Conan of Cimmeria."
    The shaven-headed Khitan picked up a brush, wet it and swirled it on a block of red ink. "Your name is a mere sound that I have no way in which to write, and I
    have never heard of your nation." With a few quick, deft strokes, the Khitan sketched two complicated characters.
    "What do they mean?" Conan asked.
    "They say 'big, black-haired foreigner' in my language. Slaves who have so little time to live have no need of names in any case."
    "Into the pit with you, slave," ordered the slave-master, rapping Conan on the arm with a coiled whip. The Cimmerian turned and glared, and the slave master backed off a step, his hand going to his sword hilt. Conan considered killing him. Horses abounded everywhere, and it would be but the work of a moment to seize the man's sword, cut him down, leap on a horse and ride away.
    Had he been dealing with any other nation, he would have done exactly that. Here it would be futile. Such archers as these would riddle him with arrows before he reached the edge of the camp. And probably without damaging the horse, he thought as he turned and walked to the ramp.
    Conan had been in slave pens before, and he knew what he would find when he reached the bottom. As he stepped off the ramp, few faces even turned his way. They were so defeated, so fatalistic or apathetic, that they neither knew nor cared what went on around them. Most of them sat motionless or lay staring at the ground vacantly. Conan was filled with contempt. Had this slave pen, like many others he had seen, been filled with helpless women and children, he might have been moved to pity. But these slaves were healthy, able-bodied men. Hardy specimens who were not rebellious, or even