Conan the Barbarian by Michael A. Stackpole

from his memory. The horrific acts that destroyed his village and slew his father did not. Sometimes they came back to him unbidden but consciously; in dreams and nightmares more often. The latter occurrences enhanced the surreal quality of that day and softened the sharpest of the memories. Had it not been for the traces of chain scars on his hands, he might have forgotten most all of it.
    Connacht did not give the boy time to remember much of anything. He worked Conan hard, both because he was proud of his grandson, and because he felt guilty about Corin’s death, guilty that his son had been slain by outsiders. He’d centered the blame on Lucius, the Aquilonian, only because Aquilonians were familiar enemies, and because of Aquilonia’s proximity, the chances of avenging Corin were far greater.
    Being men and Cimmerians, neither Conan nor Connacht spoke of their feelings, dreams, or fears. They would have denied having any of the latter, and barely acknowledged the existence of the others. Still, in the way Connacht watched him, Conan recognized his own father’s love, and assumed his grandfather saw the same emotion in him. Connacht’s guilt would flare up when the boy failed to grasp a lesson. When that happened, the old man would push and push until the boy mastered whatever skill his grandfather was teaching, at which point another lesson would begin.
    For another boy, this existence with a grandfather whom others shunned would have been a lonely one. Connacht’s swift punishments for failure would have had others howling in pain, or vowing to run or seek revenge. For Conan, these were not options simply because someone born on a battlefield would never run, and a Cimmerian would not acknowledge pain. Stripped of the family and life he had known, Conan redefined himself as the man of destiny others had supposed him to be. If he failed, their hopes and expectations would be invalidated. His father and mother’s wishes would never be realized. Conan, though given to the occasional bout of melancholy, did not dwell overlong on things introspective and instead occupied himself learning all he could of the killing arts.
    In Connacht he had a willing and a superior teacher. Connacht the Freebooter, the Far-Traveled, had been isolated because of his past. In training his grandson, he could guarantee two things. First, his bloodline would not be extinguished easily. Second, those who had forgotten who and what he had been would learn the truth through his grandson’s exploits. While even the most casual of observers could have seen that Conan would be a great Cimmerian warrior, Connacht intended him to be the greatest Cimmerian warrior. He would be the man against whom all others would be measured.
    More than once Connacht had told him that. The admission came late at night, when his grandfather finished some tale of how he’d escaped slavers or survived a battle. Conan would stare at him, wide-eyed, with the admiration and love that rewards all the trials of parenthood, and mutter, “Someday, Grandfather, I shall be as you were.”
    “No, Conan, you will be greater. Men once remembered me as a Cimmerian. They will remember you as the Cimmerian.”
    To Conan, that idea seemed, at first, ridiculous. And then, later on, it became a goal. It became fused with the destiny that had been thrust on him by his birth on a battlefield and by his parents’ desire that he know more than fire and blood. If he were to be the Cimmerian, he would have to do more than just be a warrior. He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he was determined to find out.
    And in his fourth summer with his grandfather, just after he turned fifteen, he gained his first opportunity to become the Cimmerian.
     
     
    THE AQUILONIANS HAD long coveted Cimmerian territory. With every generation, they conspired to steal as much as they could. They pushed into Cimmeria and established the hunting outpost known as Venarium. During the years when it had