Tribute to R.E.Howard

A soft tigerish step and the rustle of a cloak warned him, but before he could turn, a heavy
arm hooked about his throat from behind, crushing the cry before it could reach his lips.
In the brief instant that was allowed him he realized with a surge of panic the strength of
his attacker, against which his own brawny thews were helpless. He sensed without
seeing the poised dagger.
“Nemedian dog!” muttered a voice thick with passion in his ear. “You’ve cut off your last
Aquilonian head!”
And that was the last thing he ever heard.

In a dank dungeon, lighted only by a guttering torch, three men stood about a young
woman who knelt on the rush-strewn flags staring wildly up at them. She was clad only
in a scanty shift; her golden hair fell in lustrous ripples about her white shoulders, and her
wrists were bound behind her. Even in the uncertain torchlight, and in spite of her
disheveled condition and pallor of fear, her beauty was striking. She knelt mutely, staring
with wide eyes up at her tormentors. The men were closely masked and cloaked. Such a
deed as this needed masks, even in a conquered land. She knew them all nevertheless; but
what she knew would harm no one-after that night.
“Our merciful sovereign offers you one more chance, Countess,” said the tallest of the
three, and he spoke Aquilonian without an accent. “He bids me say that if you soften your
proud, rebellious spirit, he will still open his arms to you. If not—” he gestured toward a
grim wooden block in the center of the cell. It was blackly stained, and showed many
deep nicks as if a keen edge, cutting through some yielding substance, had sunk into the
wood.
Albiona shuddered and turned pale, shrinking back. Every fiber in her vigorous young
body quivered with the urge of life. Valerius was young, too, and handsome. Many
women loved him, she told herself, fighting with herself for life. But she could not speak
the word that would ransom her soft young body from the block and the dripping ax. She
could not reason the matter. She only knew that when she thought of the clasp of
Valerius’s arms, her flesh crawled with an abhorrence greater than the fear of death. She
shook her head helplessly, compelled by an impulsion more irresistible than the instinct to
live.
“Then there is no more to be said!” exclaimed one of the others Impatiently, and he spoke
with a Nemedian accent. “Where is the headsman?”
As if summoned by the word, the dungeon door opened silently, and a great figure stood
framed in it, like a black shadow from the underworld.
Albiona voiced a low, involuntary cry at the sight of that grim shape, and the others
stared silently for a moment, perhaps themselves daunted with superstitious awe at the
silent, hooded figure. Through the coif the eyes blazed like coals of blue fire, and as these
eyes rested on each man in turn, he felt a curious chill travel down his spine.

Then the tall Aquilonian roughly seized the girl and dragged her to the block. She
screamed uncontrollably and fought hopelessly against him, frantic with terror, but he
ruthlessly forced her to her knees, and bent her yellow head down to the bloody block.
“Why do you delay, headsman?” he exclaimed angrily. “Perform your task!”
He was answered by a short, gusty boom of laughter that was indescribably menacing. All
in the dungeon froze in their places, staring at the hooded shape-the two cloaked figures,
the masked man bending over the girl, the girl herself on her knees, twisting her
imprisoned head to look upward.
“What means this unseemly mirth, dog?” demanded the Aquilonian uneasily.
The man in the black garb tore his hood from his head and flung it to the ground; he set
his back to the closed door and lifted the headsman’s ax.
“Do you know me, dogs?” he rumbled. “Do you know me?”
The breathless silence was broken by a scream.
“The king!” shrieked Albiona, wrenching herself free from the slackened grasp of her
captor. “Oh, Mitra, the king!”
The three men stood like statues, and then the Aquilonian started and spoke, like a man
Who doubts his own senses.
“Conan!” he ejaculated. “It is the king, or his ghost! What devil’s work is this?”
“Devil’s work to match devils!” mocked Conan, his lips laughing but hell flaming in his
eyes. “Come, fall to, my gentlemen. You have your swords, and I this cleaver. Nay, I think
this butcher’s tool fits the work at hand, my fair lords!”
“At him!” muttered the Aquilonian, drawing his sword. “It is Conan and we must kill or
be killed!”
And like men waking from a trance, the Nemedians drew their blades and rushed on the
king.
The headsman’s ax was not made for such work, but the king wielded the heavy, clumsy
weapon as lightly as a hatchet, and his quickness of foot, as he constantly shifted his
position, defeated their purpose of engaging him all three at once.
He caught the sword of the first man on his ax-head and crushed in the wielder’s breast
with a murderous counterstroke before he could step back or parry. The remaining
Nemedian, missing a savage swipe, had his brains dashed out before he could recover his
balance, and an instant later the Aquilonian was backed into a comer, desperately
parrying the crashing strokes that rained about him, lacking opportunity even to scream
for help.
Suddenly Conan’s long left arm shot out and ripped the mask from the man’s head,
disclosing the pallid features.

steel is too honorable for your foul head. Nay, die as thieves die!”
The ax fell in a devastating arc, and the Aquilonian cried out and went to his knees,
grasping the severed stump of his right arm from Which blood spouted. It had been shorn
away at the elbow, and the ax, unchecked in its descent, had gashed deeply into his side,
so that his entrails bulged out.
“Lie there and bleed to death,” grunted Conan, casting the ax away disgustedly. “Come,
Countess!”
Stooping, he slashed the cords that bound her wrists and lifting her as if she had been a
child, strode from the dungeon. She was sobbing hysterically, with her arms thrown about
his corded neck in a frenzied embrace.

A Fragment of  The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E Howard