eBook by Brian D. Anderson
Cover by E. M. Gist
From Titan Books and Heroic Signatures
Spoilers! Spoilers!
Central Kush. Conan and others are protecting their employer Marisova Mella, Mella's caravan full of silks and linens, Mella's wife Shayistra and young Joni (Shayistra's secret lover).
Kushite mercenaries attack the convoy! Titus Havarius (also a Kushite) saves his Cimmerian friend's skin once again.
Mella gets murdered. The attackers retreat.
Titus suspects that Mella's wife hired the killers to kill her husband.
Shayistra refuses to pay Conan and company, Conan threatens her gigolo and to make her mariticide known to the magistrate... they get paid in gold.
Conan, Titus, and the Hyrkanian cousins: Asher & Cabil leave the caravan for the small village of Albon.
Titus has to leave Conan, he is wanted back home.
Kush. Conan and twenty soldiers of fortune are now working for Lord Gulan Adria to end a siege.
Lord Adria had seized nearly all the harvest of his land to become a councilman.
Conan informs Major Lamzaris Mratz that the only way to enter the stronghold undetected is through the sewage system.
Asher, Cabil and Conan enter the extremely well constructed sewer tunnels, they find sewage-free walkways going upward.
The sewer system's exit is next to garbage heaps full of human remains... and it is guarded by a pair of malformed spindly white apes.
Asher and Cabil die. The monstrosities are impervious to steel; frustrated, Conan has to flee from the feasting beasts.
Conan kills twelve men to get to the gatehouse door and he opens it.
Conan kills three more men in the stronghold's square. Ten (of the twenty) sellswords will soon be joining the barbarian.
Thirsty for retribution Conan finds a barrel of lamp oil and a lamp.
Conan drops two corpses down the sewers... the ape-demons arrive to dine on the dead and Conan immolates the monsters.
Major Mratz pays Conan for a contract fulfilled.
Lord Adria is crucifying the cowards and the insurgents. Conan catches sight of his comrade, Titus... dying on one of the crosses. Titus had to return home... to lead the defenders of the stronghold. With a heavy heart, Conan ends Titus' suffering with a spear through the heart.
What I did like:
The unglamorous life of the sellsword is exposed.
Mitra mentioned.
Earth goddess Ishtar mentioned.
The Battle of Venarium, Conan vs the Aquilonians mentioned.
Another short story by Brian D. Anderson.
What I did not like:
Pretty sure Titus would have told Conan exactly where he was going.
Igniting torches in a sewer. Quite unsafe. Hydrogen Sulfide and Methane are highly explosive gases.
The cover by E. M. Gist is recycled from Conan: Scourge of the Serpent #2. Kinda lazy.
No interior illustrations! Very disappointing.
I give it a 7/10. I wanted to know more about the monsters and the keep's origin. We still need a Heroic Legends Series version of CONAN: UNCONQUERED by Scott Oden!
