They stopped short. Conan faced them, not a naked man roused mazed and unarmed from deep sleep to be butchered like a sheep, but a barbarian wide awake and at bay, partly armoured and with a long sword in his hand.

Conan sensed their uncertainty and grinned mirthlessly and ferociously. "Who dies first?"

"They have no hope here or hereafter," answered Conan. "Their gods are Crom and his dark race, who rule over a sunless place of everlasting mist, which is the world of the dead. Mitra! The ways of the Aesir were more to my liking."

Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet;But now I am a great king, the people hound my trackWith poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. novelette; Weird Tales 21 1, Jan 1933

"...Free my hands and I'll varnish this floor with your brains!"

"Crom!" his mighty shoulders twitched. "A murrain of these wizardly feuds! Pelias has dealt well with me, but I care not if I see him no more. Give me a clean sword and a clean foe to flesh it in. Damnation! What would I not give for a flagon of wine!"

Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a black man gold can never pay for blood.

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. novelette; Weird Tales 21 6, Jun 1933 novelette; Weird Tales 22 3, Sep 1933; also as "The Slithering Shadow" novelette; Weird Tales 22 4, Oct 1933 novelette; Weird Tales 23 1, Jan 1934