Conan did not answer. He slung his shield over his back and began the long descent. He passed through the haunted forests of Hyperborea, where the trees whispered in forgotten tongues, and into the teeming markets of Shadizar the Wicked.
"I seek only to tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under my sandaled feet," Conan replied, quoting a dream he barely understood. Conan did not answer
For weeks, the red-haired reavers from the north had harried the mountain clans, but today the Cimmerians had answered with steel. Yet, as the echoes of the war-horns faded, Conan felt a restlessness that no battle could sate. He looked south, beyond the gray mists, toward the legendary kingdoms of the "civilized" world—Hyboria, where cities were built of stone and men lived in soft decadence. "I seek only to tread the jeweled thrones
The crone cackled, a sound like dry leaves skittering over stone. "Then go, boy. But know that civilization is a whim of circumstance, a thin veil over the honest barbarism of the soul. You will find wizards who summon shadows and kings who trade their honor for gold. You will be a thief, a pirate, and a king in your own right, but you will always be a stranger to their walls". He looked south, beyond the gray mists, toward
The sun hung low over the blasted heaths of Cimmeria, a blood-red orb sinking into the jagged peaks of the Ben Morgh. Conan , a youth of seventeen winters but with the shoulders of a seasoned bull, wiped the gore of a Vanir raider from his notched broadsword. He stood atop a pile of the slain, his blue eyes smoldering with a primal fire that even the freezing winds could not douse.