Already he could hear his father’s voice from the heart of the village. “When a Cimmerian feels thirst, it is the thirst for blood.” Corin’s bass voice made those words into commands, yet Conan had heard them uttered as cautions. The same words he used to encourage the boys like Ardel he’d employed to focus Conan.

On the boy sprinted, weaving his way past warriors who sparred or sharpened swords. “When a Cimmerian feels cold, it is the cold edge of steel.”

For a heartbeat it surprised Conan that his father’s words didn’t evoke the sense of having a sword in his hands. The boy smiled, just briefly, realizing that he had learned some of the lessons his father taught him. He caught his first adult glimmer of the depth of his father’s wisdom, and that drove him yet faster. He wanted to surprise his father, not disappoint him, for surprise and faithfulness to his teaching would earn Conan more responsibility and opportunity.

Ahead, a line of youths stood facing Corin. The smith held a small bowl from which he plucked turquoise eggs mottled with brown—raven’s eggs, which Conan himself had gathered as part of his chores earlier that week. Each young man opened his mouth, and Corin solemnly placed an egg on his tongue.

Conan dodged a lunging dog, then skidded to a snowy stop at the end of the line, his chest heaving. His father saw him, but gave no sign. Then he spoke. “But the courage of a Cimmerian is tempered. He neither fears death nor rushes foolishly to meet it.”

Conan bent forward, struggling to catch his breath. He cast a sidelong glance at the larger young men and could see they understood little of what his father was saying.

Corin gave the last youth an egg. “So, to be a Cimmerian warrior, you must have cunning and balance as well as strength and speed.”

Conan straightened up. His father had given him a long list of chores that morning, all of which were meant to eat up time. He sent him to chop wood for old Eiran, and requested that the old man dull his ax before Conan could do the job. And then Deirdre had wanted a chicken killed—not one of the ones in the coop, but the one that had escaped from it. So it went with tasks that had him crisscrossing the village—or would have had him doing this if he had not realized that they could be done with a greater economy of effort. Cunning won the day that strength and speed alone could not.

Corin looked at his son. “I gave you chores, boy.”

“Finished, Father.” Conan could not help but smile.

The smith regarded the others. “The first to circle the hills and return, his egg unbroken, earns the right to train with the warriors.”

The young men broke ranks and sprinted in a pack for the hills.

Conan watched them go, astonishment slackening his jaw.

Corin peered into the bowl, then tossed his son an egg. “By Crom, boy, what are you waiting for?”

Conan popped the egg into his mouth and ran off, letting his shock and anger speed him. As he pressed to catch up, he saw the first of the others slip and fall, broken yolk and blue shell staining his chin. The young man spat disgustedly and tossed snow at the boy who had knocked him down, but the others did not notice.

Cunning. Tempering. Conan’s blue eyes narrowed. The race wasn’t just about speed, but about completing the circuit with the egg intact. The boy who fell, had he not broken the egg, could have gotten back up again. So the egg is everyone’s weakness.

Ardel, never having been the swiftest of the youths his age, had also figured this out. As he and others worked their way up the hills, then along the grand circuit, he jostled the competition. He swept one boy’s legs, plunging him face-first into the snow. Egg erupted from his mouth. Ardel even swung a fist at Conan, but the younger boy ducked.

Cunning. While the other boys smashed against one another, Conan cut off the trail. The extra duties his father had assigned to him over the winter had given him a familiarity with the area that none of the others came close to possessing. He leaped over rocks and ducked beneath fallen trees. He cut diagonally across a hillside, using saplings to slow and redirect himself. When he returned to the trail, he’d passed the largest boys. He raced ahead, leaping and cutting, their snarls forcing him to smile.

Then he caught it. Movement through the forest around them, pacing them. For a moment he thought wolves might have come hunting them, so quickly and furtively did the figures move from shadow to shadow. Then he caught a flash of foot here, a hand there, a motion only a man could make.

He slowed, instinctively raising a hand to warn the others. Picts!

The other boys stopped dead. One of them cried out, then choked on his egg. As four Pictish scouts, heads shaved at the sides, hair stiffed with porcupine quills, emerged from the forest, the other boys turned and ran.

Conan, his nostrils flaring, stood his ground, balling his fists.

A bola whirled in one Pict’s hands. It spun through the air, the leather laces tangling Conan’s ankles, drawing them together and dumping him to the ground. The boy turned over, wiping snow from his face, as the quartet of Picts drew slowly toward him. They didn’t seem to fear him—rather, they viewed him as more of a curiosity than anything else, and this dismissal kindled anger in Conan’s heart.

Conan looked past their tribal paint and the double axes they bore. Their wariness came tinged with weariness. The Picts were far from home, had no supplies, and had a haunted look on their faces. They had no idea what to make of him, and began discussing his fate in their harsh tongue.

One pointed back toward the south, then again to the west and the Pictish homelands. The others gesticulated wildly. Their tattoos and paint suggested they were Otters, who usually raided down near the Aquilonian border. What they were doing so far north and east Conan didn’t know, but clearly they were up to deviltry.

While their discussion distracted them, Conan dug fingers into the leather lacing that bound his feet together. He resisted the urge to struggle, since that would only draw the leather thongs more tightly together. He turned one foot, then pushed on a lace. He tugged another. Then, as the Pict leader grabbed a handful of Conan’s hair and jerked his head back to stretch his throat for the skinning knife he held high in his hand, Conan slid his feet from his boots and brought one of the bola’s weights up in a short, sharp arc.

The leather-wrapped stone caught the Pict on the right side of his face. His cheekbone cracked and an eye socket crumbled. The man spun, blood spurting, his face misshapen, and crashed down beside the barefoot Cimmerian boy.

Conan tugged the ax from the downed man’s belt and threw himself backward. The second Pict’s ax blow would have crushed his skull had he been a heartbeat slower. Conan somersaulted backward, then came up. He ignored the cold as his feet dug into the snow. All that was important was that he maintain his balance.

The third Pict charged him, ax raised for a blow that would split him from crown to crotch. Conan brought his ax up in the high-right guard, blocking the blow. The Pict’s eyes widened and he raised the ax again. But Conan rushed forward, slipping inside his guard, and smashed the ax into the man’s knee. The blade sheared through leather leggings and flesh. The knee buckled and the Pict went down.

Conan’s next blow slammed into the Pict’s breastbone, shattering it. Spitting blood, the warrior crashed onto his back. Conan spun away from a feeble swipe at his legs, then brought his ax up high left. He blocked the fourth Pict’s blow, then spun beneath his arm. He used the man’s body to shield him from the last Pict, then tripped him.

The second Pict closed quickly, but the Cimmerian was quicker. Conan kicked out, catching him over the right hip. The Pict leaped back, steadied himself. His eyes widened for a moment, then he lowered his shoulders and bull-rushed the boy.

All of Corin’s training kicked in. The endless hours of repetition slowed time for Conan. The Pict meant to overwhelm him, to use his size advantage, though not great, to bowl the boy over. All the man had to do was to block any blow Conan might deliver, then weight and speed would grant him victory. He’d knock Conan down, then dash his brains out.

Conan stabbed the ax toward the Pict as if to fend him off. The warrior slashed to batter the ax out of the way, but Conan dipped his ax beneath the other man’s. The Cimmerian took a step forward and to the left, twisting like a suddenly opening gate to let the Pict rush past, bringing his ax up to his left shoulder. Conan backhanded the ax through the Pict’s line of attack, catching him solidly in the spine, just above his hips. His legs died and he stretched limply on the snowy ground.

The last Pict had gathered himself, brushing snow from a furious face. As the death throes of the man with the broken spine slackened, Conan spun away from him and engaged his last foe. The Cimmerian ducked beneath a wild ax stroke at his head, then buried his own ax in the Pict’s belly.

The man collapsed around it, slamming into the ground face-first. He sagged to the side, desperately trying to suck in breath. He lifted an arm to ward Conan off, but Conan snapped it with an overhand blow. Another blow crushed the back of the man’s skull, and the battlefield became silent save for the rasping breath of the third Pict and the scolding call of a raven.

Conan crouched and studied his surroundings for any other movement. He saw nothing, then recovered his boots. By the time he’d pulled them on, the third Pict had stopped breathing.

Conan bent down and recovered the skinning knife that had been intended to drink his blood.

And he set about some very grim work.

Then Ronan stopped one of the boys—his son, Ardel—and glanced back at Corin. “Corin! Picts in the woods. They hunted the boys.”

Corin scanned the back trail. “How many, Ardel?”

“Too many.” The young man looked up, ashen-faced. “There were too many.”

“And you came straight here? You led them back to us?”

Ardel sank to his knees. “Too many.”

Corin turned to summon more warriors, but saw a human form emerging from the forest to the south. He started in that direction, then stopped, waiting.

The form began to jog toward the village. Conan, his pace steady, his breath coming in thick vapor, wended his way to the center of the village. Covered in blood, he paid no attention to what the others were saying, to their gasps or their encouraging nods. He did not look at the other boys, but instead continued on, his face half masked by his hair but his blue eyes burning fearsomely.

He tossed the Picts’ severed heads at his father’s feet, then spat out the egg. He looked up into his father’s eyes. “The only thirst I know is for blood. The only cold I know is the cold edge of steel. My courage is tempered. I fear not death. I do not rush foolishly toward it. Speed and strength, cunning and balance. I am ready to train as a warrior.”

Corin smiled. You are indeed ready, my son. “How many?”

“Four, only four.” Conan toed a head. “Exhausted, no supplies, so they have a camp somewhere.”

Corin looked around at the warriors. “I want warriors to scour the hills. Go!”

“Me, too, Father?”

Corin nodded. “Yes, my son, I called for warriors, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Father.” Conan beamed and the sight of his joy warmed his father’s heart. The boy turned to run off back the way he’d come.”

“Conan.”

“Yes, Father?”

“Go get your Aquilonian sword.” Corin nodded solemnly. “You’re a warrior, by Crom, and I fear, by the end of this day, your blade will have drunk its fill.”