Conan and the Modern Woman Ch. 02

The air around the altar seemed to pulse with energy. Though the robed man standing to the side seemed focused only on the task at hand, the stark naked girl bound to the stone table squirmed with fright. She tried to scream but could not bring enough air into her lungs to cry out.

She looked wildly from side to side, saw the black tallow candles burning and sending thick tendrils of smoke curling into the air over her prostrate form. The thick haze gathered eerily over her writhing body. Every breath she took drew more of the acrid air into her already parched lungs.

There was a candle next to each of her hands and feet and, although she had no idea what was happening or what this old man was doing, she knew it meant her soul was damned to the eternal fires of some nameless hell she could not even imagine.

The ancient wizard Kydon, for such he was, invoked an enchantment that was old before Atlantis sank into the sea. As he spoke, at first mumbling softly, his voice began to rise in volume and passion until he was screaming at the dark skies.

The girl whimpered quietly as the stars above seemed to glimmer more brightly. Then before she realized what was happening, a dagger flashed downward and buried itself in her chest.

Kydon gripped the haft of the knife with both hands as the life force from the young girl's lithe body flowed through it and into him. He shook as with an ague and the foam flecked from his lips as he was overwhelmed with the shock.

Then it was over.

He fell to his knees and bent over the girl's supple waist, his head resting on her fast cooling dead flesh. Even as he opened his eyes and watched, her skin turned to a pallid grey.

He pushed himself to his feet with his hands on the side of the altar and heaved a great sigh.

He took another deep breath and looked skyward. Then he looked back down at his handiwork and smiled. He began to chuckle, at first quietly and then he was laughing as a man gripped with madness.

"Oh yes Conan," he said after his fit was done, "I have much more work for you to do!"

Far away, in the dim alleys of Messantia, Conan of Cimmeria lay sleeping restlessly on a mean pallet in a cheap inn.

He sat up suddenly and looked from side to side in confusion. He narrowed his eyes and was immediately up and prowling the small chamber with his Saber in his hand. He crept to the window and peered between the strips of rag that served as screen. The alley outside was filled with refuse and noisome with the stench of all manner of filth.

He curled his nose and snarled at the closed door, even though it was barred securely from inside.

"Crom!" he muttered, "What sorcery is this?"

His last memory before waking was the girl Julie whom he had met in a magical world filled with all manner of strange things. He had rescued her from attackers and was guarding her sleeping form in an out of the way gully in her incomprehensible world. They had loved each other fiercely before she slept and he had appointed himself her guardian until he could get her to safety.

Next thing he knew he had wakened here. Of the girl there was no sign and he did not know where she now was or whether she was safe.

He growled in frustration and thrust his Saber home angrily.

He left the room he'd rented, noting with curiosity it was the very place he had expected to lay his head last night, the place where he'd already paid his three coins for lodging. Instead, when he came to find it in the darkness of night he had found instead, not this broken down clapboard shack, but a magical mist through which he'd traveled to the strange world where he met Julie.

He gave his head a shake, his thick mane of black hair tousled and matted to his pate, and left the cursed place. Mysteries made him angry and he was now very angry indeed.

He went to the dockside and dove into the water. He washed the sweat from his hair and body and breathed the chill air through widened nostrils as he tried to think this strange set of circumstances through.

On shore he dropped his sword belt and removed his tunic to squeeze the excess water from it, then pulled it back on.

He grinned slightly at sight of three men coming his way. They were typical of the dredges of the back streets of Messantia, wild-eyed men with no law and no conscience.

He straightened and watched them approach. They watched him too. They muttered quietly to each other as they closed on him. When Conan picked up his sword and belted it to his waist, they stopped suddenly, seeing in him not the easy prey they had hoped for.

As one, the three of them turned and disappeared into the back alleys of this lawless city.

Conan snickered and made his way to the marketplace. He was in need of an employer and the sorely put-upon merchants of this quarter of the city would pay well for protection from the scum who populated it. As he walked he considered what had happened to him the past day. Again he growled in frustration at his ignorance of the situation.

Julie wakened in the chill dawn and blinked in confusion. As the harrowing events of the night before came back to her she looked in vain for the man who had rescued her. His name was Conan and she was at least half convinced he might have escaped from some lunatic asylum.

He had killed at least four men and more likely five right in front of her eyes. And what was more, he'd done it with a sword of all things! He looked like some kind of warrior king in costume, dressed as he was with a thigh length robe of some kind with the sword on his belt. He had chopped the men into pieces with that sword and did it without a second thought. But he had done it in her defense.

Julie shuddered at the memory of the violence she had witnessed but she had made love to the man afterward just the same. He was the knight in shining armor that women dreamed about. A man willing to kill and rend flesh to protect his woman.

Just the memory of their lovemaking made the goosebumps on her arms and neck rise.

She looked at the ground now and saw her ruined dress. Before last night it had been a fifteen hundred dollar little black dress from the Karl Lagerfeld collection. Now it wasn't much more than a torn rag. The men who attacked her saw to that. As for her bright pink panties, they too were torn off by those men and thrown to the ground. They were now lying in the street somewhere close by; and close by to two or three dead men.

Again she shuddered in revulsion.

The only piece of clothing she had now that covered her decently was the scarlet red cloak Conan had left behind. He had wrapped her in it before she closed her eyes and she had slept soundly in it, surrounded by his manly scent.

She took it now and wrapped it around herself tightly. She peered out from the bushes that surrounded the small gully in which she lay to see the empty street about thirty yards away. There was no traffic and no one walking that she could see.

She looked up and down the road and was dismayed that she could not see her car.

She sat back in the gully and grimaced at her predicament.

After a few minutes thought she remembered her phone app, the one designed to control the various functions of her car. She dug the phone out of her tiny bag and waited impatiently as the app booted up. Then she selected "Locate My Car". After a few seconds it showed a map with the position of her car and where it was in relation to herself.

She breathed a sigh of relief and once more looked at her dress.

While it was probably not decent to wear it on its own, she realized it would probably be okay if she wore the long flowing cloak over top of it.

She dropped the cape to expose her nakedness. The goose pimples rose on her arms and legs at the dawn chill and her nipples puckered into hard little nubs. She fit the tiny dress over herself and wrinkled her nose at the gaping rents that exposed one of her nipples. Her bare pussy too was partially visible where another tear exposed her midriff. Her neatly trimmed pubic hair was quite visible against the black fabric; a blonde strip no wider than a half inch. The zipper barely held the dress together anymore but she pulled it all the way to the top anyway.

She threw the cloak over her shoulders again and sighed at Conan's scent once more. She looked down at herself and decided she liked this look. Then she set off down the road to get her car.

Kydon sat hunched forward over the crystal globe nestled into its solid gold mount on his work table. He grinned snake like as he watched the girl wrapped in the red cloak that had once belonged to Conan the Cimmerian. She was walking in haste toward her magical chariot and would reach it within a few moments, provided nothing hindered her passage.

Kydon chuckled ruthlessly as he pondered doing just that.

Turning to a small brazier that smoldered at his side he sprinkled the dust he'd collected from the grave of a powerful wizard from the time of Acheron. The dust turned the flames to a lurid green on contact and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He muttered an incantation that caused the hairs on his arms and neck to stand up. The words were in a language long dead and even he did not know their meaning as he spoke them. He knew their magical properties though!

With a flourish he tossed the dust of the charred bones of a child into the small fire. At once, the room was filled with brightness and a whoosh drove his long hair back from his brow.

When once more he looked into the crystal, the road was empty save for the magical chariot where it had died the night before. Of Julie there was no sign, no sign indeed that she had ever been there.

His serpentine grin glowed in the dimness of the small chamber in which he carried out his evil sorcery.

"Ha ha ha ha!" his cruel laugh boomed out, "Wait until you see what I have brought you now Conan of Cimmeria!"

The barbarian was at that moment threading his way through the market stalls looking for a likely patron. He had already passed a purveyor of silk, a spice merchant and two jewelers. Each of them had taken on a protector of their own already. One was a beefy looking Aquilonian with red hair that spoke of his origins near the Pictish woodland in the north. The long broad sword at his side was notched with the scars of many past campaigns. A giant Numidian wearing a broad Tulwar in the crimson sash he wore around his waist looked over both of the jewelers stalls. His eyes roamed back and forth ever watchful for the thieves common to this city. The spice merchant had two swarthy Zingarans wearing more daggers on their persons than there were fingers on their hands.

Conan paused and looked around with a frown.

He was about to make his way to the other side of the market when he heard a sound that could only come from a number of voices joined at once in a single cry. Their collective gasp of surprise was soon followed by the sound of jeering and laughter. Next came a woman's scream.

"Crom's devils!" he shouted, "What wickedness occurs now?"

He took off at the run, dodging and weaving between people and tents. Such was his agility that he did not touch a single person along the way, though they staggered and careened off each other in his wake.

When he came to an open area in the market with no stalls or tents he stood wide-eyed and amazed.

A gaggle of fifty or more men stood gaping, chortling and guffawing at the woman in their midst. She was stark naked and wrestling with futility against four or so men who pawed rudely at her. Already they had torn the scarlet cloak and small black tunic she had once worn from her. These lay at her feet and she struggled both to fend off these men and to try to gather her garments up to defend her modesty.

Conan gaped in confusion. It was Julie, the woman he'd rescued from attackers the night before. The woman from the magical world he had been thrust in to without knowing how.

"Ho you Dogs!" he called out as he stalked to the center of the ring of people, "Leave that girl or suffer my wrath!"

All eyes turned toward him. Many of the men in the crowd dispersed. They recognized, if not Conan's face, then his intention to rend and slay. More than half the crowd had slipped away into the market stalls by the time Conan stopped walking.

Six of the ruffians frowned and studied him judiciously. One of them, a tall muscular man, larger even than Conan and wearing desert garb with a Keffiyeh pulled loosely round his head, grimaced and told off one of the men to secure the girl. This man was apparently from the same tribe by the look of his robes.

"Hold her close for us," he said, "We'll have business with the wench when we're done with this interloper!"

Conan crouched and drew his Saber. Each of the five men he faced drew their own steel. Their leader drew a Tulwar from his broad belt. Another kinsman dressed in the same desert robes as he brandished his own Tulwar.

Two more pulled cutlasses from worn leathern scabbards. These two must have belonged to one of the pirate crews in port. The last was a brown skinned Zamoran. He held long knives in both hands and had at least four more thrust into sheaths arranged neatly up and down his chest.

"Who dies first?" Conan said with a grin.

"Kill the Dog!" the large man screamed as he rushed forward.

The Tulwar in his hand sang past Conan's head as he ducked under the wide armed swing. As he stepped through it, Conan drew the blade of his Saber across the big man's belly. Before the giant could begin his counter swing he gasped as his innards dripped from the long slash in his stomach. He tried to step toward the barbarian but his guts tangled in his feet. He tripped and sagged to the ground trying in vain to stuff his entrails back inside.

Conan laughed ruthlessly and danced out of reach of the others as they watched their leader die.

"Kill him!" another of the men shouted angrily.

The two pirates rushed forward, hacking and slashing at Conan. Their swords sliced empty air as the quick footed barbarian kept himself moving in and amongst them. They hindered each other as they sought to cut at the Cimmerian but instead sliced their brethren.

Then the other two rushed in to cut off Conan's escape.

The barbarian laughed with glee at their efforts as he dealt cuts and slices to his opponents to left and right. A cutlass sliced the ear off the Zamoran and he went to his knees holding the bloody cut at the side of his head.

The swarthy kinsman of their dead leader went down as Conan's Saber skewered him through. The man's Tulwar fell from nerveless fingers as he gasped out his last.

The two pirates exchanged worried glances and Conan's teeth gleamed as his piercing blue eyes glared into their very souls. The cold death they saw there was enough for them. They both broke and ran, pushing their way through the crowd that had gathered to watch.

The last combatant shook his bleeding head slowly and backed away. His ear still lay on the ground where it fell. Conan eyed him grimly as the man paced backward. With a final bow, the man sheathed his knives then walked slowly into the crowds to disappear as only a thief of Zamora could.

Conan pursed his lips and turned to the man holding Julie.

This man, another desert dweller wearing robes similar to the two fellows' already lying dead in the square swallowed heavily. He released the girl and took two paces backward then held his hands up in surrender.

"Peace Master," he said through dry lips.

Conan chuckled as he leveled his steely gaze on him.

The man suddenly gasped and went to his knees as his eyes rolled back in his head. Julie had gathered up her scarlet cloak and wrapped herself in it, then turned on the man with fury. With all her strength she brought her foot up into his stones.

"Bastard!" she screamed.

The man fell forward and wretched as the laughter in the crowd burst out.

Conan rushed toward the girl and gathered her into himself. She locked her arms around his neck and sobbed against his chest. Her badly torn black tunic was gripped tightly in one hand.

"Where the hell are we Conan?" she asked tearily.

"This is no place for a lass like you Girl," he muttered as he carried her away, "Let's get you somewhere safe until we can learn more about these strange happenings."

Kydon sat at the table in his small chamber tittering with delight as he watched the drama unfold in his crystal globe.

"I must sample this wench's treasures before this is through," he muttered to himself.

He well remembered watching as she had taken the big barbarian's member between her lips last night. He had never seen or heard of such an act before, though it looked to be perfectly delicious as she suckled on Conan's erection. He wondered idly why the big man did not shoot his seed into the girl's mouth. Kydon was certain he would have done so.

On a whim he called out for a slave.

One of his newer acquisitions entered the room with fear in her eyes. She was a curvy Brythunian with tawny hair and a small turned up nose with generous lips. Her only garment was a diaphanous length of silk wrapped around her generous wide hips and heavy bosom. It did nothing to hide any part of her and its translucense did much to accentuate her already wondrous charms.

She had no idea what the ancient wizard intended to do with her but she suspected she would not survive the next hour.

"On your knees Wench!" Kydon snapped as he opened the front folds of his robes.

The girl at once fell into a crouch in front of her master. Her eyes were downcast and her body trembled with fright.

"Take this in your mouth," Kydon muttered as he held his member with one hand and pointed at her face.

The girl looked up in astonishment as the tip of his slender hardness bobbed no more than a hand's breadth from her nose. She looked up at him in confusion and then back at the erection in front of her.

"Suck it Wench!" he demanded.

The girl's throat clenched with fear and bewilderment but she opened her lips cautiously to accommodate the wizard's appendage.

Kydon gripped the sides of the girl's face and pulled her mouth down over his length. She gagged and pulled back but he was wanting more. He held her firmly and began moving his hips back and forth. She slapped her hands at his thighs, trying to pull away to breathe.

She managed to back off far enough to take in some air but Kydon pulled her back over his erection. Tears were streaming down her cheeks from the invasive member in her throat but she realized she could breathe in through her nose. She was shivering both with fear and revulsion.

Kydon rose from his chair and stood over the girl. His eyes were wide with passion and he looked at her with lust.

"Again Wench!" he demanded, "Suck it!"

She cast her eyes down but took the wizard's penis once more between her lips. He gripped her by the back of the head and thrust again and again into her mouth.

"Do it better!" Kydon growled, "The girl Julie had the barbarian squirming with desire!"

Elavina did not comprehend. She had never contemplated serving a man with her mouth. It seemed unnatural!

Not knowing what else to do she opened her mouth wider. Kydon scowled with frustration and threw her to the floor.

"Curse you Girl!" he screamed, "Can you not do something so simple?"

He slapped her backhanded across the face and fell back into his chair breathing heavily.

"Get out," he mumbled so quietly she almost didn't hear.

"Get out now!" he screamed.

Elavina crawled backward to the door and scurried away as fast as her feet would carry her. She would later tell the other slave girls of their master's desires and they would shake their heads with disgusted confusion.

At that very moment Julie was on her knees in front of Conan. They had found an out of the way shack with a door they could bar behind them. She had chosen that moment to express her gratitude for saving her once more.