"The mountains are too small for you, Cimmerian," a voice rasped.
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. "The mountains are too small for you, Cimmerian,"
In a tavern thick with the scent of lotus-wine and unwashed bodies, he met a Zamorian thief named Taurus. Together, they scaled the impossible heights of the , seeking a gem that wept light. Inside, Conan did not find gold, but a trans-cosmic horror—a blind, elephant-headed god from a world older than the stars, imprisoned by a sorcerer’s greed. He stood atop a pile of the slain,
Conan turned to see an old crone emerging from the shadows of a lightning-scarred oak. Her skin was like parched parchment, and her eyes held the milky glaze of the blind. Inside, Conan did not find gold, but a
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".
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.