Conan the Barbarian by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter

the barred gate were set. The gate loosened in Conan’s desperate grip, as the lower hinge parted from its setting. A violent push, and the gate hung awry.
    “Get out, girl!” shouted Conan, as he forced the gate ajar. The girl squeezed past him through the narrow opening and ran screaming into the night, clutching her furs and flimsy garments against her naked bosom.
    With another mighty heave, Conan broke the gate loose from its remaining hinge and hurled it down the hillside. As the earth rocked and vibrated beneath his feet, he staggered out into the moonlight and glared wildly at the scene of devastation. In the middle distance, he perceived the houses of Kolari in ruins, and their homeless tenants running aimlessly about, like ants after the obliteration of their nest.
    “Conan!” came the voice of Toghrul. “Conan! Help
    me!”
    Below him, at the foot of the little hill, Conan saw the Pit master’s head protruding from a wide crack in the earth. He saw that the earth had opened beneath the Hyrkanian’s feet and swallowed him to his shoulders. Wedged in the crack, the man was unable to free himself.
    “Pull me out!” implored the Pit master.
    “Why should I?”
    “I’ll pay gold! I’ll give you your freedom! Only save me now!”
    “My freedom, eh?” Conan threw back his head and laughed—his first good laugh since the Vanir had captured him, ten long years ago. “That I already have. Stay there, swine! If the earth swallows you down, good riddance to you!”
    Conan turned and walked away. Guided by the moonlight, he headed for a clump of trees on a hillock in the distance. He had neither supplies nor weapons and did not know whither he was going, but at least he knew that southward the weather was warmer. Behind him, Toghrul’s frantic voice rose to an awful shriek as, in a final earth tremor, the crack that held him closed once more.
    Conan saw no one, alive or dead, in the direction he chose to travel, save, after a time, one Hyrkanian warrior, who sprawled beneath a fallen tree. In its descent, the tree had broken the fellow’s back. Conan knelt and looted the corpse for such articles as he might need: boots, flint and steel, a dagger, a fur cloak, and a bag of coins. He also took the man’s quiver and bow case, although he looked doubtfully at them for the bow was little used among the Cimmerians, and Conan had never learned to shoot.
    “You’ll have no use for these in the red pits of Hell, Hyrkanian,” he said cheerfully, “and they may serve me well before I join you there." So saying, he donned the dead man’s gear and glided away through the trees.
    Then, as the first faint glow of dawn suffused the eastern sky, Conan increased his pace and headed south.

IV
     
    The Witch
     
    The plain stretched southward under a pewter sky. Here and there the ground showed black where winds had scoured away the snow, exposing naked earth.
    Once more Conan paused in his trudging to glance back along the path that he had travelled. Straining his ears, he heard the tell-tale whining and knew that wolves were still on his trail. From the distance came their eerie song. He scowled, set his jaw, and gathered his bearskin cloak about him. If only, in all this bleak, flat stretch of land, he could find a rocky place to shield him—something to put his back against—he could face the pack and use his dagger to good advantage.
    Grimly, the Cimmerian turned to plod ahead; but in the dull, metallic luminescence of the motionless mist, he could not see his surroundings clearly. He strode along, nevertheless, his keen barbarian eyes searching for a haven against the hungry fangs. At last he found one. It was only a low rise, a wrinkle in the earth’s skin; but the higher ground was strewn with boulders. On the crest of this small rise, he hoped to make his stand; for there the beasts could come at him only singly, or at the worst in pairs.
    As he began to clamber up the rocky pile, his booted feet slipped on