EXTRACTS: The Complete Conan of Cimmeria Volume 3 © The Book Palace (416 PAGES in Full edition)

The Black Stranger Synopsis A Conan the Cimmerian, vengefully following a Pictish war-party which had raided and killed among the Aquilonian settlements on Black River, was captured by Picts, and carried by them to their far western home-land. The ferocious Cimmerian killed the chief and escaped, fleeing toward the west, pursued by the enraged Picts. Throwing them off the trail, he discovered a path that wound up a cliff and following it, discovered a cave where stood a great ebony table about which sat dead men. He stepped into the cave and was instantly fighting for his life. On a wide stretch of beach, backed against a deep forest, stood the settlement of a Zingara nobleman who had fled with his servant and his neice and taken refuge there. His retainers had built log houses and surrounded them with a stockade. None ventured far into the forest because they feared the ferocious Picts. But the neice was seated on the sand south of the promontory which rose beyond the bay, when her companion, a flaxen-haired Ophirean waif she had picked up, came running across the sand, naked and dripping from a plunge into the ocean, and cried that a ship was coming. The Zingara girl saw as she went up the gentle slope, and with the younger girl hurried to the fort, as they called it. The nobleman instantly called in his retainers from the fishing boats and the tiny fields along the forest edge, and ran up the banner of Zingara. The ship sailed into the bay and broke out the flag of the Barachan pirates, and a Zingaran recognized the ship as that of a noted pirate. The pirates came ashore and attacked the fortress, and had almost swarmed over the stockade, when another ship hove in sight, and broke out the colors of Zingara. But the pirate had already recognized it as the craft of a Zingaran buccaneer, and fearing to be trapped between two foes, he took his men aboard and sailed away up the coast. The Zingaran anchored and came ashore with most of his men, but the nobleman distrusted him and refused to allow him to bring his men in the stockade. They camped on the beach, the Zingaran sent them out wine, and the buccaneer came into the nobleman’s hall. He told the buccaneer that his ship had been wrecked in a storm, and that the increasing menace of the Picts made it imperative that he take his band away. The buccaneer offered to take them all off in return for a treasure which he said was hidden in the vicinity – and for the hand of the neice. The nobleman refused that angrily, and denied all knowledge of the treasure. The buccaneer than told of a treasure hidden by a pirate centuries before, or a century, at least. He offered to have his men aid the nobleman’s men in finding the treasure. Then they would sail away to some foreign port, where he would marry the neice and give up his wild ways. While they were arguing, the neice stole away to find the little Ophirean girl had slipped out and returned to the beach to find a prized 315