Read Online Conan The Hero by Leonard Carpenter - Free Book Online Page B

liquid. “We are lucky Babrak sought us out,” he said, passing the flask to Juma. “I wonder what he sees in us.”
    “Who can say? Perhaps that we accept his faith, yet do not proclaim it hollowly ourselves. He is a good man.” Juma drank, then handed the decanter back to Conan. “Too good a man for Venjipur.”
    By the time Sariya called out that the meal was ready, the buzzing of the forest insects seemed distinctly louder in the men’s ears. The graded clay floor of the porch did not seem so level either; Conan reeled slightly as he arose to go to the fire. He burned his fingers carrying a hot kettle back to the house between dry palm fans, but did not drop it or reveal his discomfort to the others. They set the pots on a thick mat in the hut’s front room, and Sariya opened them, releasing pungent steam clouds that rose like djinni of the eastern deserts.
    “A fine feast!” Juma proclaimed. “Looks like something from my boyhood hearth in Kush.”
    Even so, Conan thought the black warrior eyed the food a little dubiously. “Smells sweeter than the boiled mule-meat and groats they serve us in the fort,” he said heartily, himself kneeling down unsteadily at the mat. “What is it made of, girl?”
    “The meat is marinated eel from the village market. Here are baked tsudu root and boiled swamp-thistle.”
    Sariya plied a bamboo spoon as she spoke, scooping the viands onto fresh banyan leaves. “And stuffed, steamed locusts! Very fresh, I bought them alive this morning.”
    “Mmm… unusual.” Conan accepted a dripping, burdened leaf from his smiling housemate and set it down gingerly in front of him, to be observed awhile from a distance. “Are these all native foods of Venjipur?”
    “Yes, part of the bounty of Mother Jungle. And very good for you. The eel-meat gives you the strength of the eel, and the locusts are an aid to”—she blushed slightly, averting her eyes—“male vigor.”
    “Well, then, I cannot pass them up,” Juma proclaimed good-naturedly. Accepting his own heaped banyan leaf and laying it on the mat before him, the Kushite reached into its midst to pluck forth one of the gray-green, bristling lumps. With a flash of eyes and teeth that bespoke either good humor or rash courage, he popped it into his mouth. “Mmm—umf.” A moment later, he was gulping steaming-hot tea from a clay cup. “Well-spiced, I will say, Sariya!” he coughed. “But tasty, girl, tasty.”
    “A rare treat it is, doubtless.” Not to be outdone, Conan took up one of the pink-filled insects. He perused it just closely enough to see that the largest, toughest legs had been trimmed off. Then, shutting his eyes, he shoveled it into his mouth and chewed. The crunchy flesh reassuringly resembled Vilayet Sea shrimp, only sweeter; but the filling was peppery, seasoned with some jungle herb or hot radish. Tears sprang to his eyes as he swallowed the morsel half-chewed, rinsing his mouth with wine that only seemed to scorch his tongue the more.
    Sariya, meanwhile, had commenced eating in a methodical way, daintily spooning up her food with a small bamboo scoop. Conan and Juma imitated her, finding the other dishes more palatable. The eel was tender and candy-sweet, the vegetables soft-cooked and mildly flavored. Conan even crunched more of his deviled locusts, squeezing out their hot stuffing first into an inconspicuous fold of his leaf-plate.
    “Good, coarse, wholesome food,” was Juma’s comment. “Very like that of my home village on the seacoast of Kush, which I left so many years ago.”
    “Aye. Wild food was what we ate in Cimmeria.” Conan sniffed the pungent fumes of his tea, sipping it tentatively. “Our Venji armies would be more mobile if they could live off the land and barter with the natives, instead of relying on unwieldy elephant trains for supplies.”
    “True, the supply lines are vulnerable to attack.” Juma plucked a thistle-stem from between his teeth. “But just try, sometime, to