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    Stalking downriver on the more open, grassy side, he met a variety of game. A large-footed rabbit cropping herbs near the meadow’s edge let him draw near, his approach covered by the noise of the stream. His club, propelled by hunger, was already hurtling through the air when the rodent disappeared with a series of leaps, leaving only weed tufts and petals drifting in its wake. Further down the meadow, a blue-plumed peafowl was less fortunate; its plump body, knocked from the air and battered into oblivion by Conan’s club, furnished a raw, succulent lunch for the slayer.
    His hunt, however, was far from over. Proceeding to the lower edge of the meadow where lay a broad, muddy river-ford, he found along the bank many tracks and spoor indicating a miscellany of game: antelope and mountain buffalo, wolf and foraging bear; the hair-tufted, bone-filled droppings of small predators, and the blunt-padded prints of mountain cats. All seemed to pass here, so Conan made his way through the open swiftly and with careful alertness.
    Then, in the forest margin beyond the beach, he found what he sought: a trail of animal droppings, dark-greenish pebbles still soft and warm to the touch, and fragrant to his nostrils. These signalled, not many moments before, the passing of good-sized deer or elk. Scanning the branch-littered turf, Conan picked out faint marks and disturbances there, as well as the subtle trending of a game path that any large animal unaware of danger might use.
    Filling his lungs with mild forest air, Conan set off in pursuit. He started at a jog, slow enough to read the forest markings in front of him, but with no particular effort at stealth. A healthy man, he knew, could outrun any deer, but only by dint of a sustained effort, conserving his strength and relying on superior endurance. The deer would outpace the man time and again, expecting to lose its pursuer in rugged terrain—but it would flee in short bursts, exhausting itself and pausing long enough to let a determined hunter overtake and frighten it again. Eventually it would tire and fall, or turn at bay; then the hunter’s courage and weaponry would face a test.
    Meanwhile, Conan’s task was to stay on the scent, to watch for hazards, and above all, to keep from injuring his feet. Toughened as they were by roughshod travel and the jagged stone of the Brythunian quarry, they were yet vulnerable. The prospect of a barefoot chase headlong through branch-littered forest, rocky wilderness, bramble and slippery stream-course, posed a considerable risk. Every part of his mind that was not reviewing the broken twigs, crumpled blades, dark earth-turnings, and other signs of his quarry’s passage had to fix on where to place his feet and how best to negotiate the shrubs and fallen trunks that hindered his passage.
    He heard his prey before he saw it. The deer must have sensed him as well, for the sudden cracking of twigs a thrashing of foliage in the forest glade ahead indicated sudden alarm. When Conan plunged through a stand of bush into the open, he found himself pursuing, not any visible animal, but a receding thrash of hooves and the twitching of foliage at the far side of the clearing. The scuff of the creature’s weight over roots and stems sounded reassuringly heavy.
    He pressed on, keeping to the track. Some moments later, the beast paused to rest, looking backward as Conan ran into view. It was a fine four-point buck, broad and muscular in the neck and shoulders, standing framed between massive trees at the base of a forest slope. As the huntsman pelted forward, the prey started off again. It bolted up die hill, plunging with agile leaps through shallow undergrowth and over fallen logs. Conan, skirting the worst of the tangle and judging which way the animal would turn, followed as best he could.
    At the hill’s rocky crest, he lost the trail. On a guess more than by any sign, he vaulted a gap between two stone hummocks and bounded down the far