"I don't kill women ordinarily," he grunted; "though some of these hill women are she-wolves"From, "The People of the Black Circle"
She was conscious of a recognition of shame that she could not find unpleasant the feel of his muscular flesh under her fingers.From, "The People of the Black Circle"
...he returned, leading by the wrist a tall handsome girl, whose yellow hair, clear eyes and fair skin identified her as a pure-blood member of her race. Her scanty silk tunic, girdled at the waist, displayed the marvelous contours of her magnificent figure. Her fine eyes flashed with resentment and her red lips were sulky, but submission had been taught her during her captivity.From "The Devil in Iron"
Olivia, staring up from the ground, saw what she took to be either a savage or a madman advancing on Shah Amurath in a manner of deadly menace. He was powerfully built, naked but for a girdled loin-cloth, which was stained with blood and crusted with dried mire. His black mane was matted with mud and clotted blood; there were streaks of dried blood on his chest and limbs, dried blood on the long straight sword he gripped in his right hand. From under the tangle oh his locks, bloodshot eyes glared like coals of blue fire.From "Shadows in the Moonlight"
Even in the dim light of the dungeon, the primitive power of the man was evident. His mighty body and thick-muscled limbs combined the strength of a grizzly with the quickness of a panther. Under his tangled black mane his blue eyes blazed with unquenchable savageryFrom "Rogues in the House"
She sat up, her gaze fixed on a rail, over which, to her amazement, a dripping figure clambered. Her dark eyes opened wide, her red lips parted in an O of surprise. The intruder was a stranger to her. Water ran in rivulets from his great shoulders and down his heavy arms. His single garment- a pair of bright crimson silk breeks- was soaking wet, as was his gold-buckled girdle and the sheathed sword it supported. As he stood at the rail, the rising sun etched him like a great bronze statue. He ran his fingers through his streaming black mane, and his blue eye lit as they rested on the girl.From "The Pool of the Black One"
In my county, no starving man is denied food, but you civilised people must have you recompense- if you are like all I have ever met. We have done no harm and are just leaving.From, "The Slithering Shadow"
CONAN the Cimmerian stared out over the aching desolation and involuntarily drew the back of his powerful hand over his blackened lips. He stood like a bronzed image in the sand, apparently impervious to the murderous sun, though his only garment was a silk loin-cloth, girdled by a wide gold-buckled belt from which hung a sabre and a broad bladed poniard. On his clean-cut limbs were evidence of scarcely healed wounds.
The approaching figure went not furtively, like a thief, or timidly, like a fearful traveller. He strode down the nighted street as one who had no need or desire to walk softly. An unconscious swagger was in his stride, and his footfalls resounded on the pave. As he passed near a cresset she saw him plainly- a tall man in the chain-mail hauberk of a mercenary.From "Black Colossus"
From the corner of her eye she watched him as they went down the street together. His mail could not conceal his hard lines of tigerish strength. Everything about him was tigerish, elemental, untamed. He was alien as the jungle to her in his difference from the debonair courtiers to whom she was accustomed.From "Black Colossus"
...grim iron-clad figure looming among the dead. Before the savage blue eyes blazing murderously from beneath the crested, dented helmet, the boldest shrank. CONAN's dark scarred face was darker yet with passion; his black armour was hacked to tatters and splashed blood; his great sword red to the cross piece.From "The Scarlet Citadel"
CONAN agreed. He generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind that directed their raids, his was the arm that carried out her ideas. It mattered little to him where they sailed or whom they fought, so long as they sailed and fought. He found life goodFrom "Queen of the Black Coast"
From the dying steed there staggered up its rider, a slender girl in sandals and a girdled tunic. Her dark hair fell over her white shoulders, her eyes were those of a trapped animal.From "Shadows in the Moonlight"
...he began to gaze at his fair companion with more interest than previously, noting the lustrous clusters of her dark hair, the peach-bloom tints of her dainty skin, and the rounded contours of her lithe figure which the scanty silk tunic displayed to full advantage.From "Shadows in the Moonlight"
Ishtar's curse on these on these white-livered reformers who close the grog-house! "Let men sleep rather than guzzle," they say - aye, so they can work and fight better for their masters! Soft-gutted eunuchs, I call them. When I served with the mercenaries of Corinthia we swilled and wenched all night and fought all day-From "Black Colossus"
He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him. This person was as much out of place in that den as a gray wolf among the mangy rats of the gutters. His cheap tunic could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame, the broad heavy shoulders, the massive chest, lean waist and heavy arms. His skin was brown from outland suns, his eyes blue and smoldering; a shock of tousled black hair crowned his broad forehead. From his girdle hung a sword in a worn leather scabbard.From "The Tower of the Elephant"
In strong contrast stood CONAN, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane that fell over his low broad forehead. He dominated the scene, turning to tinsel the pomp of the conquerors by the sheer vitality of his elemental personality, and the kings in their pride and splendour were aware of it each in his secret heart.From "The Scarlet Citadel"
In front of him stood Tsotha, and on divans lounged Strabonus and Amalrus in their silks and golds, gleaming with jewels, naked slave-boys beside them pouring wine into cups carved of a single sapphire.From "The Scarlet Citadel"
Behind an ivory, gold-inlaid writing-table sat a man whose broad shoulders and sun-browned skin seemed out of place among those luxuriant surroundings. He seemed more a part of the sun and winds and high places of the outlands. His slightest movement spoke of steel-spring muscles knit to a keen brain with the co-ordination born of a fighting-man.From "The Phoenix on the Sword"
There was a wolfishness about this warrior that marked the barbarian. The eyes of no civilized man, however wild or criminal, ever blazed with such fire.From "Black Colossus"
"Not if you die!" muttered Olgerd, and his hand flickered towards his hilt. But quick as the stroke of a great cat, CONAN's arm shot across the table and his fingers locked on Olgerd's forearm. There was a snap of breaking bones, and for an instant the scene held: the men facing each other motionless as images, perspiration starting out on Olgerd's forehead. CONAN laughed, never easing his grip on the broken arm.From, "A witch Shall Be Born"
I was born in the Cimmerian hills where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women and won the plunder that I have?From, "The People of the Black Circle"
She turned toward CONAN, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing. Fierce fingers of wonder caught at his heart. She was slender, yet formed like a goddess: at once lithe and voluptuous. Her only garment was a broad silken girdle. Her white ivory limbs and the ivory globes of her breasts drove a beat of fierce passion through the Cimmerian's pulse, even in the panting fury of battle. Her rich black hair was as a Stygian night, fell in rippling burnished clusters down her supple back. Her dark eyes burned on the Cimmerian.From "Queen of the Black Coast"
She was untamed as a desert wind, supple and dangerous as a she panther. She came close to him, heedless of his great blade, dripping with blood of her warriors. her red lips parted as she stared up into his sombre eyes.
"I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or CROM's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content"From "Queen of the Black Coast"
"There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people," answered CONAN. "In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity"From "Queen of the Black Coast"
Belit shuddered. "Life, bad as it is, is better than such a destiny. What do you believe, CONAN."
He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply."
"You are more fit to inflict torture than to endure it," said CONAN tranquilly. "I hung there on a cross as you are hanging, and I lived, thanks to circumstances and stamina peculiar to barbarians. But you civilized men are soft; your lives are not nailed to your spines as are ours. Your fortitude consists mainly of inflicting torment, not enduring it. You will be dead before sundown."From, "A witch Shall Be Born"
In his roaming about the world the giant adventurer had picked up a wide smattering of knowledge, particularly the speaking and reading of many alien tongues. Many a sheltered scholar would have been astonished at the Cimmerian's linguistic abilities, for he had experienced many adventures where knowledge of a strange language had meant the difference between live and death.From, "Jewels of Gwahlur"
-by CROM, I'd like to see a priest try to take a Cimmerian to the alter. There'd be blood spilt, but not as the priest intended.From, "The Slithering Shadow"
He was quick to laugh, quick and terrible in his wrath. He was a valiant trencherman, and strong drink was a passion and a weakness with him. Naive as a child in many ways, unfamiliar with the sophistry of civilization, he was naturally intelligent, jealous of his rights, and dangerous as a hungry tiger.From "Queen of the Black Coast"
"By CROM though, I've spent considerable time among you civilised peoples, your ways are still beyond my comprehension. Well last night in a tavern, a captain in the kings guard offered violence to the sweetheart of a young soldier, who naturally ran him through. But it seems there is some cursed law against killing guardsmen, and the boy and his girl fled away. It was bruited about that I was seen with them, and so today I was haled into court, and a judge asked me where the lad had gone. I replied that since he was a friend of mine, I could not betray him. Then the court waxed wrath, and the judge talked about my duty to the state, and society, and other things I did not understand, and bade me tell where my friend had flown. By this time I was becoming wrathful myself, for I had explained my position.From "Queen of the Black Coast"
But I choked my ire and held my peace, and the judge squalled that I had shown contempt for court, and that I should be hurled into a dungeon to rot until I betrayed my friend. So then seeing they were all mad, I drew my sword and cleft the judge's skull; then cut my my way out of court..."
Foes of flesh and blood he did not fear, however great the odds, but any hint of the supernatural roused all the dim monstrous instincts of fear that are the heritage of the barbarian.From "Shadows in the Moonlight"
CONAN drew his head back as far as he could, waiting with terrible patience. The vulture swept in with a swift roar of wings. It's beak flashed down, ripping the skin CONAN's chin as he jerked his head aside; then before the bird could flash away, CONAN's head lunged forward on his mighty neck muscles, and his teeth, snapping like those of a wolf, locked on the bare, wattled neck.From "A Witch Shall Be Born"
Instantly the vulture exploded into squawking flapping hysteria. Its thrashing wings blinded the man, and its talons ripped his chest. But grimly he hung on, the muscles starting out in lumps on his jaws. And the scavengers neck-bones crunched between those powerful teeth. With a spasmodic flutter the bird hung limp. CONAN let go, spat blood from his mouth.
By the side of the caravan road a heavy cross had been planted, and on this grim tree a man hung, nailed there by iron spikes through his hands and feet. Naked but for a loin-cloth, the man was almost a giant in stature, and his muscles stood out in thick corded ridges on limbs and body, which the sun had long ago turned brown. The perspiration of agony beaded his face and his mighty breast, but from under the tangled mane that fell over his low, broad forehead, his blue eyes blazed with an unquenched fire. Blood oozed sluggishly from the lacerations in his hands and feet.From "A Witch Shall Be Born"
I never saw a man fight as CONAN fought. He put his back to the courtyard wall, and before they overpowered him dead men were strewn in heaps thigh-deep about him. But at last they dragged him down, a hundred against one.From "A Witch Shall Be Born"
The intricacies of the sword were useless against his primative fury as a human boxer's skill against the onslaughts of a pantherFrom "The Pool of the Black One"
It was a woman who had entered unannounced, a woman whose gossamer robes did not conceal the rich garments beneath them any more than they concealed the suppleness and beauty of her tall, slender figure. A filmy veil fell below her breasts, supported by a flowing head-dress bound about a triple gold braid and adorned with a golden crescent. Her dark eyes regarded the astonished governor over the veil, and then with an imperious gesture of her white hand, she uncovered her face.From, "The People of the Black Circle"
She was tall, lithe, shaped like a goddess; clad in a narrow girdle crusted with jewels. A burnished mass of night-black hair set of the whiteness of her ivory body. Her dark eyes, shaded by long dusky lashes, were deep with sensuous mystery.From, "The Slithering Shadow"
He was not merely a wild man; he was part of the wild, one with the untameable elements of live; in his blood ran the blood of the wolf-packs; his heart throbbed with the fire of blazing forests.From "Black Colossus"
But princess Yasmela lolled not on that silken bed. She lay naked on her supple belly upon the bare marble like the most abased suppliant, her dark hair streaming over her white shoulders, her slender fingers intertwined. She lay and writhed in pure horror that froze her blood in her lithe limbs and dilated her beautiful eyes, that pricked the roots of her dark hair and made goose-flesh rise along her supple spine.From "Black Colossus"
