Conan the Warlord
Conan the Warlord is a fantasy novel by American writer Leonard Carpenter, featuring Robert E. Howard's sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was first published in paperback by Tor Books in March 1988, and was reprinted in April 1997. Plot During a prologue set in the Varikiel Marshes of northern Nemedia, a farm boy named Lar is bitten by a snake. The scene then switches to Conan, attempting to escape a Nemedian prison. While his attempted escape is thwarted, it does bring the Cimmerian to the attention of someone powerful, and he soon finds himself recruited to serve as a body-double for Favian, son of Baron Durwald from Dinadar. Favian and Conan both resemble each other, because Favian's mother was also a Cimmerian. Since the young noble is a spoiled brat, the two never hit it off well. Conan receives a lecturer on upper-class Nemedian society, etiquette, and swordplay, though he finds civilized fencing rather weak in comparison to his broadsword. He remains suspicious of his new employer, at one point following Durwald as he goes inside a crypt, seemingly for the purposes of ancestral worship. His resentment towards Favian is cemented after he catches the lord whipping