Conan slays the witch

Conan slays the witch is a pivotal episode in the young Cimmerian's early wanderings, a brutal education in the treachery of the supernatural that awaited him beyond the bleak northern lands. Having survived the raid on his village and the grinding servitude of the Wheel of Pain, Conan here meets a foe who cannot be beaten by strength alone. The encounter is his first direct, personal confrontation with the demonic servitors of the serpent god Set, and it forges in him a wariness that will prove as vital as any sword stroke. The episode is a compressed drama of seduction, monstrous revelation, and desperate survival, ending with the witch's fiery destruction and Conan's shaken, oath-laden escape into the night.

The Seduction and the Trap

The encounter begins not with a challenge but with an embrace. A woman, described as having full lips and a smile that curves with intent, approaches Conan with arms spread wide, naming a price for her company. The young Cimmerian, his blood surging, takes her into his arms, feeling her breasts and thighs pressed against him, and gives himself over to the ecstasy of her passion. Their naked bodies glisten in the firelight as she writhes against him, her breath hot with desire, her fingers clawing at his back and stroking his unruly hair. The intensity of the moment is total, absorbing all thought, until a faint moan sounds in the woman's throat and she whispers a message as ferocious as her love-making: "In Shadizar of Zamora, the crossroads of the world, you will find that which you seek. But you would be a fool to go.... Only fools seek their own death...." The warning is cryptic, a lure disguised as a caution, and it is the last human thing she says.

The Monstrous Revelation

A heartbeat after their climax, something—Conan does not know what—causes him to open his eyes, and passion is replaced by a revulsion of horror. "Crom!" he breathes, the name of his god a reflex against the unthinkable. The woman in his arms is no longer a woman. Her white teeth have lengthened into fangs like those of a wolf; her lips and nipples have turned an iridescent blue; the fingers clutching his shoulders have become flesh-searing claws, like the talons of a monstrous, predatory bird. Dark smoke rises in serpentine wisps from nostrils set in a burgeoning snout, and the tongue that darts out is the forked tongue of a serpent. Conan, still locked in an embrace of love, finds himself enveloped in the unrelenting arms of death, the hideous thing winding limbs of iron about him like the coils of a giant snake. When her eyelids lift, he confronts the slit-pupiled orbs of no earthly woman, and realizes that all his strength cannot free him from the fate that awaits him.

The Counter-Attack and the Burning

In the grip of the demon-woman, Conan's raw strength fails him, but his training does not. He remembers his time in the Pit and the wrestling tricks taught to him by Uldin, his trainer. Ceasing to struggle, he suddenly twists and rolls with her toward the fire, thrusting her scaled, inhuman back against the burning coals. Her long locks, which have developed a serpentine life of their own, hiss as they burst into flame. Shrieking, the monster strives to rise from the dancing flames, but it shrinks and blackens while jets of colored fire explode into whirling sparks. From the incinerated body, a weightless fireball arises and spins around the chamber, shedding a momentary radiance on the hanging hides and skulls of animals. The door bursts open, as if from the pressure of an unseen hand, and the fireball careens out into the darkness, a dwindling spark like a shooting star vanishing into the distance, carrying with it a lingering cry of agony. Bathed in cold sweat and weak from the release of tension, the young Cimmerian sinks to his knees and begins groping for his clothing, exclaiming "Crom!" and following the word with a curse.

The Serpent's Shadow and the Path Ahead

The witch's death is not an isolated horror but an introduction to a wider web of evil. The serpentine form she reveals is the signature of the Cult of Set, whose servants, as a merchant later warns Conan, "are deceivers. They worship Death." The warning is stark: they would murder their own parents, thinking to confer a boon by relieving them of the burden of life. The witch's transformation—the fangs, the forked tongue, the slit-pupiled eyes—is the same imagery that will recur throughout Conan's journey, from the great serpent of Set he later slays to the reptilian armor and serpent head of Thulsa Doom himself. The encounter also plants the seed of his quest, for the witch's whispered words point him toward Shadizar of Zamora, the crossroads of the world, where he will find that which he seeks. It is a path that leads him to the Tower of the Black Serpent, to the Mountain of Power, and ultimately to the beheading of Thulsa Doom, the master of the serpent cult. In this sense, the slaying of the witch is the first blow struck in a war that will define Conan's life, a war against the serpent and all its works.

The Forging of the Warrior

The episode is a crucible in which Conan's character is tested and refined. His initial response to the witch is one of passion and trust, a vulnerability that nearly costs him his life. But when confronted with the monstrous reality, he does not panic; he recalls his training and turns the witch's own embrace against her, using the fire as his weapon. The lesson is twofold. First, the world is full of deceptions, and even the most intimate embrace can hide a mortal threat. Second, strength alone is not enough; it must be guided by the mind and by the hard-won skills of the Pit. The witch's death also reinforces the Cimmerian code of suffering and endurance. Conan has already learned that "out of suffering is born strength," and this encounter is another brutal lesson in that creed. He emerges from the firelight shaken but alive, his oath to Crom on his lips, ready to continue his journey into a world that is far more dangerous than he could have imagined. The witch is his first true demon, but she will not be his last.