Serpent's Fang

The Serpent's Fang is a thin bronze-handled dagger whose blade undulates like the body of a serpent, a weapon that King Osric of Zamora produces before Conan, Subotai, and Valeria as material evidence of the corruption that the Cult of Set has wrought upon his kingdom. It is not merely a weapon but a symbol of the cult's insidious reach, a blade that has already been used to commit the most intimate of betrayals and that threatens to strike again within the royal family itself.

The King's Revelation

When Osric summons the three adventurers to his throne, he is a broken and querulous monarch, trembling as he buries his face in his hands. He speaks of Thulsa Doom as a demigod whose presence he has long chafed against, describing how the cult's black towers have spread across the land, stealing away children and turning them into monsters. At a signal, the monarch's servant hands him the Serpent's Fang, and Osric holds it in his outstretched palm as he delivers his terrible testimony. The dagger, he reveals, was thrust into his father's heart by his own younger son, Osric's brother, who had been ensorcelled by the cult's witchcraft. The blade is thus a relic of patricide, a physical token of how the serpent priests have turned family members against one another.

The king's anguish deepens as he contemplates his own daughter, Yasimina, the jewel of his kingdom and the joy of his old age, who has likewise fallen under the spell of Thulsa Doom. He asks aloud whether she now bears a dagger such as this, pointed at his heart, and whether this is the fate awaiting him. Conan, remembering the exquisite beauty of the young woman he glimpsed in the veiled palanquin on the streets of Shadizar, finds it difficult to believe that a girl so lovely might someday murder her own sire, though he knows she has become a priestess of the serpent god.

A Symbol of the Cult's Corruption

The Serpent's Fang embodies the cult's method of operation, which relies not on open warfare but on the corruption of the young and the perversion of familial bonds. Osric laments that his own guards dare not stand against the serpent priests, and that his bravest warriors shrink from their duty, leaving him to call on thieves to save his kingdom. With a sudden explosion of anger, the king hurls the serpentine dagger to the marble floor, where it lies exposed as a thing of evil for all to see. His outburst reveals the depth of his despair: each generation, he declares, is weaker than the one before, with today's youth wallowing in the snake cult, yearning to be slaves and beggars, drugged dreamers, rather than striving to be heroes as boys did in his own youth.

The dagger's serpentine form is no accident of design. Throughout the narrative, the cult of Set is associated with serpents at every level: the procession Conan witnesses in Shadizar is led by drugged girls and young women draped in soiled white garments, followed by flagellants who lash their naked flesh with whips made of serpent hides and barbed with snakes' fangs, chanting "Doom... Doom... Thulsa Doom." The Serpent's Fang is the aristocratic counterpart to these crude instruments, a refined weapon of assassination that carries the same serpentine symbolism into the highest circles of power.

The Cult's Doctrine of Violence

The dagger is also a token of the cult's doctrine, which demands that its followers strike against their own loved ones. Thulsa Doom's catechism, delivered to his entranced votaries, asks who amongst them fears the warm embrace of death, and whether they will strike true to the infidel heart, whether it be the heart of friend, or lover, or loved one in their former life. The cult promises that its followers will feel naught but joy when they perform their duty to their god and lord, when they strike for Set and Doom, and when the infidel bows before the blade, the cord, or the bowstring. The Serpent's Fang is the instrument through which this doctrine becomes concrete, the blade that turns a son against a father and threatens to turn a daughter against her king.

The Riddle of Steel and the Serpent's Fang

The Serpent's Fang stands in pointed contrast to the philosophy of steel that runs through Conan's story. Where the cult's weapon is serpentine, curved, and treacherous, the sword that Corin the smith forges in his furnace is straight and true, tempered in water until the core hisses like a serpent and a cloud of steam invests the smith in the diaphane garments of a god. Corin carries within his breast the secret of steel, that precious inheritance from the ancient Atlanteans, and his forging is an act of creation rather than corruption. The contrast is made explicit in Conan's final reflection after he beheads Thulsa Doom, when he speaks of his father as the light of day and Thulsa Doom as his night, acknowledging that in one thing the cult leader spoke true: what matters is not the steel within the blade, but the steel within the man. The Serpent's Fang, for all its sinister elegance, is ultimately a hollow weapon, one that derives its power not from the quality of its forging but from the corruption of the hand that wields it.

Significance

The Serpent's Fang is the narrative's most concentrated symbol of the Cult of Set's threat to the social order. It is a weapon that has already been used to commit the ultimate crime of patricide, and it threatens to be used again within the royal family of Zamora. Its serpentine form links it to the cult's broader iconography, from the black towers that pierce the sky to the drugged processions that wind through the streets, and its appearance before the king's throne crystallizes the danger that Conan and his companions have been summoned to confront. When Osric hurls it to the floor, he is symbolically rejecting the cult's power, but the gesture is that of a weak old man beset by problems he cannot solve, one who must ultimately rely on thieves to save his kingdom. The dagger thus marks both the depth of the corruption and the inadequacy of the king's response to it, setting the stage for the violent confrontation that follows.