Valeria's sacrifice

Valeria's sacrifice is the hinge upon which the entire narrative turns, the moment when the warrior woman, having fought beside Conan through the Battle of the Burial Mounds, makes herself a living shield against a death-dealing arrow shot by Thulsa Doom. It is the event that transforms a quest for vengeance into a personal tragedy, that converts Conan's hatred of his lifelong enemy into something colder and more absolute, and that redeems Valeria's earlier mercenary nature by proving that her love is stronger than death itself. The sacrifice is not merely a death; it is the culmination of Valeria's arc from a thief who demanded payment for her services to a woman who pays the ultimate price for love, and it is the emotional core that makes the final confrontation with Doom a matter of the heart as much as of steel.

The Setting and the Discovery

The sacrifice unfolds on a mountain path leading to a look-out platform, where Conan, Valeria, and Subotai have taken their battle stance after their assault on the Mountain of Power. It is Subotai, with his thief's unceasing vigilance, who first spots the danger, pointing to a sinuous trail on the hillside above them where a group of marching figures appears. Conan recognizes them immediately: "By Crom, it's Doom and Rexor with a squad of their sub-humans," he mutters, and Valeria breathes that Doom is pointing them out. Rexor gives orders, and the beast-men begin to scramble down the pathless waste, howling as they come, their pig-like eyes devoid of intelligence but their hairy arms huge as they close in, waving upraised weapons—clubs, maces, and sharpened axes. The sun's first rays light up their slavering jaws and bounce off the metal studding on their leathern armour.

The three companions take their battle stance, with Valeria guarding Conan's back while Subotai, whipping out his light tulwar, shields Conan's left. The fight that follows is a testament to their unity: working together, they duck, twist, slash, and thrust, each parrying blows aimed at one of the others like a flawless fighting team. Moved by love and desperation, in the ecstasy of combat, Conan and Valeria fight more skilfully than they have ever fought before, or ever will again. Bones crack under Conan's sledge-hammer blows; wood flows at the touch of Valeria's darting sword. A beast-man falls, then another and another. One seizes Subotai's tulwar with a bare hand, ignoring the pain as the razor-sharp edge shears through skin and tendons, tearing the slender scimitar from the Hyrkanian's grasp and raising his axe for the kill; as Subotai leaps back, cursing, Conan lays open the beast-man's belly. With his back against a boulder, Subotai reaches around for his bow, nocks an arrow, and releases, and although the bowstring is wet and the arrow's flight unsteady, another attacker staggers off clutching a shaft half-buried in his flesh. As suddenly as it began, the fight is over; the remaining brutes shuffle off like whipped dogs, making their dispirited way up the hill to the look-out post where still stand the cult leader and his henchman.

The Shot from the Master

Three pairs of weary eyes follow the guards' flight up the rough terrain, then lift to see the regal figure of Thulsa Doom standing, legs wide-spread, attended by his first lieutenant Rexor. What happens next is a display of the cult leader's supernatural power, the same power he demonstrated in the garden when he commanded a girl to leap to her death to prove that steel is nothing compared to the hand that wields it. With lightning speed, Doom grasps a serpent coiled about his neck and, with a twisting motion, stretches the viper out into a scale-covered arrow. Receiving a strung bow from Rexor's attentive hand, he draws the shaft—which but a moment sooner had been a living snake—and shoots. The envenomed arrow speeds straight for Conan's heart.

Swifter still is the leap of the warrior woman. Valeria makes herself a living shield to protect the man she loves, and the death-dealing arrow tip enters her breast, coming to rest protruding between her slender shoulder blades. The shot is so precise, so deliberate, that it carries the full weight of Doom's cruelty: he does not merely kill; he kills precisely, aiming for the heart of his enemy and striking instead the heart of his enemy's beloved. As Valeria crumples, Conan catches her and, falling to his knees, cradles her in his powerful arms. He looks up and glares with hate-filled eyes at his life-long enemy. Doom stands watching his lieutenant unstring the great bow, a thin and evil smile spreading across his cruel face. Rexor grins his admiration and shouts, "Your shot was straight and true, Master. Death to the infidel!" The thin smile turns into an inhuman grimace, and across the open space Doom's answer carries: "Death to all who stand against me!" Then, turning on his heel, he walks away.

The Death of the Warrior Woman

Conan bends over the wounded girl and kisses her pale lips. He sees the arrow point protruding from her back and pulls it through, as Valeria, too weak to cry out, gasps in pain. In the barbarian's hand, the missile becomes a snake again; overcome with revulsion, he hurls it into the crystal waters of the somnolent stream. "Live! You must live," he whispers. "I need you." Valeria manages a wan flicker of a smile. Her voice is as faint as the rustle of leaves in a dying breeze: "The wizard... told me... that I must pay the gods.... Now I have... paid." The words echo the shaman's earlier prophecy, the warning that the great jewel stolen from the Tower of the Serpent would exact a price, and they reveal that Valeria has understood her fate all along—that her love for Conan would cost her everything.

Conan holds her against his breast, and their wet hair mingles blonde beneath black in the golden light of the rising sun. A wind springs up from the Vilayet Sea. "Hold me tight... tighter," moans Valeria. "Kiss me... breathe your warm breath into my body...." He kisses her fiercely, hungrily, rocking her limp body as a mother rocks an injured child. Her face turns ashen; her long lashes lie like dark smudges on her waxen cheeks. "Cold... so cold," she breathes. "Keep... me... warm..." Her lips seek his again. Then her hand falls limp on the burgeoning grass. Conan holds her close until Subotai touches his shoulder and silently shakes his head. Then he buries his face in her hair.

The Aftermath and the Price Paid

While the sun still climbs the azure sky, three horsemen rein their lathered beasts beside the shaman's door. Conan dismounts with the limp form of Valeria in his arms, as Subotai flings himself from the lead mount and hurries to release the thongs that bind the princess to the saddle of her horse. The ancient witch-man hurries forward to meet them, peers down at Conan's fragile burden, and touches one dangling wrist. The eyes he raises in answer to Conan's silent question are sympathetic and devoid of hope. Valeria is dead. The Cimmerian bears the girl's slight body into the shaman's hut; Subotai, pointing to the captive princess, calls after him, "I'll stay outside and guard this baggage. You'll want to be alone a while." With the help of the old hermit, Conan lays Valeria on a blanket and strips off her soiled and sodden clothing, in order to sponge away the blood and blackened pigment from her pale flesh. The great jewel stolen from the Tower of the Serpent still spills its frozen fire across the torn breast of the warrior woman.

The funeral that follows is a warrior's farewell. The way of the warrior, the shaman's words run, is ever death. Having bid Valeria a last adieu, the Cimmerian reaches for the flaming torch and, stepping forward, touches the flame to the dry wood. The fire that consumes her body is the same element that destroyed the witch who once tried to seduce and kill Conan, and it marks the end of Valeria's earthly journey—a journey that began with her demanding a price for her services and ended with her paying the ultimate price herself.

The Legacy of the Sacrifice

Valeria's sacrifice does not end with her death; it reverberates through the final confrontation with Thulsa Doom. When Conan finally faces his enemy on the steps of the Mountain of Power, and Doom reveals his true nature—his neck lengthening, his jaws elongating, his nose shrinking and disappearing, his forehead retreating, his lips thinning and vanishing, his dark eyes rounding into lidless orbs, a purple tongue flicking out to test the air, bearing the scaly serpent head of the ancient snake-men—Conan's sword sighs as it sweeps up in a great arc and cleaves the swaying snake head from the human body. The body falls backward and lies writhing like a trampled serpent at the top of the wide steps; the severed head rolls slowly down the long flight of stairs and comes to rest beside the fountain pool. Conan watches the gory object fall into the purple shadows of the dying day, then speaks half to himself: "My father was the light of day; Thulsa Doom, my night. Yet in one thing he spoke true. What matters is not the steel within the blade, but the steel within the man." The words carry the full weight of Valeria's sacrifice: it was her love, her willingness to die for him, that proved the steel within the man—and within the woman. The sacrifice is thus not merely a death but the final proof of the riddle of steel, the demonstration that the hand that wields the blade, and the heart that moves the hand, matter more than the metal itself.