Beyond the Black River (from Weird Tales) (Conan the Barbarian Series)

Editorial Reviews. About the Author. Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, – June 11, ) Beyond the Black River (from Weird Tales) (Conan the Barbarian Series) - Kindle edition by Robert E. Howard. Download it once and read it on.
Table of contents

Sighing, the two pick up the litter and continue their journey. He is shocked but not necessarily surprised of Tiberias's death, and worries that the soldiers will soon start to abandon the fort. He asks Conan to lead a battalion into the jungle to slay Zogar Sag. Conan agrees, though he decides that a dozen men in secret stand a better chance than a trampling horde.

Balthus eagerly volunteers to go on the expedition. The Crawlers in the Dark That night, Conan, Balthus, and ten more men hand picked by Conan paddle a canoe silently down the river. A mile from Zogar Sag's village, Conan and nine of the men slip ashore into the forest as Balthus and the last man wait in the silent dark either for their return or dawn.

After a bit, Balthus notices the canoe begin to drift and, when he tries to tell his companion, he discovers his throat slit. Before Balthus can cry out, hands reach from the darkness to choke him. Balthus stabs wildly with his knife and stabs deep into his attacker, who lets go. Balthus yells but many more men climb into the boat and subdue him into unconsciousness. The Beasts of Zogar Sag Balthus awakens next to a pyramid made of the stacked heads of Conan's patrol party. Only one woodsman remains alive, tied to a post, and he and Balthus compare notes. They are in a Pictish village, Gwawela, though the number of war-paint decorated men milling about far exceeds the size the village can contain.

Zogar Sag himself steps out of a hut and approaches the woodsman. Zogar whips the Picts into a frenzy and then calls forth a fiendish saber-tooth tiger from the forest that attacks and devours the scout. Zogar then calls forth another creature with which to kill Balthus, and a giant snake slithers into the village. Before it can reach Balthus, a spear penetrates its neck as Conan arrives. He sets fire to the huts as the snake thrashes and in the confusion Conan grabs Balthus and the two flee the village.

The Children of Jhebbal Sag Instead of heading for the river, the two head deeper into the forest. After the wounded serpent is finally put down the villagers notice their prisoner has escaped but assume the escapees are running for the river, giving Conan and Balthus precious time to put distance between themselves and the village. Soon, however, Conan realizes they are being tracked and they hide as a leopard appears down the trail. Conan slays it but knows the villagers can't be too far behind. Balthus wonders why Zogar doesn't send all the beasts of the forest after them, and speculates that Zogar only commands some beasts On a hunch, Conan scratches a symbol into the ground, one he had seen many times in his journeys and had the meaning explained to him by a witch-finder.

The two men crawl into the foliage to wait, and soon a panther comes sniffing up the trail. When it reaches the symbol it stops and backs away in fright, refusing to go further. Conan and Balthus move on, and Conan explains how he escaped the Picts' ambush that killed most of his men. They take refuge on a hill, but when no Picts come near Conan realizes they have abandoned the hunt in order to gather forces for an attack on Tuscelan. Some devilment is up. Too many Picts here. These aren't all Gwaweli; men from the western tribes here and from up and down the river.

Balthus stared at the ferocious shapes. Little as he knew of Pictish ways, he was aware that the number of men clustered about them was out of proportion to the size of the village.

Product Review

There were not enough huts to have accommodated them all. Then he noticed that there was a difference in the barbaric tribal designs painted on their faces and breasts. He'll make some rare magic with our carcasses. Well, a border-man doesn't expect to die in bed. But I wish we'd gone out along with the rest. The wolfish howling of the Picts rose in volume and exultation, and from a movement in their ranks, an eager surging and crowding, Balthus deduced that someone of importance was coming.

Twisting his head about, he saw that the stakes were set before a long building, larger than the other huts, decorated by human skulls dangling from the eaves. Through the door of that structure now danced a fantastic figure. Balthus saw a lean figure of middle height, almost hidden in ostrich plumes set on a harness of leather and copper. From amidst the plumes peered a hideous and malevolent face. The plumes puzzled Balthus. He knew their source lay half the width of a world to the south. They fluttered and rustled evilly as the shaman leaped and cavorted. With fantastic bounds and prancings he entered the ring and whirled before his bound and silent captives.

With another man it would have seemed ridiculous—a foolish savage prancing meaninglessly in a whirl of feathers. But that ferocious face glaring out from the billowing mass gave the scene a grim significance. No man with a face like that could seem ridiculous or like anything except the devil he was. Suddenly he froze to statuesque stillness; the plumes rippled once and sank about him. The howling warriors fell silent.

Beyond the Black River by Robert E. Howard

Zogar Sag stood erect and motionless, and he seemed to increase in height—to grow and expand. Balthus experienced the illusion that the Pict was towering above him, staring contemptuously down from a great height, though he knew the shaman was not as tall as himself. He shook off the illusion with difficulty. The shaman was talking now, a harsh, guttural intonation that yet carried the hiss of a cobra.

Conan Re-Read: “Beyond the Black River”

He thrust his head on his long neck toward the wounded man on the stake; his eyes shone red as blood in the firelight. The frontiersman spat full in his face. With a fiendish howl Zogar bounded convulsively into the air, and the warriors gave tongue to a yell that shuddered up to the stars. They rushed toward the man on the stake, but the shaman beat them back. A snarled command sent men running to the gate.

They hurled it open, turned and raced back to the circle. The ring of men split, divided with desperate haste to right and left. Balthus saw the women and naked children scurrying to the huts. They peeked out of doors and windows. A broad lane was left to the open gate, beyond which loomed the black forest, crowding sullenly in upon the clearing, unlighted by the fires. A tense silence reigned as Zogar Sag turned toward the forest, raised on his tiptoes and sent a weird inhuman call shuddering out into the night. Somewhere, far out in the black forest, a deeper cry answered him.

From the timbre of that cry he knew it never came from a human throat. He remembered what Valannus had said—that Zogar boasted that he could summon wild beasts to do his bidding. The woodsman was livid beneath his mask of blood. He licked his lips spasmodically. The village held its breath. Zogar Sag stood still as a statue, his plumes trembling faintly about him.

But suddenly the gate was no longer empty. A shuddering gasp swept over the village and men crowded hastily back, jamming one another between the huts. Balthus felt the short hair stir on his scalp. The creature that stood in the gate was like the embodiment of nightmare legend. Its color was of a curious pale quality which made it seem ghostly and unreal in the dim light. But there was nothing unreal about the low-hung savage head, and the great curved fangs that glistened in the firelight.

On noiseless padded feet it approached like a phantom out of the past. It was a survival of an older, grimmer age, the ogre of many an ancient legend—a saber-tooth tiger. No Hyborian hunter had looked upon one of those primordial brutes for centuries. Immemorial myths lent the creatures a supernatural quality, induced by their ghostly color and their fiendish ferocity. The beast that glided toward the men on the stakes was longer and heavier than a common, striped tiger, almost as bulky as a bear. Its shoulders and forelegs were so massive and mightily muscled as to give it a curiously top- heavy look, though its hindquarters were more powerful than that of a lion.

Its jaws were massive, but its head was brutishly shaped. Its brain capacity was small. It had room for no instincts except those of destruction. It was a freak of carnivorous development, evolution run amuck in a horror of fangs and talons. This was the monstrosity Zogar Sag had summoned out of the forest. Balthus no longer doubted the actuality of the shaman's magic. Only the black arts could establish a domination over that tiny-brained, mighty-thewed monster. Like a whisper at the back of his consciousness rose the vague memory of the name of an ancient god of darkness and primordial fear, to whom once both men and beasts bowed and whose children—men whispered — still lurked in dark corners of the world.

New horror tinged the glare he fixed on Zogar Sag. The monster moved past the heap of bodies and the pile of gory heads without appearing to notice them. He was no scavenger. He hunted only the living, in a life dedicated solely to slaughter. An awful hunger burned greenly in the wide, unwinking eyes; the hunger not alone of belly-emptiness, but the lust of death-dealing.

His gaping jaws slavered. The shaman stepped back, his hand waved toward the woodsman. The great cat sank into a crouch, and Balthus numbly remembered tales of its appalling ferocity: The shaman cried out shrilly, and with an ear-shattering roar the monster sprang. Balthus had never dreamed of such a spring, such a hurtling of incarnated destruction embodied in that giant bulk of iron thews and ripping talons.

Full on the woodsman's breast it struck, and the stake splintered and snapped at the base, crashing to the earth under the impact. Then the saber-tooth was gliding toward the gate, half dragging, half carrying a hideous crimson hulk that only faintly resembled a man. Balthus glared almost paralyzed, his brain refusing to credit what his eyes had seen.


  1. Beyond the Black River!
  2. .
  3. Beyond the Black River!
  4. .
  5. Ego!
  6. Weird Tales June -Robert E. Howard Conan Beyond The Black River VG | eBay.

In that leap the great beast had not only broken off the stake, it had ripped the mangled body of its victim from the post to which it was bound. The huge talons in that instant of contact had disemboweled and partially dismembered the man, and the giant fangs had torn away the whole top of his head, shearing through the skull as easily as through flesh. Stout rawhide thongs had given way like paper; where the thongs had held, flesh and bones had not. He had hunted bears and panthers, but he had never dreamed the beast lived which could make such a red ruin of a human frame in the flicker of an instant.

The saber-tooth vanished through the gate, and a few moments later a deep roar sounded through the forest, receding in the distance. But the Picts still shrank back against the huts, and the shaman still stood facing the gate that was like a black opening to let in the night. Cold sweat burst suddenly out on Balthus' skin. What new horror would come through that gate to make carrion-meat of his body? Sick panic assailed him and he strained futilely at his thongs. The night pressed in very black and horrible outside the firelight. The fires themselves glowed lurid as the fires of Hell.

He felt the eyes of the Picts upon him—hundreds of hungry, cruel eyes that reflected the lust of souls utterly without humanity as he knew it. They no longer seemed men; they were devils of this black jungle, as inhuman as the creatures to which the fiend in the nodding plumes screamed through the darkness.

Zogar sent another call shuddering through the night, and it was utterly unlike the first cry. There was a hideous sibilance in it—Balthus turned cold at the implication. If a serpent could hiss that loud, it would make just such a sound. This time there was no answer—only a period of breathless silence in which the pound of Balthus' heart strangled him; and then there sounded a swishing outside the gate, a dry rustling that sent chills down Balthus' spine. Again the firelit gate held a hideous occupant. Again Balthus recognized the monster from ancient legends.

He saw and knew the ancient and evil serpent which swayed there, its wedge-shaped head, huge as that of a horse, as high as a tall man's head, and its palely gleaming barrel rippling out behind it. A forked tongue darted in and out, and the firelight glittered on bared fangs. Balthus became incapable of emotion. The horror of his fate paralyzed him. That was the reptile that the ancients called Ghost Snake, the pale, abominable terror that of old glided into huts by night to devour whole families. Like the python it crushed its victim, but unlike other constrictors its fangs bore venom that carried madness and death.

It too had long been considered extinct. But Valannus had spoken truly. No white man knew what shapes haunted the great forests beyond Black River. It came on silently, rippling over the ground, its hideous head on the same level, its neck curving back slightly for the stroke.

Balthus gazed with a glazed, hypnotized stare into that loathsome gullet down which he would soon be engulfed, and he was aware of no sensation except a vague nausea. And then something that glinted in the firelight streaked from the shadows of the huts, and the great reptile whipped about and went into instant convulsions. As in a dream Balthus saw a short throwing-spear transfixing the mighty neck, just below the gaping jaws; the shaft protruded from one side, the steel head from the other.

Knotting and looping hideously, the maddened reptile rolled into the circle of men who strove back from him. The spear had not severed its spine, but merely transfixed its great neck muscles. Its furiously lashing tail mowed down a dozen men and its jaws snapped convulsively, splashing others with venom that burned like liquid fire. Howling, cursing, screaming, frantic, they scattered before it, knocking each other down in their flight, trampling the fallen, bursting through the huts.

The giant snake rolled into a fire, scattering sparks and brands, and the pain lashed it to more frenzied efforts. A hut wall buckled under the ram-like impact of its flailing tail, disgorging howling people. Men stampeded through the fires, knocking the logs right and left. The flames sprang up, then sank. A reddish dim glow was all that lighted that nightmare scene where the giant reptile whipped and rolled, and men clawed and shrieked in frantic flight.

Balthus felt something jerk at his wrists, and then, miraculously, he was free, and a strong hand dragged him behind the post. Dazedly he saw Conan, felt the forest man's iron grip on his arm. There was blood on the Cimmerian's mail, dried blood on the sword in his right hand; he loomed dim and gigantic in the shadowy light. Balthus felt the haft of an ax shoved into his hand. Zogar Sag had disappeared. Conan dragged Balthus after him until the youth's numb brain awoke, and his legs began to move of their own accord.

Then Conan released him and ran into the building where the skulls hung. He got a glimpse of a grim stone altar, faintly lighted by the glow outside; five human heads grinned on that altar, and there was a grisly familiarity about the features of the freshest; it was the head of the merchant Tiberias. Behind the altar was an idol, dim, indistinct, bestial, yet vaguely man-like in outline. Then fresh horror choked Balthus as the shape heaved up suddenly with a rattle of chains, lifting long misshapen arms in the gloom. Conan's sword flailed down, crunching through flesh and bone, and then the Cimmerian was dragging Balthus around the altar, past a huddled shaggy bulk on the floor, to a door at the back of the long hut.

Through this they burst, out into the enclosure again. But a few yards beyond them loomed the stockade. It was dark behind the altar-hut. The mad stampede of the Picts had not carried them in that direction. At the wall Conan halted, gripped Balthus, and heaved him at arm's length into the air as he might have lifted a child. Balthus grasped the points of the upright logs set in the sun-dried mud and scrambled up on them, ignoring the havoc done his skin. He lowered a hand to the Cimmerian, when around a corner of the altar-hut sprang a fleeing Pict. He halted short, glimpsing the man on the wall in the faint glow of the fires.

Conan hurled his ax with deadly aim, but the warrior's mouth was already open for a yell of warning, and it rang loud above the din, cut short as he dropped with a shattered skull. Blinding terror had not submerged all ingrained instincts. As that wild yell rose above the clamor, there was an instant's lull, and then a hundred throats bayed ferocious answer and warriors came leaping to repel the attack presaged by the warning. Conan leaped high, caught, not Balthus' hand but his arm near the shoulder, and swung himself up.

Balthus set his teeth against the strain, and then the Cimmerian was on the wall beside him, and the fugitives dropped down on the other side. We'll head in the last direction they'll expect us to go—west! Looking back as they entered the thick growth, Balthus beheld the wall dotted with black heads as the savages peered over. The Picts were bewildered. They had not gained the wall in time to see the fugitives take cover. They had rushed to the wall expecting to repel an attack in force.

They had seen the body of the dead warrior. But no enemy was in sight. Balthus realized that they did not yet know their prisoner had escaped. From other sounds he believed that the warriors, directed by the shrill voice of Zogar Sag, were destroying the wounded serpent with arrows. The monster was out of the shaman's control. A moment later the quality of the yells was altered. Screeches of rage rose in the night. He was leading Balthus along a narrow trail that ran west under the black branches, stepping as swiftly and surely as if he trod a well-lighted thoroughfare.

Balthus stumbled after him, guiding himself by feeling the dense wall on either hand. Zogar's discovered you're gone, and he knows my head wasn't in the pile before the altar-hut. If I'd had another spear I'd have thrown it through him before I struck the snake. Keep to the trail. They can't track us by torchlight, and there are a score of paths leading from the village.

They'll follow those leading to the river first—throw a cordon of warriors for miles along the bank, expecting us to try to break through. We won't take to the woods until we have to. We can make better time on this trail. Now buckle down to it and run like you never ran before. For a space nothing was said between them. The fugitives devoted all their attention to covering distance. They were plunging deeper and deeper into the wilderness and getting farther away from civilization at every step, but Balthus did not question Conan's wisdom. The Cimmerian presently took time to grunt: No other village within miles of Gwawela.

All the Picts are gathered in that vicinity. We'll circle wide around them. They can't track us until daylight. They'll pick up our path then, but before dawn we'll leave the trail and take to the woods. The yells died out behind them. Balthus' breath was whistling through his teeth. He felt a pain in his side, and running became torture.

He blundered against the bushes on each side of the trail. Conan pulled up suddenly, turned and stared back down the dim path. Conan shook his head and drew his companion into a dense thicket. The moon rose higher, making a dim light in the path. There followed a tense silence in which Balthus felt that his heart could be heard pounding for miles away. Then abruptly, without a sound to announce its coming, a savage head appeared in the dim path.

Balthus' heart jumped into his throat; at first glance he feared to look upon the awful head of the saber-tooth. But this head was smaller, more narrow; it was a leopard which stood there, snarling silently and glaring down the trail. What wind there was was blowing toward the hiding men, concealing their scent. The beast lowered his head and snuffed the trail, then moved forward uncertainly.

A chill played down Balthus' spine. The brute was undoubtedly trailing them. And it was suspicious. It lifted its head, its eyes glowing like balls of fire, and growled low in its throat. And at that instant Conan hurled the ax. All the weight of arm and shoulder was behind the throw, and the ax was a streak of silver in the dim moon. Almost before he realized what had happened, Balthus saw the leopard rolling on the ground in its death-throes, the handle of the ax standing up from its head. The head of the weapon had split its narrow skull.

Conan bounded from the bushes, wrenched his ax free and dragged the limp body in among the trees, concealing it from the casual glance. As soon as he got his wits back Zogar sent him after us. The Picts would follow him, but he'd leave them far behind. He'd circle the village until he hit our trail and then come after us like a streak.

They couldn't keep up with him, but they'll have an idea as to our general direction. They'd follow, listening for his cry. Well, they won't hear that, but they'll find the blood on the trail, and look around and find the body in the brush. They'll pick up our spoor there, if they can.

He avoided clinging briars and low-hanging branches effortlessly, gliding between trees without touching the stems and always planting his feet in the places calculated to show least evidence of his passing; but with Balthus it was slower, more laborious work. No sound came from behind them. They had covered more than a mile when Balthus said: The forest is full of leopards; why send only one after us? He had never heard it spoken more than three or four times in his whole life.

That was long ago, when beasts and men spoke one language. Men have forgotten him; even the beasts forget. Only a few remember. The men who remember Jhebbal Sag and the beasts who remember are brothers and speak the same tongue. Balthus did not reply; he had strained at a Pictish stake and seen the nighted jungle give up its fanged horrors at a shaman's call. They would say it is a lie, if they dared. That's the way with civilized men. When they can't explain something by their half-baked science, they refuse to believe it. The people on the Tauran were closer to the primitive than most Aquilonians; superstitions persisted, whose sources were lost in antiquity.

And Balthus had seen that which still prickled his flesh. He could not refute the monstrous thing which Conan's words implied. I've never seen it. But more beasts remember in this country than any I've ever seen. His flesh crawled with the momentary expectation of ripping talons and fangs leaping from the shadows.

Conan turned, squatted and with his knife began scratching a curious symbol in the mold. Stooping to look at it over his shoulder, Balthus felt a crawling of the flesh along his spine, he knew not why. He felt no wind against his face, but there was a rustling of leaves above them and a weird moaning swept ghostily through the branches. Conan glanced up inscrutably, then rose and stood staring somberly down at the symbol he had drawn.

It looked archaic and meaningless to him. He supposed that it was his ignorance of artistry which prevented his identifying it as one of the conventional designs of some prevailing culture. But had he been the most erudite artist in the world, he would have been no nearer the solution. Later I saw a black witch-finder of Kush scratch it in the sand of a nameless river. He told me part of its meaning — it's sacred to Jhebbal Sag and the creatures which worship him.

They drew back among the dense foliage some yards away and waited in tense silence. To the east drums muttered and somewhere to north and west other drums answered. Balthus shivered, though he knew long miles of black forest separated him from the grim beaters of those drums whose dull pulsing was a sinister overture that set the dark stage for bloody drama. Balthus found himself holding his breath. Then with a slight shaking of the leaves, the bushes parted and a magnificent panther came into view. The moonlight dappling through the leaves shone on its glossy coat, rippling with the play of the great muscles beneath it.

With its head low it glided toward them. It was smelling out their trail. Then it halted as if frozen, its muzzle almost touching the symbol cut in the mold. For a long space it crouched motionless; it flattened its long body and laid its head on the ground before the mark. And Balthus felt the short hairs stir on his scalp. For the attitude of the great carnivore was one of awe and adoration.

Then the panther rose and backed away carefully, belly almost to the ground. With his hind-quarters among the bushes he wheeled as if in sudden panic and was gone like a flash of dappled light. The barbarian's eyes were smoldering with fires that never lit the eyes of men bred to the ideas of civilization. In that instant he was all wild, and had forgotten the man at his side. In his burning gaze Balthus glimpsed and vaguely recognized pristine images and half-embodied memories, shadows from Life's dawn, forgotten and repudiated by sophisticated races—ancient, primeval fantasms unnamed and nameless.

Then the deeper fires were masked and Conan was silently leading the way deeper into the forest. They won't follow our trail very easily, and until they find that symbol they won't know for sure we've turned south. Even then it won't be easy to smell us out without the beasts to aid them. But the woods south of the trail will be full of warriors looking for us. If we keep moving after daylight, we'll be sure to run into some of them. As soon as we find a good place we'll hide and wait until another night to swing back and make the river. We've got to warn Valannus, but it won't help him any if we get ourselves killed.

That's why they got us. Zogar's brewing war-magic; no mere raid this time. He's done something no Pict has done in my memory—united as many as fifteen or sixteen clans. His magic did it; they'll follow a wizard farther than they will a war-chief. You saw the mob in the village; and there were hundreds hiding along the river bank that you didn't see. More coming, from the farther villages. He'll have at least three thousand fighting-men.

I lay in the bushes and heard their talk as they went past. They mean to attack the fort; when, I don't know, but Zogar doesn't dare delay long. He's gathered them and whipped them into a frenzy. If he doesn't lead them into battle quickly, they'll fall to quarreling with one another.

They're like blood-mad tigers. Anyway, we've got to get back across the river and give the warning. The settlers on the Velitrium road must either get into the fort or back to Velitrium. While the Picts are besieging the fort, war parties will range the road far to the east — might even cross Thunder River and raid the thickly settled country behind Velitrium. As he talked he was leading the way deeper and deeper into the ancient wilderness. Presently he grunted with satisfaction.

They had reached a spot where the underbrush was more scattered, and an outcropping of stone was visible, wandering off southward. Balthus felt more secure as they followed it. Not even a Pict could trail them over naked rock. But most men make noise if they wear armor. They were waiting on each side of the path, without moving. And when a Pict stands motionless, the very beasts of the forest pass him without seeing him.

They'd seen us crossing the river and got in their places. If they'd gone into ambush after we left the bank, I'd have had some hint of it. But they were waiting, and not even a leaf trembled. The devil himself couldn't have suspected anything. The first suspicion I had was when I heard a shaft rasp against a bow as it was pulled back. I dropped and yelled for the men behind me to drop, but they were too slow, taken by surprise like that.

Some of the arrows crossed the trail and struck Picts on the other side. I heard them howl. When I saw the others were all down or taken, I broke through and outfooted the painted devils through the darkness. They were all around me. I ran and crawled and sneaked, and sometimes I lay on my belly under the bushes while they passed me on all sides.

But I'd have cut my way through and taken a chance on swimming, only I heard the drums pounding in the village and knew they'd taken somebody alive. There was a warrior supposed to be watching at that point, but he was squatting behind the hut and peering around the corner at the ceremony. I came up behind him and broke his neck with my hands before he knew what was happening. It was his spear I threw into the snake, and that's his ax you're carrying. One of Jhebbal's children that didn't remember and had to be kept chained to the altar.

The Picts think they're sacred to the Hairy One who lives on the moon—the gorilla-god of Gullah. Here's a good place to hide until we see how close they're on our trail. Probably have to wait until night to break back to the river. A low hill pitched upward, girdled and covered with thick trees and bushes. Near the crest Conan slid into a tangle of jutting rocks, crowned by dense bushes. Lying among them they could see the jungle below without being seen. It was a good place to hide or defend. Balthus did not believe that even a Pict could have trailed them over the rocky ground for the past four or five miles, but he was afraid of the beasts that obeyed Zogar Sag.

His faith in the curious symbol wavered a little now. But Conan had dismissed the possibility of beasts tracking them. A ghostly whiteness spread through the dense branches; the patches of sky visible altered in hue, grew from pink to blue. Balthus felt the gnawing of hunger, though he had slaked his thirst at a stream they had skirted.

There was complete silence, except for an occasional chirp of a bird. The drums were no longer to be heard. Balthus' thoughts reverted to the grim scene before the altar-hut. There are no ostriches in this forest, are there? Ships from Zingara occasionally come and trade weapons and ornaments and wine to the coastal tribes for skins and copper ore and gold dust.

Sometimes they trade ostrich plumes they got from the Stygians, who in turn got them from the black tribes of Kush, which lies south of Stygia. The Pictish shamans place great store by them. But there's much risk in such trade. The Picts are too likely to try to seize the ship. And the coast is dangerous to ships. I've sailed along it when I was with the pirates of the Barachan Isles, which lie southwest of Zingara. You've mentioned several far places. I've seen all the great cities of the Hyborians, the Shemites, the Stygians, and the Hyrkanians. I've roamed in the unknown countries south of the black kingdoms of Kush, and east of the Sea of Vilayet.

I've been a mercenary captain, a corsair, a kozak, a penniless vagabond, a general—hell, I've been everything except a king of a civilized country, and I may be that, before I die. Then he shrugged his shoulders and stretched his mighty figure on the rocks. I don't know how long I'll stay on the frontier; a week, a month, a year. I have a roving foot. But it's as well on the border as anywhere.

Balthus set himself to watch the forest below them. Momentarily he expected to see fierce painted faces thrust through the leaves. But as the hours passed no stealthy footfall disturbed the brooding quiet. Balthus believed the Picts had missed their trail and given up the chase. If they've quit the chase, it's because they're after bigger game. They may be gathering to cross the river and storm the fort. Under ordinary circumstances they'd scour the woods for miles in every direction.

Fritz Leiber rated it among the worst Conan stories, repetitious and childish, a brew of pseudo-science, stage illusions. In , that adaptation was reprinted in the paperback collection Savage Sword of Conan Volume 3. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in Its original title was The Man-Eaters of Zamboula, the story takes place over the course of a night in the desert city of Zamboula, with political intrigue amidst streets filled with roaming cannibals.

It features the character Baal-pteor, one of the few humans in the Conan stories to be a challenge for the main Cimmerian character himself. Despite a warning received in the Suq by a desert nomad, Conan stays the night in a cheap tavern in Zamboula. As night falls, a black Darfarian cannibal enters Conans small chamber by means of a lock to drag him away to be eaten. All of the Darfarian slaves in the city are cannibals who roam the streets at night, even worse, Aram Baksh has made a deal with the cannibals - he provides them fresh meat, while he profits from the belongings of the ill-fated guests of his inn.

This night, however, the unfortunate Darfarian attempts to prey on an armed and wary Conan and she tells him that she tried to secure her lovers unending affection via a love potion which instead made a raving lunatic of him. Suggestively promising Conan a reward in return for his assistance, they attempt to kill the high priest responsible for the mans madness, the woman is captured in the attempt, and forced - via hypnotism - to dance before the High priest until she dies.

Conan, defeating - quite literally - the strangler Baal-pteor at his own game, rescues her, at the point of claiming his payment, however, she reveals that she is really Nafertari, mistress to the satrap of the city, Jungir Khan. Taking an antidote to Jungir, she promises Conan position and wealth, Conan, however, leaves the city and reveals to the reader that he had recognised them almost immediately. Conan the Barbarian at AmratheLion. Gnome Press — Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics.

Gnome was one of the most eminent of the fan publishers of SF, producing 86 titles in its lifespan — many considered classic works of SF and Fantasy today. They had the rights to books that have sold tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of copies since. Kyle contributed less and less to the press as other business interests took up more of his time, there was no association between the two publishers, despite a common assumption among some fans.

Gnome Press concentrated on authors who were at the height of their popularity writing for Astounding Science Fiction, the leading magazine of the time. Sprague de Camp, Gordon R. Robert Tschirky, Walter I. Van der Poel, Jr. Sprague de Camp, an original novel originally contracted by the New Collectors Group. The press also published many of Robert A. Heinleins classics, andre Norton worked as a reader for Gnome Press in the s, and also had two of her novels published by the company under the pseudonym Andrew North. Controversy surrounds the Gnome Press editions of Robert E.

According to Filmfax, Greenberg couldnt keep top science fiction and fantasy writers, the larger publishers had more money, marketing and distribution outlets. Financial mismanagement also cut into Gnomes ability to retain authors, the company was notorious for not paying its writers royalties due, which is ultimately what led to its failure. Conan the Warrior — Conan the Warrior is a collection of three fantasy short stories written by Robert E. Howard featuring his seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian.

The collection is introduced and edited by L.

Покупки по категориям

Sprague de Camp, the stories originally appeared in the fantasy magazine Weird Tales in the s. The book has been reprinted a number of times since by various publishers, introduction by L. Chronologically, the three short stories collected as Conan the Warrior fall between Conan the Buccaneer and Conan the Usurper. Laughlin, Charlotte, Daniel J. Levack, de Camp, An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. It published the controversial novel Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, Lancer paperbacks had a distinctive appearance, many bearing mauve or green page edging. Later, he moved to Ace Books, where he helped publisher A.

Wyn create the Ace Double Novels line of paperbacks. In , Stein and his wife Helen began a company, Royal Publications. As various genre magazines became less common, Stein decided to close down Royal Publications and he and Zacharius launched Lancer Books in June at 26 West 47th Street. Larry Shaw, who had edited Infinity Science Fiction and Royals monster magazines and it was Shaw who negotiated the Conan series in When Shaw left in , his replacement as editor was Robert Hoskins, in , Hoskins and Stein brought Infinity back as a series of paperback anthologies, labeled a magazine of speculative fiction in book form.

Kensington was initially known mostly for romance novels, Stein continued into the s as a book packager. Lancers science fiction and heroic fantasy books were noted for the frequent use of cover art by Frank Frazetta. Lancer Books published paperback editions of novels, reprinting public domain works. This series was designated Magnum Easy Eye Classics, as the typography of the books was larger, enabling readers to avoid eye strain. Among the authors represented in series were H.

Besides the complete and unabridged text, each included a brief. Because the works were in the domain, Lancer included a copyright notice for the special contents for each book. Lancer also published books of commentary, such as The Angry Black. Howard featuring his sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. The book was published in by Gollancz as sixteenth volume of their Fantasy Masterworks series, the book, edited by Stephen Jones, presents the stories in their internal chronological order. Most of the stories appeared in the magazines Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine.

Upon Gollanczs death in , ownership passed to his daughter, Livia, Gollancz was left-inclined in politics and a supporter of socialist movements. This is reflected in some of the books he published, Victor Gollancz commissioned George Orwell to write about the urban working class in the North of England, the result was The Road to Wigan Pier. His break with Orwell came when he declined to publish Orwells account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, the pair having drifted apart on political grounds.

Many of Gollanczs books were published in one of their familiar house dust jackets, of which the most famous was bright yellow, with the title and author rendered in a vibrant, bold typography. In Gollancz was developed into a fiction and fantasy imprint Gollancz Science Fiction after it was acquired by Orion Publishing Group. Gollancz then proceeded to manage the SF Masterworks series, previously overseen by Orion sister-imprint Millennium, as of , Gollancz no longer publish manga and Viz Media have re-released the publishers series.

The following titles have been published, In , Gollancz launched the SF Gateway website, Gollancz aims to make 5, or more books available by and the website will be integrated with the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. In terms of the number of published works that have been nominated for awards, Gollancz ranks as one of the fields top publishers of science fiction, fantasy.

The Weird Tales of Conan the Barbarian

It is a separate imprint established in under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and it specializes in science fiction and fantasy books, and formerly manga under its Del Rey Manga imprint. Del Rey novelized the popular game series Halo. Howard, in which the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian are set. The word Hyborian is derived from the northern land of the ancient Greeks, Hyperborea. Howard described the Hyborian Age taking place sometime after the sinking of Atlantis, most later editors and adaptors such as L.

More recently, Dale Rippke proposed that the Hyborian Age should be placed further in the past, around 32, BCE, rippkes date, however, has since been disputed by Jeffrey Shanks who argues for the more traditional placement at the end of the ice age. Howard had a love for history and historical dramas, however, at the same time, he recognized the difficulties. Howard explained the origins and history of the Hyborian civilization in his essay The Hyborian Age, the essay begins with the civilizations of the Thurian Age, Lemuria, and Atlantis, mentioned in his series about Kull, being destroyed by a cataclysm.

According to the essay, after this cataclysm, a group of humans were at a technological level hardly above the Neanderthal. They fled to the areas of what was left of the Thurian continent to escape the destruction. They discovered the areas to be safe but covered with snow, the apes were large with white fur and apparently native to their land. The Stone Age invaders engaged in a war with them and eventually managed to drive them off. Believing their enemies fated to perish and no longer interested in them, one thousand five hundred years later, the descendants of this initial group were called Hyborians.

They were named after their highest ranking god deity, Bori, the essay mentions that Bori had actually been a great tribal chief of their past who had undergone deification. Their oral tradition remembered him as their leader during their migration to the north though the antiquity of this man had been exaggerated.

By this point, the related but independent Hyborian tribes had spread throughout the northern regions of their area of the world. Some of them were already migrating south at a pace in search of new areas in which to settle. The Hyborians had yet to encounter other cultural groups, but engaged in wars against each other, Howard describes them as a powerful and warlike race with the average individual being tall, tawny-haired, and gray-eyed. Culturally, they were accomplished artists and poets.

Most of the tribes still relied on hunting for their nourishment and their southern offshoots, however, had been practicing animal husbandry on cattle for a number of centuries. As a child, he was a comic book fan. The first of these was All-Giant Comics, which he recalls as having featured such characters as Elephant Giant and he graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in with a BS in Education, having majored in history and social science.

Thomas, then a high school English teacher, took over as editor in when Bails moved on to other pursuits. Louis area, he said in Familiar with editor and chief writer Stan Lees Marvel work, and feeling them the most vital comics around, Thomas just sat down one night at the hotel and — I wrote him a letter. Not applying for a job or anything so mundane as that — I just said that I admired his work, I figured he just might remember me from Alter Ego.

Lee did, and phoned Thomas to offer him a Marvel writing test, the writers test, Thomas said in , was four Jack Kirby pages from Fantastic Four Annual 2. But soon afterwards we stopped using it, the day after taking the test, Thomas was at DC, proofreading a Supergirl story, when Steinberg called asking Thomas to meet with Lee during lunch, where Thomas agreed to work for Marvel. His employment was announced in the Bullpen Bulletins section of Fantastic Four 47 under the heading How About That, Thomas later described his early days at Marvel, I was hired after taking writers test, and my first official job title at Marvel was staff writer.

I wasnt hired as an editor or assistant editor, I was supposed to come in 40 hours a week and write scripts on staff. I sat at this corrugated metal desk with a typewriter in an office with production manager Sol Brodsky. Everybody who came up to Marvel wound up there, and the phone was constantly ringing, with conversations going on all around me.

Almost at once, even though Stan proofed all the stories, he and Sol started having me check the corrections before they went out. John Buscema — His younger brother Sal Buscema is also a comic book artist. Buscema is best known for his run on the series The Avengers and The Silver Surfer, in addition, he pencilled at least one issue of nearly every major Marvel title, including long runs on two of the companys top magazines Fantastic Four and Thor.

He showed an interest in commercial illustrators of the period, such as N. While training as a boxer, he began painting portraits of boxers, colan recalled that. John never seemed very happy in comics. There always seemed to be something else he wanted to do. Buscema next produced a series of Western, war, and sword, Buscema recalled, I did a bunch of their movie books. I worked from stills on those, except for The Vikings. I think one of the best books I ever did was Sinbad the Sailor.

Conan the Cimmerian Audiobooks

Buscema called this time quite a period for me in my own development of techniques. He returned to comic books in as a regular freelance penciller for Marvel Comics, debuting over Jack Kirby layouts on the Nick Fury, Story in Strange Tales , followed by three Hulk stories in Tales to Astonish He then settled in as regular penciller of The Avengers, which would one of his signature series. Avengers , featuring Hercules and inked by Buscema, are two of his best-looking of that period, said comics historian and one-time Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, Thomas and Buscema introduced new versions of the Black Knight and the Vision during their collaboration on The Avengers.

The process brought Buscemas art to life in a way that it had never been before, anatomically balanced figures of Herculean proportions stalked, stormed, sprawled, and savaged their way across Marvels universe like none had previously. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Art by Margaret Brundage. Archived from the original on 8 March Retrieved 28 December Beyond the Black River. Sprague de Camp Roland J.

Hocking Robert Jordan Sean A. The Mysteries of Time Conan Conan: The Hyborian Age Conan Chronologies. Cohen the Barbarian Conan the Librarian. Retrieved from " https: Pages using deprecated image syntax Articles with LibriVox links. Sales were initially poor, and Henneberger soon decided to change the format from the standard size to large pulp 2. She continued to draw after her relationship with the magazine ended, and appeared at a number of science fiction conventions and art fairs, yet she never fully recovered financially from the loss of regular work at WT, her later years were spent in relative poverty 3.