We at DMR Books pride ourselves on being sword-and-sorcery specialists. As such, we try to cover as many different authors as we can on the blog. Sometimes, however, when focusing on lesser-known writers and artists, we neglect the big guns. It’s been quite a while since we had an article on the originator of S&S himself, Robert E. Howard. I figured since we’re long overdue for an REH post, let’s make it a big one! I asked a panel of wizened experts (disclaimer: said panel consists solely of myself) to select the ten greatest sword-and-sorcery stories by Robert E. Howard. All of Howard’s most notable characters are represented here: Kull, the Atlantean who became King of Valusia, the Puritan avenger Solomon Kane, and of course, Conan the Cimmerian. If you’re mostly familiar with Howard’s work through the Conan the Barbarian films or comic books, this should prove to be a helpful reading guide. And if you’re a long-time Howard fan, you can see how closely your tastes match up with mine. So without further ado, here are, in no particular order, my ten favorite S&S stories by Howard.

The Frost-Giant’s Daughter

Both were tall men, built like tigers. Their shields were gone, their corselets battered and dinted. Blood dried on their mail; their swords were stained red. Their horned helmets showed the mark of fierce strokes. One was beardless and black-maned. The locks and beard of the other were red as the blood on the sunlit snow.
“Man,” said he, “tell me your name, so that my brothers in Vanaheim may know who was the last of Wulfhere’s band to fall before the sword of Heimdul.”
“Not in Vanaheim,” growled the black-haired warrior, “but in Valhalla will you tell your brothers that you met Conan of Cimmeria.”

“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” takes place early in Conan’s career as a mercenary. The tale begins with Conan on a desolate battlefield in the frozen north. He had been fighting on the side of the fair-haired Æsir, who have all perished in the skirmish. Likewise, only one warrior of the opposing force survives: Heimdul of Vanaheim. The two face each other, and the Cimmerian prevails, but not before a powerful sword blow crashes on his helmet, staggering him.

After the combat, an extraordinarily beautiful woman appears before Conan’s eyes. She is barefoot and clad only in a thin shift of gossamer, which makes her presence on the frozen plain all the more astounding. She taunts Conan and dares him to follow her. Conan pursues her in a maddened frenzy, but she leads him into a trap—her brothers, two mighty frost giants, lie in wait to slay him!

“The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” is the second tale of Conan Howard ever wrote. As such, the world of the Hyborian Age hasn’t been fully developed. I think this actually makes the story stronger. It seems like a tale of myth or legend, which makes it stand out from the quasi-historical adventure stories that would come later in the series. Howard certainly used prose effectively to enhance the mythic atmosphere:

Above him the skies glowed and crackled with strange lights and gleams. The snow shone weirdly, now frosty blue, now icy crimson, now cold silver. Through a shimmering icy realm of enchantment Conan plunged doggedly onward, in a crystalline maze where the only reality was the white body dancing across the glittering snow beyond his reach—ever beyond his reach.

The publishing history of “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” is rather convoluted. After it was rejected by Weird Tales, Howard rewrote it, changing the main character from Conan of Cimmeria to Amra of Akbitana. He retitled this new version “The Frost-King’s Daughter” and sent it to the fanzine The Fantasy Fan, where it was published in the March 1934 issue under the title “Gods of the North.” In 1953 L. Sprague de Camp found the original manuscript and rewrote it. De Camp’s version appeared in the Gnome Press collection The Coming of Conan. “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” would not appear in print as Howard wrote it until Donald M. Grant published it in the limited-edition hardcover book Rogues in the House. This version is currently available in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian.

The Tower of the Elephant

Yara came not often from his tower of magic, and always to work evil on some man or nation. The king of Zamora feared him more than he feared death, and kept himself drunk all the time because that fear was more than he could endure sober. Yara was very old—centuries old, men said, and added that he would live for ever because of the magic of his gem, which men called the Heart of the Elephant, for no better reason than they named his hold the Elephant’s Tower.

Another story that takes place early in Conan’s adventuring career. Here he is a thief, plying his trade in the Maul, the scummiest quarters of Zamora. He hears rumors that the great tower of the priest Yara holds a fabulous magical gem of inestimable value. In spite of the dangers, Conan finds the tale too enticing to resist and sets out to pilfer the gem. Coincidentally, another thief, Taurus of Nemedia, had the same idea that night. The two encounter each other in the gardens before the tower, and agree to join forces. This is fortunate for Conan, as he did not know of the tower’s guards—a pack of hungry lions. Taurus, however, came prepared, and silently slays the lions with black lotus powder. The two thieves scale the tower.

Another non-human guard waits at the tower’s top—an enormous spider. Taurus succumbs to its venom, but Conan overcomes it thanks to his quick reflexes. Once inside the tower, Conan meets the creature which gives the tower its name—Yag-Kosha, a monstrous elephant-headed being from the planet Yag. Yag-Kosha explains to the Cimmerian that he is a captive of the wizard Yara, who has tortured him for three centuries.

“The Tower of the Elephant” is the first Conan story Howard wrote after completing his essay “The Hyborian Age,” which detailed the history of the peoples of Conan’s world. Indeed, we can see that the world is a great deal larger than we would have known from reading “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter,” for “The Tower of the Elephant” begins with Conan in a seedy tavern rubbing elbows with a Hyperborean renegade, a Shemitish counterfeiter, a Brythunian wench, and a kidnapper from Koth. We also learn more about Cimmerian beliefs:

His gods were simple and understandable; Crom was their chief, and he lived on a great mountain, whence he sent forth dooms and death. It was useless to call on Crom, because he was a gloomy, savage god, and he hated weaklings. But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and the might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian’s mind, was all any god should be expected to do.

Additionally, “Tower” contains one of the greatest lines in the entire Conan series:

Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.

“The Tower of the Elephant” originally appeared in the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales and has been reprinted numerous times since then. You can find it (along with “The Hyborian Age”) in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian.

The House of Arabu

“Lilitu?” the priest’s eyes lit with a brooding fire; his skull-face worked in a ghastly smile. “Verily, warrior, they plot thy ruin in the House of Arabu. Your sword can not prevail against her, or against her mate Ardat Lili. In the gloom of midnight her teeth will find your throat. Her laugh will blast your ears, and her burning kisses will wither you like a dead leaf blowing in the hot winds of the desert. Madness and dissolution will be your lot, and you will descend to the House of Arabu whence none returns.”

A historical fantasy tale, “The House of Arabu” is one of Howard’s lesser-known works, but not because it lacks quality. The reason for its obscurity is mostly due to the fact that it features no recurring characters. The protagonist, Pyrrhas the Argive, certainly fits the mold of a Howardian hero:

He was made with the economy of relentless Nature. His physique was of the primitive, not of the civilized athlete. He was an incarnation of Power, raw, hard, wolfish—in the sinewy limbs, the corded neck, the great arch of the breast, the broad hard shoulders. Beneath his tousled golden mane his eyes were like blue ice. His strongly chiselled features reflected the wildness his frame suggested. There was about him nothing of the measured leisure of the other guests, but a ruthless directness in his every action.

Pyrrhas is a man accursed. During a recent campaign against Erech he cut down a priest of Anu and burned his shrine. Ever since, uncanny, sinister occurrences have become commonplace in his life. After a visitation from the demoness Lilitu, he vows to learn the purpose behind these happenings and put an end to them. He meets with the priest Gimil-ishbi, a strange vulture-like man with knowledge of the occult. Gimil-ishbi provides Pyrrhas with the incantation to trap Lilitu, but the price is the taking of a life. Pyrrhas pays the debt immediately…

Equipped with the dust of a necromancer’s skull and the incantation provided by the priest, Pyrrhas sets an ambush for the demoness. He has not long to wait. However, instead of capturing Lilitu as planned, her made Ardat Lili is ensnared instead. The Argive forces an oath from Lilitu. She takes him beyond the realms of death to the House of Arabu, where he learns from an evil spirit the unexpected truth: The one who cursed him is no hell-fiend, but a man among the living!

It’s a shame that “The House of Arabu” is the only tale Howard wrote about Pyrrhas the Argive. It would have been interesting to see how he would have developed over further stories. As it is, his strongest trait is his ruthlessness in pursuing his goals. Lilitu even tells him, “No devil in Shuala is crueler than you.”

It’s unknown when Howard wrote “The House of Arabu.” It first appeared in print after his death, in 1952 in Avon Fantasy Reader No. 18. For some reason editor Donald Wolheim decided to retitle it “The Witch from Hell’s Kitchen.” This publication tipped off L. Sprague de Camp to the fact that there were unpublished Howard stories, so that alone makes it important to the history of sword-and-sorcery. It’s currently in print in the collection Renegade Swords from DMR Books.

The Shadow Kingdom

Kull gave no heed to any of the whispers that reached his hearing from the throngs that still swarmed the streets.
“That is Kull, see! Valka! But what a king! And what a man! Look at his arms! His shoulders!”
And an undertone of more sinister whisperings: “Kull! Ha, accursed usurper from the pagan isles”—“Aye, shame to Valusia that a barbarian sits on the Throne of Kings.”…
Little did Kull heed. Heavyhanded had he seized the decaying throne of ancient Valusia and with a heavier hand did he hold it, a man against a nation.

“The Shadow Kingdom” is Howard’s first tale of Kull, an Atlantean exile who became king of Valusia thousands of years before The Hyborian Age. It’s also regarded by many as the first-ever sword-and-sorcery story, although some would claim that honor goes to Lord Dunsany’s “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth.” (I made a case against “Sacnoth,” which can be read here.)

An emissary of Ka-Nu, chief of the Council of Picts, invites King Kull to a feast, but insists he comes alone. Kull, naturally, is suspicious, but agrees. At the banquet the ancient Pict chieftain makes ominous yet vague statements that Kull’s life and kingdom are in danger. He explains nothing, but tells Kull that he can trust no one other than himself and his emissary Brule the Spear-Slayer, who will visit him the next night.

The following eve Brule appears as promised, stealthily sneaking past the royal guards to meet Kull in the room of study in his palace. He shocks Kull by showing him secret passageways in the castle which were completely unknown to him. The Pict leads Kull through the labyrinth to a stairway, where they discover the seemingly-lifeless bodies of eighteen guardsmen who moments before were stationed outside the room of study. They return to the room and peer through the slit of the door, to see the same eighteen guardsmen standing before it!

Kull is now ready to learn the truth. Snake-men, who once ruled over humanity when the world was young, have infiltrated Kull’s court, using their magic to adopt the appearances of true men. It is impossible to know who is to be trusted and who is an impostor. Anyone could be an evil priest of the serpent god—a lesson Kull learns swiftly when Brule leaves his side, then returns momentarily to attack him. Kull slays his would-be assassin…

Then, as Brule slid from the sword to sprawl motionless on the floor, the face began to merge and fade, and as Kull caught his breath, his hair a-prickle, the human features vanished and there the jaws of a great snake gaped hideously, the terrible beady eyes venomous even in death.
“He was a snake priest all the time!” gasped the king. “Valka! What an elaborate plan to throw me off my guard! Ka-nu there, is he a man? Was it Ka-Nu to whom I talked in the gardens? Almighty Valka!” as his flesh crawled with a horrid thought; “are the people of Valusia men or are they all serpents?”

The atmosphere of “The Shadow Kingdom” is filled with paranoia, with death and danger lurking behind every corner. Maintaining such a level of tension throughout the story is difficult, but it’s a feat Howard accomplished. “The Shadow Kingdom” is also notable for the concept of a race of powerful and sinister serpent-men, an idea that’s been borrowed by Howard’s contemporaries (“The Double Shadow” by Clark Ashton Smith) as well as current authors (“The Snake-Man’s Bane” and “Under a Dim Blue Sun” by Howie K. Bentley).

“The Shadow Kingdom” made its debut in the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales. Editor Farnsworth Wright thought it was one of the very best stories to appear in The Unique Magazine. It’s been reprinted numerous times in various anthologies and collections. You can find it in Kull: Exile of Atlantis, which collects all of Howard’s Kull material, as well as The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows.

Worms of the Earth

Howard always knew how to begin a story in a way to capture the reader’s attention, and “Worms of the Earth” is no exception: the opening scene is a savage crucifixion. Titus Sulla, military governor of Eboracum, has sentenced a Pict to die on a cross for allegedly murdering a Roman merchant. Pictish emissary Partha Mac Othna objects to this miscarriage of justice, believing that Bran Mak Morn, King of the Picts, should decide the fate of his subject, not a biased Roman official. Sulla condescendingly dismisses Mac Othna’s concerns.

The Pictish emissary is actually Bran Mak Morn himself in disguise. Howard describes him thusly:

The whole aspect of the man vaguely suggested the shadowed mists, the gloom, the cold and icy winds of the naked northern lands. Even his black eyes were savagely cold, like black fires burning through fathoms of ice.

His height was only medium but there was something about him which transcended mere physical bulk—a certain fierce innate vitality, comparable only to that of a wolf or a panther. In every line of his supple, compact body, as well as in his coarse straight hair and thin lips, this was evident—in the hawklike set of the head on the corded neck, in the broad square shoulders, in the deep chest, the lean loins, the narrow feet. Built with the savage economy of a panther, he was an image of dynamic potentialities, pent in with iron self-control.

Though the executed Pict was unknown to Bran, he was still a subject, and a king cannot fail his people. Bran swears to avenge his death by any means necessary—no matter how abhorrent those means may be. In a dream the priest Gonar the Wise comes to Bran, warning him against what he plans. “Bran, there are weapons too foul to use, even against Rome!” he says, but fails to dissuade the Pictish king.

The “foul weapons” Bran intends to use against Sulla are the worms of the earth, the degenerated remnants of an ancient race who dwell in subterranean caverns beneath the hills of Britain. In order to bargain with them, Bran needs the assistance of the witch Atla, whose blood is not entirely human.

“Well for the Romans that they know not the secrets of this accursed land!” Bran roared, maddened, “with its monster-haunted meres, its foul witch-women, and its lost caverns and subterranean realms where spawn in the darkness shapes of Hell!”
“Are they more foul than a mortal who seeks their aid?” cried Atla with a shriek of fearful mirth.

That is a question Bran cannot answer. Indeed, the price Atla asks for her help is more than most men would pay, yet Bran willingly accedes. And once their grim business is concluded, she warns him that he is “stained with the taint” and in their own time they will come to him again. Was it all worth the cost to destroy Titus Sulla?

“Worms of the Earth” first appeared in the November, 1932 issue of Weird Tales. Many Howard fans regard it as one of his best works. You can find it, along with all of Howard’s other tales of Bran, in Bran Mak Morn: The Last King. It’s also in The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows.

Kings of the Night

“Worms of the Earth” wasn’t the first instance where Bran Mak Morn found himself at odds with the Roman Empire. In “Kings of the Night,” the legions are marching on Britain. Bran, of course, will not allow this, and plans an ambush in a valley that the Romans will pass through. The Pictish king explains the situation and the stakes that hang on the outcome of the battle:

“Some eighteen hundred Romans are marching against us. It is not a real invasion, but much hinges upon it. It is the beginning of an attempt to extend their boundaries. They plan to build a fortress a day’s march to the north of this valley. If they do, they will build other forts, drawing bands of steel about the hearts of the free people. If I win this battle and wipe out their army, I will win a double victory. Then the tribes will flock to me and the next invasion will meet a solid wall of resistance. If I lose, the clans will scatter, fleeing into the north until they can no longer flee, fighting as separate clans rather than as one strong nation.”

His strategy hinges upon having a force of stalwart men stationed at the mouth of the valley. While this force holds off the Romans, the Picts, aided by a group of hard-fighting Gaels led by Prince Cormac, will assault the flanks of the legionnaires by surprise. Unfortunately, a wrench has been thrown into Mak Morn’s plans. A group of three hundred ravaging Northmen which Bran and his men captured had sworn to fight one battle for him in exchange for their freedom. He had intended to use them to hold the pass, but now they are considering breaking their oath, for that oath was sworn under their king, Rognar, who died in a skirmish. Their new leader, Wulfhere, tells Bran that they will only fight under a king “neither Pict, Gael, nor Briton,” and if Bran cannot provide such a king to lead them, they will defect to the Romans.

The task seems impossible, but Gonar the priest promises a king will arrive in the morn to lead them. Indeed, with the dawn appears a stranger—King Kull, who reigned over Valusia one hundred millennia ago!

Bran Mak Morn stood just in front of Kull. So they faced each other, he whose kingdom was yet unborn, and he whose kingdom had been lost in the mists of Time for unguessed ages. Kings of darkness, thought Cormac, nameless kings of the night, whose realms are gulfs and shadows.

Kull’s arrival is met with bewilderment. Is this an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Gonar? Or is this man actually a ghost from the past? But how can a ghost bleed?

Howard’s description of the ensuing battle is vivid and visceral. “Kings of the Night” doesn’t have a complex plot, but not every tale needs one. Sometimes a straightforward approach is called for, and here it works. With lines like “the black lion-mane of Kull shone like a symbol of slaughter, and his reddened mace showered a ghastly rain as it splashed brains and blood like water,” REH earned his well-deserved reputation as one of the greatest writers of combat scenes.

“Kings of the Night” first appeared in the November, 1930 issue of Weird Tales. As a Kull/Bran Mak Morn crossover tale, it’s been reprinted many times in collections devoted to each character, such as Bran Mak Morn: The Last King and Kull: Exile of Atlantis.

The Gods of Bal-Sagoth

The heroes of “The Gods of Bal-Sagoth” are two renegades: Irishman Turlogh O’Brien, outlawed from his clan, and the Saxon Athelstane, who has thrown in with a group of Norse Vikings. The two have a history together, but they meet again when the Vikings attack a ship on which Turlogh is a passenger. The Saxon recognizes Turlogh in the stormy sea battle and takes him alive. Shortly thereafter the Vikings’ ship is blown off course and destroyed by a tempest. Athelstane is knocked unconscious, but Turlogh manages to save him. The two are the only survivors, and they wash up on a mysterious island (a classic sword and sorcery set-up!).

“You saved my life,” snarled Turlogh, “I saved yours. Now the debt is paid, the accounts are squared, so up with your sword and let us make an end.”
Athelstane stared. “You wish to fight me? Why—what—?”
“I hate your breed as I hate Satan!” roared the Gael, a tinge of madness in his blazing eyes, “Your wolves have ravaged my people for five hundred years! The smoking ruins of the Southland, the seas of spilled blood call for vengeance! The screams of a thousand ravished girls are ringing in my ears, night and day! Would that the North had but a single breast for my ax to cleave!”
“But I am no Norseman,” rumbled the giant in worriment.
“The more shame to you, renegade,” raved the maddened Gael. “Defend yourself lest I cut you down in cold blood!”

Just before the duel is to begin, an unholy inhuman cry erupts from within the jungle. A scantily-clad blonde woman rushes into sight, pursued by a monstrous bird-like creature. Turlogh and Athelstane slay the thing and question the girl. She is Brunhild, daughter of Rane Thorfin’s son. Ten years ago, she was kidnapped by a mad Viking who wrecked his ship upon the shores of this strange island (which, she says, is “the oldest land in the world”). The natives of the island, never having seen a white person before, believe her to be a goddess from the sea. She ruled until but two days ago, when the old priest Gothan rose up against her.

“I will tell you!” the girl cried in a ringing voice, her eyes blazing anew to the swift working of her keen brain. “There is an old legend among this people—that men of iron will come out of the sea and the city of Bal-Sagoth will fall! You, with your mail and helmets, will seem as iron men to these folk who know nothing of armor! You have slain Groth-golka the bird-god—have come out of the sea as I did—the people will look on you as gods. Come with me and aid me to win back my kingdom! You shall be my right-hand men and I will heap honors on you! Fine garments, gorgeous palaces, fairest girls shall be yours!”
Her promises slid from Turlogh’s mind without leaving an imprint, but the mad splendor of the proposal intrigued him. Strongly he desired to look on this strange city of which Brunhild spoke, and the thought of two warriors and one girl pitted against a whole nation for a crown stirred the utmost depths of his knight-errant Celtic soul.

When the people of Bal-Sagoth see their former goddess reappear before the gates of the city accompanied by two iron men, they are awestruck. As per tradition, single combat will decide the crown. Athelstane faces Gothan’s anointed champion Ska, and the armored Saxon dispatches his opponent quickly. He is disappointed by the ease of the conquest, but, as Brunhild tells him, “Had you gambled with cities and crowns as I have done, you would know that seizing a throne may be easier than keeping it.” This proves to be the case, as Gothan wages war against Brunhild and her followers with his sorcery-bred monsters, culminating in a chaotic, bloody battle.

In addition to being a spectacular sword and sorcery tale, “The Gods of Bal-Sagoth” also inspired the name of one of the most amazing metal bands of all time. Byron A. Roberts, vocalist of Bal-Sagoth, is a talented sword-and-sorcery author as well.

“The Gods of Bal-Sagoth” originally appeared in the October, 1931 issue of Weird Tales. It was reprinted on two occasions under the title “The Blonde Goddess of Bal-Sagoth.” More recently it appeared in the Howard collection People of the Dark. It can also be read for free at Roy Glashan’s Library.

Red Nails

The last tale Robert E. Howard wrote about Conan finds the Cimmerian in a jungle south of the Stygian border. He has been following an Aquilonian fighting woman, Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. Conan makes his admiration for her plain, but she does not welcome his attention. They flirt for a bit (“Keep back, you barbarian dog! I’ll spit you like a roast pig!” “Do you want me to take that toy away from you and spank you with it?” “Words! Nothing but words!”) before they find they have a bigger problem on their hands: a monstrous reptilian beast (a dinosaur? A dragon?) rampaging through the forest. Fortunately the quick-witted barbarian is able to fashion a spear, which he dips in the juice of a poisonous fruit. Conan thrusts his weapon into the maw of the monster, sending it into paroxysms of pain and rage. This allows him and Valeria to escape the wooded area.

Beyond the forest is a plain. A city lies in the distance—a city that shows no signs of life. Conan and Valeria force open the rusted gate and are surprised by what they discover:

They were not looking into an open street or court as one would have expected. The opened gate, or door, gave directly into a long, broad hall which ran away and away until its vista grew indistinct in the distance. It was of heroic proportions, and the floor of a curious red stone, cut in square tiles, that seemed to smolder as if with the reflection of flames. The walls were of a shiny green material…
[Valeria] wondered how many centuries had passed since the light of outer day had filtered into that great hall through the open door. Sunlight was finding its way somehow into the hall, and they quickly saw the source. High up in the vaulted ceiling skylights were set in slot-like openings—translucent sheets of some crystalline substance. In the splotches of shadow between them, the green jewels winked like the eyes of angry cats. Beneath their feet the dully lurid floor smoldered with changing hues and colors of flame. It was like treading the floors of hell with evil stars blinking overhead.

The city seems to be a completely enclosed structure four stories high. While Conan explores the upper levels, Valeria notices a dark man creeping through the halls. She trails him to another chamber, where he now lies dead. Another man, a comrade of the first, stands in the chamber, mesmerized by a menacing skull-headed apparition. Valeria brings her sword down upon the skull, slaying the mesmerist. The apparition was in truth a man wearing the skull like a mask.

The man Valeria saved is named Techotl. He briefly explains that there is a blood feud between his people of Tecuhltli and those of Xotalanc. Before they can retreat to his clan’s territory, four Xotalancas attack. Drawn by the sound of battle, Conan arrives, and soon the Xotalancas are despatched.

Conan and Valeria follow Techotl back to the portion of the city where his people reside. There they learn more of the history of the two clans and their grim customs. Every time a Xotalanca is killed, the victory is marked by a red nail.

“Five crimson nails there are to be driven into the pillar of vengeance!”
He pointed at a black column of ebony which stood behind the dais. Hundreds of red dots scarred its polished surface—the bright scarlet heads of heavy copper nails driven into the black wood.

There’s more going on here than just a feud between rival clans, as Conan and Valeria soon learn…

“Red Nails” was first published in 1936 in Weird Tales, serialized between July and October. It’s one of the longest Conan yarns, and therefore difficult to summarize succinctly. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do so. You can find it in The Conquering Sword of Conan.

The Valley of the Worm

“I will tell you of Niord and the Worm. You have heard the tale in many guises wherein the hero was named Tyr, or Perseus, or Siegfried, or Beowulf, or Saint George. But it was Niord who met the loathly demoniac thing that crawled hideously up from hell, and from which meeting sprang the cycle of hero-tales that revolves down the ages until the very substance of the truth is lost and passes into the limbo of all forgotten legends. I know whereof I speak, for I was Niord.”

The narrator of “The Valley of the Worm” is James Allison, a crippled man with the ability to recall memories of his past lives in distant ages, eons before recorded history. This is the tale of Niord, whose race, the Æsir, have drifted far from their ancestral northern homeland of Nordheim. In this savage, prehistoric world, survival at any cost is the rule; mercy is nearly nonexistent.

Niord’s people have trekked south to a land of wild jungles, haunted by great serpents and sabre-tooth tigers. A group of the Æsir split off from the tribe. They decide to make their new abode in The Valley of Broken Stones, so named for the shattered columns, relics of a forgotten civilization, which litter the valley floor. Shortly thereafter Niord discovers that a mysterious doom has befallen the valley, leaving the Æsirfolk slaughtered.

Grom the Pict tells Niord of his people’s legends regarding the valley. Long ago a clan of Picts suffered a similar fate in the vale. Apparently some horrible monstrosity came up from the earth to wreak havoc, accompanied by a hairy, anthropomorphic being and the sound of demoniac piping. Niord vows to put an end to whatever these entities might be.

Out of the temple the monstrous dweller in darkness had come, and I, who had expected a horror yet cast in some terrestrial mold, looked on the spawn of nightmare. From what subterranean hell it crawled in the long ago I know not, nor what black age it represented. But it was not a beast, as humanity knows beasts. I call it a worm for lack of a better term. There is no earthly language which has a name for it. I can only say that it looked somewhat more like a worm than it did an octopus, or a serpent, or a dinosaur.

“The Valley of the Worm” originally appeared in the February, 1934 issue of Weird Tales. It’s been reprinted in a number of collections and anthologies, including The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows.

Red Shadows

Solomon Kane discovers a wounded girl in the woods. Before dying, the girl informs Kane she was ravished and stabbed by Le Loup, the vile leader of a gang of bandits. Kane vows that Le Loup and all his men will die for this deed, and wastes no time in making good on his promise.

“The first we know of this man is when we find Jean, the most desperate bandit unhung, nailed to a tree with his own dagger through his breast, and the letters S.L.K. carved upon his dead cheeks.
“Then the Spaniard Juan is struck down, and after we find him he lives long enough to tell us that his slayer is an Englishman, Solomon Kane, who has sworn to destroy our entire band! What then? La Costa, a swordsman second only to yourself, goes forth swearing to meet this Kane. By the demons of perdition, it seems he met him! For we found his sword-pierced corpse upon a cliff. What now? Are we all to fall before this English fiend?”

The few surviving members of the band that have avoided Kane’s wrath meet at Le Loup’s cave hideout. Kane tracks them down, aiming to put and end to them once and for all. In the ensuing clash, Le Loup cravenly snuffs the candlelight and escapes via a secret passageway.

At this point Kane could have decided that slaying all of the bandits except their leader would suffice, but that is not his way:

All his life he had roamed about the world aiding the weak and fighting oppression; he neither knew nor questioned why. That was his obsession, his driving force of life. Cruelty and tyranny to the weak sent a red blaze of fury, fierce and lasting, through his soul. When the full flame of his hatred was wakened and loosed, there was no rest for him until his vengeance had been fulfilled to the uttermost. If he thought of it at all, he considered himself a fulfiller of God’s judgment, a vessel of wrath to be emptied upon the souls of the unrighteous. Yet in the full sense of the word Solomon Kane was not wholly a Puritan, though he thought of himself as such.

Le Loup leads Kane on a chase spanning several years and various countries before ending in Africa. While exploring the jungle, Kane is ambushed and captured by a tribe of natives. Le Loup has earned the favor of the chief of this tribe, and convinces him that Kane should be sacrificed to their Black God, However, N’Longa, the tribe’s ju-ju man, is a rival of the chief and would thwart his plans. He does so by using inexplicable necromantic powers…

Some might argue that the setting of the Solomon Kane stories (16th century) is too recent to be considered sword and sorcery. Maybe so, but I’m not one to split hairs when it comes to subgenres. I figure Kane deserves to be represented on this list alongside Howard’s other great fantasy characters Conan, Kull, and Bran Mak Morn.

“Red Shadows,” the first Solomon Kane story published, originally appeared in the August 1928 issue of Weird Tales. You can find it, like many of the other stories on this list, in The Best of Robert E. Howard Volume 1: Crimson Shadows as well as The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane.

There you have it, my ten favorite S&S stories by Robert E. Howard. Of course, with so many to choose from, many great tales didn’t make the list. Some of the contenders included the pirate yarn “Queen of the Black Coast,” the doom-laden tale of historical warfare “The Grey God Passes,” and the revenge/reincarnation-themed “People of the Dark.” Which stories would make your list? Let me know in the comments!

D.M. Ritzlin is the author of the collection Necromancy in Nilztiria. Nilztiria is a world of adventure and strangeness, peopled by lusty heroes and callous villains. The thirteen sword-and-sorcery stories presented in Necromancy in Nilztiria place the emphasis on sorcery and mix in a touch of gallows humor. Click the cover for more information.