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- Herausgeber: SAMPI Books
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
In a lost fortress deep in the desert, where ancient betrayals and forgotten sorcery lie buried beneath the sands, the Norman warrior Cormac Fitzgeoffrey is caught in a deadly conspiracy among thieves, mercenaries, and fanatics. All seek a crimson gem of dark origin — said to be cursed — stolen from the tomb of none other than King Belshazzar of Babylon. As blood flows through crumbling alliances and old gods stir beneath the earth, Cormac must fight not only for his life but against the sinister lure of a stone that drives men mad.
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Seitenzahl: 54
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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The Blood of Belshazzar
Robert E. Howard
SYNOPSIS
In a lost fortress deep in the desert, where ancient betrayals and forgotten sorcery lie buried beneath the sands, the Norman warrior Cormac Fitzgeoffrey is caught in a deadly conspiracy among thieves, mercenaries, and fanatics. All seek a crimson gem of dark origin — said to be cursed — stolen from the tomb of none other than King Belshazzar of Babylon. As blood flows through crumbling alliances and old gods stir beneath the earth, Cormac must fight not only for his life but against the sinister lure of a stone that drives men mad.
Keywords
Treasure, Curse, Adventure
NOTICE
This text is a work in the public domain and reflects the norms, values and perspectives of its time. Some readers may find parts of this content offensive or disturbing, given the evolution in social norms and in our collective understanding of issues of equality, human rights and mutual respect. We ask readers to approach this material with an understanding of the historical era in which it was written, recognizing that it may contain language, ideas or descriptions that are incompatible with today's ethical and moral standards.
Names from foreign languages will be preserved in their original form, with no translation.
The Blood of Belshazzar
It shone on the breast of the Persian king.It lighted Iskander's road;It blazed where the spears were splintering.A lure and a maddening goad.And down through the crimson, changing yearsIt draws men, soul and brain;They drown their lives in blood and tears.And they break their hearts in vain.Oh, it flames with the blood of strong men's heartsWhose bodies are clay again.
— The Song of the Red Stone
Chapter I
Once it was called Eski-Hissar, the Old Castle, for it was very ancient even when the first Seljuks swept out of the east, and not even the Arabs, who rebuilt that crumbling pile in the days of Abu Bekr, knew what hands reared those massive bastions among the frowning foothills of the Taurus. Now, since the old keep had become a bandit's hold, men called it Bab-el-Shaitan, the Gate of the Devil, and with good reason.
That night there was feasting in the great hall. Heavy tables loaded with wine pitchers and jugs, and huge platters of food, stood flanked by crude benches for such as ate in that manner, while on the floor large cushions received the reclining forms of others. Trembling slaves hastened about, filling goblets from wineskins and bearing great joints of roasted meat and loaves of bread.
Here luxury and nakedness met, the riches of degenerate civilizations and the stark savagery of utter barbarism. Men clad in stanching sheepskins lolled on silken cushions, exquisitely brocaded, and guzzled from solid golden goblets, fragile as the stem of a desert flower. They wiped their bearded lips and hairy hands on velvet tapestries worthy of a shah's palace.
All the races of western Asia met here. Here were slim, lethal Persians, dangerous-eyed Turks in mail shirts, lean Arabs, tall ragged Kurds, Lurs and Armenians in sweaty sheepskins, fiercely mustached Circassians, even a few Georgians, with hawk-faces and devilish tempers.
Among them was one who stood out boldly from all the rest. He sat at a table drinking wine from a huge goblet, and the eyes of the others strayed to him continually. Among these tall sons of the desert and mountains his height did not seem particularly great, though it was above six feet. But the breadth and thickness of him were gigantic. His shoulders were broader, his limbs more massive than any other warrior there.
His mail coif was thrown back, revealing a lion-like head and a great corded throat. Though browned by the sun, his face was not as dark as those about him and his eyes were a volcanic blue, which smoldered continually as if from inner fires of wrath. Square-cut black hair like a lion's mane crowned a low, broad forehead.
He ate and drank apparently oblivious to the questioning glances flung toward him. Not that any had as yet challenged his right to feast in Bab-el-Shaitan, for this was a lair open to all refugees and outlaws. And this Frank was Cormac FitzGeoffrey, outlawed and hunted by his own race. The ex-Crusader was armed in close-meshed chain mail from head to foot. A heavy sword hung at his hip, and his kite-shaped shield with the grinning skull wrought in the center lay with his heavy visorless helmet, on the bench beside him. There was no hypocrisy of etiquette in Bab-el-Shaitan. Its occupants went armed to the teeth at all times and no one questioned another's right to sit down to meat with his sword at hand.
Cormac, as he ate, scanned his fellow-feasters openly. Truly Bab-el-Shaitan was a lair of the spawn of Hell, the last retreat of men so desperate and bestial that the rest of the world had cast them out in horror. Cormac was no stranger to savage men; in his native Ireland he had sat among barbaric figures in the gatherings of chiefs and reavers in the hills. But the wild-beast appearance and utter inhumanness of some of these men impressed even the fierce Irish warrior.
There, for instance, was a Lur, hairy as an ape, tearing at a half-raw joint of meat with yellow fangs like a wolf's. Kadra Muhammad, the fellow's name was, and Cormac wondered briefly if such a creature could have a human soul. Or that shaggy Kurd beside him, whose lip, twisted back by a sword scar into a permanent snarl, bared a tooth like a boar's tusk. Surely no divine spark of soul-dust animated these men, but the merciless and soulless spirit of the grim land that bred them. Eyes, wild and cruel as the eyes of wolves, glared through lank strands of tangled hair, hairy hands unconsciously gripped the hilts of knives even while the owners gorged and guzzled.
