The Road of Skeletons E-Book

Richard Blakemore

• Herausgeber: Cora Buhlert
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

On their way to the northern city of Khon Orzad, Thurvok, the sellsword, and his friend Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, travel along a road lined with the skeletons of executed heretics. It's a grim path that becomes even grimmer when Thurvok and Meldom come upon a blindfolded woman who is still very much alive tied to a stake by the side of the road.  Should they continue their journey or rescue the woman and risk the wrath of the priest kings of Khon Orzad… This is a short story of 5500 words or 20 print pages in the Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

Leseprobe

The Road of Skeletons

by Richard Blakemore

Bremen, Germany

Copyright © 2019 by Cora Buhlert

All rights reserved.

Cover image by © breaker213 via CanStockPhoto

Cover design by Cora Buhlert

Pegasus Pulp Publications

Mittelstraße 12

28816 Stuhr

Germany

www.pegasus-pulp.com

Introduction

by Cora Buhlert

Nowadays, pulp fiction writer Richard Blakemore (1900 — 1994) is best remembered for creating the Silencer, a masked vigilante in the vein of the Shadow or the Spider, during the hero pulp boom of the 1930s.

Furthermore, Richard Blakemore is also remembered, because he may or may not have been the real life Silencer, who stalked the streets of Depression era New York City, fighting crime, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty just like his pulp counterpart.

The mystery surrounding the Silencer has long overshadowed Richard Blakemore’s other works. For like most pulp writers, Blakemore was extremely prolific and wrote dozens of stories in a variety of genres for Jakob Levonsky’s pulp publishing empire. Blakemore’s work spans the wide range of the pulps, from crime stories via westerns, war and adventure stories to romance and even to science fiction and fantasy. Indeed, the sheer amount of stories Richard Blakemore wrote during the 1930s refutes the theory that he was the Silencer, for when would he have found the time?

Of the many non-Silencer stories Richard Blakemore wrote, the most interesting is a series of heroic fantasy adventures that Blakemore penned between 1936 and 1939, making him one of the pioneers of the genre now known as sword and sorcery.

Richard Blakemore was an acknowledged fan of Weird Tales and particularly admired the work of Robert E. Howard and C.L. Moore. And so, when Jakob Levonsky started up its own Weird Tales competitor called Tales of the Bizarre, Blakemore of course jumped at the chance to write for the magazine and created Thurvok, a warrior hero in the mould of Conan, Kull and Bran Mak Morn.

Thurvok first appeared in the story “The Valley of the Man Vultures” in the first issue of Tales of the Bizarre in 1936. He started out as a lone adventurer, but Thurvok quickly gained a companion in Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, whom he encountered towards the end of “The Valley of the Man Vultures”.

In the third adventure, Thurvok and Meldom encounter Sharenna, a young sorceress and the first female character of note to appear in the series. She is introduced as a damsel in distress, a heretic who was tied to a stake and left to die of drowning or exposure, but it quickly turns out that she is much more than that. There is some suspicion that Sharenna was at least partly inspired by Richard Blakemore’s fiancée and future wife, Constance Allen. She is a formidable character, at any rate.

“The Road of Skeletons” also changes the tone of the series in more ways than one. For what sets Thurvok and his companions apart from most other sword and sorcery heroes and heroines is that they seem to share the Silencer’s zeal for justice and spend a lot of time fighting dragons and monsters, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. It’s not that Thurvok and his companions aren’t interested in gold and treasure. But when given the choice between looting a tomb or saving a life, they’ll usually opt for the latter.

Richard Blakemore’s crime stories, including the Silencer series, often featured “ripped from the headlines” plots and indeed we know that Blakemore based many of these tales upon news stories of the day. However, little is known about how Richard Blakemore came up with the plots for his fantasy stories, including the Thurvok series.

“The Road of Skeletons” is an exception here, because for once we know exactly what inspired it. For in July 1936, a challenge was issued at a meeting of the American Association of Popular Fiction Writers. The challenge was to write a story based on a randomly drawn Tarot card. Richard Blakemore drew the Eight of Swords and wrote “The Road of Skeletons” based on the image on the card.

Pegasus Pulp Publishing is proud to present to you the adventures of Thurvok and his companions, for the first time in print since 1930s. So buckle up and prepare to accompany Thurvok and Meldom, as they travel along…

…the Road of Skeletons.

The Road of Skeletons

by Richard Blakemore

The road that led to the northern city of Khon Orzad was a thin white ribbon of sand and gravel that was flanked by pine trees looming on either side, pine trees so high that they cast the road into shadow, even though the wan winter sun had barely passed its zenith.

Two men, one tall and muscular and one lithe and wiry and a good head shorter than his companion, were walking along that road at a leisurely pace. They were Thurvok, the sellsword, and his friend and travelling companion Meldom, cutpurse, thief, assassin, whatever someone was willing to pay him for. Both men were on their way to Khon Orzad in search of employment and opportunity.

So far, their journey had been peaceful, if cold, for winter was closing in and Khon Orzad lay far north of Thurvok’s usual stomping grounds. Meldom had been there before, though, and said that he knew someone in town who might be willing to hire a sellsword and a cutpurse cum thief cum assassin. But then, Meldom knew someone who might be willing to hire the pair of them in almost every city. Sometimes, the jobs were even as advertised and Meldom’s contacts paid up as promised.

The pine forest ended abruptly and before them lay the sea, its waters grey as the steel of a well-worn blade and foaming like soup boiling in a kettle. According to the map Meldom had purchased at their last stop, this inlet was called the Bay of Mourning Tides. It was certainly a fitting name, for the cries of the seagulls circling above the waves really did sound like a mourning dirge.

Beyond the Bay lay Khon Orzad, perched on a cliff high above the sea. If they had a way of crossing the Bay, Thurvok and Meldom could probably reach the city in as little time as it took to roast a rabbit or pheasant. But there was neither a ferry nor any other boat and so they had to take the long way, following the road as it wound around the Bay all the way to Khon Orzad.

Now that their destination was so close, Thurvok and Meldom strutted onwards at a brisker pace, eager to make it to the city and an inn, where they would find a hot meal, a tankard of ale or a jug of wine, a clean bed and maybe even a willing wench to share it with.

But then Thurvok came to an abrupt halt, when he spotted something alarming by the side of the road. Skeletons, lots of them.