The Thing from the Dread Swamp E-Book

Richard Blakemore

• Herausgeber: Cora Buhlert
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

While travelling through the Dread Swamp, Thurvok, the sellsword, and his friends, Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, Meldom’s sweetheart Lysha and the sorceress Sharenna come across an overturned wagon and the terrified merchant Polyxo who babbles that a monster has taken his daughter Cerissa. Because they are heroes – and because Polyxo has offered them a sizeable reward – the quartet of adventurers offers to rescue Cerissa from the thing that lives in the Dread Swamp.

This is a short story of 5300 words or 19 print pages in the Thurvok sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

Leseprobe

The Thing from the Dread Swamp

by Richard Blakemore

Bremen, Germany

Copyright © 2020 by Cora Buhlert

All rights reserved.

Cover image by © Phil Cold via Dreamstime

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 style 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 full range of the pulps, from crime stories via westerns, war and adventure stories via romance 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, one of 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 a big fan of Weird Tales and particularly admired the work of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and C.L. Moore. And so, when Jakob Levonsky started up his own Weird Tales competitor called Tales of the Bizarre, Blakemore immediately 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 debuted 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 quickly gained a companion in Meldom, thief, cutpurse and occasional assassin, whom he encountered towards the end of “The Valley of the Man Vultures”. Not long thereafter, the duo of adventurers became a quartet with the addition of Sharenna, a formidable sorceress, and Lysha, Meldom’s childhood sweetheart.

As the title implies, “The Thing from the Dread Swamp” is another story where our quartet of adventurers battle a monster. But while the monsters our heroes normally encounter are often guarding some kind of treasure, the titular thing is just a creature that lives in the swamp and subsists on eating the occasional unwary traveller.

Our heroes happen upon just such an unwary traveller, the merchant Polyxo, whose daughter has been taken by the swamp creature. Being heroes, they of course offer to help — for a price. And while in most stories of the series, our heroes deliberately seek out trouble, this is one story where trouble finds them.

While Thurvok and Meldom’s first few adventures were quite similar to the exploits of the characters who inspired them, the introduction of Sharenna and Lysha changed the dynamic of the series in more ways than one. For what sets Thurvok and his companions apart from many other sword and sorcery heroes and heroines is that they share the Silencer’s zeal for justice and spend a lot of time fighting evil in all its guises, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. It’s not that Thurvok and his companions aren’t interested in gold and treasure — they absolutely are, though like most sword and sorcery heroes they tend to be financially unlucky. But when given the choice between stealing a priceless jewel or saving a life, they’ll inevitably opt for the latter. Thurvok, Meldom, Sharenna and Lysha may live on the margins of their society and they may steal and loot to survive, but when given the chance, they’ll always do the right thing.

“The Thing from the Dread Swamp” is a typical example, for our quartet of adventurers immediately offer to help Polyxo to rescue his daughter. And this time around, they even get paid for their troubles. Furthermore, Lysha’s knowledge of fabrics due to being the daughter of a silk merchant comes in handy as well.

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, Meldom, Sharenna and Lysha as they confront…

…the Thing from the Dread Swamp.

The Thing from the Dread Swamp

by Richard Blakemore

The road to the seaport city of Neamene led through the so-called Dread Swamp. And never was a swamp more aptly named, for it was truly a dreadful and dismal patch of land, a wasteland of green and grey, of brackish bogs and stunted trees, trailing vines and deadly creatures, that stretched along the great river Tereine as it made its way to Neamene and the sea.

The road itself was high and dry enough, built long ago by slave labourers, prisoners captured during one of the wars the coastal cities kept waging against each other. But take even one step off the road and you ran the risk of stepping into a boghole. If you were lucky, you’d only sink in to your thighs or waist or even neck and you’d soil your clothes and lose your boots, once you were pulled out. If you were unlucky, the swamp would swallow you whole.

But bogholes were not the only danger that lurked in the Dread Swamp. For the swamp was beset by deadly water snakes and venom-fanged lizards, clouds of bloodsucking insects and dancing ghost lights that lured unwary travellers to their doom. There were also rumours about even worse things living deep in the swamp, but no one had ever seen any of them and lived to tell the tale.

Four travellers, two men and two women, trudged along the lone dry road through the Dread Swamp. One of the men was tall and muscular, with long black hair and the bronze skin of the nomads of the Eastern Steppes. On his hip, he wore a mighty sword. This was Thurvok, the sellsword.

The other man was shorter and lither, wiry rather than muscular. He had black hair and grey eyes, a dashing moustache and a devil may care attitude. His attire was completely black with the only relief offered by a silver amulet at his throat and a silver dagger at his waist. This was Meldom, cutpurse, thief, occasional assassin and habitual adventurer.

One of the women was tall and statuesque. She was swathed in a moss green cloak. Tresses of flame coloured hair escaped from underneath the hood. This was Sharenna the sorceress.

The second woman was slight and almost waifish, with long dark hair and large eyes, which seemed perpetually terrified. She was dressed in men’s clothes and carried a slingshot on her waist. This was Lysha, the daughter of a wealthy silk merchant turned fugitive from justice and Meldom’s beloved besides.