If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by Bearshirt #6: Kingdom of the Dead by G. W. Thomas. This August the fifth novel in the series will finally be on sale. Here is a sneak peek at the cover by M. D. Jackson. This is your first look at the strange journey Arthan the bear-man takes along with the were-fox Vih (who we met in #4 War of the Weres) and the mage, Jach. That’s the white-skinned dude covered in runes. I am sure your attention was caught by that big toothy guy in the middle. That is an Oblate, a giant roller that is all mouth. M. D. Jackson has done it again, capturing all the fantastic action that is the life of a were-bear.
“Legion of the Dead” was a later L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter tale that originally appeared in Conan the Swordsman (1978). Perhaps the most significant thing about this book was that it was one of the first to appear outside the Lancer collections, as that company had folded into bankruptcy. The book appeared right on the tail of Conan of Aquilona (1977), a tome that sat in limbo for years because of Lancer’s collapse.
The plot has a young Conan hanging out with the Aesir, the blond-haired Viking types of Howard’s Hyborian Age. They are on a mission to recapture the Jarl’s daughter, Rann, from the creepy Hyberborians. The Aesir blunder this operation with half of their force being captured and tortured before their eyes from the ramparts of Queen Halaga’s castle. Conan sneaks in alone through an opening used by archers to defend the castle. Being a smaller youth he can squeeze through where a beefy Aesirman might not. He rescues Rann, a fair swordswoman herself.
The Legion of the Dead shows up as the Aesir flee the territory of the Witch-Queen. She sends a magical force against the retreating Aesir:
The respite was short. Shouldering through the fog, a swarm of sinister figures emerged from the murk, and with steady, rhythmic steps stalked up the slope, like men walking in their sleep or puppets worked by strings. The flight of javelins that met the shambling attackers slowed them not at all, as they hurled themselves against the ring of shields. Naked steel flashed darkly in the wan moonlight. The attackers swung high sword and axe and war hammer and brought them whistling down upon the living wall, cleaving flesh and shattering bone.
In the van Njal, bellowing an ancient Æsir war cry, hewed mightily. Then he paused, blinking, and the heart in his bosom faltered. For the man he was fighting was none other than his own captain, Egil the huntsman, who had died that morn on the end of a rope, suspended from the walls of Haloga. The light of the pallid moon shone plainly on that familiar face and turned Jarl Njal’s bones to water….
The undead soldiers are difficult to fight, having no vital organs to pierce. Worse yet is fighting former friends:
Glancing again, Njal saw the mangled flesh of Egil’s naked breast, whence hours before the living heart had been untimely torn. Revolted by the thing he saw, Njal perceived that however much he wounded his adversary’s flesh, these wounds would never bleed. Neither would his old friend’s corpse feel the bitter kiss of steel.
There weren’t a lot of undead creatures in Howard’s Conan. The lich that Conan fights in the next story chronologically was de Camp/Carter. (That story falls right after “Legion of the Dead” which ends with Conan captured and being taken to the slave pits of Hyperborea.) Howard did contribute the seven foot tall, undead guardians from “The Hall of the Dead” though that tale was edited by L. Sprague de Camp. “Legion of the Dead” is a lukewarm showing for the undead, which have proven quite popular in more recent years. And where are the beast-men mentioned in “The Witch of the Mists” (Fantastic, August 1972) More on them next time.
“Legion of the Dead” was adapted by Roy Thomas for Savage Sword of Conan #39 (April 1979) which is pretty soon after the new collection came out. The Earl Norem cover is a classic. Pencils were by Sal Buscema and inks by Tony deZuniga. Roy turns the interesting Rann into a damsel-in-distress. You can’t believe Roy’s version of this woman is a fighter at all. 1970s chauvinism or just a detail that had to be trimmed?
A later comic story from Conan the Savage (July 1995) recycles the plot without the undead. “Hounds to the Slaughter” was written by Chuck Dixon. Art by Enrique Alcatena. There is a witch-queen, soldiers get strung up on the parapet. Only the undead are missing, replaced by some real bad ass warriors.
Conclusion
The use of undead soldiers in this tale doesn’t really seem necessary except as a Horror element that must be in most Sword & Sorcery tales. The Hyperboreans could have sent a squad of their lanky fish belly white-skinned warriors out and captured the Aesir. From a plot point of view, the undead seem like overkill. The shock of seeing old comrades as lumbering things is good but not quite as creepy as it could have been. Using an undead warrior in the next story chronologically also seems unwise, though that tale was written in 1967 for the first Conan book. When you arrange the stories in order (which no set of books has done yet) it seems repetitive. For fans in 1978, it wasn’t a problem.
The creepy Hyperboreans, so different from the other Northern tribes, the Aesir, Vanar and Hykranians, deserved more stories. Next time we will look at the other Hyperborean critter, strangely absent beast-men.
Sword & Sorcery from RAGE machine Books
Leave a Reply