Status Updates From Sword Woman and Other Histo...

“Mistress of Death”

This is the last Dark Agnes story. We get one of Howard’s conclusions where the first draft accelerates into a synopsis and this story is headed full bore into the weird, with a resurrected necromancer and a dark tomb with a hole leading to a subterranean nightmare and, uh, a nude woman on a stone slab, because of course she is.

“The Sign of the Sickle”

This is basically a first draft of the “Timur-Lang” poem and, really, the brevity of the final version feels way more polished than this longer, I think “original” version.

“Untitled Fragment”

The previous recap undoubtedly is presented in order to put this fragment in a better context. This the story of Galdan Khan’s last stand against the Muslim onslaught… so maybe I misread what was going on in that recap o.O This would be one of the collection’s most recently based stories, pegged in 1697.

“Recap of Harold Lamb’s “The Wolf Chaser””

Lamb is one of the authors who Howard took his cues from, both in his prose and in his subject matter. This is a recap of something within one of Lamb’s novellas and has the sort of curious language of a folk tale or oral history, describing a man named Hu-Go’s last stand against the Mongolian hordes.

“Untitled Fragment”

This is a sketch of any cosmopolitan city in the Middle East that is slouching purposefully toward a slave auction. There isn’t any real indication of where it might go from here, but history tells us that Howard’s heroes generally do not begin the story as slaves unless they immediately break free from bondage.

“Untitled Fragment”

Idk, this extract has a Scotsman making his case to join a band of what appear to be Spaniards in Outremer—Palestine specifically. It both starts and ends in nowhere.

“Untitled Fragment (The Slave-Princess)”

This is a longform treatment of the prior synopsis. Zuleika is a pitiful character, a princess who has been brought low through three years of slavery. Howard has great ideas and a compelling narrative, but he doesn’t let the interpersonal conflicts breathe to give the not-quite-romance between Amory and Zuleika some weight.

“Untitled Synopsis (The Slave-Princess)”

This would have been a Cormac Fitzgeoffrey story that makes him out to be even more contemptible, rescuing a dancing girl and then plotting with his buddy Amory to pass her off as the daughter of the Sheikh, Anastasia-style. But, wait! It turns out she really IS the daughter of the sheikh, Anastasia-style!! Fitzgeoffrey is gloomy, Fitzgeoffrey is bleak…

“Untitled Fragment (The Track of Bohemund)”

Like “Blades for France”, this story has someone kill a villain and then discover a secret plot in a case of mistaken identity. Unlike most of Howard’s fragments that I’ve seen, we can actually guess how this story pans out as it adds political intrigue to the Battle of Dorylareum in 1097, during the First Crusade.

“The Road of the Eagles”

More middle-east intrigue, this time the heroic force composed of Cossacks attempting to avenge the death of their leader against a Corsair. Kurds, Armenians, Turks, uh, and a Persian dancing girl with ARYAN ANCESTRAL BLOOD :flex:

This story’s philosophical focus is an ethnic essentialism that ascribes Muslims a certain fatality that hinders them from nigh-impossible aspirations.

“The Shadow of the Vulture”

This story is mostly about the Ottoman siege of Vienna in the early 1500s. BUT, we have two main characters: a himbo lush named Gottfried who fought the Sultan a year before and who had his eternal enmity, and the discovered RED SONJA who is a madcap woman warrior who, like Agnes, has no time for anyone’s bullshit but watches out for Gottfried.

“Blades For France”

The second and last complete Dark Agnes story has her caught up in some political intrigue surrounding the Duke of Bourbon, I think Charles III, foiling a kidnapping plot that she just happens to stumble upon after slaying one of the principal members in an indignant rage and taking his sweet-ass cloak. She’s still pretty awesome but I wish she had gotten to kill de Valence!

“Sword Woman”

Agnes du Chastillon is going to be forced to marry a rich pig to ease her father’s waning years. Her sister gives her a dagger, implying that she kill herself rather than marry and let marriage beat her down. In a moment of wild impulse, she murders her groom at the altar and then runs off, getting herself into quite a few scrapes and shootouts. Agnes is BAD. ASS.

“Timur-Lang”

Howard MAY have picked Timour for “Samarkand” because of a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe that he quotes at the header of a few of the story’s chapter. Here he has his own poem, reckoning on the ephemerality of even a brutal conqueror such as Timour’s own mark on history.

“Lord of Samarcand”

REH historical fiction template

1) find significant figures from the Middle East
2) invent a Celtic or Viking blood dude and who plays a significant role in the history
3) write badass, bloody pageantry with tons of gory deaths

In this case it’s the last great Mongol conqueror, Timour, who acquires the services of an exiled Scotsman who is as barbaric as they come.

“A Thousand Years Ago”

This Howard poem seems more like yearning for a time when a man could prove himself in mortal conflict, referencing the Chagatai people that Howard clearly had some affinity for as the narrator of “The Road of Azrael” counted himself among their tribe.

“The Skull in the Clouds”

One of Howard’s poems as character sketches where an Irishman had been sent to assassinate the “Black Prince” (I assume England’s Prince Edward of the 1300s), sort of gains immense respect for him, and is sent away by the prince when he figures out what the dude’s original mission was.

“The Sowers of the Thunder”

A longer-form tale of a would-be Irish king during the final act of Outremer. Cahal is a chivalrous character and does the best that he can in doomed circumstances. This story has a predictable plot twist with the “slim knight” who you can guess through the economy of character. This cycle of stories pits Christian and Muslim together against “pagan” Turks.