El Borak and Other Desert Adventures
Page 73
Hawk of the Hills
Text taken from Top-Notch, June 1935. 185.6.5: coördination; 185.10.9: hyphen between “hand” and “fighting;” 186.34.8: to-day; 188.18.4: semicolon after “structure;” 189.33.13: rôle; 193.41.5: “the” not in original; 198.13.8: to-day; 199.1.8: reëchoing; 202.30.3: close quote following question mark; 206.21.5: reënforce; 211.22.6: “El” not in original; 218.3.6: to-night; 218.11.7: To-night; 218.18.12: to-night; 220.24.1: to-morrow; 225.35.1: To-night
Blood of the Gods
Text taken from Top-Notch, July 1935. 235.36.1–2: Ahakim; 237.2.3: Inman; 239.7.5: Any one; 244.29.2: “him” not in original; 249.25.15: Bhadavat; 251.19.12: any one; 253.23.2: The; 255.8.3: Some one; 261.20.11: to-night; 262.2.6: handholes; 262.21.7: The; 264.21.3: mèlée; 264.24.10: The; 267.17.3: “egg-shell” hyphenated at line break; 270.9.6: to-night; 271.1.6: disgruntedly; 271.5.10: plaintiff; 273.22.9: rocks
Sons of the Hawk
Text taken from Complete Stories, August 1936 (as “The Country of the Knife”). 275.4.15: any one; 277.27.8: staggering; 278.31.2: To-morrow; 284.36.5: some one; 286.36.8: naïve; 292.7.12: naïve; 292.21.6: yiedled; 294.1.8: naïvely; 298.22.4: Adobe; 299.5.6: mêlée; 305.30.5: rôle; 306.16.7: the; 307.20.4: tonight; 307.21.9: to-morrow; 307.28.2: reëcho; 307.41.7: Shirkuk; 308.3.12: tomorrow; 308.25.11: reply; 308.37.8: naïveness; 312.1.13: horses; 315.22.7: dragged; 316.40.5: mêlée; 318.6.5: to-morrow; 320.16.3: To-morrow; 321.36.7: rôle; 323.9.5: to-night; 323.13.1: to-night; 323.18.14: to-night; 326.14.12: exchange; 328.8.5: rôle; 333.13.13: blades
Son of the White Wolf
Text taken from Thrilling Adventures, December 1936. One complete carbon copy of a Howard draft typescript survives, with markings and additions in the author’s hand, as well as three partial drafts. These drafts were consulted in the preparation of this text. 336.22.7: Some one (complete draft has “someone”); 336.35.16: comma after “rain;” 337.26.5: lightninglike (drafts have “lightning-like”); 338.2.11: hawklike (drafts have “hawk-like”); 338.40.12: Sulaiman’s (in all drafts, Howard’s preferred spelling is “Sulayman”); 340.19.6: akbat; 340.20: line space occurs before “Yusef smiled fiercely…;” 340.22.9: comma after “death;” 340.36.4: Istambul (in all drafts, Howard’s preferred spelling is “Stamboul”); 341.8.13: semicolon after “gone;” 341.13.11: Sulaiman; 341.36.1: comma after “spies;” 342.17.14: you; 343.36.4: Sulaiman; 343.38.4: Sulaiman; 344.21.7: Sulaiman; 345.13.12: Sulaiman; 350.30.3: comma after “reward;” 350.30.8: comma after “head;” 354.25.10: no comma after “Musa” (comma in complete draft); 354.41.6: head; 355.2.6: pounds’.;” 356.30.11: Sulaiman; 357.28.12: “that” not in original (does appear in complete draft); 360.12.16: no comma after “knees” (comma in complete draft); 360.19.1: sunburnt (“sun-burnt” in complete draft); 361.7.10: period after “Olga;” 361.19.13: “ear-shot” hyphenated at line break
Gold from Tatary
Text taken from Thrilling Adventures, January 1935 (as “The Treasures of Tartary”). 366.39.9: “high-lands” hyphenated at line break; 369.25.11: “overhanging” hyphenated at line break; 369.29.5: comma after “Baluchistan;” 370.5.6: period after “enemy;” 375.33.2: you; 377.14.1: O’Connell; 378.9.10: mêlée
Swords of Shahrazar
Text taken from Top-Notch, October 1934. 386.37.1–3: golden-frieze work; 388.1.9: to-night; 388.4.9: Kahn; 393.7.11: reënforcements; 395.3.14: comma after “lawless;” 395.36.15: Kahn; 401.5.3: To-morrow; 401.15.9: no period after “name;” 401.26.6: reappearing; 402.6.1: To-morrow; 403.18.13: no period after “Moslems;” 409.5.11: period rather than question mark after “Khan;” 412.1.1: Some one
The Trail of the Blood-Stained God
Text taken from Howard’s typescript, provided by the Cross Plains Public Library, Cross Plains, Texas. 425.5.11–13: Medina el Harami underlined (i.e., italicized); 427.19.10: stuck; 428.36.12–13 and 429.1.1: Medina el Harami underlined; 430.31.2–4: Medina el Harami underlined; 435.38.6: unexpecteness; 436.1.1: semicolon after “before;” 440.34.10–12: “blood-stained god” not capitalized; 443.4.1: repellant; 443.4.11: repellantly; 445.24.1: involuntary
The Fire of Asshurbanipal
Text taken from The Howard Collector 16, Spring 1972. 449.4.2: comma after “head;” 450.7.5: Steeve; 452.25.9: lorelei; 453.20.7: Steeve; 456.38.9: Steeve; 459.19.6: Steeve; 466.16.3: Steeve
Three-Bladed Doom
Text taken from Howard’s typescript, provided by the Cross Plains Public Library, Cross Plains, Texas. No changes have been made for this edition.
Untitled Fragment
Text taken from Howard’s typescript, provided by Glenn Lord. No changes have been made for this edition.
Thanks to Thomas Jane, Con Schell, René P. Mousseux, and Tim Daley for donating their valuable time as models. Thanks also to Michael Hess and Brian McQuery for assisting. Big thanks to Tom Gilliland and Heath Hammond for the use of their pistols, rifles, and gear. To Patricia Arquette for letting me mess up your living room, and most of all to Missy B, for giving me the time to focus and create. Special thanks to Jim & Ruth Keegan, whose excellent support was invaluable.
Tim Bradstreet
This one is for Marcelo Anciano, who conceived it and kept advocating for it. Sure wish you had been able to work on it with us, effendi. Also for Bill Cavalier, the biggest El Borak fan I know. There are not enough words to express my gratitude to Rob Roehm, the hardest-working man in Howard fandom, for all his help with the texts for this book. Paul Herman once again provided copies of original magazine appearances and sage counsel, and Patrice Louinet had to put up with the usual barrage of pesky questions about the original typescripts. Thanks to Stuart Williams, as always, for his patience with our deadline-crowding ways, and for taking our texts and illustrations and turning them into beautiful books. Thanks to Jim & Ruth Keegan, and to Tim Bradstreet, for their superb visualization of the world of El Borak and Kirby O’Donnell, and to the Keegans for their outstanding art direction. And all my love to Shelly, who graciously lets me off the hook around the house while I work on these projects. Just after completing his introduction to this book, our esteemed friend and colleague Steve Tompkins passed away. We miss him more keenly with each passing day.
Rusty Burke
Our gratitude to Marcelo Anciano, Barry O’Neill, and Bill “Indy” Cavalier for artistic inspiration. We would also like to thank the architects of this book, Rusty Burke and Stuart Williams, for all of their continued brilliance. Thanks also to Jay Zetterberg, Tim Bradstreet, and Kaitlin Heller.
We would especially like to say that it has been an honor to have worked with the late Steve Tompkins. He was a giant talent and a gentleman. He will be missed.
Jim & Ruth Keegan
As ever, I’d like to thank Marcelo Anciano for getting me involved in this great game, Rusty Burke and Jim & Ruth Keegan for making our transatlantic working relationship such a pleasure year on year, and Tim Bradstreet for delivering illlustrations that literally took my breath away. Also thanks to Sam Older for taking an interest and making my day job bearable.
Stuart Williams
El Borak and Other Desert Adventures is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2010 by Robert E. Howard Properties, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, EL BORAK, and related names, logos, characters, and distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks or registered trademarks of Robert E. Howard Properties, Inc.
All rights reserved.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51914-6
Publ
ished by arrangement with Robert E. Howard Properties, Inc.
www.delreybooks.com
Art Director
Jim & Ruth Keegan
Typographer
Stuart Williams
Editor
Rusty Burke
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