Kull: Exile of Atlantis Read Online Free
Author: Robert E. Howard
which finally turns Kull loose on a battlefield, albeit in a fight and an age not his own. In a March 1930 letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, the Texan confided “[ Kings ] was rather a new line for me, as I described a pitched battle. However, I think I handled it fairly well.” He was still pleased in September of 1930: “Some ways this story is the best I ever wrote. Nothing very weird about it, but good battle-stuff, if I do say so myself.” So Kings is noteworthy not only for its summit conference between Kull and Bran Mak Morn, but because it gives Howard a bigger budget and thousands of extras to maneuver on the page, thereby making possible the epic Crusader and Conan-commanded clashes yet to be written.
The hope here has been that newcomers to Kull or Howard will entertain the possibility that, like one of Tuzun Thune’s mirrors, heroic fantasy can contain much more than just “hard shallowness”–at times, “gigantic depths loom up,” as with the serpent-men, who have never been bettered, despite all the alien and android fifth columns that followed, as a worst fear made cold flesh. (Like our own reptilian underbrains, they have been here all along.) But readers can entertain this, that, or the other thing at a later date. Now it is high time that they themselves were entertained, enthralled, even enchanted, and this book, in which the young Robert E. Howard finds his way to, and through, an old, old world, is equal to the task. Despite conspiracies serpentine or byzantine, despite all the ghosts and shadows of Kulls past and Cataclysms to come, the pages that follow prove that it remains passing brave, and surpassingly splendid, to be a king, and ride in triumph through the City of Wonders.
Steve Tompkins
2006
Untitled Story
(previously published as “Exile of Atlantis”)
Untitled Story
(previously published as “Exile of Atlantis”)
The sun was setting. A last crimson glory filled the land and lay like a crown of blood on the snow sprinkled peaks. The three men who watched the death of the day breathed deep the fragrance of the early wind which stole up out of the distant forests, and then turned to a task more material. One of the men was cooking venison over a small fire and this man, touching a finger to the smoking viand, tasted with the air of a connoisseur.
“All ready, Kull–Gor-na–let us eat.”
The speaker was young–little more than a boy. A tall, slim-waisted, broad-shouldered lad who moved with the easy grace of a leopard. Of his companions, one was an older man, a powerful, massively built hairy man, with an aggressive face. The other was a counterpart of the speaker, except for the fact that he was slightly larger–taller, a thought deeper of chest and broader of shoulder. He gave the impression, even more than the first youth, of dynamic speed concealed in long, smooth muscles.
“Good,” said he, “I am hungry.”
“When were you ever otherwise?” jeered the first speaker.
“When I am fighting,” Kull answered seriously.
The other shot a quick glance at his friend as to fathom his inmost mind; he was not always sure of his friend.
“And then you are blood hungry,” broke in the older man. “Am-ra, have done with your bantering and cut us food.”
Night began to fall; the stars blinked out. Over the shadowy hill country swept the dusk wind. Far off a tiger roared suddenly. Gor-na made an instinctive motion toward the flint pointed spear which lay beside him. Kull turned his head and a queer light flickered in his cold grey eyes.
“The striped brothers hunt tonight,” said he.
“They worship the rising moon.” Am-ra indicated the east where a red radiance was becoming evident.
“Why?” asked Kull. “The moon discovers them to their prey and their enemies.”
“Once, many hundreds of years ago,” said Gor-na, “a king tiger, pursued by hunters, called on the woman in the moon and she flung him down a vine whereby
The hope here has been that newcomers to Kull or Howard will entertain the possibility that, like one of Tuzun Thune’s mirrors, heroic fantasy can contain much more than just “hard shallowness”–at times, “gigantic depths loom up,” as with the serpent-men, who have never been bettered, despite all the alien and android fifth columns that followed, as a worst fear made cold flesh. (Like our own reptilian underbrains, they have been here all along.) But readers can entertain this, that, or the other thing at a later date. Now it is high time that they themselves were entertained, enthralled, even enchanted, and this book, in which the young Robert E. Howard finds his way to, and through, an old, old world, is equal to the task. Despite conspiracies serpentine or byzantine, despite all the ghosts and shadows of Kulls past and Cataclysms to come, the pages that follow prove that it remains passing brave, and surpassingly splendid, to be a king, and ride in triumph through the City of Wonders.
Steve Tompkins
2006
Untitled Story
(previously published as “Exile of Atlantis”)
Untitled Story
(previously published as “Exile of Atlantis”)
The sun was setting. A last crimson glory filled the land and lay like a crown of blood on the snow sprinkled peaks. The three men who watched the death of the day breathed deep the fragrance of the early wind which stole up out of the distant forests, and then turned to a task more material. One of the men was cooking venison over a small fire and this man, touching a finger to the smoking viand, tasted with the air of a connoisseur.
“All ready, Kull–Gor-na–let us eat.”
The speaker was young–little more than a boy. A tall, slim-waisted, broad-shouldered lad who moved with the easy grace of a leopard. Of his companions, one was an older man, a powerful, massively built hairy man, with an aggressive face. The other was a counterpart of the speaker, except for the fact that he was slightly larger–taller, a thought deeper of chest and broader of shoulder. He gave the impression, even more than the first youth, of dynamic speed concealed in long, smooth muscles.
“Good,” said he, “I am hungry.”
“When were you ever otherwise?” jeered the first speaker.
“When I am fighting,” Kull answered seriously.
The other shot a quick glance at his friend as to fathom his inmost mind; he was not always sure of his friend.
“And then you are blood hungry,” broke in the older man. “Am-ra, have done with your bantering and cut us food.”
Night began to fall; the stars blinked out. Over the shadowy hill country swept the dusk wind. Far off a tiger roared suddenly. Gor-na made an instinctive motion toward the flint pointed spear which lay beside him. Kull turned his head and a queer light flickered in his cold grey eyes.
“The striped brothers hunt tonight,” said he.
“They worship the rising moon.” Am-ra indicated the east where a red radiance was becoming evident.
“Why?” asked Kull. “The moon discovers them to their prey and their enemies.”
“Once, many hundreds of years ago,” said Gor-na, “a king tiger, pursued by hunters, called on the woman in the moon and she flung him down a vine whereby
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