Black Gate

 

One of my favorite modern writers of fantasy is R. Scott Bakker. His PRINCE OF NOTHING trilogy absolutely blew my skull a few years back, and his latest book in that continuing saga is THE WHITE-LUCK WARRIOR, due to be released in Spring 2011.

I’ve been singing the praises of Bakker’s fantasy work for awhile now. His is a fantasy on the scale of Tolkien without stealing any of the usual tropes that go with that scale. His work is brilliant, illuminating, and challenging. In short, it is literary fantasy…i.e. fantasy with literary qualities. “What exactly does that mean?” I hear somebody asking. Well, here’s what I tell my students on the first day of any literature class: Literature is a written work of art that explores what it means to be human.

Literature allows us to view human nature, i.e. the human condition, through the lens of the written word. And the real magic is that good literature transcends time and space. Shakespeare, for instance, is still shedding light on the human condition even though he wrote 500 years ago. But literature is not just for the glimmering “elite” in their ivy-grown universities and ivory towers. Bakker’s fantasies do exactly what great literature does, while remaining tremendously entertaining.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

( CONCLUSION! )

8. The Breaking of the Weird

 

His name was a legend in every kingdom of Arboria although some scholars argued that he had never existed.

Ironspell was a myth, an allegory, a fireside yarn that grizzled storytellers traded for ale and roasted meat. Long after the War of Darkness had ended, long after the Death Plague was wiped from the continent, and decades after the fortress city of Neshma fell to northern barbarians, the hero’s name lingered. Sages and scribes wrote tales of his adventures in leather-bound tomes alongside fables, folk stories, and fanciful verse.

While the living world scoffed at Ironspell the Legend, Ironspell the Man roamed the barren and forsaken places of the earth. Like a restless ghost he walked over burning sands, climbed mountain passes, and roved the depths of tangled forests. He had grown old, yet still he carried a great silver sword on his back, and still he wore the tarnished mail of a knight from the Royal House of Neshma. His hair and beard had gone from raven black to snowy white, and the brightness of his green eyes had faded to steely gray, the color of a cherished grief.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

 

7. On the Mountain of Sorrows

 

Lightning raged about the peak. Ironspell pulled himself toward the sky, finding handholds in precarious places. Storm clouds cast ominous shadows upon him. Peals of thunder rolled across his back like boulders. It had taken the better part of a year to reach the Mountain of Sorrows, and neither gods, demons, or nature itself would keep him from reaching the summit.

A voice in the back of his mind whispered unheeded warnings:

How do you know your son will truly be here? This is another trap Azazar has set for you. Your son is dead. You’ll find his animated corpse walking rotten and full of hate… 

He screamed his rage into the storm, drowning the voice of caution. He must scale this mountain; he could do no less for his own flesh and blood. If Tyneus were dead, at least he would finally know. And if he lived…

Ironspell had crossed the length of Dylestus, the dead kingdom where ghosts, wights, and ghouls prowled the remnants of shattered cities. The depraved descendants of the ruined realm had quickly captured him and Tumnal. They dragged the duo into a subterranean realm to feed a swarm of ravenous young. But the seekers escaped into an underworld of blind, crawling monsters and passed through a fungoid city of grotesques.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman 

6. The Tomb of Azazar

 

The crypt lay on an uncharted isle off the wild coast of southern Mydrithia.

A triple-sailed war galleon dropped anchor in the narrow cove, but only five men came to shore. If there had been any living sentinels watching from the jungle depths, they would have counted only two of the group as human men. The other three were strangelings: two tall Amurions bearing longbows and a gaudily garbed gnome. They stood on the wet sands and surveyed the wilderness that smothered the slopes of a dormant volcano. There was no sign of civilization old or new in this ancient haunt of green shadows.

Ironspell ran a hand through his shaggy black beard and stared into the jungle, looking for invisible signs. Tumnal pulled the rowboat inland and hid it between two jutting boulders.

This desolate chunk of earth bore the stink of long-buried sorcery, of that Ironspell was sure. But it was a reek that had fooled him before.

“Are you sure this is the place?” asked the gnome, dusting sand off his vermillion robes with a gnarled hand. “Looks nothing more than a place for a good shipwreck.”

Ironspell spat upon the brown sand. “It’s here. Somewhere…”

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

  

5. The Son of Ironspell

The storm fell from the mountains like the wrath of an angry god. Thunder shook the earth and lightning split the sky, striking fires along the mountainsides. Rain fell in a driving flood, and the wind ripped trees from the earth’s bosom, smashing them to kindling. Servants pulled open the gates of Ironspell Keep, and two black steeds fitted for war galloped into the tempest.

Those left in the wake of the riders bolted the castle doors tight and prepared a funeral bier for the Lady of the Keep. Princess Tyarah of Neshma, Bride of the Avenger, lay pale and bloodless on the floor of the nursery chamber.

They wrapped her in a shroud of white silk, sprinkled her frail body with rose petals, and burned sacred candles at her vigil. They prayed to the God of the Underworld that her soul would find its way; they prayed to the Goddess of Vengeance that Lord Ironspell would find his son and the devil who had taken him.

It would be days before the tragic news reached the fortress city and Queen Zandara. Ironspell Keep guarded the chief pass through the Greyfold Mountains, some thirty leagues from Neshma proper, but a messenger would be dispatched as soon as the storm relented. Weeping, he would tell the queen how her daughter was murdered and her infant grandson stolen away in the night. He would tell how the Avenger rose from a spell of nightmares to find his son’s crib empty, his wife slain by sorcery. He would tell of the storm that rolled from the mountains as if Ironspell’s black wrath had conjured it. How Ironspell rode into the raging squall with Tumnal the Swift racing at his heels. And the messenger would show to the Queen of Neshma the only evidence left by the perpetrator of this terrible crime: a piece of black leather inscribed with the insignia of a golden skull.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

 

4. The Jewel and the Giant-King

 

Yom was a city of magicians.

Of all the kingdoms lying west of the Greyfold Mountains, only Yom boasted that its walls were defended by a legion of sorcerers, or that its wizard-king had slain a dozen ancient wyrms to free the Western Realms of the dragon plague. In the inky depths of night the city’s towers and ziggurats gleamed with all the brilliance of the wizardry that was its claim to fame.

Of all magical arts only the practice of necromancy was banned from the city’s environs, for the people of Yom did not want their dead disturbed. Yet every other manner of sorcery thrived here. Alchemists, adepts, enchanters, conjurors, soothsayers, theosophers, prestidigitators, thaumaturges, and mages wandered its marbled streets and hobnobbed among its hanging gardens. Yom was also home to vast wealth, and the penalty for thievery was death.

So it came to pass that Tumnal the Swift found himself locked in a damp cell, his limbs heavy with enspelled chains, deep in the catacombs below the wizard-king’s palace. Once known in seven realms as the Lord of Thieves, Tumnal was destined to be a footnote in the pages of an executioner’s journal. Although Yom’s penalty for thievery was precise, the bureaucracy of the place was staggering. Through no fault of his own (other than his libidinous nature) Tumnal had been caught and sentenced to death one month ago. But he might linger for years among the rats and roaches of the dungeon until the headsman came with his axe to carry out the sentence.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz  

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

 

3. Return of the Golden Skull

 

War had come to the Kingdoms of the East.

The earth grew rich with spilled blood, and the sky grew black with smoke from the fires of conquest. Yet this war was unlike any that had come before it, for the stakes were not those of boundaries, empires, or territories. This was a war of annihilation, a war of extinction and wild slaughter. A flood of massacres and endless suffering, a surging tide of death to drown the lands of men.

Fleeing refugees and survivors of the carnage called them Agnyri, or Demon-Men. They came out of the ancient land Dylestus, where a new power had risen to twist their brutal natures into an organized mass of marching havoc. They were the spawn of devils, born with an inner hatred of their human half, eager to quench that hate by drinking the blood of any who reminded them of their earthly lineage. The Agnyri ate only human flesh and dressed themselves in the skins of slain women and children. They called up dragons to burn the forests and fields in their path. They came in the screeching millions, bearing the banner of their God-King, a golden skull on a black field.

The feuding kingdoms of Draviah, Mydrithia, and Al-Kahna joined forces for the first time in history to face the rushing horde. Already their easternmost neighbor, the city-state of Nyrion, had been obliterated, its people become fodder for the flesh eaters, its opulent palaces now charred piles of stone and scattered bones. Each of the Three Sultans knew his kingdom was next, so longstanding differences were cast aside and the Triple Alliance was formed.

Now a half-million soldiers assembled on the Plains of Zharra, awaiting the arrival of the man-eaters. Beneath a fading sun the eastern legions spread in glittering waves of bronze and silver.

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In the grand tradition of the heroic fantasy pulps comes “The Weird of Ironspell” — a serialized novella of original Sword-and-Sorcery adventure coming to you over the next few weeks. Catch a new self-contained chapter every Wednesday right here at blackgate.com. The saga continues…

 

 “The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman 

 

2. The Moon God’s Bride

They marched out of the wasteland, where the bones of dead cities lay smothered beneath a sea of black sand.

Their captain was tall and broad of shoulder, his dark hair flapping like ravens’ wings about his wolfish face. The hilt of a silver sword gleamed on his back. The other three were strangelings, two with tapered ears and jewel-bright eyes, the third a grizzled gnome with a face like twisted oak. They had survived the death-worshippers of the waste, the leagues of killing sand, the murderous winds, and the terrible things that slumbered beneath the ruined temples. The scars of battle shone upon their arms and chests like tarnished jewels. 

The quiet folk of Omzir greeted them with suspicion, as all things are met that crawl out of the desert. Yet when the townsfolk saw their gold and silver coins of ancient mint, they welcomed the travelers like old relatives. Ragged children followed them through the dusty streets like famished dogs.

The captain’s name was Ironspell. He asked for wine and roasted meat. Dranba, the keeper of the town’s only drinking house, offered plenty of wine to earn their gold, but explained that water and food were scarce. He spoke the western dialect since he had once traveled with caravans, so he translated for Ironspell and the strangelings. Jealous townsfolk labeled him a slave to foreign dogs, but Dranba did not care, for in only a few days Ironspell’s generosity made him the richest man in Omzir.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

1. Born of Stone

The child would never know its father. 

In the amber glow of their hearth fires, villagers traded whispers about its mother. The witch had come out of the forest heavy with child. Some said she dallied with a demon, or a wood-spirit, but the witch never revealed her secret paramour. She gave birth in the light of a silver moon, while wolves howled like ghosts among the hills. 

As the child grew, its mother worked like a man at her anvil, forging a blade for her son. She smelted a strange, gleaming metal from the heart of a stone that had fallen from the sky while she was in labor. The village elders said she must be weaving a great spell, and her hammer rang across the village like a doomful bell. In the space of a month she had finished the sword. She christened it with several drops of her own blood, which flowed down the blade’s length and sank into the metal, taking on the shapes of crimson runes. 

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ORC STAIN Volume 1 collection coming in July…

ORC STAIN, VOL. 1 TP
story JAMES STOKOE
art & cover JAMES STOKOE
JULY 28
168 PAGES / FC
$17.99
For a million millennia the world has cracked and convulsed under the indomitable mob of the orc. Savage, bloodthirsty creatures, they are without number, staining nearly every corner of the globe. The mighty Orc Tzar, newest leader of the mob, marches ever north to find the lost organ of a forgotten god. Only a lone one-eyed orc with a mysterious gift can find the key to breaking the cycle forever.
Collects ORC STAIN #1-5
RETAILER WARNING: MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES