My sword and sorcery novelette The Demon from Another World is now out in Anthology of the Damned: Necromoirrium as a paperback and kindle ebook from Treeshaker Books.
This features a group of mercenaries, chief of whom is Horbeck, who has appeared in several other stories I've written. He first appears as a minor character in The Unhappy Inquisitor. Since then he has appeared as the main character in two sequels to The Demon from Another World: Lies and Treachery and The Mummified Demi-God, plus another I am still writing.
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I received my copy of The Complete World of Horror Volume 2 today from Confessions Press, which includes a facsimile of my early horror story Terror on the Moors, illustrated by Jim Pitts from issue 6 of that magazine in 1975.
One week after I finished my last sword and sorcery story involving Horbeck and his mercenary comrades, Brud and Asnar, I have now completed another involving their misadventures: The Mummified Demi-God.
This makes four stories in which Horbeck appears: The Unhappy Inquisitor, The Demon from Another World, Lies and Treachery, and now The Mummified Demi-God. Of these only The Demon from Another World is scheduled to be published at the moment. It will appear later this month in Anthology of the Damned, Necromoirrium from Treeshaker Books.
From its opening paragraphs:
The three mercenaries rode leisurely down the winding, hard-packed road, their camels and packhorses burdened with sacks of gold, payment from a particularly rewarding job. Despite their nonchalant appearance, though, all three kept their eyes alert on the surrounding woodlands, bushes and small hillocks, wary of bandits.
Their erstwhile leader, Horbeck, was a huge northerner with a sun-bleached beard and long, dust-filled hair, his rugged chainmail only partially covered by what remained of his leather jerkin, scored so often it was all but rags. His fellow northerner, Brud, was slightly shorter but no less robust in appearance, a well-used battleaxe hanging from the saddle of his camel from which, in the north, he would have hung the heads of his enemies, a habit he had been persuaded to forgo in the civilised south. The only non-northerner in this trio was Asnar, a black-bearded Josanian archer. Like his comrades, his clothes had seen better days. His lacquered leather breastplate had all but lost whatever colouring was scrolled across it when he first set out as a mercenary years ago. Over one shoulder hung an unstrung bow of surpassing power and accuracy, though he also had a scimitar sheathed across his back in a gaudy scabbard. All normally wore steel helmets, plain, serviceable and much dented; these now hung from straps beside them as the sun beat down on their heads. Two wore straw hats to keep it off. Asnar preferred a felt cap.
In the distance they glimpsed the gleaming towers of a large city, though none of them knew its name, having lost track of where they were many months ago when they were pursued across the Great Desert by their enemies.
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| Cover artwork by Rizky Nugraha |
As an appetiser I am including below the Introduction I have written for it.
The book will be published in the States by Tule Fog Press.
INTRODUCTION
The six stories in this collection chronicle the gradual descent into darkness of the northern barbarian mercenary hero Welgar.
“Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" was the first story I wrote involving Welgar, though he is very much a secondary character in this tale after the rather bizarre sorcerer-cum-apothecary Ossani the Healer. In this novelette Welgar is a young mercenary, already distrustful of sorcery, who becomes embroiled against his will in thwarting an attempt to take over the city he has been employed to protect as a member of the city watch. By sheer chance he and Ossani meet in a prison where they and others have been incarcerated by a puritanical religious movement that is threatening to tear the city apart. Though disliking anything that even hints of sorcery he is gradually persuaded to see Ossani in a better light than others of his ilk and together they collaborate to save the city from the sinister plot to bring it down.
"The Dark Priestdom" (published in Savage Realms Monthly) sees an older, more mature Welgar who has moved northwards to the “wealthy but licentious” city of Oriaska in a bid to improve his fortunes. There he pitches in to help Nadrain the Storyteller, who he notices is being set up to take the blame for the abduction of the king of Oriaska's daughter, though there is an element of self interest in this, as Welgar sees it as an opportunity to gain the king's gratitude for helping save the princess. In pursuit of her abductors Welgar and Nadrain sail southwards to the benighted city of Agrypt where Welgar is tricked into being possessed by the spirit of a dark, Agryptian demon god. Although this demon god endows him with increased strength, speed and stamina it is at the expense of his appearance, which is transformed into a wizened, bleached, deathlike travesty, looking more like a corpse than a living being.
"Welgar the Cursed" (published in Swords & Heroes) sees Welgar realising how truly cursed he is, not only in becoming the image of an unwrapped mummy, but in the extreme bouts of insane violence the demon god that has possessed him makes him perform. Insatiable in its appetite for slaughter, there is little Welgar can do to prevent it.
An incident in "Mask of a Mad God" reveals to Welgar even more vividly how evil this curse truly is. The horrific events in this story are what lead Welgar to undertake the hazardous trek to the far north to "The Forbidden City of Cyramon" (published in Swords & Heroes). In the arctic wastes beyond the Jagged Mountains in which this demon-haunted city is situated he hopes either to be killed or to free himself from his curse, though what he encounters there is far from what he expects.
The final story, "Emerging from Their Twilit Realms", reveals the full extent of Agrypt's insane ambitions to create a dark empire, which will cause ruin, mayhem and death around the Azure Sea. Despite his desire to lead a normal life once more, Welgar is forced to oppose the Agryptian forces that head north in a way that only he can manage, reuniting him once more with Ossani the Healer in an apocalyptic tale of terror, death and destruction.
All of these stories chronologically detail Welgar's transformation from a carefree mercenary more interested in the quality of the local beer to an obsessed and cursed pawn in the kinds of sorcerous machinations he hates, distrusts and quite rightfully fears.
David A. Riley, Oswaldtwistle, UK, 2024
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| Illustration by Rizky Nugraha |
