The
opening story, The Festival of the Bull, is an action-packed, violent
and intricately woven tale of treachery, deceit and peril. It’s also an origin
story, though these details are subtly inserted into the narrative without
holding up the action.
For
those unfamiliar with Bohun he is a huge black warrior from the ill-fated
kingdom of Damzullah. The last surviving warrior from its betrayed army, his
sole mission now is to find and rescue his beloved wife Dana who was sold into
slavery.
Having
just escaped from the galley into which he had been imprisoned as an oarsman, we
first meet Bohun soon after he has swum ashore and scaled the fortified walls
of the coastal city of Tharnya where a squad of the city guard attempt to
capture him. Minutes later, after a desperate fight which introduces us to his
fighting skills, Bohun flees into the city’s labyrinthine streets, where he stumbles
across a woman being attacked by a desperate gang of cutthroats who have
already killed her bodyguards. Thus it is that Bohun finds himself plunged unwittingly
into an insidiously dark world of deceit, treachery and deadly perils.
This
was one of the first stories submitted to me as editor of Swords &
Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy Volume 1 in 2020, and I would have
accepted it there and then except, for all its action-packed pages, it didn’t
involve any sorcery or magic, which was something of an important requirement
for the kind of anthology I was putting together. Fortunately Steve was quickly
able to rectify this when he submitted the next story in this volume, the
superbly eerie The Horror from the Stars, which became the first Bohun
story ever to be published. (The Festival of the Bull went on to appear
in Savage Realms Monthly in January the next year.)
After
this thrilling introduction to Bohun, The Horror from the Stars opens at
a slower pace but is no less menacing as our hero is warned “…evil is abroad in
Al-Siwar” by a strange old man, who inexplicably disappears soon after. But
Al-Siwar is where Bohun is heading and no dire warnings will stop him from
going there because its sultan, Akim Harrad, possesses Bohun’s wife, Dana, as
one of his harem slaves and Bohun is determined to free her.
If
there was no sorcery in the first story, Dilks more than makes up for it here,
with a particularly nasty creature which is probably an alien entity of some
kind, that feeds off people’s life forces and intends to replicate itself in an
especially nauseating way. Bohun is pushed to the brink in this tale – and in
some ways beyond it. His life is not an easy one, nor is it bereft of grief.
It’s a tough, heartless world in which he lives and in the end it takes all of
his resilience and fortitude to survive, both mentally and physically.
The
third tale, By Darkness Enthroned, was first published in Schlock!
Webzine issues 24 and 25 earlier this year. After already ratcheting up the eeriness in
these Bohun stories Steve Dilks goes for the dark sorceries of two contesting
sides in this tale with an absolute vengeance. Still recovering after the
events in The Horror from the Stars, our Damzullahan warrior enlists in
a mercenary army, perhaps longing for what he sees as the cleaner, more
straightforward life of soldiering. Little does he realise occult forces have already
been stirred into action by those opposing the army he has joined and that he too
will soon be drawn into the machinations of another insidiously supernatural
force. This longer tale is viewed from the perspectives of both sides, in which
even some of those we would instinctively see as the villains have their doubts
and pricks of conscience. In this it reminds me of the kind of tale Karl Edward
Wagner was a master at creating in his Kane stories – and By Darkness
Enthroned is no less redolent of his colourful and vivid language.
Intrigue
in Aviene previously
appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly no 48 in 2022, and is really just a
short episode in Bohun’s progress through the so-called civilised cities. Still
a hired soldier, he is suffering now from having spent too much time in battle.
“His nights were filled only with dreams of death and blood. He knew nothing
now but the madness of battle. The life he once knew, the dreams he once had
were but ashes in his memory.”
Thus
it is that he sets out to an inn to meet a young revolutionary who wishes to
bribe him to assassinate Acilius, a local magistrate. “‘In the name of the
people and in the cause of revolution – he must die!’” the young man
insists. But before they part they are
interrupted by three ruffians who deliberately pick a fight with Bohun, which results
in him being arrested and taken to be sold as a slave. Despite the dire
circumstances into which he has sunk Bohun is not so easily subdued – nor for
long.
Though
short, this story has some neat twists, helped along by Bohun’s innate ability
to see past any lies he is told.
Black
Sunset in the Valley of Death is the second story in this book first
published in Savage Realms Monthly (Issue 10, 2022), a digest-sized
magazine that has again and again proven itself to be one of the best sources
for fresh, new and original sword and sorcery in recent years. Black Sunset
in the Valley of Death is no exception. Opening with Bohun in the most
perilous position we have seen him in so far (tied to a sacrificial altar with
the officiating priest about to deliver the coup de grâce with a copper
dagger) this story rapidly moves on to Bohun’s desperate escape across the
wastes of a searingly hot desert, before reaching the welcoming shade of a
jungle where he stumbles across a delicate pre-human race in a secluded valley whose
ancestors once created the most advanced civilisation the world had seen, only
for it to be corrupted from within and destroyed. The aftermaths of this
corruption, though, have not died but linger on. And despite enjoying the time
he spends with these strange people, and the peace and quietude of where they
live, Bohun finally realises for the sake of them all he must go on and face
this festering horror and destroy it. In doing so he comes up against the most
formidable supernatural menace he has yet had to fight in a grotesque, dark and
bloody climax.
Red Trail
of Vengeance is the final story in this collection taken from
the pages of Savage Realms Monthly (Issue 28, May 2024). And true to
form this additional segment of Bohun’s saga is filled with all the action and
colour you would expect.
Never
gifted with having much luck, when our intrepid hero arrives at the ruins of an
abandoned castle expecting to find shelter for the night, he finds instead a well-armed
band of ruthless bandits waiting for him, who demand his horse and what gold he
carries. Unwilling to hand over either, and knowing they will kill him regardless,
a fight ensues. Outnumbered, though, Bohun is quickly overwhelmed. Badly
wounded, he is stripped of his armour and left to die. But death doesn’t come so
easily to men such as Bohun, whose Damzullahan
ancestors were endowed with an almost preternatural endurance. Which for the
bandits means one day he will recover from his wounds and seek them out to
exact his revenge… Another colourful tale with plenty of twists and turns and
vividly described action, which culminates in an ancient city ruled by bandits.
The
final story is Harvest of the Blood-King, first published in Neither
Beg Nor Yield – Stories with Sword & Sorcery Attitude (Rogue Blades
Entertainment). It’s certainly the longest and perhaps best story here,
beginning with Bohun again in chains, sent to a far-flung fortress of the Valentian
Empire where he is reunited with his old commander, Tibeirus Varro, from By Darkness Enthroned, who frees him immediately they meet, openly
acknowledging the crucial role the Damzullahan played in their past victory.
Now, though, out of favour in the capital, Tibeirus has been placed in charge
of a small group of specially selected men, including Bohun, who set out to
rescue the young son of a senator kidnapped by a hostile tribe beyond the empire’s
frontier. Of course not everything is by any means as it seems and there is
dark treachery and even darker sorcery afoot, culminating in Bohun having to
fight what is undoubtedly the most ferocious creature he has met so far amidst
a bloody bedlam that slakes even this warrior’s appetite for combat. A grim,
action-packed tale, ideal for ending this epic collection of Bohun’s savage adventures.
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