Emperor of the Black Flame

 

Dust rose beside the river, and the sun set the ranks of spears afire as the legions marched to war.  Emperor Retarius rode among his armored bodyguard, watching his men deploy even as he kept an eye on the horizon where another cloud of dust showed the approach of his enemy.  All roads led to this place, all decisions and plans and strategies led to this single moment where men and blood and iron would decide the fate of kingdoms.

His plans to move his men south along the river and catch the approaching Hatta in between two armies had been checked, and the river battle had been costly.  He had lost both ships and men, but he had both in plenty.  The Hatta had taken the main crossing, and there they awaited him, and he knew they only waited because they expected reinforcement, and now that force was drawing close as well.

He had word that this desert usurper had allied himself with the deposed queen Arsinue, as well as the barbarian king of the Hatta, and that troubled Retarius, for he knew the true danger of a man who can make alliances as well as enemies.  A ruler must have both, after all, and the test of greatness is the choosing of them.  Retarius was a man with no enemies who remained alive, and so he felt a strange kind of gladness to meet a new enemy now, in this unexpected place.  He had come to put down the last spark of rebellion from an old, respected foe, and now he found himself grappling with a worthy adversary.

The river lay on his left, and the crossing was just out of sight to the south, over the scrub-covered hills and a cluster of date palms in a small orchard.  There was a town nearby, and he could just see the dusty rooftops if he looked to his right, but it was deserted and would not matter.  The enemy expected him to come and try the crossing, exposing his legions to the sweeps of Hattan horsemen, but he would not oblige them.  He knew this enemy would come leading with the charge of horse, and his foot-bound legions could not match their attack power against that.  Against a mounted enemy, he was forced onto the defensive, but he was prepared for it

The ground here was broken by small hills, scattered with irregular stones.  Already his men were setting their lines, picking up rocks and hurling them outward, where they would make charging horses trip and stumble.  He had siege weapons brought from the city, dragged here with great effort and set to fire on the rushing enemy.  Here the horsemen would find their mobility restricted, their charges shortened by a lack of open ground.  Arrows and javelins would bring them down and blunt their assault before it could land.  He knew if he could break their first two attacks, they would begin to lose heart, and his own position would strengthen.

There was little for him to do until the hour arrived.  His men knew their business, and he had no need to watch over them.  He rode to the small, upraised hill where a few broken pillars marked where a temple had once stood, and there his pavilion had been set, slaves waiting to attend him.  The enemy attack would not come until the afternoon, and he would rest until then.  Some cool water and cool wine, something to take away the close heat of this place.  He came down from his horse and went inside, feeling the tremble in the earth below him of armies on the move.

The Norseman

 

I have generally avoided reviewing some of the more notoriously bad films that burst out in the wake of the success of Conan the Barbarian in 1982.  There were a lot of shoddy attempts to cash in on the trend of oiled-up musclemen with European accents cavorting through cheap sets full of bikini models with feathered hair, and I have no particular desire to go through and skewer trash like Ator, the Fighting Eagle.  That said, I thought this one might have a bit more interest to it.  The Norseman came out in 1978 – before the barbarian surge – and was an attempt at actual historical fiction.  Turns out it is still embarrassingly terrible, but sometimes life is like that.

This was the big-studio directorial debut of Charles B. Pierce, who had made his reputation with the minor cult hit Legend of Boggy Creek, and this looks exactly like you’d expect a viking movie made by that guy would look.  The lead role is assayed by Lee Majors, who was then riding high on the popularity of The Six Million Dollar Man, and who seems to have taken the job as a bit of a lark, as it meant a Florida vacation between TV seasons.

This is ostensibly the story of a viking named Thorvald, who journeys to “Vineland” in search of his father, who vanished on a journey to the western seas years ago.  The longship they sail on looks pretty good, and seems to have been actually functional, as there are many shots of it tooling around the mangrove swamps where they filmed.  The ship is crewed by faded action star Cornel Wilde, walleyed character actor Jack Elam as some kind of wizard, and a host of Tampa Bay linebackers as background vikings, including one black dude, who is explained away with a throwaway line about a raid on North Africa, but otherwise doesn’t contribute any more than anyone else to this mess.

It turns out the missing King Eurich was captured and blinded by Native Americans, and he and some of his men are still kept as slaves.  None of the natives are played by actual indigenous actors, seeming to be mostly Italians and regular white dudes in long black wigs.  The Native costumes and general depiction are as shoddy and cringe-worthy as you would expect, given what kind of movie this is.

As such, there are not really any sets, save for the viking ship and the cave where the prisoners are kept.  The costumes are hideous, looking like they simply raided the prop rooms of older movies to come up with a bunch of plastic shields and helmets.  Said helmets have ridiculous-looking cow horns stuck on them – which might also have been plastic – causing the vikings to look like an invasion of bovines.  Majors wears a different style of helmet which seems to be influenced by the one Kirk Douglas wore in The Vikings, and it’s the only one that looks any good at all.

Everything about this is pretty painful.  The script is incredibly tedious, with long stretches of nothing happening, or scenes where people declaim things to each other.  Nobody acts in this movie, they just declaim.  The pace is glacial, and even at barely 90 minutes the movie feels extremely padded out.  Even when an actual fight scene breaks out, things don’t get better, as the action choreography is what I would call “nonexistent”, and there is a heavy use of slow-motion to further deaden any excitement that might leak through.  There is a little bit of fake blood, so it’s not completely G-grade, but there’s just not much going on here.

I find it hard to believe that Majors, who was then the star of one of TVs biggest shows, could not find something better to do with his time.  His casting is a misfire on a par with John Wayne in The Conqueror, as Majors is a similar kind of broad, American actor, and he’s not attempting any kind of accent or performance.  When he pulls out his plastic sword and starts to invoke “Our gawd Oden” the major reaction is to snicker.  If this had been made 20 years earlier, then it might have shared the screen with movies more like itself, and be remembered with a bit more affection, but in the 70s it was already a throwback to an earlier era, and not a good one.

I find it interesting that this movie arrived at a similar place as Pathfinder would almost 30 years later, though the point of view regarding the natives is completely flipped.  The theme of men, far from home, at war with a strange people and a strange land remains a compelling one, and could be made into something quite good.  Survival, savagery, a hostile wilderness and the strange powers of an unexplored world and mythology could be the basis of a compelling story, it just has not been done, or at least, not done well.

Rivers of Blood and Fire

 

Prows sheathed in bronze gleamed like gold in the haze of dawn as they cleaved through the wine-dark waves.  Out of the shadows a great fleet emerged, dark sails furled, oars scything through the water as they cut across the calm seas toward the glittering lights of Qahir where it dreamed on the shores of Ashem.  The great lighthouse shone its blaze forth into the dying night, but no one saw the oncoming ships until the sun turned the eastern sky to fire.

Cries went up along the shore, and fishermen headed to their daily toil paused and stared at the rank upon rank of warships coming in toward land.  Alarms sounded on the walls of the palace, and people just roused from sleep gathered their children and ran, hiding themselves in their houses and beneath false floors.  Bells rang and horns blared, and soldiers on the fortifications watched as a greater armada than they had ever seen came swarming to the docks.

One after another, the beating drums of the oarmasters ceased, and the oars lifted from the water and vanished into the black hulls.  Ropes were cast, planks dropped, and formations of legionaries began to pour forth from the ships like swarms of ants.  To the east, ships forced their way up the river mouth and drew ashore within the city, disgorging more troops.  Hundreds, thousands.  The ships unloaded their men and then withdrew to make room for the next, and the next.  The waterfront swelled with armed men beneath spears like grain and battle standards hung with gold leaves and wolf skins.

A grand ship came ashore and from it came a cohort of men in gilded armor, and in their midst slaves carried a purple canopy and the warriors who walked beside it carried naked swords and watched from behind silver war-masks that made them seem like statues rather than men.  The Varonan legions pushed into the city, clearing the roads with careless force, and they made their way toward the tall towers of the royal palace, clearing a path for the canopy and the standard of the imperial power.