Weirwoman

Arethu lived in the hills outside the reach of the lords on the high hall. She knew the man who ruled it was named Balra, who had taken it when his father Torgged was slain the last year. She knew there was a war somewhere, and she had watched the comings and goings of the men without much interest. She had little cause to care about these things. She lived in the forest and took care of herself, and she asked protection from no one. They called her a weirwoman, when she heard them speak of her.

She did not remember her mother very well, she only knew they had always lived in the same small house made of branches and logs and thatch up against the side of the hill, sheltered in the small cave cut into the side of it. Her mother had died ten years ago, and Arethu had been on her own since then. She did not know properly how old she was, but she thought she was perhaps twenty years. It did not really matter to her. What mattered were the seasons, and the sun, and the ways of the forest that she knew very well.

In spring she hunted deer with her bow and arrow, with slight javelins for throwing and her long knife for finishing the kill. She dug roots and gathered berries and fished in the streams and pools. In summer she hunted bird’s nests and gathered their eggs, and in autumn she hunted fat rabbits and smoked their meat for the long winters. She knew the best places to find things, and she knew paths that the men who lived in the hall could not even see.

Sometimes she saw them, walking the trails and hunting for stag, or coming to cut wood for their fires. They did not see her, but she sometimes heard them talk about her. She was like a forest spirit to them, and it amused her to know they feared her as if she were a small goddess. Sometimes they even left offerings for her, and that was amusing as well. If they left food or flowers she was glad of them. Once one had left her a knife, which she prized, and one had left her a golden spear-shape on a leather thong, and she sometimes wore it around her neck.

Once in a while a goat or a sheep would wander into the hills, lost, and she would collect it and tie it to a tree and wait to see if anyone came to look for it. If no one did, she took it as a gift and ate it, and that was something she did not have to hunt. She wondered if they thought she stole from them.

Conan and the Sorcerer

So the book publishers in the 70s began to have a problem with Robert E. Howard – he was dead, and while dead authors don’t need to be paid, they can’t write any more books. Ever since the Lancer editions of Howard’s stories had become hits in the 60s the publishers had put virtually everything he had ever written into print in one form or another, and many of them had been printed over and over. There was a tremendous hunger for more material starring his most popular hero, Conan, to the point where authors like Carter and de Camp had been contracted to re-edit non-Conan Howard stories into Conan tales by replacing names and switching the settings.

But that can only go on so long, and so the next idea was straight-up pastiche. There was precedent for this, as some James Bond works had been written after original author Ian Fleming’s death, but it was still a bit of a gamble. Lancer had gone out of business in 1977, but Ace books stepped in and took over the lucrative series, and they started off by producing what are sometimes called the Maroto Editions, because the first four books of the series were illustrated in fine fashion by Esteban Maroto, making for rather lavish presentation, especially if you can find one of the trade printings done by Sunridge Press.

The writer tapped for the first all-new book was the prolific Andrew J. Offutt – and I have to wonder if the reason he was hired was because they were on a tight deadline. Offutt was a quick, versatile writer, but tightly-plotted action was not really his strength. In 1978 Conan and the Sorcerer was published, and a new fantasy tradition was born – the Conan pastiche.

It is not really a very good book. It’s short, at just over 50,000 words, yet it does not cram in half as much action as Howard used to fit in half the space. The action takes up just after the much-superior “Tower of the Elephant”, following a teenaged Conan on a further adventure in theft and wizardry. He sneaks into a sorcerer’s house, has the treasure he is after stolen from under him by the beautiful thief Isparana, and then he gets caught rather ignominiously by the titular sorcerer, Hisarr Zul.

The wizard steals Conan’s soul and traps it in a mirror, and says he can only get it back by returning the amulet that was stolen – the Eye of Erlik. Thus, Conan heads off, intercepts Isparana at an oasis, gets the amulet back, kills the wizard, and rides off into the sunset. That’s pretty much it. If this were a 10,000 words story it would be fine, but the extremely scanty plot really makes the book feel slight.

Furthermore, Offutt is not really that comfortable with violence, and his action scenes are pretty flat and uninteresting. He spends as much time detailing Conan spying on Isparana while she bathes as he does detailing any of the fight scenes, none of which are really integral to the story. Conan encounters and dispatches robbers, slavers, and other such nonentities, and none of it is more than a distraction from the central plot.

The real highlight of the book are the fantastic pen and ink illustrations by Esteban Maroto. Already a stalwart of the comics business, Maroto is the one who first gave Red Sonja her trademark chainmail bikini, and while he is obviously a fan of Frank Thorne, he has his own, evocative style. I have always found his color work a bit overdone, but his line work is absolutely first-rate. He evokes the Hyborean Age with strong blacks and bold pen strokes, as well as a flair for exotic, eye-catching detail. That many of these illustrations were re-used again and again for later editions of Conan stories says just how amazing they are, and they are worth the price of the book in themselves.

I just wish the actual book was half as exotic and exciting as the illustrations made it seem like it should be. Offutt’s prose is an awkward imitation of Howard’s more elevated style at best, and much of it is just tedious. He does not characterize Conan as the surly, violent rogue we all know, and he is far too agreeable and talkative. Hisarr Zul is just another cookie-cutter evil wizard in a long line of them, and the story lacks any of the drama and sweep the illustrations hint at. Conan and the Sorcerer is breezy and short, but it doesn’t feel like much of a Conan story.

Those Who Haunt the Outer Dark

The halls of the kings of Hadrad burned behind them, and Ranne led his men north along the coastland, seeking out holds and holts to put to the sword. Hror had taken his army back to the sea, to return them to their homes. In answer for his failure in the attack, Ranne was to remain and ravage along the coast, so that none would forget the displeasure of the new king.

He had a hundred men, most of them survivors of the hard winter locked in the bitter ice, some new men who had been left behind as punishment. They would not return with the rest of the victorious army, not feast and drink and be given gifts as heroes. Here they would hunt through the wilderness for stragglers and deserters, butcher stolen cattle, and burn the hovels of farmers and herdsmen. What plunder they took would be heaped before Hror’s throne in Irongard, and they would not keep the least part of it.

So it was a bitter hundred who marched along the stony shore, their ships following them by sea, carrying the supplies and the thin treasure they found. They gathered the heads of the slaughtered and stripped their flesh, seared them in fires until they split and lay black and hollow. They put them in baskets and counted them, for when each man had three skulls to his name they could turn their ships for home.

They marched spread out in a line, hunting through the fields and heaths, frightening game from thickets and gathering in sheep and goats. They combed through the countryside, seeking whatever there was to find. They took what they wanted and burned the rest. They were to blight this land so Hadrad would never dare rise against them.