The Daughter of Erlik Khan
()
About this ebook
Read more from Robert E. Howard
Dead Men Tell No Tales - 60+ Pirate Novels, Treasure-Hunt Tales & Sea Adventure Classics: Blackbeard, Captain Blood, Facing the Flag, Treasure Island, The Gold-Bug, Captain Singleton, Swords of Red Brotherhood, Under the Waves, The Ways of the Buccaneers... Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Complete Works of Robert E. Howard (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Conan Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Start Conan the Barbarian Super Pack Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Adventures of Solomon Kane Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRed Nails: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cthulhu Mythos MEGAPACK®: 40 Modern and Classic Lovecraftian Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Occult Detective Megapack: 29 Classic Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Stories: 120+ Authors, 250+ Magical Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Horror Megapack: 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tales of Cthulhu Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Weird Fiction MEGAPACK ®: 25 Stories from Weird Tales Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Adventure MEGAPACK ®: 25 Classic Adventure Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wildside Book of Fantasy: 20 Great Tales of Fantasy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShadow Kingdoms: The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Vol. 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Robert E. Howard Western Super Pack Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Daughter of Erlik Khan
Related ebooks
The Daughter of Erlik Khan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of El Borak Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Valley of Iskander Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arabian Nights Entertainments: “In literature, as in love, one can only speak for himself” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Saliva Tree: And Other Strange Growths Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Guardian of the Sword: Avantir, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Flaming Jewel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arabian Nights Entertainments - Illustrated by H. J. Ford Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Trail: "With deliberation the outlaw shook the dice in his huge fist, and rattled them out upon the stone." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS Complete Edition: 32 Eastern children's stories including 65 pen and ink illustrations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Argosy Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKept: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Rock - A Tale of the Selkirks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJerry of the Islands Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The People of the River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHel’S Storm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Orange Fairy Book: “For, as I told you, Good deeds bear their own fruit!” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSon of the White Wolf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frank Forester: A Story of the Dardanelles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Famous Frontiersmen and Heroes of the Border: Their Adventurous Lives and Stirring Experiences in Pioneer Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Desperate Chance; Or, The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, a Thrilling Narrative Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Worm Ouroboros (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jerry Of The Islands: “Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel. ” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Colonel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Arabian Nights Entertainments (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi Complete Works of E. W. Hornung (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Western Fiction For You
The Son Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A River Runs through It and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dancing at Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Man's Walk: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer Joe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bannon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Caroline: Little House, Revisited Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Homesman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Cowboys Ain’t Gone: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKnotted: Trails of Sin, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Searchers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Station Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boone's Lick: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strong Land: A Western Sextet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5California Gold: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Ringer: A Western Trio Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lone Star Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Buffalo Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Folly and Glory: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Raylan Goes to Detroit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anything for Billy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Brave, Young, and Handsome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rider of Lost Creek: A Western Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Texasville: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Simon the Fiddler: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home in the Valley: A Western Sextet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Orchardist: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Daughter of Erlik Khan
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Daughter of Erlik Khan - Robert E. Howard
The Daughter of Erlik Khan
by
Robert E. Howard
Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
The Daughter of Erlik Khan
Robert E. Howard
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was born in Peaster, Texas in 1906. During his youth, his family moved between a variety of Texan boomtowns, and Howard – a bookish and somewhat introverted child – was steeped in the violent myths and legends of the Old South. Although he loved reading and learning, Howard developed a distinctly Texan, hardboiled outlook on the world. He became a passionate fan of boxing, taking it up at an amateur level, and from the age of nine began to write adventure tales of semi-historical bloodshed. In 1919, when Howard was thirteen, his family moved to the Central Texas hamlet of Cross Plains, where he would stay for the rest of his life.
At fifteen Howard began to read the pulp magazines of the day, and to write more seriously. The December 1922 issue of his high school newspaper featured two of his stories, ‘Golden Hope Christmas’ and ‘West is West’. In 1924 he sold his first piece – a short caveman tale titled ‘Spear and Fang’ – for $16 to the not-yet-famous Weird Tales magazine. He published with the magazine regularly over the next few years. 1929 was a breakout year for Howard, in that the 23-year-old writer began to sell to other magazines, such as Ghost Stories and Argosy, both of whom had previously sent him hundreds of rejection slips. In 1930, he began a correspondence with weird fiction master H. P. Lovecraft which ran up to his death six years later, and is regarded as one of the great correspondence cycles in all of fantasy literature.
It was partly due to Lovecraft’s encouragement that Howard created his most famous character, Conan the Cimmerian. Conan – a barbarian-turned-King during the Hyborian Age, a mythical period of some 12,000 years ago – featured in seventeen Weird Tales stories between 1933 and 1936, and is now regarded as having spawned the ‘sword and sorcery’ genre, making Howard’s influence on fantasy literature comparable to that of J. R. R. Tolkien’s. The Conan stories have since been adapted many times, most famously in the series of films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Howard was enjoying an all-time high in sales by the beginning of 1936, but he was also deeply upset by the ill health of his mother, who had fallen into a coma. On the morning of June 11, 1936, he asked an attending nurse whether she would ever recover, and the nurse replied negatively. Howard walked to his car, parked outside the family home in Cross Plains, and shot himself. He died eight hours later, aged just thirty.
Chapter I
THE TALL ENGLISHMAN, Pembroke, was scratching lines on the earth with his hunting knife, talking in a jerky tone that indicated suppressed excitement: I tell you, Ormond, that peak to the west is the one we were to look for. Here, I’ve marked a map in the dirt. This mark here represents our camp, and this one is the peak. We’ve marched north far enough. At this spot we should turn westward--
Shut up!
muttered Ormond. Rub out that map. Here comes Gordon.
Pembroke obliterated the faint lines with a quick sweep of his open hand, and as he scrambled up he managed to shuffle his feet across the spot. He and Ormond were laughing and talking easily as the third man of the expedition came up.
Gordon was shorter then his companions, but his physique did not suffer by comparison with either the rangy Pembroke or the more closely knit Ormond. He was one of those rare individuals at once lithe and compact. His strength did not give the impression of being locked up within himself as is the case with so many strong men. He moved with a flowing ease that advertised power more subtly than does mere beefy bulk.
Though he was clad much like the two Englishmen except for an Arab headdress, he fitted into the scene as they did not. He, an American, seemed almost as much a part of these rugged uplands as the wild nomads which pasture their sheep along the slopes of the Hindu Kush. There was a certitude in his level gaze, and economy of motion in his movements, that reflected kinship with the wilderness.
Pembroke and I were discussing that peak, Gordon,
said Ormond, indicating the mountain under discussion, which reared a snow cap in the clear afternoon sky beyond a range of blue hills, hazy with distance. We were wondering if it had a name.
Everything in these hills has a name,
Gordon answered. Some of them don’t appear on the maps, though. That peak is called Mount Erlik Khan. Less than a dozen white men have seen it.
Never heard of it,
was Pembroke’s comment. If we weren’t in such a hurry to find poor old Reynolds, it might be fun having a closer look at it, what?
If getting your belly ripped open can be called fun,
returned Gordon. Erlik Khan’s in Black Kirghiz country.
Kirghiz? Heathens and devil worshipers? Sacred city of Yolgan and all that rot.
No rot about the devil worship,
Gordon returned. "We’re almost on the borders of their country now. This is a sort of no man’s land here, squabbled over by the Kirghiz and Moslem nomads from farther east. We’ve been lucky not to have met any of the former. They’re an isolated branch off the main stalk which centers about Issik-kul, and they hate white men like poison.
This is the closest point we approach their country. From now on, as we travel north, we’ll be swinging away from it. In another week, at most, we ought to be in the territory of the Uzbek tribe who you think captured your friend.
I hope the old boy is still alive.
Pembroke sighed.
When you engaged me as Peshawar I told you I feared it was a futile quest,
said Gordon. If that tribe did capture your friend, the chances are all against his being still alive. I’m just warning you, so you won’t be too disappointed if we don’t find him.
We appreciate that, old man,
returned Ormond. We knew no one but you could get us there with our heads still on our bally shoulders.
We’re not there yet,
remarked Gordon cryptically, shifting his rifle under his arm. I saw hangel sign before we went into camp, and I’m going to see if I can bag one. I may not be back before dark.
Going afoot?
inquired Pembroke.
Yes; if I get one I’ll bring back a haunch for supper.
And with no further comment Gordon strode off down the rolling slope, while the other men stared silently after him.
He seemed to melt rather than stride into the broad copse at the foot of the slope. The men turned, still unspeaking, and glanced at the servants going about their duties in the camp--four stolid Pathans and a slender Punjabi Moslem who was Gordon’s personal servant.
The camp with its faded tents and tethered horses was