Young Thongor. Lin Carter

lightning flashed—drums of thunder crashed—

      a rain of fire fell

      To sweep the last of the Dragon Kings down

      to the smoking pits of hell!

      10.

      But the Lord of the Dragons was old and wise

      and a mighty mage was he.

      He loosed a bolt of flaming death—

      his warriors laughed to see

      The Star Sword broke in Thungarth’s hand!

      and now what hope for Men?

      The scaly might of the hissing horde,

      they were upon him then…

      11.

      But he beat them back with the broken blade,

      there, caught in the roaring tide.

      And one by one they fell before

      young Thungarth in his pride.

      But the Dragon Lord, with a great black spear,

      he drove them forth once more,

      They closed again with Thungarth there

      while the wild waves ran with gore.

      12.

      Yet once again he beat them back

      with a fragment of the Sword;

      They broke and fell before him then,

      and he faced their mighty Lord.

      The great black spear was sharp and long,

      his Sword but a shard of steel;

      The Dragon Lord was fresh and strong,

      but Thungarth would not yield.

      13.

      He battled there with the broken blade,

      half-drowned in the roaring tide;

      The great black spear drank deep as it sank

      in Thungarth’s naked side.

      But ere the Son of Jaidor fell,

      or ere his strength could wane,

      The Broken Sword of Nemedis

      had clove the Dragon’s brain.

      14.

      Thunder rolled in the crimson sky.

      the War Maids rode the storm

      To bear the soul of Thungarth home

      to the Halls of Father Gorm.

      The Age of the Dragon ended there

      where the seas with scarlet ran:

      Though the cost was high, the prize was great,

      and the Age of Men began.

      INTRO TO BLACK HAWK

       OF VALKARTH

      It is almost five thousand years since the Thousand-Year War was fought between Man and Dragon Kings, when the reptiles, long time rulers of Lemuria, were vanquished at the culminating battle at Grimstrand Firth. It is a new age, a time of growth, of savage kingdoms, yet beset by turmoil, a world ripe for adventure, conquest and the winning of fabulous fortunes. A hard world for a boy scarce turned fifteen.

      It is the year 6997 of the Kingdoms of Man…

      BLACK HAWK

       OF VALKARTH

      1

      Blood on the Snow

      The flames of sunset died to glowing coals in the crimson west. Slowly, the brooding skies darkened overhead, and the first few stars glared down upon a scene of terrible carnage.

      It was a great valley in the land of Valkarth in the Northlands, beyond the Mountains of Mommur, where the cold black waves of Zharanga Tethrabaal the Great Northern Ocean lashed a bleak and rock-strewn coast.

      Although it was late spring, snow lay thick upon the valley. It was trampled and torn, and here and there bestrewn with motionless black shapes. These were the bodies of men and women and children, clad in furs and leather harness, clasping broken weapons in stiff, dead hands. In their hundreds they lay sprawled and scattered amid the trampled snow, and against its dirty grey their blood was crimson.

      The battle had begun at the birth of the day and with day’s end it, too, had ended. All the long, weary day the warriors and hunters and chieftains of the Black Hawk nation had stood knee-deep in the snows and fought with iron blade and wooden club and stone axe against the enemies that had crept upon them in the night. One by one they had fallen, and now no single man lived or moved upon the gore-drenched snows of Valkarth. They had not died easily, but they had died; and very many of their foes lay beside them in the black sleep of death.

      The valley was like a charnel-pit. And the stars looked down, wonderingly.

      They had been a mighty people. The men were tall, strong-thewed, with thick black manes and virile, golden eyes. The women were deep-breasted, their unshorn hair worn in heavy braids, their strong white bodies clad in belted furs against the bite of wintry winds. They had fought beside their men, the women of the Black Hawk clan, or back-to-back, and they, too, had heaped their dead before them. In the end they had gone down fighting; and their young, too, children scarce old enough to walk, had died with bloody knives clenched in their small fists.

      Life in the bleak Northlands of Lost Lemuria was one unend ing struggle against grim Nature, ferocious beasts, and no less savage men. The weaklings and the cowards died young: this nation had been strong, and it had died hard; but in the end it had died.

      By one great rock a tall and stalwart warrior had taken his last stand. He had set his back against that rock and with his great sword he had hewn and hewn until the snowy slope before him was buried beneath the corpses of those who had come up against him. They had cut him down with arrows at the last, no longer daring to come within the reach of that terrible blade; at that, it had taken five arrows to kill him. He lay now with his broad shoulders still flat against the rock, his square-jawed face grim in death as in life, snow and blood daubed on his thick grey mane and beard. The wife of his youth lay beside him, a bear-spear still held in her cold hands, her head resting lightly against his shoulder. They had cut her down with an axe, and two of her tall sons and her young daughter lay near.

      The name of the dead warrior had been Thumithar; he had been a chieftain of the clan, of direct descent in the male line from the hero Valkh—Valkh the Black Hawk, Valkh of Nemedis, the seventh of the sons of Thungarth of the first Kingdoms of Man. The war bards of the tribe, the old, fierce-eyed sagamen, told it had been Valkh who had founded the Black Hawk nation in time’s grey dawn. And the great broadsword that lay still clasped in the dead fingers of Thumithar was none other than Sarkozan itself, the very Sword of Valkh.

      He had been a wise chieftain, had Thumithar, just and strong. And a great war-leader, and a mighty hunter.

      He would hunt no more, would Thumithar, with his tall sons at his side.

      * * * *

      In that grim panorama of death, one indeed yet lived. He was a scrawny boy, scarce fifteen, naked save for a ragged clout and a cloak of furs slung about bare shoulders. They were broad, those shoulders, but stooped with weariness now, and they bore a burden of sorrow, heavy for one so young to bear.

      Blood was bright on the brown hide of his deep chest, and some of it was the blood of the foemen he had fought and slain, but much of it was his own. He limped through the bloody snow, dragging one foot behind him, and, now and again, he paused to look at this dead face and that one. He knew many of them, the dead faces; but he did not find the one he was looking for.

      At last he came up to the place where the grey-maned warrior had taken his last stand, and the limping boy