On a secret mission through the wild forests of ancient Cornwall, proud Briton Cororuc finds himself in a land that grows stranger with every step. In an eerie, seemingly deserted wood, he witnesses a baffling struggle between a wolf and a panther, then follows the vanishing beast's trail into a hidden realm where no ordinary laws seem to apply. His curiosity leads him straight into the lair of Buruc the Cruel, a notorious bandit chief, and battle erupts. Cororuc kills Buruc and one of his...

Driven by a relentless quest, Solomon Kane climbs a treacherous jungle cliff into the haunted heights above the jungle, where every shadow seems to watch and every step invites death. A corpse nailed upright as a warning, a hidden chief, and a betrayal at a natural bridge only deepen the sense of dread as Kane fights his way toward the forbidden land of Negari, a realm whispered to be guarded by ancient evil. After a brutal fall into a moonlit chasm, he survives a serpent attack, breaks th...

When Falred agrees to sit up with the body of the reclusive Adam Farrel, he expects a long, grim night—not a descent into terror. Alone in the darkening house with the corpse, he reads by fading light, but the silence, the encroaching night, and a sudden stirring of the sheet over the dead man's face awaken a primal fear of death. As the hours pass, Falred's unease becomes obsession. His imagination turns the body into something conscious and threatening, and even his attempts to dismiss h...

In the blistering wastes of the East, American adventurer Steve Clarney and his fierce Afghan companion Yar Ali are pinned down by hostile horsemen with little water, little ammunition, and almost no hope. Their desperate stand is bound to a rumor of a lost black city and a blazing jewel—the Fire of Asshurbanipal—said to have been taken from an ancient throne and shadowed by curse, murder, and horror. Driven across Persia and Arabia by half-believed legends, they lose their camels, run low...

Cormac of Connacht enters a grim sacred grove and finds the Pictish world at war with itself and with Rome. There he meets Bran Mak Morn, a king trying to forge unity from divided clans, while priests, omens, and brutal rites reveal a people both savage and burdened by the memory of a greater past. Around them gather Britons, Gaels, and Northmen, each proud, armed, and unreliable, and the coming battle depends as much on loyalty as on steel. When the Northmen refuse to fight without a king...

This volume assembles no less than 40 stories set in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Ranging from Lovecraft's own tales (including classics such as the novel At the Mountains of Madness, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "The Colour Out of Space") to works by his friends and contemporaries (Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, and Robert Bloch), to later followers (Henry Kuttner, Lin Carter, Brian McNaughton), and contemporary afficianados (Brian Stableford, Mark McLau...

In the swamp-shadowed backcountry of Canaan, Kirby Buckner is driven by warning, fear, and a growing sense that the land itself is turning against him. A cryptic message sends him racing home through pine woods, black river country, and creek-bottom darkness, where a beautiful, mocking quadroon woman emerges from the shadows and lures him into a deadly trap. Ambushed by armed men, Kirby fights his way out, only to learn that Ridge Jackson has been murdered and that something larger is stir...

Kirby Garfield rides alone through the black pinewoods of Egypt to warn the reclusive Richard Brent that escaped killer Tope Braxton may be near, but the forest already feels wrong. A wounded man staggers from the shadows with tales of a white attacker who ripped him apart like an animal, and Kirby is soon struck himself by a silent assailant whose violence seems too savage for any ordinary man. Pressing on through the darkness, he catches eerie glows in the trees and reaches Brent's cabin...

In a rough seaside village ruled by swaggering sailor John Kulrek and his cringing accomplice Lie-lip Canool, fear and violence are the law. When Kulrek seduces and ruins a young woman from Moll Farrell's household, the girl is found dead on the shore, and the old woman's fierce curse rises against him with the force of the sea itself. Her vigil turns the village colder and stranger, as if nature has joined her in demanding vengeance. When Canool returns alone, evasive and haunted, the moo...

Solomon Kane will not be turned aside, even when a terrified youth warns him that the moor road to Torkertown is haunted by a deadly unseen horror. Choosing the lonely swamp at dusk, he rides into a night of whispering laughter, hunting cries, and rising dread, where courage becomes the only defense against the unknown. When Kane reaches the source of the terror, he finds a mutilated victim dying at his feet and a monstrous presence emerging from the mist: a shifting demon with blazing eye...

Seeking shelter in a lonely Black Forest tavern marked by a cleft skull, Solomon Kane and the dazzling Gaston l'Armon sense at once that something is wrong. The silent inn, its grim host, and a hidden chamber of bloodstains and chained bones draw them into a night of mounting dread, where betrayal lurks behind every shadow and murder seems only the beginning. Kane soon realizes the tavern has served as a place of killing, but before he can act, l'Armon reveals himself as the notorious band...

John Conrad's midnight visit to Kirowan brings news of a death so dreadful it feels like the beginning of a curse: John Grimlan, a man feared for his cruelty and occult obsessions, has died in terrible agony. Grimlan's life was steeped in forbidden knowledge, from devil-worship and voodoo to darker mysteries that seemed to push beyond human sanity, and even his final moments were filled with terror at horrors no ordinary mind should face. As Conrad recounts their uneasy friendship and his ...