Solomon Kane

Excitement and sorcery mixed with blades of steel. The mysterious stranger who appears out of nowhere to avenge injustice and defend the defenseless. Robert Howard, in this early story of his, gives us Solomon Kane; the man who walks like a leopard, wears all black and is relentless in pursuing evil doers. But he is pitted against voodoo and the superbly skillful opponent - Le Loupe - The Wolfe. Has Solomon Kane met his doom?

First published in "Weird Tales", August 1928, alternatively titled "Solomon Kane". This was the first Solomon Kane story ever published. In France, Kane finds a girl attacked by a gang of brigands led by a villain known as Le Loup. As she dies in his arms, Kane determines to avenge her death, and the trail leads from France to Africa, ending with Kane's first meeting with N'Longa.

Solomon Kane was heading to Torkertown and had two routes to choose from a direct route across a moor, or a long tedious route through the swamps. Ignoring the warning of the villagers that he had just left behind, he decides that he will take the direct route across the moor. A young man of the village, seeing that Kane is heading towards the moor, rushes to beg him to please take the swamp route the next day instead of venturing through the moor at night.

Follow the grim and righteous Solomon Kane as he uncovers dark secrets, ancient revenge, and spectral justice deep within a cursed forest. When a fellow traveler harbors deadly intentions and a tortured spirit longs for vengeance, the night spirals into blood, betrayal, and bone-rattling terror.

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American writer of weird tales and horror fiction. Rattle of Bones is a tale featuring one of Howard's most popular heroes, the stalwart English puritan, Solomon Kane. In this tale Kane meets another traveller while journeying through the Black Forest, and the two arrive at a sinister, lonely inn, which bears the sign of a cleft skull. In the course of the night, the two uncover the terrible and macabre secret of the tavern....