by Gary Romeo
“By This Axe I Rule!” was rejected by the pulp magazines Argosy and Adventure. There are no weird elements in this story. When Robert E. Howard rewrote the story and it was published as “The Phoenix on the Sword” in the December 1932 issue of Weird Tales he not only added weird sorcery, he changed the lead characters and introduced the world to Conan the Cimmerian. “By This Axe I Rule!” was first published in King Kull, Lancer Books, 1967.
There are some textual differences between the Lancer and Del Rey versions. At one point Glenn Lord corrects REH’s math. Had de Camp made this edit I’m sure Big Brother purists would be insisting that 4 + 10 = 20 and that Sprague be treated even more like Winston Smith. (More on that change below.) Besides changing the conspirator’s names (mentioned in the letter excerpt below), and adding various commas, capitalization, and hyphenation; Glenn Lord made some other changes.
Lancer: (The conspirators are renamed: Ascalante becomes Ardyon, Ridondo stays Ridondo, Volmana becomes Ducalon, Gromel becomes Enaros, Kaanuub stays Kaanuub.)
Lancer: (in the first paragraph REH originally counted down the last two of the four conspirators. Lancer removes the words: “the third” and “last”)
Lancer: “So fades the life our our enemy” (An obvious typo.)
Del Rey: “So fade the life of our enemy.”
Lancer: There was no point overlooking…
Del Rey: There was no use overlooking…
Lancer: or rather, today
Del Rey: I mean today
Lancer: courtiers
Del Rey: sentries
Lancer: whom
Del Rey: who
Lancer: sombre-looking fellow
Del Rey: somber evil looking fellow
Lancer: useless for he lacks the necessary brains
Del Rey: useless – lacking the necessary brains
Lancer: (line eliminated)
Del Rey: I am the power that has welded these men, useless without me.
Lancer: (line eliminated)
Del Rey: the old dynasty
Lancer: Kelkor
Del Rey: Kelka
This was a needed continuity change for this series.
Lancer: leonine
Del Rey: lion
Lancer: Only as a wife do I want her.
Del Rey: Only as wife I want her.
Lancer: would be a hollow mockery
Del Rey: would be hollow mockery
Lancer: by going into
Del Rey: as to go into
Lancer: me
Del Rey: us
Lancer: You, nor any other king, may alter it.
Del Rey: Neither you, nor any other king, may alter it.
Lancer: (line eliminated)
Del Rey: or any change
Lancer: (word eliminated)
Del Rey: little
Lancer: birds
Del Rey: bird
Lancer: (word eliminated)
Del Rey: shocked
Lancer: sixteen desperate outlaws
Del Rey: ten wild desperate outlaws
This was a needed change. REH had previously indicated there would be 16 outlaws to help in the coup but later mistakenly writes “ten wild desperate outlaws” instead of “sixteen” making the odds 14 to 1, not 20 to 1 as indicated in the text.
Lancer: (adds a line not in the original) In this extremity, Ardyon’s cynical philosophy did not escape him.
Lancer: “He did not leave until it was late in the evening, and only then did Ala find a chance to steal away and come to me.”
Del Rey: “He did not leave until it was late, and then Ala stole away and came to me.”
Lancer: rule
Del Rey: king it
Except for the 10 vs. 16 men and changing Kelka to Kelkor none of these changes were really needed. But editors edit to the way they think best. At that point in time REH was not held in the awe (by zealot fans) that he is today. I’m glad we eventually got pure-text but the edits of de Camp and Glenn Lord, at this stage, were certainly understandable and hardly remain grudge-worthy.
Marvel Comics adapted the story in Kull the Destroyer #11. Writer Roy Thomas completely changes the finale, turning the conspirator Ardyon into a disguised Thulsa Doom. Thulsa Doom wins in the end and Kull is imprisoned. (Kull regains the throne in Kull the Destroyer #29.)
The story starts by introducing the coup conspirators. It is sort of surprising that none of the plotters are serpent men until you realize that REH was not going for a weird story this time out. Although set in a fantasy world there isn’t any other fantasy here.
The dialogue is poetic and mood setting. There is an “Oath of the Dagger and Flame” complete with blood-letting to seal the deal. Ascalante/Ardyon is the brains of the bunch, masterfully bribing soldiers and organizing the details.
The second chapter has Kull aware of possible impending turmoil, “I prepared myself to seize the throne, not to hold it.” Later he mentions: “And now, in the Temple of the Serpent, there come to burn incense to Borna’s memory…” Readers of “The Shadow Kingdom” might raise eyebrows reading that the Temple of the Serpent is still a thing. That the various Kull stories do not always match up with each other, as in this example, and the many examples of Kull forgetting marriage rules in Atlantis are as bad or worse than marriage laws in Valusia do detract if reading with the mindset that the collected stories are a series instead of standalone stories that REH didn’t always keep in a rigid continuity. Perhaps that unevenness is part of the reason Kull has been less successful than Conan in the marketplace.
The third chapter could almost be from a romance novel if Ala was the main character. She comes across as a delicate lovelorn character deserving of the reader and Kull’s sympathy. There is fine writing here and it could surprize those who are only familiar with the blood and thunder of Conan tales.
The final chapter is blood and thunder and definitely exciting. Readers of the previous Kull stories can appreciate this finale more than those that haven’t. In previous stories we’ve seen Kull fret about laws and somehow by story’s end he makes piecemeal progress. In this story the fed up reader and Kull get to burst out their frustration. Kull declares:
This ending is very satisfying to me in the context of the Kull series. But in real life an actual strong-armed monarch would result in there being a lot of Ridondo on my Spotify playlists.
spraguedecampfan 
Repeating some comments previously made on facebook…
Very nice! I’ve been waiting for this one, and to see what you would do with it. The issue of name changes appears a bit confusing, so it’s not surprising de Camp misremembered who made what changes when. Looks like there are three different layers; (1) changes Howard made in converting “Axe” to “Phoenix” so as not to appear to reuse characters that had already appeared in published Kull stories; (2) changes Lord made so that characters in the now-to-be-published “Axe” did not duplicate the names of characters in the already-published “Phoenix” (and, in the instance of Kelkor -> Kelka, for consistency within the Kull series); (3) de Camp’s erroneous list of changes made from “Axe” to “Phoenix,” misremembering that some had been made retrospectively to keep “Axe” from duplicating “Phoenix.
Also, amusing to be reminded that the Conan characters Pallantides and Prospero originated in the Kull characters Kelkor/Kelka and Brule, respectively (as well, of course, as Conan originating in Kull, and Numedides in Borna). And odd to note that the elite guards of Aquilonia (symbolized by the lion) are the black DRAGONS (the dragon being the symbol of Aquilonia’s foe, Nemedia).
And, finally, some nit-picks NOT brought up on facebook: (1) early in your comparisons, in pointing out a typo made in the Lancer edition (“our” instead of “of”), you appear to make a typo of your own, “fades” in the Lancer becoming “fade” in the Del Rey. (2) Late in the text, where you quote “there come to burn incense,” I suspect that “there” was supposed to be “they.” As a prolific committer of typos myself, I sympathize!
The “fades” instead of “fade” is an actual textual change, “our our” a typo. And “there come” is in both the Lancer and Del Rey. Go figure!