The Bantam Conan Series: Legions of the Dead

by Gary Romeo

Conan the Swordsman was the first book in the Bantam Conan series. It was originally published in August 1978 and has been reprinted several times by Bantam, Ace, and Tor Books. It featured an introduction, 7 short stories, and a scholarly article. The first story was “Legions of the Dead” by Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp.

I didn’t buy these books right away back in 1978. I was in my 20s and attending Wayne State University (in Detroit, Michigan) and was swamped in schoolwork and reading what others call “grown-up” fiction. It took almost 30 years before I purchased these books and read them.

Part of my hesitation may have been my memory of Conan of Aquilonia. The four stories that made up that book were decidedly a letdown. It was the weakest book of the classic Lancer/Ace Conan series. Conan the Swordsman despite its fill in the blanks scattershot stories is pretty good. The first story “Legions of the Dead” takes place before the events in the classic “The Thing in the Crypt.”

Artist Tim Kirk provided a new Hyborian Age map as well as spot illustrations throughout the book. The introduction by de Camp is the usual “fiction of this gene is pure entertainment.” He praises Conan and Robert E. Howard. He mentions REH’s other genres and states ” […] Howard is always fun to read.” He continues and says: “[REH and Tolkien created] a tremendous upsurge of interest in fantasy.” The conclusion tells of his involvement in continuing the stories and gives the reader background information on the character.

After setting the stage, the story begins in the middle of a deer hunt. Conan and an older man, Njal, have killed their meal for the day. The writing has a serious tone throughout the story. Carter’s humorous characters and oath swearing sidekicks are nowhere to be found. Conan is described as “tall and brawny for his age – almost as tall as the full-grown Northman beside him – but lean and wiry rather than massive.” Njal is a tall blond chief of the Aesir.

Conan and Njal’s crew are on the Hyperborean border, near the castle of Haloga. Hyperboreans are known slavers and have captured Njal’s daughter, Rann. Conan decides to try to rescue Rann on his own. The castle is full of Hyperborean witchmen and their queen, Vammatar the Cruel. “[She] stood on the parapet fair as the morning, with long bright hair and full breasts, which curved sweetly beneath her heavy white robes. A lazy, languorous smile parted her full red lips. The men who attended her were true Hyperboreans, unearthly in their gaunt, long-legged stature, with pale blue eyes and skeins of colorless silken hair.”

De Camp and Carter have come up for criticism for changing Hyperboreans from just another set of Northern barbarians into a scary looking race. Personally, that doesn’t bother me. Fantasy worlds with non-human looking creatures are popular. The Hyperborean witchmen are mostly human and do not “jump the shark” as do the satyrs we’ll encounter in Conan the Liberator later in the series.

Suffice to say, Conan does rescue Rann. But things do not go exactly according to plan. The Hyperborean witchmen use necromancy to resurrect dead Aesir warriors and Njal and Conan must face their dead comrades in battle. Conan is captured and the story concludes with Rann surviving and reaching Asgard remembering a poem of her people: “You can cut us down, we can bleed and die, But men of the North are we: You can chain our flesh; you can blind our eye; You can break us under the sky, But our hearts are proud and free!”

This was a good story to reintroduce us to continuing Conan prose adventures. De Camp and Carter got back on track emulating REH’s realistic (albeit weird horror) settings and sometimes pessimistic endings. I welcomed this story of young Conan.

“Legions of the Dead” was adapted to comics in The Savage Sword of Conan #39. Great cover by Earl Norem and interior art by Sal Buscema. Featured below is the cover, title page, and illustrations of Hyperboreans and Queen Vammatar. Enjoy!