Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/140



, at the time of his tragic death, was working on a new novel for. He had completed a rough first draft, and nearly completed a revision which was to be his final version. The bullet which crashed into his brain prevented the author from finishing this, his last story. It is a thrilling tale of popping action, depicted as only Howard could depict action, with a bone-crushing wildcat of a hero, in the weirdest possible adventures.

So engrossing is this story, Almuric, that would not be playing fair with you, the readers, if we did not let you see it. Therefore we have pieced together the nearly completed final draft that Howard wrote, with the final pages of Howard's rough first draft, which contains a smashing denouement.

Beginning in the United States in our day, the scene quickly shifts to another planet, called by the author Almuric. From his arrival in Almuric, the hero tells the story of his weird adventures in his own words. And what adventures they are! The creator of those indomitable characters that have delighted thousands of readers of this magazine — King Kull and his Shadow Kingdom, Solomon Kane the dour Puritan righter of wrongs, Conan the barbarian adventurer — has here created the doughtiest hero of them all: Esau Cairn, also known as Esau Ironhand.

This fascinating story will begin publication in next month's

A tale of the Romans and the Druids, and the horrendous doom revealed by the flaring torchlight in a frightful underground cavern in England.

A strange and curious story about a fantastic machine that possessed a brute desire to slay—a startling thrill-tale of an eery invention.

A fascinatingly different story about a weird adventure that befell a yachting party shipwrecked in the South Seas—the strangest of all vampire tales.

Who was the stranger that walked before the Tomb and vanished, yet by his mere coming radically changed the lives of three persons?—a tale of the Unknown Soldier.