Del Rey
trade paper, 317 p., $17
This is another of the brief tale, although unlike the previous one, "The Striking of the Gong," Kull isn't featured in this one but merely mentioned. This is a minor story in the Kull canon, and upon close examination it's easy to see why.
Howard opens the story with an unnamed youth bowing before an altar of a scorpion and imploring the scorpion to save him and the girl he loves, also never given a name, from the evil priest Guron. Guron isn't a priest of the Scorpion God but rather the Black Shadow. Guron and his priests are sacking the city, something else that doesn't have a name. Guron plans to sacrifice the pair on an altar to the Black Shadow. From what Howard tells us, the cult of the Black Shadow practices human sacrifice.
