Black Gate

 

In the grand tradition of the heroic fantasy pulps comes “The Weird of Ironspell” — a serialized novella of original Sword-and-Sorcery adventure coming to you over the next few weeks. Catch a new self-contained chapter every Wednesday right here at blackgate.com. The saga continues…

 

 “The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman 

 

2. The Moon God’s Bride

They marched out of the wasteland, where the bones of dead cities lay smothered beneath a sea of black sand.

Their captain was tall and broad of shoulder, his dark hair flapping like ravens’ wings about his wolfish face. The hilt of a silver sword gleamed on his back. The other three were strangelings, two with tapered ears and jewel-bright eyes, the third a grizzled gnome with a face like twisted oak. They had survived the death-worshippers of the waste, the leagues of killing sand, the murderous winds, and the terrible things that slumbered beneath the ruined temples. The scars of battle shone upon their arms and chests like tarnished jewels. 

The quiet folk of Omzir greeted them with suspicion, as all things are met that crawl out of the desert. Yet when the townsfolk saw their gold and silver coins of ancient mint, they welcomed the travelers like old relatives. Ragged children followed them through the dusty streets like famished dogs.

The captain’s name was Ironspell. He asked for wine and roasted meat. Dranba, the keeper of the town’s only drinking house, offered plenty of wine to earn their gold, but explained that water and food were scarce. He spoke the western dialect since he had once traveled with caravans, so he translated for Ironspell and the strangelings. Jealous townsfolk labeled him a slave to foreign dogs, but Dranba did not care, for in only a few days Ironspell’s generosity made him the richest man in Omzir.

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“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

1. Born of Stone

The child would never know its father. 

In the amber glow of their hearth fires, villagers traded whispers about its mother. The witch had come out of the forest heavy with child. Some said she dallied with a demon, or a wood-spirit, but the witch never revealed her secret paramour. She gave birth in the light of a silver moon, while wolves howled like ghosts among the hills. 

As the child grew, its mother worked like a man at her anvil, forging a blade for her son. She smelted a strange, gleaming metal from the heart of a stone that had fallen from the sky while she was in labor. The village elders said she must be weaving a great spell, and her hammer rang across the village like a doomful bell. In the space of a month she had finished the sword. She christened it with several drops of her own blood, which flowed down the blade’s length and sank into the metal, taking on the shapes of crimson runes. 

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