Cover image for Ablaze’s comic edition of Beyond the Black River.

I recently discovered that there are a number of works by Robert E. Howard available for free on Gutenberg. On my recent trip to Spain to see the eclipse I read Beyond the Black River for the first time.

I have read a number of Conan stories before and would consider them a problematic fave – brilliant story and atmosphere with a mythic feel, but sexism and racism abound. So I was surprised by the novella’s take on the colonialist endeavour:

‘The best land near Thunder River is already taken,’ grunted the slayer. ‘Plenty of good land between Scalp Creek—you crossed it a few miles back—and the fort, but that’s getting too devilish close to the river. The Picts steal over to burn and murder—as that one did. They don’t always come singly.

‘Some day they’ll try to sweep the settlers out of Conajohara. And they may succeed—probably will succeed. This colonization business is mad, anyway. There’s plenty of good land east of the Bossonian marches. If the Aquilonians would cut up some of the big estates of their barons, and plant wheat where now only deer are hunted, they wouldn’t have to cross the border and take the land of the Picts away from them.’

‘That’s queer talk from a man in the service of the Governor of Conajohara,’ objected Balthus.

‘It’s nothing to me,’ the other retorted. ‘I’m a mercenary. I sell my sword to the highest bidder.’

This story reminds me strongly of B2: The Keep on Borderlands: a fort set up on the “frontier”, with “savage natives” that need to be pacified to ensure the fort and its people’s survival. Conan is the mercenary adventurer who values his coin-purse over his morals.

The novella is less repugnant than a straight reading of Gygax’s module: in Howard’s story the displaced native folk are massing for war to take back their land. It makes us a little more sympathetic to Conan who is protecting the settlers, as opposed to a party in B2 who are just committing genocide in the Caves of Chaos.

On the topic of those “savage natives”, I found this quote intriguing too:

‘The demon isn’t going to get Tiberias’ head if I can help it,’ he growled. ‘We’ll carry the body into the fort. It isn’t more than three miles. I never liked the fat fool, but we can’t have Pictish devils making so cursed free with white men’s heads.’

The Picts were a white race, though swarthy, but the border men never spoke of them as such.

For my own table, I would prefer a more nuanced scenario, where the players are not aligned with a side so plainly in the wrong. But the novella certainly paints a dynamic situation where player characters can be important:

‘Conan, more depends on you than you realize. You know the weakness of this province—a slender wedge thrust into the untamed wilderness. You know that the lives of all the people west of the marches depend on this fort. Were it to fall, red axes would be splintering the gates of Velitrium before a horseman could cross the marches. His majesty, or his majesty’s advisers, have ignored my plea that more troops be sent to hold the frontier. They know nothing of border conditions, and are averse to expending any more money in this direction. The fate of the frontier depends upon the men who now hold it.

‘You know that most of the army which conquered Conajohara has been withdrawn. You know the force left me is inadequate, especially since that devil Zogar Sag managed to poison our water supply, and forty men died in one day. Many of the others are sick, or have been bitten by serpents or mauled by wild beasts which seem to swarm in increasing numbers in the vicinity of the fort. The soldiers believe Zogar’s boast that he could summon the forest beasts to slay his enemies.

‘I have three hundred pikemen, four hundred Bossonian archers, and perhaps fifty men who, like yourself, are skilled in woodcraft. They are worth ten times their number of soldiers, but there are so few of them. Frankly, Conan, my situation is becoming precarious… Conan, Zogar Sag must die, if we are to hold Conajohara. You have penetrated the unknown deeper than any other man in the fort; you know where Gwawela stands, and something of the forest trails across the river. Will you take a band of men tonight and endeavour to kill or capture him?’