A GREAT BLACK SHADOW lay across the land, cleaving the red flame of the red sunset. To the man who toiled up the jungle trail it loomed like a symbol of death and horror, a menace brooding and terrible, like the shadow of a stealthy assassin flung upon some candle-lit wall.

This is the opening of Robert E. Howard’s The Moon of Skulls, a Solomon Kane story published in the June-July 1930 issue of Weird Tales.
You can find an e-text of the story here thanks to the good people of the Project Gutenberg of Australia. Like most Solomon Kane stories, it’s a nice piece of storytelling, and a testament to Howard’s prowess with a words. Continue reading →