Publisher's Synopsis
Rumors drifted up through the meadowlands, into the cities of the Hyborians. The wordran along the caravans, the long camel trains plodding through the sands, herded by lean, hawk-eyed men in white kaftans. It was passed on by the hook-nosed herdsmen of thegrasslands, from the dwellers in tents to the dwellers in the squat stone cities where kingswith curled blue-black beards worshipped round-bellied gods with curious rites. The wordpassed up through the fringe of hills where gaunt tribesmen took toll of the caravans. Therumors came into the fertile uplands where stately cities rose above blue lakes and rivers: the rumors marched along the broad white roads thronged with ox-wains, with lowingherds, with rich merchants, knights in steel, archers and priests.They were rumors from the desert that lies east of Stygia, far south of the Kothian hills. Anew prophet had risen among the nomads. Men spoke of tribal war, of a gathering ofvultures in the southeast, and a terrible leader who led his swiftly increasing hordes tovictory. The Stygians, ever a menace to the northern nations, were apparently notconnected with this movement; for they were massing armies on their eastern borders andtheir priests were making magic to fight that of the desert sorcerer, whom men calledNatohk, the Veiled One; for his features were always masked.But the tide swept northwestward, and the blue-bearded kings died before the altars oftheir pot-bellied gods, and their squat-walled cities were drenched in blood. Men said thatthe uplands of the Hyborians were the goal of Natohk and his chanting votaries.Raids from the desert were not uncommon, but this latest movement seemed to promisemore than a raid. Rumor said Natohk had welded thirty nomadic tribes and fifteen citiesinto his following, and that a rebellious Stygian prince had joined him. This latter lent theaffair an aspect of real wa