Pencils and Inks by the incomparable , colours by AI, and yours truly.

James also is due a share of the “Story by” credit. We spitballed this one in the chat for a few days. It’s going to end up a sort of illustrated novelette rather than a comic book as we first envisioned it, but I’m pleased with the first true collaboration in Public Domain Super Heroes. It’s a great tale and you’re gonna love it!

If you’re thinking, “Wait, Tarzan looks… Asian,” as you look at this, you’re not imagining things. My Tarzan is very different than the Edgar Rice Burroughs version. His parents were from China, killed in Africa when their son was only an infant.

And that’s not the only surprise in his past. This is Public Domain Super Heroes.

Nothing is what you expect.

This story will play out over at least two, possibly three parts.

I will publish each on my site, Public Domain Super Heroes over the next month or two and fully in June’s release:

Immram Mac Airt: Book One of The Odyssey of Cormac Mac Art

The art work for this volume is forthcoming from the pen and mind of

Books written, stories serialized and more, all while having to deal with a short term memory that doesn’t last even a whole day!

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The last character in my collection with enough variety of approaches to warrant a comparison article is the oldest of the lot. I toyed with the idea of a comparison article for King Arthur but honestly there isn’t nearly as much to work with there as you might imagine. Robin Hood on the other hand has been filmed and televised in a pretty wide variety of ways.

I have to admit that unlike my Zorro, Batman and Superman collections, my Robin Hood collection is not as complete as I normally strive for. I own copies of a dozen movies and four television series, but there are many, many more out there. Once I had collected the most well known Robin Hood productions, I stopped actively pursuing the collection to completion. Like Sherlock Holmes (another largely but not totally complete collection of mine) there are a huge number of small budget movies and television productions featuring the character and finding all of them is damn near impossible. The obscure stuff is often pricey as well since fewer copies were pressed on release, if the show or movie ever even had a dvd release in the first place. Still, every once in a while I stumble on a dvd that I don’t already own and can actually afford, so this list may well get an update one day, although the gaps in my collection tend to reflect those lesser productions and so don’t likely have much of “the best of” to add. Still, you never know...

Robbing from the rich, giving to the poor. Splitting arrows. Hiding in the greenwood. Unironic tights!

Who did it best? Read on!

Once again, when it comes to bringing a great Robin Hood story to life, like any action movie or show, the casting of the villains is often the make or break element. If the Sheriff of Nottingham, Guy of Gisbourne or Prince John aren’t worthy opponents, no amount of charm, adventure or lycra will make the project work.

Prince John

Of all the Prince Johns there have been, none was Prince John-ee-er than Peter Ustinov in the Disney animated version of the tale. Sure, he’s a lion but he’s a cowardly, mane-less lion who has a head two sizes too small for the crown he’s usurped. Plus, he sucks his thumb...

...and he is the ONLY Prince John I know of that has a theme song. A pretty catchy one, too.

“Too late to be known as ‘John the First’, he’s sure to be known as ‘John the Worst’...”

Guy of Gisbourne

Guy of Gisbourne isn’t the first villain you think of when you hear “Robin Hood” but he’s often the most dangerous opponent to Locksley. It’s a role regularly filled by actors who could easily play the leading man rather than the villain. The villain is usually as sauve, confident and dangerous with a sword as Robin Hood.

When it comes to sword-play, let alone confident leading man-ness, no Guy of Gisbourne can beat the late, great Basil Rathbone. If you’ve read my previous article about the Best of Zorro, you’re aware that Rathbone was at the time considered the best screen fencer in the world, so skilled that he made his screen opponents look better at the art than than they sometimes were. He could and did play leading men and it isn’t tough to imagine him in the role of Robin Hood himself.

Rathbone was an excellent foil for Flynn. (see what I did there?)

The Sheriff of Nottingham

The Sheriff is most often THE villain of the piece and has been played by a lot of notable actors over the years. Malcolm McDowell vexed the female Robin Hood (Kiera Knightly) in one version, Matthew McFadyen played him opposite Russell Crowe, Tony Robinson brought an inept schemer to the small screen and many great British character actors have portrayed him in every variant from deeply evil to cringing coward.

For all that, the best is an easy pick. I’m not a fan of much in the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood, but Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham is so wonderfully evil that he belongs in a whole different production. There’s pretty much him and then a bunch of mediocre crap that they arranged around him.

Special mention to John Finnemore’s Sheriff of Nottingham.

I did have an embed, but it has vanished. Season 3, episode 4 is what I’m referencing here. If you have a membership at BBC, you can and should have a listen.

A whole episode of John Finnemore’s Souvenir Program is ALWAYS worth a listen but the relevant skit about the Sheriff of Nottingham starts at about 14:05 with the line “Me? Oh, I’m a copper, actually.”

“Why, thank you good Sir Robin...” Four hilarious minutes in Nottingham.

The Merry Men

Once you’ve got your villains sorted out, you need to give Robin a gang of Merry Men to lead.

There have been several approaches using different line ups for the gang but the at least 2 of the core outlaws show up in most versions, often mixing in more obscure Merry Men like Alan A’Dale and Much the miller’s son.

Friar Tuck

The Friar is probably my favourite character. He’s most often under-used and little more than comic relief but he’s also a hero who isn’t cut from the traditional hero cloth. Fat, bald, middle aged men aren’t usually the first guys cast in an action movie, but it’s tough to do Robin Hood without one.

I dig a bunch of Friar Tucks from a lot of productions over the years, but Mike McShane gets the nod here for his delivery of one line in Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves.

“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about… beer!”

Will Scarlett

Will Scarlett is on of those characters we all know of but most of us would be hard pressed to name an actor that has played him. To pick the best of such an obscure lot is a task of some difficulty. So in this case, I’ll give the nod to the most persistent.

In the 1956 Richard Greene Robin Hood series, a clean shaven Paul Eddington took the role of Will Scarlett in the 4th and final season. You might recognize Eddington from his most famous role, that of Jim Hacker, first as a newly minted Minister of Parliament in Yes, Minister and then as Prime Minister James Hacker in Yes, Prime Minister.

Before he landed the role of Scarlett in the fourth season, Eddington sported a bewildering array of facial hair as he played more than 20 different roles as a guest star. Eddington played a minor Merry Man, a poacher, a variety of nobleman villains and even Jewish elder Aaron, sporting a clean shave, a dandy moustache or a full beard and every glued-on chin decoration in between, Eddington has to get the “best” Will Scarlett nod just from shear stick-to-it’ve-ness.

He even played Satan in one episode (far right), or at least a monk playing Satan in a play.

Little John

It’s a safe bet that Little John is the most well known of Robin’s Merry Men. A whole host of big, burly actors have played the outlaw with a staff of oak and a heart of gold. For me, Alan Hale who played him in the Errol Flynn version is the most memorable, mainly for his resemblance to his son, Alan Hale Jr. who played the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island. But this is a “best of”, not “most memorable” list.

In my humble opinion, Phil Harris wins this one. He’s the voice actor who played the big bear of a man as an actual bear in the Disney animated version. Harris’s Little John was stalwart, mighty and looked great in green, even if he couldn’t quite fit into a pair of tights...

And looked surprisingly good in a dress...

I do have to wonder why he wore NO pants in his regular costume but rocked the pink polka-dot underpants in the dress.

If you think he looks a bit familiar, you can be forgiven for that. He does.

Baloo from The Jungle Book left, Little John right.

It seems that Disney was the original recycler. They used the same voice actor, Phil Harris, for Baloo in the Jungle Book and his doppelganger Little John in Robin Hood. Interestingly, there’s a LOT of reused and over traced animation in Robin Hood that most folks assume was done that way to save money. That’s a VERY 21st Century way of thinking. Back in the early 70s when Robin Hood was made, there was as yet no easy way to retrace footage the way we would see later from companies like Filmation who really pioneered animation on the cheap. It turns out that reusing footage this way actually took longer and cost more at the time. They did it because they knew that these character designs and animation beats worked on film and preferred to stick to things they knew would work. Creatively un-creative...

Special mention to Mike Edmonds who plays a version of Little John in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men from the BBC. Tony Robinson created a goofy, musical version of Robin Hood where the real leader was Marian. It’s mainly aimed at the younger set and not really my cup o’ soup, but the central conceit of Marion as the brains and Robin as a foppish clothes horse is delicious.

Their version of Little John was the un-ironically named Little Ron, played with violent abandon by little person Mike Edmonds.

The Saracen

The first example I can find of adding a Saracen (or Moor) companion to Robin Hood comes from Robin of Sherwood from ITV in the mid 80s. The character was presumably added to broaden the colour palette of the Merry Men which up to then had ranged all the way from white to paler white. Given the time, it was pretty forward thinking and most every major Robin Hood production since has included an other than Caucasian friend of Robin Hood met somewhere on his travels outside England, returning with him to add some diversity to Sherwood Forest.

Morgan Freeman is the natural choice for “Best” of the Merry Men of Colour. He’s a superb actor and for most people outside Britain he is the first example of the addition of a Saracen (Moor in his case) to the band. Too bad he’s wasted in the mediocrity that is Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves.

Honestly, I have yet to see any Robin Hood except Robin of Sherwood pull off this bit of retrofitting with any great effect. It most often feels like tokenism to me since it’s so glaringly just ONE person of colour in the midst of an entirely white cast. While I applaud the intent, it seems like an impossible task to diversify a property that would have been “historically” a monochrome affair.

The television series, Merlin, faced with a similar problem of historically and traditionally all white cast in an all white “historical” property simply said “Fuck it,” and mounted their production with actors from a variety of ethnic groups. After the initial “hmmm?” factor wore off, it worked just fine for the run of the show. Likely we’ll see something similar in Robin Hood productions in the future, making this particular distinction moot.

So to name a “best of” in this role, I prefer to go a different way here. Since the character isn’t a set one, having different names in different productions, I choose to think that we’re looking to name the best non-white character in a Robin Hood production. For me, there’s only one “best” of in that category.

Worf’s Will Scarlett is NOT a Merry Man.

And it still fits my parameter because Worf had been forced to play a member of Robin Hood’s Merry Men in Q’s production and he’s quite obviously not white. So Worf, not Michael Dorn who played him, is my pick for Best non-white actor in a Robin Hood production. He’s delightful.

Interestingly, if you look a the Star Trek - Next Generation version of the Merry Men of the future, it’s probably the most diverse version of the gang ever on film, comprising three Caucasian men, one playing a golden skinned android, two women, one of whom is Greek, and two African American men, one playing a blind man and one playing a minority of one, the only Klingon in Starfleet.

Star Trek for the diversity win. Again.

Before we get to the two main characters of the mythology, a couple of special mentions.

Best music

I haven’t generally bothered delving in to the nuts and bolts side of movie and television making that is part and parcel of bringing fantasy and sci-fi characters to life. I could have cited the music from the 1977 Superman movie, the superb practical and matte sets from Tim Burton’s Batman and many more technical details in these comparison articles but for the most part that stuff doesn’t interest me enough to write about. I’m more of a big picture kind of guy.

Still, in the case of Robin Hood (and the as yet to be comparison articled Spider-Man) there’s a musical element that simply cannot be overlooked.

It’s fairly rare these days for a television or movie theme to be memorable, but back in the 60s and 70s it was practically a legal requirement. Very few themes are as catchy or as memorable as the one from Rocket Robin Hood. While the sci-fi rethink of the classic tale doesn’t generally age very well, the music remains as catchy and ear-wormy as ever.

So, that’ll be stuck in your head ALL day. You’re welcome.

And isn’t it amazing that there hasn’t been a big budget sci-fi Robin Hood movie yet? It’s such a fertile concept either for a serious or smarmy take on the character and yet no one has Flash Gordoned Robin Hood in the modern era. Pixar could make a mint on the idea.

The look and feel

When you put a property like Robin Hood into the hands of filmmakers and give them budgets that rival the GDP of a small country, you tend to get slick, beautiful, perfectly choreographed product on the screen. For me, that sometimes makes it tough to suspend my disbelief even if the movie or show is brilliantly entertaining.

Back in the 80’s, the ITV version of Robin, Robin of Sherwood, created a version of Robin that was impressive despite a relatively small budget. Interiors were dark and dingy, the way you would expect medieval homes and castles to be, the fights were brawls, rarely appearing slick or over choreographed and the whole production felt more authentic than pretty much any other before or since. The show mixed in some pagan mysticism that never felt out of place in the slightly magical Sherwood they created. The music by Clannad set a Celtic moodiness over each episode that enhanced the genuine feel of the show as well, even if it wasn’t quite Rocket Robin Hood levels of catchy.

If I had to pick one version of Robin Hood to represent the character and mythology to future generations, Robin of Sherwood would be the one. If you’ve never seen it, I strongly recommend hunting it up. It’s not as slick as some recent incarnations, nor as fun as the Errol Flynn version but for purity of spirit and execution it cannot be beaten.

The big two.

Maid Marian

In the old Robin tales, Maid Marian is often just a McGuffin for Robin to rescue and marry at the end, her only job to pine away for her man in his tights. She might get a chance to warn him of a trap laid by the Sheriff, but that’s often the extent of her contribution to the adventure.

I cannot tell you how much I hate that.

There have been more than a few Marian portrayals that bring some life and fire to the character but it is important to remember that she is a character from 12th century Britain, with all the repressive sexist baggage that goes along with that, so having her be a super-heroine isn’t terribly effective either. For my money, Judi Trott brought us the most believable, charming, strong and not to mention beautiful version of the character, ever.

Trott’s Marian starts out as a typical 12th century woman without much agency over her life, but over the course of the series she evolves into a strong, independent and capable woman. She learns to fight, shoot and even lead without the unlikely conceit that she would be a physical match for a man in a straight fight. Plus, she’s the romantic interest for two different Robin Hoods over the course of the series.

Easy enough to believe that Pixar’s Brave designers were fans...

Robin Hood

Robin Hood is the original rogue, the model for many action heroes that followed him. There have been broody, goofy, dark, silly, contemplative, bland and even female versions of the character but there’s really only one version of the hero himself that comes off as the best of the lot. Honestly, this is probably the easiest pick in the whole property.

Errol Flynn. He may not technically have been the first to play Robin but he truly is the classic.

Nobody, but NOBODY has had more fun in a pair of green tights. I cannot imagine how daunting it must be to step into the role of Robin Hood knowing that no matter how you play him you will ALWAYS find your performance compared to Flynn’s effortless, graceful, gleeful Robin of Locksley.

A new chapter will go live every Sunday at 12:00 AM EST. I will update the links on each chapter at that time to point to the next installment in the story.

There is also an index page if you lose track.

I hope you enjoy it!

CHAPTER 01

Live-fire exercises.

Bloody Bill and Wally ran the damned things every other day, and John Carter was beginning to think that it was their way of getting back at the three of them for getting the assignment that might have gone to the two senior trainers. Nothing in the brief required a three-man team, and Bill and Wally certainly had all the requisite skills.

Another shot cracked off the facing of the boulder he was hunkered down behind. This sort of exercise usually involved a trench and a bunch of muddy soldiers pissing themselves in the mud as they desperately tried to keep from getting shot in the ass crawling through it. There was almost no real danger in a standard live fire trial so long as nobody lost their head. Bill and Wally didn’t do anything standard.

Crash had already taken a shard of stone shrapnel in the cheek, the blood streaming down his face like crimson tears. Against all sense, he was grinning as he ducked back under cover, ten feet from Carter’s boulder. Rogers was nowhere in sight, but Carter knew where he should be.

The pinning fire came from two directions; Bill and Wally having taken to the trees somewhere out there in the dense forest. There wasn’t a trench to crawl through and they weren’t aiming at anyone’s ass. John Carter didn’t imagine that either of them would intentionally do the other any serious injury, but a low-caliber bullet grazing your thigh or ribcage was no joke. He would rather not test their marksmanship today.

His team was armed with special pellet guns that used compressed gas to silently fire 22-calibre glass balls filled with ink. Camp X had developed the special guns to give trainees something better than blanks to return fire with during this kind of exercise. Since the whole point was to take down snipers firing from cover, they couldn’t very well be issued real guns and ammunition, not even low caliber weapons. It’s too easy to injure or kill a man in cover with a careless shot.

The gas guns, as they were known, could fire other ammunition as well and had utility in covert operations, so it was good practice. Sadly, the ink pellets were ballistically little better than old fashioned lead shot, so the trainees had neither the range nor accuracy of conventional weapons.

That was just fine with John Carter. Close in fighting was more in keeping with his style. All three men in the squad had been chosen for just such proficiency, and three months of intensive training at Camp X, a secret facility in a nondescript rural area of Ontario, Canada had honed those skills to a razor’s edge. Bill and Wally were about to learn the meaning of the old saw, ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ Rogers should be bringing their little surprise into play right about...

Now.

With a nod, Crash Corrigan ran from cover, drawing fire. A centre fielder on his college baseball squad, Corrigan was as nimble as he was fast. He jinked and leapt, not giving Bill or Wally a straight line to draw a bead on. Shots came from cover and missed him by a margin that would have the two trainers buying the drinks at the PX tonight. Laughter followed him into cover.

The stunt had given Carter the locations of both shooters and he fired two shots into each bolt hole in rapid succession. The gas guns might not be powerful or accurate, but they had the virtue of being semi-automatic and for his purpose that was more important than scoring a hit. He just needed to keep their head down. He could hear Rogers’ little surprise, coming fast.

The mad bastard had strapped rockets to his glider and was careening through the forest at a speed Carter could hardly believe. And...dear lord. The man was doing a Tarzan yell as he weaved his way through the trunks. Buck Rogers was the only man John Carter had ever met who might actually be crazier than Crash Corrigan.

The wingtips of Rogers’ glider clipped leaves from branches at every turn, but he somehow, impossibly managed to navigate a path that took him in the perfect arc to drop two canvas sacks, one on each position Carter had marked with his shots.

Each bag had held fifty of the little ink filled glass nodules, pilfered last night from the camp armoury. Both improvised bombs found their mark, raising cries of alarm and anger from the men hidden in the brush. Rogers pulled up sharply, yanked a release and dropped lightly to the ground, rolling to bleed off the last of his momentum. The wings and the rockets he had strapped to them fell to the wet ground, a couple of pops signaled the end of the fuel in the tubes. The whole contraption caught and burned merrily, lighting up the forest and wafting an oddly pleasant aroma of woodsmoke and burning fuel to their nostrils.

Jogging through the trees, Carter reached Buck Rogers’ landing spot and offered the younger man a hand up. “You gonna put that out?” he asked, nodding to the little blaze.

“It rained last night, remember?” said Crash Corrigan, trotting up to join them. “Buck’s not gonna burn the place down.”

Carter looked at the blaze and could see it was already dying, having consumed the wood and canvas that made up most of the glider’s body. A few spars of aluminum were blackening, but the fire wasn’t spreading on the damp ground. They might be nuts, but his team was the kind of crazy that thought three steps ahead, qualities that made them perfect for the mission.

“You three are on REPORT!” called Bill, standing and wiping a giant splatter of red ink from his face. The canvas sack had dropped in front of him, blasting open and drenching him from forehead to chest. He was furious. And red.

The three trainees looked at each other, swallowing their laughter.

From the other side of the glade, Wally’s voice chimed in. “And you owe me a new hat!”

The man stood, a vision in crimson. Where Bill had taken a near miss and a splatter of ink to the face, Wally had been directly in the line of fire, the sack dropping directly on his head and spilling its entire contents over him. He looked like a man who had upturned a bucket of blood on his head.

Half a mile away, the rest of Camp X was puzzled by the sound of wild, abandoned laughter from the forest.

Chapter 02 will go live on May 10 at 12:00AM EST

If you just can’t wait to find out what happens, this story is published in three parts with my novels.

Part 1 in The Metropolis of Mongo

Part 2 in The Marine Moon of Mongo

Part 3 in The Martian Monsters of Mongo.

Collect all three!

And don’t forget, there’s ALWAYS a free story to read at my homepage,

Public Domain Super Heroes

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Author’s Note

The Metropolis of Mongo includes several public domain characters, including Buck Rogers and Wilma Deering. For those familiar with them and the stories they starred in back in 1929 when they were first introduced, some elements of this story may not fit with the details of those original tales.

That is intentional.

Like all the books set in the Public Domain Super Heroes Universe, regardless of which House they fall under, The Metropolis of Mongo is directly and indirectly connected to the rest of the stories being told in that universe. To make that work, some changes to character and/or the ‘traditional’ situations those characters find themselves in is required.

This is done with the deepest respect for these characters and the love they evoke in fans like you and me. I hope you will enjoy the reading of these new tales as much as I enjoy creating them for you.

- James Richardson

November 2025

For the child I was, and the child in all of us

who sees adventure around every corner.

CHAPTER 01

“Where are we?” Buck Rogers breathed, lowering Wilma Deering gently to the gleaming street from where she lay atop him. The impossible city loomed around them, towers tilting at mad angles, blotting out the sky.

The biggest city Buck had ever seen was Chicago. He had stolen his dad’s Buick, collected Patsy Jenkins and driven for three hours to get there. They had watched the Cubs lose to the Cardinals, eaten some incredible pizza and unable to find a cheap motel, spent the night in the Buick. He had been in awe of the massive buildings in the heart of the city and spent hours just driving around, gawking.

Every building in Chicago could have fit inside just one of the massive, sweeping edifices that towered over them. Buck didn’t know much about architecture, but just looking up at the strange angles and twisting spires gave him vertigo that no aerobatic manoeuvre ever had. His stomach lurched and he forced himself to push his eyes down to the street and Wilma.

She stirred as he gently stroked her hair. Her eyes snapped open, glaring.

“What, exactly, are you doing, Captain Rogers?” she snipped.

“Relax, colonel. Just making sure you’re all there.”

She looked over his shoulder and then up. She kept looking up and he saw the nausea start to take hold in her and said, “Look down, Wilma.” When she kept staring up, he leaned down and put his face over hers, blocking her view of the disturbing vista above them. Her view blocked, she shook it off and met his eyes.

“Thanks. I was about to...”

“I know. Happened to me too,” he said with a chuckle. “I don’t know

where we are, but I suggest we keep our heads down. Literally.”

“Agreed. And where are we?” she asked.

“Last thing I recall, we were diving into that...that machine. Then we woke up here. Wherever here is,” he said. Deliberately keeping his eyes at street level, he looked around slowly. “Or whenever.”

Wilma mimicked his careful glance around at their surroundings. Even without looking up at the impossibly huge, uncannily sloped and twisted buildings above them, what she saw at ground level defied all of her experience. The two of them had awoken under some sort of archway that reminded her of the design of the machine they had been assigned to destroy. It sat in a depression that separated it from the streets that surrounded it. There were simple stairs leading out of the shallow depression but no other features. The streets were something else altogether.

Cars, or at least vehicles, zipped by in all directions at unbelievable speeds. What was more, she could see no wheels on them. They seemed to float effortlessly above the street, screaming past one another in eerily perfect order. She gaped.

Beyond the speeding vehicles, the bases of the massive buildings were not only alight in ways she had never seen but also displayed huge, moving pictures in full, unrelenting colour despite the bright daylight that should have made projecting such images impossible.

Every surface moved.

People, animals, scrolling text in a language she didn’t recognize, and a hundred other images she couldn’t begin to describe, ripped around her, everywhere she looked. Beside her, Buck slipped his hand into hers and squeezed. “Look down, colonel,” he instructed quietly. She let his voice anchor her and did as he suggested. Her dirty boots looked comfortingly normal and she took a deep, calming breath while studying the mud and blood still wet on the leather.

“Smell that?” she asked.

Buck inhaled deeply before answering, “I don’t smell anything.”

“Exactly. Every big city I’ve ever visited had a smell.” She looked around again, quickly, then back at her boots. “Street carts, car exhaust, garbage. You can’t get away from it.” She met his eyes and added, “This place smells like...nothing.”

“What do you think it means?”

She knelt and ran a finger across the ground. It wasn’t concrete as she’d expected. She couldn’t identify the material, but it was slick and cool to the touch. And clean.

She held her finger up to him and said, “The cleaning lady must’ve just been.” She looked both of them up and down, taking in the dust, soot, mud and blood that covered both of them from head to toe. “And we’re tracking dirt all over the floor.”

Buck gave her a reassuring grin. “They can bill me.”

A shadow fell over them both. Looking up, it was almost a relief to see three figures standing in front of them, giving them something to focus on that was familiar, even if it was the muzzles of two odd-looking rifles. The two figures, leveling their weapons, looked relatively normal, if oddly dressed in some sort of moulded, shiny blue breastplates and helmets that obscured their humanity behind metallic faceplates and tinted lenses.

The third person was another matter. He, too, wore the strange shiny blue breastplate, but his helmet was distinctly different from the other two, a stylized avian beak and swooping feather-like accents etched into the cowl, reminding Wilma of pictures she had seen of Egyptian bird-gods. His clothing or armour was odd, to be sure, but his massive wings, gently pumping, appeared to be actual flesh, bone and feathers.

Astonishing.

The winged figure spoke, but what emerged from the apparently human mouth that sat below the beak of his strange helmet was of no language Wilma had ever heard or even imagined. A trained linguist, Wilma Deering had spent years in the study of language, and this man was making sounds no human ought to be able to make. She could find no reference point, no handle to grasp in his alien, trilling vocalizations.

The guns waving at them and the motions of the two holding the weapons were clear enough: Move.

Holding their hands open in surrender, Buck and Wilma obeyed.

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This is the final chapter and epilogue.

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The Gauntlet of Nabu: A Solomon Kane Tract

Chapter 7

“Solomon Kane,” intoned the voice, warm and commanding at once. “You must be my vessel. Anzu must not be loosed upon the world again.”

Though the voice could only be divine, Kane could not contain his cynicism. “Does the Lord God command me?” he asked, surprised at the derision in his voice.

“I am Nabu, God of Word, Art and Wisdom. I was of Babylon before your Christ.”

“I am the Lord, Thy God and thou shalt have no other gods before me,” recited Kane. “That is the First Commandment.”

“That you have none before Him does not preclude our existence, Solomon Kane. You have encountered elder gods before and will again. We do not require your worship, but occasionally, we do require your service.”

“And if I will not serve a pagan ‘god’?” he demanded.

“Then Anzu will sacrifice the child, destroying the vessel of Nabu, the only force which can contain his evil and chaotic essence, loosing his influence once again into the world,” answered the disembodied voice. “Anzu once stole the Tablets of Destiny, hoping to unleash chaos. Had they not been recovered, mankind would have torn itself asunder before your kind even built the first fire in the first cave. Should he escape now, the bloodshed and death would be incalculable.”

“Serving you would mean defying my Lord’s commandment. You ask me to damn my soul for eternity,” suggested Kane.

“The soul you bear is older than you imagine, Solomon Kane. It was old when the waters drank Atlantis, and it will inhabit countless warriors yet before it is touched by eternity.”

There was a long silence. Kane felt the truth of it, heavy and cold as the grave.

“Your damnation,” said the voice at last, “is this life, this battle, this moment.” A sound that might have been a chuckle followed. “Your redemption as well.”

“I believe you may be a god after all,” said Kane.

“And what has changed your mind?”

“You speak a great deal, yet say nothing.”

This time, there was no mistaking the deep, sonorous laugh.

And then, Solomon Kane was once again reaching across a rough plank table, his fingertip brushing the strangely warm metal of the urn. The metal touched him back.

It melted and slumped, flowing up his fingertip, encasing first that finger and then with a gentle, warm flow it enveloped the rest of his hand. In a trice, his hand was clad in a golden gauntlet, the gold oddly tinted with a bluish hue and the whole metal glove covered in mystic, moving runes he could hear singing resonantly in his head.

On the other side of the table, her hand still poised to rip the infant between them to shreds, the thing that was Anzu screamed in rage, Sarah Campbell’s mouth tearing impossibly wide in its fury.

And fear.

Of all the lessons his strange adventures had taught him, the most important was also the simplest. Hesitation was death.

Viper quick, the gauntleted hand whipped out, whatever mystical evil holding him immobile overcome by the countering power of Nabu. He snatched the pendant at Anzu’s throat and ripped it from the chain in a single, fluid motion. The scream that erupted from Sarah Campbell’s mouth was mercifully, wholly human.

A cold that tore the stones from the hearth raced through the cabin, Anzu’s essence trying frantically to pull itself free of Kane’s powerful grasp, the magic of the gauntlet wrestling desperately to contain the writhing, greasy demonic force pulsating within the cold, fiery blue stone. Even with the vast, immeasurable power of the spells within and upon the gauntlet, Kane felt his strength waning and in another moment, Anzu would break his hold.

A voice suddenly rang clear and firm from the shattered threshold of the cottage. Latin phrases that no church parishioner had ever heard shouted from a pulpit, echoed and pounded through the room, shattering loose hearthstones with their power. Anzu screamed without a voice.

The priest read from a small, leather bound tome. Kane recognized the ritual and hoped the old man had the strength for it. Though short and uncomplicated in its prayer, invoking this particular sacred rite was as dangerous and taxing for the priest as the evil it hoped to dispel was for Sarah Campbell.

Kane snatched the tiny, mewling babe from the table with his free hand. He did not dare release his grasp on the pendant, but Sarah had begun to flail and spasm in the grip of the ritual and he feared she might unknowingly strike the child a death blow in the battle for her immortal soul.

Josiah, his severed arm bound in a neat bandage and his face pale but set with determination, squeezed past the preacher. Avoiding the flailing limbs and swirling damnation, he ducked under Kane’s arm and plucked Samuel from his grasp. His hand free, Solomon reached out and slammed Sarah’s flailing form down onto the rough planked table in an attempt to keep her from injuring herself in her convulsions.

The ritual had but one last stanza to complete the prayer. The priest began the phrase and was suddenly taken with a fit of coughing, interrupting the prayer and allowing Anzu a resurgence. Kane threw his entire weight into holding Sarah down as the energy spewing from the amulet in his fist twisted and squirmed.

“Finish the invocation, priest!” he demanded.

With a final violent cough, the old man again intoned his ritual Latin, the power battering the essence of Anzu back and back again. The gauntlet took on a life beyond his hand and Kane stared in awe as the gauntlet again flowed and melted, this time enveloping the pendant in his fist in a vessel that completely enclosed the gold and stone within.

Kane, the priest and Josiah gaped at the golden skull in Kane’s hand, its glow slightly glossed with an unnatural blue. Sarah moaned weakly from beneath Kane’s restraining hand. For a moment, the universe was still.

With a contented gurgle, Samuel broke wind, wetly and loudly.

Epilogue

High in the hills, Solomon Kane tossed a satchel into the man-deep pit he had dug from the hard soil. Simply climbing to this place had taxed his great strength to near its limit. His hope was that by choosing this difficult to access cleft in these remote hills, no one would stumble across the relic he had buried as deeply as he could manage.

The golden skull of Nabu did not speak to him or change its form while he trekked the few days it took to find this isolated spot. He knew how evil called, and he meant to take the thrice-bedamned skull far beyond the reach of Sarah Campbell or her son. Anzu might be gentled and contained by the magic of Nabu, but that was no surety against its call someday leeching out again. The Campbells had suffered enough for a single lifetime and he would see them live and die without further eldritch evil interference in their lives.

As he hiked down the far side of the range, he looked back up the way he had come. For just a moment, he saw the ghostly form of a crenellated stone tower rising from the cleft in the hills where he had buried the golden skull of Nabu. A laugh rolled through the hills like thunder and when it passed, the vision of the tower, too, had vanished.

END

I hope you enjoyed The Gauntlet of Nabu: A Solomon Kane Tract

If you want more, you have plenty of options.

All my novels, many of which include back up short stories are available at Amazon.

And if you enjoy my writing, and want to help me continue to grow Public Domain Super Heroes into something amazing, please consider becoming a paid subscriber!

All my paid subscribers get access to the Members’ Library which always includes at least 4 full novels, free to read for the duration of your subscription, updated every month.

Public Domain Super Heroes Newsletter! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you just can’t wait for the story to serialize, you can get the entire story as a bonus feature in:

Red SonYa of Rogatino The Shadow of Tanaghaara

Available at Amazon.Public Domain Super Heroes Newsletter! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

It was a terrific experience, but that lady beside me? That’s author Megan Hotchkiss, and she brought all of 9 copies of her books and a single sheet of paper with her name and a little detail about her two books and she outsold me.

The event was sparsely attended. Maybe 20-30 people through all day.

It was a good learning experience, but not exactly putting dinner on the table.

Ah well, I met some cool authors and had a lot of fun.

This looks amazing and it’s gonna sell a ton of books!

Back in 2015, I was thinking about my then extensive collection and idly wondered how long it would take to watch everything I own if I put myself to the task.

What came next will be no surprise. On January 1, 2016, I started.

It took over 6 years to get through the whole collection and that collection continues to grow.

In the course of that task, I made some lists. If there’s interest, I’ll share some of them here. Since I am mainly focused on Public Domain Super Heroes these days, we’ll start with the one list that is about a public domain hero.

Zorro.

I don’t consider Zorro a super hero, personally. He’s very close to Batman and other non-powered, vigilante types, but somehow, he’s just not quite a super hero. He’s what I consider super hero adjacent. Tarzan, Doc Savage, Robin Hood and a lot of the pre-Superman era pulp heroes fit that bill.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t fit my universe. He absolutely does. Public Domain Super Heroes is a vibe, not a set of rigid rules, so Zorro (and other super hero adjacent characters) will definitely show up.

But this list isn’t about that. It’s about which versions of the character and the characters around Zorro did it best. Whether on tv, movies or in cartoons, which Zorro was the best?

As a caveat, these are my opinions and mine alone and based solely on versions of the character that I own on DVD. There are likely a few other incarnations out there that I haven’t run across and so can’t offer opinions on.

So who’s the greatest Zorro? Like Batman and Superman before them, there are a lot of moving parts to the Zorro franchise and it takes a bit of digging to really figure out which actors and incarnations are the “best”.

Villains.

Ricardo Frickin’ Montalban!

Monalban’s Ramon Castillo menaced Guy Williams’ Zorro in the 1961 episode of Disney’s Zorro series, - Auld Acquaintance.

In 1974, his Captain Esteban was the main villain in the TV movie, The Mark of Zorro. Frank Langella starred as Zorro and he holds a fond place in my Zorro lovin’ heart for being the first Zorro I remember from my childhood but in hindsight he’s not quite the dashing hero others have brought to life beneath Zorro’s mask. Montalban remains the suave, perfect foil to the Fox. Being one of the few actors in the Zorro canon to have an authentic accent doesn’t hurt either!

Honorable mention to Basil Rathbone for his version of Captain Esteban from the 1940 version of the Mark of Zorro. The fencing between Rathbone and Tyrone Power is some of the best sword fighting ever filmed.

Extra Special Mention to the cadre of facial hair specialists that kept Rathbone and Power’s mustaches sharp enough to fence with.

Don Alejandro De La Vega

Zorro’s Dad. He’s been played by several men in various versions but two really stand out, for different reasons. Interestingly, both of the actors in question have previous Zorro bona fides.

George J. Lewis

Lewis, pictured above with Linda Stirling in the 1944 serial, Zorro’s Black Whip. In the 40s, Zorro morphed into a more traditional Western hero (six guns instead of swords, though usually retaining the whip) in various serials. I’m not a fan of the Western in general and find most of the Zorro versions from this time period to be pale imitations of the real deal. Still, Lewis not only side-kicked for the first female Zorro-esque character (The Black Whip is NEVER called Zorro and Zorro only makes an appearance in the title, nowhere else) in the character’s history but he also dons the outfit and mask for a bit.

In the 1957-61 Disney series, he plays Zorro’s Dad, Don Alejandro. In one episode he even dons a Zorro-ish outfit to hold his son at bay to prevent him revealing his identity.

Special mention to his tailor. In the colourized version he and Don Diego wear some of the most spectacular suits, including a couple of purple ones...

Henry Darrow.

Another great character actor who played Zorro’s Dad. In this case, he’s actually played Zorro himself twice before going on to play his Dad. Sadly, we lost Darrow only a short time ago in 2021.

Darrow was the first Hispanic actor to play Zorro on television in the 1981 Filmation animated series. Sadly this show only lasted a single season. While Frank Langella might be the first Zorro I recall from my childhood, Henry Darrow’s version is the one that really formed my lifelong love of the character.

A few years later, there was a short lived revival of the character on television. Zorro and Son only lasted 5 episodes before disappearing but Darrow stepped in to play the aged Don Diego, now struggling to keep up his Zorro form and reluctantly passing the torch to his son. Guy Williams was originally set to reprise his Zorro from the 1950s Disney version but left over a script dispute. While the show was supposed to be a sitcom version of the characters, there are a few fun “real” Zorro moments to be found. It’s kickin’ around YouTube if you’re looking to kill a couple of hours.

Finally, in the early 90s, when Duncan Regehr donned the Zorro mask for 4 seasons, Henry Darrow played is Father, Don Alejandro De La Vega for the last 3 of them, replacing Efrem Zimbalist Jr. in the role. Darrow even gets a chance to play the (comically geriatric) Fox one last time thanks to an amnesia inducing bump on the head in Season 4.

Sgt. Demetrio Lopez Garcia.

Henry Calvin

The character of Sgt. Garcia first shows up in the Disney version of Zorro from 1957-61, played by Henry Calvin.

Usually accompanied by hapless Corporal Reyes, Calvin’s Garcia provided a wonderful comic foil to Zorro’s dashing figure. Between Garcia and Gene Sheldon’s Bernardo, Guy Williams’ Zorro never took himself too seriously.

The Garcia character doesn’t always show up but even when he does, the often imitated Henry Calvin has never been equalled.

Don Diamond, who played the aforementioned Corporal Reyes in the 1950s, voiced a character similar to Calvin’s Garcia (Sgt. Gonzalez) in the 1981 Filmation version of Zorro.

Bernardo

Anthony Hopkins

The long suffering sidekick to the dashing Zorro doesn’t always appear and isn’t always quite the same character. In the 1950s version, Gene Sheldon plays him as unable to speak and feigning deafness to allow him to spy for the boss. In the 1990s version, the mute servant is a boy named Felipe and probably most well known from the Antonio Banderas film, The Mask of Zorro, comes a Bernardo (played by Anthony Hopkins) who is neither deaf, dumb nor Bernardo.

Hopkins’ Bernardo, not surprisingly, is deep, nuanced and superbly acted. He’s also the real Zorro, now aged and reluctantly passing the torch to a new Fox.

The love interest...

This is easily the most impossible choice to make. Since the earliest incarnation, Zorro has wooed and been pursued by some of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen. Still, there’s the sad fact that most of the women in Zorro movies and shows are pretty much there to swoon and little else.

Occasionally they have a little spirit and as Zorro gets updated in later versions we start to see some ladies who can hold their own with the rogue. The 1990s show had a regular female lead who we could call fiery and the 1981 Filmation animated show had a female pirate character who showed up a few times. In the futuristic Zorro - Generation Z animated series, Zorro has a female sidekick and we’ve even seen a couple of lady Zorros, most notably the “She’s not Zorro for legal reasons” Queen of Swords.

To my mind though, none of the ladies who played opposite any version of Zorro was as spirited, well acted and able to hold her own (and her own sword) against the Fox.

Catherine Zeta Jones not only was wooed and pursued but managed to fight Zorro nearly to a draw in the best single scene in any Zorro movie or television show.

“He was very...vigorous.”

Don Diego De La Vega.

Like Bruce Wayne to Batman or Clark Kent to Superman, Don Diego really is a separate character to his alter ego and the best versions of Zorro have a strong version of Don Diego.

My personal favourite Don Diego is Henry Darrow‘s version from the 1981 Filmation series. He plays him languid, bored and believably disinterested. Still, as much as that version resonates in my memory, I doubt it would work over a longer series without becoming cliche.

For the best Don Diego I think it’s really got to be Guy Williams. He just plays Diego so genuine and so effortlessly charming and just naturally, honestly good.

And the outfits! While I’m not usually a fan of colourizing old shows and films, Disney’s Zorro really benefits from the 1992 colourizing, allowing all the vibrant and detailed costumes to really sing. The story goes that Zorro had a huge budget ($8000 per episode, which translates to about $75,000 today) for a show with strictly practical effects and stunts. I think they spent half that on embroidery.

Zorro himself.

Like Batman and Superman, Zorro has enough GREAT actors portraying him that choosing a singular portrayal as “The Best” is damned near impossible. I’ve chosen three traits of the Zorro character that make it a touch easier to choose one over the other.

Fencing.

Tyrone Power

At one time, Basil Rathbone was known as the best fencer in Hollywood. Long before cgi and plastic swords, actors like Rathbone could actually handle a sword in a fight without a team of stunt people. While he was known as the best, he usually played villains, so he rarely won a fight on screen. Like a talented stunt rider is needed to make a fall or a clumsy character look believable on film, Rathbone made his screen partners look good with his skills. Few looked as good as Errol Flynn in their duel in Robin Hood or Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro.

The flare.

Antonio Banderas plays Zorro in the slickest, best Zorro film. While not totally true to the original framing of the characters by author Johnston McCully, The Mask of Zorro stands as a great entry in the character’s history. Big story, big effects, big budget. Over the top in almost every parameter.

Still, there’s one version of the character that stands over even The Mask of Zorro. In terms of taking things over the top, Zorro - The Gay Blade is over the top of the top.

When George Hamilton’s Bunny Wigglesworth shows up in the gold Zorro outfit at the film’s denouement, it’s the icing on a very, very flamboyant cake. Few actors can be said to have had as much fun with the Zorro character and NONE can say they did it with more flare. For all its ridiculous buffoonery, Zorro - The Gay Blade is actually a very good Zorro film. And probably the only Zorro production to spend a bigger chunk of its budget on costumes than the Disney series...

The joy.

Guy Williams.

Unlike broody Batman or earnest Superman, the best Zorros really enjoy being the hero. He quips, he carves playful Zs in naughty places and he takes great joy in foiling the bad guy.

Antonio Banderas, George Hamilton and to a lesser extent Tyrone Power and Duncan Regehr all play Zorro with joy and have some laughs but there’s really only one clear winner in this category.

You’ve probably sensed that I’m a HUGE fan of the Guy Williams version of this character. I never saw it as a kid and only discovered the colourized version a decade or so ago when I was building my dvd collection. It’s was a true revelation to me and Williams’ Zorro is suave, nimble, heroic and most of all he’s FUN. Watching Williams duel just about anyone you can bet the farm he’ll be grinning from ear to ear while he does it. He just inhabits the character and his joy at playing the role is palpable.

I haven’t mentioned much about the various animated versions of Zorro but to be honest, the only one I really enjoy is the oft mentioned Filmation version from 1981 with Henry Darrow. There was a version made in the 90s that’s hard to find and not bad but not great. Also interesting is the futuristic entry in the character’s bio, Zorro - Generation Z. The character actually updates pretty well, a little high octane two wheeled Tornado here, a female sidekick there, laser whips and more, all add up to an enjoyable, if off model, Zorro.

There are also two French versions of note. The first is a Japanese anime style version with a blonde Zorro. I must admit this one I simply despise. I’m not a big fan of anime and the show itself is barely comprehensible even in English. Why French creators chose the anime style or what they thought they were proving by making Zorro blonde is anybody’s guess.

The second is a recent (2015) computer animated version. I own it in French and it is around the ‘net in an English translation that is pretty entertaining. Still not great though.

Disney would be well served to do a Zorro movie in traditional animation and I could easily see the basic story being updated to a “Daughter of Zorro” if they wanted to go that route. Pixar could crack it too, for that matter. One can always hope!

Of course, I have plans of my own for the public domain character of Zorro and he will be appearing in the next few months in the story, Cape & Kane: The Curse of Cortez. Stay tuned!

As always, these opinions are mine alone and not remotely binding beyond that. If your opinion differs, I’m happy to chat about Zorro all day, any day of the week!

If you’re looking to catch up, the

The Gauntlet of Nabu: A Solomon Kane Tract

Chapter 6

Kane’s keen eyes picked out the trail left by the entity now wearing Sarah Campbell’s skin. Even in the feeble starlight, it took little skill to track such a blundering, arrow straight course. He knew where the thing was heading in any case. The cottage.

In Kane’s experience, such evil as this, contained for unknowable time by unfathomable power, would have but one goal: Destroy that power so that it could never again hold them in check.

The child’s life would be the key to breaking such power. It was no coincidence that this evil had latched onto the mother of a newborn. The innocence of a babe was as ambrosia to the Dark One, conferring power when such innocence was channelled by sacrifice, an echo of the covenant of Abraham, twisted and befouled.

There was little time in hand and Kane left his own blundering trail in his desperate haste. This Anzu was lending mystical strength and speed to the Campbell woman’s steps and he feared he might not arrive in time. Solomon Kane feared nothing in life for himself, but terror of what could befall the infant both in body and soul drove his mighty limbs to speed and power beyond any he had ever achieved. His heart bid fair to leap free from his chest, his breath coming in whooping gulps as he pounded through the pitch dark forest, branches and saplings snapping before him as he thundered relentlessly back to the Campbell home.

Kane’s momentum drove him through the crude planks that served as the door to the cottage. Splinters and shards of wood exploded inward, across the room, some clattering into the fire that burned weakly in the hearth. On the table, the infant Samuel lay on his back, tiny fists and feet pumping furiously in the air above him, bellowing and bawling in cold fear. The shape of his mother loomed above him terribly, no hint of maternal kindness in the rictus that leered hungrily down on the child.

Around her neck, a chain of gold with a strange azure cast hung with a pendant of the same oddly tinted gold, a stone of cold, fire-kissed blue that seared his eyes to gaze upon set within. Whorled scrawls of a language Kane did not recognize writhed and twisted in the metal around the stone, snakes of language and horror curling and speaking without sound.

Upon the table, set at little Samuel’s head, an urn of the strange blued gold sat empty, its lid set beside it. Mystic symbols also moved upon its surface. In a fashion he could not comprehend, that moving scroll of words he could not fathom drew his gaze as the pendant repulsed it. The little urn glowed faintly, yet as he watched, that glow dimmed as a voice sounded within the humble cabin.

No human voice, no mouth of flesh and bone could form the sounds that vomited forth from Sarah Campbell in that moment. The words, if words they were, drew trickles of blood from Solomon Kane’s ears and unbidden icy tears from his eyes. The terrible sound beyond sound carried only one word that he could comprehend: Anzu.

Tearing his rapier from its scabbard, he leapt across the room, ignoring the cacophony that poured from Sarah’s corrupted throat. He cut at her long, vulnerable neck, intent on severing her head from her body at a stroke. Impossibly, when the blow landed, the blade precisely impacted the thin gold chain and stopped as if Kane had aimed the blow at a granite wall. The reverberation of the strike bid fair to rip the hilt from his powerful grip.

One weapon useless, he ripped one of his pistols from his wide belt and in a blink, levelled and fired. His aim, as ever was true. The ball flew straight but instead of yielding flesh, the lead flattened harmlessly on the cold blue stone, the pendant inexplicably swinging into the bullet’s path.

For a moment, the drumming, pounding thunder of Sarah’s demonic voice became a menacing, mocking cackle of amusement before returning to the intoning of its foul and incomprehensible spell. Sarah’s left hand, clenched into a claw raised above her head. As he watched, transfixed, the ragged, broken nails lengthened, pulling each into a fearsome, dagger point, their pink white tips shifting into a strange gold metallic material, tinted oddly with an unearthly blue.

The infant was lost. No weapon, no power in him was sufficient to stop this fiend. The evil would not be contained.

Contained.

A lunge brought him to the table, but his mighty thews could not bring his hands to the babe. Without a thought, he reached, not for the child, but for what sat just beyond his tiny head. The urn.

A fingertip brushed the strangely warm metal and without warning, Solomon Kane found himself...nowhere. No walls, no ceiling, no floor...yet he did not fall. He whipped his head around but there was simply nothing in every direction.

And then there was a voice.

Nabu.

Chapter 7 is here.

Remember, there’s always a free to read story at pdsh.ca and a new story serialized every week at my Substack!

If you want more, you have plenty of options.

All my novels, many of which include back up short stories are available at Amazon.

And if you enjoy my writing, and want to help me continue to grow Public Domain Super Heroes into something amazing, please consider becoming a paid subscriber!

All my paid subscribers get access to the Members’ Library which always includes at least 4 full novels, free to read for the duration of your subscription, updated every month.

Public Domain Super Heroes Newsletter! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you just can’t wait for the story to serialize, you can get the entire story as a bonus feature in:

Red SonYa of Rogatino The Shadow of Tanaghaara

Available at Amazon.

Jose’s Substack.

The paperback and Kindle are available here!

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And here.

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If you’re looking to catch up,

The Gauntlet of Nabu: A Solomon Kane Tract

Chapter 5

Night fell like an axe blade and Kane had to slow his pace to allow Campbell to keep up with him in the feeble starlight. Kane noted that though he took constant wounds from branches snagging his clothing or slapping at his face, none so much as touched the child in his arms. When he stumbled, a desperate twist had landed him hard on his back, the babe safe atop him.

There was nothing of evil in the man that Kane could detect. And he could detect much.

There was a false witness and no mistake. Lies, the language of the damned, had drawn him into this evil. Kane would teach a fearsome lesson, or give his life in the effort. As ever, he could do no less.

His keen senses drew his attention to his right, the direction of the little cottage of the Campbells. Before he could swing back and face the danger, a cry told him he was too late. A crash of brush and the sudden infant wail in the gloom confirmed the suspicion he had formed as they had grown closer to the tiny church and its untidy lich yard.

The evil was not within the husband.

A horrid, palpitating cackle ripped though the trees, clasping an icy fist ’round Kane’s heart. Turning, he saw Josiah crumpled on the ground, alive but one arm torn off at the elbow, blood arcing into the air from the stump. Kane whipped a leather lace from the collar of his blouse and whipped it around the stump, staunching the arterial blood as best he could.

“You must rouse the priest, Josiah!” shouted Kane into the shocked face of the young farmer. With the thong tight around the bleeding stump, he shook the man with both hands. When that bore no fruit, a hard backhand slap and then another finally brought a soul searing wail of torment from the man. After it passed, Kane snapped a hand under the man’s jaw, forcing his eyes to meet Kane’s. “You will rouse the priest, Campbell.” He pointed vigourously in the direction of the little church and again shook the man. “That direction, swift as you may. Loose your way and look to the middle star of Orion for direction. This time of year, it hangs over the church and you may rely on it if your other senses fail.” Solomon squeezed the man’s oozing stump for emphasis, to make certain he had his attention. “If you wish your child to live, you will rouse the priest and hie yourselves to your cottage by midnight!” Shoving the man to his feet, he pushed him in the required direction with an added, “GO!” for emphasis.

Campbell stopped and turned back to Kane. Clutching his bloody stump, he locked eyes with the taller man. “There was a vessel.”

“And the amulet was within,” concluded Kane. “I have seen suchlike before. A golden vase or cask, replete with mystical runes and symbols, no doubt.”

Campbell nodded once. “I plucked it from the earth, but when it called to me in a voice I could not hear, I buried it again.”

“You told Sarah of the gold,” said Kane, certain he could see the shape of the thing, “but not the voice.”

“She coveted the treasure. While I slept, she dug it up by moonlight and set it on our table by dawn. When I woke, she was already lost to it. She ignored the babe, the hearth-fire, even her own bodily needs for days.”

“And then one night, she prized open the golden orb, revealing a pendant on a chain held within. Fashioned of blue-tinged gold, its heart a gem bright as a summer sky and as painful to look upon as the sun. The name Anzu again pounded in my head, but the call was louder still for Sarah,” he continued. Kane wanted to scream at him to run to the church, but the tale continued to spill from the man unabated. In the distance a cry that might have been the babe cut weakly through the night air.

“There is little time, Master Campbell,” ordered Kane with a steely glare.

“She placed the thrice-bedamned thing over her head, and my Sarah was gone. I am ashamed to say that I did not at first realize. For many nights, it was the bliss of our first days, Sarah loving as she hadn’t since before we took ship for this new world,” finished Josiah in a shamefaced rush.

“A tale of evil and no doubt, good Josiah,” said Kane with impatience but not without sympathy. “I shall hear it in its full shape another time. Hie now for the priest. If there is to be any hope for your son, I need the priest to bring his secret tomes to your cottage. I do not know if I can wrestle this demon from your good wife, but if I can, his secret knowledge will be needed.”

“Secret...knowledge?” asked Josiah, greatly puzzled.

“You do not need to know more, friend Campbell. You do not want to know more, friend,” intoned Kane gravely. “True agents of the Lord hold greater responsibility than Sunday allegory and burying the dead,” he finished cryptically.

Again, he pointed and ordered, “GO!”

Chapter 6 is here.

I hope you enjoyed The Gauntlet of Nabu: A Solomon Kane Tract

Remember, there’s always a free to read story at pdsh.ca and a new story serialized every week at my Substack!

If you want more, you have plenty of options.

All my novels, many of which include back up short stories are available at Amazon.

And if you enjoy my writing, and want to help me continue to grow Public Domain Super Heroes into something amazing, please consider becoming a paid subscriber!

All my paid subscribers get access to the Members’ Library which always includes at least 4 full novels, free to read for the duration of your subscription, updated every month.

Public Domain Super Heroes Newsletter! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you just can’t wait for the story to serialize, you can get the entire story as a bonus feature in:

Red SonYa of Rogatino The Shadow of Tanaghaara

Available at Amazon.

Learn how Henry’s comic book has some roots in NFL marketing!

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Just like the episodes here, you could help out with likes and re-posts.

What would be most awesome is if you back the campaign on FundMyComic.

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145 signed up.

That’s terrific. I started with 14 on February 2. 900% growth in 2 months and change.

But is that really true?

I listed it by activity.

If there were zero stars and the account began in February, I removed that name from my list.

111 Scribes.

Still a few zero stars, a few ones and some twos, but mostly, its fours and fives now.

Does this help me? I’m not sure how the algorithm works, so I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is that if my emails are landing in an inbox and not being opened, at best I’m being ignored, at worst, I’m annoying someone.

So, I let those people go.

And on the 10th of every month, I’m going to do the same thing for any zero star accounts that are 2 months old.

I value my Scribes. Every one of them.

But if someone subscribed for a sub-swap, boredom, pity or by mistake, I’m not going to hang on to that email just to inflate my numbers.

Money where my mouth is.

And I’m still very committed to my promise. When I reach 10 paid subscriptions, I will pay to subscribe to someone else. And 20.

Every 10 Scribes. I call it my Subs-Tax.

So please, subscribe.

I will be putting full novels in my Members’ Library, so if you upgrade to paid, I will make sure it’s worth every penny. Every month.

I want to build something here.

Just not a box full of empty numbers.