"Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 02 - The Tower of Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

The sea-spawn
Fifteen
The Last Monster




The Tower of Death
ANDREW J. OFFUTT
AND
KIETH TAYLOR
ACE FANTASY BOOKS
NEW YORK
Introduction:
The Cormac Mac Art Cycle

Robert E. Howard began the recounting of the fifth century Irish heroтАЩs exploits in Tigers of the Sea, which
Ace has reprinted. They and the keeper of the REH papers and the Howard literary agent then asked me to
continue the cycle (none of which was printed during HowardтАЩs lifetime).
My first three novels followed Tigers chronologically. The fourth went back to recount the treachery-born
events that led to CormacтАЩs becoming outlaw, then exile from Erin. Later forced also to flee
Alba/Caledonia/Scotland, he bitterly took to the sea as a reiver or reaver: pirate. He met the giant Wulfhere
the Dane in prison. Later still Cormac became the only Gael aboard Raven, a Wulfhere-commanded ship
crewed by Danes. Some of their exploits formed the four stories in HowardтАЩs Tigers.
This is the fifth of the novels I have written, but the second in chronological order. It precedes Tigers by a few
years. Herein the mac Art is youngerтАФindeed, he lies about his age because of that embarrassment of youth
we have all experienced. An exile, he has not forgotten her he left behind: Samaire. He loved her as he loved
their mutual land: Erin or Eirrin.
He is a grim and sombre fellow. He is to become less so only in later years, when he re-meets Samaire and
gains purpose and goalтАФand Irish shores. With Keith Taylor, this chronicle returns to that Cormac of less
optimism and more dourness, and a different part of the world. Cormac is the exiled pirate among foreigners,
crafty and untrusting.
Howard clearly indicated that mac ArtтАЩs activities were hardly confined to the area of the British Isles. Rome
had withdrawn from Britannia after four centuries of interference and domination. Britons were dying to
invading Saxons and Jutes and Angles who would give the land its new name: Angle-land or Angle-terre:
England. (Strangely, some Britons had fled from the continent whence came the conquerors. There they
founded lesser BritainтАФBrittanyтАФand clung to it.)
On that continent, the legacy of RomeтАЩs pomp and paraphernalia of governance were more evident. The land
was already in division among many lords. Soon there would be a king in Italy! Though Frank-land, France,
did not exist, the Franks were on the rise with their terrible throwing-axes so like a pre-charge artillery
barrage. The Roman title comes remained. It would become the French comte, which we call count. And
though no Count has ever held demesne in my Kentucky, this state is divided into 120 count-ies.
A new age was aborning, in Europe. With the importation of the concept of stirrups, the age of
chivalryтАФcheval-ry or horse-ryтАФwould grow out of the chaos left by RomeтАЩs fall, and endure until some fool
went and invented gunpowder. (Surely not Hank, protagonist of Mark TwainтАЩs sf-hf novel!)
In the A.D. 480s, Cormac and Wulfhere were raiding along the coast of what would become France, and soon
they had to cross the treacherous Bay of Biscay to northwestern SpainтАФand honest employment!
Keith Taylor knows about twice as much about that area at that time as Andrew Offutt. ThatтАЩs why he is
needed as cohort in this novel and its direct sequel, When Death Birds Fly, and the others we have outlined,
leading all the way to WulfhereтАЩs homeland, Danemark. Without Keith Taylor, this novel would be about half