The Hour of the Dragon

The Hour of the Dragon
by Robert E. Howard

Alternative Title: Conan The Conqueror, featuring Conan
First appeared as a serial in Weird Tales: Part 1, December 1935; Part 2,
January 1936; Part 3, February 1936; Part 4, March 1936; Part 5, April
1936

The Lion banner sways and falls in the horror-haunted gloom; A scarlet
Dragon rustles by, borne on winds of doom. In heaps the shining
horsemen lie, where the thrusting lances break, And deep in the
haunted mountains, the lost, black gods awake. Dead hands grope in
the shadows, the stars turn pale with fright, For this is the Dragon's
Hour, the triumph of Fear and Night.
Chapter 1
: O Sleeper, Awake!
THE LONG TAPERS flickered, sending the black shadows wavering
along the walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind
in the chamber. Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the
green sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right
hand of each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish
light. Outside was night and a lost wind moaning among the black
trees.
Inside the chamber was tense silence, and the wavering of the shadows,
while four pairs of eyes, burning with intensity, were fixed on the long
green case across which cryptic hieroglyphics writhed, as if lent life

and movement by the unsteady light. The man at the foot of the
sarcophagus leaned over it and moved his candle as if he were writing
with a pen, inscribing a mystic symbol' in the air. Then he set down the
candle in its black gold stick at the foot of the case, and, mumbling
some formula unintelligible to his companions, he thrust a broad white
hand into his fur-trimmed robe. When he brought it forth again it was
as if he cupped in his palm a ball of living fire.
The other three drew in their breath sharply, and the dark, powerful
man who stood at the head of the sarcophagus whispered: "The Heart
of Ahriman!" The other lifted a quick hand for silence. Somewhere a
dog began howling dolefully, and a stealthy step padded outside the
barred and bolted door. But none looked aside from the mummy-case
over which the man in the ermine-trimmed robe was now moving the
great flaming jewel while he muttered an incantation that was old when
Atlantis sank. The glare of the gem dazzled their eyes, so that they
could not be sure of what they saw; but with a splintering crash, the
carven lid of the sarcophagus burst outward as if from some irresistible
pressure applied from within, and the four men, bending eagerly
forward, saw the occupant--a huddled, withered, wizened shape, with
dried brown limbs like dead wood showing through moldering
bandages.
"Bring that thing back?" muttered the small dark man who stood on the
right, with a short, sardonic laugh. "It is ready to crumble at a touch.
We are fools--"
"Shhh!" It was an urgent hiss of command from the large man who held
the jewel. Perspiration stood upon his broad white forehead and his
eyes were dilated. He leaned forward, and, without touching the thing
with his hand, laid on the breast of the mummy the blazing jewel. Then
he drew back and watched with fierce intensity, his lips moving in
soundless invocation.
It was as if a globe of living fire nickered and burned on the dead,
withered bosom. And breath sucked in, hissing, through the clenched
teeth of the watchers. For as they watched, an awful transmutation
became apparent. The withered shape in the sarcophagus was

expanding, was growing, lengthening. The bandages burst and fell into
brown dust. The shiveled limbs swelled, straightened. Their dusky hue
began to fade.
"By Mitra!" whispered the tall, yellow-haired man on the left. "He was
not a Stygian. That part at least was true."
Again a trembling finger warned for silence. The hound outside was no
longer howling. He whimpered, as with an evil dream, and then that
sound, too, died away in silence, in which the yellow-haired man
plainly heard the straining of the heavy door, as if something outside
pushed powerfully upon it. He half turned, his hand at his sword, but
the man in the ermine robe hissed an urgent warning: "Stay! Do not
break the chain! And on your life do not go to the door!"
The yellow-haired man shrugged and turned back, and then he stopped
short, staring. In the Jade sarcophagus lay a living man: a tall, lusty
man, naked, white of skin, and dark of hair and beard. He lay
motionless, his eyes wide open, and blank and unknowing as a
newborn babe's. On his breast the great jewel smoldered and sparkled.
The man in ermine reeled as