The Phoenix on the Sword

What It's About

Conan, once a wandering barbarian reaver, now sits uneasily on the throne of Aquilonia, restless for the old days of the sword. Unknown to him, a conspiracy is brewing: the outlaw Ascalante has drawn together four disaffected nobles, each with his own grudge against the new king, to see him overthrown. Ascalante's slave, Thoth-Amon, is a fallen sorcerer of Stygia secretly plotting his own path back to power, and as the conspirators move against Conan, dark forces are set loose that neither side fully controls.

Key Concepts

This is the first published Conan story, the tale that introduced the character and launched the sword and sorcery genre alongside him. It began life as a rejected story about Howard's earlier hero, King Kull, before being reworked into Conan's debut. The story blends courtly intrigue with supernatural menace, setting the pattern for the series: a physically formidable hero navigating both human treachery and ancient, otherworldly evil in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age.

About the Author

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) was an American pulp fiction writer from Texas, best remembered as the creator of Conan the Barbarian and a founding figure of the sword and sorcery genre. He wrote prolifically for magazines such as Weird Tales, achieving most of his lasting fame only after his death by suicide at the age of 30.