Hour of the Dragon

The barbarian who conquered a kingdom must now battle a dead god's sorcerer to keep it. Conan, king of Aquilonia, sits on a throne earned with blood and steel, but sorcery is a weapon no sword can stop. Xaltotun, an ancient horror from pre-Hyborian ages, rises from the dust of fallen Acheron to plunge Aquilonia into darkness and deliver the kingdom to Conan's enemies. Captured, imprisoned in a tower of black stone where time itself collapses, Conan must rely on sheer will and the desperate loyalty of old friends to escape a doom that has consumed kingdoms before. Robert E. Howard's only full-length Conan novel is pure adrenaline forged into prose, an unapologetic tale of a barbarian's will against impossible magic, of a throne won through violence and defended the same way. It is sword-and-sorcery at its most elemental: visceral, propulsive, and utterly without pretense. For readers who want their fantasy raw, their heroes unbowed, and their battles fought with both steel and cunning.