Skulls in the Stars

The year is 1620s. The place: a blighted moor in England where the dead do not rest easy. Solomon Kane, Puritan swordsman and unflinching enemy of darkness, rides toward Torkertown where something waits in the fog. He arrives to find a traveler murdered on the moors, his body broken by something not of this world. The villagers whisper of a ghostly avenger that haunts the heath, killing all who travel the moor road after dark. Kane learns the spirit is Gideon, murdered by his own cousin Ezra, a miser whose gold bought everything except mercy. Now Ezra lives in a castle of his own guilt, waiting for the dead to collect what they are owed. Kane must decide: destroy the vengeful spirit as a servant of evil, or allow it to deliver a justice that no earthly court could render. Howard crafts his gothic horror with lean, muscular prose, the moor becomes a character itself, breathing cold and menace, while Kane stands as a man of iron faith confronting the impossible. This is dark fantasy before the genre had a name: horror and swordplay intertwined, with a hero who fights not because he lacks fear, but because his will is greater than it.