“The Road of the Eagles” returned Howard to the driven men and the darker tone more typical of him, but he strove even further this time, presenting us with a host of characters, all at odds, each so compelling that we cannot help but root for all of them, even though we know that for any one of them to triumph the others will fail and almost surely die. In the first pages it may seem at first that Ivan’s mission of vengeance will be the story’s central focus, but before long we meet Osman Pasha, and after some time in his company his agile mind and capable arm win our admiration. On the run, he has no options left him until the girl Ayesha begs him for aid in freeing a prince who will surely grant a kingdom to him and his followers. The chief conflict falls between Ivan’s chase of Osman and Osman’s pursuit of his dream, but there is also the matter of Ayesha, who’s fallen in love with the Turkish prince and uses all the wiles and charms at her command to win his freedom. She is merciless but determined, and we cannot help but root for her success. Howard even allows us a glimpse of the prince’s potential, hashish-addled though he is: “But there were strong lines in his keen face, not yet erased by sloth and dissipation, and under the rich robe his limbs were cleancut and hard.” Even so minor a character as Kral, who desires to aid the Kazaks and avenge himself upon the Turkomans, is brought to life, and death.
Death awaits nearly everyone over the course of the story, Howard sending each of them neatly on their way to their ends with the precision of an accomplished tragedian. The only moment within the piece that really falters is the conclusion, where Ivan and Osman discover that they are old friends, far from home. After so many fine scenes, from the irony of the prince’s death moments before men arrive to liberate him to our final glimpse of Kral, this last one feels less like the concluding moment and more like one hammerstroke too many on the bell of futility. In Howard’s defense, though, it is hard to imagine the story ending happily for either character, and this conclusion, at least, is a surprise.
Almost incidentally, we see a final Lamb influence within this tale, for the speech of Ivan and his friends – sometimes the very cadence and rhythm of their words – is reminiscent of the talk and behavior of Ayub and Demid. By this point, though, Howard is not writing pastiche. He is like a fine musician who has listened well to the playing of a piece and can effortlessly weave part of that theme into his own work.
In “The Road of the Eagles” Howard experimented with the rising and falling of fates of a whole host of characters and managed to make us care about all of them, despite the fact that none of them were explicitly good, or bad – although it might be conceded that “Ivan” is the least black-hearted among them, for all that he is a slayer like the others. “Hawks Over Egypt” is a return in some ways to the focus of Howard’s earlier historicals, although the twists and turns of the plot and its focus on a single span of days rather than a course of years is different from the epic sprawl of his four master tales (beginning with “The Sowers of the Thunder” and ending with “The Shadow of the Vulture”). Each of those four deals with the fall of cities and the death of kings – usually from their own hubris – the disintegration of empires or the dreams of those empires. Once Howard reaches “Gates of Empire” the events within take place over no more than a span of months. “The Shadow of the Vulture” might be said to look back toward its three predecessors and forward – with its greater focus upon character and telescoped narrative – toward the next. But then there are seldom clear boundary lines in any discussion of fiction, be it genre definition or periods and phases of an author’s work.
It must be noted, too, that these last three complete historicals – “The Road of the Eagles,” “Hawks Over Egypt,” and “The Road of Azrael” – did not see print within Howard’s lifetime. Likely that was because, in the depths of the depression,
I read with much interest and appreciation your speculations on the possible trend of history, in the event of the destruction of Rome by the Gauls; they seem to have considered all possible angles. Continuing with these theoretical wanderings: suppose that Martel had not stopped the Arabs at Tours? Or that Tamerlane or Genghis Khan had conquered Europe? Or, speculating from the other way, suppose that Alexander the Great had conquered India, and pressing on, subjugated the Cathayan empire? Would the East have been Aryanized, or the Western races sunk that much quicker in a mire of Orientalism? And suppose the Black Prince had carried out his dream of Oriental conquest? He was probably the only Western general of medieval times capable of holding his own with the great Eastern conquerors. In fact, I am convinced that, with his English archers, he would have proven more than a match for Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, Baibars, Subotai, Saladin, or any of the rest. The main reason that the Crusaders and other western armies were so repeatedly defeated and overthrown by the Moslems and Mongols was partly because of the extreme mobility of the Oriental armies, partly because of the incredible inefficiency of the western kings and generals. In this exchange we can see a brief glimpse of viewpoints that are likely to strike modern readers as politically incorrect, but we cannot castigate a man for being a part of his own time rather than ours. Howard’s views on race were hardly unique to him; what were then considered scientific discussions of race were all the vogue in Howard’s day, and before the rise of the Nazis, discussion of the Aryan race as superior did not have the same sinister connotations that we experience today at the mere mention of the concept. Howard’s own views on race seem almost to have more of a “home-town” pride feel to them than anything else; in that same letter to Lovecraft, Howard writes: “I’ll swear, I’ve written of Christian armies being defeated by Moslems until my blood fairly seethes with rage. Some day I must write of the success of the earlier Crusades to gratify my racial vanity.”
Anyone truly familiar with Howard’s work can find heroic characters of different cultures and races fairly easily, even if they are painted in stereotype at other times. “Hawks Over Egypt” contains several minor moments where modern readers are likely to feel discomfort – for example there is a scene where the Emir Othman is described in terms no one would dare write today: “He shrank back like a great black ape, his eyes burning red, his dusky hands opening and closing in helpless blood-lust.” The blacks in the story are dealt with far more superficially – and with more exaggerated language – than are the rest of the factions.
An exhaustive discussion of the racial outlook of a Texan from the 1930s is beyond the scope of this essay and my own expertise. We should probably be more surprised that, when viewing Howard’s entire body of work, someone from his time and region is relatively open to the idea that a brave and honorable man can be found from any race, than we are surprised that his prose is sometimes colored with racial language typical of his time.
“Hawks Over Egypt” begins with one of the most memorable moments in Howard’s canon, as de Guzman and Al Adfhal meet upon the street just as killers close on Al Adfhal. Howard is reaching for the same complex mix of relatable characters that he worked with in “The Road of the Eagles”; we are presented with intrigues, double- crosses, exotic color, and thrilling battle scenes – but then Howard excels with battle scenes even in his rough drafts. For all of these strengths, “Hawks” never succeeds quite as well as “Road of Eagles” because we are never made to care about the characters and their desires and fates as much as we do in “The Road of the Eagles.” But whereas “The Road of the Eagles” rises to a crescendo then loses power in its final moment, it is in its conclusion that “Hawks Over Egypt” truly excels. Some of the best scenes in the whole of the story are with the depiction of the mad Al Hakim. Indeed, Howard even anticipates a more famous moment, as he has Zaida declare Al Hakim’s godhood to save her life. Robert Graves uses the same trick when Claudius recognizes that Caligula has become a god in
Despite Al-Hakim’s madness, and despite knowing that his death will make things much safer for millions of people, Howard evokes tragedy at the moment of his death. Zaida’s moment of vengeance, a scene we would have expected to feel was deeply deserved, suddenly seems cruel, as the man who thought he was a god is left to die alone under the stars … and a strange legend is born. It’s powerful stuff, and far stronger than what has come in the pages before.
My favorite of these last three post–
