Customer Reviews:
 Free SF Reader October 19, 2008
Blue Tyson
Picture bears no relation to the story, of course. That woman is a Marvel comics invention. A good tale, though.
Not much sorcery to be seen in this historical adventure, but it is the origin of the character that Roy Thomas and others adapted with such success for Marvel in comics form, so of interest to fans of Conan and Red Sonja as she currently stands, chainmail bikini wearing barbarbian Hyrkanian warrior.
It is also a sterling Robert E. Howard tale, as well as being the origin of the flame haired swordswoman.
Von Kalmbach is a knight who managed to injure the Turkish leader in battle in the past, when his other 31 comrades died. When it is learned he is still alive, an assassin is sent after him:
""Enough of excuses," interrupted Ibrahim. "Send Mikhal Oglu to
me. ... The man whose very name was a shuddering watchword of horror to all western Asia was soft-spoken and moved with the mincing ease of a cat..."
"...nor could Ibrahim guess that he was taking the first steps in a feud which should spread over years and far lands, swirling in dark tides to draw in thrones and kingdoms and red-haired
women more beautiful than the flames of hell..."
Von Kalmbach is drinking in a small town outside Vienna when he realises an invasion is coming, and rides quickly for the city, where a defense is being mustered.
Looking around, he is surprised: "Turning toward the abandoned gun, he saw a colorful, incongruous figure bending over the massive breech.
It was a woman, dressed as von Kalmbach had not seen even the
dandies of France dressed. She was tall, splendidly shaped, but lithe. From under a steel cap escaped rebellious tresses that rippled red gold in the sun over her compact shoulders. High boots of Cordovan leather came to her mid-thighs, which were cased in baggy breeches. She wore a shirt of fine Turkish mesh-mail tucked into her breeches. Her supple waist was confined by a flowing sash of green silk, into which were thrust a brace of pistols and a dagger, and from which depended a long Hungarian saber. Over all was carelessly thrown a scarlet cloak.
This surprizing figure was bending over the cannon, sighting it in a manner betokening more than a passing familiarity, at a group of Turks who were wheeling a carriage-gun just within range.
"Eh, Red Sonya!" shouted a man-at-arms, waving his pike. "Give 'em hell, my lass!""
Thomas and company certainly lifted her temperament, and physical presence, wholesale : "A terrific detonation drowned her words and a swirl of smoke blinded every one on the turret, as the terrific recoil of the overcharged cannon knocked the firer flat on her back. She sprang up like a spring rebounding and rushed to the embrasure, peering eagerly through the smoke, which clearing, showed the ruin of the gun crew. The huge ball, bigger than a man's head, had smashed full into the group clustered about the saker, and now they lay on the torn ground, their skulls blasted by the impact, or their bodies mangled by the flying iron splinters from their shattered gun. A cheer went up from
the towers, and the woman called Red Sonya yelled with a sincere joy and did the steps of a Cossack dance.
Gottfried approached, eying in open admiration the splendid swell
of her bosom beneath the pliant mail, the curves of her ample hips and rounded limbs. She stood as a man might stand, booted legs braced wide apart, thumbs hooked into her girdle, but she was all woman. She was laughing as she faced him, and he noted with fascination the dancing sparkling lights and changing colors of her eyes. She raked back her rebellious locks with a powder-stained hand and he wondered at the clear pinky whiteness of her firm flesh where it was unstained.
"Why did you wish for the Sultana Roxelana for a target, my girl?" he asked.
"Because she's my sister, the slut!" answered Sonya. "
Pretty soon, Gottfried is very happy she is there:
"It was Red Sonya who had come to his aid, and her onslaught was no less terrible than that of a she-panther. Her strokes followed each other too quickly for the eye to follow; her blade was a blur of white fire, and men went down like ripe grain before the reaper. With a deep roar Gottfried strode to her side, bloody and terrible, swinging his great blade. Forced irresistibly back, the Moslems wavered on the edge of the wall, then leaped for the ladders or fell screaming through empty space.
Oaths flowed in a steady stream from Sonya's red lips and she
laughed wildly as her saber sang home and blood spurted along the
edge. The last Turk on the battlement screamed and parried wildly as she pressed him; then dropping his scimitar, his clutching hands closed desperately on her dripping blade. With a groan he swayed on the edge, blood gushing from his horribly cut fingers.
"Hell to you, dog-soul!" she laughed. "The devil can stir your
broth for you!"
With a twist and a wrench she tore away her saber, severing the
wretch's fingers; with a moaning cry he pitched backward and fell
headlong.""
The somewhat bewildered knight still does not know what to make of her: ""By God, my girl," said he, extending a huge hand, "had you not come to my aid, I think I'd have supped in Hell this night. I thank--"
"Thank the devil!" retorted Sonya rudely, slapping his hand aside. "The Turks were on the wall. Don't think I risked my hide to save yours, dog-brother!"
And with a scornful flirt of her wide coattails, she swaggered off down the battlements, giving back promptly and profanely the rude sallies of the soldiers."
He enquires about this woman: "Eh, she's a devil, that one! She drinks the strongest head under the table and outswears a Spaniard. She's no man's light o' love. Cut--slash--death to you, dog-soul! There's her way."
"Red Sonya from Rogatino--that's all we know. Marches and fights
like a man--God knows why. Swears she's sister to Roxelana, the
Soldan's favorite. If the Tatars who grabbed Roxelana that night had got Sonya, by Saint Piotr! Suleyman would have had a handful! Let her alone, sir brother; she's a wildcat. Come and have a tankard of ale."
After an ill advised excursion against the enemy, Sonya pulls Gottfried to safety, and after telling him of the death of a leader, she displays no patience for sensitive men: Gottfried sat down on a piece of fallen wall, and because he was shaken and exhausted, and still mazed with drink and blood-lust, he sank his face in his huge hands and wept. Sonya kicked him disgustedly.
"Name o' Satan, man, don't sit and blubber like a spanked schoolgirl. You drunkards had to play the fool, but that can't be
mended. Come--let's go to the Walloon's tavern and drink ale."
After some more heavy fighting and a respite, the Turks try some sneaking to get to von Kalmbach, but again Sonya is there: "Tshoruk snarled like a wolf and struck him savagely on the head
with a scimitar hilt. Almost instantly, it seemed, the door crashed inward. As in a dream Gottfried saw Red Sonya framed in the doorway, pistol in hand. Her face was drawn and haggard; her eyes burned like coals. Her basinet was gone, and her scarlet cloak. Her mail was hacked and red-clotted, her boots slashed, her silken breeches splashed and spotted with blood.
With a croaking cry Tshoruk ran at her, scimitar lifted. Before he could strike, she crashed down the barrel of the empty pistol on his head, felling him like an ox. From the other side Rhupen slashed at her with a curved Turkish dagger. Dropping the pistol, she closed with the young Oriental. Moving like someone in a dream, she bore him irresistibly backward, one hand gripping his wrist, the other his throat. Throttling him slowly, she inexorably crashed his head again and again against the stones of the wall, until his eyes rolled up and set. Then she threw him from her like a sack of loose salt."
As she says : ""The bells of Saint Stephen!" cried Sonya. "They peal for victory!""
The defenders have won, and the Turks retreat. Sonya and von Kalmbach spare one of the sneakers they have caught, and send him back with a grim message for the attackers.
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