I’m excited to announce that my Sword and Sorcery story “Ashur Kang VS the Army of the Undead” has been published in Ethereal Nightmares: An Anthology of Twisted Tales by Dark Holme Publishing and is now available for purchase. You can check out the promo and a few short excerpts below.
Coming in close to 10k words, this is my longest story to get published as of this writing. Around five years ago, I wrote Ashur Kang VS the Army of the Undead after reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories for the Drunken Pen Writing Podcast. Though outdated, the Conan stories inspired me to create my own Sword and Sorcery character. It was also my first foray into the genre. Much like the Conan tales, my story turned out pretty long, which made it all but impossible to find a publisher. In fact, I’d only submitted the story one time before finding Dark Holme Publishing this year.
With this publication, I checked a few things off my bucket list: I got paid well for a story, I scored an international publication (Dark Holme is a UK publisher), and I now have what I hope can become a known character in the world (such as the above mentioned Conan the Barbarian). I would absolutely love to write more Ashur Kang stories and perhaps even some novels, but first, let me tell you what makes the character so interesting.
Ashur Kang’s look was inspired by (at the time) heavyweight champion boxer Deontay Wilder. I wanted a tall, panther-like warrior with incredible power and quickness. Wilder was a perfect fit for what I was looking for, though Ashur is a bit more muscular. This is a fantasy tale after all!
Raised in a tribe until his teenage years, Ashur was sent to live with a noble family in the north so he could have a better life. There he was afforded a life of comfort and education. The catch was that he had to adopt the noble family’s surname of Kang and fight for them if the northern Kingdom of Sansylgate ever went to war. Inevitably, a terrible war commenced and that’s where Ashur Kang finds himself in my tale. Only, some wicked magic is at play, and the dead don’t stay dead for long.
I don’t want to give too much away, but there are two main plots in this story that converge at the climax. So it isn’t a simple tale of sword fighting and adventure. If you’re a fan of Sword and Sorcery, this story has plenty of head cleaving and limb chopping, but it also has the literary flair that fans of Robert E. Howard will enjoy. If you’re not a fan of Sword and Sorcery, the anthology is still worth picking up as there are some great horror and dark fantasy stories as well. So I hope you give the book a chance!
The first excerpt below is the opening of the story. The second is from near the middle.
Caleb James K. 