Red Nails (1936) is widely considered Robert E. Howard’s finest Conan the Barbarian story — a long novella set almost entirely within the sealed lost city of Xuchotl, where two tribes have been slaughtering each other for generations in lightless halls haunted by sorcery and madness. Conan and the pirate warrior-woman Valeria of the Red Brotherhood stumble into this charnel house of vendetta and find enemies on every side.
Howard wrote Red Nails in the last months of his life, and it carries an intensity and darkness that exceeds even his earlier Conan adventures. It remains the definitive achievement of the sword and sorcery genre he invented. Download the free EPUB to read this savage, unforgettable novella in its entirety.