Andre Norton - 1912-2005

"I am Elys. If my brother said aught of me, you also know that I shared his upbringing in part. Sword and shield-work I learned even as he did in his childhood. Though when we were grown we went separate ways. However, there was a bond between us, and when I was warned that he was in peril, I came, even as he would have come had he heard I walked into danger."

"But -- but how did you know he was gone -- lost in the hills? No messenger has ridden from here. We have kept it secret lest worse happen if it were known."

Brunissende watched me now with the same side-look I had seen in other women.

from "Dragon Scale Silver"

C. L. Moore

"She was tall as most men, and as savage as the wildest of them, and the fall of Joiry was bitter enough to her heart as she stood snarling curses up at her conqueror.
The face above her mail might not have been fair in a woman's head-dress, but in the steel setting of her armor it had a biting, sword-edge beauty as keen as the flash of blades. The red hair was short upon her high, defiant head, and the yellow blaze of her eyes held fury as a crucible holds fire."

from "Black God's Kiss"

Robert E. Howard

“Let my tribe remember,” I said, speaking slowly. “Let the tale be told from village to village, from camp to camp, from tribe to tribe, so that men may know that not man nor beast nor devil may prey in safety on the golden-haired people of Asgard. Let them build me a cairn where I lie and lay me therein with my bow and sword at hand, to guard this valley for ever; so if the ghost of the god I slew comes up from below, my ghost will ever be ready to give it battle.”

from "The Valley of the Worm"

Robert E. Howard - 106th Birthday

   I sadly missed Clark Ashton Smith's birthday the other week, not so with REH.  You can't say too much about Howard and his work, on its own and in relation to swords & sorcery.  Fantasy, horror, westerns, boxing, crime, adventure, he tried it all and pulled it off way more times than not.
   I just reread "Marchers of Valhalla" the other day, a story I go back to all the time.  Maybe I'll read "Worms of the Earth", another personal favorite today in REH's honor and for my enjoyment.  Thank you, sir.