Telnarian Histories

A peasant is sent to the arena, fodder for the carnage-but before the horrified gaze of noble ladies, the warrior named Dog slaughters headsmen, hunters, and beasts to win freedom as a full-fledged gladiator. Then deep-space rebels attack an Empire ship where Dog performs combat killings for the amusement of the passengers, and the gladiator becomes a rebel. Now a beautiful officer of the court finds her life depends on the mercy of Dog, the man she ordered put to death!

From the savage death pits of the Ortung Vandals, to the murderous intrigues of the imbecile Emperor's court, to the perfumed cages of the luscious willing slaves, the giant Otto is carving a legend across the stars. When this gladiator and chieftain of the Wolfung worlds seeks to form a frontier legion of space barbarians, the nobles dare not refuse him; they have only the courage to try to murder him. But can even an empire's might stop such a man?

To recruit his legion of space barbarians, the giant gladiator Otto must win their fierce loyalty, world by world, in lethal combat against monsters, men, aliens, and the beautiful, murderous slaves-while Imperial conspirators plot Otto's assassination and an evil warlord's brutal army prepares to unleash genocidal horror across the stars.

The fourth volume in John Norman's epic Telnarian Histories describes the continuing rise to power of an unsung warrior thrown into the maelstrom of ambition, treachery, and violence that is the galactic empire When Filene, a former noblewoman masquerading as a slave, attempts to assassinate the ascendant tribal king, Ottonius, she fails and becomes fully enslaved. The story of her education in proper submission is told in counterpoint to the tale of the powerful but primitive warrior who finds himself drawn into intrigues affecting the destiny of a threatened and crumbling empire. This ambitious novel, written on an interstellar scale, follows the latest adventures of a man who has fought and killed his way out of obscurity to become a newly crowned king. As events unfold, he finds himself on a bloody and violent path that may lead to the imperial throne itself.

The complexities and storms of the Telnarian Histories are brought to their unexpected and rousing climax. Following a palace coup, in the midst of intrigue and turmoil, Otto, the blond barbarian giant, King of the Otungs, a tribe of the Vandal Nation, has set aside the boy emperor, Aesilesius, and seized the throne of the vast, unstable, threatened Telnarian Empire. A raging torrent of complex, perilous events ensues. Can the throne be held? Can the empire survive? In The Emperor, we meet again fierce Abrogastes, the Far Grasper, lord of the Drisriaks, hegemonic tribe of the dreaded Aatii Nation, enemy to the Vandal Nation; his envious, treacherous son, Ingeld, aspirer to the High Seat of the Drisriaks; Sidonicus, devious, unscrupulous exarch of Telnar, seeker of power through the perversion of religion; envious Fulvius, his ambitious subordinate; a corrupt senate, an unruly citizenry, and private armies; Atalana, superstitious and cunning Empress Mother; her son, the reclusive boy emperor, Aesilesius; his lovely sisters, Alacida and Viviana, one of whom will learn chains and the whip; Julian, of the Aureliani, scion of an embittered and divided aristocracy; and many other players in the games of betrayal, blood, and power.