The Flame Knife

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**Title** **The Flame Knife**
first stand alone publication of The Flame Knife
Author	Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
Illustrator	Esteban Maroto
Cover artist	Sanjulian
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Conan the Barbarian
Genre(s)	Sword and sorcery Fantasy novella
Publisher	Ace Books
Released	1981
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	157 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0441116663

The Flame Knife is a 1955 fantasy novella written by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp featuring Howard's seminal sword and sorcery hero Conan the Barbarian. It was revised by de Camp from Howard's original story, a then-unpublished non-fantasy Oriental tale that featured Francis X. Gordon titled "Three-Bladed Doom". De Camp changed the names of the characters, added the fantastic element, and recast the setting into Howard's Hyborian Age. The story was first published in the hardbound collection Tales of Conan (Gnome Press, 1955), and subsequently appeared in the paperback collection Conan the Wanderer (Lancer Books, 1968), as part of which it has been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. It was published by itself in paperback book form by Ace Books in 1981, in an edition profusely illustrated by Esteban Maroto.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Conan, leader of a band of kozaki in the service of King Kobad Shah of Iranistan, quarrels with his patron over the latter's command to capture Balash, chief of the Kushafi and Conan's friend. Instead, Conan takes his band to warn the Kushafi. In the Gorge of Ghosts, the two bands are attacked by members of the Sons of Yezm, a cult of assassins whose symbol is the flame knife. The cultists kidnap Nanaia, Conan's current girlfriend. The Cimmerian tracks them to their stronghold, where he becomes embroiled in a conflict with his old enemy Olgerd Vladislav, a foe first encountered in Howard's story "A Witch Shall be Born".