Robert Ervin Howard

Blood of the Gods Illustrated Robert Ervin Howard

"Blood of the Gods" is an El Borak short story by Robert E. Howard. It was originally published in the July 1935 issue of the pulp magazine Top-Notch. A group of soldiers of fortune seek a set of matched rubies called the Blood of the Gods, owned by al Wazir. To find it, they capture an Arab who they believe knows the location of al Wazir, who has become a desert hermit. After the Arab agrees to help them, despite his fear of el Borak, a friend of al Wazir who leads the caravan to al Wazir's hermitage and reveals al Wazir's location at the Caves of El Khour, the Arab is shot by one of el Borak's other allies, Salim.