Arsinoe Library Edition, 2026
The Arsinoe Library is excited to announce a new publication.
In Robert E. Howard’s classic Conan tale “The Scarlet Citadel,” first published in Weird Tales in January 1933, an older King Conan of Aquilonia answers a plea for help from Amalrus, king of neighboring Ophir. Amalrus claims that Strabonus, king of Koth, is invading his western lands. Conan rides south with five thousand Aquilonian knights, only to discover a carefully laid trap. Amalrus and Strabonus have allied against him, backed by the sinister Kothian sorcerer Tsotha-lanti. Outnumbered six to one on the plain of Shamu, Conan’s cavalry is annihilated. The king himself stands alone amid the corpses until Tsotha paralyzes him with a poisoned ring-fang and has him chained and carted to the Scarlet Citadel in Khorshemish.
There the three conspirators demand that Conan abdicate in favor of the puppet Prince Arpello of Pellia in exchange for gold and safe passage. Conan contemptuously refuses, spatters Amalrus with saliva, and is dragged into the nightmare dungeons beneath the citadel—the Halls of Horror where Tsotha performs blasphemous experiments on human and inhuman subjects. Chained in darkness, Conan faces the enormous white serpent Satha. A vengeful Kushite slave arrives seeking Conan’s head; Satha kills the man, dropping keys and a sword within Conan’s reach. Freed, Conan kills the eunuch Shukeli and wanders the lightless tunnels, encountering grotesque monsters, including a weeping jelly-like abomination, before locating the imprisoned wizard Pelias, a long-time rival of Tsotha who has been held for a decade.
Pelias, grateful for release, uses sorcery to free them both. He summons a flying creature that carries Conan back to Aquilonia. In Tamar, the capital, Arpello has already seized the throne with the support of opportunistic nobles. Conan storms the palace, hurls the usurper from a high window to his death, and rallies loyal Bossonian archers, pikemen, and remaining knights. He marches to relieve the besieged city of Shamar, where the combined Kothian-Ophirean army under Strabonus and Tsotha waits. In the ensuing battle Conan’s forces, though still outnumbered, break the enemy lines. Conan confronts Tsotha personally; after a fierce struggle he beheads the wizard. Even headless, Tsotha’s body continues to move until Pelias’s summoned eagle seizes the severed head and flies away with it, ending the sorcerer’s threat. Conan reclaims his throne, having once again proven that barbarian steel and stubborn will can overcome both royal treachery and dark magic.
Full Text
HTML – http://dlc.arsinoelibrary.org/Conan-Scarlet-Citadel-Howard/scarlet-citadel.html
MARC 21 Bibliographic Data / MARCXML
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<record xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim https://www.loc.gov/standards/marcxml/schema/MARC21slim.xsd">
<leader>00000nam a2200000 a 4500</leader>
<controlfield tag="001">scarlet-citadel-howard-0600821h</controlfield>
<controlfield tag="005">20260824000000.0</controlfield>
<controlfield tag="008">060501r20201933at o 000 1 eng d</controlfield>
<datafield tag="040" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">ArsinoeLib</subfield>
<subfield code="b">eng</subfield>
<subfield code="e">rda</subfield>
<subfield code="c">ArsinoeLib</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="100" ind1="1" ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Howard, Robert E.</subfield>
<subfield code="q">(Robert Ervin),</subfield>
<subfield code="d">1906-1936,</subfield>
<subfield code="e">author.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="245" ind1="1" ind2="4">
<subfield code="a">The Scarlet Citadel /</subfield>
<subfield code="c">Robert E. Howard.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="264" ind1=" " ind2="1">
<subfield code="a">[Australia] :</subfield>
<subfield code="b">Project Gutenberg Australia,</subfield>
<subfield code="c">2006.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="300" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">1 online resource</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="336" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">text</subfield>
<subfield code="b">txt</subfield>
<subfield code="2">rdacontent</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="337" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">computer</subfield>
<subfield code="b">c</subfield>
<subfield code="2">rdamedia</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="338" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">online resource</subfield>
<subfield code="b">cr</subfield>
<subfield code="2">rdacarrier</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="500" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Title from HTML title page.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="500" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">First published in Weird Tales, January 1933.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="500" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Project Gutenberg Australia eBook No. 0600821h; first posted May 2006, most recent update November 2020.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="500" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Produced by Richard Scott and Colin Choat; updated by Roy Glashan.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="500" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Searchable archival HTML reading edition captured from the Project Gutenberg Australia HTML source edition.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="520" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Sword-and-sorcery novelette of the Hyborian Age. Conan, king of Aquilonia, is betrayed in battle by allied rival kings and the sorcerer Tsotha-lanti, imprisoned in the dungeons beneath the scarlet citadel of Khorshemish, and escapes to return and retake his throne.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="540" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">Made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License.</subfield>
<subfield code="u">http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="546" ind1=" " ind2=" ">
<subfield code="a">In English.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="650" ind1=" " ind2="0">
<subfield code="a">Conan (Fictitious character)</subfield>
<subfield code="v">Fiction.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="650" ind1=" " ind2="0">
<subfield code="a">Fantasy fiction.</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="655" ind1=" " ind2="7">
<subfield code="a">Fantasy fiction.</subfield>
<subfield code="2">lcgft</subfield>
</datafield>
<datafield tag="856" ind1="4" ind2=" ">
<subfield code="u">https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600821h.html</subfield>
<subfield code="y">Project Gutenberg Australia source edition</subfield>
<subfield code="3">Source edition used for this capture</subfield>
</datafield>
</record>