Barf the Barbarian in Red Nail (The Chronicles of Barf the Barbarian)

The second volume of "The Chronicles of Barf the Barbarian" finds our hero in a strange deserted city... or is it deserted? Barf is about to find out... "Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Hairyass, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars - Hyperbolea and Bongia with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Styngia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore mantles of silk and gold.* But the proudest Kingdom of the world was Aquaviti, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither staggered Barf the Barbarian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, intellectually challenged and usually totally out of it. He was known to hold his magical sword, Humdinger,** in hand, and was often accompanied by the female warrior known only as the Red Sonja***. She followed him partly as he was a thief, a reaver, a slayer, yet she mostly accompanied him more out of curiosity than anything, for he was a man with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, and of him the prophecies all said that one day, o prince, he would tread the jewelled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.****" *The Hyrkanian raiders were extremely fashion conscious, but also equally lazy. They would not get out of bed unless there was an outfit neatly pressed nearby for them to climb into, as long as the outfit did not have to be pressed by them. ** Trademark of Styngian blades New Nemours Inc. ™ applies worldwide. *** Real name Sandra. It just didn’t go with the sword. **** The prophecies don’t actually say UNDER as such. In fact, it is reported in “The history of feats and Majics of Hyperbolea” More as a health and safety incident. It is of course often said that the Aquavitins were nothing if not ones for embellishing a tale.