‘The Savage Angela in: The Beast in the Tunnels’ – John Langan (from ‘Swords vs Cthulhu’)

I’m well into Matt Wesolowski’s ‘Demon’ and while I could quite happily just sit and read it until I’m done, I didn’t want the blog to feel all unloved in the meantime 😉 It was time then to revisit my resolution to read more short stories, this year, and that’s just what I did last night. ‘Swords v. Cthulhu’ has already been featured here when I looked at Eneasz Brodski’s ‘Of All Possible Worlds’ but that was ages ago (well, April 2020 but it feels like ages ago…) so it felt like the right time to revisit the collection and a tale of a fight for survival beneath the earth…

‘Her sword in a high guard (what the old woman who taught her to fight called the Horn of the Bull), Angela advances deeper into the tunnel. She steps lightly, but does not worry overly much about remaining silent. For one thing, the iron scales sewed to her leather tunic clink and rattle with her every movement. For another, the beast she is hunting appears able to hear the slightest sound. For a third, she wants the creature to know she is coming.’

What I love about ‘barbarian stories’ is when the hero comes across a monster, or nameless evil etc, that ‘was old and steeped in evil when man first discovered fire’, I know that you know what I mean... It always makes for a great bit of cosmic horror, especially as the main character is some barbarian type who is barely aware of what is beyond his home village, let alone what lies beyond the world. It invariably makes the ‘big threat’ even bigger and more threatening… ‘The Beast in the Tunnels’ is a whole story of that and it is great fun as Angela hunts and battles the Lord of Those Who Dig Beneath the Soil through tunnels and caverns.

Now, I challenge you to find anything not to enjoy about the prospect of a heroine wielding a talking sword and going after a gigantic mole monster on her own because anything else would attract attention to the King’s ‘Joyweed Operation’. Nope, me neither 😉 And on it’s own, that would be plenty enough for me. Langan doesn’t just settle for that though and gives us a little excursion into the Dream Realms as well as having Angela meet a ‘Power’ with its own connection to the Lord. Moments like this not only give us a little more insight into Angela’s character (and I for one would love to read more tales of the ‘Savage Angela’) but they also firmly place her tale in the realms of the Mythos and give the story a real sense of its own identity. Both atmospheric and exciting then, you can’t ask for a lot more than that in a short story and ‘The Beast in the Tunnels’ has plenty of both.

What I really liked though is how Langan gives the proceedings a real weight of history that can pass from understanding with the thrust of a blade…

Angela considers the creature’s armor. Its edges are bordered by lines that cross and loop and twist like paths on a map. Its surface is embossed with figures that suggest moles and voles and other animals that dwell underground, engaged in some complex action, a dance perhaps, or a celebration — maybe a battle. Whatever it represents, like so much else, is now lost.

Humanity does not know it’s real place in the cosmos and sometimes, that can be more tragic than anything else…

I read ‘The Beast in the Tunnels’ in Bullington and Tanzer’s ‘Swords v. Cthulhu’ collection; I’m not sure if it’s printed anywhere else but the collection is a good one so definitely grab it if you see a copy floating about.