The Steel Ring Read online

  Heroes’ Welcome

  Amazing Man’s eyes narrowed as the thick shower of dirt thrown up by the eruption now settled back to earth. When the dusty curtain descended, what stood revealed was a giant scorpion, as large in size as an Asian elephant.

  The creature was saddled like a horse, and astride it sat a frightening caricature of a man, his flesh gray and wrinkled as if belonging to a corpse that had been naturally mummified by the desert heat and dryness.

  “Well, Ferret,” Man of War said, nonchalantly rising and brushing himself off, “I think we found something.”

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  THE STEEL RING

  By

  R. A. JONES

  aWESTERNTAINMENTpublication

  Published by Westerntainment

  Denver, Colorado, USA

  westerntainment.blogspot.com

  Story copyright 2013 R. A. Jones

  Art copyright 2013 Thomas Derenick

  No part of this publication may be copied or reprinted, except for the purposes of review or scholarly discussion.

  The major characters appearing herein were originally published by Centaur Publications, 1938-1942, and are currently in the public domain.

  Cover by Tom Derenick

  Edited by Jeff Deischer

  Dedicated with respect, admiration and gratitude to all those Giants upon whose shoulders I sat while writing this story …

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to David Webb for his valuable feedback, and;

  Special Thanks to Tom Derenick for graciously providing the cover.

  During the darkest days

  In human history …

  They stood together as

  Mankind’s greatest hope!

  THE

  STEEL

  RING

  Twenty Years After:

  Who Were the

  Centaur Heroes?

  Centaur Publications was one of the earliest comic book publishers, and, in operation from 1938-1942, one of the short-lived ones, as well. Its most famous character was Bill Everett’s Amazing Man, whose origin was raided, ahem, rummaged through, by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane when they created Iron Fist for Marvel in 1974.

  But, historically, the Clock, a gun-toting vigilante, was more important. He was comics’ first masked hero. Debuting in late 1936, he is technically not a Centaur character. He was published by the forerunner of Centaur comics, then sold to Quality Comics, which was later absorbed by DC Comics, which did not renew their copyrights on a number of the appropriated characters. Thus, the Clock, in public domain, is considered the first Centaur character, and arguably the first superhero in American comics.

  And while the winged Air Man (later Airman) may have been inspired by DC’s Hawkman, the Arrow predated his counterpart, the Green Arrow, by a year, and was the first superhero archer.

  Other better-known Centaur heroes include Airman, the Arrow, the Eye, Fantom of the Fair (A.K.A. Fantoman), the Masked Marvel and Minimidget (each of whom have their own Wikipedia page, by the way). The company went out of business in 1942, primarily due to poor distribution, although some creators, such as Bill Everett, went on to bigger and better things -- in his case, the Sub-Mariner at Timely (which became Marvel Comics in the Sixties).

  The Centaur characters disappeared from the public eye for fifty years – until Malibu Comics resurrected them in 1992, grouping them as the “Protectors” in their own title. This was written by R.A. Jones, the author of Eternity’s SCIMIDAR and DARK WOLF series, as well as limited series such as WHITE DEVIL and MERLIN. He also wrote a FERRET series at Malibu, one of several titles to spotlight members of the Protectors. Using some of the lesser-known Centaur characters alongside the better-known ones, he revamped and updated some of the heroes for inclusion in a modern world (Fantoman becoming Gravestone, for example).

  PROTECTORS (without the article) lasted twenty issues, and then, along with all of Malibu’s books, the series was cancelled, and the company sold to Marvel (which has since been acquired by Disney).

  Now, after twenty years, R.A. Jones returns to the Protectors – sort of. The Centaur characters herein are not the modern versions published by Malibu. Instead, R.A. has gone back to the original sources, and set The Steel Ring in 1939, at the beginning of the Golden Age of Comics.

  If you were a fan of (the) PROTECTORS (I was), then you’ll be thrilled to get reacquainted with the Centaur heroes. And if you’ve never heard of The Protectors or Centaur, you’ll still enjoy this book if you like superheroes, because R.A. is a heck of a writer!

  So travel back with R.A. Jones, Amazing Man, the Clock and others as the clouds of war gather over Europe – and the entire world ….

  Jeff Deischer

  August 30, 2013

  CHAPTER I

  September, 1914

  The gray-white bubbles of foam oozing from the corners of the snarling beast’s jaws was all the proof they needed that the great black wolf was caught in the vise of the mad sickness.

  The peasant couple had spent the better part of an hour trudging up the mountainside from their tiny village of Oobang, located where the Brahmaputra Valley begins to give way to the towering majesty of the Himalayan Mountains. Oobang was less than a mile from their destination, but the way was steep, nearly straight up, and cluttered with stony obstacles. The journey, and the thin air, had left them winded; even if this had not been so, they would not have been able to outrun a wolf that was deep in the killing frenzy.

  “Try to get back down the mountain,” said Mantrapoor, stepping in front of the woman who had been walking beside him, so as to place himself between her and the ravening wolf.

  “What about you?” his wife and companion, Prahmasung, whispered desperately.

  “Just go!” he hissed, gripping his walking staff firmly in both hands.

  The sound of small stones being dislodged by her equally small feet told him she was obeying.

  “Hah!” he yelled, taking an aggressive step toward the wolf.

  It crouched defensively, but its lips were still curled back defiantly, revealing long, jagged, yellow fangs. Feral eyes darted from side to side, the cunning mind of the crazed devising a new plan of attack.

  The wolf lunged forward, and Mantrapoor braced himself for the charge. But the wolf had merely been feinting, and now skipped nimbly to one side. Its feet left the ground in a blurred leap. Claws screeched on stone as the beast caromed off a boulder and flung itself around the peasant man.

  Prahmasung, almost against her conscious will, looked fearfully back over one shoulder to see 200 pounds of madness wrapped in fur racing toward her. With her vision thus diverted, she couldn’t avoid the rock protrudin
g from the hard ground that now caught the toes of her right foot.

  With a cry of despair, she pitched forward. As she fell, she twisted her body so as to land on her back, thus protecting the small bundle she held clutched in both arms.

  The woolen wrapped bundle squirmed in her grasp as she hit the ground with a whoosh of violently escaping air, but no sound issued from it.

  Maintaining her hold on the bundle with one arm, Prahmasung pushed herself partially upright with the other. To her horror, she saw that the rabid wolf was now no more than a few feet away.

  It no longer ran, having brought its prey to ground, but rather now advanced with slow, measured strides. Prahmasung tried to scuttle back away, but her heels mostly slid uselessly off the iron-hard soil beneath her.

  No one could ever accuse the woman’s shepherd husband of cowardice, and Mantrapoor did not hesitate to leap forward to her defense. He swung his staff with all his might, bringing it down across the wolf’s broad shoulders. The staff’s wooden shaft bowed, then splintered and shattered, the recoil causing the man to tumble over and slide painfully across the rocks.

  Unfazed, the wolf did pause, then turned its great shaggy head to one side, fixing the fallen man with a baleful glare that seemed to say, “Just wait. I’ll come for you next.”

  Mantrapoor tried to rise, but a sharp pain squeezed the breath from his lungs and the strength from his arms and legs. He sagged to the ground; he’d done all he could.

  Prahmasung, meanwhile, had pushed her back up against a boulder, and sat waiting for her own fate to take her.

  She averted her eyes to one side, unable to meet head-on the blazing beads of impending death that glowed from the dark recesses of the wolf’s skull.

  Ever closer it came, until she could feel the foul warmth of its breath as its lips curled back in a mockery of a smile.

  The bundle in her arms suddenly kicked out, thrusting tiny legs that caused the woolen blanket to fall away from it.

  The wolf’s eyes widened in delight as it saw what was inside the bundle.

  A baby.

  Behind the wolf, Mantrapoor groaned in pain and despair. Before it, Prahmasung whimpered and cried, the tears tracing wet trails down her cheeks.

  But no sound issued from the infant boy.

  He merely stared at the wolf, as if fascinated by the sight of this creature that was unknown to him in his brief experience.

  The beast stared back – and it, too, saw something foreign to it. The baby’s eyes were like tiny black pools of eternity. They spoke of an antiquity that went back to a time before man was man. They also spoke of power, and of a danger that sought to pull this wolf into its depths and never let it return.

  The dark beast recoiled, gripped by the only thing that could dispel the madness that clouded its primitive brain: fear. Like the two-legged female before it, the wolf also whimpered now. As if a common dog faced by its unquestioned better, its ears flattened against its head and its bushy tail curled down between its legs.

  Unable to break free of the gaze of the little one, the wolf nonetheless did find the will and strength to back away, step by struggling step. The baby seemed almost to smile at it.

  With that, the spell was broken. The wolf twisted away and scurried upward until finally moving from sight.

  The baby relaxed, letting its tiny head fall back between Prahmasung’s still heaving breasts, then closed those haunting eyes and fell asleep.

  A shadow fell over Prahmasung, and she cried out fearfully until she realized it was merely her husband. He had regained his feet, and now offered her a hand to rise. His other hand was pressed against his rib cage, and he winced in pain as he helped her to her feet.

  “Did you see?” she asked him breathlessly.

  “I saw,” he replied softly. “All the more reason we need to take him to the temple.”

  Prahmasung pulled the small woolen blanket back up over the sleeping infant, after bending her head and kissing him lightly.

  She then returned her gaze to Mantrapoor, and nodded.

  The Temple of Enlightened Anguish was built into the very walls of the mountain itself, looking very much as if the rock face had literally grown outward and molded itself into the shape of the imposing edifice.

  Mantrapoor pulled his long woolen coat more tightly about himself; though summer had barely faded into autumn, the cold at this altitude was already stinging, with patches of snow crowning many of the outcroppings of rock.

  He paused, waiting for Prahmasung and the infant boy to catch up. She panted heavily, her short breaths shooting from her mouth and nostrils in small clouds. She smiled at her husband, but he also saw a look of pain, or maybe sorrow (or maybe both) in her eyes.

  It had been only a few weeks since she had lost the child she had carried in her own womb, and she had yet to fully recover in either body or mind. No doubt, this was why she clung to this infant they had brought to the temple.

  Mantrapoor turned to gaze at the massive door that stood as a barrier before them. Higher than the height of three men combined it was, its blue metal façade dancing with multiple images in bas-relief: portraits of gods with the heads of elephants and tigers, legendary heroes battling demons and monsters.

  He blinked and shook his head. It must have been a trick of the light that caused him for a moment to think the myriad images carved on the door were actually moving slowly, as if acting out the scenes they depicted. He rubbed his eyes and stared more intently. As he expected, there was no movement.

  A thick chain was bolted to the center of the door, and hanging down at the end of this chain was an even thicker hammer. Mantrapoor hoped his young wife would not notice the slight tremor in his hand as he reached forward tentatively and gripped the handle of the hammer.

  “It’s not too late,” Prahmasung said in a hushed tone. “We can still go back to the village. Raise the baby as our own.”

  “No,” Mantrapoor said firmly. “You’ve seen what he can do. He’s not for the likes of us.”

  Before his wife could voice any further argument, the shepherd reared back and brought the head of the hammer slamming against the door.

  A reverberating sound like that of a thousand gongs sprang from the portal. The vibrations it sent into the hammer caused Mantrapoor to drop it, as his fingers grew instantly numb and useless. He stumbled back, stopping when he bumped into Prahmasung, who clutched at the back of his coat with her free hand.

  A ghostly wailing sound pounded in their heads as the enormous door swung inward on protesting hinges. Mantrapoor’s left hand slid into his coat and began to finger a string of prayer beads he wore around his neck.

  He was but a humble man, after all. He knew of sheep and barley, of the daily toil that bowed a man until at last he broke. The ways of the divine were beyond him, a mystery he neither sought nor hoped to understand. The way of life was clear to all; the why of it to only a few.

  And they dwelt here.

  He could see nothing but darkness beyond the doorway, but it beckoned to him and he obeyed its silent call.

  A moment of panic turned his blood to dust when the door quickly and loudly slammed closed behind him and his wife. He heard her cry out in fear, but he could not see her, for the darkness was now complete, wrapping around him like some great, suffocating beast.

  He waved his arms about gently, eliciting a louder cry of fear from Prahmasung as his hand brushed her arm.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered soothingly. “It’s only me.”

  He gripped her arm and pulled her toward him, encircling her in his arms. As he listened to her rapid breathing begin to slow, he could not help but note that not a sound issued from the infant. The oppressive darkness had no effect on the boy.

  Both man and woman cried out as a whooshing sound on either side of them shattered the silence. The sound was followed by welcome light, as torches set in sconces high on the walls they now saw on the left and the right came into sight.

  Another
torch and then another flickered to life, until they could see they were in a long, narrow corridor. Looking up, Mantrapoor found he could not tell how high the stone walls were, for their ceiling was lost in the nothingness beyond the range of the torches’ light. Nor could he tell how long it was, for the points of light along it seemed to go on for an impossibly long way, ‘til each was as tiny as distant stars in the night sky.

  “Come on,” the shepherd said, stepping forward and pulling Prahmasung with him.

  “We shouldn’t have come here,” she insisted. “No human being should ever come here.”

  She gasped as a sound almost like distant laughter seemed to bounce off the walls around her.

  The fearful peasants continued forward, step by heavy step, for what may have been a long time. At last they came to the end of the narrow corridor, or so they thought; the total darkness stretching out before them made it hard to be certain.

  A sound like a great ram’s horn being blared through the echoing canyons of the mountains struck them as a physical blow. Light exploded all around them, driving both man and woman to their knees.

  Mantrapoor at length dared to raise his eyes, shielding them from the blinding glare with one hand cupped over his forehead.

  They were in a large, circular chamber, illuminated by scores of crackling torches set round the walls. Mantrapoor could see that the temple rose up in many layers from this central core, and at each level a ring of braziers pushed back the dark.