In “The Children of the Night,” a group of men discuss old books, artifacts, race, and the Cult of Bran, who worship the Dark Man, an ancient king of the Picts called Bran Mak Morn. One of the men, John O’Donnel, is accidentally rendered unconscious. The blow sends him traveling back in time to an earlier incarnation, where he finds himself in the body of a savage barbarian of the Sword People, fully aware both of his old and new self, named Aryara, and surrounded by a reptilian enemy. With axe in hand, he decimates these foes, “snarling, hacking and smiting”. Aryara kills all but a few of his attackers, the Children of the Night. He follows the last back to their village and savagely engages all the inhabitants. He is finally overwhelmed by hundreds of assailants and dies. O’Donnel wakes, returned to modern day, andimmediately attacks the man who hit him on the head, until his friends separate them. In the final section, O’Donnel recounts his memories and research of the Children, the First Men before the Picts, and of Aryara’s people, the Aryans. He associates the man who hit him as belonging to the same race as the Children, and vows to murder him, even if it means his own death.
Description In “The Children of the Night,” a group of men discuss old books, artifacts, race, and the Cult of Bran, who worship the Dark Man, an ancient king of the Picts called Bran Mak Morn. One of the men, John O’Donnel, is accidentally rendered unconscious. The blow sends him traveling back in time to an earlier incarnation, where he finds himself in the body of a savage barbarian of the Sword People, fully aware both of his old and new self, named Aryara, and surrounded by a reptilian enemy. With axe in hand, he decimates these foes, “snarling, hacking and smiting”. Aryara kills all but a few of his attackers, the Children of the Night. He follows the last back to their village and savagely engages all the inhabitants. He is finally overwhelmed by hundreds of assailants and dies. O’Donnel wakes, returned to modern day, andimmediately attacks the man who hit him on the head, until his friends separate them. In the final section, O’Donnel recounts his memories and research of the Children, the First Men before the Picts, and of Aryara’s people, the Aryans. He associates the man who hit him as belonging to the same race as the Children, and vows to murder him, even if it means his own death.
