Red Nails was the last of the Conan stories written by Robert E. Howard and published in Weird Tales, where it was serialized between July and October 1936.  Set in the jungles far south of human habitation in the mythic Hyborian Age, Conan and Valeria of the Red Brotherhood are set upon and defeat a dragon. They then stumble upon the strange lost city of Xuchotil, a twilight world made from a single block of jade by a people that had been betrayed by a slave and slaughtered by a band of degenerate conquerors led by two brothers. Conan and Valeria arrive at the final phase of a deadly feud between the brothers’ clans caused by one brother stealing the bride of the other.  Our warriors help decide the matter in favor of Olmec, who then tries to double-cross Conan and seduce Valeria, only to be outdone by a sorceress. A final bloody showdown leaves everyone dead except for Conan and Valeria, who leave. Red Nails refers to the bright scarlet heads of copper nails driven in to an ebony tree trunk to keep count of the numbers slain enemy soldiers. Grim and grisly, deadly and decadent, Red Nails is considered a classic and one of the best tales in the Conan canon.