El Borak (Francis Xavier Gordon)

Francis Xavier Gordon, nicknamed El Borak, is portrayed in Howard's stories as an American—originally from Texas—who became a frontline adventurer and operative across Afghanistan and neighboring regions. The epithet El Borak (Arabic for "The Swift") was conferred upon him in Afghanistan because of his extraordinary quickness in movement and weapons use; his reputation spread by word of mouth from the Golden Horn to the Ganges. The character is a product of early 20th‑century pulp fiction and is presented as a human agent whose legend arises from martial skill and daring rather than supernatural birth or transformation. Publication history in the pulp era (stories appearing in magazines in the 1930s, with posthumous collections following) situates him within Howard's body of straight adventure fiction, with only sporadic fantasy intrusion (notably the story "Three-Bladed Doom").

Accounts describe Gordon as shorter than many other pulp protagonists, with a compact, slender but strong build. He is depicted with black hair and black eyes; Howard's texts and summaries note Highland Scots and "Black Irish" ancestry in his background while marking his dark eyes as a distinguishing trait. The most emphasized physical characteristic is his exceptional quickness — rapid, compact movements that inform his fighting style and earned him his epithet — rather than exotic or supernatural features.

El Borak's defining attributes are human but exceptional: extraordinary speed and quickness (especially in drawing and using weapons), uncanny proficiency with the gun, the knife, and the sword, and marked mental quickness and tactical guile. In the stories he operates as a frontier mediator and combatant across Afghanistan and adjacent regions, frequently attempting to minimise tribal wars and conflict through strategy or direct violence. He is mortal and subject to ordinary human limits; his strengths are skill, reputation, and experience rather than any magical powers. Only one Howard tale in the El Borak cycle contains an overt fantasy element, reinforcing that the series is primarily straight adventure fiction.