Conan the Barbarian #11 – “Rogues in the House” – Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor Smith/Sal Buscema
This one starts with Conan chained in a dungeon, taunted by a sadistic guard named Ch’unda. We get a flashback showing how Conan wound up in the dungeons after killing the priest last issue. Jenna (who now has the hots for the thief Igon) betrayed Conan to the guards and Conan was so drunk he knocked himself out during the fight. A young nobleman named Murilo comes to visit Conan and offers to help him “escape” the dungeon, if he’ll kill Nabonidus, the Red Priest who rules
the city in all but name. But Nabonidus seems to be one step ahead and has Murilo’s tame guard arrested, so Murilo heads to Nabonidus’s palace to kill the priest himself. In the dungeon, Conan lures Ch’unda into his cell and kills him. Before discharging his debt to Murilo, he heads to the inn where Igon and Jenna are staying. He kills Igon and throws Jenna off the roof into a cesspit, then heads to the palace to kill Nabonidus. He gets inside and runs into Murilo, who tells him they need to get out fast. Murilo recounts how he found one of Nabonidus’s servants dead and an ape sitting on the throne wearing Nabonidus’s robes. 
At first, they assume the ape is Nabonidus and that he’s some kind of were-creature. But when they find the real Nabonidus unconscious, they learn the truth. Nabonidus points out that Murilo is just as crooked as he is, having sold secrets to another nation. They agree to cooperate (and keep each other’s secrets), although Conan doesn’t trust either of them now. Nabonidus uses his system of spying mirrors to show them who has taken over his palace … a semi-intelligent ape called Thak, who apparently learned enough from Nabonidus to usurp his position. But Thak is still an animal and they watch
him fight and kill Nabonidus’s pet leopard and smash the palace to shit. They try to get out of the palace unnoticed, but Thak hears them and Conan ends up fighting him. With a little help from Murilo, Conan kills Thak. Naturally, Nabonidus betrays them, but Conan kills him and he and Murilo leave the palace. This is a longer story than usual because Marvel had temporarily (for only two issues) upped their page count in 1971. Rogues in the House is based on an original Robert E. Howard story, with a few minor changes. The traitorous 
woman wasn’t named in REH’s story, so Roy decided to use Jenna, since she’d already been established as a liar. In the original, Thak actually kills another party of thieves in the palace, but Roy though that was too coincidental, so he substituted the leopard. Apparently, the scene with Jenna and Conan in the chamber together was considered rather racy in 1971, but it looks pretty tame now. Both Jenna and Murilo will appear in future issues.
Conan the Barbarian #12 – “The Dweller in the Dark” – Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor Smith
This one starts with Conan being jumped at a watering hole in the desert near Corinthia’s border with Zamora. He kills several of his attackers before being knocked out and taken to the nearby city of Zahmahn. Since Conan killed Queen Fatima’s guard captain (and lover), she offers him both positions. Conan enjoys himself for a few weeks, but soon realizes that he’s not allowed to leave the palace. Fatima’s handmaiden (Yaila) warns Conan that as soon as the queen tires of him he’ll be tossed
aside … or worse. When the queen finds Conan and Yaila talking, she freaks out and has them chained in the dungeon, to be devoured by the Dweller in the Dark. Conan manages to break their chains and finds a sword beside a mouldering skeleton. Just in time, as the Dweller arrives and turns out to be a giant octopus. Conan saves Yaila from the monsters tentacles and blinds it, but it follows them up toward a trap door leading into the throne room. Conan kills some guards and throws Queen Fatima to the Dweller. He’s hailed as a hero, but learns he can’t become king of Zahmahn since the city only has queens. He nominates Yaila as the next queen and declines her offer to be 
her consort, having had enough of that with Fatima (although I’d like to think he stuck around long enough to bang Yaila before leaving). This is an original story that Roy and Barry came up with for Savage Tales but ended up using here because they were having deadline issues. Apparently, there was some controversy about Conan tossing Fatima to the monster, since he supposedly has a code against killing women. Is that from Robert E. Howard, or was it added later to make Conan seem more heroic? It seems a little strange (and sexist) since women can be just as dangerous as men; Conan’s lucky he didn’t get killed by some wild swordswoman because of his misplaced chivalry.