Conan the Barbarian #19 – “Hawks From the Sea” – Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor Smith/Dan Adkins
Last issue, Conan and Fafnir were picked up by a Turanian war galley commanded by Prince Yezdigerd. He’s leading a force against a city across the Vilayet Sea and allowed (or forced) Conan and Fafnir to join his army. As the ship makes its way across the Sea, Conan sees a soldier (Balthaz) lashing a broken wooden statue to the mast. Balthaz explains that the figurehead represents Tarim, the Living God, for whose sake their expedition was mounted. When Conan refuses to show respect to Tarim, Balthaz attacks him and they fight, with Balthaz ending
up in the shark-infested waters. Yezdigerd has Balthaz rescued and gives Conan and Fafnir (and us) a quick history lesson. Ages ago, the Lemurians fled their original home, led by a warrior/healer named Tarim, to found the nation of Hyrkania on the eastern shore of the inland sea. Later, some colonists crossed the sea to found Aghrapur, capital of the new nation of Turan. So the Turanians are basically an offshoot of the Hyrkanians, and both of them worship Tarim as a living god, since his descendants are considered to be reincarnations of Tarim. These Tarim descendants have lived in Aghrapur for generations, 
giving the city (and the kingdom of Turan) primacy among those who worship Tarim. But Tarim was taken from Aghrapur by agents of the Hyrkanian city of Makkalet only a few weeks ago. Yezdigerd is leading this expedition to retrieve Tarim and punish Makkalet by burning it to the ground. Conan wonders why a god needs human intervention to save him and Fafnir points out that Makkalet is a big trading rival of Aghrapur, so there might be more earthly reasons to wipe it out. That pisses Yezdigerd off, but he can’t afford to lose two strong sword-arms, so he stows his anger and promises plenty of loot when the city falls. Later, we see Yezdigerd talking to Balthaz and it seems like he’s not as pious towards the Tarim as most of his men are. The next day, Yezdigerd and his fleet (who caught up during the night) arrive at Makkalet, where they’re greeted by a hail of flaming arrows and pitch. Conan arms
himself from a fallen soldier and joins the mass of men charging up the beach towards the city. Inside the royal palace, the king confers with his wizard (Kharam-Akkad), who says he can repel the invaders. The king seems kinda out of it and it seems like he’s maybe just a puppet, being kept docile by sleeping draughts administered by the Queen (Melissandra). Kharam-Akkad uses his magic to send nine huge undead warriors against the invaders, including Conan’s cohort (led by Balthaz). The Turanians fight valiantly, but the undead soldiers seem invulnerable and cut down many of Balthaz’s men, making him wonder if Tarim has blessed the enemy with his favour. Balthaz sends Fafnir and a couple of others to scale the wall and try to get inside the palace, but Fafnir takes a flaming arrow in the arm and his companions flee. 
Conan climbs up to help and notices Kharam-Akkad on the ramparts. He also notices that the attackers seem to be mirror images of each other and drops down behind them to attack. He kills the middle soldier and the others disappear, proving they were just projections of the only real one there. Balthaz congratulates him, but points out that he’s made an enemy of Kharam-Akkad. This is a good issue that gives Conan the chance to act as part of an army. The art is great, although the last eleven pages have a slightly fuzzy look to them because the creators ran into deadline problems and had to print those pages straight from Barry’s pencils instead of inking them.
Conan the Barbarian #20 – “The Black Hound of Vengeance” – Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor Smith/Dan Adkins
This issue begins right after the last one, with Conan and the other Turanian invaders returning to their ships as night falls. Conan looks for Fafnir and finds him among the wounded, in relatively good shape … except the arm that was wounded by the flaming arrow had to be cut off. Conan watches over Fafnir until he’s summoned by Yezdigerd to join a special mission into the city. Balthaz is leading a small force to sneak into the temple and steal back the Tarim. Conan has no reverence for a god so easily captured, but wants revenge for what happened to Fafnir, so he agrees to go. They run into some guards but take them out quickly, moving
on to find the temple. Balthaz sends some of his men to slaughter the archers who decimated their ranks that day, while the rest head for the temple to find Tarim. The temple is dark and they separate, with two of them dying quickly, their screams unnerving Balthaz. Conan isn’t as bothered and makes his way into the inner sanctum where he claims a bejewelled sword as part of his reward. He’s caught by Queen Melissandra, but when Conan assumes her to be a lowly temple wench, she plays along, calling herself Caissa. They’re interrupted by the wizard Kharam-Akkad, who tells Conan two of his fellows have been slain by the Black Hound. Melissandra seems a bit creeped out by the wizard and 
urges Conan to run. The barbarian does so, but soon finds himself in a mirrored hall where he realizes some of Kharam-Akkad’s wizardry is simple trickery. Melissandra asks the wizard why none of them are allowed to see the Tarim, but Kharam-Akkad prevaricates, more interested in the sound of bells that comes from nearby. Conan hears the bells too, but soon finds himself in a vast mirrored chamber, where someone sits on a throne. Conan knows it must be Tarim, but before he can get too close, he falls through a trap door into a dungeon. He’s attacked by a giant black hound and after a hard struggle, he kills the beast. He crawls through a tunnel that leads outside and swims back to Yezdigerd’s ship. He looks for Fafnir but soon finds out his friend was
dumped overboard by Balthaz because he was near death. Conan kills Balthaz and fights his way through some Turanians to get off the ship. Yezdigerd tries to stop him and Conan slices him across the cheek before diving off the ship and swimming away. The last two pages feature Barry Smith’s art with straight prose from Roy; apparently Barry left room for Roy to tell the tale without captions or word balloons as a sort of challenge. It turns out pretty well, with the words and art complementing each other. Roy said he was trying to give these two issues an epic feel, like the Iliad, and I think that comes across pretty well. Yezdigerd (and his scar) 
will return in future issues (he was used by both Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague De Camp in Conan stories), so it’s interesting to see this early depiction of him. He’s obviously ambitious, wanting to expand Turan’s territory, and is devious enough to pay lip service to the god Tarim to motivate his men, but it seems like Yezdigerd himself isn’t exactly what you’d call pious. Speaking of Tarim, there’s obviously some mystery about him, but we won’t learn what it is for a few more issues.