Conan the Barbarian #43 – “Tower of Blood” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one starts with Conan and Red Sonja (remember her from issues 23 and 24?) being pursued by bounty hunters from the City of Thieves. Apparently, Sonja was chosen as a Hyrkanian king’s concubine but stabbed him instead of marrying him, plus one of Conan’s wenches accused them both of murder, so now there’s a price on both their heads. The bounty hunters bring down Sonja’s horse and she’s ready to go down fighting, but Conan grabs her and takes her to a rocky escarpment where he’s spotted a cleft that might shelter them. Before trying the cleft, they
topple a precarious rock that wipes out all the bounty hunters except the leader (Mamnon), who swears revenge on Conan before taking off. Conan and Sonja head into the rock cleft and emerge in a hidden valley that’s filled with a weird red mist. They’re attacked by a strangely human-looking bat that Conan cuts down. They find a tower in the mist, but before they can enter a figure confronts them, knocking them out with sorcery. Conan awakens inside the tower and meets Uathacht, a beautiful woman of regal bearing who seems to have taken quite an interest in him (although she doesn’t give a shit about Sonja, who’s still unconscious). Uathacht’s brother (Morophla) shows up and tells 
Conan he wants to rule Stygia someday with his sorcerous powers. Morophla tests Conan, reading his mind and controlling him like a puppet, which pisses Conan off but there’s nothing he can do against Morophla’s power. Uathacht explains that she and Morophla are ancient and once ruled in Stygia before being ousted by Thoth-Amon. She also says they need blood to survive and Conan realizes they’re vampires, although Morophla claims they aren’t the usual kind of vampire (who he considers to have too many limitations). Conan and Sonja are taken to the dungeons, seeing more of the bat-men (which
Morophla calls Afterlings, the results of some hideous experiment is cross-breeding). Morophla shows them a twisted monster named Dromek, who they were using as a breeder until he started eating the women they brought him. Uathacht is jealous of Sonja, so she tosses her into Dromek’s pit and Conan jumps in after her. Conan kills Dromek with a broken bone, but can’t fight off Morophla’s sorcerous powers and is forced to bring Sonja to the dungeons. As he locks them up, Morophla says they’ll make good breeding stock. Conan wonders if Uathacht might free them (since she’s obviously 
hot for him), but Morophla warns Conan that his sister’s infatuation with him won’t last and he’ll end up like all her other playthings. This is part one of a story that reunites Conan with Red Sonja, who still doesn’t want to bang him. Sonja’s not quite as bad-ass in this issue as in her previous appearance (in fact she spends most of the story unconscious), but she’ll have more to do next issue. If you’re wondering how Conan and Sonja got together again, there was supposed to be a different story in this issue (“Curse of the Undead Man”), but it got pulled to fill a slot in the new Savage Sword of Conan magazine, so technically that story—which will eventually be reprinted in issue 78 of this title—takes
place between last issue and this one. (And the Red Sonja story that appeared in Savage Sword #1 shows how Sonja ended up being pursued by bounty hunters for regicide.) This story is based on “Tower of Blood” by David A. English that originally appeared in a semi-pro SF magazine and that Roy liked enough to adapt. Apparently he stuck to the original pretty closely, other than adding Red Sonja to spice things up.
Conan the Barbarian #44 – “Of Flame and the Fiend” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Crusty Bunkers
This one starts with Conan and Sonja still in the dungeon, but Morophla comes to get Conan to do his “duty” … in other words, to breed with the quasi-human women that are all that remains of the vampires’ harem. Conan’s will is stronger than Morophla imagined, so he uses a foul potion to force Conan to mate with the “women”. Conan wakes up back in the dungeon, but doesn’t want to talk about his ordeal. Uathacht sends an astral projection to see if he’s still sane and he tells her
he’ll willingly become her lover if she lets Sonja go. After deliberating for a few days, Uathacht uses spells to put her brother to sleep and comes to claim her prize. But she balks at letting Sonja go, attacking her with a dagger. Sonja ends up killing Uathacht and she and Conan prepare to flee the tower. They run into the Afterlings, who can speak now that Morophla is out of commission. The Afterlings let them go and they find some weapons and some kind of petroleum oil in a hidden room. Morophla’s spirit appears and Conan isn’t too worried since he’s still under his sister’s spell. But Morophla uses the red mist to conjure various monsters from Conan’s memory, including the 
golden ape (from issue #28), the Dweller in the Dark (from #12), and the man-headed serpent (from #7). Conan defeats them all and Morophla attacks with his astral self, trying to finish Conan remotely. Sonja starts a fire with the oil and it consumes Morophla’s body in the next room, but with his dying words he taunts them about not being able to escape the burning tower. Conan and Sonja try to climb down the outer wall but they slip part-way … only to be rescued by the Afterlings, who fly them to safety. They make their way back through the rock cleft, where Conan’s horse has returned to wait for him. But Sonja doesn’t want Conan (or any man) risking his life for her, so she knocks him out and takes the horse, preferring to have the bounty hunters come after her alone. This is a good conclusion to the adaptation of David
English’s original story, with Conan going through some pretty intense stuff. It’s interesting that he was pretty shaken up by being forced to breed with the freaky harem, but was willing to bang Uathacht to free Red Sonja, even though he was repulsed by her vampiric nature. Sonja knocking Conan out at the end was obviously a way to remove her before the next story started, but she does give Conan an interesting insight into her character when she tells him she’s not jealous of Uathacht’s attentions to him because she’s not that sort of woman … but kinda wishes she was! So much for feminism.