Conan the Barbarian #84 – “Two Against the Hawk-City” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one starts with Conan returning to the city of Harakht to find Bêlit gone. He interrupts a religious ritual to ask Mer-Ath what’s going on and the Priest-/king tells him how he foresaw the doom of Harakht in a dream. Apparently, he dreamt that Bêlit would topple the king of Stygia, thereby leading to Harakht’s downfall as well. Mer-Ath didn’t want to kill Bêlit outright, since she helped him gain sole control of the throne (and meet Neftha, his new paramour), so he ordered her thrown in a dungeon for the rest of her life. Naturally, Bêlit didn’t like that idea and fought the guards, grabbing Mer-Ath as a hostage to insure safe passage from the city. She also took Neftha (who didn’t protest much) to be certain Mer-Ath wouldn’t send his men after them. Now Mer-Ath
figures he can hold Conan hostage to get Bêlit to come back and rescue him, but Conan prefers to follow Bêlit to freedom. He pounds a bunch of guards and takes off, but runs into a Stygian outside with a large slave named Zula. Conan is tangled in a net and is close to getting loose when Zula steps forward and knocks him out. Conan is thrown into the dungeons, where he finds himself chained up in the same cell with Zula. Meanwhile, Bêlit has reached Luxur, the Stygian capital, with Neftha in tow. Bêlit hopes to find her father, who is supposedly being held captive by King Ctesiphon II. Neftha (who seems to know her way around quite well for a slave) leads Bêlit to a temple of Set, the snake god. The place 
is full of serpents, but the two women get inside and find the altar. Neftha gives Bêlit half of the serpent necklace she took from her former master and chants an invocation that actually turns both women into snakes. Back in Harakht, Conan is pretty pissed off at Zula, who points out that he probably saved Conan from getting cut down by the guards. Zula admits he wanted Conan thrown in the dungeons with him, mentioning that he has unfinished business in Kheshatta, City of Magicians, and needs a strong arm like Conan’s to help him. When Zula indicates he has a way to free them, Conan agrees to accompany him to Kheshatta. Zula uses some acid to dissolve their manacles and they lure the guards into the cell by pretending Conan is strangling Zula. They
waste a bunch of guards and head for the roost of the giant hawks. Zula knows they’re controlled with special whistles (which he took from a fallen guard) and manages to direct a couple of the huge birds well enough for he and Conan to ride them out of the city. Unfortunately, Zula has never flown before and soon becomes airsick, but figures it’s a small price to pay for freedom. This is a pretty good story that introduces Zula, the slave who becomes a recurring character and a friend to Conan. Roy had been thinking about adding a new black character to the comic for a while and was somewhat inspired by 
Lothar, the assistant of Mandrake the Magician in the old comic strips. But Zula would be much less of an ethnic stereotype than Lothar, which we see when he uses acid to dissolve his and Conan’s manacles. Zula claims to be a sorcerer, but is maybe more of an alchemist (though there’d be little difference between the two to someone like Conan). Roy never meant Zula to be a permanent fixture, just someone that Conan runs into every now and then, like Red Sonja. But Zula does appear in several issues in a row starting with this one, just to give him a proper introduction.
Conan the Barbarian #85 – “Of Swordsmen and Sorcerers” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one continues from the above story, with Conan and Zula riding the giant hawks to freedom. During the flight, Conan tells Zula (and us) how he and Bêlit met, how she learned her father was alive, and how they came into the depths of Stygia to find him. Zula realizes that Conan’s desire to find Bêlit and help her is at odds with his oath to accompany Zula to the City of Magicians, so when they stop to rest their giant mounts, Zula tells Conan (and us again) his own backstory. Zula was the son of a chieftain of the Zamballah tribe, but his village was wiped out by Kushite slavers, who captured all the women and killed most of the men. Zula put all the
accoutrements that could mark him as the chief’s son onto a dead tribesman, thus hiding his true identity. He was made a slave and plotted vengeance, but was sold to a Stygian who took him to Kheshatta, the fabled City of Magicians. Zula was gifted to a vile old sorcerer named Shu-Onoru, who used him as a servant, assuming he was too stupid to learn anything of the magical arts. Zula played his part well, pretending to be afraid of the old wizard while teaching himself to read and remembering much of what he heard and saw in the sorcerer’s sanctum. When Shu-Onoru conjured a demon called Helgor to learn of a special sword that would let him gain favour in the king’s eyes 
over his rival wizard, Thoth-Amon, Zula took note and tried to repeat the conjuring to enchant a sword for himself. The demon almost killed him and he had to be rescued by Shu-Onoru, who made him fight in a gladiatorial arena for the wizards’ amusement. Zula survived and tried to kill Shu-Onoru, who knocked him out and sold him to a Stygian, assuming he’d either be broken or killed. Now Zula wants to go back and confront Shu-Onoru, but Conan prefers to go help Bêlit first. Zula gets pissed off and they end up fighting, but decide to call it a draw. Conan says he’ll help Zula in Kheshatta if Zula helps him with Bêlit first and Zula agrees. Unfortunately, their giant mounts have died from the strain of carrying such big burdens, so they’ll have to walk to Luxur … something Conan definitely prefers. We get an epilogue of Bêlit and
Neftha waking up below Ctesiphon’s palace, having changed back to human form after slithering through some narrow cracks as snakes. Bêlit is suspicious of a slave having a magical talisman, but Neftha claims it was a gift from a former master. Bêlit doesn’t really believe her, but wants to find her father so she lets it go … for now. This is another good issue, giving us some background on Zula and showing how he learned his sorcery (and why he’s so motivated to go back to Kheshatta). He and Conan work well together, so I’m looking forward to seeing them in action in both Luxur and Kheshatta.