Conan the Barbarian #91 – “Savage Doings in Shem” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one starts with Conan, Bêlit, and Zula meeting Bêlit’s ship (the Tigress) on the coast. The crew are happy to have her and Conan back and welcome Zula and his blade. That night, the crew celebrate the return of their captain (who they still think of as part goddess) with a wild celebration. Zula impresses the crew by hypnotizing one of them into thinking he’s a bird, but Zula has to stop him before he tries to “fly” right into the mouth of a hungry crocodile. Not to be outdone by her men, Bêlit does another rendition of her mating dance (which we saw in issue 58) and it gets Conan pretty worked up. He
and Bêlit go off to bang while the shaman N’yaga confides to Zula that M’gora went to Asgalun to do a little spying and is overdue to return. The next morning, M’gora does return but he’s pursued by giant rats from the swamp he just crossed. Conan, Bêlit, and Zula lead the crew to M’gora’s rescue, driving the rats off. Aboard the Tigress, M’gora tells Bêlit how his clandestine scouting mission went. He and a few other corsairs got into Asgalun by joining a mercenary troop of Kushites under Imbalayo, since the Stygians apparently prefer to hire mercenaries to garrison Asgalun instead of sending their own troops. Despite that, Stygian influence is rife in Asgalun, with the usurper Nim-Karrak (who Bêlit wants to kill for taking the throne from her father) being surrounded by Stygian guards whenever he goes out. But Nim-Karrak ended 
up replacing his Stygian guards with some Hyrkanian mercenaries and M’gora heard rumours that Stygia was planning on taking over the city outright … which would probably cause the native Shemites to revolt. M’gora also mentions Uriaz, a relative of the king who shuts himself away and wastes his life with carnal pleasures, as well as another distant relative called Akhirom, a possible madman who may be leading an army to annex Asgalun himself, even though he’s from another city (Anakia). Zula and M’gora counsel caution but Bêlit is burning to get her revenge, so she decides to go straight to Asgalun. Conan, Zula, and M’gora go with her and they manage to bluff their way through the gate with the help of the corsairs M’gora left there. M’gora leads them to a secluded garden near the palace, but the place is full of Stygians waiting to capture them. M’gora bashes Zula with a rock and the others are captured. When she sees the ambush is led by Ptor-Nubis (the usurper’s wizardly
advisor), Bêlit realizes he used his power to control minds to make M’gora lead them into the trap and attack Zula. Ptor-Nubis decides to really have some fun and uses his powers to compel Conan and Bêlit to fight each other to the death. This is a pretty good issue, although it leans more on palace intrigue than action. Roy is basically setting up the De Camp/Carter tale “Hawks Over Shem” by introducing various factions that will be important in that story (which takes place some time after this and was adapted in Savage Sword of Conan magazine). So all the Byzantine convolutions and the flood of new names are set-up for that later tale, which makes this one a bit more talky than usual. But it does end on an interesting note, with Conan and Bêlit being forced to fight.
Conan the Barbarian #93 – “Of Rage and Revenge” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one continues from issue 91 above, with Conan and Bêlit under Ptor-Nubis’s power, doing their best to kill each other. (If you’re wondering what happened to issue 92, it was flashback story set just after Conan escaped the Hyperborean slavers and isn’t included in this volume of stories. I think it is in the next volume, so I’ll review it then.) Anyway, Ptor-Nubis enjoys the spectacle of Conan and Bêlit trying to kill each other and forces Zula and M’gora to fight as well. But the would-be wizard doesn’t know that Zula has hypnotic powers of his own and is thus more resistant to
Ptor-Nubis’s influence. Zula plays along until he can get close enough to Ptor-Nubis to kill him, getting his revenge for Ptor-Nubis selling him into slavery years ago. Once Ptor-Nubis is dead, Conan and Bêlit regain their senses and make short work of the Stygian guards. Bêlit sends M’gora and Zula to spread rumours that the daughter of King Atrahasis has returned to kill the usurper Nim-Karrak and take back the throne. The rumours spread quickly and Nim-Karrak decides to get out of the city secretly. He’s just in time, as the new Stygian monarch (Khamun) arrives to formally annex the city to the Stygian empire. Khamun 
captures Uriaz (last male heir to the throne) and prepares to execute him right after announcing the takeover of the city by Stygia. The native Shemites are understandably upset, but the Stygians are ready to suppress any revolt with brutality, while the Hyrkanians are wary of their tenuous position and the Kushite mercenaries are ready to support the Stygians who pay them. As Uriaz is dragged out to the chopping block (crying that he has no interest in being king anyway), the executioner reveals himself as Conan and kills Khamun. Bêlit reveals herself and exhorts her fellow Shemites to rise against the Stygians, calling on the Hyrkanians to join them. The Hyrkanians hesitate until some of Bêlit’s
corsairs (disguised as Kushite mercenaries) kill some of them, which pushes the Hyrkanians to fight against the Kushites and Stygians. A huge fight breaks out led by Conan and Bêlit, who cut a swath through the Stygians. Bêlit ends up close to the secret exit where Nim-Karrak plans to escape and he decides to stab her in the back. Zula tries to warn her but there’s too much noise, so he uses his hypnotic gaze to make Nim-Karrak think a lion statue has come to life. The usurper falls to his death, which pisses Bêlit off since she wanted to kill him herself. Nim-Karrak’s death galvanizes the Shemites and Hyrkanians, who really start wasting the Stygians. When the Kushites see which way things are going, they turn on the Stygians and help finish them off. Bêlit proclaims herself queen, but soon changes her mind when she finds out that she can never renounce the crown, on pain of death. She grabs the cowardly Uriaz 
and crowns him king instead, before heading back to her ship. It doesn’t take long for the various factions to start fighting again and things will soon get worse, as Akhirom’s army approaches the city. Bêlit says revenge on Nim-Karrak was her main goal anyway, not the crown, and Zula mentions that his own revenge on Ptor-Nubis didn’t satisfy him the way he thought it would. This is a pretty good conclusion to the ongoing tale of Bêlit’s revenge, with less political maneuvering and more action than last issue. But this story is also setting up the later “Hawks Over Shem”, so there’s still some machinations taking place. But Nin-Karrak is dead and Bêlit is headed back to sea, so things should get back to normal … or what passes for normal for these characters. I like Zula and I hope he sticks around for a while, although Roy said he never meant him to be a permanent addition to the comic.