Conan the Barbarian #135 – “The Forest of the Night” – Steven Grant/Marc Silvestri/Joe Rubinstein, Danny Bulanadi
This one starts with Conan in the Border Kingdoms, where he’s been hired as a scout and mercenary for an outpost. Having been ambushed by Picts and lost his horse and supplies, Conan makes his way through a strange forest, killing a deer for sustenance. The unnatural feeling of the forest grows but Conan is too hungry to worry about the eerie feeling the place gives him. His meal is interrupted by a beautiful woman who claims this is her lord’s estate. She quickly seduces
Conan, who enjoys her company but finds when he wakes that the entire forest has disappeared. He makes his way back to the outpost, where he tells his fellow mercenaries of his adventures. A barkeep overhears and says the witch of the forest is known for seducing men who always vanish soon afterwards, possibly to become her playthings. Recalling the strange feeling he got after killing the deer, Conan falls into a fitful sleep but is awakened by an owl that attacks him in his chamber. He knows sorcery is involved ad that suspicion is confirmed when the owl transforms into a huge stag and impales him. Turns out he’s only 
dreaming but when he’s wakened by his fellow mercenaries, he notices a stag’s head at the foot of his bed. The others figure he’s fallen under the witch’s spell and shun him as if he were already dead. The shunning and the dreams take their toll and Conan finally heads back to the forest to put an end to things … one way or another. He meets the woman (Merya0, who tells him she was once an Argossean princess who was shipwrecked and hunted by Picts. She called out for godly aid and was saved by the rough forest god Arawn, who wanted her as a bride. She refused so Arawn cursed her to stay in the forest for seven years, awaiting his return and taking such pleasure as she could from wanderers who came by. Merya wanted one of her conquests to fight for her against Arawn, but
Conan is the only one who has a chance and tonight is the night the god is supposed to return. Conan refuses at first, but changes his mind when Merya says she’s pregnant with his child. Another unearthly stag arrives and Conan kills it, but it knocks him out at the same time. Merya has no choice but to go with Arawn’s beastly escort and Conan follows when he wakes up. HE finds Arawn ready to marry Merya against her will and has to cut down a lot of animals to stop him. Conan challenges the god and ends up doing well once he realizes Arawn is vulnerable to light. Arawn gives up his claim on Merya and vanishes, taking the forest with him. But he has returned Merya to the condition he first found her in, after a fall from a high cliff. Merya dies and Conan returns to the outpost. This was a pretty good story, although I’m not sure even Conan could face off with a god.
Conan the Barbarian #136 – “The River of Death” – Bruce Jones/John Buscema/Danny Bulanadi, Mel Candido
This one starts with Conan riding along the Black River when he hears a woman crying for help. She’s being pounded by a bunch of cloaked druids who are trying to steal her baby. Conan kills the druids and saves the baby, but its mother is already dead. Conan finds a man (Eral of Taurian) hanged in a nearby tree, but still alive. Eral tells Conan that he and his sister (the dead woman) came from the same monastery as the monks Conan killed. They wanted to sacrifice the baby to Dratha, the demoness of the river, but Eral and his sister were trying to get downriver to return the baby to its father, who lives by a small lake. When Eral mentions a reward, Conan decides to help and they set off down the river on a raft. Dratha can control
everything in the river and tries to stop them with strangling vines, a huge wave, and currents that threaten to smash them into the cliffs. Through all the trials, the child is remarkably calm, hardly ever crying and not afraid of the water at all. They’re almost drowned in a whirling maelstrom but Conan manages to drag them away from it to shore (after pulling Eral back to the raft when he tries to abandon it). They’re attacked by swarms of biting insects, but Conan gets rid of them by setting fire to part of the raft. Dratha rises from the river to take the child herself and almost drowns Conan before he puts his sword into her eye. Another monster rises from the river and this time Eral tosses the baby to 
him. Conan thinks Eral has betrayed him, but Eral explains that this monster is the baby’s father, Dralos, who conceived the child with Eral’s sister because he couldn’t do so with Dratha. When Dratha found out, she wanted the child and its mother dead, so Eral was trying to return the baby to Dralos, who couldn’t leave the lake since it’s his own domain. Eral points out that the rocks surrounding the lake are pure gold, so Conan feels amply rewarded for all his trouble. This is a pretty good story, with some exciting adventuring elements that make it seem like a D&D campaign, which is kinda cool and fits pretty well with Conan’s overall vibe.