Conan the Barbarian #143 – “Life Among the Dead” – Bruce Jones/John Buscema/Ricardo Villamonte
This one starts in a small Cimmerian village called Solvanthia, where the ground begins to tremble violently. The villagers have a pretty good idea what’s causing it and rush up the mountain to a gold statue of their hero, Graven. But there’s something missing from the statue … Graven’s sword, which is some kind of talisman that keeps a dragon asleep under the village. Now that the sword has been stolen, the dragon is waking up, so the villagers figure they’d better get the sword back quickly. Not far away, Conan and Theta (who he saved last issue) are waiting to ambush a traveller through the forest. But someone else jumps him first, so
Conan has to intervene, chasing the traveller (who’s just a thief himself) away. The other “bandit” turns out to be Valen Triafer from Solvanthia and he’s looking for the stolen sword, which Conan finds in the other guy’s loot. Conan’s not eager to give up such a magnificent sword, so Valen has to come up with a way to trick him out of it. Conan sends Theta away on the brigand’s horse and Valen tells him he knows of a village nearby that’s ripe for the plucking. Valen feeds Conan some rabbit and heads off to scout the village, but soon comes back with the village guard on his heels. Conan (who’s feeling a bit light-headed) wastes them all and Valen leads him to Solvanthia, where everyone hails Conan and Valen as 
heroes for defeating the bandits, but they also keep referring to Conan as Captain Johell. Valen convinces him to play along, although the plaudits of the crowd and the attention of a willing wench probably helped make up his mind. That night, he and Valen explore the town and find the bodies of the men Conan killed, but the bodies have Conan and Valen’s faces. Valen takes Conan into the woods to consult a necromancer, who tells them Conan exchanged souls with Captain Johell because the golden sword is cursed. The necromancer says Conan and Valen can regain their souls by returning the sword to the statue where it belongs. They collect the bodies with Conan and Valen’s faces and head to the mountain, where Conan returns the sword to its proper place. Valen takes him inside a cave with a huge pit and Conan finally realizes the truth when his corpse sits up and pulls off a mask, revealing the real Captain Johell. Apparently the only way to stop the dragon from rising is to return the
sword and throw whoever stole it into the pit, so Johell pushes Conan in despite Vale’s objections that Conan wasn’t actually the one who stole the sword. Valen figures they sacrificed the wrong guy, so he grabs the sword and jumps into the pit. He hands the sword over to Conan just in time for him to face the dragon. This is a pretty good story, although it seemed pretty obvious that the villagers were all running a con on Conan. The wench probably distracted him a lot, but it’s nice to see Valen wants to save him from being sacrificed needlessly … especially since there’s some kind of prophecy about who will defeat the dragon and Valen figures Conan might be the one to do it.
Conan the Barbarian #144 – “The Blade and the Beast” – Bruce Jones/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one continues from above, with Conan and Valen dodging the flames breathed by the agitated dragon. Conan flings the blade and wounds the beast, whose thrashing brings half the mountain down on their heads. The dragon retreats and Conan digs himself and Valen out of the rubble. Valen tells Conan how the dragon (a spawn of Set) came to ravage Solvanthia ages ago and all the town’s warriors died trying to fight it. Finally they asked a mighty wizard for help and he provided the golden sword, which he said could kill the dragon if wielded by one of pure Cimmerian blood. The
villagers couldn’t find a pure Cimmerian, but one day Graven showed wearing his golden armour and took the sword to fight the dragon. He didn’t last long, but he did drive the dragon into the caverns and it stayed there as long as Graven’s statue stood (with the sword) near the entrance. But when the sword was stolen, Valen had to retrieve it and then he and the villagers concocted the ruse to lure Conan to the caves and make him return the sword. As Conan starts digging them out of the cave, the dragon makes its way to the surface and starts wasting people. It heads towards Solvanthia, not noticing the sword being knocked loose by a tree. 
But Johell has noticed and figures he can use the sword and Graven’s shield to fight the dragon himself. Conan and Valen break out of the caves and find the old man who pretended to be the necromancer. Before he dies he tells Conan only he can stop the dragon, since he’s of pure Cimmerian blood. Conan isn’t too happy with the people who deceived him and tried to kill him, but when he finds the village burnt to the ground he decides to help the survivors. Johell is being driven over a cliff by the dragon’s breath, protected by Graven’s shield. Conan rescues Johell and takes the sword, but the shield goes over the edge. Conan faces the dragon, using the enchanted sword to cut its fiery breath and to hack part of the cliff away, sending the beast tumbling down to be impaled on
stalagmites. The sword turns from gold and jewels into a normal sword and Conan presents it to Johell. Valen suggests they erect a statue to him, but Conan will settle for some ale and food … as long as t isn’t rabbit. This is a pretty good conclusion to the story, with Conan using his brains in conjunction with the magic sword to finish off the dragon. He’s pretty forgiving towards the people who tried to kill him, but maybe he figures they’re even since their village was destroyed.