Conan the Barbarian #113 – “A Devil in the Family” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one starts with Conan and Erfu still on their way to Akkharia, making their way through a vast forest. They’re ambushed by some Shemites and Erfu takes an arrow in the shoulder before Conan’s berserker fighting frenzy drives their attackers off. Erfu figures he needs some kind of medical attention, but since they’re still a long way from Akkharia he suggests a wood-witch. Conan is leery of mixing with a sorceress, but for Erfu’s sake he swallows his distaste and kills a stag, burning its liver to summon the local wood-witch (as he learned to do back in Cimmeria). The ceremony attracts the attention of the local wood-witch (Moraga) and her son, Naj. Moraga begins boiling water and sends Naj to gather herbs while she sings a healing song. When Naj returns, Conan notices he has small horns on his head. Naj mentions something following him in the forest and Conan pledges that
he’ll defend them against any threat since they’re helping Erfu. Moraga warns him not to promise more than he can handle and tells how she was hounded from her village a few years back because people thought she was a witch, and how a demon appeared in the woods to kill her pursuers and ended up mating with her. Moraga tells Conan that Erfu’s fever has broken but he can’t travel for at least a day. After Moraga leaves, the demon shows up looking for her and threatens Conan when he tries to stand up to it. Erfu tells Conan he has to warn Moraga, so the barbarian tracks the demon through the woods and finds it menacing Moraga and Naj. Conan is no match for the demon and breaks his sword on its tough hide, but he keeps fighting, trying to brain the creature with a rock. Conan is in trouble when Erfu arrives and uses fire (and a very 
flammable alchemical substance) to light the demon up and drive it away. Moraga reveals the obvious, that the demon is Naj’s father and wants to claim him. She doesn’t think it’s gone forever, but thanks Erfu for his bravery. Erfu seems quite taken with Moraga and Naj and asks if he can stay with them instead of travelling on with Conan and Moraga agrees. Conan says goodbye to Erfu and continues on his way. This is a decent story, which Roy wrote from a plot by Christy Marx, who’s a pretty good writer herself (I really like her work on Sisterhood of Steel). The “single mother fighting a demon for custody of their son” story is an interesting change from the usual women Conan encounters, and it was cool to see Erfu end up with the girl instead of Conan this time.
Conan the Barbarian #114 – “The Shadow of the Beast” – Roy Thomas/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one starts in Akkharia, with Conan gambling away his money in a tavern. He’s almost broke and decides to quit, especially since a Kothian named Kagal seems to have all the luck. But when Kagal tries to strong-arm the bar-wench Conan is with (Tamris), Conan decks him. Unfortunately, Kagal is tougher than he looks and hits Conan from behind with a stool, knocking him out. A Hyrkanian objects to Kagal’s behaviour and gets stabbed for his trouble, then Kagal grabs Tamris and takes off. When Conan wakes up, he leads a posse to get Kagal (and rescue Tamris), since the Kothian slew two guards on his way out of the city. They track him to a
lone tower in the midst of some scarred ground and the Shemites with Conan refuse to enter. One of them relates how the tower was built by sorcery, by a wizard named Caldix who never came outside but practiced dark magics within the tower, accompanied by a huge mastiff. Ten years ago, light flared from the tower and the land around it was scarred; ever since, no one has heard anything of Caldix, but his mastiff has kept howling almost every night. When a caravan stopped at the tower and a guard went in to look around, he came hurtling out one of the windows, dead. The locals leave but Conan heads inside, reasoning that if Kagal can brave the unknown terrors of the tower, so can he. The place seems deserted, but the unholy howling of the mastiff sends Conan’s horse 
fleeing in terror. Conan finds Kagal dead and follows the trail in the dust to the wizard’s sanctum, where he finds Caldix’s skeleton. He locates Tamris, who’s guarded by the mastiff, but Conan gets a shock when the dog stands upright and starts to talk. Apparently, Caldix was searching for an immortality spell and accidentally killed himself, but his consciousness was absorbed into the mastiff when it feasted on his corpse. The wizard-dog can’t go beyond the scarred ground around the tower. It has survived longer than a human could on scant rations, but it wants Conan for more sustenance and Tamris as a plaything (and maybe as a mate, although Roy is rather circumspect about that). Conan fights the dog and lures it outside where it attacks him. He tosses it out beyond the scarred ground and that burns away the soul of the sorcerer, leaving only the mastiff which dies from the wounds inflicted by Conan. Caldix’s spirit appears and tries to possess Conan, but soon
realizes he can’t interact with the living and is stuck as an ethereal spirit for eternity. The tower begins to crumble and Conan goes back in to rescue Tamris, who tells him her name means “favoured by fortune”. This is a pretty good issue, although even Roy admits the walking dog looks a bit ridiculous at times. This was based on a non-Conan tale by Robert E. Howard, but it isn’t exactly what you’d call top-tier. It’s not terrible though; the dog is reminiscent of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and the stuff with the lone tower and the guy being flung from the window reminds me of Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser story “The Jewels in the Forest”.