Conan the Barbarian 142

Major Characters

 * Conan (Previous appearance in CB-141; next appearance in CB-143).

Minor Characters

 * Theta (Previous appearance in CB-141; next appearance in CB-143).
 * Forbos (First and only appearance to date; dies in this issue).
 * Lohla (First and only appearance to date; dies in this issue).
 * Ruhla (First and only appearance to date; dies in this issue).

Locations

 * Border Kingdoms
 * Port Belthem

Time Frame

 * Two days

Synopsis

 * A raggedly dressed man stumbles through a forest maze and comes across the remains of a body. He barely has time to process this before something sets upon him and he screams. Meanwhile, Conan and Theta row into Port Belthem to search for her enslaved sisters. They find a slave auction, and discover a merchant named Forbos comes into the port once a month to buy a large number of female slaves. Conan and Theta suspect he may have bought her sisters, so she poses as a slave with Conan as a slaver and enters the auction. When Forbos is outbid by a lout, Conan beats him and his friends and offers Theta to Forbos personally, who takes her. Back in the forested maze, one of Theta's sisters, Lohla, wanders, playing hide and seek with someone. And then, something finds her. Theta and the other purchased slaves arrive at Forbos's castle, followed discretely by Conan.  When Theta is brought to the girls' chambers, she finds Rhula, but is surprised at how plump she has gotten...apparently, Forbos prefers his women thick. Rhula prefers the pampering, choosing to ignore that some of the women Forbos selects, including her sisters, don't return. Rhula is requested, and despite Theta's begging, leaves with the guards to meet with Forbos. Theta signals out the window, and Conan scales the walls into the harem chamber. The women shriek and the guards come, but Conan soundly defeats them. They see, in the maze gardens, Rhula being chased by something. and the distraction causes the guards to overpower Conan.  Conan awakens tied to stakes in the garden, along with a similarly tied Theta and the body of Rhula. Forbos explains that after he cheated on his witch lover, she cursed him by turning his prized bull into a humanoid minotaur with a taste for female flesh. He built the maze to contain the beast and has allowed it to feast on the women be buys. Conan pulls the stake from the ground and fights the beast, ultimately stabbing its heart, at which point the other half of the curse is revealed - the lower part of Forbos's body is a bull's, and the two are connected. Forbos dies and Conan and a heartbroken Theta make their way out of the gardens.

Reprinted

 * The Chronicles of Conan 18 - Isle of the Dead and Other Stories