Jim Zub's A Sacred Task
We are still in Khoraja (southeast of Koth). Emida (the Laurie Strode/final girl homage) is taking care of a wounded CONAN OF CIMMERIA, Conan is staying at an inn for free as compensation for liquidating SON OF THE TOOTH (an assassin serving The Woeful Eye).
A veiled woman (Roya) carrying a funerary urn is seeking a Cimmerian bodyguard to help her reach her village (close to the edge of the easter desert).
Hyenas kill Roya's horse, Conan's mount flees, the barbarian kills some of the Hyenas, the remaining beasts retreat.
Conan wonders how Roya can handle the harshness of the desert so well.
A strange fog (another John Carpenter homage?) appears close to the ground, Conan & Roya have made it to the cursed Plains of Mardeh (a former battlefield, now a haunted graveyard).
The sun disappears, the dead rise and attack our heroes, Conan destroys all the skeletons (a Ray Harryhausen homage?).
Roya brings Conan to the shrine of her ancestors. Roya thanks Conan (her promised guardian angel) for bringing her home, she opens her funerary urn and disintegrates. The ghost of Roya has finally rejoined her long departed people who had died fighting the sons of Set.
What I did like:
Mitra mentioned.
War goddesses: Morrigan and Macha mentioned.
Conan eats the animals that he kills.
Covers by Nick Percival, Doug Braithwaite & Crom.
Female characters appear and two actually speak and they both have names.
Two Greg Staples B&W illustrations from The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (Del Rey Books).
Archaeologist Jeffrey Shanks talks ghost stories, The Phoenix on the Sword, Queen of the Black Coast, M. R. James, Solomon Kane: Skulls in the Stars, The Spirit of Tom Molyneaux/The Apparition in the Prize Ring, For the Love of Barbara Allen and The Shadow of the Beast.
What I did not like:
Roya does not appear on any of the covers.
No ectoplasm when Conan makes physical contact with Roya!
Conan is not rewarded with new insights on how to defeat Set.
The hyenas are not afraid of a ghost, they should perceive the supernatural.
The killing of starving animals.
It's scorching sun not sky.
A ghost that eats? Food should pass right through Roya.
The cult of the Black Stone does not appear.
The Woeful Eye adoratrice does not appear.
The Woeful Eye does not appear.
Still No announcement that the CONAN NEWSPAPER STRIPS are getting collected in stunning hardcover volumes!
No letters page!
I give it a 7/10. Zub gives us two video game levels: Conan vs. Hyenas and Conan vs. Skeletons... but no Final Boss. Why would a free-roaming full-bodied apparition need Conan's help to go anywhere? The ending would have been more poignant and plausible with a possessed person instead. Who ya gonna Kull?
