Red Sonja Annual (2006 series) #1

Red Sonja Annual 1-A.jpg Alternate Covers: Cover B Stephen Sadowski Cover C by Mel Rubi Non-color by Mel Rubi Red Sonja Vol 1 #Anl January, 2006 Issue Details Original Price $3.50 Cover Artists Stjepan Šejić "Masks" Writers Michael Avon Oeming Pencilers Steve Sadowski Inkers Steve Sadowski Colorists David Curiel Letterers Simon Bowland Editors Luke Lieberman Previous Issue Next Issue Red Sonja #18 Red Sonja #19

For Gold? I only have dreams for you, fine Myria! Only dreams. Wear it tonight, and it will serve your needs. Like it not, and return it, and I shall honor this deal.

-- Dagon

Appearing in "Masks"

Featured Characters:

• Red Sonja

Supporting Characters:

• Myria (First Appearance)

Villains:

• Men

  

Other Characters:

• Dagon (First Appearance)
• Roymas a bard
• gods
• Crom (Mentioned)

Locations:

• Earth-818793
  • Hyboria
  • Red Pub

Items:

• Red Sonja's Sword
• Mask

Vehicles:

• 
  
  
  

Synopsis for "Masks"

Myria is married to Olsted and owns a tavern that acts as a brothel, but the women are abused and mistreated. Myria plays the part of Red Sonja but the men abuse her and cast insults. Given a chance to play the part in a more real manner with a mask given to her by Dagon a puppeteer, seller of masks, snake oil, a traveling salesman of sorts. She plays the part so well she kills her husband and burns down part of the town. The women from the brothel decide to open their own “Red Pub” and run it for themselves. Some of their first patrons want to have the free wench with the ale and Myria told the men it doesn’t work like that anymore. The woman were defending themselves nicely when the real Red Sonja should up and told the men to get out and realize the spirit of Sonja guards the place.

Notes

A CLASSIC RED SONJA COMICS CHRONOLOGY by Fred Blosser with additional material by Roy Thomas

THE RISE OF A SHE-DEVIL

• INTRODUCTORY NOTE: This article follows the style of "The Conan Comics Chronology" in recent issues of SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. After each reference to a particular episode, the name of the relevant Marvel story/stories is printed in italics, between brackets, followed by a listing of the magazine in which it first appeared, followed by a listing of the most recent comic (if any) in which it has been reprinted. Our key:
  • CB...CONAN THE BARBARIAN
  • CS...CONAN SAGA (B&W)
  • KB...KULL & THE BARBARIANS (B&W, 1975)
  • MF....MARVEL FEATURE (w/Red Sonja, '75-'76)
  • MT...MARVEL TEAM-UP
  • RS.I...RED SONJA (first series, '77-'79)
  • RS.III...RED SONJA (3rd series, '83-'86)
  • SS...SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN (B&W)

Know also, O Prince, that in those selfsame days that Conan the Cimmerian did stalk the Hyborian kingdoms, one of the few swords worthy to cross with his was that of Red Sonja, warrior-woman out of majestic Hyrkania. Forced to flee her homeland because she spurned the advances of a king and slew him instead, she rode west across the Turanian Steppes and into the shadowed mists of legendry.... — The Nemedian Chronicles

HYRKANIAN DAWN

Eastward from the inland Vilayet Sea, in the days when Conan lived and strove, stretched the endless steppes of Hyrkania. From the dawn of the Hyborian Age, these vast expanses of prairie served as the breeding ground of conquerors and wild adventurers. The kozaks, the pirates of the Vilayet, the barbaric ancestors of the empire- hungering Turanians-all were Hyrkanian born or bred. So, too, was the greatest warrior-woman of the Age, the She-Devil with a Sword whose ferocity in battle rivaled that of the mighty Conan himself: Red Sonja! Look, and see her life as she lived it then:

FIRST BLOOD

Originally Published In 1978 Although her father Ivor coaches his sons in swordplay, Sonja's mother takes care that the girl's education centers on household work. Watching her brothers at practice, Sonja despairs of ever knowing more than a life of domestic monotony. Then, one chill afternoon when Sonja is in her teens, a troop of fighting-men ride up to the farmhouse, led by the man who was Ivor's second-in-command in his former mercenary company. With no provocation save perhaps an old grudge that has festered into unreasoning hatred, the intruder orders his men to kill Ivor when he learns that his wooden leg will no longer allow him to soldier. That murder triggers a storm of carnage, as the mercenaries run amok. Alone of her family, Sonja is spared the sword. Raped by the brutal commander, she is left to her fate in the wake of the attack, as the marauders burn the house and ride off. As the flames climb into the bleak sky, a strange Vision comes to Sonja: a bright, ethereal figure that hovers over her, blade in hand. The spectre offers the girl a life as a wanderer, and supreme skill in swordplay. But first she must pledge never to love any man unless he defeats her in fair battle: "Something," the shining Vision adds, "that no man is like to do after this day." Through some fantastic alchemy, the touch of the gossamer blade imparts great strength and lightning reflexes to Sonja. These new faculties are soon tested, as one of the soldiers sneaks back to force himself on the girl. Instead, he finds death-as the first man to fall before a very real sword in the hand of the reborn Red Sonja. That same steel, she vows, will one day cleave the heart of the nameless captain who butchered her family ["The Day of the Sword"/ KB-3&SS-78/???].

THIS SWORD FOR HIRE

For the next two or three years, details of Red Sonja's career are scarce. During this period, she hones her miraculous prowess with the blade, and establishes herself as a footloose sword for hire among the turbulent Hyrkanian city-states. It may be at this point that she slays the evil wizard Kulan-Gath, in an untold tale; he is destined to return later, reincarnated in another body. Red Sonja next sells her blade to King Ghannif, ruler of Pah-Dishah, one of the more powerful Hyrkanian city-states. At his command, she leads a troop of soldiers to the neighboring city-state of Makkalet,. ostensibily to aid Ghannif's royal son-in- law, King Eannatum, against the besieging legions of Yezdigerd, the world-conquering prince of Turan. ENTER CONAN At Makkalet, Sonja and her band aid a young barbarian adventurer named Conan, who is fleeing Turanian troops toward Makkalet's gates. But the two are like oil and water, and Conan is frustrated in his efforts to gain her romantic attentions. Soon afterward, she saves him a second time - this time from Mikhal Oglu, called "The Vulture" and enables the Cimmerian to send the assassin's severed head as a gift to Prince Yezdigerd ["The Shadow of the Vulture"/CB-23/CS-7]. A few days later, Conan accompanies Sonja to accomplish what turns out to be the real mission for which she was sent to Makkalet: recovering a fabulous serpent tiara that King Ghannif had magnanimously included in the dowry of his daughter Melissandra. Conan rescues Sonja when the tiara sprouts a guardian serpent-demon; in return, she knocks him on the head and flees the city with the booty. ["The Song of Red Sonja"/CB-24/CS-8]. KING-KILLER-AND FUGITIVE! Returning to Pah-Dishah, she discovers that the corpulent Ghannif wishes to reward her sterling service by adding her to his harem. Enraged, she slays the lustful monarch and his albino bodyguard, and flees ["Red Sonja"/SS-1 & MF-1/CS-31]. With a price on her crimson-tressed head, she may briefly lead a gang of brigands on the steppes. In one account of this period, Conan rides into her camp one night and challenges her to a friendly duel, confident that he will win the "womanly harms" reserved for the male who can best her in a fair fight. By a fluke, Conan loses the match and departs; torn 'twixt pride and lust, Sonja has mixed feelings about this outcome. Yet there is something dreamlike about the whole episode, which may or may not have truly occurred ["Phantasm"/SS-153]. Soon afterward, still on the run, she is hired by Adano, king of an Hyrkanian city- state, to safeguard his daughter on a voyage across the inland Vilayet Sea. She accepts the assignment as an easy job for good pay, until she realizes that their route lies through the waters of the deadly Sirens of Vilayet ["Red Sonja Quells the Song of the Siren"/ SS-187]. PATHS BRIEFLY CONVERGING Her trail and Conan's soon cross again, in Arenjun, Zamora's City of Thieves. The pair tangle with a resurrected sorcerer (and even sooner with his sliced-off, de-ringed finger) and take flight under suspicion of murder ["Curse of the Undead-Man"/SS-1/ CS-11]. Pursued by bounty hunters seeking the reward offered by Gnaniff's heirs for Sonja's head, the fugitives stumble upon a hidden valley and its mist-shrouded Tower of Blood, inhabited by a vampiric brother and sister and a race of winged Afterlings they have created to be their slaves ["Tower of Blood"/ CB-43/CS-79]. In a dreaming trance, Conan is bred with the Afterlings. Later, he and Sonja burn the sanguinary spire to the ground. ["Of Flame and the Fiend"/CB-44/CS-79] Interestingly, Sonja and Conan, ere long, both pass through Shadizar the Wicked, capital of Zamora, but don't run into each other at that time. She forms a brief comradeship with a handsome rogue named Sigfal. In the pay of Zucarla, a polis in the Zamorian Mountains, she ambushes a Zamorian troop sent thither to collect taxes. Sonja's sword splits the face of the troop's captain, Lassusar, who swears to exact vengeance one day ["Siege"/RS. III-3]. DANGER IN DARKWOOD Still trying to put distance between her self and Pah-Dishah, Sonja continues westward into Nemedia and its sprawling forest called Darkwood. There, looking for a hospitable inn and possibly a reunion with Sigfal, she is menaced by a wizard, Vincentius. She slays him and rescues a young warrior named Hunwolf; but he turns out to be as treacherous as any sorcerer, and she must slay him, as well ["Episode"/CB- 48/CS-491. Asked by a stranger, Ghunthar, to carry a brass coffer to a nearby castle, she finds its contents invaluable in dealing with the werewolf that haunts the forest-which turns out to be Ghunthar himself. Later ages may find something oddly familiar in the situation of a young woman trailing red hair (not unlike a riding-cloak) encountering a wolf who menaces both herself and an old woman in a hut deep in the woods ["Red Sonja, She- Devil with a Sword"/KB-2/CS-17]. The saga does not record whether Sonja reunites with Sigfal. More supernatural dangers await her in an eons-old temple in- habited by demonic satyrs and the slithering elder horrors they serve. There she comes upon a dying captive priest of Mitra, and sorrowfully executes him to spare him further agony before killing the chief satyr ["The Temple of Abomination"/MF-1/???]. Near forest's edge, she happens upon three bandits torturing a helpless, bound wretch. Making short shrift of the robbers, she discovers the victim is the nameless mercenary captain who instigated the slaughter of her family. The bandits' torments have driven him mad. Cheated of revenge, but knowing she'll no longer be haunted by his hated face, she leaves him to be finished by the wolves of Darkwood ["The Day of the Sword"/KB-3; SS-78/???.

REUNION WITH CONAN - PLUS!

Her journey is further interrupted by Karanthes, high priest of the Stygian bird- god Ibis, who hires her to steal a page from the dreaded iron-bound Book of Skelos in the Temple of the Thousand Gods in Messantia, capital of Argos. In the sewers beneath the temple, Sonja finds her way disputed by crocodilian spawn of Stygian's serpent god. Reaching the temple, she encounters two others who seek the same parchment: her old comrade Conan and his current paramour, Bêlit, pirate queen of the Black Coast ["Beware the Sacred Sons of Set" and "Daggers and Death-Gods"/MF-6 & CB-66/ CS-85].

Sonja manages to steal the coveted page and to rendezvous with Karanthes, as Conan pursues her. After fighting an inconclusive duel, the two warriors watch as a half- human winged creature swoops down and snatches the leaf from the Book of Skelos ["Talons of the Man-Tiger" and "The Battle of the Barbarians"/CB-67 & MF-7/CS-86]. This eerie raptor is a Stygian wizard dis- patched to steal the fragment for his master, the mage Thoth-Amon. Giving chase, Conan, Sonja, and Belit find themselves in a city conjured out of Time, where they sur- vive a perilous encounter with King Kull, Atlantean-born ruler of long-dead Valusia. Conan slays the Stygian, and the time-tossed City of Wonders fades; but the threesome return to Karanthes empty-handed, for the wizard, in dying, destroyed the page. Find- ing that three quick-tempered warriors are a crowd, Sonja parts company with Conan and Bêlit and continues her journey toward Venzia ["Of Once and Future Kings"/CB-68/ CS-86].

UNICORNS AND FROG-PRINCES

Still in Argos, she saves a mystical unicorn threatened by the sorcerer Andar of Bez- farda. The beast later returns the favor, and, in almost human fashion, parts company with the Hyrkanian most sadly ["The Blood of the Unicorn"/RS.I-1]. Presently, in the canal-city of Venzia, Sonja finds herself the intended bride of a toad-demon, and incidentally the means by which it hopes to regain its freedom from a labyrinth. Dying, it turns back into its real self- a prince- happy in his last moment to have been freed from an evil spell ["The Demon of the Maze"/RS.1-2].

TO BOR-TI-KI AND BEYOND

Riding into the uplands of Argos, Sonja enters the deadly Games of Ghita and bests the merciless Sortilej, tyrant of the city of Athos, to bring peace between that city and nearby Zotoz. She rides on, accompanied by the roguish wanderer Mikal, who clearly has an eye for her ["The Games of Gita"/ RS.1-3]. They venture to Bor-Ti-Ki, the City of the Bells, where she helps a grotesque race of beings living in the depths of the aptly- named Dark Lake- and acquires a new mission and a mystic ring from one of them ["The Lake of the Unknown"/RS.1-4; "Master of the Bells"/RS.1-5]. A final task awaits: to rescue Mikal following his capture and imprisonment in a creature-guarded spire. Thanks to Sonja's succor, Mikal is able to cast off his guise as a landless wayfarer and admits he is the rightful heir of the throne of Athos ["The Singing Tower"/RS.1-6]. Climbing further into the uplands, Sonja happens upon a nameless city where she hopes to obtain some badly needed rest. But the city is an illusion whereby the Lord of Hell plans to snatch the warrior-woman's soul. Counseled by the goat-being Djali, she outwits her adversary ["Wizards of the Black Sun"/SS-23/CS-25].

SWORDS AGAINST SKRANOS

Further peril lurks in the city of Skranos, where she is caught up in a bitter rivalry between the royal half-brothers Suumaro and Oryx, to succeed their apparently dying sire, King Quillos. In his stronghold protected by strong walls and mastodonic Behemoths, Oryx decides to hang Sonja, using as an excuse the fact that she is a well-known regicide though he can hardly owe any allegiance to distant Pah- Dishah ["Throne of Blood"/RS.1-7]. Suumaro shows up to rescue her at the last moment, and they fight their way free. To prove herself to his troops, however, she must defeat a sadistic whip-wielding general in battle ["Vengeance of the Golden Circle"/ RS.1-8]. Suumaro offers to make her a general, but she declines. In any event, Sonja hardly gets along with his mother-Apah Alah, mis- tress of the forest who can change into a serpent. But then, relations between the sorceress and her son are strained, to say the least, as well ["Chariot of the Fire-Stall- ions"/RS.1-9].

RED LACE AND BLACK BLOOD

In a deserted forest castle, Sonja and Suumaro encounter a schemer named Marmo, and the Hyrkanian is struck blind by magic. She and Suumaro are carried off into the sky by a huge peacock-like bird which, only shortly before, had hatched from a tiny ornate egg ["Red Lace"/RS.1-10]. Still blinded, and menaced by Apah Alah and her supernatural minions, Sonja gets a bit of aid from Vasso, a winged demon whose entire body is covered by ornate designs. When one of the huge peacocks is wounded, its heart blood drops like hot rain on the swordwoman and restores her sight ["Sightless in a Strange Land"/RS.I-11]. Apah Alah seems to have many enemies, including a lizard-demon that offers to help Sonja and Suumaro if they will obtain a magical chalice for him. In fact, he means to sacrifice them to his god later. They defeat the demon, but when Apah Alah shows up to claim the chalice, Suumaro uses its powers to vanish-hoping to buy time, and find a way to save the world from his mother's evil intentions ["Ashes and Emblems"/ RS.I-12]. Sneaking into Skranos, Sonja sets in motion a sequence of events culminating in Oryx's mastodon-keeper stampeding his tuskers to trample Oryx. She herself nearly succumbs to a magical trap set for her by Apah Alah, but survives and is rejoined by Suumaro. Apah Alah flees with her long- estranged husband, King Quillos, hoping they will find a reconciliation as she nurtures him in other spheres. Suumaro proposes marriage to Sonja, but her wanderlust will not allow her to become queen of Skranos ["Shall Skranos Fall?"/RS.I-13].

TERROR FROM THE CRYPT

Sonja descends from the mountains and turns her tracks northward for Aquilonia, greatest kingdom of the Hyborian Age. From a scrape with a lynch mob in Skranos, she knows that her reputation as a regicide has spread, via the sea lands, to the wharfside taverns of Argos. It seems a good idea to put some distance between herself and the places where she might fall prey to bounty hunters and royalist fanatics. In a small city on the Aquilonian border, at the end of a fearsome gondola ride provided by a sinister boatman named Karon, the swordwoman has an eerie encounter with the minions of Death after entering unknowingly into an unholy bargain with the nobleman Gonzallo ["An Evening of the Border"/RS.1-14]. Later, deeper in Aquilonia, she destroys a trio of vampire kings by slaying the half- human Lord Flurdelie, to whom they are connected by a mystic bond ["The Tomb of Three Dead Kings"/RS.I-15].

WHEN WIZARDS MAKE WAR

Following her adventures in Skranos and elsewhere, rumors of war in Shem lead Sonja to the city-state of Akkharia, whose King Sumuabi is amassing an army to aid the people of Anakia in an uprising against their own monarch. There, she once more crosses paths with Conan (who wins an in- conclusive victory over her in an ambiguous bout of swordplay - or does he?) and Karanthes, priest of Ibis. The Cimmerian, still grieving after a year for his slain lover Bêlit, enters into an unholy bargain with the powerful wizard Zukala. In return for Conan's delivering to him his sworn enemy Karanthes, Zukala pledges to return Bêlit to life. When Conan discovers the price also includes Sonja's life in trade, he sunders the contract by hewing Zukala's head from his body ["A War of Wizards"/CB-115]. Conan, who also plans to enlist in Sumuabi's army, suggests he and Sonja ride together to join up. Shaken by the uncertain outcome of their recent duel, and not certain whether perhaps she wanted to lose it, the Hyrkanian fears that continued proximity to him might jeopardize her vow of chastity. So they part again. Sonja joins Sumuabi's legion and, like Conan, narrowly escapes death when the army is annihilated through treachery, in a tale yet to be told.

RIDDLE OF THE RED GODDESS

One evening, in a tavern, thoughts of her homeland return once more. As if answering some dim, subliminal call, the red-tressed warrior leaves Zamora on impulse, skirts the southern shore of the Vilayet, and at length comes again to the barren site where her home had stood. In a network of caverns south of the farmstead, Sonja encounters The Favored, a golden-skinned, flame-haired folk at war with the troglodytic Drommach. She is told she was actually born among The Favored, abandoned by them as an infant, then found and reared by Ivor and his wife. The Favored regard Sonja as the "Pale Destroyer" who will lead them in a final apocalyptic battle against the Drommach. Seemingly, the ethereal being who granted Sonja her martial powers was in fact the bloodthirsty Red Goddess worshipped by The Favored, and the events of Sonja's life have been engineered by the deity as part of a master plan for forging her into the Red Goddess's living weapon against the Drommach. Saved from death at the hands of the unstable Favored by a young woman, Zora, Sonja escapes with her as The Favored and the Drommach meet in final furious confrontation. Sonja finds the Red Goddess to be a treacherous two-sexed deity who, in fact, has pitted the two groups against each other without truly favoring either. She doubts that the Goddess's "revelations" about her own origin were any more truthful; but the encounter raises disturbing questions she cannot conclusively answer, including the possibility that the account was true, and that Zora in fact might be her sister ["Day of the Red Judgment"/MS-9/ CS-91].

TWO BLADES WESTWARD

Whatever the truth of their alleged blood- kinship, Zora remains with Sonja. The mysterious young woman displays a particular affinity for the bow. An Aquilonian nobleman, Lord Daquius, has been engaged to mediate peace between Turan's king and the city-state of Khorusun. He hires the pair as bodyguards for his daughter, Merina, on the perilous voyage across the Vilayet to conclude negotiations in Aghrapur. Merina is said here to be only seven years old, but due to internal evidence, she must be a bit older. Pirates attack the ship, but their leader, Kirkos, calls retreat just as the Corsairs seem on the verge of victory ["The Blood That Binds"/RS.II-1]. In Turan's capital, Zora coaches Merina in archery. She and Sonja learn Zora is indeed the Last of The Favored, and that the Red Goddess lied in saying Sonja was a member of that lost race. When Kirkos's pirates kidnap Merina, Lord Daquius gives chase aboard a Turanian warship with Sonja and Zora. Daquius learns Kirkos is his brother, an exile from Aquilonia. The Turanian captain, infuriated that the Aquilonian would reconcile with a corsair, murders Daquius. Merina avenges him with an arrow to the captain's brain; but Zora dies, too, shot by a Turanian crossbowman while shielding Merina. The orphaned Merina sails off with Kirkos, who gives her a more pirate-like name: "Valeria," under which, some years later, she will become infamous as the boldest she-pirate of the Western Ocean ["The Sea That Steals"/ RS.II-2; "Valeria of the Red Brotherhood"/ SS-225].

ALWAZAR

In the city of Alwazar, a debt of honor leads Sonja to a violent confrontation with Feema, the treacherous lady captain of a thousand-strong mercenary army ["Blood Debt"/RS.III-2]. With Feema's death at Sonja's hand, command is transferred to an honorable young officer, Galon, as Alwazar awaits attack by an army led by the red-handed zealot Lassusar, who aspires to unite the Hyborian nations under his rule. A traitor makes Lassausar aware that one of the soldiers guarding the city is Red Sonja, who scarred his face years before. Challenging her to single combat, he overcomes her by trickery and plans to degrade her sexually. Rescued by Galon's councilor, Achmal the wizard, Sonja rallies a defending force from the neighboring city of Calum-Barai and beats Lassusar's invaders back from Alwa- zar's walls ["Siege"/RS.III-3]. Knowing that she and Alwazar will not be safe as long as Lassusar lives, Sonja swears to kill the zealot. Accompanied by Galon and Achmal, she trails the madman's army into northern Zamora. Lassusar is encamped at his stronghold, where he promises his legions that his wife, Lady Althea, will bear a child with a crescent-shaped birthmark; an ancient myth holds that such a child will be the divinely-favored leader of an all-conquering army. (Oddly enough, over the border in Khauran, legend says -- correctly-that such a mark is the sign of a witch. Perhaps the two tales are opposite sides of the same coin.) Lassusar attempts to fulfill the prophecy through a ruse, but Sonja puts an end to his plot, and with his death, his crusade falls apart ["Lassusar Must Die"/RS.III-4].

ICE AND BLOOD ...AND STEEL!

Tales of Sonja's swordly skill have reached distant Sythia, in the frigid north- lands beyond Hyperborea. Vlad, the king of Sythia, determines to have Sonja's blade, thinking it must be a magical sword that will give him the power to destroy a harpy that terrorizes his realm. Vlad's witch-wife Vassilisa, Queen of Ice and Blood, plots to take Sonja's heart, because she is the sworn enemy of the Hyrkanian's vision-deity, whom the northlanders equate with a god- dess named Scathach. One of Vassilisa's demons attacks Sonja and her companions, killing Galon and Achmal. Another kidnaps Branwyn, an old friend of Sonja's, under the mistaken belief that Bran is Sonja ["The Queen of Ice and Blood"/RS. III-8]. To Sythia goes Sonja, accompanied by Branwyn's husband Math, her lover Alain, and her son Kynon ["The Queen of Hearts"/ RS.III-9]. The seekers fight the voracious harpy that haunts Sythia, and befriend a mammoth- herding tribe, the Lappuit ["Strangers"/ R.S.III-10]. When Sonja, Alain, and Math are trapped in an avalanche, Sonja is revived by the goddess Scathach as the ghost of Achmal visits Kynon and provides a clue as to how Vassilisa may be defeated ["Buried Alive"/ RS.III-11].

SHOWDOWN IN SYTHIA

After mammoths dig Sonja and the two men out of the snow, the harpy of Sythia attacks. Vlad appears and gives battle with the monster, who turns out to be under Vassilisa's control. The harpy kills the king, but is then slain by Sonja. Reunited with Branwyn, the travelers are captured by the queen's soldiers and taken to Vassilisa's stronghold, Zamok Iz Llod ["Descent"/ RS.III-12]. To increase her own power, the Queen of Ice and Blood plans to sacrifice Sonja to her Dark God. With the aid of her friends, her sword, the spectre of Achmal, and a dagger blessed by the goddess Scathach, the Hyrkanian turns the tables. Alain, armed with the enchanted knife, is mortally wounded by Vassilisa's demonic deity, but Sonja dispatches the witch in turn. She bids farewell to Branwyn, Math, and Kyon [ "The Demon's Tooth"/RS. III-13].

THE DEVOURER AND THE SHE-DEVIL

Traveling south to Koth, where a rebel prince, Irham, has stirred up a revolt against King Strabonus, Sonja also learns that one Baron Strakkus, hoards great wealth in his villa in the Corinthian city of Naplonia. She also learns Conan has been named com- mander of Irham's insurrectionist army. She hies to Khorshemish, capital of Koth, and signs up with Strabonus. The king wants her to cut Conan's throat, and she agrees - once she's driven a hard bargain ["Blood of Ages"/CB-195]. When she finds the Cimmerian, however, she reveals the offer to him, for she never had any intention of carrying out the assas- sination. Instead, she invites him to join her in filching Baron Strakkus's fortune ["The Beast"/CB-196]. Before Conan can resign his commission, another figure from his past appears: Wrarrl, the Devourer of Souls, an eldritch demon- the stars." The Devourer transforms Bahkt, warrior from the "inky blackness between a mercenary, into a superhuman creature called the "Dark Apostle" as the tool of his wrath against Conan. Bahkt attacks and brutally beats Red Sonja with his sorcerous power ["Stand"/CB-197]. Conan finds her barely alive. While she recuperates, he overtakes Bahkt and learns the demon merely wished to lure him into another world. Conan wins the fight and slays Bahkt, however ["The River"/CB-198].

THE LONG ROAD BACK

Sonja quickly recovers from her physical injuries, but believes she has lost her warrior prowess as a result of her defeat by Bahkt. (It is never made clear whether her "violation" by him, of which she speaks, was rape, or merely the defeat itself-probably only the latter, as Bakht 's attack on her was primarily to lure Conan to pursue him.) Meanwhile, mighty, preternatural forces begin to converge, given physical presence in the form of a little girl, Solaise, and her pet cat ["Revelation in the Mists"/CB-199]. The child is the vessel by which the Devourer may be able(sic) to gain the power of the Elder Gods. Conan, finding Sonja to be more a burden than a help now that she believes her sword-skills gone, journeys alone to Arallu, the Land of the Dead. There he frees and consults with the undead, skull-faced mage Thulsa Doom, from the days of King Kull, to find answers to the cosmic rid- dles that unaccustomedly confound him ["Legion of the Dead"/CA-12]. When Conan's other troops set off to find him, leaving Sonja virtually alone in camp, scavengers attack. Sonja, berserk, fights back with a powerful sword fashioned from a totem staff of the Elder Gods. Recovered now from her recent malaise, she rides with Conan as he returns with Thulsa Doom, and the fight against the Devourer ranges from Koth to Aquilonia. The fates relegate Sonja to an observer's role as, wielding the Elder Gods' sword, only the Cimmerian stands between the Devourer and the destruction of the universe. Fortunately, Conan prevails ["The Fall of Acheron"/CB-200].

PORTAL TO OTHERWHERE

By now, Sonja has regained her strength and spirit. In truth, one may question whether she ever lost them save in her own mind, in the anguished aftermath of Bahkt's attack. With the fabled treasure of Baron Strakkus in mind, she proceeds to Corinthia, accompanied by Keiv, a Hyperborean rascal from Conan's troop. She breaks into his treasure vault, liberating a hulking monster that grows larger each time it kills. Shape-shifting into the aspect of a handsome youth, the creature says the vault is really a gateway to a "nether realm" from which she has released him; he can return only if she accompanies him thither. She agrees to do so, only because Conan has arrived, the monster has overcome him, and threatens to kill him if she refuses his demand ["Goblin"/CB-240]. In the extra-dimensional otherwhere he calls the Necropolis, the creature tells Sonja that he, in his human guise, is actually Baron Strakkus. The last of an olden race that once populated the earth, he has been intrigued by Sonja's reputation. He broad- cast the rumors about a treasure hoard to lure her to his estate. She rejects his increasingly violent overtures. Conan follows her to the Necropolis, and the pair fight their way back to their own world; then they part company once more ["Necropolis"CB-205].

THE MASKS OF ZUKALA

Eventually, however, the Hyrkanian's road winds back into Zamora, bringing her into renewed contract with Karanthes. The priest of Ibis proposes a dangerous masquerade. Zukala, who was actually a godling merely wearing the form of a Zamorian wizard during earlier encounters with Conan, lives on in spirit form even though the barbarian slew his body. Lusting after Sonja, he wishes his human son El-Ron to conquer her in battle and take her for his bride. When she conceives a child, Zukala will reincarnate himself in the baby. Karanthes knows this plot would have hellish consequences for humankind in general, and himself in particular; he offers Sonja a fortune in gold to pretend to be- come ensnared. Karanthes will officiate at the wedding, and, on the wedding night, the Hyrkanian will kill El-Ron. On the journey to Castle Zukala, where the nuptials are to be held, Sonja meets up again with Conan and asks him to accompany her, without explaining anything ["All Roads Lead to Zamora"/CB-241]. Unaware of Karanthes' intrigue, but knowing that Zukala plans a ghastly fate for his red-haired comrade, the Cimmerian tries to rescue her, only to be captured by the demon Jaggta-Noga who serves Zukala, and taken to its grisly netherworld ["They Came to Castle Zukala"/CB-242]. Conan escapes Jaggta-Noga's realm. In a welter of blood and magic, he and Sonja foil Zukala's plot and kill El-Ron. The godling is now their implacable enemy, for he holds them responsible now, between them, for the deaths of two of his children (his daugh- ter Zephra being the other). Conan and Sonja, disgusted alike by Zukala's sorcery and Karanthes's manipulations, ride off, tell- ing the priest to keep out of their way from here on. They are bound for the kingdom of Khoraja, whose regent, Princess Yasmela, is hiring mercenaries to protect her realm from an approaching horde of nomads led by the masked prophet Natohk ["Dawn and Death- Gods"/CB-243].

AND ZULA MAKES THREE

Captured en route by soldiers of King Strabonus of Koth, who hopes to seize Khoraja himself before Yasmela can rally a mercenary army, Conan and Sonja encoun- ter the Cimmerian's old friend Zula, last of the Zamballahs, a warrior and neophyte magician, in a dank prison yard. Escaping, the trio are captured by Lord Varnae, the obscene First Lord of Vampires ["Fiends of the Flaming Mountains"/CB-244]. Varnae now controls the batlike Afterlings from the long-destroyed Tower of Blood. The warriors survive when Zula routs the blood- drinkers with a master incarnation from the ancient Scroll of Chthon. In the course of defeating Varnae, they also save Amalric of Nemedia, who is leading a troops of mer- cenaries to Khoraja, and join his troops ["Empire of the Undead"/CB-245]. AGAINST THE HORDES OF NATOHK Arriving in Khoraja, where the Princess Yasmela rules since her brother, King Khos- sus, was captured by the monarch of Ophir, they discover that some of the fanatical followers of the mysterious Natohk have already infiltrated the capital, which has the same name as the kingdom, and are spread- ing terror. Feeling sympathy for a youthful cultist, Haali, Sonja rescues him from the mercenaries in a street melee. Later, to save Conan's life, she is forced to slay the young fanatic during an ambush in the city's cata- combs ["Chaos in Khoraja"/CB-246]. Amalric next dispatches Sonja, Conan, and Zula to the desert city of Yamman to induce a rebel Stygian prince, Katuman, to join Yasmela's cause. Katuman, however, has already decided to side with Natohk. Armed with a sword of potent magic, he captures the three adventurers and sen- tences them to die ["The Sword That Con- quers All"/CB-247]. Outwitting their captors, Sonja and her friends put Katuman's blade to good use, vanquishing the demonic servitor Helgor, and escape back to Khoraja. There, under apparent divine guidance, the regent Prin- cess Yasmela appoints Conan to command her army as it assembles to meet the hordes of the Masked Prophet - who in reality is the resurrected 3000-year-old warlock Thugra Khotan ["The Peril and the Proph- ecy"/CB-248]. At Shamla Pass, Sonja rides with Amalric when Conan orders the Nemedian to circle around the nomads' lines and attack from the rear. When Thugra Khotan snatches Yasmela, Sonja and Zula pursue and fight the wizard's hellish servants, while Conan liberates the princess and becomes her lover in the midst of battle. The Cimmerian uses his new rank to appoint Sonja and Zula captains ["Red Wind"/CB-249]. A PARTING OF WAYS Victorious, Yasmela turns her thoughts to ransoming her captive brother-king Khossus from Ophir's sovereign. Having heard that an ancient treasure resides in the ruined city of Kuthchemes, where Thugra Khotan had dwelled in days of old, the princess recruits Conan, Sonja, and Zula to help her obtain it. Beneath the ruins, Death's Ferry- man conveys the seekers across the sub- terranean River of Darkness, much as the boatman Karon had carried Sonja a year or two before. The band find the fabled trea- sure, but Sonja and Zula must sacrifice it to save Conan from the demon-god Zug. Chafing under Yasmela's imperious tem- perament, Sonja leaves Conan to his new role as her commander-in-chief and para- mour and, joined by Zula, rides off ["Chaos Beneath Kuthchemes"/CB-250)

ZANADU

Drifting with Zula to another and lesser Turanian outpost, Yukkub, Sonja bests a drunken bully, Murabi, in a tavern fight. A Nemedian nobleman, Lord Linneus, hires her to replace Murabi as the captain of the troops that accompnay him on his quest for the legendary city of Zanadu, far east of Hyrkania. Declining to undertake the jour- ney, Zula parts from Sonja on friendly terms ["Diverging Paths"/SS-207]. The quest for Zanadu involves Sonja in one of the strangest adventures of her career. Lord Linneus is a dreamy introvert who has staked his entire fortune to find Zanadu, because myth depicts it as an earthly para- dise where he and his willful sister Darya will find refuge from the demands of every- day life. He and Sonja are totally unlike, but the Hyrkanian finds herself romantically drawn to him. Crossing the Mountains of Night, the party accidentally free Essarchi- ribezzar, a misshapen djinn who becomes Darya's personal servitor ("All in the Game"/ SS-208]. Surrendering to her infatuation with Lin- neus, Sonja goads him into a duel so he can defeat her in battle and she will be free to give herself to him without losing her sword- skills, as she believes she otherwise will. When Essarchiribezzar intercedes at Darya's command, Sonja resorts to a less violent means of accomplishing her goal, by chal- lenging Linneus to a game of Hyborian "chess." When he wins, Sonja feels she has fulfilled her vow. Linneus promises to marry her when they reach Zanada ["Battles Lost and Won"/SS-209]. But their arrival shatters both Sonja's dream of love and Linneus's vision of eternal happiness. Zanadu is a ruin where travelers find only a gargantuan demon that is un- leashed through Darya's greed. It crushes loyal Essarchiribezzar and -- when a panic- stricken Linneus pushes her into its path- Darya, his own sister. Sonja succeeds in returning the demon to captivity, but the disaster has mercilessly exposed Linneus's profound weaknesses. The swordwoman leaves the Nemedian and his entourage to find their way back home as best they can ["End of the Road"/SS-210].

THE WRATH AND THE RING

Skirting the kingdom of Kosala, Sonja has a run-in with the local custom of burning widows so that they can keep their deceased husbands company in the afterlife. She saves the intended victim, but sees to it that there is no lack of companionship in the realm of the dead ["A Bride for Varitra"/SS-229]. Back in the Hyborian lands, Sonja stops at a river crossing, where she charms a little girl named Gerta, but soon learns that mercenaries are regarded with fear and hatred by most of the local folk ["Red Sonja on the Road of Kings"/SS-192]. She gravitates to Koth, where trouble of one kind or another always seem to be brewing under the heavy-handed rule of King Strabonus. A chance meeting in a tavern leads her to join the army of Lord Olin, ruler of the back-country city-state of Suthad. Ousted by an evil wizard, Asroth, Olin is raising a force to reclaim his throne, which includes the mysterious, masked Duke Pelides. Sonja is emotionally drawn to the handsome, forceful Olin, and these feelings sooth the bitterness that lingers from her ill-fated romance with Linneus ["The Ring of Ikribu," Part I/SS-230]. From a Stygian, Sopis, the Hyrkanian learns that a cult worshipping the god Ikribu is sworn to kill Asroth. Sopis has found the lost Ring of Ikribu, the only object capable of overcoming the sorcerer's magic. When a demon sent by Asroth kills Sopis, the ring comes into Sonja's possession ["The Ring of Ikribu," Part II/SS-231; Parts III and IV of this adventure will be related in the next two issues of this magazine].

THE RAVAGERS OUT OF TIME

King Yildiz of Turan is offering good pay to mercenaries who have the experience and temperament to serve as officers in his army. Sonja, taking a captain's commission, is ordered to lead a detachment transporting gold from the mines of northern Turan to the capital at Aghrapur. On the long journey south, the Hyrkanian begins to entertain thoughts of heisting the cargo herself. In the remote hills, she and her troops capture a solitary Pict, the much-tattooed shaman Gonar. He is the very image of an- other Gonar, friend and advisor to King Kull of ancient Valusia, whom she and Conan met years before when Kull and his court were magically snatched forward in time during the quest for the page of the Book of Skelos. In short order, Sonja also encoun- ters Conan again; the Cimmerian is leading an outlaw band - the Free Companions, now allied with the kozaki of the steppes- who attack the gold train. Sonja and the remnants of her group join forces with Conan, who proposes that they find and seize Yildiz's mines for themselves. In the remote valley where the mines are located, the outlaws find a ruined tower Conan has visited before, when it was the stronghold of Rotath, a resurrected wizard from long-dead Lemuria. Put to the sword thousands of years earlier by Kull, Rotath had arisen again through an enchantment that turned his skeleton to gold; during Conan's earlier visit, he had been absorbed by a gigantic gold-eating slug. Now his mind resides in the slug's grotesque (and golden!) bulk. Rotath's consciousness wants to return to human form by traveling back in time and taking over the body of his old foe, Kull. Returning to the Pre-Cataclysmic Age by magic, with Sonja and Conan in thrall, Rotath holds her hostage to force Conan to bring Kull to him as a captive. Watching the two barbarians clash in combat, Rotath decides he will inhabit the body of the victor. Coming to Conan's aid, Gonar the Pict (who may or may not be the same Gonar captured by Sonja in Turan) works a mighty spell that destroys Rotath. He then returns Sonja and Conan to their own era, where he (or perhaps his Hyborian Age descendant- or reincarnation) waits to greet them [the graphic novel CONAN: THE RAVAGERS OUT OF TIME].

OF TIME AND TUZUN THUNE

Though Rotath is vanquished, Pre-Cataclysmic sorcery still casts its baleful shadow over Sonja. Riding south to rejoin the kozaks, she, Conan, and Gonar are drawn to a cave that contains the eerie Mirrors of Tuzun Thune, a wizard killed in olden times by King Kull's friend Brule the Spear-Slayer. Tuzun Thune still lives, after a fashion, as a reflection in one of his looking- glasses. These mirrors are the doorways of time, in which Sonja views her past life- and possibly one future incarnation. Gonar is sucked into the ancient past by one of the mirrors, his place and likeness taken by Tuzun Thune, as the living evil reflections of Sonja and Conan emerge from another glass to switch places with the real Hyr- kanian and Cimmerian ["The Many Mirrors of Tuzun Thune"/SS-223]. On the other side of the looking-glass, Sonja and Conan are hurled back to the morning of time talked about by Nemedian philosophers, when gigantic reptiles roamed the earth. They barely survive till they are fished out of the eons by Gonar, and find themselves in Pre-Cataclysmic Valusia ["Dragons of the World's Dawn"/SS-224].

VALUSIA

It seems that King Kull never returned from their previous adventure, and is lost in the paradoxical twists and turns of time- possibly trapped on what Gonar calls a "time ledge." Gonar sends Sonja in search of him as Conan, his appearance magically altered through the Pict's glammar, takes Kull's place to fight the malevolent Priest of the Black Shadow ["Of Kings and Cataclysms"/ SS-226]. Gonar's enchantment hurls Sonja five centuries beyond Kull's time, to the end of the Great Cataclysm that sank Atlantis and Lemuria, obliterated the Thurian civilization, and set the stage for the Hyborian Age. Amid the heavings of the earth and the toppling of Valusia's City of Wonders, she locates the stranded Kull ["Days of the World's Ending"/SS-226]. Returning with her to their rightful age, the barbarian king helps Sonja and Conan conquer the evil of the Black Shadow. The return of Kull displaced Sonja and Conan from that particular "time ledge," and they vanish from his court, to materialize in an arena alive with blood-hunger sabretooths ["Back from Time's Abyss"/SS-226].

ACHERON

They have come nearer their proper time, but are still three millennia short. They are in Python, capital of the dark empire of Acheron, riven by a feud between the wizards Xaltotun and Kheperu, and beset by the wandering Hyborian tribes, who have surged southward to lay the foundations of kingdoms of the Hyborian Age in Acheronian and Stygian blood. Escaping the ravenous cats, they become embroiled in a plot by Hybori slaves to overthrow Acheron's king. With Conan in the hands of the rebels, Conan agrees to pose as a guardsman to sneak assassins into the Pythonian palace. Not one to let Conan meekly risk his life for her, Sonja escapes and soon finds herself in the tower of the wizard Xaltotun himself ["Assault on Acheron"/SS-229]. Sonja steals from Xaltotun his prize gem, the Heart of Ahriman, the one talisman that, in enemy hands, can overcome all his sorcery. When invading Hybori storm Python, the Heart falls into the custody of one of their shamans as Sonja and Conan fall again into time's vortex. . .emerging in the cave of Tuzun Thune, in their own era, and determined to find the mage and their own evil twins and settle matters once and for all ["The Fall of Python"/SS-230-and in future issues of this magazine].

BLOOD ON THE SNOWS

Eventually, Sonja and Conan part, she to experience perils yet to be recorded, he to lead the merged kozaki and Free Companions and make King Yildiz's life generally miserable as he seeks to extend Turan's influence into the steppes. Some time later, long after Conan has moved on from the Vilayet, the Hyrkanian's restlessness leads her back to her homeland, the slaying of King Ghannif apparently of no further interest to the local authorities. She is hired by a hetman, Rustopha, to guard his home while he and his men harry their neighbors. When another hired sword, Nokall, kidnaps the chieftain's children, she follows the kidnapper west into winter- bound Brythunia. She catches up with Nokall only to learn the rogue has sold the children to the owner of an iron mine on the Misty River. By chance, she encounters Conan, who is after an idol in a forgotten city in the Graaskal Mountains. Together again, the adventurers find the lost city and fight a grotesque horror that lurks in the mountain passes ["The Waiting Doom"/SS-144]. Sonja and Conan find the kidnaped children, and deliver them from brutal servi- tude. As the Cimmerian bids her farewell, the swordwoman returns the youngsters to their father ["Feast of the Stag"/SS-145].

THE RETURN OF VALERIA

After another round of exploits, Sonja returns north, where the chieftain of a Nordheimr village is hiring fighters to pursue an outlander who he says defiled his daughter. Sonja takes up the chase, which leads to the coast and across the boreal seas. The fugitive outlander (but hardly defiler) turns out to be Conan, whom fate has thrown into company with another of his old comrades, the woman pirate Valeria. Out to find a mountain-sized emerald said to exist in the northern wastes, the Cimmerian and the pirate learned that the "emerald" is only green-shining ice. Sonja joins them as they head south again ["Emerald Lust"/SS-170]. When the trio encounter a peaceful tribe of snow-dwellers, Valeria steals their golden idol. Sonja and Conan follow, and a bloody battle ensues as they clash with the Iron Damsels, a troop of swordwomen who bear an old grudge against Conan. Soon, they join with Valeria and the Damsels to meet an attack by Vanir brigands. In the end, finding that Conan himself intended to steal the idol from the peaceful tribesmen, Sonja leaves in disgust with Valeria. Conan contents himself with the idol, which he has retrieved from a raging river ["Fury of the Iron Damsels"/SS-179]. The stories of the false emerald mountain and the golden idol raise questions. In these accounts, Sonja and Valeria fight spitefully from the second they meet, as if they have forgotten the friendship they enjoyed years before, or simply do not recognize each other. Undoubtedly, there are stories yet to be recounted which may explain these seeming discrepancies.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE...?

A tale is told of a time, years later, when Conan is king of Aquilonia with a grown son, how he nearly misses his own daughter's birthday party when he runs into his old comrade Red Sonja in a Tarantian ale-house and she taunts him into joining her for one more adventure in a small boat on the Khoratas River. Together they overtake a death barge and Sonja removes a gem from the eye of a corpse in the hold, while Conan taken an elaborate golden amulet. Conan and Sonja part on the shore, and Conan --- arriving at the birthday party late, without a present-redeems himself by presenting his daughter with the purloined amulet. If this latter-day exploit truly happened, since Red Sonja would have been nearly sixty by then and probably not wandering about looking just as she did in her prime, it is to be suspected that Conan had rather more to drink that day than he remembered, and that it was someone else who shared his afternoon. And what of Red Sonja's other adventures, before and after? Did she, like the Cimmerian, ultimately find high fortune in the turbulent days of the Hyborian Age? And when did she, either alone or in the company of Conan, have her celebrated encounter with the conqueror Khengor, a entertains ambitions of building an empire nomadic warlord from Black Khitai who paved with the skulls of his enemies, as referred to in passing in the Nemedian Chronicles? in new adventures yet to come.... These answers must be found elsewhere,

The Illustration Fan Chronology with 5 Incarnations

This combines all Sonja stories and some of Dynamite stories predate Marvel. The idea originated from Savage Sword 29. In The Wizard and Red Sonja Show (Savage Sword of Conan 29, Marvel 1978) The Wizard, with a tongue as sharp as a thorn (and a frank thorn at that) conjures up Red Sonja, but instead of one woman, five appear. One is Red Sonya of Rogatino, but the other four are equipped with versions of the familiar chainmail, so the question is, why are there four?

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