title: The Savage Sword of Conan Volume 20
author:  Roy Thomas 
description: Roy William Thomas, Jr. is an American comic book writer and editor, who was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero <i>Conan the Barbarian</i> to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E. Howard's character and helped launch a sword and sorcery trend in comics. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes - particularly the 1940s superhero team the <i>Justice Society of America</i> - and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's <i>X-Men</i> and <i>Avengers</i>, and DC Comics' <i>All-Star Squadron</i>, among other titles. The author lives in Cape Girardeau, MO..
zlib_text: # ![](images/Hamb_9780307796332_epub_L03_r1.jpg)  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  Poisoned rain speared from an acid sky. The hunter scuttled, stumbled a dozen
  yards before throwing himself under shelter again. A building, he
  thought—hoped—though for a second’s blinding terror the curved shape lifted,
  writhing, into a toothed maw of terror from which darkness flowed out like the
  vomited stench of rotting bones. Serpents—tentacles—twisting arms reached down
  for him with what he would have sworn were tiny cobalt-blue hands … but the
  burning rain was searing holes in his flesh, so he closed his eyes and flung
  himself among them. Then for a clear moment his mind registered that they were
  blue-flowered vines.
  
  
  Though the stink of his own flesh charring still choked his nostrils and the
  fire scorched his hands, when he looked down at them his hands were whole,
  untouched. Realities shuffled in his mind like cards in a deck. Should those
  hands be stripped away to bone? Or should they sport a half dozen rings of