Conan the Barbarian #3

"Queen of the Black Coast," Part Three
written by Brian Wood
art by Becky Cloonan
colors by Dave Stewart

She came alone, sole crew of the ship she captained, to the aid of the Obsidian, a timber vessel running from a swarm of pirate ships.  She brought with her nothing but "perspective" (Conan the Barbarian #3: 17), wild brutality and keen tactics, the long view unfettered by compassion or fear.  She won herself a crew and quickly transformed them into her own marauders.  But, however savage and fierce, Bêlit is still not quite the raging goddess he imagined.  The glowing red eyes of her warrior-sailors dim to human shades; Bêlit's untamed wrath and merciless beauty soften in her lust for the swordsman of the North.  She seeks a lover—"So answer me, Cimmerian...  ...will you take me?" (4)—and she does so, but his answer is not quite to the question she asks.  "I'll sail with you" (5).  She stirs him.  His passion, yes, but more his lust for adventure, for battle and pillage, the dangerous fusion of bloodlust and sex.

Youthful impulsiveness has its price.

Shaman:  "And yes, Queen Bêlit is infamous in these waters.  But do not fear her--"
Conan:  "I fear no woman."
Shaman:  "--brutality.  Don't fear her brutality, Cimmerian.  She is a goddess.  She is a force of nature.  Fear what you will become with her.  Fear the future you two will share."  (8)

Bêlit is the woman Conan would have wished for himself—a battle-crazed seductress indulgent of his whims and appetites—but the path she offers is a treacherous one.  Aboard her ship, Conan makes enemies by the hundreds, sowing injustices that inspire others to revenge against him.  His propensity, it seems, for "freedom, [for] revenge, [for] liberation from the shackles of those who would impose their will on others" (18) does not extend to self-reflection.  Conan is both the man he most admires and the man he unknowingly despises.