Savage Tales#4(1974)

Conan, feeling a longing for home, has ridden straight through to Cimmeria and his home village, which he discovers has recently been raided by Vanir and his childhood love Mara taken. He tracks the Vanir to a lake in Vanaheim and borrows a boat from a fisherman to finish the journey to the Isle of Swords. He finds an boatload of dead Picts and Vanir floating on the sea, and takes a surprisingly lightweight statue he finds on board with him on his journey, the statue seemingly guiding him. Finally, he reaches the Isle of Swords and begins to spy on the Vanir encampment. The Vanir find his boat and take the statute to their camp, but for them, the statue is impossibly heavy. Conan makes his way into the camp, killing witnesses, until he finds the drinking hall, where Mara is about to be an unwilling bride to the brigands' leader, Thorfel. Before anyone can act, though, Mara steals Thorfel's dagger and plunges it into her chest. Enraged, Conan bursts from hiding and begins to slaughter the brigands. The odds begin to turn against the barbarian, until the doors burst open when a party of Picts join the fray in order to retrieve the Dark God statue that sits in the hall. Conan is free to change last words with the dying Mara, and then kill Thorfel. After the battle, the pict leader Brogar explains that another group of picts stole this last statue of Brule the Spear Slayer, the friend of King Kull from Valusia, and were killed by the Vanir. Conan then sails quietly away.