January 1933 brings a new issue of Weird Tales, featuring the works of Murray Leinster, Edmond Hamilton, Seabury Quinn and a new installment of Otis Adelbert Kline’s Buccaneers of Venus (that again gets the cover). The letters section includes one from Jack Williamson.
And halfway through the issue we find a new Robert E. Howard story featuring Conan the Cimmerian, the novelette The Scarlet Citadel.

The story is an almost direct follow-up of the one in the previous issue. King Conan of Aquilonia again has to defend his throne, this time by two treacherous nearby kings, the rulers of Ophir and Koth, aided by the sinister Tsotha-lanti, a sorcerer born (or so they say) of a Zamoran dancing girl and a black demon.

And here we get what is for me the most interesting element of this story: while in Phoenix on the Sword Howard dropped a lot of names of conspirators and aristocrats, here the naming game has a clear worldbuilding purpose. Cited en-passant for color, we get nation and cities of the Hyborian world, and we get passing references at Conan’s career. The upstart mercenary of the first story now reveals a past as a pirate and an adventurer all over the map. That a map has not yet been drawn for the readers is incidental – Howard has clearly the whole of Hyboria sketched in his mind.

Meanwhile, Conan is trapped in a dark dungeon, meets a number of weird horrors, fights the first of many giant snakes, and frees Pelias, a suavely dangerous sorcerer that helps him get his revenge (and provides transportation in the shape of a giant bat-thing).

We get a massive, epic battle and we catch a glimpse of the politics Conan/Howard, that is clearly critical of monarchy. Conan is a king that actually cares for the well-being of his subjects – a fact that leaves himself surprised.

Random note: king Conan has a harem. Ah, the barbaric life!

The story is solid, while not being one of my favorites.
Much probably depends by the order in which I originally read the Conan series – I always found the tales of the older Conan, dealing with politics and court conspiracies rather boring when compared to the more swashbuckling adventures of his youth.

But that’s just me.
In his second outing, Conan is finding his legs, and the Hyborian world is taking shape around him.