Feel like there's a style guide for this.

I've had a copy of Marvel Team-Up #79 sitting next to my computer for a bit, but I'm trying to talk myself out of ordering a Red Sonja figure! Better blog this issue instead; you probably haven't seen it, anyway. From 1985, Red Sonja #7, "Harvest!" Written by Bill Mantlo, art by Rudy Nebres.

I'm not sure exactly where in the Hyborian Age today's book is set: "the savage steppes" is mentioned, so maybe Hyrkania? I ask, because the bad guys in this one are Mongols--not Mongol-like, but pretty much just an invading Mongol horde; and the king of the besieged city is a tsar. I don't think those terms were never used in Marvel's Conan books, but rarely: either Mantlo might not have written a lot of these and not been familiar with the usual terminology, or this was set further away from Conan's usual stomping grounds (a sizeable area!) to set it a bit apart. Anyway, Sonja and her companions Galon and Achmal join the defense of a doomed city, surrounded and starving; although the tsar swears the only weapon that can save them is their wheat. Gasp! Quadrotriticale! Um, no.

Like the majority of Sonja's companions, Galon is pining over her, but also knows that's not gonna happen. The captain of the tsar's guard also shoots his shot, but Sonja tells him she couldn't possibly date someone who was so about to die, which is for her letting him down easy? She thinks the tsar is insane, their position indefensible, and the situation pretty hopeless; and that's before the locals sink into cannibalism. Sonja finally opts to split, but the captain points out they'd never get through the horde; so she confronts the tsar, who seems to be hording grain for himself, but also seems younger and more together than before. Sonja still stabs him. But the tsar, even as he bleeds out, chides them for placing all their faith in steel, as he casts a spell, creating wheat soldiers that attack the Mongols. Stabbing them didn't do much, so the Mongols resort to burning the wheat-men, and are caught up in the blaze as well.

As they ride away, Achmal points out the dead Mongols were going to make great fertilizer, and their next harvest would probably be bountiful. Assuming it's not all murderous wheat-men, I guess. Weird day for Sonja.