The Hour of the Dragon: Conan the Conquerer recap

Nemedian conspirators revive Xaltotun, a sorcerer of ancient Acheron, to overthrow King Conan. Xaltotun's magic defeats Aquilonia's army, and Valerius takes Conan's throne, but a palace woman named Zenobia frees the captured king. Conan learns that the Heart of Ahriman, the jewel used in Xaltotun's resurrection, can also defeat him. After secretly aiding loyalists in occupied Tarantia and rallying Poitain, Conan crosses the sea and resumes his old identity as the corsair Amra. He reaches Stygia, resists the immortal Akivasha, and recovers the Heart amid rival sorcerers and priests. Returning to Aquilonia, he joins his loyal army for a final battle. Hadrathus uses the jewel to neutralize Xaltotun, the invaders and usurper are defeated, and Tarascus is captured. Conan ransoms Tarascus for Zenobia, restores his kingdom, and names the woman who saved him as his queen.

Orastes, Tarascus, Amalric, and Valerius restore the dead Acheronian sorcerer Xaltotun with a magical jewel called the Heart of Ahriman. Their immediate plan is to use his power to defeat Conan, put Tarascus on Nemedia's throne, and make Valerius king of Aquilonia. As the Nemedian army advances, Conan leads the Aquilonian host at Valkia. Xaltotun sends an unnatural darkness and strikes Conan down before the armies fully engage. Believing their king dead, the Aquilonians lose heart and are routed. Conan awakens as a prisoner rather than a corpse, and the conspirators send him under guard to the palace in Nemedia while their forces move to install Valerius in Tarantia.

Conan learns that Xaltotun is not merely serving the men who revived him: the ancient sorcerer intends to restore Acheron's dominion for himself. In the Nemedian palace Conan is confined in a chamber guarded by a monstrous ape. Zenobia, a young palace servant who has watched him from afar, gives him keys and a knife and explains a route of escape. Conan kills the creature, slips out of the palace, and survives the pursuit into the countryside. The witch Zelata shelters him and helps him see the cruelty unfolding in Aquilonia under Valerius. With his kingdom occupied and his enemies assuming him dead or helpless, Conan begins working his way back toward Tarantia in disguise.

Conan enters occupied Tarantia secretly and finds that Valerius is executing or imprisoning nobles who remain loyal to the old king. He rescues Countess Albiona before the regime can kill her and makes contact with Hadrathus and the followers of Asura, who aid him because he once protected their faith. Hadrathus explains that Xaltotun's life and power are bound to the Heart of Ahriman. The jewel disappeared after the resurrection, and recovering it offers a way to overcome magic that armies alone cannot defeat. Conan sends word to the loyal south, then leaves the capital to join Trocero in Poitain and prepare both a military resistance and a search for the Heart.

Poitain still holds for Conan under Count Trocero, but the king refuses to stake everything on battle while Xaltotun can destroy an army with sorcery. Evidence points toward Stygia as the destination of the missing Heart of Ahriman. Conan travels to the Argossean port of Messantia and seeks help from Publio, a merchant who profited from their earlier association. Publio chooses his own security over loyalty and betrays Conan to the authorities. Conan escapes the trap and reaches the sea, where the skills and reputation of his former life become more useful than royal ceremony. Recognized as Amra, the feared corsair of earlier years, he gains black corsair followers and turns south toward Stygia in pursuit of the jewel.

Conan reaches Stygia and follows the Heart's trail through a landscape ruled by priests, tombs, and rival occult powers. Beneath a pyramid he encounters Akivasha, an ancient princess who preserved herself through vampirism. She tries to persuade him to abandon the surface world and remain with her, but he recognizes the danger and continues his search. The Heart has become part of a struggle among Stygian sorcerers who understand both its power and the threat posed by Xaltotun's return. Conan is repeatedly cut off from ordinary allies, yet his refusal to submit to either terror or temptation carries him closer to the jewel.

Amid violence between Stygian factions, Conan secures the Heart of Ahriman and escapes with the one weapon capable of ending Xaltotun's magical control. He makes the long return north while news and messengers bring the loyal forces of Aquilonia together. Trocero's army is ready to challenge the invaders, and Hadrathus can use the recovered jewel for its intended purpose. The conspirators' alliance is also weakening: Xaltotun's ambition extends far beyond the limited restoration they promised one another, and the men who awakened him can no longer assume that they direct him. Conan rejoins his supporters for the decisive campaign, carrying proof that the supernatural advantage which defeated him at Valkia can be reversed.

Conan and Trocero lead the restored Aquilonian resistance against the occupying army. Hadrathus employs the Heart of Ahriman to strip Xaltotun of the decisive power he used at Valkia, and the resurrected sorcerer is destroyed. With magic no longer controlling the field, Conan's soldiers defeat their enemies; Amalric and Valerius die, ending both the foreign command and the rival claim to Aquilonia's crown. Tarascus survives only to become Conan's prisoner. Conan offers to release him on one condition: Zenobia must be brought safely from Nemedia. Tarascus agrees, and the woman who freed Conan arrives at the restored court. Conan regains his throne and publicly chooses Zenobia as his queen, closing the war by honoring the personal courage that made his return possible.

Conan returns to Aquilonia with the Heart of Ahriman while Trocero and the loyal provinces gather against the occupiers. Hadrathus uses the jewel to break Xaltotun's supernatural advantage, leaving the resurrected sorcerer unable to determine the battle as he did at Valkia. Conan's forces defeat the invaders; Amalric and Valerius are killed, Xaltotun is destroyed, and Tarascus is captured. Conan demands Zenobia as the price of Tarascus's freedom, repaying the palace woman's earlier rescue by raising her rather than forgetting her. With the foreign army broken and the rival claimant dead, Conan regains the Aquilonian throne. He declares that Zenobia will be his queen, turning the personal debt formed in captivity into the final settlement of his restored reign.