Red Sonja #4 (Marvel Comics, 1977)

After the events in Red Sonja #3, Sonja and Mikal arrive at a Dark Lake on the outskirts of Athos. The murky liquid churns and bubbles, and then reveals its secret. A procession of strange creatures emerges from the water and make their way to shore. A pair of lions greet them and escort the motley assortment of weird animal-beings to the Theater of Monsters in the city of Athos.

Sonja and Mikal follow them and enter the theater, where they find a human crowd cheering before a stage fueled by bloodlust. The curtain is opened, and the monsters fight to the death for the amusement of the raucous audience.

A strange griffin-like creature calls Sonja out in the crowd and invites her to join their weirdness. She accepts, hoping to learn more about these monsters and earn some gold in the show, when she approaches the creatures, some of them move to attack her. She fights them off and slays them with her sword. The leader among them, a bizarre ape-looking creature named Cyphax, begs her to stop and listen to their story.

Sonja agrees, and Cyphax takes the humans to the lake where she parts the waters, revealing stairs that lead to a beautiful crystal city beneath the lake. He then tells her a story about how their strange race of lake-dwelling creatures is actually aliens from another world who crash-landed on Earth and took the form of animals.

They built a city called Chimu and hoped to advance their civilization, but the mating between creature-races turned them into hideous monsters who drink blood. Their race has been reduced to little more than puppets for the people of Argos, who pay them in animal blood to see them fight each night in the Monster Theater.

Cyphax says that their leader was captured by the humans and is held prisoner in the Singing Tower. Then, in the middle of their discussion, one of the creatures attacks Cyphax. They are unable to control themselves, for they grow hungry and thirst for blood; Sonja's blood! Cyphax says the creature is his brother and then begs the humans to leave before they are killed by a growing mob surrounding them.

They flee towards the exit. Cyphax gives Sonja his ring and tells her that he is dying, and to use the ring to tap the stairs to open the waters. His final wish is that Sonja finds and frees their former leader so that he can restore their sanity.

She agrees, and Sonja and Mikal escape the lake and head toward the Singing Tower.