Lords of Destruction (21 page)

“Be careful,” Cobra pleaded. “Even you can get lost in these hills.” She
started to say more, but stopped herself, knowing he was not listening. She sank
into the
bukko
’s arms, shuddering, as Gath vanished beyond a ridge of
rimrock.

After a moment, Jakar put his eyes on Cobra. “How much further is it?”

With her eyes still on the spot where Gath had disappeared, she said,
“Hopefully less than two days… but perhaps three.”

Brown John patted her shoulders. “Don’t worry, we’ll get there. He’ll be back
in no time.”

She nodded uncertainly and removed herself from the
bukko
’s gentle
hold. In a voice that was low and quivering, she said, “I think now is one of
those times when some levity would be very helpful.” They nodded, but said
nothing. They were out of jokes.

SADDLED HORSES

G
ath sat easy on the draft horse, one hand clutching the makeshift reins. He
had left the road and now moved through the maze of upended, broken black rock
of the lava beds called the Kaja. Cranny, defile, slit, gulch and crevasse
offered passage in all directions. Twisting hard passage over black rock and
through black shadow. Twenty feet further on, another set of the same choices
presented itself. The surrounding rocks limited vision to fifty feet, and
sometimes only ten. The low dark cloud cover prevented the sky from offering any
sense of direction. No sound offered any information. There was only the squeal
of wind through chink and gap and his own sounds. He had been hunting better
than an hour and had no idea where he was, but plodded forward steadily. Sure of
his direction.

He had surrendered to the helmet.

The headpiece hung low between his shoulders, its hot metal steaming in the
grey wet air. The horns pulsed with life, subtly bending and turning like the
antennae of some huge bug as they hunted out the nearest danger. His hand
responded to each turn, tugging on the reins and guiding the huge horse under
arch and down goat path.

He followed a narrow ridge, turned a corner, and a road appeared at the base
of a steep incline. He rode down onto it, the clatter of hooves becoming dull
thuds as the draft horse moved onto dirt. The tongue of bald ground ran fairly
straight for about forty feet in both directions, then vanished behind jagged
black rock.

He sat motionless, waiting. The horns pulsed. Suddenly the helmet turned his
head, and black smoke billowed from the eye slits. Flames. He turned the horse,
and felt it. The vibrations of hooves reverberating in the road. Then he heard
them. A group of horses, not coming hard, but steadily. He gathered the traces
tight and propped his axe upright on his thigh.

They came around a turn two abreast. Bat soldiers. A patrol of six riders on
small horses with long-haired manes and tails. Seeing the smoking, flaming
Barbarian, they reined up, chattering to each other. Then two plunged forward,
spears in hand.

Gath prodded his mount forward. His breath came in heaving gasps. His blood
was hot and the air cool on his sweating flesh. His mind was clouding as helmet
dominated man, blotting out sight and sound, forming a tunnel of vision focused
on the scent and sound and sight of the living meat coming at him.

The two soldiers reined up, rising in their stirrups and screeching, and
threw their spears.

Gath kept coming. Eyes on the furry, leather-clad bodies, yet watching the
streaking spears. He turned a shoulder out of the way of the first, and leaned
the helmet into the second. It clanged off harmlessly, and he kept coming.

The demon spawn drew their swords and charged. High-pitched squealing rang
from their throats, and their four watching comrades added their voices to the
unholy battle cry.

The helmet knew the song they sang, and responded with a harmonic howl
unnatural in its beauty.

The music chilled the bat soldiers. Sword arms fell slack. Mouths dropped
open.

The draft horse slammed into the first small horse, and it went down
backward, throwing its rider. At the same time the helmeted Barbarian turned the
axe flat, swung it and caught the second bat soldier full in the chest as he
galloped past. His hollow, birdlike bones disintegrated on impact, and he was
driven out of his saddle. He hit the ground with a slap, the middle of his body
as shapeless as a bloody leather sack.

The helmet howled its approval.

The four remaining bat soldiers turned their mounts and galloped back the way
they had come. The fifth horse followed dragging its rider, whose foot was
caught in a stirrup. The riderless horse continued in the opposite direction.

Gath, his mind briefly clearing, saw the horses and saddles he hunted riding
off, and gave chase. But the smaller horses quickly pulled away and vanished
around a turn in the road. Gath leaned forward on the draft horse, body loose
and pliant, and prodded the animal forward, compelling it with the heat and
intensity of his touch and weight. The horse galloped faster and faster,
churning up the dirt road, then added more speed. A thundering boulder of meat
and bone.

When the bat soldiers saw the huge horse gaining on them, they spurred their
small horses hard, drawing blood. But the big horse kept gaining. In
desperation, the bat soldiers turned off the road onto a narrow, rocky trail and
vanished among the dark jagged terrain.

Gath followed, dashed through gut and gully and reined up on a slight rise.
The four mounted bat soldiers milled in a boxed hollow thirty feet below, while
the fifth lay dying on the ground with his foot still caught in the stirrup.
They were trapped. Two riders tried to goad their mounts up a steep slope, but
the slippery rock denied them passage. Then, seeing the huge horse and its rider
start for them, the bat soldiers jumped out of their saddles and scrambled up
among the rocks. They tore their flesh on the sharp rocks, then vanished,
bleeding, among them.

Gath walked his horse halfway down the slope toward the waiting horses and
saddles, then hesitated. The helmet was growing hot again, the horns pulsing.
The smell of blood swirled around him, hot and humid, and his vision once more
clouded, his body heaving for breath. Savage. Animal. Wanting the taste of the
frothing wet redness on his lips.

He leapt off the horse, dashed through the boulders, and the euphoria of the
death hunt spilled through every pore and nerve. The thrill of the kill.

The helmet leading him, he ran down one bat soldier and pulped him against a
flat rock, then ran down a second and caught him on the horns of the helmet,
threw him into a crevasse. He cornered two more, their backs against a wall of
rock and their hands empty. Helpless. Craven. Living meat without a chance or
challenge. They were simply more useless kills. Nevertheless, the helmet howled
for satisfaction, and pushed the Barbarian’s body two strides closer.

The soldiers whimpered and went to their knees, their eyes and bowels
emptying.

The man-pride in Gath snarled and revolted, and his body came to a stop. His
mind demanded control of itself, defying the helmet’s hungers. The metal steamed
and the horns writhed, sending pulses of desire into the flesh of his body. His
pride denied them, then shame came to its aid, and once again muscle and sinew, revolted by themselves, contracted, bending his huge frame.

Fighting the helmet, he backed up the slope, turned and walked away,
listening to the bat soldiers crawl in the opposite direction.

Following a trail of blood left by one of the bat soldiers, he found his way
back to the boxed hollow. The five saddled horses still milled about, chewing on
short rain-fresh grass growing in pockets of earth. He tied them in a string,
mounted one, and led the string to the top of the slope where the draft horse
stood idly. He took its traces in hand and guided the animals the short distance
back to the road. There he looked around for a long moment and realized he had
no idea where he was or in which direction he should head to find his comrades.

He rode back the way he had come, passed the dead bat soldier and reined up
where he thought he recognized the gut by which he had first reached the road.
He led the draft horse into the gut and gave it a sharp slap on the haunch,
hoping it would head back for the wagon. The animal trotted through the gut,
then found another passage back to the road and ran off.

Gath, his eyes hunting the ground for any sign of his passage, led the string
of horses into the gut. He found a scraped rock, a hoof print in soft earth,
then nothing, and stopped. Rocks the color of shadows and shadows the color of
rock surrounded him, and endless natural trails heading in all directions. He
dismounted and led the string forward a few feet, portioning off the ground in
squares with his eyes and studying each carefully. Finding nothing, he moved
forward and began again. He did this until the already dark sky grew darker, the
daylight dying behind it, and the truth could not be avoided.

He was lost.

The helmet suddenly lightened, the metal mocking him with laughter. Then it
quickly grew heavy again, forcing his head low between his shoulders and making
him spread his feet for balance. Smoke and heat showed in the eye slits, and the
horns pulsed, sending commands into his body. The helmet was choosing a path to
the right between low spreading boulders.

Gath fought it, holding his place, and the metal’s hunger increased. It was
not danger the metal sensed and wanted to guide him to. Another, stronger desire
fed it now. Revenge. It wanted to feed on the creature which had denied it
satisfaction and control for so long, and it was pointing the way to that
creature. Gath heaved and sweated, holding back, then surrendered to it and
started forward. He had no choice, even though he knew it now hungered for Robin
Lakehair.

LIAR

C
obra climbed up the interior stairwell to the second story of the wagon and
asked, “Any sign of him?” The
bukko,
standing at the window looking out,
shook his head. “Not yet.” He turned, bringing his boyish smile with him, and
said comfortingly, “You’ve got to relax. We’re going to need all the energy we
can muster for the trail tonight.”

“I should never have put the helmet on him,” she despaired. “It was stupid.”

“You had no choice.”

“I’m not so sure. I was frantic. I behaved like a mindless girl.” She threw
herself across his bed, hiding her head in her arms. “Oh, Brown, it’s so
maddening. Once I would have known exactly what to do, and done it without
hesitation. Sent an army to help him, or concocted some demon, or poisoned him to
quiet his hunger.” She lifted her head. “I did that once before, you know. I
actually poisoned him. But I’ve got no poisons now, and no skills to make them.
I’m helpless, and alone. And I don’t know how to wait. I’m going crazy.”

She buried her head again and shuddered the full length of her voluptuous
body.

Brown John hesitated, then said quietly, “You’re not alone.”

She looked across a bare shoulder at him, as if he were a world away.

He stood with his back leaning against the sill of the open window. Outside
it was silent and growing dark. Nothing moved. The wall of lava rising above the
wagon was black against an indigo sky, and Brown John’s face, lit by guttering
candlelight, was bright against the darkness. He had obviously been pondering
their desperate situation himself, tearing at his hair with his pudgy fingers.
But as he spoke again, his voice only carried its normal puckish optimism.

“Robin, I presume, is safely out of his sight, in case he should show up
suddenly?”

“Yes,” she said emptily. “She promised me she would not let him see one
finger.” She chuckled hollowly and sat up with her back against the wall. “She’s
such a simpering fool. She wanted to make me stop worrying, so she assured me that Gath would not only come back, but
that we were going to succeed. Not only steal the jewels, but solve all the
world’s problems with them.” She chuckled with humorless ridicule. “Then she
went to sleep, as if there wasn’t a worry in the world. She’s down there now.”

Brown John asked casually, “What do you think about the jewels?”

“I don’t,” she said flatly. “It’s pointless if Gath doesn’t come back.”

The
bukko
smiled carefully and said, “You would make far better
company if you could forget that for a while.” Getting no reply, he asked, “What
do the jewels look like, exactly? Are they ordinary gems, or do they have their
own particular qualities?”

“I don’t know, Brown,” she sighed impatiently. “What difference does it make?
There is no point in discussing them now.”

“Perhaps not,” he said lightly. He sat down beside her, and his brown eyes
glittered recklessly. “How old are you?”

“What?” she asked, startled.

“We’ve got to pass the time somehow, so tell me. How old?”

Thrown off guard, she asked, “Does it show that much? Am I beginning to look
my true age, is that it?”

“No,” he said, “only more accessible. Now, how old, or have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” she said candidly, her grey-gold eyes meeting his
brown. “I was fourteen when I gave myself to the Master of Darkness, twenty-six
when he made me a queen, and I was a queen for twelve years. I guess that makes
me thirty-eight, almost thirty-nine.”

He grimaced. “That’s awful. Nobody should have to be that old.”

She laughed with a burst of relaxation, then sighed again and said quietly,
“That’s not the hard part. I can deal with the added weight and a few wrinkles.
But inside I’m mixed up. I have no experience or skills as a mere woman, and
when I least expect it, my emotions run wild on me, like I was still fourteen.”

“How wild?” he asked, not with a provocative tone, but a deadly serious one.

She hesitated, growing tense, then suddenly turned and sank facedown,
avoiding his eyes. Her voice turned low and brutal with self-mockery.

“When he didn’t come right back, I was going to kill myself. Really. I’d
never felt so full of self-pity. I didn’t even think it was possible. It just
overwhelmed me and I had to end it.” She laughed bitterly, deep in her throat.
“But I couldn’t find my knife, and it passed.”

He smiled, drew a dagger from inside his belt and held it up. It was hers.
She looked at it, and again put her eyes on his, holding them this time for a
long moment before she spoke.

“You knew!”

“I see things coming sometimes,” he said, as casually as if he were
discussing someone coming down the road. “Particularly if I am deeply involved
with… or care for someone.”

His change in tone made her hesitate, then she said, “You shouldn’t care,
Brown. You should have let me do it.”

He shook his frowsy head. “Couldn’t afford to. After this is all over, I’m
going to need a snake charmer, and you have rather unusual qualifications.”

She couldn’t repress a smile, and shook her head, amused at the timing of his
humor.

He shrugged and ran a hand over the boot hiding her scales, then over her
calf, patting it gently.

She said, “Brown, I can’t believe that a man as wise as yourself is actually
making plans for the future at a time like this.”

“But this is precisely the time to make them,” he said emphatically. “And you
should be doing the same. You have a lot of lost time to make up for. Twelve
years! The prime of your life!”

“They weren’t lost,” she said absently. “I was a queen. I had the finest
clothes, food, jewels. And an army! Power! Don’t forget that, I had everything I
wanted.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said softly.

He leaned over and removed a strand of hair from her cheek, looking into her
eyes. “Don’t, Brown,” she purred. “Don’t look inside. You’ll… you’ll see
things you don’t want to see.”

“I’ll take that chance,” he murmured. “Besides, I don’t have a choice
anymore. I know you’ve been playing with me, and leading me on, but I don’t
care.”

“I wasn’t leading you on. You saved my life! I was grateful, and I don’t know
any other way to behave with a man.”

“I know,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that. You want to control me,
because Gath depends on me. But that’s all right too. I don’t know what you’re
up to, why you really want to go to Pyram, but I don’t care anymore. Sometimes I
think I don’t even care about the jewels anymore.”

“Brown, don’t,” she pleaded. “I’ll be all right now. You don’t have to say
that.”

“I do,” he said, suddenly breathless. He kissed her cheek, and she trembled
at the heat in his lips. “I’m going to help you make up those lost years. All of
them. One by one. I’m going to show you the other side of every mountain, show
you the ways of the rivers and the wind… and make you days like you have
never had before.”

“Don’t, Brown, please. I’m… you can’t. I’m not made for the kind of
dreams you dream.”

“It’s too late,” he whispered. “You are their bright cloth now.”

He kissed her softly, and she wanted to protest but could not, and
surrendered to his touch. There was magic in his lips, a tender soothing magic
she had not known existed, and it surged through her. Then she pushed him away,
her voice pleading.

“Stop! Please stop!” she gasped. “You don’t understand. You can’t trust me.
I’ll let you down. I’ll hurt you. And I don’t want to.”

He shook his head and said it again. “It’s too late.”

Silence came between them, and a sharp groan came from somewhere outside the
wagon.

Cobra sat up wide-eyed and gasped hopefully, “Gath!”

They listened, once more in the middle of the fear and anxiety, but no sound
came. They leapt up, and Cobra raced down the staircase as Brown John grabbed up
his sword and followed.

The bottom room was empty. Robin was gone.

Cobra moaned and flung open the door, rushed through it.

Outside the wagon they looked up and down the narrow ravine and up at the
crests of the lava walls siding it. There was no one, only silence and shadows
and darkening sky. They shared a worried glance and held still, listening as a
whispering voice echoed up and down the ravine.

“Don’t bother with it, it’s fine now.” It was a courteous, male growl.

“I’m not leaving until I’ve finished.” A girl’s voice, full of zeal, and
decisive.

“Yes, you are. Now get back in the wagon before he comes back and sees you.”
Male again, sharp and sensible.

Cobra and Brown John backed away from the wagon, their eyes aimed at the
roof.

Jakar sat against the sideboard and Robin was kneeling beside him, wrapping a
length of tom cloth around a wand she was using as a splint. The groan had
obviously been made by Jakar when she reset the bone.

“You fool!” snarled Cobra. “Get back in the wagon.”

Robin and Jakar, momentarily shocked, looked down at Cobra and the
bukko.

“Do as she says,” blurted Brown John. “Hurry!”

“In a minute,” Robin said, and started knotting the cloth in place.

“I’ll finish,” said Jakar, pushing her off, but she wouldn’t quit.

Cobra, desperate, climbed up the rungs of the driver’s box heading for the
couple, as Brown John shouted, “Robin, get back in the wagon.”

The girl pulled the knot tight, stood, and the sounds of horses’ hooves
filled the ravine. Quiet, moving slow, but nearby.

Cobra froze, and the
bukko,
his voice suddenly weak, whispered,
“Horses.”

Jakar jumped up, taking Robin by the elbow, and pushed her toward the
trapdoor. Suddenly she gasped, seeing something beyond the ridge above the roof,
and pulled back. Jakar, seeing the same thing, stepped in front of her,
shielding her body with his, and picked up his loaded crossbow, leveled it at
the ridge.

Lurking darkness filled with the sounds of horses snorting and stomping
loomed beyond the lip of the rock. The sounds were growing louder, advancing on
the wagon.

“Nooo!” Cobra groaned, and dropped back off the wagon beside the
bukko.
He put an arm around her trembling shoulders and held her close. His sword ready
in the other hand.

Where the indigo sky rose above black rimrock, the shape of the horned helmet
appeared out of the looming darkness, its eye slits spitting flames. They hissed
and grew brighter and brighter as Gath advanced to the edge and looked down at
Robin. He was glistening with sweat, bloody from foot to chest, and the wounds
he had received from Baskt were charred scabs surrounded by white ash. His huge
axe dangled from one hand, caked with drying blood. The other held a lead rope
guiding a string of five horses. Small, sturdy animals with fur blankets and
black saddles.

Moaning, Robin sank into a puddle behind Jakar, and her loveliness sprawled
helplessly, gathering moonlight with bare arms and thighs.

The homed helmet growled and roared at the sight, the axe trembling with
impatience inside Gath’s bloody grip. His body was hunched low, animal-like, and
heaving with hunger. Suddenly tongues of flame spit from the face of the helmet,
striking at Jakar, and he staggered back ducking and covering Robin.

Cobra sank against Brown John, her strength gone and her moans inarticulate.
“He won’t hurt her,” Brown John said weakly. “He…” The
bukko
stopped
short, and his cheeks became white.

Gath’s body had begun to shudder. Flames and smoke were sputtering from the
helmet, and behind him the string of terrified horses whinnied and bolted,
trying vainly to escape his grasp. But the Barbarian held on. He threw back his
head and howled, and the ground shook beneath his feet. Chunks of rock fell away
from the ridge and crashed against the side of the wagon below.

Robin hid her face behind Jakar, and he fired wildly.

The crossbow bolt clanged against the helmet, sheared off into the sky, and
the metal roared, spitting shards of white lightning.

Brown John turned Cobra away, not wanting her to see what would happen next.
But she resisted, watching over his shoulder with her hands gripping his arm.

Fissures opened in the ground under Gath’s heaving weight, ripped down into
the hard lava, and huge rocks fell away, crashing against the side of the wagon.
Then slowly, like red-hot steel being twisted in an anvil, his body turned away.

Color rushed back into Brown John’s cheeks, and his voice whispered
encouragement. “That’s it, my friend. Just walk away. Whip that filthy
headpiece.”

Gath remained in place, his back heaving with convulsions, and the ground
shook again. Then he walked away, rejoining the darkness beyond.

Cobra, her body still shuddering against the
bukko,
looked up at him.
Her face was childish with relief and joy, unable to believe what she had just
seen.

Brown John sighed. “Now, I’ll bet you’re as glad as I am that you didn’t
stick that dagger in your heart. Just think of all the excitement you would have
missed!”

She smiled weakly and kissed his cheek, saying, “I’ll go find him. You make
sure Robin’s out of sight. We don’t dare let this happen again.”

He nodded, and she hurried off, found a way up the ridge and vanished through
a gut.

She found Gath under an overhanging shelf of rock well away from the ravine.
He was on his hands and knees, heaving with flaming convulsions within the dark
shadowed recess. The earth and rock beneath the helmet were scorched and
smoking. To the side of the rocky shelf, the horses were tethered to a shrub and
snorting and stomping with fear.

Gasping with relief, and with her emotions running chaotically through her
heart and mind and body, Cobra knelt beside him. Knowing it was useless to
speak, she touched his bare shoulder, thrilling at his heat, and the helmet
turned slowly in her direction. She ducked away from the flames, felt his hands
take hold of her neck and hip, and moaned, “Yes, yes! It’s all right. It will
cool it.”