Prisoner of the Horned Helmet (11 page)

ROLL CALL

T
he supply wagon of the Kitzakk regiment was parked several miles up Weaver Pass on a knoll overlooking the village. Five chained maidens from Weaver were tied to the rear end of the open bed. Behind the wagon the surviving Skull soldiers sat their horses in a line as a sergeant called the roll.

Dang-Ling sat among the spare weapons, blankets and saddles at the front of the wagon bed. He had recovered from his terror and was coolly assessing his situation. He was certain his warlord, Klang, would be humiliated by the defeat, and he would have to appear to also be shamed even though he felt no shame. The scouts he had sent back into the village had verified that the Barbarian had met Trang and Chornbott in combat, and that the commanders had been killed. But the champions, even though unable to conquer him, had undoubtedly taught the Barbarian the lessons of false pride and mortality. Consequently Dang-Ling was certain he had served the Master of Darkness well. Now, if the Barbarian survived his wounds and was the man the Queen of Serpents claimed he was, he would be ready, even hungry for the extraordinary opportunity she would offer him.

Dang-Ling smiled to himself, then turned to hear the sergeant’s report. There were twenty-seven present. Thirty-nine Skull soldiers, three temple guards, and two champions remained in Weaver. All dead or not, it mattered little to the priest.

Dang-Ling conducted a prayer for the deceased, then ordered the sergeant to proceed quickly up the pass and settled down for a nap.

GOOD-BYE

R
obin, who had watched the fight through a knothole and passed out at the sight of Gath ripping out the Kitzakk’s arm, now revived to find her face buried in tangled straw. Remembering gradually what had happened, she pushed herself up and peered out the knothole. A scatter of people had gathered in the yard. Villagers. She hesitated thoughtfully, and clutched fearfully at her throat. Hurriedly, she pushed the ladder down through the hole, climbed down and rushed out of the stable.

Several Cytherian warriors, and a scatter of women who had reentered the village, stood at the edges of the yard watching the mighty victor stagger toward a footpath. His stagger was impressive, but his entrance into the path was not. He missed the opening by a foot, hit the corner of the wall with a shoulder and spun around, taking down barrels, awnings and a stack of buckets before hitting the ground.

Robin raced to him. When she reached him, he was trying to get off the ground without much success. He was crouched face down, shaking, blinking with one eye. The other was swollen closed. Tears swam in Robin’s eyes as she kneeled beside him. She offered him her hand. He took it, obviously without knowing whose it was or even if it was a hand. His nerveless fingers spent a long time before they found a grip.

Using her hand for support, he tried to stand and this time made it to his knees. This put him face-to-face with Robin, and he hesitated, recognizing her. She murmured, “We must stop the bleeding!”

He was taken back for a moment, as if the resonant truth in her words was too much to bear, then said weakly, “We are finished.”

He pushed her away, staggered through the alley brushing its sides, and reached the clearing beyond. He shuffled through Forest Gate and started for the forest. He fell to his knees twice before vanishing within its greenery.

Robin slumped in defeat against the wall in Wagon Yard and several women moved to comfort her. Before they reached her, she jumped up and raced into a side street.

When she reached the small wooden building on the first tier where she had a room, she luckily found her horse and flatbed wagon parked in the stall behind it. She fetched satchels, fire pot and blankets from her room, threw them on the wagon, and hitched up the horse. Leaping into the driver’s box, she shook the reins and clicked her tongue, and the animal trotted down the street toward Forest Gate.

Robin was driving recklessly out of the gate just as Bone and Dirken entered it. They saw her and ducked out of the way, staring in dismay as the wagon plunged across the clearing to the edge of the forest. There Robin reined up only a moment, then whispered to her horse and the animal moved into the forest following a trail of blood.

GENERATION

I
t was late afternoon when Brown John’s colorful wagon burst out of the forest into the clearing outside Weaver. His team, frothing and steaming, pulled up short of a cluster of empty, parked wagons as he reined up hard. A crowd of Grillards tumbled out and hurried through the wagons into the village, where the wailing of the grief stricken mixed with music and dancing. Brown John, head erect, remained in the driver’s box.

The wagons wore the marks, colors and totems of local forest tribes, and their owners crowded the terraces of Weaver. There were left-handed Wowells in furs, lean, round-faced Checkets, plain-looking Barhacha woodsmen, and Kaven money changers from Coin in three-belted robes. There were even savage Kraniks and Dowats, who had come all the way from the high forest.

The southern edge of the village still smouldered amid large puddles of spilled dye. At Three Bridge Crossing a group of Cytherians were hurriedly raising a finished gate to block the western bridge. Other villagers labored with shovels and picks, demolishing the other two bridges.

Brown John chuckled wisely and turned as Bone and Dirken came running through the wagons to him wearing proud smiles.

“We saw it all,” Bone said triumphantly. “And up close.”

“Splendid,” said Brown John, “I want to hear every detail, but first, tell me… did the Dark One play a part?”

“A part!” Bone blurted. “He was the whole bloody thing.”

Dirken indicated Weaver with the back of his head. “There are thirty-nine dead Skull soldiers in there, three temple guards and,” he hesitated for effect, “two commanders. Champions. And all dead. He drowned and scalded most of them by pushing over dye vats, the rest was hand work.”

“He tore off one of their arms,” Bone added with a grand gesture. “Ripped it right out of the shoulder.”

Brown John grinned. “Your sense of the dramatic is commendable, Bone, but when telling a tale, do not stretch the truth beyond its endurance. You’ll lose your audience.”

“It’s absolutely true, it is!” protested Bone.

Dirken nodded. “The commanders were the strongest bastards I’ve ever seen! But Gath was stronger. You couldn’t have staged a better show yourself.” Then with a whisper resonant with impending horror, he asked, “Want to see it?”

“Yes, I would.” Brown John laughed and dropped lightly out of the wagon.

The brothers led their father into the forest to a stand of birch trees surrounded by alder shrubs. They moved in among the bushes to a pile of fresh cut brush from which Bone removed a large branch. On the ground under it was a folded blanket of green moss. Dirken unfolded the moss, and showed its contents to his father. A very large left arm.

“My, my,” whispered Brown John truly impressed.

Bone pushed the rest of the brush aside as Dirken went on.

“The Cytherians laid claim to all the Kitzakks killed inside their village, but before they got around to it we had already hauled off the best of the bunch. If things keep going like this, we’ll be the richest men in the forest.”

Dirken helped Bone pull off the last of the brush to reveal the dead bodies of three men. They were short and thin, shrouded in black robes.

“Guards of the Temple of Dreams!” Brown John’s smile twisted strangely. “Now that is an intriguing sight.”

“We’ve got better,” Dirken said. “One of their commanders.” He removed another shrub, revealing a tall massive man glittering in a suit of chain mail. He lay facedown beside a huge sword and axe. A bloody hole at his shoulder and his other wounds were packed with moss.

The old stage master chuckled, “By Kram and Bled! This will send a message to the very corners of their empire!”

“And we’ve got a wagon load of weapons,” Bone added.

“Splendid! Absolutely splendid.” The old man gingerly lifted the empty, scalloped sleeve of the chain mail suit. Its arm had indeed been pulled out.

“Amazing,” he said. “Truly amazing. And fortuitous. Tonight, around the fires, and in the coming days, many will speak of the events of this day, and you and I will play principal roles in their tales. Count on it! We placed the central player on the stage.” His arm swept elaborately over their grim trophies. “It is we, the Grillards, the ridiculed and outlawed, who now stir the pot!”

He turned intently to his sons. “Now tell me, slowly and accurately, each detail. It is critical that I know everything. How did you convince Gath to come to Weaver? How did you know the Kitzakks would strike here?”

Bone and Dirken shared a sheepish glance, then Dirken said flatly, “We didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t know when the Kitzakks would strike.”

“Then how did you get him to come here?”

Dirken hesitated. His face reddened, then he grinned. “We didn’t. The Lakehair girl brought him.”

“That’s right,” Bone added quickly. “He followed her here, all the way from Calling Rock.”

Brown John clapped his bony hands excitedly, then beckoned with long fingers to his sons. “Of course! Of course! She gave him the message. So what did he.say to her?”

Bone and Dirken shrugged. Then Dirken whispered, “We don’t know. We didn’t talk to either of them.”

Brown John’s wrinkled face surrendered to gravity with alarming speed.

“We’re sorry,” Bone blurted. “But we never got the chance. We waited for her on Summer Trail just like you said, but she just marched by us. Gath and that wolf of his were following her, so we hid ’til he went by. We followed them, you know, real careful like, and they came all the way here. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, came the bloody Kitzakks. You should have seen the people run and scream!”

“Enough!” Brown John’s arm cut the air like a sword. He closed his eyes with deliberation. When he opened them they were on Dirken and his voice was modulated.

“What precisely are you telling me? Why did Gath of Baal choose to defend this village?”

“He didn’t, not really,” Bone said, then Dirken explained.

“The Kitzakks tried to carry off the Lakehair girl in a caged wagon, and he killed a good half of ’em to get her out. Then after it seemed to be all over, he fought the two commanders alone. In the Wagon Yard. Nobody knows why exactly. It was weird. Sort of like a couple of kids going out behind a barn to see who’s toughest, but without the laughs.”

“I dare say,” muttered Brown John with a mocking laugh. “So, the pot surely does bubble, but we, just as surely, do not stir it… or even know what is in it.” He chuckled ironically, looking from Bone to Dirken. “I presume, then, that the tribes have not anointed the Dark One with flowers and offered him their jewels and their daughters?”

His sons shifted uneasily, then Dirken said, “Nobody knows where he is.”

“Or the Lakehair girl either,” said Bone. “She went after him. In a wagon. He was bleeding bad.”

Brown John’s mouth sagged grimly. “He’s dying?”

“Or dead,” Dirken said. “I say sell off the armor and weapons, then pack up the village and go.”

The old man considered this, looking at the ground, then replied with surprising assurance, “No. Not until we know.”

“Know what?”

“If Gath of Baal is alive. It is a frail hope, but Robin Lakehair has the gift of healing. And perhaps, if she finds him…” He raised his eyebrows in expectation, then turned away. More for his own ears than theirs, and with a ring of amused fatalism, he added, “It always comes to this and no doubt always will. Our hopes, our joys and our dreams, everything that a man holds as necessary and pleasurable in his life, eventually depends on a woman.”

He shook his ragged head, sat down on a stump and laughed outrageously. His sons watched him stupefied. Finally, he addressed them mockingly. “It appears that the fortunes of we three brave and cunning heroes, and the future of our tribe lies in the small hands of a mere girl.”

“You picked her!” They both shouted the accusation.

“Indeed I did,” said Brown John, then he said it again.

DEAD MAN’S EYES

C
aution moved behind the wolf’s yellow eyes, as Sharn forced himself to edge out of the dense shade and stand in a spear of sunlight like a target.

Robin’s face lit hopefully. She reined up and jumped off her wagon onto the narrow, unnamed trail. The horse snorted and pawed the needled ground cover nervously. They were deep in The Shades, surrounded by a jumble of birdcalls, clacking and purring, and the trickle and dripping of water over rocks and moss. Green tangled growth and shadows were everywhere. It was cool and moist. Visibility was diminishing quickly as the late daylight faded. Robin looped the reins around the seat of the driver’s box and glanced around.

Every shadow seemed designed as a hiding place. Every sound was a mystery. She had no time to care. She raced back to the spot where she had seen the wolf.

Sharn was still there. He stood in a shallow mossy glen surrounded by walls of fern. He backed away and pushed through the ferns, stopping once to look back at her.

Robin followed him through the tangled growth and across the glen.

They emerged from the ferns to face a shoulder-high ridge of ground. A gnarled oak grew out of the ridge, casting black shadows on the thick moss covering it. A big-boned, limp hand stuck up out of the deep moss. Thick spider trails of blood ran down the back of the hand, across the little finger and dripped off a torn nail.

Robin climbed hurriedly up onto the mossy ridge, then stopped short. Gath lay on his back, half buried in muddy, torn-up moss. His mud-streaked face was the color of a peeled potato. She kneeled and pressed an ear to his matted chest. His heartbeat was faint, but he was alive. She removed the muddy moss. The deep gouges in his ear, jaw and neck had clotted. His chest and legs were bruised and cut, and there was a deep wound in his side. It bled slowly but steadily.

She removed her waterskin, uncorked it and rubbed some water on his lips. He opened his mouth slightly, enough for her to squeeze a few drops inside. Sharn licked his bleeding knuckles. She gently took the hand away from the wolf’s tongue whispering, “Just let me have it for a moment, then you can have it back. We have to be a team now.”

Robin, holding Gath’s right wrist with both hands, sat down and placed her feet against his left side. She pulled until her body weight almost levered him onto his left side, then he began to sink back. She struggled, pulled with her arms and pushed with her legs. Blood pumped from his gouged knuckles, flowing into her grip, and the wolf growled. She did not look at the blood or the wolf. She grunted and strained, levering him over until he finally dropped facedown on the moss at the edge of the ridge.

The impact drew a groan from him, and he tried to rise. But the effort made the dark fluid pump fast out of the deep hole under his armpit, and he collapsed again.

Robin mumbled urgently, “We have to work fast. He’s losing too much blood.”

Sharn gave her no argument.

By tearing away ferns and plants, Robin made a path back to her wagon which was wide enough for the wagon to pass through. She untied the reins, then led the horse down the path. The wagon crushed down shrubs and bounced over boulders, then pulled alongside the ridge. The flatbed was about two feet below Gath’s body.

Flushed from the effort, Robin climbed onto the rise, sat down beside Gath and placed her feet against his right side with her knees drawn up. She gathered a deep breath, then pushed with all her strength. He did not budge. She crawled over him and carved away the earth under his body with her knife and fingers until he sagged slightly. Then she climbed back to his other side and tried again. She was gasping and sweat soaked. Suddenly he rolled away and crashed on his back with a heavy thud, to lie still on the wagon bed. His eyes were open. All they showed was disinterest, like a dead man’s eyes.

Robin whimpered fearfully, got on her hands and knees and looked down at him. She could smell-but only vaguely see-the fresh blood welling from his wounds. Night was taking command of The Shades.

Robin quickly gathered a pile of leaves and sticks, and piled them on a ridge beside the wagon. From one of her leather pouches she removed a warm folded lump of moss, unfolded it, and, taking brass tongs from her satchel, removed a glowing coal and placed it on the kindling. She blew on the pile until it broke into flame, then returned the coal to its pouch. From green palm leaves and pitch, she made a torch, lit it and set it in an embrasure on the wagon so that it cast light over the wagon bed. By this time the fire was blazing. She placed her dagger in its flames.

When the blade was red-hot, she pushed Gath’s arm across his chest and without a blink placed the flat of the knife against the hole under his armpit. It sizzled, and he cried out hoarsely, then collapsed. She reheated the knife then pressed it against the wound in his side. Smoke incensed with burning flesh swirled into her face. She turned her head away, but not her eyes. With those two wounds closed, she went to work on the one in his thigh. It persisted in bleeding after her first attempt, so she sealed it twice.

When she finished, night had defeated day. The world around her was black, and she felt suddenly cold and sticky.

Sharn growled, a low, almost inaudible, warning.

“I know,” she answered. “We don’t dare stay here.”

Robin climbed up into the driver’s box and started to flick the reins, but shuddered instead as a searing bolt of fear shot through her stomach. She looked around frantically. There was no sign of the trail, no indication of which way she came. Then she saw the wolf waiting up ahead and gasped with relief. Fear subsided, and she called to him, “I’m lost. It’s up to you now.”

Sharn trotted slowly forward, moving west, deeper into The Shades.

Robin twitched the reins, and the horse obeyed. Blindly they moved into dense shadows. After forty paces the horse balked. Robin tied off the reins and jumped down from the driver’s box. Plucking the torch from its embrasure she hurried to the horse. Moving her hands gently over his eyes and around his muzzle, murmuring steadily, she led the animal forward casting the torchlight on the trail ahead.

It flickered on Sharn’s yellow eyes, then the eyes vanished and were replaced by a brush of tail.

As Robin followed the wolf, she glanced into the shadows. She could not see them, but knew the night creatures were there, watching silently. The great horned owl, the jackal, and the bat-winged moth. She wondered if they had seen such a sight before, and if they would remember and someday tell of it. Of the night when wild wolf led tame girl.