Rise of the Death Dealer (37 page)

GOODBYE

A
n hour later, Brown John sat huddled in a blanket facing his sons, Dirken
and Bone, across a small fire. Around them, the Grillard women and children were
gathered, faces tear-stained and bodies trembling and sobbing. Behind them, the
men were noisily forming the colorful horse-drawn wagons into two lines on top
of the spur. The wagons were loaded, ready for the trail.

“How many were there?” Brown John addressed the question to Dirken.

“I counted nine in the wagon when they rode off, seven on horseback, and I
don’t know how many in the forest standing lookout. But they weren’t trying to
hide. You could still see their dust when they were a mile from here.”

“Heading which way?”

“Northwest. I’d say toward Small Tree.”

“What are the filthy demon spawn after Robin for anyway?” growled Bone. “What
good does it do them murderin’ poor helpless girls?”

The women nodded and murmured, asking the same questions.

“I don’t know,” Brown John said evenly, “but I’m going to find out and put an
end to it.” He stood. “You two will take charge of the wagons.” The brothers
nodded and he added, “You’ll split up and leave this part of the forest. Folks
around here are superstitious. They’ll think you’ve got some curse on you now
and will drive you away from their villages. So head east. Bone, you take the
southern road. Dirken, you take the northern.” He lowered his voice. “In a week
or two, after everyone has had a chance to get over this, start looking for some
new dancing girls.”

“New girls?” Bone blurted in outrage. “You’ll never replace…”

“You will!” his father cut him off. “And you’ll use your heart and brains as
well as that lizard hiding in your codpiece.” He looked at Dirken. “You both
know the code… we can’t let this tragedy stop the wagons.”

Dirken nodded. “What are you going to do?”

“What I have to,” Brown John said. “The Council of Chiefs
will no doubt want me to find Gath and have him deal with
these brutes… and that may take some doing. I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

Bone and Dirken both stood, and Dirken, dark of face and mind, asked, “Did you
hear about Robin?”

“She’s disappeared!” Bone said it.

Brown John, without expression or emotion, said, “Don’t worry about Robin.
Just get our wagons as far away from here as fast as you can… in case they
realize they don’t have her, and come back.”

They nodded, and the
bukko
hugged his sons, waved goodbye to the
others, then mounted a horse that had been saddled for him. The saddlebags
bulged with provisions, a wine jar, cheese, bread and meats wrapped in cloth. He
headed up the spur, again waving goodbye, and the Grillards did the same, then
began to climb on their wagons.

When he was out of sight, he looked around carefully to see if anyone was
watching him, then moved into the concealing shadows of overhanging pines. He
waited there, listening until he heard the sounds of the rolling wagons fade
away. Then he rode back to where his mare and Jakar’s stallion were hidden.
Taking the two horses by their reins, he led them through the trees heading
toward the sheer cliff of jagged rock. Reaching a thicket where the sound of
waterfalls was loud, he dismounted and tied the horses to a tree, draped the
saddlebags over a shoulder and hurried forward on foot.

TROUBLE

P
anting and stumbling, the
bukko
came around an elderberry bush
growing out of the creek bank and stopped, looking up.

In front of him, massive granite boulders, stacked upon and leaning against
each other, rose up through a gorge to the distant heights of the sheer wall of
jagged rock. Spilling waterfalls draped over and fell between the boulders. Some
were mere trickles, others tumbled through gullies, churning themselves to white
water, or spread out over flat rimrock and fell like living curtains, while the
largest plunged in heavy torrents for hundreds of feet to crash into pools
raising clouds of wet mist. There they again found passages through cracks and
guts to form eddies that gathered and spilled again, down and down, until they
destroyed their wet bodies on the boulders of the creek bed and tamely flowed
toward the river far below.

To the southeast, the mountain was exposed rock. To the northwest, pines
covered it almost to the crest. Here and there shafts of afternoon sunlight
speared horizontally through gaps in the trees, and touched a pool or gush of
white water to make them shimmer in the deep shade, like gorgets of wet light.

The water’s roar obliterated all other sound.

The
bukko
wiped beads of spray away from his eyes and stared, the pain
and tragedy and guilt slowly draining from him as nature’s vital beauty flooded
him with awe and wonder. He looked from side to side, searching the blurring
mists. Seeing no sign of Robin or Jakar, and no cracked twig, crushed bush or
muddy track that revealed they had passed this way, his brown eyes thinned with
worry, and he started up the face of the falls.

A half hour later, soaking wet and exhausted, he was halfway up the steep
gorge, standing uncertainly on top of a slippery round boulder. A torrent of
water, as wide as a small house, fell beside him, and a flat-faced boulder, half
again his height, blocked his passage. Groaning unheard in the wet din, he
squeezed a booted foot in a narrow crack on the face of the bothersome rock. He
set himself, then jumped up and stood in the crack, grabbing for the top of the
boulder, and took hold of it. He hung on for a moment, gathering breath, then
hauled himself up onto the rock. There he crouched proudly on his knees and
elbows with his wet cheek against the cold rock, then rolled onto his side, and
saw his naked foot, groaned again.

He got back onto his hands and knees and looked forlornly down at his boot
stuck in the crack. It was out of reach. He removed his other boot, set it
aside, stood, and examined the area. There still was no sign of Robin or Jakar.

He continued up the falls barefoot.

Reaching a large pool, he moved behind the wide waterfall to the narrow ledge
protruding from the rock behind it. There he waited, peering through the
waterfall to see if he was followed. But only nature’s wonders shared his trail.
With his face to the rock, he moved sideways along the ledge until he was a foot
from the vertical corner of the flat-faced boulder. There the ledge narrowed
sharply and ended. Directly in front of him, mist billowed from behind the
corner of the boulder, caused by another waterfall dropping through a stone
chasm. Gingerly, he looked down over a shoulder.

One step forward or to the side would undoubtedly provide a spectacular bit
of drama he could never duplicate on a stage, and deposit him back where he had
started, at the bottom of the falls, in more than several pieces.

Trembling, Brown John pressed his cheek against the slick rock. When the
shudder passed, he cocked his knees for balance, spread his arms wide and flat
against the rock and leaned toward the sharp corner with his free hand groping
blindly around it. His fingers came to rest on a rough iron bar and gripped it
tightly. He sighed with relief and suddenly lost his balance, falling forward.

With one hand gripping the iron bar and the other flailing wildly, his body
rolled around the corner, and his feet came to rest on a substantial ledge on the
opposite side.

A smile swept into his pink cheeks as exhilaration rushed through him, then
it made him feel sick to his stomach, and his vision blurred. He sank down onto
all fours, pressing back against the rock. When his vision cleared, he crawled
along the ledge, then stood and passed under the waterfall, and wound through a
jagged gut into a dry stone chasm rising to the top of the cliffs. Flat-faced
boulders, cut by deep cracks, formed an irregular stone floor and three walls.
In a corner was a small cave. Robin Lakehair sat in it, holding Jakar’s cloak
around her body and smiling with relief.

“Oh, Brown, it’s you!” she sighed, and jumped up, ran to the
bukko,
embracing him. “Thank goodness! I was so frightened.” She leaned back looking
into his smiling eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes,” he murmured tiredly, “much better… now that I see you’re
safe.”

He held her soft brown shoulders in trembling hands and studied her, trying
to convince himself she was real; her small perfect fist clenching the cloak
together between her breasts, the green and gold jewels glittering on a
nut-brown shoulder, the smile blossoming around small straight nose and narrow
full lips.

“You have no idea, child,” he said weakly, “what a blessing it is for a man
like myself, particularly on a mean day like this, to simply look at you.”

She flushed with embarrassment and scolded him with her big warm eyes. “Oh,
Brown, you flatter me too much. It’s not right.”

“It’s not flattery today,” he said behind a profound scowl. “It is a holy
conviction bound to my flesh with the blood of those I dearly love.”

She frowned with confusion, suddenly frightened by his tone. “What are you
talking about?” she asked. “Are you quoting another play?”

He hesitated, looked up to see Jakar standing guard with his loaded crossbow
on a shelf of rock fifteen feet above, then looked back at Robin. When he spoke,
it was a whisper. “They’re dead, Robin… all your friends… Zail, Belle, all of them.”

“No!” she gasped, and staggered back. Brown John nodded, and she cried, “But
why? Why?” then collapsed crying.

Jakar, ashen-faced, asked, “Are they still hunting Robin?”

Brown John, suddenly feeling older, sat down, dropping the saddlebags beside
him, and shook his head. “For now they’ve been drawn off her trail.” He looked
up at the young nobleman. “Apparently they knew Robin was a redhead. When they
saw that the other girls also had red hair, it confused them, so they killed
them all, thinking Robin was among them.” He lowered his eyes to Robin’s sobbing
body. “She’s safe now… providing they don’t have some way of finding out
they don’t have what they came for.”

“They’ll find out,” Jakar said fatalistically. He climbed down a root growing
in a crack in the stone chasm, and sat down facing the
bukko,
his dark
eyes demanding. “Now tell me what happened… everything.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“Oh yes there is,” Jakar said quietly, the glint of pain and hatred showing
in his eyes.

Understanding showed in Brown John’s eyes. Then, in precise words lacking his
normal color and drama, he told Jakar and Robin what had happened at Clear Pond,
finishing with, “I was simply too late.”

A moment passed, and Robin, pale and tear-stained, rose slightly. Jakar,
taking her gently by the elbow, helped her up, and spread her blanket on the
ground for her to sit on.

“Thank you,” she said weakly, and leaned back against the wall of the chasm,
looking up into his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been so much trouble for you.”

He shrugged it off, as if he would have done the same for any female, and
squatted facing the
bukko.
“What now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Brown John. “I haven’t had time to think.”

“Then you’d better start,
bukko.”
The young nobleman’s voice was low
and uncompromising. “I know this filth called Baskt. He’s a Lord of Destruction,
the work of the Nymph Queen of Pyram, the high priestess of Black Veshta. And if
she’s sent him all the way from Pyram, then she might have sent others.
Serpents, lizards, you name it.”

“You think that’s what killed your sister… the others?”

“It’s a possibility.” He indicated Robin with the back of his head. “So she
could still be in danger. Right now.”

Brown John nodded and glanced past Jakar’s shoulder at the tears welling in
Robin’s eyes. “Don’t blame yourself, child. There’s nothing you could have
done.”

“But why are they hunting me?” she whimpered. “I’m not sure.” He sensed
Jakar’s hard eyes asking the same question, but did not look at him. “But you
have enemies, you know that. It was not only the Kitzakks you helped defeat but
the Queen of Serpents… and her master.”

“But she’s the only one who knew about me! And… and you captured her.
She’s Gath’s prisoner now.”

“Yes, but it’s apparent others also knew.”

She flinched, looked down at her hands for no reason and said softly, “Maybe
… so there won’t be anyone else hurt… I should give myself to them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jakar blurted, and stood, moved off into a shadow.

“I’m only trying to help.” She said it to his back. Without turning, he said,
“You can help by staying alive. When they come back, and they will,” he made
himself turn and look at her, “you can bait whatever trap the
bukko
here
decides to set for them.”

She blanched at his hard tone and looked at Brown John in shock.

“That may not be necessary,” Brown John said quietly, calming her. “But there
is also another reason why, at all costs, you must be kept hidden and safe.” His
eyes met Jakar’s, then looked back at Robin. “Gath is the only one who can deal
with these creatures, and when he does… he’s going to need you with him.”

Robin hesitated, and looked at Jakar. He was staring at her, his eyes soft
now, suddenly kind and gentle. She shifted nervously, almost smiling, and he
turned away, again faced Brown John.

“You’re going to contact the Dark One? Ask his help?”

The
bukko
nodded.

“Then perhaps, since we are working together, you had better tell me what her
link is with him.”

“That, Lord Jakar, is between them.”

“Can she control him?”

Brown John smiled, just a little, and shook his head. “No one controls him.”

“Then who says he’ll help? Or that we can trust him? He’s half demon
himself!”

“I do,” said Brown John. He opened the saddlebags and spread out the food,
handing the wine jar to Jakar. “Here. Cool down and feed yourself. There is
going to be much to do and you are going to have to do most of it.”

Jakar hesitated, then took the jar and drank. Brown John, with bread and
cheese in hand, moved to Robin and sat facing her, placing the food in her
hands.

“I’m really not hungry,” she said.

“You will be,” he replied. “Now listen to me. The worst is over. Ended. And
we both know what we must do now… not let this calamity divert us from our
chosen path.”

She nodded mindlessly, like a child who has heard her parents tell her this a
thousand times before.

“You’re not listening,” he said sharply, and she looked up attentively.
“That’s better. Now, understand this: we have the advantage now. We know the
villain’s intentions, and your part is cast. You are now the virtuous heroine in
flight, and it’s a splendid part, one on which the greatest artists of the stage
have made their careers.”

“Brown John, don’t,” she pleaded. “Not now.”

“Yes, now,” he said. “Because
everything depends on how you play the next scenes. If you play them with vigor
and spirit, we have a chance. If you don’t… well, today has more than
demonstrated the consequences.”

“Brown, please,” she begged.

“No! The remorse and grief and guilt must end here. Now! We’ve got to have
our wits about us and concentrate on what we’re doing, not what’s happened. If
we don’t, we’re all lost.”

He rose, moved back to the food and sat down, began to eat. Jakar did the
same, facing him, and wearing a grimly amused smile. When he spoke, his voice
held the same amusement.

“I presume, from your ridiculous speech, that in addition to your platitudes,
you have some specific action in mind.”

Brown John nodded. “As soon as you finish eating, I want you to ride after
these creatures. Your horse is waiting at the bottom of the falls. When you
catch up with them…”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Jakar interrupted darkly.

“Listen to me,” snapped the
bukko,
sounding like a king. “You may be a
nobleman, and I may be nothing but an outcast to you… but I see things
others don’t. And if you are truly serious about avenging your sister, you would
be well advised to listen.”

Jakar replied by staying silent and listening.

“Good,” added Brown John, “that shows sense. Now, when you find the scum, you
will stay out of their sight and follow them until you find where they are
headed. Then when it turns dark, ride back to Rag Camp. Robin and I will be
waiting there… hopefully with Gath of Baal.”

“Is that all?” Jakar asked tersely.

“No!” the
bukko
said just as tersely. “You better get going now,
before their trail turns cold.”

Jakar rose, and Robin pulled his cloak from around her, handed it to him,
saying, “Here, it may get cold.”

He shook his head, moved to the narrow entry passage and smiled back at
Robin. “I’ll see you tonight, Trouble.” Then he was gone.

Robin, unable to keep from smiling, gathered his cloak about her and began to
eat. Brown John watched her a moment thoughtfully, then said, “Your timing is
terrible, lass.” She looked at him, confused, and he added, “We’ve got enough
problems without you falling in love.”

She took hold of her lip with her teeth, then said quietly, “I know.”