Rise of the Death Dealer (46 page)

“Well, you’re going to get your chance,” she whispered crossly, “but you will
pay for it dearly. I have instructed my slavemasters to send out word, to every
corner of every land, that I will pay handsomely for every girl fitting this
Lakehair’s description. I’m offering a reward of a thousand crogan to the man
who brings her in. But it could be months, even years, before she is found and
brought to En Sakalda, months and years for you to sweat and blister in the sun.
Eventually she will arrive, the greed and lust of Black Veshta will see to it,
and when she does, you will place her little finger in one of those bottles,”
she pointed at two corked jars on a table beside them, “and her blood in the
other, and deliver them to me.”

Schraak stammered, “You… you cannot mean this, O breaker of hearts!”

“I mean it, worm. In addition to the girl, I want soldiers purchased, enough
soldiers to bring the regiments and castle garrison up to strength. And I want
that bitch, the Queen of Serpents, found and put in chains. She’s more to blame
for my problems than any of you. And I want the one called Death Dealer who
stole the helmet. I want them all, and you will stay in En Sakalda until the
slave hunters you employ bring them to you.” She hesitated, then added, “Oh,
yes, also have the slavers find and bring the Grillard bukko who picked the
girls you stole. He sees something in young girls that I cannot, something which
my Kaa hungers for.”

Baskt said flatly, “We will die in En Sakalda.”

“He’s right,” blurted
Schraak. “Our flesh can’t stand heat for any length of time.”

“Do not lecture me on your pedigrees, dolt. My magic made you what you are,
and it has now altered you so that you will survive the desert heat, painfully
and torturously, but nevertheless survive.”

She spread out languorously and smiled temptingly, holding the severed finger
lightly and running the tip over an erect nipple. Then she laughed and tossed
her severed finger on the floor in front of them, saying, “Now eat!”

Baskt hesitated, then snapped up the finger and thrust it into his mouth,
biting it in half. He swallowed his piece whole and tossed the remaining portion
to Schraak. The dwarf stuffed it into his mouth and truculently began to chew.
He had the portion with the fingernail, and it made a small clicking sound when
his teeth dismembered it.

“Now leave!” she said fretfully. “The first deliveries of girls should arrive
by the time you reach En Sakalda, and I’m sick of looking at you.”

Before they were out the door, she was screeching for her servants to bring
her her finger-rings and paints. She had to hide her wretched new finger before
anyone saw it, and she intended to do it in a manner that would celebrate her
regenerated youth, by adorning herself like the goddess of demon lust and
creation, Black Veshta. It had been so long since she had even dared to try, and
she was just bubbling inside to look expensive and savage.

When her servants arrived, she had her nails redone to match the orchid pink
of her cheeks, then did her nipples in the same color. That was certain to take
their eyes off her hands.

SLAVERS

T
he lean dark muscular nomad stood unseen in the deep shade of a craggy
outcropping of red-ochre sandstone, as erect as his spear. His naked body was
stained with vermilion mud except for his member and a wide stripe across his
face. They were covered with black tattoos, in accordance with his name. He was
the slave trader Amadak, the notorious Black Terror of the Wadi Staboulle.

He was the darkness that violated the sun-bright sands which formed the
desert, the Body of Black Veshta, and his reputation was known to the very tips
of its far corners. But he was obliged to defend it daily, because he had named
himself.

His expression was ponderously grave, and his pose needlessly majestic for a
man no one could see. But if a man was truly horrible, then he was horrible at
all times. Consequently, the thin white slits of his desert eyes clearly showed
that his mind was actively contemplating magnificently horrific acts of
slaughter and sexual depravity, even though what lay before him was a simple job
of work.

The outcropping of rock which concealed the slaver thrust bluntly out of a
massive sand dune four hundred feet high. At the base of the dune, the sand
feathered out onto the wide undulating tongue of flat hard desert that wound
between the dunes. The Wadi Staboulle. Hot wind, rushing out of the belly of the
desert, was using the narrow depression of the wadi as a road, and sand rode the
wind. It glittered like gold in the mid-day sunlight, and slashed and swirled
around a huge horse-drawn wagon plodding west.

An oversized, muscled lout wearing a loincloth held the harness of the lead
horse with one hand and the leash of a saddled stallion with the other. He was
dragging the reluctant animals forward. An older white-haired man, chained to a
big-breasted woman, led the other lead horse, and a handsome young man and a
girl guided the remaining two. The lout plodded ahead mindlessly, despite the
growing threat of a sandstorm. But the others staggered uncertainly and looked
about in desperation for some cover to hide within.

The Black Terror of the Wadi Staboulle remained motionless, measuring the two
female prey as they came closer and closer. When they passed directly below him,
he smiled with great significance and, touching his member, belly and mouth,
offered up a silent prayer to sacred Black Veshta for the blessing she was
bestowing on him.

The women’s plain tunics had been ripped and tom by wind, sand and thorn
bush. Only rags and tatters covered their sun-darkened bodies, and his trained
desert eyes, even at such a great distance, could see that Bigbreast was at the
culmination of womanly beauty and that the girl was at the threshold of perhaps
even more wondrous delights of the flesh.

Amadak could not restrain a small smile. Black Veshta’s sandy body was
delivering forth two morsels of flesh of uncommon beauty, and delivering them to
him at the same time her high priestess had offered great rewards for just such
beauty. The timing could not be accidental. The Black Terror of the Wadi
Staboulle was being rewarded for his hideous acts, and realizing it, his black
member came erect, not in anticipation of sensual pleasures or murder, but of
gold.

The slaver glanced back through the rocks at the shadows of his men and their
camels. They squatted beside their spears, bodies as naked as his, but painted
black. They would be ready when the opportune moment arrived. He looked back at
the wagon.

The outlanders were coming out of the east. This meant they had not passed a
well in two or three days, and had been on the trail for at least five, but
probably more. They were undoubtedly lost, as there were no maps of this part of
the desert except for the one he carried in his head, and their parched
staggering bodies said clearly they were out of water and starving. Weak. They
could not withstand his raiders. Nevertheless, the Black Terror waited. In the
desert, strength must be used with economy, and soon he would have to exert no
more effort than it takes to attach manacles and chains to wrists and ankles.

He looked to the east and watched the black cloud of sand swell, coming
faster now, then put his eyes back on the strangers.

Whitehair and Bigbreast had joined the Lout, and were now talking excitedly, gesturing with alarm at the advancing cloud.
Lout, dragging the horses forward, ignored them. There was a strange red glow
about his face, as if he had a raw rash, but it seemed to flicker. Bigbreast
moved in front of him, blocking him, and his arm swept her aside as if she
weighed less than the chain binding her to Whitehair. She fell hard, rolled, and
the chain dragged Whitehair down on top of her. The pair struggled back to their
feet, as Girl ran forward and took hold of Lout’s arm, talking rapidly and
pointing back at the dark cloud. The sand was swirling thickly now, pelting
them, and Girl flinched and covered her face with an arm. Still Lout pulled
forward, and the sandy fingers of the sandstorm reached for the wagon.

The slave trader remained motionless within the concealing rocks. The wind,
advancing in bursts, reached up the dune toward him, but he had no fear of it.
He knew the ways of the sand, and here the wind was his ally and brother. It
would be content to ride the low ground, passing him by. His mind began to
wander over his bloody triumphs to while away the time, then again focused on
the intruders.

Lout had suddenly stopped, and now he made the horses do the same. This done,
Lout slowly faced Girl, his wide back hiding her completely as the others
gathered around. A moment passed, and a gust of wind hammered the group,
sweeping Girl away from the others. She tumbled across the ground covering her
face with her arms and calling faintly, her voice lost in the roaring wind.

Lout dashed after her and plucked her off the ground. He held her close a
moment, then, fighting the wind, carried her back to the wagon. There he set her
down behind it, and Bigbreast took her in her arms, protecting her. Lout, with
the help of Handsome and Whitehair, unharnessed the horses, then single-handedly
lifted the wagon and turned it over on its side with a resounding crash that
rose above the wind’s roar. He herded the group through one of the vehicle’s
windows into the wagon, then led the horses and his stallion to the downwind
side of the upturned vehicle, and forced them down behind it, tying them in
place. This done, he climbed to the top of the wagon, opened the door, and the
full force of the storm hit him and carried him away.

Lout scrambled for control of his body, but was tumbled and tossed further
and further away from the wagon. When the momentary fury of the storm abated, he
rose uncertainly, and again the dark cloud swept over him, concealing his
muscled body.

A long moment passed during which Amadak could not see either man or wagon,
and he smiled, certain the storm had finished Lout for him. But then a frown
belted his forehead.

The storm was sweeping through the flat gut of desert like a mammoth,
writhing reptile made of sand and wind, and within its blackish-yellow body, a
small red glow had appeared. It was plodding against the storm’s flow.

Stupefied and mystified, the Black Terror of the Wadi Staboulle watched the
apparition until it went out, then bowed with solemn respect, just in case it
was a god.

When the last flurries of the storm were battering the wagon, the slave
trader led his eight men out of their hiding place. They carried long spears,
and led camels laden with manacles, chains and carobwood slave sticks. When the
last flurry had passed, and sun and silence again commanded the land, the
slavers were surrounding the half-buried wagon.

The Black Terror, gathering all his most terrible thoughts behind his eyes,
advanced until he faced the overturned roof of the wagon. Taking hold of the
trapdoor’s latch, he suddenly opened it and thrust his head inside, intending to
petrify those within with the horrific darkness of his countenance.

What he saw inside was a darkness five times his own size with eyes of fire.

The Black Terror of the Wadi Staboulle took three hurried steps back,
shamefully urinating on his own foot, and the darkness came at him. The idea of
spearing it leapt from the slave trader’s brain, but before it reached his arm,
the darkness had pinned his arms to his side and was crushing him against the
ground. The black mass smelled of sand and fire and smoke. It seemed to be
shaped like Lout, but Amadak had no time to investigate. Pain was leading his
mind elsewhere.

His armbone was being twisted out of the shoulder socket. His ribs snapped
almost rhythmically. Something hairy forced his head back. His neck made a loud
crack, and the pain shot into his spine. His head lolled sideways, and his cheek
came to rest against pebbles of flint. His throat was filling with something hot
and fluid. It spilled into his mouth choking him, and he spit it out. Blood.

Tasting the red wetness, rage and shame and fury welled inside the slave
trader like a storm. He tried to rise, starting with his head, but it refused to
cooperate. His neck was broken. The realization clouded his mind and vision, and
the world went dark.

When consciousness returned, he heard men screaming, and the thunk and slap
of metal eating meat and bone. Grunting howls followed, the kind made by his own
men. The clang and clatter of chains came, and the hoofbeats of camels. Then his
vision cleared, and he saw several dead bodies lying on the ground nearby. They
were stained black in his name, and bleeding from ears and mouths. All looked as
if some wild animal had been at them. Beyond the bodies, in the distance, his
camels raced off without saddles or waterskins.

Silence followed, then a dark shadow moved over him, and a hand took hold of
his jaw. It turned the slave trader’s face until he was looking into a snarling
sun-darkened face with wide, blunt bones and deep brow. It was Lout. His
breathing was loud and harsh. There was a hot glow in his eyes, and his lips and
teeth were spattered with blood. Without looking away, Lout shouted something,
in a language Amadak did not understand, to someone he could not see.

The sounds of people climbing down from the wagon came to Amadak. The slaver,
measuring their different voices as they talked excitedly, counted four. The
sounds of scurrying feet came to him, then the Black Terror coughed up blood,
and it spilled over Lout’s hand. But he did not remove it.

Lout shouted something in a demanding tone, but Amadak did not understand his
language. Then Handsome appeared, squatting beside Lout. He carried one of the
Black Terror’s own waterskins and poured the slaver a drink from it, then spoke
to him in his own tongue, using a tone that carried no emotion but curiosity.

“In what direction is the river… the Staboulle?”

Amadak proudly kept his words in his mouth. He had served Black Veshta too
long to tell a stranger the secrets of her body.

Handsome asked again, and when the Black Terror still remained silent, Lout
growled like the cave bear, squeezing his jaw. As he did this, Lout’s eyes
turned red and smoked. The Black Terror shuddered with fear and spoke as rapidly
as possible.

“There is no river. It is dead! Dry! Gone now for hundreds of years. Only the
wadi remains! The Wadi Staboulle.”

“Where?” demanded Handsome.

“Here,” gasped the slaver, spitting blood. “You stand on it.”

Handsome looked around and suddenly smiled. “By Kram, you cutthroat, you’re
right! We’ve been traveling up a dry river bed all day and didn’t know it.”

He rose and turned to his unseen companions, talking rapidly in their strange
language and pointing off at the dry river banks, and their voices responded
excitedly. Amadak coughed up more blood, and this time Lout removed his hand,
dropping his head. Then he stood and went away.

The Black Terror listened to the strangers righting their wagon and
reharnessing their horses, all the time drinking from his waterskins and talking
excitedly. As the sounds of the rolling wagon began to rapidly fade off, he
strangled on his own blood and died.