Upland Outlaws (28 page)

“Torture,” Gath said. “They’re raping the women and they have the men tied-“

She had never seen anyone look so pale. “Never mind, dear. How are you feeling now?” She knew the question was absurd under the circumstances.

“Head aches,” he muttered, leaning against her. Nevertheless, he was making a very fast recovery.

“Who did it to you?” Kadie demanded.

“Yes, tell us.” Inos knew the question was utterly irrelevant now, with the culprit five hundred leagues away in Krasnegar, but she welcomed the distraction, and she must try to keep him conscious.

Gath sighed. “Brak again. “

Not surprising-Brak was a head taller and twice the weight, but Gath had knocked him out last time. No adolescent jotunn could live with such a memory.

Kadie snorted scornfully. “He’s been after you for months. How come you let him catch you this time?”

“Because it was worth it. I knew. I knew I had to let him have the last punch, too.” Gath sniggered faintly against Inos’ neck. “But you gotta see his face! Oh, you gotta see it! It’s a guts bucket! “

He smiled, showing the tooth Brak had broken the last time.

Kadie made enthusiastic noises.

Inos reflected that none of them might ever see Brak’s face again. While Gath described the massacre in detail for Kadie, she glanced around. The captives were mostly sitting with their faces on their knees, not looking at anyone or anything, but she managed to catch the eye of a nearby woman, one who was older than most and might have some wits left. “How long has this been going on?” she demanded.

“All day, ma’am …”

A guard shouted a warning and waved his sword. They were talking too much, apparently.

More roof collapsed. One good thing-the heat from the fire was perceptible now, and welcome in the chilly afternoon. The guards were closer to it, but they did not seem uncomfortable. Goblins were notoriously indifferent to temperature.

Oh, that beautiful house! Inos wanted to weep for Kinvale. Paintings, sculptures, gold plate, fine china, carpets-a huge fortune was vanishing before her eyes, climbing skyward in a pillar of smoke. That same pillar of smoke must be visible for leagues, perhaps even as far as Shaldokan. The IXth Legion was quartered at Shaldokan now. The goblins might have fought their way over Pondague Pass-they had been trying to do so for twenty years-but they were not going to remain very long in possession of Kinvale. She felt a little better when she realized that. Unfortunately, murder and rape could be completed long before a legion could march in to the rescue.

Gath had laid his head on his knees and seemed almost asleep. On her other side, Kadie was cuddling close. Oh, poor children! And Inos could not bear to think about her kingdom. The palace must be a madhouse now, with everyone hunting for the royal family. Nor did she want to think about Rap, returning to Kinvale to find his magic portal destroyed. It would be months before any of them could go home by sea.

Three weeping, naked girls came hobbling along the terrace, clutching their clothing bundled in front of them. Two of them had blood on their legs. They burrowed in among the rest of the captives and were given help in dressing. A squad of six goblins trotted up eagerly and began to argue with the chief guard. Grumbling, the newcomers selected two of the younger women and took them away. Obviously they had wanted more than two. Obviously they were going to rape them. Now Inos understood why the prisoners were all keeping their faces hidden, not looking up. Kinvale had supported a staff of hundreds-where were all the rest?

The screaming and cheering in the rose garden answered that question.

Then another band of goblins came marching along the terrace. Gath shivered and lifted his head. “Mom? You have to do some shouting. “

“What?” Inos said.

The leader strutted, looking important. Beside him walked a goblin youth, perhaps no older than Gath, although much shorter and thicker. He was smooth-faced and bore no tattoos. There was a discussion with the chief guard. Then leader and youngster came forward together-father and son, most likely. They looked over the captives. The boy grinned and pointed at Gath’s conspicuous blond head. The leader waved for two of the others to come and take him.

Gath croaked, “Mom!”

Inos reeled to her feet. “No!” she shouted. “Not this one! Choose someone else! You will not take this one!” She glared and stamped her feet and kept on bellowing.

And it worked! They could not understand the words, but her tone was enough. The young goblin paled to a sickly green and backed away. The older man scowled, but he also seemed cowed by Inos’ fury. He said something to the boy, who nodded and pointed quickly to another captive, a youth in footman’s livery.

Inos sat down again before her wobbling knees gave way under her. The footman was pulled out from the crowd and dragged away, howling in terror.

Everyone knew how goblin boys earned their tattoos. Once they had used other goblins. Now they used prisoners.

Gath mumbled, “Thanks, Mom! ” Then he rolled over on his side and threw up.

The sun sank down behind the smoke. The main house was a glowing shell now, the welcome heat fading before the cold of a winter evening. Very few of the captives remained. Three times Inos had prevented one or other of her children being removed, and now she knew why her shouting had such a truly sorcerous effect. Years ago, Rap had laid a royal glamour on her. When she gave orders, people were compelled to obey. So far it had worked, but she suspected that it was far from foolproof where goblins were concerned. It obviously provoked fury in them, and one of these times it might well get her killed out of hand.

Then Gath stirred and lifted his head from her shoulder. “Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Remember about Blood Beak?”

Inos stared at him, wondering if he was hallucinating again. Then she realized that his earlier talk of goblins had not been the hallucination she had thought at the time. He looked somewhat better now, anyway. “No.”

“Death Bird’s son. Dad told us. You must remember!”

“I’m afraid I don’t, dear.”

“You do!” Gath said urgently, twisting his mouth as if it tasted bad. “Dad met Death Bird at Timber Moot. Blood Beak killed a bear single-handed! Dad teased me about it.”

“Oh, yes, I do remember,” Inos said, lying. “What about it?”

“He’s here. He’s coming. The old man speaks impish.”

“Right!” Inos gave her son a hug. “Well done!” At last she could see some action in store.

A few minutes later, yet another small procession of goblins came striding along the darkening terrace to inspect the scanty supply of captives. All the men had been removed, and all the younger women. The women were not coming back anymore. The men never would.

The leader was a powerful-looking goblin, but the greasy rope of hair hanging down his bare chest was streaked with gray. That would qualify him as old to Gath. At his side walked an adolescent, beefy even by goblin standards.

They came to a halt and Inos jumped up before they even spoke to the guards.

“Hail to Blood Beak, son of Death Bird!”

The goblins recoiled a pace in unison, but perhaps they were more surprised by her blond hair than her words.

“I am Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar! I demand to speak to Death Bird! “

The gray-haired goblin frowned, moving his lips. If he understood impish, then obviously it was not well.

She tried again, speaking more slowly, keeping it simple. Gesture. “Am Inosolan! Woman of Chief Rap. Rap, chief of Krasnegar, friend of Death Bird. Am his woman.” Gesture. “These his son, his daughter. His children.”

Young Blood Beak asked a question. The old man repeated what she had said, and some of the words sounded right. Everyone turned to stare hard at Inos.

“Friend of Death Bird! ” she insisted. She stalked forward on legs like jelly. “Blood Beak? Great hunter! Hear how you kill bear with sword.”

“How know this?” the leader barked.

“Death Bird tell Rap, his friend. Very proud of Blood Beak.” Translation … The older man was deferring to the king’s son, but the king’s son brightened at hearing how his reputation had preceded him. He gabbled something, waving hands.

The leader nodded, then spoke more respectfully to Inos. He tapped his chest. “Am Giant Feller of Beavers. Here Blood Beak of Ravens, Death Bird son, as say. How come this place?”

Relief poured through Inos like a spring freshet. “Am guest. Friend of goblins. Not enemy of goblins. Friend of Death Bird many years ago. Long ago knew Death Bird. Was Little Chicken. Very little!” She gestured to indicate a big man.

She was already mastering the awful pronunciation. Amusement flickered on some of the ugly green faces even before Giant Feller translated.

Then young Blood Beak scowled and jabbered something. Everyone looked at Gath.

“Need captive,” Giant Feller explained apologetically. He pointed to Blood Beak. “Is killing ‘soldiers all day. Has not shown worthy, er, manhood marks. ” Then he nodded at Gath, and shrugged. “Is only man left. “

Inos recalled with horror how close Death Bird had come to earning his tattoos by killing Rap. She sensed a horrible irony, as if the Gods were about to play a monstrous joke on her-like father, like son!

“Is son of friend of Death Bird!”

“Die slow. Is great honor.”

“Oh, no it’s not!” Inos screamed.

The rose garden was the worst. After that, nothing could ever seem bad again.

The Kinvale rose garden had been one of the wonders of Julgistro. Every summer gentlefolk came leagues to view the rose garden. In the golden days of youth before her father died, Inos had played skittles there; she had listened to music on warm evenings, and blushed at Andor’s polished compliments. Now women were being raped wholesale there. Small fires burned where men and the remains of men lay staked out between the bushes, mingling an acrid smell of burning rose twigs with savory odors of roast meat. Spectators applauded and offered advice as boys continued to dismember the living in ingenious ways. In the background, the great house was a blackened ruin, still dirtying the sky with smoke.

Upright, Gath was so dizzy he could barely walk, but to show weakness before goblins was to invite instant execution. He staggered along, leaning on Kadie. Inos followed, trying to make sense of Giant Feller’s guttural jabber.

It had been a very close-run thing. She had protested that Gath was already too weak to make a suitable victim for Blood Beak, but the young lout had decided that a king’s son was ideal material for a king’s son to work on. Only when the case seemed hopeless had some goblin soldiers arrived with a husky young gardener they had just discovered hiding in a hayloft. Gath had been saved, but Inos was certain she would never sleep again. That other boy’s face would haunt her forever, and the certainty that she could not have rescued him would be no comfort, because she had lacked the courage to try.

Now she was being treated as an honored guest, being shown the rose garden. Not being taken to Death Bird. Death Bird was not at Kinvale, which seemed to be a minor training exercise, or perhaps a rest and recreation posting. Death Bird was at the front.

“Imp soldiers will come soon,” she said cautiously.

Giant Feller laughed, showing yellow teeth. “No imp soldiers. “

She was not fool enough to mention the IXth at Shaldokan. She would let the invaders discover that for themselves! But she soon learned that the situation was much worse than she had realized. Giant Feller had no qualms about telling her the de tails, he boasted of them. The goblins had not come through the defenses at Pondague, they had outflanked them by an unmapped pass and fallen on the Imperial forces from the rearmassacre! They had ambushed the IXth and XXIst legion: somewhere south of Kinvale-more massacre! The entire imp ish army in northwest Julgistro had been wiped out, or so he insisted. Now Shaldokan itself was invested. It would fall within a day, he assured her, and then the goblins would cross the frozen Paddi River. The road to Hub lay open before them.

Yes, it was bluster, but barbarian flavoring did not hide the taste of cold truth. This was Death Bird’s destiny, which had been predicted for twenty years. The Gods’ decree was being fulfilled at last and there was nothing any mortal could do abou it, except maybe the imperor. The ultimate limits of the disaster had always lain outside even Rap’s ken.

Inos thought of the unlamented Proconsul Yggingi who had started this war in trying to acquire a word of power that did no exist. She thought of Rap’s misgivings about the coming of the millennium. She thought of the dwarvish evil he had seen brewing in the ambience … Anything was better than thinking of the people dying all around her in the rose garden.

That night the royal guests from Krasnegar were entertainers by the goblin chiefs in the Kinvale stableyard. Death Bird’s deputy in the Kinvale area was his nephew, Quiet Stalker, an unusually tall goblin, and dangerously young. Inos did not like the way he looked at Kadie, but then she did not like the way any goblin looked at—or to—anyone!

Giant Feller explained that Krasnegar had a female chief. The freakish institution presented social difficulties and provoked much garbled discussion. In the end Quiet Stalker issued a decree, which was then translated: Inos and Kadie would eat in the corner, away from the central fire that was the place of honor Gath would sit with the chiefs as official Krasnegarian delegate

Gath’s ash-pale face broke into a smile at that news. “Barbarians!” his sister whispered furiously.

“Sorry, Kadie. You just have to accept that you’re naturally inferior! “

“Furs off!” Giant Feller said.

“What?” Gath stared in horror at the strip of leather the goblin was offering him. As the fire blazed up in the middle of the courtyard, the assembled chiefs were pulling off their buckskins. That shoelace was formal wear.

“Now we’ll see who’s inferior!” Kadie crowed, and flounced off to the designated women’s quarters by the water trough. Shuddering with cold, Gath removed Inos’ fur robe and his doublet and his sweater and his shirt and his undershirt. He handed them to his mother with an appalled glance, and she turned to leave while he still had pants on. There was nothing else she could do.