Prisoner of the Horned Helmet (9 page)

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obin Lakehair traveled Summer Trail heading east. She crossed through The Shades and the Valley of Miracles to Thieves Trail, which she took south until she reached Border Road at Lemontrail Crossing. There she paused and drank greedily from her waterskin. As she did, she gazed across the gorge and her heart sank.

Just beyond the remnant of the bridge, a heavy Kitzakk spear stood upright in the ground in plain view. Impaled on it was the fresh cadaver of a Wowell witch.

Robin’s mouth gaped open. One hand covered her mouth, the other held her stomach as it convulsed. She grabbed up her things and scrambled back to her feet.

Hurrying east along Border Road, and passing only occasional travelers, she soon reached Amber Road. It was the main merchant road. It started far to the north in the Empire of Ice, stretched across the forests, then south through the cataracts and across the deserts to the jungles. There was some traffic to the north, but none coming from the cataracts to the south.

Robin’s eyes darted about suspiciously as she dashed across Amber Road and hurried on. An hour later she rounded a bend and stopped to catch her breath. She had been traveling for four hours, but now, in the distance, she could see Three Bridge Crossing and her Cytherian home, Weaver. It waved in the midday sun like a giant, multicolored flag. She dropped to the grassy ground, leaned back against a rock and sighed with relief. She was no longer too far from home.

The village stood on a reddish hill cleared of trees except for occasional clumps. It was shielded on three sides by forest. The border gorge guarded the southern side. Sheep and herders cluttered the wide clearing which Robin knew surrounded the village. Past it rose a palisade wall with a gate at the northern corner. The wall stopped just before reaching the southern end of Weaver. There the village fell apart and ended in rubble just short of the gorge spanned by the three bridges where workers were building gates. The village’s three main interior streets crossed over the bridges of Three Bridge Crossing, then joined together and moved south up into Weaver Pass.

Weaver itself rose above the palisade in irregular tiers. Mud and wood houses crowded the lower tiers. They were well-made structures with outside shutters on the windows and the stone chimneys rising from flat roofs exhaled white smoke. Clean-clothed and freshly scrubbed residents were active here sorting wool, cleaning and washing it, and combing and carding it into fluffy readiness for spinning.

On the upper tiers were rows of steaming wooden vats of dye the size of small houses. Workers, male and female, stirred the fabrics in the vats with long, heavy, wooden paddles. Golds, yellows and mustards made from safflower and fustic stained their naked bodies and loincloths, as did reds, rusts and oranges made from madder, and the roots of Teima, Arrashad and Fantell berries which had been harvested and dried in spring. The Cytherians dyed the huge squares of finished cloth rather than the spools of thread. Consequently, there was considerable spillage and the heights of the village, as well as many of the residents, tended to change colors with the seasons. Even the supervising priests in their formal tunics of spun gold and silver sported red and yellow stains.

Above the steaming vats was a level space, circled by unpainted wooden buildings, and a wooden temple. Weaver Court. In its sunny yard the children of Weaver were taught the village trade by the elders. Within the temple the virgin maidens of Weaver spun cloth to the music of their own voices.

Weaver Court was surrounded on three sides by sheer bluffs called the Heights. They rose twenty feet above the roofs of the temple and formed a large, irregular spread of flat ground fed by many footpaths. Here the wet dyed cloth was spread to dry on poles. The resulting effect was a single multicolored patchwork flag of yellows, oranges and reds, the gigantic banner of a fairy-tale village.

Robin picked herself up and half-skipped toward the village. Nearing it she drank in the familiar scents of the hot, moist steaming dyes that mixed with the pungent odors of lye, lime and the fresh urine used in the washing. Reaching the clearing she heard footsteps behind her and turned around to see Gath coming down the road. The wolf waited behind at the edge of the forest. Neither looked at her.

Gain’s eyes were fixed on the frantic activity at the bridges. Groups of men, half-hidden by dust, were noisily working on the gates with hammers, nails, saws and curses. When he neared Robin, he looked up at Weaver Pass and tilted his head slightly, listening to something she could not hear.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He looked at her as if he had not realized she was there, and said, “Nothing.” He glanced at the village. “Is this your home?”

“Yes,” she replied proudly.

He looked at her warily and said accusingly, “You are a sorceress. You brought me here?”

“What?” she exclaimed. “Me? A sorceress!” She almost giggled. But, seeing he was deadly serious, she stopped herself and spoke evenly. “I didn’t bring you, honestly. I’m not magic, not at all! I only weave cloth.”

He scratched his shin with the shaft of his spear, then growled, “Tell me your name.”

She blushed, averted her head slightly and watched his eyes with the corners of her own. “Robin… Robin Lakehair.”

She waited, but no other question came. With artless sincerity, she said, “I want to thank you again. I owe you my life, and I won’t forget it. If there’s anything I…”

“We are finished now,” he said abruptly.

She hesitated and her lips curved up slightly. “Then why did you follow me?”

He said, “You healed the she-wolf,” as if it explained everything.

She nodded solemnly, then tried again to communicate. “Can… would you let me explain now? I’ll only take a…”

He shook his head.

She dropped her eyes, turned without speaking and headed directly across the clearing toward the Forest Gate. But her feet betrayed her, and dragged. She felt, for the first time in her life, as if she were doing something absolutely and terribly wrong. But there was no explanation for it.

At that moment Dirken and Bone emerged from Border Road behind Gath. They were wheezing and grumbling. Robin, then Gath, turned and saw them, and they, humiliated, edged back out of sight into the forest.

Robin hesitated thoughtfully, then turned back toward the gate and wandered directionless through women herding goats and spinning wool not seeing their welcoming smiles. She passed through a crowd of boys battling with stick swords, reached the gate and suddenly stopped, looked off at the cataracts.

A distant thundering was coming out of the massive shelves of grey rock. It grew louder by the heartbeat.

Spellbound, Robin looked back across the clearing at Gath.

He stood facing the cataracts, head lowered. He unbuckled his helmet from his belt, lifted it above his head and lowered it into place, waited. A predator scenting blood.

Robin shuddered, looked back at the cataracts.

Dust billowed up out of the pass, and mounted Kitzakk raiders erupted from its mouth, plunged toward the three bridges screeching.

An alarm gong clanged inside the village. The women in the clearing screamed as they drove the children and animals toward the forest. In the village women cried out and raced to find their children, scurrying through men who scrambled for their weapons.

Robin, shuddering, looked back at Gath as he slipped his axe off his back, then turned sharply, hearing the sharp cries of children coming from Weaver Court. She plunged into the flow of bodies spilling out the gate, fought her way through them and ran into the village.

PLUNDER

G
ath started after Robin, then stopped short and turned toward the charging raiders, slowly, like a nail being bent by a crowbar.

Two metal-clad commanders led the screaming, skull-faced raiders. The pair carried huge weapons that glittered, and they themselves radiated streaking spears of white light from an eerie glow at their groins.

Gath blinked. His breathing became deep, racking and noisy. A vast heat filled his world. Light obliterated sound. Nothing moved for him except the two illuminated, metallic champions. They seemed to plunge slowly as if galloping through a sky of blood. He started for the raiders in a slow steady march, his feet plodding like those of a condemned man. The piercing screech of women cut through his enchanted world, brought him back to the real world of dirt, panic and the smell of fear.

He looked back at the Forest Gate. Animals, men, women and children were spewing out, heading for the safety of the trees in wagons and on foot. Gath’s face became hard and expressionless behind the mask of his helmet, then he again turned back to the raiders, as if held in the grip of an invisible demon.

The Kitzakks had split up into two groups and were plunging across the two closest bridges. The structures shuddered and shook under the pounding hooves dislodging heavy chunks of their earthen bodies into the gorge.

Cytherian defenders, spears in hand and snarling, met the charge at the bridges. Neither their weapons nor attitudes were sufficient. All but two panicked and ran before the steel-shod avalanche reached them. The two remaining took crossbow bolts in their foreheads and dropped in place. Their fleeing comrades died soon after, catching flying steel bolts with their backs and necks.

Hefting his spear and axe, Gath forced himself to turn away and march to the Forest Gate, pushing through the thin remnant of fleeing bodies. Inside, panic had sucked the life out of the village. He could hear sounds of clanging steel and cursing at the opposite end of the village where Cytherian warriors were fighting the raiders. Ignoring the inviting noise, he passed a wagonload of unshaven, leather-clad mercenaries who apparently considered fighting Kitzakks not part of their contract to protect Weaver. He continued through deserted wagons jammed at a crossroads, passed a man holding his dislocated jaw with both hands, and saw another with straw held against the bleeding stump of his wrist. The incessant clanging of the alarm stopped abruptly. He hesitated, listened, then strode on passing open windows and open doors. From the shadows beyond them came the silence of empty rooms, empty beds and empty chairs.

He climbed a zigzagging deserted street at the north side of the village until he was two tiers below the Heights. There he went up a staircase siding a building. It led to a flat roof where a ladder rose to a higher roof. From there he could see the battle unfolding at the south end of the village.

Cytherian warriors, in scattered, unorganized groups, were meeting the Kitzakks’ charge amid the rubble and streets. Their long spears, twice their height, splintered uselessly against the raiders’ steel. The Kitzakks closed with them, trampled them firing crossbows at point-blank range with brutal accuracy. Steel bolts impaled staring eyes, speared open mouths. Farther off, the main body of Cytherians, some forty strong, were gathering at Weaver Court to defend the temple and its sacred maidens.

The Kitzakks joined forces in the Market Square, dismounted and split up. A small detachment ranged through the now almost empty lower tiers of the village, mopping up stragglers. A few remained in the Market Square guarding their horses. The main body, led by the two commanders, charged up the twisting street connecting Market Square to Weaver Court. Huge dye vats stood like massive sentinels along the street’s high dirt walls. At the top of the street the Cytherian defenders met the raiders with swords and daggers, and demon war drank deep of blood.

All Gath could see was the back sides of the wooden buildings surrounding the court. From beyond them came the sounds of hysterical young girls and the clang of steel on iron. Gath leaped down to the lower roof, then into the empty street below. Up through twisting alleys he charged to the Heights.

He wound his way through ranks of drying yellow, gold and orange cloth, heading towards the bedlam of sound. Stepping out from behind a yellow cloth, Gath came across a Skull soldier who failed to notice his arrival. The soldier was preoccupied. He had a half-naked Cytherian maiden pinned under his kneeling body. Handfuls of her blonde hair were clenched in his sweating fists, and protruded between his fingers. Her big eyes were muddy pools bubbling with mindless terror as she stared past the soldier’s metal-clad shoulder. Her expression told the soldier he had company, and he turned to see who it was.

Being a civilized man, the soldier had removed his helmet in order to more fully enjoy his pleasure, but he had not bothered to remove his dagger from between his clenched teeth. It was a poor place to keep a dagger.

Gath kicked the soldier flush on the mouth. He flew off the woman in one grunting piece, landed with a metallic crunch, and rolled five feet clawing down orange bolts of cloth. When he stopped, his head was turned far enough around to look down at his buttocks. Three inches of dagger blade protruded from his left cheek.

Gath stepped over the girl, moved through the sheets of cloth, and stopped in the concealing shadows near the edge of the sheer bluff. Below him was Weaver Court.

The battle was over.

Brutal eruptions of lust, murder, torture and pillage were breaking out spasmodically about the white marble courtyard. The raiders were taking the payments due victors, rewards best collected when the blood was still hot with the kill and the mad terror of death was still fresh on the flesh.

Upended, spread-eagled Cytherian women were being raped both in the shadows and in the sunshine. Nails raked naked backs. Hands groped. Spines were bent over stairs and barrels. Mouths were gorging themselves on wine, cheese, fresh fruit and raw meat. Intransigent prisoners were being kicked to death slowly, while the reasonable were being drowned just as slowly in the well. The dead and dying, sprawled among the living, added to the hellish celebration by spewing fountains of blood and emptying their bowels into the slippery, stumbling chaos. The stench perfumed the rioting passions, and the large wooden temple provided appropriate music. There the screaming was a chorus.

Gath’s stomach bubbled and churned. His muscles throbbed, eager to throw his body into the Kitzakk hell. But he remained motionless.

A group of Skull soldiers burst out of the broken doors of the temple herding bruised and bloody young girls, many with their tunics torn away, clutching the shreds to their naked bodies.

Gath leaned forward, eyes steady and patient.

Robin was at the center of the group, framed by five of the smallest girls, young things from nine to thirteen. They clung to her tunic and arms, sobbing and hiding their faces against her. Robin held them close covering their eyes. Her legs wobbled, but the pressing weight of the girls kept her upright.

The soldiers prodded the girls across the yard toward a lacquered black wagon parked facing the main access street. When the girls reached the wagon, a small, fat priest emerged and greeted them with an unctuous, openmouthed smile. He probed their breasts, teeth, buttocks and flat stomachs with shameless fingers, mindless of their cringing and sobbing. Reaching Robin, he had the young girls driven away from her, and clapped his fat hands in relish.

Robin reeled back, as if confronted by a serpent. Two temple guards promptly seized her arms and held her in place. The priest took hold of her tunic, ripped it open exposing her breasts, then looked at them as if they were pretty peaches. With a lewd laugh, he turned to the guards and spoke to them, his voice lost amid the constant screaming.

Robin, struggling and sobbing, was forced into the wagon, and the priest proceeded through the whimpering, shuddering girls making additional selections.

Gath watched all this without showing any sign or taking action, then scanned the activity in the court, and again saw the two metal-clad commanders.

They sat on the steps of the temple consuming cheese and wine, aloof to the bedlam around them. Every so often one lifted his head, looked off at a shadow or alley as if he were expecting someone. Sitting beside their weapons, they looked like a party of four.

Gath’s world again filled with blood and light, and became devoid of sound and reality. But he shook the enchantment off and looked back at the lacquered wagon.

Robin sat in the front left corner. Her small fists trembled as they clung to the bars. Her head was down, and red-gold hair trembled in tangles over her face.

Past the wagon was the narrow street by which the vehicle must depart. High dirt walls cast deep shade on the street. The shade was filtered with steam which drifted down from huge dye vats positioned along the top of the walls.

Gath hesitated thoughtfully and stepped back into the concealing red cloth. He dodged through the bolts of cloth at a steady, quiet trot, circled around the bluff above the court, and emerged from the opposite side. In front of him were two of the massive steaming vats that lined the narrow road. They were wooden with iron bottoms heated by fire pits. Gath moved between them to the edge of the dirt wall. The narrow street below was empty. A racket of unholy pleasure and misery came from the upper end of the street, then the tramp of horses’ hooves moving slowly and the creak of wagon wheels joined the racket. He waited and a team of horses emerged around the sharp turn pulling the black lacquered wagon.

Gath settled in place. His armor heaved and glistened as his chest swelled with his racing breath. The thrill of battle slashed through his nerves and muscles. The time to abandon patience was at hand. He hefted his spear over his head, arm cocked and biceps throbbing.

The fat priest sat beside the driver of the wagon. The temple guards rode on seats built at the sides of the wagon.

When the wagon cleared the turn, the driver rose to whip the team of horses and a leaf-shaped spear blossomed on his chest, slammed him back into his seat. The whip and reins spilled from his hands, and he pitched forward, fell among the traces.

The priest’s soft-boiled eyes bulged and rolled. His head bobbled helplessly on his feeble neck as the wagon jerked to a sudden stop, then he whimpered, something he did superbly, and with reason. Gath was standing beside the lead horse, holding its bridle. The priest wheezed low in his throat, grabbed the reins and flicked them frantically, squealing at the horses.

The lead horse started to bolt, and Gath hit the animal flush on the jaw with his fist. It fell sideways, driving the horse beside it into the dirt wall. The rest of the team panicked, rearing and bucking forward, each in a slightly different direction. The wagon lurched and crashed from side to side crushing itself and the screaming temple guards against the narrow walls.

The priest struggled back over the roof, falling and crawling most of the way, then dropped off the end and dragged himself back up the street toward Weaver Court.

Gath, ignoring the priest, moved for the jolting wagon where the sounds of screaming captive girls and splintering wood mixed with the crackle of breaking bones. Nearing the wagon, a horse butted Gath against a wall. His head hit the dirt and the iron bars of his helmet sprang loose. The steel bowl flew off, and the mask fell to his shoulder. He tore off the mask, bullied the horses to a stop, and hauled himself up onto the driver’s box. From there he climbed to the roof and, working with his axe, made a hole in its front left corner.

He had figured accurately. Robin was looking up through the hole with big wondrous eyes and splinters on her face.

Gath reached into the hole and pulled her out as if she weighed no more than a leather belt. Carrying her in his arms, he jumped from the wagon roof to the top of the dirt wall, and they vanished between the vats.

The lead horse, recovering from Gath’s blow, got back onto its feet and plunged mindlessly forward. The other horses followed, and the wagon full of screaming girls plunged down the street as a crowd of Skull soldiers came charging around the sharp turn and raced after it.

A! the last soldier jumped over the fallen body of the driver, a vat fell away from the dirt wall above him and spilled a steaming yellow bulk of water the size of an elephant into midair. The water caught the soldier in the back, drove him facedown into the ground, scalding his arms and legs to the bone. Then it sluiced forward leaving his steaming body behind with raw exposed bones and pulpy muscles dyed a bright yellow.

Gath, who had pushed the vat over, stood heaving in place on the wall above the street. Robin trembled behind him. He laughed once, a dry rasp, and moved to the next vat. Flexing and straining, he pushed it over into the vat beside it. Both broke apart, then lurched into the third and fourth vats, and all emptied their contents into the street. Robin shuddered in his shadow, her eyes as terrified of her demon rescuer as of the Kitzakks.

A vivid-colored flood slewed down between the high dirt walls taking away parts of it, then caught up with the charging soldiers. Most of them ran faster. Several foolishly slowed and turned to see what was happening, and the gaudy fluid splattered over their startled faces, then hit them with its entire weight and carried their scalded, screaming bodies down the street.

The steaming liquid traveled the length of the street gathering mud, and spilled into Market Square depositing scalded and blistered bodies in all directions. Then it slewed sideways, washed down alleys and over the southern side of Weaver putting out the fires which the Kitzakks had started there. It was now a dull bloody brown.

Gath watched all this with pleasure, then took Robin by the wrist and pulled her into the rows of hanging cloth. Reaching the Heights, they looked over the village. The black wagon had crashed into a mud wall at the edge of Market Square and turned over. Three girls, who had crawled out the hole in the roof, were limping into shadowed alleys. Five were still pinned inside.