As he inspected the contents of the bag of food, his ravenous hunger tugged at him. He took out some acorn and roasted myrtle seed bread and jerky, along with a chunk of goat cheese and cherished each morsel as he stared into the crackling flames.
As he ate, his thoughts returned to Ahy once again. He considered their first encounter, and how cute she had looked when she’d gripped her blade and threatened to slit him from nave to chaps. The image of her ample and well-formed breasts flashed across his mind so vividly, he forced himself to think of other things so as not to be unduly aroused. There was so much about her he didn’t know yet, and he was ever so eager to find out. He already knew she had a feisty nature and an innate honesty with an unbending courage in the face of danger. He had had a taste of her humor and longed to spend more time with her in hopes of getting to know her better. He finished eating the last of the cheese, laid the bag nearby, said good night to White Fire, then using his cloak as a blanket laid down to a sweet rest.
Already drowsy from a long and eventful day, his mind drifted into memories of his encounters with Taneshewa. He was nearly asleep when a sudden awful thought struck him, What if my bride-covey rejects her? The Goddess Freya forbid. After all she is many years younger than most of them.He was still wrestling with that thought when he drifted off to swift deep sleep.
* * *
He woke with a start. The ravens had returned to the rock and were grokking furiously in the dark. Ravens were not known to be nocturnal and he had never known one to do that before. A quick look around told him the fire had burned low. Looking to the sky, he saw it was not near second sleep yet. He gave a quick glance over at White Fire, who stood vigilantly sniffing the air. Nothing else moved.
Just then, a sound came from the forest as though someone had carelessly trod on a dry twig. His first thought was Grizzly! But then, upon whiffing the air, he smelled the rancid and repulsively yeasty scent of filth ridden humans. Certainly not Sharaka or Herewardi. Danger was in the air. He held still, slid his hand to his wave blade and pretended to sleep while searching through slitted eyes. Listening attentively and waiting.
Moments later a gust of wind blew through the forest. The fire kicked up in a flash. White Fire’s ears were cocked backwards, meaning danger, pointing to the direction of the invaders. Snorts of his agitated horse and the drag of metal from a withdrawing dagger tensed his body for battle. A metallic taste coated his tongue like the smell of blood. From the corner of his eye he caught a hint of motion. In the firelight several sets of intruder’s eyes glowed yellow. He now knew they were not fully of the race of men for man’s eyes do not reflect like those of a wolf. He could faintly see the sheen of firelight on their tattooed and shaven heads, saw they wore leather armor and knew these were Pitter hell-rats out for the kill.
Another wisp of wind caused the fire to reveal one of the intruders with raised sword poised to strike a deadly blow. He pretended to cluck in a snore, a signal to White Fire to ’Hold’. Although he worried about the welfare of his steed, both knew what needed to be done in tight situations such as this. Hopefully, they would be rejoined after this.
He waited poised to strike until the intruder reached the edge of his bedroll when he gave out a Herewardi battle cry and at the same time twisted and thrust hard upwards with his wave blade, sinking Snake Fang in to the hilt. His assailant first grunted, then let out an anguished cry, and crumpled to the ground. Quickly, Sur Sceaf jerked the sword free, rolled over, and sprung to his feet just as an arrow whizzed past his head. A quick assessment told him that there were more than five assailants on his right and even more coming up to his left. Swift as a hare, he sprung off into the darkness of the dark wood. Shouts and curses followed after him as he sprinted for the tangled brush. With no need for stealth he whipped through the lower branches and soon regretted he was clad only in a shirt and loincloth. Rocks, snags, and broken branches gouged his bare feet, but his legs beat a swift escape.
Sword in hand and scramasax on his calf, he tripped over a large possum that was in his way, but pressed ever onward over the rock strewn ground zigzagging, like a hare fleeing coyotes. The briars snagged him, the nettles stung him, and the branches smacked him in the face. The hard sharp terrain was bruising and tearing even more at his naked feet than before. His pulse was pounding and his breathing labored until his lungs begged for rest. Just in time, he leaped over a rattler stretched across his path.
When his screaming lungs forced a rest, he stopped at the edge of the forest, hid behind a large tree trunk. Listening, he heard no pursuers daring the thicket of brush. Panting for air, he considered his options. Should he hunker down here hidden in the forest, perhaps in a treetop, or should he venture forth through the moonlit desert? If he could get close enough to Fort Rock, there would be help, but he estimated it would take the better part of the night and most of the next day to reach Fort Rock afoot.
The moon and stars were his light and his directors that night, but could also serve his assailants just as well. As though making the choice for him, he found, his feet carrying him to brave the wide, open desert with its far scattered junipers which would provide occasional cover. Fortunately, the Pitters were known to be poor trackers, but he couldn’t count on it. He could last easily a day without water and his legs could carry him easily. The few hours of sleep he had rested him enough to run for the duration of the remaining night. After weighing all the considerations, he decided his best chance of survival was to reach Fort Rock as soon as possible. Perhaps White Fire would break loose, find him, and together they could ride to freedom. But no such rescue was likely. So he opted to force himself onward at an ever faster pace in hopes of covering most of that distance before dawn’s light would reveal his whereabouts.
He passed copse after copse of juniper in the moonlight of a three-quarter’s waning moon and charted each move by the stars so that his aching feet would take as direct a course as possible to the Fortress of the Desert Queen. On and on he ran in an almost hypnotic state that blocked out the awareness of how pained and weary he truly was. He had watched the moon parade across the sky and heard coyotes in all their cacophony, reporting his travels across their domain. The adrenalin had activated his senses to a very keen degree, but his air starved lungs forced him into a slower pace. Hour after hour he ran until the sky began growing pink from the approach of dawn. As Sur Sceaf looked at the rising sun over the Saxon-green carpet of sage, he thought how beautiful it looked, but how punishing to naked flesh with burrs and snags, rocks, thorns, thistles, and noxious weeds. Exhausted and bloody, with bruised and battered feet, he shivered and shook violently as he paused to gather a bit of dew off a nearby juniper to wet those dry lips before taking a juniper berry into his mouth to stimulate further salivation.
Normally, he would welcome the rays of the world candle as it rose, but today he feared it would only serve to expose him to the pursuing enemies. The daylight and the wide, open desert made him fearfully vulnerable.It would be risky to venture the next five miles to Fort Rock in the coming daylight, but what the hell, he had no choice and decided he would sprint the last five miles to Fort Rock as his best option. His nature was to act. Not wait.
He estimated he had gone just a little over a mile when he heard hoof beats to the south of him. Quickly he darted behind a clutch of rabbit brush, but it was too late. Peering out of the brush, he saw his pursuers emerging from a cloud of billowing dust. They rode on horseback in a group bearing down hard on him. He was trapped.
Taking a tighter grip on Snake Fang, he stood to face the oncoming Pitters. If it is the will of the gods, it is a good day to die!
Sur Sceaf chanted his Herewardi Hymn, the Swan Song of a dying warrior, and prepared for his death. A disturbing sound to his rear drew his attention. Turning, he was stunned to see the two ravens once again. He spotted the golden-eyed raven and realized these were Master Yggd’s after all. Could these ravens be the harbingers of death? Was Master Yggd an Elven lord sent to es
cort him to the Halls of the Slain?
Snake Fang clutched tightly in his hand, he readied himself for the final battle. As the horsemen neared, he saw the horses were all pale and sallow like that of the Pitters. He heard their riders shouting in the whining nasal speech of the Hormah Zonga. Instead of one of their massive organized legions, this was one of their loosely organized bands of hell-rats, usually seventeen in number, sent out to pillage and raise havoc in advance of their legions.
Dust clogged his nostrils and seared his throat as the hell-rat assailants bore down on him like a pack of wolves on a cornered fox.
Sure enough the Sahle Mark, like a chicken track on their foreheads, confirmed they were Pitter hell-rats, slavering for his blood. Their pale bloodless faces appeared inhuman, stretched and distorted, and cruel with their tattoos, shaven heads, and those horribly buck teeth resulting from their rodent ancestry. Not only could one sense their inhumanity, but, one sensed they were spiritually dead, savage killing machines, devoid of any normal human feelings whatsoever.
A guttural order rang out. Immediately the pale riders reined in their horses and fell silent in a disorderly ring about him. Sur Sceaf braced himself for the killing blow, his muscles liquid and hot with anticipation of the battle to come. The mere thought of the fight to come turned his bowels to water as they churned within him for something to digest.
The ravens swooped in and grokked a warning as one man separated from the pack and drew his horse in closer. He was a tall, coarse, muscular man, dressed in khaki green over-coat, whose face was gaunt-like, skin stretched over a skull with protruding front teeth and fang like canines showing. Scorched on his forehead was the Mark of Seath, the upside-down rune of Elwas better known as the broken cross of the Pitter.
The ugly bastard drew his horse in ever closer. “Well, this must be the fox that eluded us last night!” the rat-man with the broken rune brand jeered in a harsh voice like ground glass. “Me thinks it runs too fast for a man and what has it in its hand? Has it a nasty blade does it? We’ll make it yip like a fox now won’t we, blokes?”
The hell-rats began yipping and jeering. Just then another horsemen with long black hair emerged from the pack. Sur Sceaf was disgusted to see he was a Sharaka traitor. Spear in hand, the renegade shouted, “Grab the fool’s blade.”
A Pitter said, “I claim the honor.” A scar faced hell-rat leaped from his horse and charged forward with a scimitar in hand. As he drew closer, Sur Sceaf exploded into action, gave a battle cry, “Hoo-Ah for freedom!” and hurled his blade into the Pitter’s bowels with such force that the fiend crumpled forward like a sack of potatoes split in half. Even before the villain hit the ground Sur Sceaf whirled and was immediately poised again with his scramasax in hand.
“Oooh! Look, the naked fox got a blow in,” the leader mocked and laughed while his men shouted obscenities as they pulled back their bows on Sur Sceaf.
“Stand down,” their leader barked. “Quick death would be too good for this fox. Me eyes tell me, he’s Herewardi. This one will pay for its pride.”
The skull-faced one slowly drew from his saddle horn a bull whip and began cracking and slicing the air with it. “Let me introduce you to ’the Scorpion.’ Now my scorpion has three tails loaded with metal pieces and bone slivers that will dig into your skin and rip it like bull briars. Run from us will you?”
His grin was devilish with lips tightly drawn over a cruel smile of bared yellow teeth that looked more like a snarl. With one cut of the whip he beheaded a nearby shrub. Then he swirled the whip, and Sur Sceaf felt the snapping bites on his naked calves. Excruciating pain clawed at his legs like a white hot blade leaving its fire ignited in his flesh.
“See how it dances!”
With another snap from the sadistic bastard’s wrist, the whip sliced through Sur Sceaf’s hair removing his hair claw and flinging it to the desert floor. The whip cleft a trail of wet blood issuing from the cuts on his head. Although blood was streaming into his eyes, he saw a black flash to his right. Much to his surprise, the raven with the golden eye swooped down, snatched up his Herewardi hair claw as if it was some sort of delicious morsel and carried it off in flight.
“Is it paying attention, Mr. Fox? Is it starting to listen to my scorpion? Ha! Ha! Ha!” The Skull Head guffawed as he threw his head back. “Methinks it’s starting to listen to us. Oh yes! It listens to pain. Pain and fear the tongue of all humans. Now this is the language they all understand.”
Sur Sceaf felt another searing lash on his bloody hand as the whip ripped the scramasax from his grasp. He sucked mightily and bit his lip to keep from crying out.
“Thought you had escaped us, didn’t you? Must have felt so good. Methinks not now.”
This time he let the snap of the whip rip across Sur Sceaf’s bare back, raking the torn flesh of his body like the claws of a panther, leaving a bloody whelp that stung all the way to the bone. Sur Sceaf staggered to remain standing. He almost swooned as his head swam with the pain.
The cheers of the hell-rats rang in his ears.
“You have not begun... to feel the pain... I am capable of delivering... to you, Mr. Fox.” Then with another long lash and crack from the whip, Sur Sceaf was driven to his knees.
Through his bloody bitten lips Sur Sceaf moaned and sang his swan song once again, “All Father, give me the courage to die here with grace,” he managed to eke out through spits and sprays of blood. The Pitters surrounding him laughed and jeered even louder. Their horses crowded in even closer as their ghoulish faces mocked his agony.
The Skull Head acted like some master of ceremony in a circus. “Oh, here how the nightingale warbles! What has it now, it has religion does it.”
The leader coiled his whip as another shouted, “A heathen god can never save.”
“Like all of the foxes I’ve killed, it has no god that can come and help it now, does it? There’s only me and I gets to decide what lives and what dies.” Just then he let crack another slash of the whip that clawed at Sur Sceaf’s chest like a metal rake and filled his breast with the fire of burning molten steel.
Looking down at his torn shirt, Sur Sceaf saw that his blood was dripping onto the now exposed amulet.
“Whoa! The creature wears the eye of his worthless pagan god close to his heart. How endearing. Does it think this will save its worthless life?”
Through blood blurred eyes Sur Sceaf saw the Sharaka renegade maneuver his horse closer to the skull-faced leader. “Corporal Dol-Sceatha, this talisman is the mark of a Highborn Herewardi. Most certainly, this one is a white swan lord. Should we not take him back to the Skull Worm? I’m telling you this one is a prize, he has the mark of a high one. He’s one of those Sheep Lords. There will be great reward for this one, there will. The Skull Worm will be generous to us all with a hefty reward.”
Through a wavering consciousness of pain Sur Sceaf heard the skull-faced one reply, “No, you damned fool! This one is all mine. It is me shall make him my eternal servant. Take him now!” With that he wrapped the whip around Sur Sceaf’s neck while the fiends dismounted, let out their shrill cries like black faeries, and attacked Sur Sceaf. He felt their dirty claws rake his already torn back as his shirt was indignantly ripped from him.
Rage shot through him. With one last burst of his remaining strength he grabbed one assailant by the hair and kicked another one’s breathe out of him. Yet another Pitter was gnawing at his shoulder with his grimy teeth when Sur Sceaf elbowed him so hard in the gut he convulsively vomited. Sur Sceaf staggered, his strength ebbing. Blows rained down on him like an avalanche of rocks till he was nigh senseless.
Through a haze of pain he heard their leader say, “Bind and blindfold him.”
Rough hands bound him and immediately set to wrapping swaddling cloth about his eyes and then all about his head and body. Amidst laughs and insults, they forced him down on a nearby thorn-bush. The thorns and branches piercing through the swaddling into his naked flesh made him cry out in agony, which
all the more pleased his tormentors.
“Dig it deep,” the skull-faced one commanded, “and tell me when it’s ready.”
Sur Sceaf watched through a tiny slit in the blindfold as the diggers cursed their labors while they dug the large pit. Those tending the digging of the pit began gnawing sticks of wood, no doubt to keep those elongated front teeth of theirs worn down to a manageable size. Throughout the day he struggled to be still, so as not to have the thorns dig in deeper every time he moved. Though barely conscious and his mind almost goblin-robbed, he heard a raven making a stir nearby. He felt a gust of wind fanning his head followed by a gentle touch as it lighted upon his head and gave an uncharacteristic crooning sound. Through a veil of agony Sur Sceaf thought, Is the Ancient One here? Has the Wizard come for me?
A Pitter mocked, “Hah! The raven is not even going to wait for you to die, Sheep-Eater. They smell your death coming.” Other Pitters cackled with laughter as the raven took flight. Sur Sceaf now realized he was alone and must prepare his heart for death in the pit.
* * *
Mendaka stuffed a corn cake in his mouth.
“Don’t eat any more of those corn cakes. They’re for the trail,” Little Doe ordered in an exasperated tone. “Hand me that buckskin jacket, I’ll pack it for you. It gets cold in the desert at night.”
Feeling like a small boy stealing goodies from the larder, Mendaka retrieved the new buckskin jacket that Little Doe had just completed and took it to her to be placed in his ruck sack.
He smiled, “No one makes corn cakes like you, Little Doe.” Then he nuzzled her neck with his lips and a kiss.”
“No more bribing me with those kisses. I’ve got to finish packing for you. You know the Hyrwardi young bloods are due sometime this morning.”
“We have time. Come on back to the blankets while Going Snake is on his errands.”
The Sire Sheaf Page 31