by James Silke
The riders reined up in front of the stage. Their large, chesty horses pummeled the ground with their hooves, raising clouds of dust which billowed around them, and swirled over Brown John and his sons as they bowed slightly in recognition.
The three lead riders were powerful Barbarian lords. The following trio were their men-at-arms. One of these held the lead rope of a pack horse with a wicker cage mounted on its back. It held a large, smokey-grey she-wolf.
Golfon of Weaver, chief of the Cytherians, had the middle position. He was a wine-flushed, fatty piece of meat in a scarlet tunic and too much brass armor for a man with a weight problem. Vitmar, lord of the Barhacha woodmen, rode at Golfon’s right. He wore fur and hides, had lots of muscular sunburned flesh, and displayed the mild expression of a man who killed without emotion. Sharatz of Coin, Lord Master of the Kaven moneylenders, was the third chief. He wore a violet tunic and jewels. His narrow face was as pious as a religious relic.
Brown John let the dust clear, then bowed again in greeting and in a generous tone said, “Welcome, mighty lords of the forest. How may I…”
“Shut up, clown!” Golfon spat the words. “Tell your bastards to drop their weapons, then get down off that stage. We’re not going to sit here looking up at the likes of you.”
“Ah,” murmured Brown John, “your business is serious.” He glanced at his sons. They dropped their weapons, and the three carefully climbed down to the ground to face the riders.
Golfon glared down at Brown John. “We want Gath of Baal, and you will tell us where he is… understand?” To make their relationship perfectly clear to everyone watching, he spit on Brown John’s shoulder.
Brown John flinched, but answered politely. “I do not understand. No one knows where he lives, so how can you expect me to know?”
Golfon darkened. Vitmar leaned forward and said levelly, “Because everyone knows you and your bastards have traded with him for years, because your minstrels sing of him, because your miserable tribe grows rich on the totems of the dead Kitzakks… and because we know you helped him murder them.”
“Lord Vitmar, you tell a splendid tale,” Brown John said. “So splendid that I can assure you that we, being the poor powerless characters we are, are not even the smallest part of it.”
Vitmar nodded without a trace of agreement, said quietly, “Be reasonable, bukko.” He glanced at the sons, then back at Brown John. “You are a proud family-I understand that-and as outlaws obliged to lie. But we cannot allow it now. Any day the Kitzakks are going to come seeking the bones of their dead scouts so they can give them a proper burial… and in the process they will seek revenge. But we do not intend to suffer for your foolishness and greed… so show us his hiding place. Now! It is a small price to pay for bringing the wrath of the Kitzakks down on all of us.”
“I see,” said Brown John with a ring of alarm in his voice. “You… you intend to negotiate with the Kitzakks?”
“Exactly. And you should be grateful for it. It is much better for you if we give them the head of the man who killed their scouts… rather than the heads of all those who stole their bones.”
“But, my lords, surely you know that the last nation to attempt to negotiate with Kitzakks concluded its discussions from the interior of Kitzakk cages.”
“Tell us where he is, you Grillard scum!” Golfon blurted. “And tell it quick, or we’ll gut the lot of you!” This time he made his point with the butt end of his spear and knocked Brown John to the ground.
Bone and Dirken started to go for their swords, but held their places as Vitmar edged his horse forward. He looked contemptuously at Brown John as he slowly got back up, and said again, “Be reasonable, bukko.”
Brown John nodded. “To see the Kaven, the Cytherian and the Barhacha in the same riding party inspires nothing if it does not inspire reason, but I cannot help you.”
“Lying outlaw filth!” Golfon struck Brown John with the butt end of his spear, drove him back to the ground.-Dirken and Bone moved for Golfon. But Vitmar spurred his horse into them, and they went down ducking and rolling away from the animal’s hooves.
Brown John motioned for his sons to stay put, then, holding his collarbone, rose onto an elbow, and addressing Vitmar from that less than lofty position, said, “I am afraid, Lord Vitmar, that the Lord Golfon has a poor opinion of reasonable discussion.”
By way of agreement, Golfon spit on Brown John again.
“Give us directions, old man,” Vitmar demanded.
Brown John, looking from Golfon to Sharatz, said, “I do not know where he is. Mere chance led my bastards and me to the sight of the massacre. Due to its amazing proportions, it was not difficult to determine that a spirit bordering on the magical had been the cause.” He looked at Vitmar. “Consequently, we choose to share, for a small price, given our efforts, that spirit with all the tribes of the forest. And, I dare say, we have done a decent job of it.”
“You were there! You helped him!”
“We were not. We only saw the results of his work, and I will tell you, I have never seen better work done by man and axe.”
“And just how, bukko,” demanded Vitmar, “did you know it was the Dark One’s work?”
Brown John squinted up and muttered, “I… ah…1 see things. In entrails. Clouds. That sort of thing. He… he was one of the things I saw.”
Golfon grunted with foul disgust, lifted his spear.
“Wait!” Sharatz intoned in a devout register. The Kaven waited until every head turned toward him, then dismounted with regal solemnity. He leveled a long finger at Golfon and Vitmar, and said, “If you choose to soil your weapons by killing this trash, you will ride without my company.”
“You have a better idea?” grunted Golfon.
“Naturally,” Sharatz said with quiet disdain. He advanced to Brown John, smiled down at him so pompously he was in danger of falling over backward. Then, ceremoniously, he unbuckled his leather codpiece and urinated on Brown John’s hip.
The Grillards gasped. Vitmar, Golfon and the men-at-arms grinned, then laughed out loud. Here and there suppressed titters erupted from the crowd.
Sharatz buckled up, then said to Brown John, “We do not need your help, clown. We have the Dark One’s wolf.” He indicated the caged wolf on the back of the pack horse. “With the beast’s quite involuntary cooperation I can guarantee you that your benefactor, Gath of Baal, will be dead before sundown. That, of course, means your totems will then be totally useless.”
The Grillards, shocked, made signs on their bodies while the customers looked at the totems they had purchased with distrust.
The three chiefs chuckled, remounted and rode out the southern end of Rag Camp in a whirl of stifling dust. They were headed in the direction of The Shades.
Brown John, the red flush on his cheeks spreading as low as the backs of his hands, rose onto all fours. He stared after the departing Barbarian chiefs, muttering, “Idiots!”
Bone and Dirken jumped up and, with the aid of some Grillards, helped their father up. Over the babble of the outraged, humiliated, sympathetic clan, Dirken spoke to Brown John. “You know what they’re going to do! They’ll make his wolf howl like the lord god of Pain himself. And when it does, Gath will come fast. He’ll be wearing their spears before he even sees them.”
Brown John, still staring at the departing riders, said flatly, “It’s not his wolf.”
The Grillards grinned with relief.
Brown John turned to them. He wasn’t smiling. “But it will make no difference. He’ll go to it anyway.” He turned to Dirken and Bone. “But this will all take time, perhaps time enough to warn him. Get the horses. Quickly!” The reckless twinkle was suddenly back in the old man’s eyes.
As the two bastards hurried off, the Grillards crowded around their bukko and gaped at him with astonished eyes.
Brown John was standing in the sunshine. The dark wet spot at his hips steamed. He smelled of urine. And he was laughing.
Ten
Brown John, Bone and Dirken rode south through the spare trees and green glades of the Valley of Miracles. Two miles from Rag Camp they reached Summer Trail and headed west. It was a wide dusty avenue between the trees, filled with summer sun. An hour later they entered The Shades. Here the trail narrowed, and the soil became dark, moist. Shadows populated the dense foliage of the rain forest, and the undulating ground rose and fell as the trail twisted between massive firs, hemlock and spruce. The three men had not seen the six riders, nor any sign of them.
They plunged on, leaping over fallen trees, ignoring the pain as their suntanned faces whipped through overhanging ferns.
Summer Trail became muddy; small creeks cut across it, murky ponds hid it. It almost vanished altogether within clusters of elderberry before it widened again and rose toward Calling Rock, a massive stack of house-sized boulders which stood several hundred feet above the tops of the trees. Creepers and shrubs crowded the base of the rock at the eastern end. Gulleys and cracks cut up into the rock, twisted under overhanging rocks and over fallen boulders as they thrust towards the heights.
The three Grillards rode across the wide clearing of bald earth at the southern side of the rock, then left the trail moving north along the western side. They turned up a wide, open gulley which rose almost two-thirds of the way to the top of the rocks. They whipped their horses up into the gulley until their mounts bogged down in loose earth, then dismounted and scrambled forward on foot. They cut their way through rope-thick cobwebs, reached a turn in the gulley and bulled up it through a tangle of fallen boulders five times their size.
Reaching the heights of the rock they stood gasping for a moment. There, boulders, shrubs, and trees surrounded an open flat shelf of rock. At its far edge stood a naked, black thorn tree. Its branches, burnt to sharp points, thrust like giant spears at the belly of the pink-gold sky. The three men hurried across the clearing to the base of the tree. There was an oval opening in its charred shell.
Brown John muttered, “Hurry! Hurry!”
Bone poked around inside the tree with his club. Satisfied that no spider or snake lay in wait, he reached in and came away with a bullhorn as thick as his thigh. Hurriedly he dropped his club against the tree, took the horn in two hands and, taking a deep breath, blew. Two long, resonant, shrill blasts, one short. Bone waited as Dirken counted to one hundred, then repeated this short performance.
They sat down to wait.
Time passed.
No sounds of breaking branches or rustling leaves. No flurry of birds to indicate someone approaching silently, and no sounds of the six riders in the distance. Only the quiet steady drip of dew and the wind singing through the trees.
More time passed, then a sudden terror-fed howl of pain pierced the peaceful murmur of the rain forest, then again and again.
Brown John, Bone and Dirken jumped to their feet, raging.
The howl came once more, terrible and prolonged. From the south.
Brown John led the way back across the clearing. Reaching their horses, they mounted on the run and bolted down the gulley kicking up dust and rubble. They headed south, following no trail. They plunged through openings in the forest, rode down ferns and shrubs, twisted through thick fallen trees, jumped others. The distant sounds of battle, cursing men, the clang of metal, spurred their reckless charge.
Their mounts faltered, but they drove them on through thornbushes and across vaporous ponds tangled with creepers and possibly quicksand. Then the clamor stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Brown John reined up hard. His sons found their way through the thick undergrowth to his side and consulted him silently.
“Wait here.” It was a whispered command.
Brown John prodded his horse forward, cautiously picking his way through the rain forest.
Eleven
FOURTEEN PIECES
Reaching a sun-drenched clearing, Brown John rose in his stirrups, astounded.
Gath stood at the center, his axe in one hand, the door of Sharatz’s cage in the other. The cage rested on the ground in front of him. Inside it the wounded she-wolf trembled and bled. Her left foreleg was broken. There were cuts about her eyes, hide hanging in strips from her throat, and mangled bloody clumps of fur on her rump.
Suddenly the she-wolf leapt out of the cage, stumbled, rolled fitfully and struggled upright on three legs. She circled wildly, spinning with her wounds bubbling red. Abandoned to her agony, she lurched in one direction, then in a second. Fear still hard in her, she picked a third direction and dashed on three legs past Sharn into the surrounding dense shadows.
Sharn, sitting on his haunches, watched the she-wolf without moving, then looked back at the new intruder. Head erect. Steam furling from his mouth. A thin strip of pale violet cloth which had obviously belonged to Sharatz’s violet cape hung from a fang.
Brown John sighed in relief, dismounted and started towards Gath. The whites of his eyes bulged under brows climbing for the top of his head.
“Holy Zard!” he gasped. This was appropriate as it was in reference to the God of Blood.
What had been six hard, angry riders that morning now lay about in the shade at the edges of the clearing in peaceful silence. The scatter of gore and limbs was so spectacular Brown John could not refrain from measuring it. He estimated ten pieces.
Golfon accounted for five. The severed stump of his right hand still clutched his spear, which was stuck at an angle in the acid green grass. Beyond that lay his body. It had wandered into a tangle of exposed hemlock roots and tripped on one. He had lost his way because his head was fourteen feet further off. He had bitten off his tongue, which lolled on the ground beside one of his teeth.
Vitmar had lost only an ear and thumb. He was facedown in the grass, limbs spread wide, still brown and warm in the sunshine. The three men-at-arms had died intact, except for one who had lost a chunk of shoulder.
Brown John wagged his silver head, toddled over on shaky bowlegs to a rock rising out of matted green grass, sat down and counted again. The total this time was twelve.
Sharn rose, held the strip of cloth stuck on his fang to the ground with a paw, then pulled his head back, ripped it loose.
Brown John’s eyes were puzzled. Where was the owner of the violet cloth? He stood, edged towards Gath to ask, and a drop of hot blood splattered on the back of his hand.
“Holy Zard!” he gasped again, and looked up.
Sharatz was stuck among the high branches of a fir tree. Both pieces of him. They were approximately of the same size and weight. That made fourteen pieces.
Brown John stumbled out from under the dripping corpse, looked at Gath.
The sharp frenzy of battle was still as fresh as budding thorns in his young eyes. He spit his words, “You sent them.”
Brown John started to deny it passionately, but stopped himself, and instead spoke in a slow, thoughtful tone. “No, I did not send them. But in a way I am responsible. My sons and I took the bodies of the Kitzakks you killed and had them butchered into totems. These chiefs,” he indicated the dismembered bodies, “in their fear and cowardice, had hoped to appease the Kitzakks by returning the bodies for proper burial. As they were not able to do this with the parts now spread throughout the forest, they rode into Rag Camp and demanded that I tell them where you live. They foolishly hoped to negotiate with the Kitzakks by offering them your head. I, of course, did not help them. I have not the faintest idea of where you live. Nor do I wish to find out. And, believe me, if I had known, I would not have been so shortsighted as to tell them and earn your anger.”
Gath waited, then deliberately tossed the cage door aside. It landed with a brittle crack, and Brown John jerked nervously. Some play appeared behind Gath’s shadowed eyes. He moved to Brown John, lifted the bloody blade of his axe, wiped it on the tunic covering the old man’s trembling belly. As he did, his low, coarse voice demanded, “What else?”
Brown John answered anxiously. “I, a
nd my sons as well, tried to stop them and they beat us brutally.” He indicated his wounds.
Gath ignored them and moved to Vitmar, squatted over him with his back to Brown John. As he unbuckled the dead man’s dagger belt, he asked indifferently, “And?”
Brown John shuffled uneasily. “Only this. I regret that they found you before I could warn you. You did hear the horn?”
Gath slung Vitmar’s belt over his shoulder and stood, turning slowly to Brown John. The axe rode his fist as easily as the eagle rides the sky. The veins on his chest and arms stood out as if gorged with fluid stone. Dappled sunlight and shadows played about his face, adding mystery and a shimmering savage light to his brawny menace. His wide, flat lips, spread in a sardonic smile, allowed a low mocking laugh to escape. When he spoke all the play in his eyes and voice was gone.
“You are right. You are responsible. Your minstrels sent them.”
Brown John flushed. “Yes,” he said weakly. “That is a fair conclusion, but I assure you, that even without our vulgar songs and antics, the tale of your heroics would have soon spread throughout the forest.”
“No, you bandy-legged bukko!” His tone was a threatening whisper. “You took a great risk making me the clown of your stories. If I were not so fond of your wine, my axe would have talked to you about it long ago. Now your foolishness brings these arrogant chiefs who want my head and hurt my friends… while you sell what you call my magic to weak and gullible fools.”
“I assure you,” Brown John pleaded, “there is no mockery in our tales, nor the least desire to cause you displeasure or discomfort. Only praise. Glory. I…”
“Do not flatter me, bukko,” Gath interrupted with an ugly whisper.
“Forgive me.” Brown John dipped his head in a slight bow. “I am accustomed to dealing with dancing girls and jugglers who require an excess of praise and protection from hard truths. From now on I will attempt to keep my language simpler and to the point.”