by James Silke
His sons shifted uneasily, then Dirken said, “Nobody knows where he is.”
“Or the Lakehair girl either,” said Bone. “She went after him. In a wagon. He was bleeding bad.”
Brown John’s mouth sagged grimly. “He’s dying?”
“Or dead,” Dirken said. “I say sell off the armor and weapons, then pack up the village and go.”
The old man considered this, looking at the ground, then replied with surprising assurance, “No. Not until we know.”
“Know what?”
“If Gath of Baal is alive. It is a frail hope, but Robin Lakehair has the gift of healing. And perhaps, if she finds him…” He raised his eyebrows in expectation, then turned away. More for his own ears than theirs, and with a ring of amused fatalism, he added, “It always comes to this and no doubt always will. Our hopes, our joys and our dreams, everything that a man holds as necessary and pleasurable in his life, eventually depends on a woman.”
He shook his ragged head, sat down on a stump and laughed outrageously. His sons watched him stupefied. Finally, he addressed them mockingly. “It appears that the fortunes of we three brave and cunning heroes, and the future of our tribe lies in the small hands of a mere girl.”
“You picked her!” They both shouted the accusation.
“Indeed I did,” said Brown John, then he said it again.
Twenty-three
DEAD MAN’S EYES
Caution moved behind the wolf’s yellow eyes, as Sharn forced himself to edge out of the dense shade and stand in a spear of sunlight like a target.
Robin’s face lit hopefully. She reined up and jumped off her wagon onto the narrow, unnamed trail. The horse snorted and pawed the needled ground cover nervously. They were deep in The Shades, surrounded by a jumble of birdcalls, clacking and purring, and the trickle and dripping of water over rocks and moss. Green tangled growth and shadows were everywhere. It was cool and moist. Visibility was diminishing quickly as the late daylight faded. Robin looped the reins around the seat of the driver’s box and glanced around.
Every shadow seemed designed as a hiding place. Every sound was a mystery. She had no time to care. She raced back to the spot where she had seen the wolf.
Sharn was still there. He stood in a shallow mossy glen surrounded by walls of fern. He backed away and pushed through the ferns, stopping once to look back at her.
Robin followed him through the tangled growth and across the glen.
They emerged from the ferns to face a shoulder-high ridge of ground. A gnarled oak grew out of the ridge, casting black shadows on the thick moss covering it. A big-boned, limp hand stuck up out of the deep moss. Thick spider trails of blood ran down the back of the hand, across the little finger and dripped off a torn nail.
Robin climbed hurriedly up onto the mossy ridge, then stopped short. Gath lay on his back, half buried in muddy, torn-up moss. His mud-streaked face was the color of a peeled potato. She kneeled and pressed an ear to his matted chest. His heartbeat was faint, but he was alive. She removed the muddy moss. The deep gouges in his ear, jaw and neck had clotted. His chest and legs were bruised and cut, and there was a deep wound in his side. It bled slowly but steadily.
She removed her waterskin, uncorked it and rubbed some water on his lips. He opened his mouth slightly, enough for her to squeeze a few drops inside. Sharn licked his bleeding knuckles. She gently took the hand away from the wolf’s tongue whispering, “Just let me have it for a moment, then you can have it back. We have to be a team now.”
Robin, holding Gath’s right wrist with both hands, sat down and placed her feet against his left side. She pulled until her body weight almost levered him onto his left side, then he began to sink back. She struggled, pulled with her arms and pushed with her legs. Blood pumped from his gouged knuckles, flowing into her grip, and the wolf growled. She did not look at the blood or the wolf. She grunted and strained, levering him over until he finally dropped facedown on the moss at the edge of the ridge.
The impact drew a groan from him, and he tried to rise. But the effort made the dark fluid pump fast out of the deep hole under his armpit, and he collapsed again.
Robin mumbled urgently, “We have to work fast. He’s losing too much blood.”
Sharn gave her no argument.
By tearing away ferns and plants, Robin made a path back to her wagon which was wide enough for the wagon to pass through. She untied the reins, then led the horse down the path. The wagon crushed down shrubs and bounced over boulders, then pulled alongside the ridge. The flatbed was about two feet below Gath’s body.
Flushed from the effort, Robin climbed onto the rise, sat down beside Gath and placed her feet against his right side with her knees drawn up. She gathered a deep breath, then pushed with all her strength. He did not budge. She crawled over him and carved away the earth under his body with her knife and fingers until he sagged slightly. Then she climbed back to his other side and tried again. She was gasping and sweat soaked. Suddenly he rolled away and crashed on his back with a heavy thud, to lie still on the wagon bed. His eyes were open. All they showed was disinterest, like a dead man’s eyes.
Robin whimpered fearfully, got on her hands and knees and looked down at him. She could smell-but only vaguely see-the fresh blood welling from his wounds. Night was taking command of The Shades.
Robin quickly gathered a pile of leaves and sticks, and piled them on a ridge beside the wagon. From one of her leather pouches she removed a warm folded lump of moss, unfolded it, and, taking brass tongs from her satchel, removed a glowing coal and placed it on the kindling. She blew on the pile until it broke into flame, then returned the coal to its pouch. From green palm leaves and pitch, she made a torch, lit it and set it in an embrasure on the wagon so that it cast light over the wagon bed. By this time the fire was blazing. She placed her dagger in its flames.
When the blade was red-hot, she pushed Gath’s arm across his chest and without a blink placed the flat of the knife against the hole under his armpit. It sizzled, and he cried out hoarsely, then collapsed. She reheated the knife then pressed it against the wound in his side. Smoke incensed with burning flesh swirled into her face. She turned her head away, but not her eyes. With those two wounds closed, she went to work on the one in his thigh. It persisted in bleeding after her first attempt, so she sealed it twice.
When she finished, night had defeated day. The world around her was black, and she felt suddenly cold and sticky.
Sharn growled, a low, almost inaudible, warning.
“I know,” she answered. “We don’t dare stay here.”
Robin climbed up into the driver’s box and started to flick the reins, but shuddered instead as a searing bolt of fear shot through her stomach. She looked around frantically. There was no sign of the trail, no indication of which way she came. Then she saw the wolf waiting up ahead and gasped with relief. Fear subsided, and she called to him, “I’m lost. It’s up to you now.”
Sharn trotted slowly forward, moving west, deeper into The Shades.
Robin twitched the reins, and the horse obeyed. Blindly they moved into dense shadows. After forty paces the horse balked. Robin tied off the reins and jumped down from the driver’s box. Plucking the torch from its embrasure she hurried to the horse. Moving her hands gently over his eyes and around his muzzle, murmuring steadily, she led the animal forward casting the torchlight on the trail ahead.
It flickered on Sharn’s yellow eyes, then the eyes vanished and were replaced by a brush of tail.
As Robin followed the wolf, she glanced into the shadows. She could not see them, but knew the night creatures were there, watching silently. The great horned owl, the jackal, and the bat-winged moth. She wondered if they had seen such a sight before, and if they would remember and someday tell of it. Of the night when wild wolf led tame girl.
Twenty-four
ALDER, HOPS, IRIS
Sharn hesitated short of the open track. Robin’s torch was only a flicker now, but the m
oon was high in the sky. Its pale light filled the clearing between walls of lofty trees.
Robin stared awestruck at the cathedral-like corridor. The clear track stretched as far as she could see, with cool, blue moonlight gracing the smooth floor. It was as if large gods had marched this way in single file.
At the opposite side of the clearing, the giant roots of spruce and hemlock trees clustered, making shadowed passageways between their massive, gnarled bodies. Entrances to the underworld.
Robin trembled, took a deep breath, and followed the wolf across the track leading the horse and wagon. Sharn hesitated and eyed her over a bristling grey shoulder, then dipped between two thick roots and vanished. Robin stopped short in dismay, but promptly scolded herself and led her little caravan into the shadowy passageway.
Pulling the skittish horse and following the occasional padding sounds of the wolfs paws, Robin moved through a corridor of roots. Soon the air lost its wet grassy odor, and they moved into a large, dry dirt tunnel. It twisted through thick, buried roots to a crossroads joining three narrower, shallower tunnels. The wolf had vanished.
Robin dropped the reins and entered the largest tunnel. It ended a short way off in an underground room which could be closed by a low door made of logs. The back of the door had thick iron rings to hold a locking beam. There was hay scattered about the floor of the room, a water trough to one side, and rings buried in the dirt floor to which animals, or perhaps people, could be chained.
Robin hurried back to the crossroads. The wolf had not returned. She groaned and looked about frantically. A grating sound came from within the underground room. She pushed herself back against the dirt wall, held still. It came again. She shivered, edged sideways along the wall and peered into the room.
A semicircular outline of dim orange light emanated from a corner of the roof. It widened, throwing a faint glow on a ladder leaning against the dirt wall below. A trapdoor. It slid away from the hole, and a shaft of glowing firelight melted down into the darkness. Out of it appeared Sharn’s head.
Robin smiled with relief and dragged the horse and wagon into the room, closed and bolted its door. She looked up at the trapdoor. The opening was not big enough for Gath even if she could have carried him. She turned to Gath, touched his forehead and frowned. He was burning hot. She replaced her torch and hurried to the ladder, but hesitated. Sharn’s whiskered face was a threatening black silhouette against the orange glow. He backed out of sight, and Robin climbed the ladder.
She emerged in a narrow tunnel of tangled roots, and followed the wolf through a maze of tunnels to the entrance foyer of a root house, then down a staircase lit by a faint orange glow. At the bottom of the steps the wolf waited in the hot glow of a dying fire. Reaching the animal, she smiled in wonder, like a child.
Embers in a large fireplace of living roots illuminated a large room. It held meager furnishings, broken wine jars on the floor, and weapons and armor mounted on the root walls and heaped beside an anvil.
She moved about touching things thoughtfully. If this was Gath’s home, then how strange that the fire had not died. Did someone else live here? There were no answers in the room.
She stirred the embers in the fireplace, added logs, and light quickly filled the room. A dragging sound came from the staircase, and Robin looked up, gasped.
Gath was standing in the hollow of the staircase, filling it with his dark sweating bulk. His eyes were tight and hot. He smelt of dirt and blood and pride, reeked of it. Suddenly he sagged against the wall of the staircase, bleeding again from thigh and shoulder, and glared at Robin and Sharn. His voice was a dead echo.
“Fools.”
Robin smiled bravely and said, “You are probably right. But that should not make you angry. You would be dead now if it wasn’t for us.”
Gath watched her with the corners of his eyes, as if remembering vaguely what had happened, but it did not change his tone. “You are still a fool,” he growled. “Sharn may have led you here, but he will never let you leave.” He slipped lower and muttered darkly, “And neither will I.”
He pushed himself away from the wall and stood with legs spread in the middle of the staircase blocking it. He looked impressive, but starting down the stairs was a bad decision. His first step dropped him to his knees and he pitched forward, descended with all the control of a baby emptying its bowels. He finished facedown at Robin’s feet.
Undaunted, Robin fetched furs from the alcove and spread them in front of the fireplace. She helped Gath to his feet, guided him to the furs, and he sprawled there gasping.
Robin placed her knife in the fire, and removed her many vials from her satchel in preparation for a long night’s work. After cleaning and closing his wounds again, she made him chew on the inner bark of a birch tree, then cooked him a broth using meat and vegetables from his larder.
Gath, between short, fitful periods of sleep, spent the night glaring at her, eating, and passing out.
Sharn’s night was spent on the fourth step of the stairwell where he sat like a sentry. He ignored Robin’s attempts at friendship, but did not decline the food she served him.
When morning came, Gath was sleeping soundly. Robin had the room clean and orderly, and was heating water in a brass pot over the fire. As the water simmered, she found a partially concealed alcove, stripped and sponged herself off with a pan of water, then got dressed again, tied back her hair and rouged her lips. She added some herbs and a pale violet powder to the simmering pot, approached the wolf, and spoke in an uncompromising tone.
“I am going out. I need alder and iris roots to clean his wounds. I need clover to keep his spirit strong, roses to clean his blood, and more birch bark to ease his pain. And I need hops to make his sleep peaceful. I will come back, but if you do not believe that, come with me. Now please get out of my way.”
The wolf snarled at her in the manner belligerent men reserve for bossy women. When she started to mount the stairs, he made an extremely unpleasant expression, but got out of her way.
Robin unlocked the front door and went out into the dawn light. Her tenseness melted as the green glory of the primeval forest greeted her. She breathed deeply of its clean, sweet air, then descended a path through the roots and began her search with renewed strength.
She did not have to look far. The forest was a storehouse of magical supplies. A short time later, when she reentered the dwelling, she not only carried the needed medicines in her many pouches, but a skirt full of berries, mushrooms and vegetables. Her expression was buoyant.
She spent the day in much the same way she had spent the night. She redressed Gath’s wounds, fed him, and exchanged smiles for frowns and twinkling eyes for hard glares. When he slept, she slept in a blanket near him. Once she woke up to find him watching her intently, as if she were about to perform some magical feat, and she sat up to ask what he saw. But he looked away, and she withheld the question.
When the forest again surrendered to the night, she prepared a vegetable stew. She filled a bowl, laced it generously with hops, then sat down to feed it to him. Waving her aside, he sat up and fed himself. She fetched herself a bowl, one without hops, then sat down facing him and showed him that she could also feed herself, and far more efficiently, as he dropped generous portions on chest and floor.
Finished, he tossed his bowl among the broken crockery with an air of independence and deliberation. He told her again that she was a fool, and his prisoner as well, then lay back down with an expression of satisfaction that was not the least satisfied.
She smiled at him playfully and replied quietly, “We will see.”
Robin finished her stew, cleaned their bowls, then wrapped herself in her furs. In moments both were sound asleep.
When the fire died down to an orange glow, Sharn also slept.
It was not until well into the darkest part of the night that the animal heard the warning sound of the yellow stone dropping to the floor. His mane bristled. His nostrils dilated. Abruptly, he sto
od and stared narrow eyed and growling up into the darkness of the staircase. Suddenly his tail dropped between his hind legs and his murderous growl faded to a whimper. He backed numbly down the stairs and into an alcove. His head wagged, and his gut sagged so low it spread out on the floor bringing the rest of him with it. His red tongue lolled out, then his body and head fell over, and he slept.
A moment later, Cobra emerged from the darkness of the stairwell, and her beautiful hypnotic eyes appraised the sleeping wolf. They glittered briefly with amusement, and she stepped out of the shadows, descended. The glow of the firelight played among the deep folds of her emerald robe, touched her metallic skullcap with flashes of red and silver.
Her gold eyes shifted under thin arched eyebrows, and came to rest on the sleeping figures in front of the fire. Kneeling between the Barbarian and Robin, she delicately lifted the furs away from Gath’s body and studied his bandaged wounds. She softly placed her palm across his forehead, held it there, and the corners of her plush red lips made sharp creases in creamy cheeks.
Robin’s eyes suddenly opened, and she sat up. She lunged for her knife, resting on the floor beside her, but Cobra snapped it up. Robin drew back in a crouch, breathing hard, and demanded, “Who are you?”
Cobra answered with her eyes, and their intensity forced Robin back against the hearth. As she stared at the glowing almond eyes, her own eyes took on the expression of clouded glass. She was unable to move.
The Queen of Serpents said almost tenderly, “Do not be afraid. I have no desire to harm him, or you.”
Cobra stood and crossed to the stairwell, then looked back with curiosity. Resentment touched her eyes, then a hand played at her queenly throat, rode down over the thrusting pressure of a full breast, and across her stomach to her hip. Her hot scarlet lips brightened against her cool skin. A dazzling, fleshy temple as proud and sensual as her voice. “He was not made for a mortal like you, child. Only I can give him what he needs.”