Rise of the Death Dealer

by James Silke

  “How?”

  “I lied to you. I didn’t tell you everything the soldier told me.” She took a breath. “The Master of Darkness, before destroying his altar, commanded my servants to go to the Great Forest Basin and hunt her down… kill her.” Another breath. “Some of those who survived hunt her now, and they are three, four days’ ride ahead of you.”.

  A glow showed behind the helmet’s eye slits, and its horns pulsed with life, growing hot. He stepped away from her.

  She gathered slowly, feeling faint and weak, then rose, bringing his chain mail with her. Offering it to him, she said, “Apparently he thought it would be the surest way of destroying you.” Taking the chain mail, Gath began to dress, and she added, “There’s no time to lose. The helmet is like a screaming infant. The longer you feed it, the more it will demand, and the stronger it will become.” He thrust his arms into the suit of mail and picked up his sword belt, began to buckle it hurriedly. She watched him a moment, then said, “Take me with you.”

  Continuing to dress, he said, “The helmet’s hungers have entered my blood and bones and are drawing me to a new place… a land, or a country… it’s not clear.” His eyes met hers. “Do you know where it is?”

  “No,” she said openly, “but I can help you find it, if anyone can.”

  In reply, he pulled on a boot.

  “Damn you,” she snarled, “you can’t leave me here!”

  He put on the second boot.

  “You fool,” she growled. “You’re still a clumsy forest lout, aren’t you? Still too proud to breathe air from the sky because it doesn’t come from your own magnificent self.” Her eyes turned molten, and she shrieked recklessly, “You won’t survive without help, can’t you understand that? Nobody can. And I have the cunning that can hide your precious virgin. I can keep her safe and teach her to use her powers instead of squandering them! In time, I could even show her how to tame the helmet enough for you to remove it by yourself.”

  He looked at her, and a smile leapt onto her cheeks, unsteady, immature, but honest. “Think of that, Gath. Then you wouldn’t need her… or me. You’d be free. That’s what you really want… isn’t it?”

  A short time later, as the stallion galloped through the dark night, Cobra sat behind Gath clinging to his metal-clad chest and smiling with satisfaction. She felt strangely like a young girl again, one moment sublimely content, the next desperate and confused. Realizing this, she resolved not to let her feelings show, but to keep the cool composure which had come naturally to her when she was a queen. Consequently, she put her smile away and closed her eyes, resting her cheek against the Barbarian’s back. After a while she believed she could feel his heat through the metal, and the smile, without her noticing, returned.

  They were headed east, in the direction of the Valley of Miracles.

  Nine

  GUESSWORK

  Ghe two riders thundered through the morning sunlight at Pinwheel Crossing, veered onto Weaver Road and raced under the overhanging oaks and willows. Robes billowing, whips lashing and faces as sober as grave markers.

  They had been on a dead run since leaving Rag Camp in the Valley of Miracles. At dawn, a traveling tinker had wheeled excitedly into the village and awakened them, telling them that he had seen a wagonload of suspicious-looking foreign mercenaries riding through the night toward the village of Weaver. The pair now headed for that village, eager to investigate the strangers and possibly prevent another murder. In the last seven days there had been five.

  Each of the victims had been a young girl, well known for her beauty, who belonged to one of the Barbarian tribes occupying the western end of the Great Forest Basin. Each had disappeared, then been found deep in uninhabited parts of the forest with their bodies crushed and bitten by snakes and lizards. The behavior of the reptiles was easily explained. Weeks earlier there had been a series of volcanic explosions in the distant heart of the forbidden lands. Ever since, hordes of animals and creatures had been migrating into the basin in search of food. But the fact that reptiles did not selectively abduct pretty young girls added an unholy atmosphere to the growing mystery which, until this morning, had provided no clues or suspects.

  Old Brown John led the two riders.

  He was the bukko, the stagemaster and leader of the Grillards, a tribe of traveling performers whose home base was Rag Camp. In the spring he had convinced Gath of Baal to defend the Barbarian tribes, and together they had raised an army and defeated the marauding Kitzakk Horde. As a reward, the Council of Chiefs had confirmed upon him the kingship, at least in times of crisis, and now there was one.

  The king was short, wiry, bandy-legged, and did not look like a king. He wore a bone-brown cloak with dark brown patches, the mark of his clan, brown boots and a belted short sword without decoration. His white hair fluttered in silky ringlets around his large ears, and his tangled white eyebrows arched low over alert brown eyes. He was a genial man who much preferred ordering about large-hipped, big-breasted dancing girls to solving crimes, and he would have much rather been traveling with the Grillard wagons which were now on the road, providing music and laughter to the forest tribes. But he was also a man of responsibility with the gift of foresight. He could see things coming, and within the murders he could sense a great and terrible impending tragedy. Consequently, he urged his already lathered horse on and, the performer showing, did so with gusto, noise and excessive gestures.

  The second rider followed the bukko on a dappled grey stallion, sitting his saddle seemingly without effort, like the pea riding the pod. He was young, not more than twenty summers, and lean of body and face. A Kaven aristocrat, but without the pious rigidity and narrow-eyed greed common to that tribe of moneylenders. He was darkly handsome. Flowing chestnut hair, soft charcoal-grey eyes, prominent nose and sensitive lips. He wore soft leather jerkin, tights, boots and cloak, each item carrying its natural umber, sienna or ochre hue. A crossbow was slung across his back, and his belt carried pouches, two daggers and a quiver of steel bolts. The glint of their metal was slightly less deadly than the expression on his face. His name was Jakar, and his only living relative, his twin sister, had been the first to be murdered.

  The two riders flew past the stand of apple trees marking the halfway point to Weaver, turned off the road taking a shortcut and dashed right and left between the trees with twigs and leaves slashing chests and cheeks. Retaking the road, they galloped on. Within the hour they reached Weaver.

  The sun sat high in the morning sky, shining down on the hill that formed the village. Older women herded small groups of sheep in the clearing fronting the wooden palisade wall. Beyond it, thick steam billowed from huge wooden dye vats lined up on the rising tiers. There the Cytherian villagers moved about at their various tasks of weaving and dying. Above the vats, the steam gathered into a single spreading cloud, muting the deep earth-reds, rusts and siennas of the freshly dyed cloth hung out to dry on the heights. The stench of urine and lime was rich in the air.

  Brown John and Jakar slowed as they crossed the clearing, not wanting to alarm their suspects if they were still in the village, and moved to the Forest Gate. There they dismounted, and approached an old man sitting on the ground with his back against the palisade wall. He was whittling on a piece of wood. Marl, the gatekeeper.

  He looked up with a smile of recognition at the king and nodded, saying, “Welcome, bukko. What brings you to Weaver on this fine day?”

  “Nothing good, Marl,” Brown John said flatly, and squatted facing him. “I’m investigating these vile murders and heard that some suspicious-looking foreign mercenaries were headed this way. You see them?”

  “Haven’t been no soldiers here, not today, leastways. I been sittin’ right here the whole time, and bein’ as this is the only gate we leave open nowadays, I’d seen ’em sure.”

  Brown John frowned, glanced at Jakar, and the young nobleman said, “Perhaps they didn’t look like mercenaries?”

  Marl looked up, giving Jakar th
e same smile he gave the bukko. “Didn’t see no strangers at all, lad, except for one, and he couldn’t a been no soldier. Little bit of a man, and kind of emaciated.”

  “Is he here now?” asked the bukko.

  “Nope. Left a little while ago. Wanted to see that pretty gal you made into a dancin’ girl. Was real set on it, he was. So, since she doesn’t live here anymore, I sent him on his way.”

  “Robin Lakehair?” Jakar asked. His tone was low and cultured, and he spoke without haste. But there was a tense concern in it. During the war with the Kitzakks, Brown John had seen the young nobleman among those men who had appointed themselves as Robin’s bodyguards, and ever since Jakar had started helping him in the investigations, the bukko had observed him staring at Robin whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  Marl, sensing the young man’s interest in Robin, chuckled knowingly and said, “That’s the one, and I’d feel the same way about her, if I was as young as you. Prettiest little thing I ever saw, and always was, ever since she was a mite.”

  “What was his interest in Robin?” Brown John asked briskly.

  “Adores her, that’s what his interest is. Worships the ground she walks on. And he’s never laid eyes on her, or so he said. Came here all the way from Small Tree, just to thank her for her part in getting the Dark One to defend the forest, and save his tribe from the Kitzakk cages.”

  “A Kranik?”

  “Don’t think so. Every Kranik I ever saw was near naked, and this little fellah was fully clothed. Even wore a hood. He was dark-skinned like a Kranik, though. But slick and shiny, like he was wet or something. And he wasn’t loud like them savages. Hardly opened his mouth when he spoke, wouldn’t open his lips. I figured he had bad teeth. You could barely hear him.”

  The bukko and Jakar shared a thoughtful glance, and Brown John asked, “Where did you send him to find her? Rag Camp?”

  “Nope! Sent him to Clear Pond, where I saw her perform day before yesterday. Why? Isn’t she there now?”

  “She’s there,” Brown John said, as Jakar leapt back into his saddle. Turning to him, the bukko said, “Hold on a minute, son. It’s only a half hour ride. We’ll get there well before he does.” He turned back to Marl. “What else did this stranger say?”

  “Well, he did ask an awful lot of questions about Robin. I figured he was like some of the folks here in the village who think she’s possessed with some kind of unnatural magic or something. You know the ones I mean, those that made life so unpleasant for her here she had to leave.”

  “I know,” said the bukko, encouraging him to continue.

  “Anyway, he wanted to be absolutely sure he could identify her. I told him he wouldn’t have any trouble, that she’d be in the opening number of today’s performance, and would be the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on. That seemed to satisfy him.”

  Brown John nodded. “You’re sure he was alone?”

  “Was when he left here.”

  “Thank you, Marl,” the bukko said, rising.

  “You want to thank me, bukko, you just see that pretty little gal keeps on doin’ what she’s doing. She dances like the singing wind, she does.”

  They said goodbye, and Brown John mounted his mare, walked it over beside Jakar’s stallion.

  Jakar said, “Bad teeth?”

  “Or forked tongue,” Brown replied.

  They headed off at a gallop, taking the forest road heading north toward Clear Pond.

  As they rode, the older man glanced thoughtfully at Jakar. The young man’s eyes were desperate now, but under control. Haunted. Carrying a cargo of bitterness and pain far greater than that which wrinkles the faces of the old and wise.

  Brown John shouted over the din of horses’ hooves. “You’re right to be worried. Robin has enemies the likes of which you are too young to imagine… and they may have finally come for her.”

  “That doesn’t explain my sister.”

  The bukko agreed, and they rode on, the colors of Weaver growing faint behind them. Then Jakar pointed up ahead at a clump of crushed bushes at the side of the road. They reined up beside them and examined the ground. There were muddy tracks of a heavy wagon and a group of riders coming out of the forest and heading up the road.

  “They’re fresh,” said Jakar. “The mud’s still wet.”

  The bukko, suddenly white of face and gasping, nodded. “Apparently this strange little man isn’t alone.”

  “I count at least twenty. That’s a lot of men for one girl.”

  “Not if she’s important to them.” Brown John spurred forward shouting, “Follow me! I know a shortcut!”

  They plunged up the side of the mountains, crashing through shrubs and ducking the limbs of pines and oaks. Reaching a grassy meadow nestled among the tall trees, they galloped across and rejoined the road, heading for a distant tree-covered ridge rising in front of a sheer wall of jagged rock.

  There were scattered travelers on the road, local tribesmen heading for the performance at Clear Pond. But no sign of the suspects.

  Ten

  A BIT OF FLUFF

  Reaching the vicinity of Clear Pond, the two riders left the road again and galloped up through thick pines to the crest of a mountain spur. It was thick with trees and strewn with boulders and thin streams of water draining off the mountain. They could hear sounds coming from the base of the spur, the steady movement of the river and the garbled voices of those gathering for the performance.

  They had not seen a wagon or riders on their ride, and now, as they searched through the shadowed trees, they found no fresh wagon tracks or ground cover crushed by horses’ hooves.

  Moving covertly, they walked their horses down between massive boulders and trees into a natural enclosure formed by towering rocks. Leaving their horses there, they continued covertly down a gully. The sounds of the river and the chatter of the gathering crowd grew louder, then the jangle of tambourine, the vibrating notes of harps and the wail of flutes being tuned.

  Jakar and the bukko shared a worried glance. The performance was about to begin.

  Reaching exposed ground, they dropped on all fours and scrambled forward to a cluster of large boulders set in a bed of brown needles. They climbed the largest boulder and inched forward, looking over it.

  Twenty feet beyond the rock, the Grillard wagons were parked among a thin spread of pines and oaks. Just beyond them the spur thrust bluntly out into the river forcing it to make a sharp turn, and forming the pond. The entertainers were moving animatedly among the trees on the crest of the spur, taking their positions. They moved with their normal excitement, indicating there had been no trouble and that they expected none.

  Brown John and Jakar relaxed slightly, relieved, and the young nobleman could not repress a grin.

  The wagons were all painted and decorated with florid pinks, yellows, purples and greens, and the Grillards themselves were adorned in an even more vivid fashion, in lemon-yellow feathers, rouged breasts, formidable codpieces and all manner of baubles, bangles and bells. The cumulative impression was that of an unreal world where color and laughter were the staples, instead of steady work and regular meals.

  Brown John whispered, “We’re in time.”

  Jakar nodded and started to edge back off the rock. “I’ll go warn her.”

  “No! You stay here and keep out of sight. I want her safely hidden until I know who and what we’re up against. And I know how to handle her. You don’t.”

  The sounds of beating drums and tambourines rang through the trees in a musical fanfare, and the unseen audience on the opposite side of the river cheered excitedly, howling and whistling.

  “It’s starting,” blurted Brown John, and slid back down the rock, scraping his hands and chest.

  Jakar’s grin was gone now. “Hurry, old man,” he whispered. “Hurry!”

  The bukko, holding his tunic above his knobby knees, ran and leapt through trees and rocks like a jackrabbit in heat, vanished behind shrubbery, then reappea
red at the back of a large yellow house wagon. Gasping and puffing, he rose stiffly and walked carefully toward the wagon’s door. He reached it without being seen, opened it and hurriedly climbed in, closing it behind him.

  Jakar waited, taut and frowning with concern, then looked about sharply as drums boomed somewhere.

  Above the tree canopy, showers of arrows soared into the sky directly above Clear Pond. Streamers trailed behind them forming a rainbow of greens that arched against the sky-blue void, then started down. Before they vanished beyond the trees, their arrowheads were whistling as air passed through them. The crowd cheered. The drums boomed. Tambourines, flutes and harps began a rousing song, and everyone, Grillards and audience, began to sing the bawdy lyrics of “The Women of Boo Bah Ben.”

  Jakar chuckled with youthful mockery and watched as five nubile girls burst out of an orange wagon and scattered through the trees toward a position upriver. They carried small wooden rafts with rope handles and wore just about enough scalelike jewels to clothe their natural jewels, not counting their backsides, which were marvelously naked. Their hair had been dyed a luxurious red-gold, in exact imitation of Robin Lakehair’s.

  Jakar rose slightly, making sure Robin was not among them, and the girls disappeared over the rim of rock. Lying down again, he looked back at the yellow wagon and held still.

  Brown John, using the noise and commotion to cover his movements, had exited the wagon and was now racing through the trees toward Jakar. In his arms, wrapped in a blanket, was a small struggling body with tiny feet which kicked furiously.

  Jakar climbed off the rock, and the old man raced past him without speaking, heading for the horses. Jakar peered between the rocks to see if he was being followed, saw no one and moved after him.

  Just short of the horses, Brown John veered north toward the base of the sheer wall of jagged rock which showed slightly between the tall pines.