Rise of the Death Dealer

by James Silke

  “You will!” his father cut him off. “And you’ll use your heart and brains as well as that lizard hiding in your codpiece.” He looked at Dirken. “You both know the code… we can’t let this tragedy stop the wagons.”

  Dirken nodded. “What are you going to do?”

  “What I have to,” Brown John said. “The Council of Chiefs will no doubt want me to find Gath and have him deal with these brutes… and that may take some doing. I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

  Bone and Dirken both stood, and Dirken, dark of face and mind, asked, “Did you hear about Robin?”

  “She’s disappeared!” Bone said it.

  Brown John, without expression or emotion, said, “Don’t worry about Robin. Just get our wagons as far away from here as fast as you can… in case they realize they don’t have her, and come back.”

  They nodded, and the bukko hugged his sons, waved goodbye to the others, then mounted a horse that had been saddled for him. The saddlebags bulged with provisions, a wine jar, cheese, bread and meats wrapped in cloth. He headed up the spur, again waving goodbye, and the Grillards did the same, then began to climb on their wagons.

  When he was out of sight, he looked around carefully to see if anyone was watching him, then moved into the concealing shadows of overhanging pines. He waited there, listening until he heard the sounds of the rolling wagons fade away. Then he rode back to where his mare and Jakar’s stallion were hidden. Taking the two horses by their reins, he led them through the trees heading toward the sheer cliff of jagged rock. Reaching a thicket where the sound of waterfalls was loud, he dismounted and tied the horses to a tree, draped the saddlebags over a shoulder and hurried forward on foot.

  Thirteen

  TROUBLE

  Panting and stumbling, the bukko came around an elderberry bush growing out of the creek bank and stopped, looking up.

  In front of him, massive granite boulders, stacked upon and leaning against each other, rose up through a gorge to the distant heights of the sheer wall of jagged rock. Spilling waterfalls draped over and fell between the boulders. Some were mere trickles, others tumbled through gullies, churning themselves to white water, or spread out over flat rimrock and fell like living curtains, while the largest plunged in heavy torrents for hundreds of feet to crash into pools raising clouds of wet mist. There they again found passages through cracks and guts to form eddies that gathered and spilled again, down and down, until they destroyed their wet bodies on the boulders of the creek bed and tamely flowed toward the river far below.

  To the southeast, the mountain was exposed rock. To the northwest, pines covered it almost to the crest. Here and there shafts of afternoon sunlight speared horizontally through gaps in the trees, and touched a pool or gush of white water to make them shimmer in the deep shade, like gorgets of wet light.

  The water’s roar obliterated all other sound.

  The bukko wiped beads of spray away from his eyes and stared, the pain and tragedy and guilt slowly draining from him as nature’s vital beauty flooded him with awe and wonder. He looked from side to side, searching the blurring mists. Seeing no sign of Robin or Jakar, and no cracked twig, crushed bush or muddy track that revealed they had passed this way, his brown eyes thinned with worry, and he started up the face of the falls.

  A half hour later, soaking wet and exhausted, he was halfway up the steep gorge, standing uncertainly on top of a slippery round boulder. A torrent of water, as wide as a small house, fell beside him, and a flat-faced boulder, half again his height, blocked his passage. Groaning unheard in the wet din, he squeezed a booted foot in a narrow crack on the face of the bothersome rock. He set himself, then jumped up and stood in the crack, grabbing for the top of the boulder, and took hold of it. He hung on for a moment, gathering breath, then hauled himself up onto the rock. There he crouched proudly on his knees and elbows with his wet cheek against the cold rock, then rolled onto his side, and saw his naked foot, groaned again.

  He got back onto his hands and knees and looked forlornly down at his boot stuck in the crack. It was out of reach. He removed his other boot, set it aside, stood, and examined the area. There still was no sign of Robin or Jakar.

  He continued up the falls barefoot.

  Reaching a large pool, he moved behind the wide waterfall to the narrow ledge protruding from the rock behind it. There he waited, peering through the waterfall to see if he was followed. But only nature’s wonders shared his trail. With his face to the rock, he moved sideways along the ledge until he was a foot from the vertical corner of the flat-faced boulder. There the ledge narrowed sharply and ended. Directly in front of him, mist billowed from behind the corner of the boulder, caused by another waterfall dropping through a stone chasm. Gingerly, he looked down over a shoulder.

  One step forward or to the side would undoubtedly provide a spectacular bit of drama he could never duplicate on a stage, and deposit him back where he had started, at the bottom of the falls, in more than several pieces.

  Trembling, Brown John pressed his cheek against the slick rock. When the shudder passed, he cocked his knees for balance, spread his arms wide and flat against the rock and leaned toward the sharp corner with his free hand groping blindly around it. His fingers came to rest on a rough iron bar and gripped it tightly. He sighed with relief and suddenly lost his balance, falling forward.

  With one hand gripping the iron bar and the other flailing wildly, his body rolled around the corner, and his feet came to rest on a substantial ledge on the opposite side.

  A smile swept into his pink cheeks as exhilaration rushed through him, then it made him feel sick to his stomach, and his vision blurred. He sank down onto all fours, pressing back against the rock. When his vision cleared, he crawled along the ledge, then stood and passed under the waterfall, and wound through a jagged gut into a dry stone chasm rising to the top of the cliffs. Flat-faced boulders, cut by deep cracks, formed an irregular stone floor and three walls. In a corner was a small cave. Robin Lakehair sat in it, holding Jakar’s cloak around her body and smiling with relief.

  “Oh, Brown, it’s you!” she sighed, and jumped up, ran to the bukko, embracing him. “Thank goodness! I was so frightened.” She leaned back looking into his smiling eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes,” he murmured tiredly, “much better… now that I see you’re safe.”

  He held her soft brown shoulders in trembling hands and studied her, trying to convince himself she was real; her small perfect fist clenching the cloak together between her breasts, the green and gold jewels glittering on a nut-brown shoulder, the smile blossoming around small straight nose and narrow full lips.

  “You have no idea, child,” he said weakly, “what a blessing it is for a man like myself, particularly on a mean day like this, to simply look at you.”

  She flushed with embarrassment and scolded him with her big warm eyes. “Oh, Brown, you flatter me too much. It’s not right.”

  “It’s not flattery today,” he said behind a profound scowl. “It is a holy conviction bound to my flesh with the blood of those I dearly love.”

  She frowned with confusion, suddenly frightened by his tone. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “Are you quoting another play?”

  He hesitated, looked up to see Jakar standing guard with his loaded crossbow on a shelf of rock fifteen feet above, then looked back at Robin. When he spoke, it was a whisper. “They’re dead, Robin… all your friends… Zail, Belle, all of them.”

  “No!” she gasped, and staggered back. Brown John nodded, and she cried, “But why? Why?” then collapsed crying.

  Jakar, ashen-faced, asked, “Are they still hunting Robin?”

  Brown John, suddenly feeling older, sat down, dropping the saddlebags beside him, and shook his head. “For now they’ve been drawn off her trail.” He looked up at the young nobleman. “Apparently they knew Robin was a redhead. When they saw that the other girls also had red hair, it confused them, so they killed them all, thinking
Robin was among them.” He lowered his eyes to Robin’s sobbing body. “She’s safe now… providing they don’t have some way of finding out they don’t have what they came for.”

  “They’ll find out,” Jakar said fatalistically. He climbed down a root growing in a crack in the stone chasm, and sat down facing the bukko, his dark eyes demanding. “Now tell me what happened… everything.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “Oh yes there is,” Jakar said quietly, the glint of pain and hatred showing in his eyes.

  Understanding showed in Brown John’s eyes. Then, in precise words lacking his normal color and drama, he told Jakar and Robin what had happened at Clear Pond, finishing with, “I was simply too late.”

  A moment passed, and Robin, pale and tear-stained, rose slightly. Jakar, taking her gently by the elbow, helped her up, and spread her blanket on the ground for her to sit on.

  “Thank you,” she said weakly, and leaned back against the wall of the chasm, looking up into his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been so much trouble for you.”

  He shrugged it off, as if he would have done the same for any female, and squatted facing the bukko. “What now?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Brown John. “I haven’t had time to think.”

  “Then you’d better start, bukko.” The young nobleman’s voice was low and uncompromising. “I know this filth called Baskt. He’s a Lord of Destruction, the work of the Nymph Queen of Pyram, the high priestess of Black Veshta. And if she’s sent him all the way from Pyram, then she might have sent others. Serpents, lizards, you name it.”

  “You think that’s what killed your sister… the others?”

  “It’s a possibility.” He indicated Robin with the back of his head. “So she could still be in danger. Right now.”

  Brown John nodded and glanced past Jakar’s shoulder at the tears welling in Robin’s eyes. “Don’t blame yourself, child. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  “But why are they hunting me?” she whimpered. “I’m not sure.” He sensed Jakar’s hard eyes asking the same question, but did not look at him. “But you have enemies, you know that. It was not only the Kitzakks you helped defeat but the Queen of Serpents… and her master.”

  “But she’s the only one who knew about me! And… and you captured her. She’s Gath’s prisoner now.”

  “Yes, but it’s apparent others also knew.”

  She flinched, looked down at her hands for no reason and said softly, “Maybe … so there won’t be anyone else hurt… I should give myself to them.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jakar blurted, and stood, moved off into a shadow.

  “I’m only trying to help.” She said it to his back. Without turning, he said, “You can help by staying alive. When they come back, and they will,” he made himself turn and look at her, “you can bait whatever trap the bukko here decides to set for them.”

  She blanched at his hard tone and looked at Brown John in shock.

  “That may not be necessary,” Brown John said quietly, calming her. “But there is also another reason why, at all costs, you must be kept hidden and safe.” His eyes met Jakar’s, then looked back at Robin. “Gath is the only one who can deal with these creatures, and when he does… he’s going to need you with him.”

  Robin hesitated, and looked at Jakar. He was staring at her, his eyes soft now, suddenly kind and gentle. She shifted nervously, almost smiling, and he turned away, again faced Brown John.

  “You’re going to contact the Dark One? Ask his help?”

  The bukko nodded.

  “Then perhaps, since we are working together, you had better tell me what her link is with him.”

  “That, Lord Jakar, is between them.”

  “Can she control him?”

  Brown John smiled, just a little, and shook his head. “No one controls him.”

  “Then who says he’ll help? Or that we can trust him? He’s half demon himself!”

  “I do,” said Brown John. He opened the saddlebags and spread out the food, handing the wine jar to Jakar. “Here. Cool down and feed yourself. There is going to be much to do and you are going to have to do most of it.”

  Jakar hesitated, then took the jar and drank. Brown John, with bread and cheese in hand, moved to Robin and sat facing her, placing the food in her hands.

  “I’m really not hungry,” she said.

  “You will be,” he replied. “Now listen to me. The worst is over. Ended. And we both know what we must do now… not let this calamity divert us from our chosen path.”

  She nodded mindlessly, like a child who has heard her parents tell her this a thousand times before.

  “You’re not listening,” he said sharply, and she looked up attentively. “That’s better. Now, understand this: we have the advantage now. We know the villain’s intentions, and your part is cast. You are now the virtuous heroine in flight, and it’s a splendid part, one on which the greatest artists of the stage have made their careers.”

  “Brown John, don’t,” she pleaded. “Not now.”

  “Yes, now,” he said. “Because everything depends on how you play the next scenes. If you play them with vigor and spirit, we have a chance. If you don’t… well, today has more than demonstrated the consequences.”

  “Brown, please,” she begged.

  “No! The remorse and grief and guilt must end here. Now! We’ve got to have our wits about us and concentrate on what we’re doing, not what’s happened. If we don’t, we’re all lost.”

  He rose, moved back to the food and sat down, began to eat. Jakar did the same, facing him, and wearing a grimly amused smile. When he spoke, his voice held the same amusement.

  “I presume, from your ridiculous speech, that in addition to your platitudes, you have some specific action in mind.”

  Brown John nodded. “As soon as you finish eating, I want you to ride after these creatures. Your horse is waiting at the bottom of the falls. When you catch up with them…”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Jakar interrupted darkly.

  “Listen to me,” snapped the bukko, sounding like a king. “You may be a nobleman, and I may be nothing but an outcast to you… but I see things others don’t. And if you are truly serious about avenging your sister, you would be well advised to listen.”

  Jakar replied by staying silent and listening.

  “Good,” added Brown John, “that shows sense. Now, when you find the scum, you will stay out of their sight and follow them until you find where they are headed. Then when it turns dark, ride back to Rag Camp. Robin and I will be waiting there… hopefully with Gath of Baal.”

  “Is that all?” Jakar asked tersely.

  “No!” the bukko said just as tersely. “You better get going now, before their trail turns cold.”

  Jakar rose, and Robin pulled his cloak from around her, handed it to him, saying, “Here, it may get cold.”

  He shook his head, moved to the narrow entry passage and smiled back at Robin. “I’ll see you tonight, Trouble.” Then he was gone.

  Robin, unable to keep from smiling, gathered his cloak about her and began to eat. Brown John watched her a moment thoughtfully, then said, “Your timing is terrible, lass.” She looked at him, confused, and he added, “We’ve got enough problems without you falling in love.”

  She took hold of her lip with her teeth, then said quietly, “I know.”

  “Then finish eating. You’re going to need all your strength. We’ll spend tonight in Rag Camp, then tomorrow ride to Calling Rock and hope Gath answers the horn.”

  She looked up between bites and asked, “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Because I’ve been going there and calling him for days, ever since the first murder… and he hasn’t showed up.” He smiled. “But I’ve got a feeling that’s going to change now.”

  Fourteen

  STRANGE ALLIES

  Well past the midnight hour, two riders galloped through the Valley of Miracles. Re
aching Rag Camp at the northeastern corner, they reined up short of the cool blue moonlight illuminating the clearing, and studied it from concealing shadows cast by surrounding apple trees. Their animals were flecked with sweat and snorting steam.

  The camp appeared deserted, and was silent except for the sounds of the river, Whitewater, flowing under Stone Crossing, a massive rock at the far side of the village.

  One of the riders urged its horse forward and walked the animal into the moonlight. Cobra, riding a small mare purchased from an outlaw band in The Shades, the rain forest to the west. She was gasping with exhaustion, and her face was torn with fear as she scanned the empty clearing. The Grillards were apparently on the road. All that remained were four battered house wagons, no longer fit for the road, scattered along the eastern edge of the clearing, and a large red wagon on the opposite side. It was parked behind the stage commanding the center of the clearing, and there was a faint glow of candlelight in the second-story window.

  She moved back to the other horse, took hold of its reins and led it across the clearing. The horse was Gath of Baal’s black stallion, and he sat in the saddle. His huge body weaved unsteadily, and his helmeted head hung low between his shoulders, casting a red glow over his gnarled hands where they clutched the pommel.

  Cobra guided the horses along the front of the stage and hesitated. Three horses were tethered to a railing at the side of the red wagon: a dappled grey stallion which appeared to have just returned from a long ride, another stallion, and a mare which had a brown saddle blanket with brown patches. Taking hope, she climbed lightly onto the stage and moved quickly to Gath, helping him out of his saddle.

  “We’re here,” she whispered encouragingly. “Just a few more feet. I think the bukko’s here, and he’s sure to know where she is.”

  Without replying, Gath raised his head, and the sharp-tipped horns of his black helmet glimmered in the moonlight as Cobra headed for the wagon.

  Gath moved after her, took three heavy-footed strides and fell facedown on the wooden planks with a loud metallic clang. Cobra rushed back and kneeled over him, trying to help him up as he clawed back to his hands and knees. He half rose, then a knee gave and dropped him on his back in front of her with another clang.