by James Silke
Her lips were not dancing, but shuddering, and the song they moved to was that same song his lips had sung when, as a boy in Baal, he had been put to bed at night in his cage.
He released her and stepped back. His muscle and sinew contracted with self-revulsion, bending his huge frame.
Robin, still sobbing, placed her palms against the rock and pushed weakly, her head hanging. Her body lifted and she sagged back facing him with her hands outstretched, steadying herself against the boulder. Without raising her head, she wiped her tears away. Her body suddenly heaved for breath, and she staggered, but caught herself, again using both hands.
Gath watched her red-gold curls tremble, watched her breasts rise and fall against her cloak where his fingers had left dirty smudges. Lust again heated him, and he turned away, fighting off the demands the helmet had planted within him.
From the river bank, the helmet’s black eyes watched him, mocking, as the shallow water washed in and out of the mouth hole.
He straightened, his pride returning, and strode to the helmet, stood over it. Frustrated rage, long caged inside him, suddenly broke free, and he roared, a sound echoing out of an ancient, howling age. His boot caught the face of the helmet, drove it deep under the water into the muddy bottom. Geysers of water and mud and sparks erupted to his thighs, and his body sank to one side. His leg was knee-deep in river bottom. He yanked it out with a sucking sound, and the water swirled around the hole, gulping and bubbling, then flowed on.
He glared down at the tiny bubbles rising from the unseen metal. His hard breathing slackened, and he strode out into the deeper shallows to the stallion. Leading, the animal back into the mossy clearing beside Robin, he removed his black cloak from a saddlebag and wrapped it around her.
Her head lifted timidly, and she looked up under long feathery lashes. Her eyes were vacant, hollow corridors to shocked bone and blood and mind.
He gathered water from the river and held it up to her lips with cupped hands. She stared at them a moment, then brought her hands up to his, but hesitated, not touching them. Looking into his eyes, she asked, “Gath?”
The single word hung heavily on the night air. When he answered it, his voice was thick and slow.
“Yes,” he said, “it is Gath.” That surprising mystical tenderness which marked his soul even more deeply than his savage strength was back in his eyes and voice. “Forgive me.”
Robin, voice trembling, whispered, “It was the helmet, wasn’t it? Not you.”
He nodded. “It will never happen again.” It was a vow.
She took hold of his hands as if they were a bowl, and held his fingertips to her lips, drinking slowly. Two more times he fed her water. When his hands had emptied the third time, she held their cool, wet fingers against her hot cheeks, and kissed his palms softly. As she did this, she spoke to him in a voice that trembled with surrender.
“You must forgive me,” she said. “I should not have resisted. It was wrong of me. You saved my life… my people… everyone. I… I have no right to refuse you. I belong to you.”
“No!” His low, coarse voice commanded her. “You saved my life… twice…I am the one who is in debt.”
Her eyes widened, startled by his intensity.
“I will protect you, but I do not belong to you… or you to me.”
“But I do,” she protested. “I vowed myself to you… by the midnight star. This is written… isn’t it?”
The surrender in her voice, her closeness and the smell of roses on her lips again stirred him. Heat flowed back into his wounded face, the brutal glint returned to his eyes. But as he spoke, he forced it back, his voice blunt.
“You were young and filled with victory… your vow means nothing.”
“Nothing? But…”
“Nothing. We are bound by a mutual danger, that is all. I am your guardian… this is what is written.” A hesitant smile lifted her cheeks, as if with a sudden rush of relief.
He wanted to touch that smile, but turned away and strode to the river’s edge. There he dropped his sword and dagger belts on the ground and ripped off boots, chain mail and padded undertunic. Clothed only in loincloth and moonlight, he waded out into hip-deep water, splashing his body, and steam furled from chest, shoulders and face. He dove into the water, stroked out into the strong rushing current and swam against it, defying it to wash him downriver. It could not.
When he came out of the river, he found Robin sitting on a rock beside his armor. She was wrapped in his cloak, and her own was spread across her lap. One of his daggers rested beside her. She had cut thongs on one side of the ripped seam and parallel eye slits on the opposite side. By overlapping the torn parts and passing the thongs through the eye slits and tying them off, she was mending the cloak.
Watching her, he kneeled in the shallows and scrubbed his face with water, removing the crusted ash and dirt and cleaning his wounds. Then he moved his massive bulk beside her and began to dress.
When she finished mending her cloak, she held it up and said, “This is the first way I learned to join cloth, when I was very little. The temple priestesses in Weaver taught it to us the first week of school. It’s a very old and primitive method, but quite effective.”
Pulling on a boot, he nodded without interest and said flatly, “You are in great danger, and I must find a place to hide you. I have angered the Master of Darkness, and to get at me, he has sent his demons to destroy you.”
“I know,” she said, holding her voice under control. “It’s one of his sorceresses, a woman called Tiyy. She’s the high priestess of the Black Veshta.” His eyes questioned her, and she added, “It’s true. Jakar, a… a young man helping Brown John, knows the demon she sent.” Her voice suddenly filled with misery. “Oh, Gath, terrible things have been happening.”
“What things?”
As he buckled on his belts, she told him all that had happened, ending her tale with the fact that Baskt had left soldiers behind to keep track of the Grillards, and that they could be nearby now.
He glanced at the shadows between the surrounding trees, more in anticipation than caution. “These soldiers are not the only danger you face. The Master of Darkness has sent the Queen of Serpents’ creatures for you.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked around, trembling. “You mean snakes and lizards? No wonder they’re everywhere lately.” She looked at him. “Then they did murder the girls, thinking they were me.”
“Do not be afraid,” he said quietly. “They have been deprived of the magic which feeds them, and are dying.”
She nodded, and her trembling abated.
“Who is this Jakar?”
“Oh, yes,” she said apologetically, “I should have explained. He’s a Kaven nobleman, but also an orphan, like myself. His sister was one of the girls who was killed, and unlike the relatives of the other victims, he is not afraid to do something about it. He has sworn to help Brown John until the demons are destroyed, and he’s been a big help. He knows all kinds of things, and has been just about everywhere.”
Gath, studying her suddenly excited face, rolled his shoulders adjusting his chain mail, and moved to the river’s edge. He reached deep into the water, came away with the horned helmet and washed it off in the river, shook it dry.
Robin held her breath as she watched him, and fear came back into her large eyes. “Please,” she pleaded quietly, “don’t put it on.”
He turned to her, and their eyes met and held each other. His blunt facial bones were more chiseled since they had last seen each other, and the hollows of his cheeks were deeper, his shoulders thicker. She seemed to note each difference before she spoke.
“It’s… it’s done something to you. It’s like I don’t really know you anymore.”
He moved to the stallion, unbuckled a saddlebag and forced the helmet inside. “You have nothing to fear. It’s going to stay in here. You won’t have to remove it again.”
“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. That’s no
trouble. I just…”
She stopped short, seeing his dark eyes flash. “I will not spend my life at the end of your leash.”
“Oh, Gath, I didn’t…”
“I will destroy these demons that hunt you, because I have put you in danger. When that is finished, the serpent bitch, Cobra, will find a way to tame the helmet. Then you and I are finished.”
She hesitated, then said quietly, “You’ve said that before. Not just once, but maybe three or four times.” Her smile was slightly chiding.
“If Cobra fails, I will find another way.” His expression became brutal. Blood trickled from a wound on his chin. “I will not be enchanted… not by the helmet, not by you.”
She hesitated uncertainly and nodded, shyly removing his cloak. She put on her own, and handed him his, saying quietly, “I understand you want to be by yourself, but I’m glad you’re here now. And I’ll miss you if you go away. We went through horrible, frightening times together, but they were also wonderful.” Her eyes became moist, and she smiled to hold back tears. “I’ll… I’ll never forget you, Gath. Never.”
He looked at her a long time, absorbing her and the memories of her: of her healing the wounded wolf and healing him, of her bravely defying the dangers of The Shades to come to him and deliver Brown John’s message about the Kitzakk invasion, of that time when the helmet was about to destroy him and the sight of her stopped it, and of that moment when he held her in his arms and kissed her wondrous lips.
When the memories were imprisoned again, he put his cloak back in his saddlebags and said, “Neither of us will forget.”
The whack of an arrow striking into living meat, followed by hissing, came from within a bush to the right of Robin.
She shrieked, scattering back, and Gath, bursting forward, ripped his axe from its saddle scabbard. With his body cocked like a catapult and his axe weaving in front of him, he planted himself between Robin and the bush, his expression as cold as the steel of a butcher’s knife.
Sixteen
BEHIND THE BUSH
A serpentine shadow whipped about within the bush, breaking branches and scattering leaves, then spilled out and thudded on the moss. A snake with a body as thick as a milk bucket. It was withered, oozing fumes between rotting scales, and wore brown, gold and black diamonds on its writhing torso, the natural jewelry of a Sadoulette python.
Gath’s axe came down, splitting the snake in two parts. The two lengths thrashed about as if searching for each other. One wiggled across the moss, while the larger portion with the head crawled back into the bush to hide. But its poor condition gave it away. Thick green fumes flecked with sputtering blood spewed from the reptile’s mouth and wounds.
Robin, peering over a raised arm, gasped in terror.
Gath grunted contemptuously, letting her know he had played with this kind of demon spawn before. He stuck his axe upright in the ground, two-handed the snake and swung it over his head, crushing its skull against a boulder.
Grunting annoyance, he tossed the body aside like a useless length of rope and stepped back.
The reptile rolled off the rock and plopped on the ground. There was a steel crossbow bolt in the snake’s skull directly between the eyes.
Gath pulled his axe out of the ground, his wary eyes on the forest, hunting for whoever had fired the bolt. Robin cringed behind his shoulder, her large eyes wide with fear. Suddenly she gasped with shock and clutched her cloak tightly about her.
A shadowed figure had emerged from the forest shadows, just beyond the bush. Some fifteen strides beyond the figure, peering calmly between the black bodies of the trees, was a dappled grey stallion. The figure moved, and a young man wearing finely cut leather clothing advanced slowly into the moonlight, leveling a loaded crossbow at Gath.
“Oh, no!” whispered Robin breathlessly.
The young man bowed in reply, and in a formal but concerned tone, said to her, “I’m sorry, I came as fast as I could, but lost your trail in the dark.”
“That’s all right,” she said hurriedly. “I appreciate your trying to help me. But there’s no need. I’m in no danger.”
“Perhaps,” the young man said, doubt hard in his tone. “We’ll let Brown John decide that. Now, move quickly and get on my horse before this large ape turns wild again.” A low growl rumbled from Gath’s mouth, and the intruder waved his crossbow at him. “Just stay put I won’t hurt you unless I have to.”
“Don’t, Jakar!” Robin moaned, stumbling forward. Gath lifted an arm and she stopped behind it, her eyes pleading. “Please, Jakar, I really do appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’s not necessary. He won’t harm me!”
“Just get on my horse, fluff.”
“Jakar, please!” Robin begged. “Go away.”
“I can’t do that.” He nodded at the dead snake. “This forest is full of these slimy demons, and they seem as eager to tear you apart as the large one here.” His eyes met Gath’s. “Now, if she is truly in no danger, kindly let her get on my horse.”
Holding Robin in place, Gath studied the young man’s hard, haunted eyes. Out of curiosity, he asked, “You are the Jakar that helps the bukko, Brown John?”
Jakar nodded.
“He sent you to follow me?”
“No. It was my idea.”
Gath wiped blood from his chin with the back of his hand, glanced at it, turning his hand in the moonlight, then looked up at Jakar thoughtfully. “If you truly serve the bukko, ride back and tell him Robin has come to no harm, and that I am returning with her.”
“Yes,” urged Robin. “We’re coming now.”
Jakar lifted his crossbow, shaking his head behind it. “You’re coming with me.”
“Oh, Jakar, please,” begged Robin. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Gath, his head tilting to one side like a cat’s, asked flatly, “Why do you argue? Do you wish to die?”
Jakar, without expression, replied, “I never gave it a thought.”
Gath smiled. He liked the answer. “Go tell the bukko,” he said, and turned his back on him.
Jakar’s face flushed with angry pride, and he whispered harshly, “Don’t turn your back on me, large one.”
“Oh, no,” moaned Robin. “Don’t, please.”
Gath casually dropped his axe back in its saddle scabbard, and began to rearrange the horned helmet inside the saddlebag, keeping his back to the young man.
“Turn around,” Jakar threatened, “or…”
He stopped short as Gath’s head slowly revolved, his brutal eyes glittering behind a metal shoulder. Jakar unconsciously took a step back, lost balance on the soft moss, and his crossbow dipped sideways. Gath whipped an arm around, like a bolt of jagged lightning in the moonlight, and threw the helmet.
Jakar’s crossbow whipped back into place. The horned helmet hit it, splintering the weapon and dislodging the metal shaft into overhanging branches, then bounded off into nearby foliage.
Jakar looked down in shock at his broken weapon, threw it aside, drew his knife.
Robin screamed, “No!”
Jakar charged, more careful now and with agile movements. Gath let him come, his expression almost indifferent. Suddenly he stepped in, catching the knife blade on his chain mail, and drove a fist into the side of Jakar’s head. Jakar dropped facedown in the moss and did not move.
Robin raced to him and sank beside his fallen body, shielding it with her own and sobbing, “Don’t! Don’t hurt him. Please.” She looked up into Gath’s hard eyes. “Please, Gath, don’t. He… he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s all mixed up. He’s hurt, terribly hurt. He loved his sister deeply.”
Gath said, “I won’t hurt him.” He retrieved his helmet, stuffed it back into the saddlebag. “Come, get in the saddle.”
“But I can’t leave him here. He’s hurt.”
Gath, without looking at her, buckled the saddlebag, saying harshly, “If you wish to help him, let him help himself. That will heal his pride far more quick
ly than your pity.”
Robin hesitated. When Gath looked back at her, she nodded. “I know you’re right, but I can’t.”
“I will not wait here for you to coddle him.” His voice was impatient. “I must return to Rag Camp and talk with the serpent queen! Get in the saddle.” “No,” she said. “I’m not going to leave him.”
His eyes studied her thoughtfully, and the memories of their times together once more passed through his mind. Then he said, “He is your man, isn’t he?”
Without looking at Gath, she shook her head. “I hardly know him.”
“Perhaps,” he said quietly. “But you wish to be as free of me as I do of you.”
She lifted her wet eyes to his. “I didn’t say that. You’re the one who’s always saying we’re finished.” He nodded. “We will both be free.” There was no compromise in his tone.
He strode to her, plucked Jakar out of her arms and threw him over the saddle of the dappled grey.
He put the broken crossbow in its saddle holster, mounted his stallion, drawing Robin up behind him, then led the grey into the dark forest, heading for Rag Camp.
Seventeen
THE PLOT THICKENS
Morning sunlight spilled over the crest of Stone Crossing and streamed in wide golden bars across Rag Camp, splashing over Brown John’s huge house wagon. It now stood in the middle of the clearing, and was being prepared for the road. Three elderly Grillards were harnessing a team of four draft horses in thick padded collars to its shafts, while others were loading it with provisions, scraping off its bright red paint and nailing filthy totems to it. Disguising it.
Brown John stood to one side watching, his thumbs hooked in his belt. His body was rocking and his smile dancing, like a puppetmaster pulling strings.
He turned to Cobra, who stood behind him studying the edge of the forest with gloomy pessimism, and said lightheartedly, “Stop worrying, woman! Gath and Robin will come back. I can feel it in the air. Good times are coming now.”