Rise of the Death Dealer

by James Silke

  His eyes blinked as his mind fought off the scent, and thoughts of going mad dashed around inside his tiny brain until it ached. He was five days’ march from any sizable body of water. There was no chance of returning to his shark form, no matter how much he hungered for it. Not in the desert. There was no chance of any kind of relief, yet his mind had suddenly behaved as if he were once more a shark, and his senses had smelled blood, even though he knew there was nothing but the odor of hot dirt on the air.

  He listened to his own blood pound the drums of his ears and wanted to scratch in countless places. Every pore, scale and orifice of his body was being violated by heat and sand. His only escape was to think of the ocean, of its wet cold, of its endless liquid-blue space, of the yawning dark green gloom of its depths and of beautiful brown-skinned girls flailing on the surface in a frenzy of fear at the sacred feeding times. A euphoria came over him similar to what he felt when he swam from sea water into fresh water, but then his breath became short, and he had to stand and pace again.

  As he moved back and forth, he put his fingers inside his mouth, felt his new teeth rising into place and spit out the taste of his own blood. Even it seemed unusually hot and rancid, and made him thirsty. He went out the back end of the tent and moved to the water barrels standing in the shade. He picked up a wooden bucket and dipped it into the water. He drank deep, trying to fill his entire seven-foot form with one swallow. Suddenly he stopped short. Water splashed over his chest armor as he looked over the rim of the bucket.

  Bars of jagged white light were flashing across the shaded boulders, like lightning, but there was no lightning in the sky. Another distant, rolling boom came, again sounding distinctly like thunder. He climbed up through the rocks until he could see the far hills. Above them was a dark thundercloud, but no sign of lightning.

  Baskt chuckled bitterly, a low harsh grating sound without humor. It was a rain cloud, but he had no hope of it reaching En Sakalda, no hope in anything, least of all in his prayers. He would have to be standing in a downpour first.

  Shafts of blinding white light suddenly exploded from the water slopping about the bucket between his hands, and made him blink and stagger. He caught his balance, and a shuddering blood hunger jerked through him. A primordial urge so strong his entire body began to bend from within, until he was arched threateningly around the bucket. He looked down into it, very carefully.

  A few remaining scraps of white light shot through the ripples of the shallow water, then flashed up the wooden sides and were gone.

  Baskt shook the bucket, but the remaining water sloshed and slapped around revealing no light hiding within it. He returned to the barrel, dipped the bucket into it again, came away with half a bucket of water and looked into it. All he saw was water and a few dead flies. He lifted the bucket to drink again, and as it came level with his eyes, white light again exploded from it. He turned his face away, thinning his eyes, and watched it out of the corners.

  The light was not coming from the water. It was ricocheting off of its surface, coming from someplace behind him.

  He turned sharply, tossing the bucket aside, and saw beams of white light spearing out of the smoke at the center of the camp. It appeared to be coming from the stack of cages within the smoke.

  Baskt entered his tent, snapped his sheathed sword from the floor and strode out into the sunlight. He moved straight for the light, stepping over bodies, and through campfires into their smoke, until he faced the stack of cages.

  The captive girls were naked except for beads and scraps of cloth. Dark-skinned desert natives, they were young and uncommonly attractive, but there was not a redhead among them, and little virtue.

  The sharkman, his body snarling at the blood scent filling it, moved in among the cages, shoving them aside in order to examine each of the girls. Reaching the opposite side of the stack, he looked back and saw that the light was slashing across the girls’ frightened faces. But not one of them blinked or appeared to notice it. They only shivered and wiggled with invitation. He pushed through the few remaining cages and stood in the open area beyond.

  There the light hit him directly in the face, blinding him. He lifted a forearm, blocking the light, and looked under his hand.

  The light was centered in front of a large wagon parked behind a massive stone auction block. It was moving, swirling dizzily.

  He thinned his eyes and saw a girl dancing within the light. She moved like a firefly, banging a tambourine with childish abandon, kicking and twirling colorful sashes tied to her wrists and ankles. The light seemed to come from behind her, but he was uncertain. It was blurred by her flashing arms and legs.

  Baskt strode forward and stopped behind a scatter of cages, horses and benches. Just beyond them were the backs of a small crowd of clapping slavers, squatting and sitting on the ground below the flat stone. He studied the girl for a long moment, holding the feeding fury within, until he was certain.

  The light was not coming from behind the girl. It moved across the small stage as she moved, not following her, but with her. And there was only one answer for this. The white light was pouring forth from her soul, radiating from her body, shooting forth from the naked portions of her flesh.

  The sharkman’s body shook with a searing jolt of electric pain, then the feeding frenzy balled inside his two bellies like fists, and thrust him forward, spreading his jaws wide. His human mind was gone. Primordial instinct had taken control, and he dove forward, vaulting through the air like a great white shark. He crashed through a cage, dropping his sword, and slammed into a group of tethered horses, scattering them.

  When he got back to his feet, the music had stopped and the slavers had jumped to their feet, parting in front of him. But the white light still stood on the auction block. It streaked forth from a small, dark-haired girl with eyes wide and mouth hanging open. There was the movement of a figure on the roof of the wagon behind her, but the light made it indistinguishable.

  Baskt found his sword and marched for the stage, with the slavers backing away on all sides.

  A crossbow bolt screamed in the air and nailed the sharkman in the left shoulder, half turning him. But he kept moving. He did not feel that kind of pain. He never had.

  Without looking at it, he ripped the bolt out and tossed it aside with the plate of living armor that came with it. He leapt onto the stone auction block facing the girl, and a young man jumped down from the roof of the wagon. He landed gracefully, and stood between Baskt and the girl with a sword in his hand. Rage blotted his face, and the light coming from the girl glowed like a halo around him as he charged.

  Baskt caught the young man’s striking blade with his sheathed sword and turned it. But it came back again, spinning on its own axis with more skill than the sharkman had expected. He fended it off, then slapped it with the sheath, and the blade spun out of his attacker’s hand. A scream came from the girl.

  Enjoying it now, Baskt stepped in and kicked, driving his foot into the gut of the slight body. The young man flew backward with a grunting gasp, hit the girl and drove her back against the wagon. She half screamed, and gasped. His lithe body tumbled forward, fell to the auction block on its hands and knees.

  Baskt kicked the seemingly inert body aside, but as he did, the young man’s arms took hold of his leg and tried to throw him. Baskt staggered two steps and drove his fist into the young man’s back. There was a gush of air, another scream from the girl, and the young man sank facedown. Baskt raised a foot to crush his head, and the girl leapt on him.

  Baskt caught her by the shoulder, shook her until her fight was gone, then set her down. He kicked the unconscious young man off the block, then sniffed the girl, making certain that the scent of blood came from her. It was within the light, just as Tiyy had said it would be.

  He laughed insanely, took hold of her by the throat and thigh and held her high over his head, shaking her whimpering body. “It’s her! It’s her! I’ve found the bitch!”

  Surprised
shock, then disappointment creased the slavers’ faces. They drew together, chattering among themselves with consternation and disbelief.

  Baskt howled with delight and dropped the girl back on the block in an upright position. She staggered under the impact, and he gave her a poke in the ribs that made her gasp with pain.

  “You gave me a lot of trouble, slut,” he said, “and you’re going to pay in kind for it!”

  He poked her again, making her double up and hold her stomach, gasping. Suddenly she pivoted toward the door of the wagon, and his arm slashed at her, as fluid as the tail of a shark. The flat of his hand caught her flush on the side of the head. It was a toying blow. But his blood was up, so it was much harder than he had anticipated. She flew sideways, hit the auction block with a pained grunt and rolled off the edge out of sight. All he could see was her radiating light rising behind the rim of the block. Then she reappeared, crawling on all fours amid a flurry of white light. She got about five feet, then collapsed, gasping.

  Baskt started toward her, and again thunder rolled through the hot desert sky. Lightning flashed. He hesitated, his eyes on the dark cloud to the south. It had passed over the mountains, and its misted edges were reaching for En Sakalda. More thunder ripped from its dark, heavy body, and lightning cut through it, striking at the ground. Then the cloud covered the sun, and the sharkman felt cool relief as a shadow moved over him.

  He unconsciously touched the scabbed armor plates at his shoulder, then strode for the girl, and a darkness blotted out her light. It was made by a man holding a large axe, a Barbarian wearing nothing more than a loincloth and his pride. He was nearly as big as Baskt, and it pleased the sharkman almost as much as the prospect of rain.

  The torturous desert had finally provided him with a worthy distraction.

  Twenty-seven

  THE WILD PLACE

  Gath, crouching below the auction block, stared up into the sharkman’s cold death eyes and snarled. His muscles swelled, and his burnished flesh pulled over bone and cartilage. Every sinew and nerve told him that he finally stood at the threshold of that world he searched for, and that Baskt held the key.

  A smile gathered on his face, surfacing as naturally and inevitably as blood rising in a new wound. It was raucous and untamed, and he realized that there was humor lurking in this world he hungered for. But no mercy, no kindness, no sentiment and no glory, honor or justice. Here the only redemption was the laughter of the strong.

  He laughed, low in his throat, and ground his booted feet into the soil, holding the earth between his legs as instinctively as the wings of the hawk hold the wind. His arms hung beside him, loose and dangerous, and his hand held his axe with the same assurance as his arm carried the hand.

  There was suddenly no hurry. They were sharing that momentary, menacing truce that rises between beasts of prey when they confront each other.

  He lowered his weight to one knee and reached back blindly for Robin, keeping his eyes on the center of Baskt’s balance. Feeling her warm bare arm, and her body stirring under it, he asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she said breathlessly, “it’s nothing.” He felt her small hands surround his biceps and tug on it as she pulled herself to her knees. Her breath was hot on his naked shoulder. “Why… why is he here? How did he know?”

  “I don’t know,” Gath said, still watching the sharkman. “It does not matter now. Go to Brown John. Quickly!”

  “All right,” she said. But her hands hesitated, and one touched the hair of his unprotected head. “But…”

  “Go,” he interrupted harshly. “I cannot risk wearing it.”

  Her fingers trembled against his arm, telling him she knew he took the risk for her, and he felt her lips press into his shoulder. Then they were gone, and the sound of her bare feet danced through the silence. He rose slowly, his eyes and senses measuring the fighting ground, the direction of the sunlight, the bystanders.

  The slavers had backed away from the auction block to avoid any bit of gore accidentally thrown up by the impending battle, but not so far that they might miss it. The bat soldiers had come down from their rocks and were perched on nearby boulders with their furry heads just above the smoky drifts. Brown John had carried the unconscious bleeding Jakar to the wagon, and Robin now joined him there, helping the bukko load him aboard.

  Gath sensed Cobra standing beside his stallion behind him, then he heard her.

  “I’m here,” she said, a ring of desperation in her voice that was almost childishly afraid. “I have the helmet.”

  He shook his head, once, telling her he did not want it. She pleaded, “You must.”

  By way of reply, he took one stride forward and jumped onto the auction block, landing about ten feet away from the demon spawn. The sharkman betrayed no reaction.

  Gath’s body was cocked for balance but relaxed. That primordial patience which is the immaculate grace of the hunting animal was flowing through his blood. But he saw no patience in Baskt’s eyes, only bravado.

  The creature, with noisy growling, two-handed the hilt of his broadsword, whipping it sideways, and the sheath flew off flamboyantly, clattering against the side of the wagon. Before it had time to land on the auction block, he rushed forward, delivering successive overhand blows.

  Gath deftly deflected both with the blade of his axe, and his eyes turned red with inner fire, drawing excited gasps of exclamation from the onlookers.

  Gath did not hear them. He was at work, charging Baskt with his hands spread wide at the extremities of the axe handle, holding it horizontally like a quarterstaff. The handle took Baskt across the chest and drove him against the side of the wagon. Both demon and wagon groaned in complaint, and the sounds encouraged Gath. Applying pressure, he slowly forced the sharp blade of the axe toward the sharkman’s shoulder.

  Suddenly the demon spawn’s body convulsed, like a whip of solid muscle. The spasm culminated at his chest, which acted like a hammer, and drove the axe handle back into Gath’s throat. The impact sent the Barbarian staggering backward, gagging for air.

  Baskt followed not far behind, leading with his face in the manner of a shark, jaws agape, and raising his sword high over his head.

  Gath dropped to a knee, wheezing and clinging to his axe, and saw armored legs driving for him. Staying low, he instinctively shortened his grip on the axe and dove forward, turning sideways in mid-air. His hip took out one leg, his elbow the other. Baskt flew forward over the Barbarian’s body. Gath’s hip hit the stone block, and he thrust his axe up at the demon’s descending belly.

  Baskt twisted fluidly in mid-air, like a fish in water, writhing away from the blow. The axe sliced across his belly armor, removed several plates, leaving smears of blood across his chest, and continued harmlessly into the air.

  When Gath rolled upright, Baskt was on his feet facing him. His heaving belly had already stopped bleeding, and the bluish-white sheen of new growth was rising where the armor plates had been, replacing them.

  There were hoots of approval and grim laughter among the slavers, and groans came from Gath’s comrades.

  Gath considered briefly the fact that the demon’s armor replaced itself, giving it the respect it deserved, then began a search for the Lord of Destruction’s weakness. He worked the sharkman around until a shaft of sunlight penetrating the gathering clouds was in his eyes, and tinted membrane descended from the demon spawn’s lids, to cut the glare. No advantage there. Gath then retreated until Baskt was working with the side of the wagon on his right. It should have cramped his right-handed swing. But Baskt took no notice of the wagon’s presence, his sword cutting through the wood as if it were butter. He tried other tactics, but the sharkman was oblivious to all of them, and Gath went on the defensive.

  As he blocked and dodged and ducked, his blood began to boil in his veins, and the red glow in his eyes grew brighter and brighter. Pain began to burn his flesh inside out. It ate into his brain, but brought no new tactic to mind, only rage and more pa
in.

  They continued to work.

  Sparks showered their bodies as axe and sword met solidly. High-pitched tearing howls rent the desert when they sheared across flesh. Gath became drenched in sweat, and it formed puddles in the depressions of the hard stone auction block. Baskt began to fume at knee joints and elbows, and an oily slime surfaced on his fleshlike armor. Its putrid stench of dead fish mixed with the drifting smoke hanging over the camp, and stung Gath’s nostrils and eyes.

  They worked some more, until Gath’s head hung low over his swarthy body. His pride was squirming and swelling in his gut. Then it spilled out, like a contagion. It spread into muscle and bone and to the very ends of his skin and hair, affecting how he stood and moved. It did not straighten him, as normal pride would. It bent him low, like the proud panther. It seared through nerve and brain and blood, and keyed itself to the same guttural pitch of the howl that ripped out of his mouth.

  He charged inside the swing of Baskt’s sword, and again caught him across the chest, holding his axe handle like a quarterstaff, and drove him back against the side of the wagon. The demon crashed into the splintered wood, and his upper body crushed through it into the interior of the wagon. Then his fluid body once more convulsed like a whip.

  Gath anticipated the serpentine blow. He let go of the axe handle just as the demon’s chest was about to hammer him, and grabbed Baskt’s throat, driving the fingers of both hands under the living neck guard of his helmet. When the blow came, Gath grunted painfully and flew backward, his arms extending. But his fingers, half buried in the sharkman’s meat, hung on, and Baskt came flying after him.

  Gath hit the stone block with his naked back. The blade of the axe, which had dropped between them, turned on impact and caught against a ridge, momentarily standing upright with the cutting edge exposed. It sheared through Baskt’s shoulder armor and penetrated the socket before being wrenched free. The demon dropped his sword, but Gath saw no reaction in his death eyes. This Lord of Destruction felt no pain.