Rise of the Death Dealer

by James Silke

  Cobra, Brown John and Jakar each shuddered silently, suddenly bereft of all hope. But still they watched.

  Pained empty moments passed, then there was a shadowed movement on the lip of the channel, where the ground and the. bridge had been joined. Then a figure climbed to safety and started to run toward them. It carried a large battle-axe, wore a horned helmet, and its eye slits were aflame.

  “Holy Bled,” murmured Brown John, “perhaps the holy White Veshta is finally giving us some help.”

  Cobra did not reply.

  When Gath reached the wagon, it was starting to roll forward again. In a frenzy of action he stuck his axe in the side of the wagon, grabbed the halter of the lead horse and dragged it forward until it broke into a gallop. Then he leapt onto its back and kicked it into a run, hanging on to the traces.

  When they vanished behind a ridge, there was no one following on the back trail, and a maze of lava hills and gullies and trails lay before them. They were gnarled and black, and tangled with sprawling boulders, overhanging shelves and rimrock.

  “Beautiful,” Brown John shouted excitedly, surveying the waiting landscape. “I could not have planned for a more timely stage.”

  “It is called the Kaja,” Cobra shouted, “the Belly of Black Veshta. The hard ground leaves few tracks, and it spreads for miles and miles. It is said that several tribes have become lost trying to pass through the lava, and that an entire army could hide in it.”

  “Then a wagon should have little difficulty,” the bukko howled gleefully, and whipped the horses forward.

  Two hours later, the wagon rolled through high hills where green shrubs grew from pockets of earth caught in bowls and fissures lining the black rock. They were no longer in the desert. Grey clouds hung heavily in a grey sky, and cool air blew out of the south.

  Following a trail that twisted between concealing walls of lava, they descended a narrow ravine. Gath motioned for Brown John to stop the wagon beside a deep chasm. The wagon pulled up, and the large draft horses snorted and stomped in place, wary of the depths they were parked beside.

  Gath, straddling the lead horse, turned in place, putting the still glowing eyes of the helmet on Cobra. “You can find the way from here?”

  “Yes. If the sky is clear tonight, I can go by the stars.”

  Making no reply, he dropped off the horse and cut it free of its traces.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Brown John. When Gath did not answer, Cobra answered for him. “I believe he intends to destroy the wagon and hide it, probably in that chasm.”

  She nodded at the shadowed depths, and Brown John groaned, “But it’s my home. He just can’t…”

  “We must,” she interrupted. “It will slow us now, and they will be looking for it.”

  “We’re going to ride draft horses? Without saddles?” he asked in dismay.

  “If he can’t find better.”

  Gath remounted the lead horse, and it stomped about, unaccustomed to the freedom. Using the remnants of the severed traces as reins, he quickly brought it under control and rode back to the wagon. He removed his axe from the sideboard and faced Cobra and the bukko. Jakar sat behind them, cradling his broken arm and holding his amused curiosity behind his eyes. But they also held respect, and his tone was cordial and grateful as he spoke. “Thanks for the help back there.”

  “Yes,” said Brown John, “and we’re sorry about your horse.”

  Gath did not appear to hear them. He put his burning eyes on Cobra, and his voice grated. “How did they identify her?”

  “I don’t know,” Cobra replied, “but they did, not only Baskt but Schraak.”

  He nodded. “You will wait here. I will find horses and saddles, then we will travel by night.”

  His voice denied any argument, and they nodded agreement.

  Gath turned the horse away and kicked it into motion, heading back the way they had come.

  “Be careful,” Cobra pleaded. “Even you can get lost in these hills.” She started to say more, but stopped herself, knowing he was not listening. She sank into the bukko’s arms, shuddering, as Gath vanished beyond a ridge of rimrock.

  After a moment, Jakar put his eyes on Cobra. “How much further is it?”

  With her eyes still on the spot where Gath had disappeared, she said, “Hopefully less than two days… but perhaps three.”

  Brown John patted her shoulders. “Don’t worry, we’ll get there. He’ll be back in no time.”

  She nodded uncertainly and removed herself from the bukko’s gentle hold. In a voice that was low and quivering, she said, “I think now is one of those times when some levity would be very helpful.” They nodded, but said nothing. They were out of jokes.

  Twenty-nine

  SADDLED HORSES

  Gath sat easy on the draft horse, one hand clutching the makeshift reins. He had left the road and now moved through the maze of upended, broken black rock of the lava beds called the Kaja. Cranny, defile, slit, gulch and crevasse offered passage in all directions. Twisting hard passage over black rock and through black shadow. Twenty feet further on, another set of the same choices presented itself. The surrounding rocks limited vision to fifty feet, and sometimes only ten. The low dark cloud cover prevented the sky from offering any sense of direction. No sound offered any information. There was only the squeal of wind through chink and gap and his own sounds. He had been hunting better than an hour and had no idea where he was, but plodded forward steadily. Sure of his direction.

  He had surrendered to the helmet.

  The headpiece hung low between his shoulders, its hot metal steaming in the grey wet air. The horns pulsed with life, subtly bending and turning like the antennae of some huge bug as they hunted out the nearest danger. His hand responded to each turn, tugging on the reins and guiding the huge horse under arch and down goat path.

  He followed a narrow ridge, turned a corner, and a road appeared at the base of a steep incline. He rode down onto it, the clatter of hooves becoming dull thuds as the draft horse moved onto dirt. The tongue of bald ground ran fairly straight for about forty feet in both directions, then vanished behind jagged black rock.

  He sat motionless, waiting. The horns pulsed. Suddenly the helmet turned his head, and black smoke billowed from the eye slits. Flames. He turned the horse, and felt it. The vibrations of hooves reverberating in the road. Then he heard them. A group of horses, not coming hard, but steadily. He gathered the traces tight and propped his axe upright on his thigh.

  They came around a turn two abreast. Bat soldiers. A patrol of six riders on small horses with long-haired manes and tails. Seeing the smoking, flaming Barbarian, they reined up, chattering to each other. Then two plunged forward, spears in hand.

  Gath prodded his mount forward. His breath came in heaving gasps. His blood was hot and the air cool on his sweating flesh. His mind was clouding as helmet dominated man, blotting out sight and sound, forming a tunnel of vision focused on the scent and sound and sight of the living meat coming at him.

  The two soldiers reined up, rising in their stirrups and screeching, and threw their spears.

  Gath kept coming. Eyes on the furry, leather-clad bodies, yet watching the streaking spears. He turned a shoulder out of the way of the first, and leaned the helmet into the second. It clanged off harmlessly, and he kept coming.

  The demon spawn drew their swords and charged. High-pitched squealing rang from their throats, and their four watching comrades added their voices to the unholy battle cry.

  The helmet knew the song they sang, and responded with a harmonic howl unnatural in its beauty.

  The music chilled the bat soldiers. Sword arms fell slack. Mouths dropped open.

  The draft horse slammed into the first small horse, and it went down backward, throwing its rider. At the same time the helmeted Barbarian turned the axe flat, swung it and caught the second bat soldier full in the chest as he galloped past. His hollow, birdlike bones disintegrated on impact, and he was driven out
of his saddle. He hit the ground with a slap, the middle of his body as shapeless as a bloody leather sack.

  The helmet howled its approval.

  The four remaining bat soldiers turned their mounts and galloped back the way they had come. The fifth horse followed dragging its rider, whose foot was caught in a stirrup. The riderless horse continued in the opposite direction.

  Gath, his mind briefly clearing, saw the horses and saddles he hunted riding off, and gave chase. But the smaller horses quickly pulled away and vanished around a turn in the road. Gath leaned forward on the draft horse, body loose and pliant, and prodded the animal forward, compelling it with the heat and intensity of his touch and weight. The horse galloped faster and faster, churning up the dirt road, then added more speed. A thundering boulder of meat and bone.

  When the bat soldiers saw the huge horse gaining on them, they spurred their small horses hard, drawing blood. But the big horse kept gaining. In desperation, the bat soldiers turned off the road onto a narrow, rocky trail and vanished among the dark jagged terrain.

  Gath followed, dashed through gut and gully and reined up on a slight rise. The four mounted bat soldiers milled in a boxed hollow thirty feet below, while the fifth lay dying on the ground with his foot still caught in the stirrup. They were trapped. Two riders tried to goad their mounts up a steep slope, but the slippery rock denied them passage. Then, seeing the huge horse and its rider start for them, the bat soldiers jumped out of their saddles and scrambled up among the rocks. They tore their flesh on the sharp rocks, then vanished, bleeding, among them.

  Gath walked his horse halfway down the slope toward the waiting horses and saddles, then hesitated. The helmet was growing hot again, the horns pulsing. The smell of blood swirled around him, hot and humid, and his vision once more clouded, his body heaving for breath. Savage. Animal. Wanting the taste of the frothing wet redness on his lips.

  He leapt off the horse, dashed through the boulders, and the euphoria of the death hunt spilled through every pore and nerve. The thrill of the kill.

  The helmet leading him, he ran down one bat soldier and pulped him against a flat rock, then ran down a second and caught him on the horns of the helmet, threw him into a crevasse. He cornered two more, their backs against a wall of rock and their hands empty. Helpless. Craven. Living meat without a chance or challenge. They were simply more useless kills. Nevertheless, the helmet howled for satisfaction, and pushed the Barbarian’s body two strides closer.

  The soldiers whimpered and went to their knees, their eyes and bowels emptying.

  The man-pride in Gath snarled and revolted, and his body came to a stop. His mind demanded control of itself, defying the helmet’s hungers. The metal steamed and the horns writhed, sending pulses of desire into the flesh of his body. His pride denied them, then shame came to its aid, and once again muscle and sinew, revolted by themselves, contracted, bending his huge frame.

  Fighting the helmet, he backed up the slope, turned and walked away, listening to the bat soldiers crawl in the opposite direction.

  Following a trail of blood left by one of the bat soldiers, he found his way back to the boxed hollow. The five saddled horses still milled about, chewing on short rain-fresh grass growing in pockets of earth. He tied them in a string, mounted one, and led the string to the top of the slope where the draft horse stood idly. He took its traces in hand and guided the animals the short distance back to the road. There he looked around for a long moment and realized he had no idea where he was or in which direction he should head to find his comrades.

  He rode back the way he had come, passed the dead bat soldier and reined up where he thought he recognized the gut by which he had first reached the road. He led the draft horse into the gut and gave it a sharp slap on the haunch, hoping it would head back for the wagon. The animal trotted through the gut, then found another passage back to the road and ran off.

  Gath, his eyes hunting the ground for any sign of his passage, led the string of horses into the gut. He found a scraped rock, a hoof print in soft earth, then nothing, and stopped. Rocks the color of shadows and shadows the color of rock surrounded him, and endless natural trails heading in all directions. He dismounted and led the string forward a few feet, portioning off the ground in squares with his eyes and studying each carefully. Finding nothing, he moved forward and began again. He did this until the already dark sky grew darker, the daylight dying behind it, and the truth could not be avoided.

  He was lost.

  The helmet suddenly lightened, the metal mocking him with laughter. Then it quickly grew heavy again, forcing his head low between his shoulders and making him spread his feet for balance. Smoke and heat showed in the eye slits, and the horns pulsed, sending commands into his body. The helmet was choosing a path to the right between low spreading boulders.

  Gath fought it, holding his place, and the metal’s hunger increased. It was not danger the metal sensed and wanted to guide him to. Another, stronger desire fed it now. Revenge. It wanted to feed on the creature which had denied it satisfaction and control for so long, and it was pointing the way to that creature. Gath heaved and sweated, holding back, then surrendered to it and started forward. He had no choice, even though he knew it now hungered for Robin Lakehair.

  THIRTY

  LIAR

  Cobra climbed up the interior stairwell to the second story of the wagon and asked, “Any sign of him?” The bukko, standing at the window looking out, shook his head. “Not yet.” He turned, bringing his boyish smile with him, and said comfortingly, “You’ve got to relax. We’re going to need all the energy we can muster for the trail tonight.”

  “I should never have put the helmet on him,” she despaired. “It was stupid.”

  “You had no choice.”

  “I’m not so sure. I was frantic. I behaved like a mindless girl.” She threw herself across his bed, hiding her head in her arms. “Oh, Brown, it’s so maddening. Once I would have known exactly what to do, and done it without hesitation. Sent an army to help him, or concocted some demon, or poisoned him to quiet his hunger.” She lifted her head. “I did that once before, you know. I actually poisoned him. But I’ve got no poisons now, and no skills to make them. I’m helpless, and alone. And I don’t know how to wait. I’m going crazy.”

  She buried her head again and shuddered the full length of her voluptuous body.

  Brown John hesitated, then said quietly, “You’re not alone.”

  She looked across a bare shoulder at him, as if he were a world away.

  He stood with his back leaning against the sill of the open window. Outside it was silent and growing dark. Nothing moved. The wall of lava rising above the wagon was black against an indigo sky, and Brown John’s face, lit by guttering candlelight, was bright against the darkness. He had obviously been pondering their desperate situation himself, tearing at his hair with his pudgy fingers. But as he spoke again, his voice only carried its normal puckish optimism.

  “Robin, I presume, is safely out of his sight, in case he should show up suddenly?”

  “Yes,” she said emptily. “She promised me she would not let him see one finger.” She chuckled hollowly and sat up with her back against the wall. “She’s such a simpering fool. She wanted to make me stop worrying, so she assured me that Gath would not only come back, but that we were going to succeed. Not only steal the jewels, but solve all the world’s problems with them.” She chuckled with humorless ridicule. “Then she went to sleep, as if there wasn’t a worry in the world. She’s down there now.”

  Brown John asked casually, “What do you think about the jewels?”

  “I don’t,” she said flatly. “It’s pointless if Gath doesn’t come back.”

  The bukko smiled carefully and said, “You would make far better company if you could forget that for a while.” Getting no reply, he asked, “What do the jewels look like, exactly? Are they ordinary gems, or do they have their own particular qualities?”

  “I don’t k
now, Brown,” she sighed impatiently. “What difference does it make? There is no point in discussing them now.”

  “Perhaps not,” he said lightly. He sat down beside her, and his brown eyes glittered recklessly. “How old are you?”

  “What?” she asked, startled.

  “We’ve got to pass the time somehow, so tell me. How old?”

  Thrown off guard, she asked, “Does it show that much? Am I beginning to look my true age, is that it?”

  “No,” he said, “only more accessible. Now, how old, or have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she said candidly, her grey-gold eyes meeting his brown. “I was fourteen when I gave myself to the Master of Darkness, twenty-six when he made me a queen, and I was a queen for twelve years. I guess that makes me thirty-eight, almost thirty-nine.”

  He grimaced. “That’s awful. Nobody should have to be that old.”

  She laughed with a burst of relaxation, then sighed again and said quietly, “That’s not the hard part. I can deal with the added weight and a few wrinkles. But inside I’m mixed up. I have no experience or skills as a mere woman, and when I least expect it, my emotions run wild on me, like I was still fourteen.”

  “How wild?” he asked, not with a provocative tone, but a deadly serious one.

  She hesitated, growing tense, then suddenly turned and sank facedown, avoiding his eyes. Her voice turned low and brutal with self-mockery.

  “When he didn’t come right back, I was going to kill myself. Really. I’d never felt so full of self-pity. I didn’t even think it was possible. It just overwhelmed me and I had to end it.” She laughed bitterly, deep in her throat. “But I couldn’t find my knife, and it passed.”

  He smiled, drew a dagger from inside his belt and held it up. It was hers. She looked at it, and again put her eyes on his, holding them this time for a long moment before she spoke.

  “You knew!”