Rise of the Death Dealer

by James Silke

  “I see things coming sometimes,” he said, as casually as if he were discussing someone coming down the road. “Particularly if I am deeply involved with… or care for someone.”

  His change in tone made her hesitate, then she said, “You shouldn’t care, Brown. You should have let me do it.”

  He shook his frowsy head. “Couldn’t afford to. After this is all over, I’m going to need a snake charmer, and you have rather unusual qualifications.”

  She couldn’t repress a smile, and shook her head, amused at the timing of his humor.

  He shrugged and ran a hand over the boot hiding her scales, then over her calf, patting it gently.

  She said, “Brown, I can’t believe that a man as wise as yourself is actually making plans for the future at a time like this.”

  “But this is precisely the time to make them,” he said emphatically. “And you should be doing the same. You have a lot of lost time to make up for. Twelve years! The prime of your life!”

  “They weren’t lost,” she said absently. “I was a queen. I had the finest clothes, food, jewels. And an army! Power! Don’t forget that, I had everything I wanted.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said softly.

  He leaned over and removed a strand of hair from her cheek, looking into her eyes. “Don’t, Brown,” she purred. “Don’t look inside. You’ll… you’ll see things you don’t want to see.”

  “I’ll take that chance,” he murmured. “Besides, I don’t have a choice anymore. I know you’ve been playing with me, and leading me on, but I don’t care.”

  “I wasn’t leading you on. You saved my life! I was grateful, and I don’t know any other way to behave with a man.”

  “I know,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that. You want to control me, because Gath depends on me. But that’s all right too. I don’t know what you’re up to, why you really want to go to Pyram, but I don’t care anymore. Sometimes I think I don’t even care about the jewels anymore.”

  “Brown, don’t,” she pleaded. “I’ll be all right now. You don’t have to say that.”

  “I do,” he said, suddenly breathless. He kissed her cheek, and she trembled at the heat in his lips. “I’m going to help you make up those lost years. All of them. One by one. I’m going to show you the other side of every mountain, show you the ways of the rivers and the wind… and make you days like you have never had before.”

  “Don’t, Brown, please. I’m… you can’t. I’m not made for the kind of dreams you dream.”

  “It’s too late,” he whispered. “You are their bright cloth now.”

  He kissed her softly, and she wanted to protest but could not, and surrendered to his touch. There was magic in his lips, a tender soothing magic she had not known existed, and it surged through her. Then she pushed him away, her voice pleading.

  “Stop! Please stop!” she gasped. “You don’t understand. You can’t trust me. I’ll let you down. I’ll hurt you. And I don’t want to.”

  He shook his head and said it again. “It’s too late.”

  Silence came between them, and a sharp groan came from somewhere outside the wagon.

  Cobra sat up wide-eyed and gasped hopefully, “Gath!”

  They listened, once more in the middle of the fear and anxiety, but no sound came. They leapt up, and Cobra raced down the staircase as Brown John grabbed up his sword and followed.

  The bottom room was empty. Robin was gone.

  Cobra moaned and flung open the door, rushed through it.

  Outside the wagon they looked up and down the narrow ravine and up at the crests of the lava walls siding it. There was no one, only silence and shadows and darkening sky. They shared a worried glance and held still, listening as a whispering voice echoed up and down the ravine.

  “Don’t bother with it, it’s fine now.” It was a courteous, male growl.

  “I’m not leaving until I’ve finished.” A girl’s voice, full of zeal, and decisive.

  “Yes, you are. Now get back in the wagon before he comes back and sees you.” Male again, sharp and sensible.

  Cobra and Brown John backed away from the wagon, their eyes aimed at the roof.

  Jakar sat against the sideboard and Robin was kneeling beside him, wrapping a length of tom cloth around a wand she was using as a splint. The groan had obviously been made by Jakar when she reset the bone.

  “You fool!” snarled Cobra. “Get back in the wagon.”

  Robin and Jakar, momentarily shocked, looked down at Cobra and the bukko.

  “Do as she says,” blurted Brown John. “Hurry!”

  “In a minute,” Robin said, and started knotting the cloth in place.

  “I’ll finish,” said Jakar, pushing her off, but she wouldn’t quit.

  Cobra, desperate, climbed up the rungs of the driver’s box heading for the couple, as Brown John shouted, “Robin, get back in the wagon.”

  The girl pulled the knot tight, stood, and the sounds of horses’ hooves filled the ravine. Quiet, moving slow, but nearby.

  Cobra froze, and the bukko, his voice suddenly weak, whispered, “Horses.”

  Jakar jumped up, taking Robin by the elbow, and pushed her toward the trapdoor. Suddenly she gasped, seeing something beyond the ridge above the roof, and pulled back. Jakar, seeing the same thing, stepped in front of her, shielding her body with his, and picked up his loaded crossbow, leveled it at the ridge.

  Lurking darkness filled with the sounds of horses snorting and stomping loomed beyond the lip of the rock. The sounds were growing louder, advancing on the wagon.

  “Nooo!” Cobra groaned, and dropped back off the wagon beside the bukko. He put an arm around her trembling shoulders and held her close. His sword ready in the other hand.

  Where the indigo sky rose above black rimrock, the shape of the horned helmet appeared out of the looming darkness, its eye slits spitting flames. They hissed and grew brighter and brighter as Gath advanced to the edge and looked down at Robin. He was glistening with sweat, bloody from foot to chest, and the wounds he had received from Baskt were charred scabs surrounded by white ash. His huge axe dangled from one hand, caked with drying blood. The other held a lead rope guiding a string of five horses. Small, sturdy animals with fur blankets and black saddles.

  Moaning, Robin sank into a puddle behind Jakar, and her loveliness sprawled helplessly, gathering moonlight with bare arms and thighs.

  The homed helmet growled and roared at the sight, the axe trembling with impatience inside Gath’s bloody grip. His body was hunched low, animal-like, and heaving with hunger. Suddenly tongues of flame spit from the face of the helmet, striking at Jakar, and he staggered back ducking and covering Robin.

  Cobra sank against Brown John, her strength gone and her moans inarticulate. “He won’t hurt her,” Brown John said weakly. “He…” The bukko stopped short, and his cheeks became white.

  Gath’s body had begun to shudder. Flames and smoke were sputtering from the helmet, and behind him the string of terrified horses whinnied and bolted, trying vainly to escape his grasp. But the Barbarian held on. He threw back his head and howled, and the ground shook beneath his feet. Chunks of rock fell away from the ridge and crashed against the side of the wagon below.

  Robin hid her face behind Jakar, and he fired wildly.

  The crossbow bolt clanged against the helmet, sheared off into the sky, and the metal roared, spitting shards of white lightning.

  Brown John turned Cobra away, not wanting her to see what would happen next. But she resisted, watching over his shoulder with her hands gripping his arm.

  Fissures opened in the ground under Gath’s heaving weight, ripped down into the hard lava, and huge rocks fell away, crashing against the side of the wagon. Then slowly, like red-hot steel being twisted in an anvil, his body turned away.

  Color rushed back into Brown John’s cheeks, and his voice whispered encouragement. “That’s it, my friend. Just walk away. Whip that filthy headpiece.”

&nb
sp; Gath remained in place, his back heaving with convulsions, and the ground shook again. Then he walked away, rejoining the darkness beyond.

  Cobra, her body still shuddering against the bukko, looked up at him. Her face was childish with relief and joy, unable to believe what she had just seen.

  Brown John sighed. “Now, I’ll bet you’re as glad as I am that you didn’t stick that dagger in your heart. Just think of all the excitement you would have missed!”

  She smiled weakly and kissed his cheek, saying, “I’ll go find him. You make sure Robin’s out of sight. We don’t dare let this happen again.”

  He nodded, and she hurried off, found a way up the ridge and vanished through a gut.

  She found Gath under an overhanging shelf of rock well away from the ravine. He was on his hands and knees, heaving with flaming convulsions within the dark shadowed recess. The earth and rock beneath the helmet were scorched and smoking. To the side of the rocky shelf, the horses were tethered to a shrub and snorting and stomping with fear.

  Gasping with relief, and with her emotions running chaotically through her heart and mind and body, Cobra knelt beside him. Knowing it was useless to speak, she touched his bare shoulder, thrilling at his heat, and the helmet turned slowly in her direction. She ducked away from the flames, felt his hands take hold of her neck and hip, and moaned, “Yes, yes! It’s all right. It will cool it.”

  He drew her roughly under him, and she groaned with pain, the scorched earth searing her clothing and the backs of her bare shoulders. He hesitated, heaving like a smoking mountain above, massive and powerful. Her hands took his, drawing them to her breasts. Her voice had no will but his will. “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  He took her then, quickly but with instinctive tenderness, the force of his weight and searing heat penetrating her flesh and heart. Flames ignited stray strands of her hair, but she did not notice. Her arms went around him, and she held on like the cloud holds the thunderstorm, tears welling from her eyes.

  The fury of his passion, the hot metal and the flames took their toll of her clothing and body, but if there was pain she did not feel it. Nor would she recall it. There was only pleasure. But not the heady erotic rapture she had known so often before. This time it had impossible dimensions, was of a size and softness and rapture and contentment only dreamed of by young girls. Never before had a man as powerful and proud and deadly as Gath of Baal walked the earth, nor would there ever be such a man made again, and she held him in her arms.

  Tonight he belonged to her.

  Thirty-one

  NIGHT RIDERS

  The string of five riders headed west by north on the Way of the Scorpion. Their bodies were covered with dark robes, and they kept to the low ground, galloping through the concealing gloom of defile and canyon, only crossing moonlit mesa and hogback when the route demanded it.

  Three hours had passed since they had packed their provisions on the stolen horses, heaved the wagon into the chasm and ridden into the night. But the string had never lost shape or strength. They rode together, with one destination, one purpose.

  Gath galloped well ahead, picking his way through the midnight darkness with his metal head still sputtering flames like a volcanic avalanche. He wore his black chain mail now, and the musical clinks of the metal played lightly among the drumming of hooves on soft earth. Somehow he had mysteriously regained control of the helmet, but he had paid a price. The flames continued to sputter and smoke, and he had lost all ability to speak.

  The bukko king was second in line, sitting his saddle like a nineteen-year-old braggart soldier in love. Since they had set forth, he had been deliberately displaying his horsemanship by guiding his horse over the most difficult passages, always being careful to suck in his paunch, and never failing to throw spicy glances back at Cobra, a woman young enough to be his daughter, and seductive enough to make a fool out of any nineteen-year-old, particularly one in his middle fifties.

  Cobra followed diligently, being careful to acknowledge the bukko’s performance. She kept her hood over her head and held her robe tightly about her. Every so often, when the bukko was not looking, she would bend forward in the saddle and gasp, as if in pain. But when someone would take notice, she immediately sat erect, and rode on with determination and spirit.

  Robin stayed as close to the serpent woman as she could, watching her carefully and with concern. The girl was now so wrapped in black robes that she looked like a billowing bag of felt.

  Jakar rode at the tail of the string, with his eyes on the billowing bag. He could not see one soft inch of Robin. Nevertheless he was enjoying the sight of her, and the lighthearted glint in his eyes was now rooted in something more substantial than skepticism.

  When the riders broke free of the lava beds, they left the Way of the Scorpion and plunged directly west through thickets of tamarisk and low-lying carob trees. They veered and slashed, tearing their cloaks and scratching faces and thighs, but did not slacken their pace. They continued in this manner for nearly an hour, hiding their movements in every available chink and cranny, and always guided by a distant star Cobra called Veshta’s Light. Then the thickets thinned, and they reined up abruptly, still within the concealing growth.

  Spreading in front of them were expansive mud flats, dry and hard, as white and smooth as ice in the moonlight, and shattered like a clay plate. In the distance, torch-bearing riders were headed in their direction. The small group watched the torches until they passed by several hundred feet to the north and vanished into the thickets. Spear-bearing soldiers or outlaws. It was impossible to identify them further in the dark. When the sound of their horses faded, Gath led the small group across the flats, using the trail torn out of the dry mud by the night riders.

  The first light of dawn was edging into the black sky when they reined up in the bed of a narrow, intermittent stream. Behind them was a shadowy world, a gutted landscape of tabletop mesas, canyons, rifts and fractures. In front of them, a rolling plain rose gently through hazy darkness toward the foothills of a mountain range. The hills were even more gently curved and appeared soft in the dim light. They rose to fully rounded mountains that thrust voluptuously up into the embrace of the indigo sky. They seemed endless, each rising higher and higher. The Breasts of Veshta.

  “There they are!” Cobra’s breathless voice broke as she spoke, and her smile was weak. Nevertheless it spoke eloquently of her soaring expectations. “All… all we have to do is cross those mountains.”

  They sat exhausted and worn in their saddles, staring at the mountains, more sensing than seeing the faint morning light eat into the darkness around them. If they started into the plain, the sun would be beating down on them before they were halfway across. A moment passed, and Brown John asked the question they were all thinking.

  “What do you figure, one more night? Two?” Except for Gath, they all turned to Cobra. She was breathing heavily. Sensing their eyes, she calmed herself. “If we leave as soon as it’s dark, we…” She hesitated, wavering weakly in her saddle, then drew herself erect and continued, “We should make Pyram before sunrise tomorrow.”

  They smiled at that, then held still, watching the plain.

  In the distance, a troop of spear-carrying riders, strung out like a writhing black rope, had appeared heading away from them. One of the lead riders held a banner that flapped lazily on the air. It was black with three bright red circles on it, the mark of the Nymph Queen of Pyram.

  When the soldiers vanished beyond a hill, Gath dismounted. Brown John, Robin and Jakar did the same, then Cobra tried and fell off her horse. Brown John, Robin and Jakar rushed to her, and the bukko held her in his arms, loosening her robes as Robin pushed back the hood. Cobra’s hair was charred and burnt short in places on one side of her head, and her neck, shoulder and cheek were red and blistered. “Holy Bled!” exclaimed Brown John.

  “What happened?” Robin asked.

  “It’s all right,” Cobra said weakly.

  �
��No, it’s not!” growled the bukko.

  “Please, Brown,” Cobra pleaded, “don’t say anything. It’s not his fault. And I can rest all day now. I’ll be fine by dark.”

  “But you’re badly hurt,” the bukko said. “You should have said something.”

  She shook her head. “We couldn’t have stopped to rest, and I really will be fine.” She pushed the bukko’s hands aside gently. “So keep your hands to yourself, you shameless old goat. Robin will take care of me, won’t you, lass?”

  “Of course,” Robin said. “Can you walk? There’s a hidden spot just a little ways back that looked like it might be comfortable.”

  Cobra said she could walk, and they helped her to the spot Robin had spoken of. Then, as Robin privately saw to Cobra’s wounds, the men tethered the horses in a depression, watered them and distributed equal portions of water and food for the group, with the exception of Cobra, who was given all her needs required. When Robin finished with Cobra, and the serpent woman fell asleep from the herbs the girl had given her, Brown John asked Robin how Cobra had been hurt.

  “I can’t tell you, Brown,” she said firmly. “Before she would let me attend to her wounds, she made me promise not to speak to anyone about their nature.”

  “But how badly is she hurt?”

  “She’s in pain, but she’ll be all right.”

  Not satisfied, he demanded, “Robin, this is the wrong time for you to be keeping your vows. Tell me what happened.”

  “I can’t,” she said, “but I will tell you this. Whatever she did, she did it for us.”

  The bukko, seeing he was going to get nowhere, joined Cobra to watch over his bright cloth as she slept.

  Jakar and Robin sat together under a concealing shelf of rock, and Gath sat facing the plain behind a rock that looked a little less dangerous than he did. He sat apart from the others in the manner of his dream, by himself.

  After Jakar and Robin finished their meal, he casually asked her, “What you said, about Cobra doing whatever she did for all of us… you made that up, right? To make Brown John feel better?” She shook her bushy black-red hair. “That’s what she told me to tell him. She didn’t want him to worry, you know, just in case he would blame Gath instead of the helmet for what happened.”