A line of torches was coming around the side of the nearby mountain at the base of the slope. Riders carried them.
Jakar pulled on Brown John. “Let’s go. Now!” His voice had a ring of authority that shocked Robin to her senses, and as Jakar pushed her up the slope, she pleaded, “Hurry, Brown! Hurry!”
The older Grillard abruptly came to his feet, carrying Cobra in his arms, and took in the situation. “Holy Bled!” he cursed, and ran back up the slope, his short legs pumping in the loose earth.
When the group reached the top of the slope, it crouched in the shadows of boulders, gasping with momentary relief.
The riders, a troop of bat soldiers, had not started up after them, but had circled around Gath’s fallen body and were hooting and laughing with delight as the bats, their wings filling the night with a whooshing roar, flew off. Several soldiers dismounted and cast the light of their torches over the fallen bodies of the monster vampire bat and Gath, inspecting them. Two tried to pull off the homed helmet, but it would not come away. So they picked up his body, threw it over a saddle and began to rope it in place.
“He’s alive,” Brown John whispered excitedly. “He’s still alive.”
Robin looked uncertainly at Jakar, and he explained, “Otherwise they wouldn’t bother to tie him.”
She nodded, then shivered as a group of bat soldiers separated from the others and started up the slope toward them.
Staying low and to the shadows, Jakar led the group across the crest of the mountain to the hollow where the surviving horses were still tethered. The sound of the bat soldiers’ horses coming their way was growing louder.
Robin moaned. “They’ll find us!”
“Maybe not,” Jakar said quietly. “Follow me. We’ll leave the horses here.”
He led Robin through the boulders, and Brown John, carrying Cobra, followed.
Moving swiftly and silently, they found the gash in the cliff and started down. Reaching the shelf of earth overlooking the road, Jakar guided Brown John to a hidden gut of rock, saying, “You stay here.” Brown John, acknowledging the young man’s authoritative command, slipped out of sight behind the concealing gut with Cobra in his arms, and Jakar turned to Robin. “Follow me, fluff. I’m going to need your help.”
Moving with neat, sure-footed steps, Robin followed him to the edge of the shelf, zealous in her desire to help. But when she saw the slaughtered caravan below the ledge, she faltered and turned away, gagging. Ignoring her sick, heaving sounds, Jakar kneeled, studying the bloody tableau below, and his eyes thinned with satisfaction.
Moon vultures were working the two lines of bodies. They were white, with long necks for probing deep into bone cavities, and their necks were red with blood, their crops bulging. The bodies of the slavers and slaves were no longer in an orderly arrangement. Limbs and trunks had been dragged and tossed about by the big birds, and the dead girls, more accessible to the vultures because of having been stripped before the birds arrived, were in total disarray. A tangle of gory limbs, torsos and heads.
When Robin quieted, she squatted beside Jakar, forcing herself to look directly at the scene. She trembled, but asked evenly, “What can I do? How can I help you?”
“It’s not going to be easy or pleasant,” he whispered. “You finished being sick?”
“I think so,” she said, and her voice faltered. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Don’t be,” he interrupted. “I did the same when I saw them.” There was a commotion of shouting voices at the top of the crest far above them, and he stood abruptly, bringing her with him. “They’ve found our horses. We’re going to have to hurry.”
They scrambled down to the road below, bringing down a small avalanche of earth. The vultures glanced in their direction, but continued to work at their bloody meal. Jakar leveled his crossbow at the nearest bird and fired.
The steel bolt took the vulture in the chest and drove it fluttering and mawking off its gore. The noise startled the others, and they scattered, crying in frustration.
Jakar took Robin’s hand, and they hurried across the open road to the bodies of the girls, kneeling beside them. Choking at the sight, Robin averted her head, and shut her eyes tight.
“That’s all right,” Jakar said, setting his crossbow down. “You don’t have to look.” He drew his knife. “Give me your wrist… I’m going to open your vein.”
She looked at him in shock, saw the bodies and gagged again. Quickly turning away, she lifted her wrist to him. He took it, saying, “Listen, fluff, there’s not much time to explain, but I think this Nymph Queen has some way of identifying you by your blood. So I’m going to smear it over one of these girls.”
She forced a nod, and he guided her wrist to a full-breasted torso, noting the girl’s shape paled beside Robin’s, and wondering at himself for noting such a thing at such a time. Then he hesitated, and stared wide-eyed, momentarily unable to breathe or move.
Torch-bearing riders had appeared down the road. They were far off, but coming hard. The beat of their horses’ hooves was growing louder, and their vibrations could be felt in the road.
Robin opened her eyes, saw the torches and gasped.
Jakar held her arm roughly, so she couldn’t move, and drove the blade into the underside of her wrist. Robin jerked at the pain, gasping as blood spurted forth, but did not pull away, and he marveled at her courage as he guided her wrist over the body of the dead girl, drenching it with blood. His eyes shifted to the riders.
They moved around a bend and disappeared behind it, showing no hurry. It appeared they had not seen Jakar and Robin.
Jakar, forcing himself not to do a hurried, inadequate job, continued to spread Robin’s blood, and the dead torso began to glitter wetly in the moonlight. Then Robin’s body sank heavily against his back, and he turned sharply. Her face was white, and she was gasping.
He cursed himself for taking too much of her blood and, yanking a rag from under his belt, whipped it around her wrist tightly. He tied it off securely, stopping the flow of blood, then guided her to her feet and started across the road toward the shadows of the gash. Noise from the mountain brought him to a sudden stop.
Bodies were coming down the gash. Hurried. Raising dust.
Jakar, holding Robin’s trembling body tight, glanced around, suddenly furtive, terrified.
The torches of the riders appeared coming around the bend, only several hundred feet off now.
Jakar hurried Robin back past the gory bodies and moved through the tall grass lining the opposite side of the road, dropped behind it. There he held Robin close.
Her breath came fitfully, but then it quieted, and she whispered, “I’ll be all right. It will pass.”
He nodded at her brave face and kissed her dirty cheek, again wondering at her healthy scent and the thrilling feel of her warmth. Each sensation stood alone and distinct, and was full of wonder and chance and adventure, and his senses reeled.
The sounds of men descending the mountain were suddenly loud, and they peered through the grass. A squad of bat soldiers, dusty and cursing, now stood on the road. But Brown John and Cobra were not with them, and had apparently not been discovered. The soldiers moved tentatively among the slaughtered bodies, their blunt faces uncertain and wary, then looked up at the sounds of the arriving horses. A troop of twenty bat soldiers pounded to a stop beside the slaughtered caravan. Some of them led trailing horses, and now handed the reins to the squad on foot.
A small man with blistered flesh and wearing a blue skullcap with long pendulous ear flaps appeared to be in charge of the detachment. He was chortling with malevolent triumph, pointing at the dead girls and shouting in a dry, coarse voice.
“There! There! The one with the big dum-dums. Put her in the sack.”
Robin cringed, and hugged Jakar tighter, not understanding the small man’s language and her eyes asking Jakar if he had somehow identified her blood. Jakar lifted a finger to his lips and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
Robin shuddered and Jakar held her tighter.
The bat soldiers stuffed the torso and severed arm of the girl in a leather sack and slung it over the pommel of their leader’s saddle. Chuckling, the little brute patted it as he spoke to it. “You’ve given me a whole lot of trouble, lass! But you’ll behave now.”
Several of the bat soldiers grunted with laughter, then one asked the small man if he wanted any of the other bodies. He walked his horse along the row of dead girls, inspecting them, and shook his head. “The serpent queen isn’t one of them.” He looked off into the surrounding shadows. “She’s probably out there hiding someplace, but she’s helpless now. Of no importance.” He turned to a mounted bat soldier. “Inform your officers that the girl has been found and that I am returning to Pyram with her.” He glanced at the others as the squad on foot mounted. “The rest of you will accompany me to Pyram.”
The designated soldier saluted, and galloped back down the road, while the small man, smiling with dark triumph, headed west with the troop.
Jakar held Robin tight against him until the riders were out of sight, then whispered, “They’re gone. It’s all over.”
She looked up at him. Her cheeks were smeared with tears and dirt, and he had never seen anything so lovely. “Really?” she asked, and he nodded. She sagged against him, murmuring, “Hold me, Jakar. Please, just hold me.”
He held her.
Thirty-Five
PIT OF DOOM
Brown John led the now conscious Cobra down to the road as Robin and Jakar emerged from the shadows on the opposite side, and Robin raced into the old man’s arms.
“Thank the gods!” the bukko exclaimed. “I thought they’d carried you off.”
Cobra, her face ashen in the moonlight against her charred black hair, stood uncertainly looking up the road. The torches of the bat soldiers were pins of light in the vast pervading darkness of the night, and growing fainter and fainter. Then they vanished, and Cobra moved slowly alongside the dismembered bodies, studying them. She had regained consciousness in time to overhear Schraak’s decision to return to Pyram, but could find no explanation for it. She put her puzzled eyes on Jakar and asked, “What happened? Why have they left?”
“We tricked them,” he said evenly. “They think they have Robin.”
“Tricked? How?”
“I put her blood on one of the dead girls.”
“Her blood?” Cobra’s voice lost strength as she spoke. She looked down at the stains of fresh blood on the ground, then at Robin’s pale flesh, and staggered in place, her face distending with such horror that it could have been the mother of all nightmares.
The bukko moved to her quickly, supporting her with his arms and asking, “What’s wrong?”
She had to gasp for breath before she could speak. “Your dream is dead, Brown.” Her voice was cold and bitter, and her eyes fixed on Jakar. “That small man leading them was one of my priests. His name is Schraak. Somehow,” she gasped, “somehow Tiyy has given him the power to see Robin’s aura in her flesh and blood.”
“That’s what I was counting on,” said Jakar. “And it worked,” added the bukko enthusiastically. “He thinks he has her.”
“He does have her,” Cobra said darkly. “Tiyy does not need Robin… all she needs is her blood.” Their eyes widened in horror, and she added, “She’ll extract the power of Robin’s Kaa from the blood and corrupt it with her magic, then feed on it. Whatever powers she’s lost, she’ll regain immediately. But it won’t stop there. Now she’ll have power over the helmet just as Robin had, power enough to make Gath surrender to it. And when she controls him, she’ll send him after Robin.”
“It won’t make any difference,” Robin protested weakly. “He won’t hurt me.”
“That’s right,” Brown John chimed in. “Gath won’t submit no matter what she does. You’ve seen how he’s fought the helmet. He won’t quit now!” Cobra turned her grey-gold eyes on the bukko and smiled. There was warmth in her expression, but no hope. “Brown,” she said, “I know you love Gath, and believe me, I know he is an extraordinary man. But he is now held by powers no man can overcome.” Her smile sank tiredly. “It’s over, my friend. Finished. No amount of words, no matter how filled with humor and hope, can help him now… or us.”
“I quite agree,” Brown John said, “The next scene does not call for dialogue, but for action.”
Jakar nodded agreement, saying, “They didn’t have our horses with them, so maybe they’re where we left them. I’ll go find out.” He winked at Robin. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She nodded. “Be careful.”
He darted into the shadows of the cliff and started up the gash toward the crest.
Cobra watched him, shaking her head and asking, “Just what do you think you can do, Brown?” She turned to him. “Go to Pyram? Storm the castle with four people?”
“Yes,” he said evenly, “and you will lead the way.” He smiled knowingly. “You still know it, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, I know the way. But it is useless. They would see us coming for miles. And even if we got inside, we would stand no chance against Gath. The helmet would sense our presence and hunt us down.”
“But if we could get to the jewels first, there would be a chance, correct?”
“Brown,” she said tiredly, “Pyram is not one of your stages. It’s real, and dangerous. The jewels are held deep within its dungeons. We would have to have the luck of the Good Goddess herself to even reach them.”
Brown John took hold of her shoulders and grinned. “Then you agree? There is a chance we could reach them?”
“Yes, a chance, but…”
“And if this nymph bitch does control Gath, the jewels can free him from her, right?”
She started to reply, and stopped herself, then said, “I don’t know.”
“You were sure before,” he said accusingly.
“I know, but, well… maybe I was dreaming, just filling my head with wishful thinking.” She turned away, then glanced at Robin. “What about you? If this crazy old man goes to Pyram, are you going with him?”
“Of course,” blurted Robin.
“Why?” asked Cobra, her voice flat and hard. “You don’t need the jewels. You’ve already not only cured Jakar of his bitterness, but made him fall in love with you! What do you need them for now?” Robin blushed. “I don’t know if what you say about Jakar is true or not. But that doesn’t count, not now. Gath needs us. And we’ve got to try and help him no matter how small the chance of success.” Cobra moved face-to-face with Robin, studying her, then said bitterly, “You’re lying. You want the jewels for yourself! That’s all you’ve ever wanted.” Robin’s mouth fell open in shock, and she looked from Brown John to Cobra, gasping, “That’s not true! I… I…”
“Never mind, Robin,” Brown John said calmly, “you don’t have to explain anything.” He turned to Cobra. “There’s no need to take your frustrations out on her. That won’t help anything.”
Cobra-stared at him, empty of expression, and sat down on the side of the cliff staring at the dirt. Brown moved to her, but hesitated for a moment before he spoke.
“One more question. Can the jewels free Gath from this Nymph Queen’s control or not?”
“I can’t promise it, Brown,” Cobra replied without looking at him, “but yes, if everything is as it appears to be, yes.”
“Then we do have a chance.”
“If we can reach the jewels, yes,” Cobra said, looking up. “But that’s impossible!”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But if you will forgive me for saying it myself, I tend to excel at times of extreme hopelessness.”
Cobra couldn’t repress a grin, and shook her head as Brown John squatted facing her. “Don’t shake your lovely head, woman. We stand at the bottom of a pit of doom, so our only recou
rse is to look up with soaring spirits. It is the only thing that can lift us out.”
“You realize, of course,” she said, “that you’re quite mad.”
He nodded affirmatively. “It is a point of honor with me. If there is a cliff, I must jump off it… just in case I should chance to fly.”
She smiled, and the sounds of horses were heard down the road. They rose, and Jakar rode out of the darkness leading two horses. Robin sighed with relief and raced to greet him as Cobra turned to Brown John.
“You see,” he said, “already our luck changes for the better.”
“Or for the worse,” she said soberly.
He shook his head. “Trust me. I see things coming, remember? And you and I, woman, have only started down our trail, believe me. Our time has only begun.”
She hesitated, a madcap rush of girlish hope showing behind her eyes, then her voice surrendered. “Brown, I think you’re becoming contagious.”
“Oh, yes,” he said with a profound grin. “That you can count on.”
Thirty-Six
BLACK LIGHT
Clutching her leopard-skin wrap tightly, Tiyy looked over a spotted shoulder with flaring nervous eyes. Thick mustard- and lemon-yellow fumes swirled around her, filling the air in Pyram’s underground altar chamber, and her orchid cheeks flamed behind them, blushing her face to the corners of her scarlet lips. She was slick with sweat. Every nerve and sinew strung tight with sensual expectation. A budding goddess in heat.
She pressed back against the shiny obsidian walls, her flat belly convulsing, and spoke in a breathless voice.
“Careful! Careful!”
The high priest and his two acolytes could only nod in reply. They were scurrying back and forth and around a black stone table from which the fumes emanated, making precise adjustments in the apparatus. Their naked chests glittered with sweat, and their bare feet splashed in puddles of it. They were monitoring stills, flasks, tubes of green glass, furnaces and scorching pans joined together in a bubbling maze on the table. Flame pots flickered under the glass instruments, and vapors convulsed through them, spewing fumes from loosely luted joints and elbows.
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