02 - Lords of Destruction

by James Silke - (ebook by Undead)

  Gath thrust up with his head through the driving rain, and the horns of the helmet speared up into the descending belly. The force was such that both horns and helmet impaled it, the metal sinking into demon flesh until the flaming eyes of the Death Dealer were washed in blood.

  The horns worked into gut and organ, spearing and tearing, then ripped from side to side. Flames blazed out of the helmet’s eye slits, incinerating the gore, and an acrid scent of burning fish mixed with the humid air.

  Gath’s hands caught hold of throat and leg, and crouching low, he drove forward blindly, ramming the sharkman’s body against the side of the auction block. His legs kept driving, holding the flailing body in place. His helmet twisted voraciously. Then the demon came apart in the middle, falling away in two pieces, and the helmet bit into the stone.

  Gath backed away in a low crouch, leaving the separated remains of the demon behind. The legs and hips lay motionless in one puddle of water. The head and arms and chest thrashed violently in another.

  Gath felt Cobra move up beside him and take hold of his elbow and shoulder with feverish fingers. She was trembling, then she gasped.

  Fumes were issuing from the demon spawn’s gory chest cavity. Smoke followed, and snapping eruptions of flashing light chased each other within the smoke. The flashing stopped, and the rain quickly dispersed the smoke, revealing the upper half of a great white shark shuddering on the ground.

  The rain started to lighten and thin out, revealing vague figures in the surrounding distance.

  Cobra moved in front of Gath, holding his stallion’s reins, and looked up at him with the rain splattering over her white face. “We must leave. Now! While the rain covers our escape.”

  He shook his head. “Better they all die.”

  He moved to his fallen axe and picked it off the auction block as she followed leading his stallion. “That won’t help,” she said forcefully. “Schraak is here, one of my former servants, and he’s seen me.” He turned to her, his eyes thoughtful. Her face was different, almost girlish with fear and excitement.

  Cobra said, “He came out of the black tent while you were fighting. He recognized me immediately and loosed his carrier eagles with messages. Before dark, Tiyy will know everything, and her regiments will be hunting us!” Her breathing heaved. “Let Robin remove the helmet, then we must flee.”

  He hesitated and said, “It’s too late for that.” He took the reins of his stallion and swung up into the saddle. “Hide her in the wagon. I must not look at her. The helmet is too strong now.”

  Cobra gasped. “Noooooo!”

  He nodded. “The helmet wants her even now. Hide her in the wagon.”

  Fear blotted Cobra’s face, but she controlled it, saying, “I’ll hide her… you can trust me. She’ll be safe.”

  He looked down at her, and knew he could trust her, but had no idea why.

  Moments later he was riding through the blinding rain with the wagon rumbling behind him as they headed out of the camp. Behind them, vague bodies raced about and hollered ineffectually in the surrounding gloom.

  Twenty-Eight

  THE HELMET’S SLAVE

  Cobra crawled halfway out of the trapdoor on the roof of the bounding wagon, and looked around anxiously. The bloom of girlish fear was still on her white cheeks, but her intractable will was back behind her eyes.

  The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the brilliant mid-day sun streamed down on the vehicle as it splashed through steaming puddles and raced between walls of rock at the western extremity of En Sakalda. Up ahead was a wooden bridge. Gath galloped across it. His broad back was caked with drying blood, and bits of gore dangled from the helmet’s horns.

  The structure spanned a man-made channel which separated the island of rock from the main land mass, and linked the two dry river beds which curved around the island. Long ago the two rivers had filled the channel with water, providing a defensive moat, but now it was dry.

  Kneeling on the roof, Cobra started to close the trapdoor, and Robin’s frightened face popped up out of the shadowed opening. Her eyes were desperate, pleading. Cobra, shaking her head, closed the door in her face, then looked about the roof with vigilant eyes.

  Everything, wood, bodies and clothing, was soaked and glittered in the sunlight. Jakar lay at the rear end in a puddle, with one arm tucked against his chest. It looked broken. His other arm aimed his loaded crossbow over the backboard. His hard eyes were on the road, waiting for whoever might emerge from the rocks of En Sakalda. Brown John stood in the driver’s box, whipping and shouting at the horses with all the gusto he could muster, as if they had suddenly become the principal players in his greatest production.

  Cobra’s face made a circumspect smile, then she held still, listening.

  A churning roar was rising above the sounds of the wagon. It came from the hills to the south where the center of the storm had been, and was growing louder and louder. It blotted out all other sound. Then a crashing, spilling deluge rushed into the channel. A fifteen-foot-high wall of water, rising in waves and dropping on itself to rise again. A flash flood. Before the wagon had crossed the bridge, the weighty torrent was battering the posts supporting it.

  Gath reined up on the opposite side of the bridge and turned toward the wagon with his arm extended, pointing at a trail leading toward gnarled black hills in the distance.

  The wagon bounded off the bridge, and the bukko pulled on the reins, guiding the horses toward the desired trail.

  The trapdoor suddenly burst open, and Robin’s head again popped out. “What’s happening?” she blurted. “Where… ?”

  Cobra fell on her, pushing her back inside the wagon and silencing her with a hand over her mouth. Then she turned sharply and looked over the rim of the sideboard at Gath as the wagon swept past him. Her big almond-shaped eyes were desperate with fear.

  Gath did not look at the wagon. He had not seen Robin. Nevertheless the eye slits of the horned helmet were smoking and flickering with raw fire, and his swarthy muscles had swollen brutishly. The helmet was still feeding him, not only with its powers but with its diabolical appetites.

  When the wagon had left Gath a good fifty feet behind, Cobra pushed herself away from the trapdoor and put her harsh gold eyes on the girl’s upturned face, snapping discordantly, “I told you! You must not let him see you!”

  “It’s always helped him before,” Robin protested, her lower lip protruding.

  “It won’t now!” Cobra shouted. “The helmet has him. You can’t remove it now! And it wants you! He told me himself.” Robin gasped, sinking weakly to the next rung of the ladder: Cobra nodded fatefully.

  “He’s fighting it… but you’ve got to help. If he sees you, he won’t be able to control it.”

  Robin shuddered and nodded repeatedly. Then she obediently climbed down into Brown John’s room, where she shuddered some more.

  Cobra shut the trapdoor and found Jakar’s young handsome eyes on her. Their corners smiled with defiant irony. His voice rang with the same sentiment as he shouted over the rumbling, squealing wheels, “It’s hell being beautiful, isn’t it?”

  She grinned, finding his levity strangely relaxing, and shouted back, “Is your arm broken?”

  “I hope so,” he shouted lightly. “I’ve always wanted to be crippled.” He grinned at his own joke and looked back at the trail.

  Chuckling at his self-mockery, she climbed into the driver’s box beside Brown John. He was sitting now, and his cheeks were flushed with effort. She patted his arm by way of assuring him she was glad to be beside him again, then held it, and looked back at the bridge.

  Gath was walking his stallion onto it, indifferent to the fact that it twisted and shook under him, the full force of the flood now attacking the supporting timbers.

  “Has he destroyed the bridge yet?” Brown shouted without looking at her.

  “No,” she hollered, “he’s waiting for them!”

  The color drained from the bukko�
��s face, and he looked back over his shoulder at the bridge. “The reckless fool!” he snarled. “He’s not only risking his neck, he’s risking ours. He should have torn it down!”

  “Gath would have,” she shouted, “but once again we are dealing with the helmet, not Gath.” The bukko looked at her, fear hard in his brown eyes, and she added, “He can’t resist a fight anymore. The helmet won’t let him.” She sank slightly in the box, and her voice dropped. “Look… see for yourself.”

  Brown John glanced back again and grimaced painfully.

  Mounted bat soldiers were galloping out of En Sakalda. They were shouting unheard in the roar of the flood, and their small horses spattered mud in all directions as they charged for the bridge.

  Gath now waited at the center, patient and motionless, even though the bridge was weaving back and forth, promising in every way to fall.

  The flash flood had risen almost to the crests of the channel’s dirt walls, and was sloshing over the flooring of the bridge. Then a huge wave rose up and crashed across the structure, taking out railings and staggering the stallion. Gath did not appear to notice. He yanked the frightened horse back under control and turned it sideways, blocking the bridge.

  The furry, shouting demon spawn thundered onto it and bore down on him with spears leveled.

  He waited, bare chest and naked legs glistening wetly in the sunshine. As the spears arrived, he suddenly pivoted in his saddle and swung his axe in a wide arc. With uncanny accuracy, he clipped off short lengths of spear, and their blades fell off just before they reached him. The splintered butts wavered, some gouging him, but most missing altogether. Simultaneously, two spears, which had ducked away from his blow, drove deep into the chest and rump of the stallion.

  The stallion reared and whinnied in pain, banging the smaller attacking horses to a snorting, thrashing stop. At the front of the melee, Gath cleaved with his axe and again hauled his snorting, kicking mount under control. Then he plunged into the center of the confusion. There his axe worked to advantage, and the spears were rendered harmless, too long and awkward to wield in cramped quarters.

  Several smaller horses were driven into the rush of the flood below, taking their screaming riders with them. The remaining bat soldiers dropped their spears and reached for their swords. Too late. The axe blade ate head and gut, and bodies dropped onto the bridge. Another wave washed over it, carrying off the lamed and wounded and dropping Gath’s bleeding, dying stallion to its hocks and knees.

  Gath jumped free, and stood in the middle of the mayhem with his body and weapon whirling in place.

  Chests and necks and joints were severed, and he vanished behind eruptions of blood and body parts. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the cascading flood fell away, and the bodies of the soldiers and animals crumpled to lie writhing on the bridge around Gath’s blood-red body.

  Cobra watched with no expression on her face, except for the pride and passion hidden deep behind her molten eyes.

  He stood in the middle of the carnage, like no other man had stood before. His stallion had toppled over on its side beside him and was kicking mindlessly at the air. Then another huge wave rushed down the belly of the channel and washed over the bridge, carrying away most of the bleeding, screaming clutter.

  Gath, bending low and staggering, fought against the wall of water and held his place, but his stallion vanished amid the deluge. When the wave passed, the Barbarian stood motionless, angrily staring down at the rushing water below. His bloody hands held his axe across his thighs. His chest heaved.

  Smoke and fire leapt from the helmet’s eyes, crying out his loss. Then the fire died, abruptly, and his body jerked, as if his heart had taken the full thrust of a sword.

  Cobra gasped out a sharp scream, feeling the pain he felt at the loss of his animal companion. Brown John looked at her, not understanding, then back at the bridge, and groaned in fear.

  The old man gathered the reins in his fists, pulled back hard, and the wagon rumbled to a stop. Then he gathered Cobra in his arms and held her trembling body, as they and Jakar watched helplessly.

  The bridge was crumbling under Gath, but he did not move. He seemed incapable. The remains of the railing splintered away, and floor boards appeared to rip themselves free, exploding and twirling into the air. Then part of the main body of the bridge folded up behind Gath, and was carried away in the frothing torrent, cracking and exploding with breaking timbers.

  Floor boards and supports started to give way under Gath, and he leapt nimbly away from them, started toward land. He seemed to be in no hurry, as if the helmet could measure the exact extent of the danger he was in. Then the bridge collapsed, and Gath dropped out of sight with it.

  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 a
nd 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.