The Isle of Ilkchild (The King of Three Bloods Book 4)

by Russ L. Howard

  He turned to his lieutenant. “I am bored with these whores. The bitches have been with us for way too long. For Angrar’s sake! They look ragged and disgusting to me, covered with sores and lash wounds that seap.” He pointed to the chuck wagon and bellowed. “Kill the bitches! Now!”

  The women bolted in terror when they heard the order, but were chased down and their throats slit. A few escaped the bounds of the camp, but were soon brought down with arrows, and left to lie where they fell.

  As unconcerned, as if he had ordered the slaughter of chickens, Scynscatha turned back to Standing Bull. “You have a fortnight to meet us in the place they call Bend, and you better be able to replace those bitches with fresh ones. You hear, not too old and not too young, but suitable for a good ride.”

  * * *

  The Pitters left their camp shortly after the Cha’Kal issued his ultimatum to Standing Bull. The renegades broke camp and mounted despondently. The dust from their ponies settled on the ancient juniper Wose was hidden in. Indeed, he felt a spiritual kinship to this juniper and thanked him for his cover and protection. He asked the juniper to bear witness with him against what the evil Pitters here had done that day, and to be a protector of the grave he would make for the fallen maidens nearby. “I do not know who they are or who their people are, but for now I shall represent their loved ones.”

  Wose collected the bodies of the women and tenderly laid them out with great respect at the foot of the juniper. When at last he was finished, he asked the Elf Father to make him a sword of wrath against the Pitters to avenge them. Then he stacked stones on them all day long.

  After Wose completed the cairn for the women, he prayed. “Why has evil been given so much power and why is death so ugly? These were once beautiful, free women, someone’s daughters and somebody’s sisters, and no one could protect their innocence. No one could save them from the vile hand of the Pitter Empire.”

  Then as Herewardi tradition dictated, Wose wailed and keened. He grieved and groaned and his guts twisted inside of him. His heart broke and hot tears gushed from his eyes. He grieved that he had not had the power to deliver his own lovely wives, Rose, Ethelfae, and Goldbeorht, and his innocent children. He regretted that his farmstead had been so wide in Zamora, requiring him to range far, far from home, for now it meant nothing to him, especially compared to the loss of those he had so loved.

  Oh, that I had the power of lightning such as you, my All Father Woon. But I do not, for if I did, I would cut the enemy down with fiery bolts of lightining like grass is cut with a scythe. And oh, that I had the power to restore life to these daughters and to my beloved wives and children as you have, All Father. If only I had the gift to foresee what would have befallen my loved ones, I could have saved them and enjoyed their company to this day. Instead I am a wild man, a mere Wose, alone with no one to love me and no ability to love anyone, anymore. Not even any ability to feel the joy of life, for not a moment of the day goes by that I do not feel the twist of vengeance upon my heart following me like a pack of hungry wolves.

  Each day they eat my bowels out anew. Grant me, therefore, the power to deliver many innocents and wreak vengeance without measure upon my enemies. Let me feed the ravenous demons that rage in my heart, that I may thereby gain some measure of power and some measure of rectifying these irreconcilable wrongs. Hear the cries of the Daughters of Man against these vermin and freaks who abused them, and left them without graves in the wilderness cast upon the ground like dung heaps. Oh, Almighty All Father join with me in my pledge in bringing vengeance upon the Cha’Kal. Oh King of Warriors, join me!

  As if to come for a feast, two mighty ravens landed on the ancient juniper. “Go my black brothers of the sky. There is no flesh for you to stick your saber beaks in here. But follow me, and soon I will leave a feast of Pitter flesh so much that you and a congress of your kind shall glut yourselves on for days.”

  Wose was exhausted from his labors and his terrible grief. Long ago his world had lost its center when irreversible grief entered it with the awful realization that one cannot change time. What was once black and white and clear as the moon was now all grey, shrouded, and confused. Life had lost its meaningfulness, but not its mission. His mission of vengeance was the only rod that kept his feet from sliding off entirely into the abyss of oblivion. His vision was like holding up a shard of a broken mirror with which to view the world. For now his world consisted of slaying Pitters, so he was off to Bend to sink his fangs deep into Pitter throats and do unto them what they had done to these innocents.

  * * *

  Lilly was brushing her long red hair in the tent, with Atla and Brono talking about their travels in the Rockies when she heard a cry, “Fire! Fire! Fire in the town.”

  They ran from the tent. Brono and the other men and older boys ran off to fight the fire. Karl Throckmorton quickly secured his cargo on the wagon in order to move it beyond reach of the flames. Someone had spooked and released the horses out of the livery stable. Panicked by the fire, they raced away out into the desert. Flames shot up above the buildings as men hurriedly formed a bucket brigade and hurled water over the dry wood of the remaining buildings.

  Lilly said, “Atla, we should get dressed and help. We could pump the water.”

  “We better leave this to the men. It’s too risky! Our dresses could easily catch fire and we would only add to the havoc.”

  Lilly was about to argue when suddenly a pony bore down on her. Her scream was cut off when she was hurled over the horse like a sack of wheat. Twisting frantically, she saw that the man hurling her was a large Sharaka brave.

  At the same time Karl stepped from behind a wagon with a shovel in hand and smashed her captor upside the head, knocking him to the ground. Karl was reaching her when a tomahawk from a nearby rider clubbed him into unconsciousness. The brute Karl had struck with a shovel quickly recovered and sprung back on his horse, whereupon he fastened his fingers in Lilly’s hair. She attempted escape, only to be unceremoniously dragged and slung over the brave’s thighs and across the horse’s back.

  The screams of other women told her they were suffering from a like fate. She struggled, only to be stifled by an excruciating blow to her kidney. They raced off into the dark of the desert-scape. How far they went, she couldn’t guess. After what seemed like an eternity, her captor reined to a halt. She was pulled off the horse and bound to a long pole beside Atla, who had blood pouring out of a cut near her hair line.

  Atla hailed the brave that bound her. “Os-Frith, we are not your enemy. I am a Herewardi lady. By Tah-Man-Ea release me.”

  Soon they were being pulled along through the high desert barefoot in their nightgowns. Their captors rode on horseback, bragging about their success and teasing the big brave for getting plugged by a shovel in the head.

  Lilly ran to keep pace and prayed, Grand Mother Yster I have only lived my life to promote life. Into thy hands I commit my fate.

  Chapter 3 : The Black Wose and the Green Knight

  Butter Nut Green remembered when Bend was a booming community with rich farms. It still boasted beautiful streams, and the snow capped mountains called We, Wod, and Willi..

  The very best of horses were once bred there, and little town shops used to amuse the citizenry. There was once a small but well appointed theater in a welcoming town tavern with a pleasant view of a cold water stream. It had been a frontier town with a mix of frontiersmen, Rogues, and mostly Herewardi, but now it was no more than sage brush, junipers, and tumbleweeds, made unsafe by the Pitter hell-rats and raiders. It became a ghost town due to the constant toll the Pitter legions had placed on it.

  The Benders were a fiercely independent and congenial people, who now were forced to move to the coasts and take up residency there among the Herewardi and Jywds.

  Butter Nut thought, Someday we will re-take all this land and rebuild its waste places, for it was once a lovely habitation. It will again be called the Jewel of the Mountains.

  The Pitter en
campment was located next to a large ponderosa forest. Besides The Cha’Kal’s black tent, there were ten tents and ten campfires between one hundred to one hundred and fifty legionnaires.

  The Hickoryan was now tidying up after the evening meal, washing dishes, and carefully laying out supplies for the next day.

  The night’s sky was to be clear and bright with moonlight.

  With the sides of the black tent rolled up, the Cha’Kal spoke to his officers of orders from the emperor, stating that they must meet up with the Growlings and a group of renegades, led by none other than that wretched traitor, the bug-eyed bastard, Walker Pig, and his wicked wife Yggep Green Teeth.

  The green Hickoryan moved toward the Cha’Kal’s tent with a bottle of drink. As he approached, he called out, “Commander Cha’Kal, this is the last of the peach brandy we procured in our raids down in the Taxus Lands. I thought it would be special to partake of it before you launch your campaign in what were once Herewardi Lands.”

  The Cha’Kal leaned back on his chair outside the black tent next to Dirnetier. “I am pleased, Butter Nut, that I had the foresight to not sell you to another Pitter commander. You’ve been worth more than my past ten servants. Sold them all, and even had to kill the last two.”

  “Then with your permission, I shall take the first drink as always.” Butter Nut drank some of the brandy before pouring a drink for the Cha’Kal and handed it to him.

  “Pour a glass of that brew for Comrade Dirnetier. As for the rest of you officers, you have your work to do.”

  “I have completed the preparations for the arrival of the camp girls,” Butter Nut said as he poured into Dirnetier’s glass. “But I have neglected my duties to you, in that I have not completed the tidying of your tent yet. I know how it is your custom to always take first pleasure with the maidens.”

  “Just see to it you do it quietly and don’t interrupt Dirnetier and I as we do our planning.”

  Then, as the Hickoryan moved silently about his business, the Cha’Kal talked to Dirnetier discussing how to procure a shipping fleet to handle all the slaves and to transport armies from the lands southward into Newport where the slaves could be processed for the Growlings. The Cha’Kal also revealed his plan to launch a pincer attack on Sur Sceaf, coming out of the north from Eugene and the south from the redwoods, thus destroying his new city-state and enslaving all the Quailor and Sharaka settlers there before they had a chance to build up their defenses.

  “What about the spies who are so keen to sell you information about the young lord of the land, Sur Sceaf.” Dirnetier asked. “Surely, he will never suspect an attack by sea on Ur Ford or Charly’s Harbor. I believe your plan to attack from all sides gives us the best chance of victory against the young lord. An attack from the north by Hamidraca coordinated with an attack from us coming from the south and the sea is close to a fail safe. Dirnetier frowned, “But I wonder if we can believe or base our attack on your spies? Do you really think Sur Sceaf would never suspect an attack by sea? You realize we have not yet secured the assistance of the Friscan naval merchants. Not only do they bargain hard. They are heavily laced with Herewardi spies.”

  Cha’Kal spat out, “This is why I agreed to accept that ridiculous buffoon, Standing Bull, as an ally. If his boasting is correct, he can get into Ur Ford and give me a detailed account of what we are up against. So far none of the other spies have given us much we can rely on. Although that one fool, Mik Kurtz, revealed a potential weak spot at Charly’s Harbor to Hamidraca, he has not yet even been able to position himself close enough to Sur Sceaf to pull off an assassination. If Standing Bull completes the assignment I gave him, he won’t be as stupid as he looks, and I will know he’s mine and can be trusted.” Cha’Kal laughed a cackling, sinister laugh as he rolled his eyes. “Then I shall have a backup assassin that can get into Sur Sceaf’s very presence, maybe even kill Sur Sceaf’s whelp, the Prince Arundel. And just perhaps, the renegades could be fashioned into sailors to do all of our subversive bidding in the throne city of Sur Sceaf. Where ever that may one day be.”

  Dirnetier took a sip of the brandy, “Let’s hope he can succeed, because I fail to see how he could pull it off with those half-wit followers we met at Stink Water. To me, they seemed little more than a motley crew of rowdy boys.”

  “A motley crew, perhaps,” the Cha’Kal said as he downed the brandy in two swallows. “But driven by a passion and hatred I’ve felt burn in my own heart for so long. Yes, methinks a knife driven by Standing Bull’s hand will find Sur Sceaf’s heart swifter than any assassin we could ever hire.”

  When their glasses were empty, Dirnetier left to go to his own tent.

  After a short conversation with the green Hickoryan, the Cha’Kal ordered him to lower the tent walls for privacy. “When the camp girls arrive, have that lout, Standing Bull bring me the youngest and the prettiest.”

  After The Cha’Kal slipped into his tent, the Hickoryan returned to the chuck wagon with the bottle and the empty glasses. He looked to the woods, and saw an arm of smoke reaching from the forest into the camp.

  * * *

  Wose looked up at the clear full moon. The breeze had picked up enough in the right direction to send the flames where intended. He was preparing to light the woods aflame.

  Wose ignited the tinder and the fatwood, and with several torches set the grasses to flame so that the smoke would obscure his movements when he struck like a deadly viper from the fumes of darkness. He positioned himself in a small hummock of pines to prepare for the encounter. Smoke thickened the air and ran like the tendrils of a destroying angel through the camp of the enemy.

  Wose looked up at the moon, a blood stained eye in the dark smoke that blotted out the heavens. The Blood Star led out in his chariot. The time to kill was at hand.

  He repeated a mantra over and over in his head to focus on his mission: Tonight are the teeth of justice laid to the throat of the camp of the enemy.

  Wose was the man in the smoke and then he was the smoke. When the smoke and darkness had fully blanketed the camp, Wose swung the bull roarer and let out his howls of anguish and primordial cries of woe, filling himself with rage and ruin under the red moon. He was now the shape-shifter, grown from a snake to a ghost of smoke.

  Demonic howls and screams came from every direction, but when legionnaires ran to the howl, there was nothing there. Howls came from many directions, as if there were many wolves surrounding the camp. The very skies seemed to scream with dark ghosts. Dark spiritual powers were on the wing that night. The man of the Wose disappeared, while the ghost permeated his being. He carefully withdrew the first poisoned needle from his pouch and set about the righteous administration of the kill in the Night Hunt.

  The sucking winds of the forest fire played havoc on the Pitter campfires, and the Pitters were fearful of the sparks catching the dry grasses near them aflame. They doused their fires with water, creating even greater smoke, darkness, and confusion. The screams of the wind whipped flames from the forest sounded eerily like the cries of women, Valkyrie coming from the skies. Perhaps it was the ghosts of the slain women, or perhaps it was the Idisi, the feminine warrioresses of the gods and the companions of Odhin.

  Wose cut the line to which the horses had been tied, and spun his bull roarer, sending them stampeding off into the night with cries of terror that echoed through the pine wood.

  The Pitters glommed near each other like worms in a can. Their heads were turning from side to side, and even Scynscatha was unable to bring them to order, no matter how much he screamed orders and curses. The Pitters were frozen in terror and hysteria and looked on fearfully at the demons of their own hearts.

  One-by-one Wose pounced on the Pitters like a striking viper, pulling them close with the silent coils of his arms, plunging poison needles deep into their throats, sending them to swift, silent, and convulsive death, writhing in pain.

  Yet no one saw a needle, no one saw a struggle, no one saw the Wose. He slid undetected, counti
ng his prey. He looked to the ground and saw that someone else had taken more than his share of the Pitters as well. Throats were slit with a scramasax, but no one could see an enemy, no one could detect the cause. For the first time in a long time, the Wose was chilled to his spine. A ghost-serpent moved about in silent death, as stealthy as smoke, working beneath the surface of their sight.

  Throughout the long hours of darkness death stalked the fleeing Pitters without rest. Several times the terror stricken Pitters stumbled over Wose, and did not even know he was there. A few times Wose spied the dark forms of large wolves leaping through the air. He heard the ripping of flesh and the snapping of sinews.

  The Wose shuddered with fear, not knowing what force was at work in the darkness. Mighty Odhin, spare me from these raging creatures.

  Cha’Kal ran back and forth unheeded, screaming and shouting curses and orders. He reminded Wose of a hen trying to gather its chicks under wing during a weasel attack. It was futile.

  Dirnetier stayed glued to his master’s side. “What the hell? I thought I saw a black flash by the campfire. What are we up against here, for Angrar’s sake? Are we under attack by wolves, demons, or Herewardi shape-shifters?”

  Lightning like, a dark figure loomed near Wose and whispered, “I take my leave of you now, my son. My blade has drunk its fill. My work here is done. Until we meet again!”

  Before Wose could comprehend, the black shrouded figure grew so dark that it appeared he was wrapped in raven’s wings. Wose watched as the figure disappeared into a dark hole in midair right before his eyes. Wose had never known such crypsis as this old one possessed and he marveled with envy.