One last Pitter remained in the camp, cowering behind the Hickoryan’s wagon. As the Wose went toward the last Pitter, he realized that the Hickoryan was tracking his movements with his eyes, as though he could see him clearly. The Wose found it most disconcerting, for never had anyone been able to detect him before. How can this be? He thought. Has this strange man, himself been trained in crypsis? Undecided and still curious he proceeded to slay the last fiend.
Finished now with his night’s work Wose then turned upon the one called Butter Nut Green. Although he had decided not to kill him, he could not leave such a man uncontrolled. A man that could detect his crypsis was dangerous, especially if the Cha’Kal elevated him to the status of a warrior. He would have to at least incapacitate and bind him. Swift as a rattlesnake Wose launched an attack, but to his shock was met move for move by a seasoned fighter of ungodly power and strength. Butter Nut addressed him in his extreme unction, “Great Ev’Rhett’s Ghost,” the grand hailing of a white swan lord.
Wose immediately exclaimed, “Follow me, Brother!”
Wose grabbed Butter Nut and whispered in a rowning sussuration, “Take me as I take you.” Butter Nut gave the counter sign by giving him the swan handshake of a Herewardi lord. Wose went numb with shock as he realized for the first time this was no Hickoryan bent to the will of the Cha’Kal. No! Nor even a member of the Sire Sheaf. This was a veritable Herewardi lord. But how? Why? Who? He shook when he thought he could have killed a Herewardi lion, but instinct had told him to mark the Green Hickoryan, only now to discover the reason his heart had already told him.
Noticing that the smoke was thinning, Wose led him out into the desert and to cover behind a grouping of large boulders. As though a sign from the gods, the moon emerged from the clouds, bathing them in silver light that shown over the fields of slaughter.
“I am Wose, formerly Starkwulf of Zamora.”
“Os-Frith,” Then with a catching pause declared, “Do you not recognize me, old friend?” He halted for a moment of silent reflection before it was declared, “I am Ilker, son of Elif. Behold, I am the Green Knight!”
* * *
Swan Ray dreamed of Ilker being led to the door of her room by a dark and ominous figure. The tall jet-black caped and hooded figure stood just outside her door and knocked. As she neared the door the dark figure opened it into a foreign scene. He was a large old man with eyes wildly filled with power, and behind him stood Ilker in a beautiful desert panorama, beckoning her.
It was so real that she sat up in her feather bed. Spears of sunlight were streaming through her windows. The laughter of children joyously playing on the lawn ascended up to her. She stared at the door, and wept as Ilker faded away. “Oh my love, please hurry home. I am still here waiting for you.”
Chapter 4 : The Lilly and the Wose
All night Standing Bull pressed the twenty maidens bound to the pole to move faster. They never had a break in the many days it took them, other than for water or maybe an hour or two sleep at the most. Occasionally, he would swat at them with leather thongs, shout obscenities, and threats of bodily harm. If they stumbled he would prod and swat them with his bow to get them moving again. The night was long and even his horses showed strain. He could not afford to allow these women to keep him from his appointment with the Cha’Kal, even if it meant one or two would die from their exertions. Dawn was approaching. The Morning Star appeared. And suddenly the slave train halted.
Once again, Standing Bull rode back to see what the holdup was. The girls were collapsing from exhaustion and staggering in delirium. Two were showing extreme stress through bloody froth that issued from their noses and mouths. Pock Face was jerking and tugging at the rope from his horse, but the pole was not yielding. The captives had gone as far as they could be pressed to go.
The red haired one declared in a hoarse voice, “Go ahead and kill us. We won’t move another damned inch.”
Standing Bull grunted his disapproval. “It’s just a little farther to the south. The camp is just ahead. Cha’Kal said I have to have you there by dawn of this day.” Turning to Pock Face, he demanded. “Can’t you make them get up and move any faster?”
“No,” Pock Face said, “We’ve already worn the pads off their feet and their bloody trail can be followed straight back to us. Dammit, they’re done. If you push them any harder they’ll all be dead. Then where would we be? I told you we should have rested them more.”
“Alright, we’ll rest just enough to let them catch their breath.” Standing Bull then turned to one of his braves. “Horse Head, ride ahead and tell The Cha’Kal we are coming. Hurry man! Make haste!”
Horse Head goaded his horse and made for the Pitter camp, while Billy Weasel examined the bands on the maiden’s wrists. “Looks like they’ll do till we get them into The Cha’Kal’s camp. Hope he don’t mind bruises and cuts.”
After the brief rest, Standing Bull yelled for the young women to get on the move, but they could only limp along. Stiffness and soreness hampered their progress and brought it to a veritable creep.
“See, I told you we shouldn’t have broken pace.” Standing Bull said. “And now we’re going to be late.”
It was breaking dawn under a purple smoke-filled sky when they reached the Pitter camp. Standing Bull called a halt, his heart racing. There on the ground in front of them fully three fourths of the Pitter troops had been scythed down, weapons still in hand, twisted bodies with terror frozen all over their contorted, dead faces.
Billy Weasel said, “Lone Dog was right. You have deviated from the Sharaka way, and now the Manitous have come with their poison tongues in the night. They will come for us next.”
Pock Face dropped the line that pulled the captives. Collectively, they all collapsed to the ground.
“Damn it to hell.” Standing Bull said, “It appears a Herewardi fyrd got here before we did? But where have they gone?”
There lurked in the air the smell of smoke and blood, and the camp was already abuzz with flies. Vultures were just beginning to assemble in the sparse brush, and crows were sending out the word there was carrion a plenty. In the background a black charred forest sent up weak swirls of smoke into a still sky.
Squawking Turkey slid off his horse and bent down to examine the ground. “Look, there are no tracks other than the Pitters.” His eyes bulged in wonder. “I would know this anywhere. This is the work of the woondigo.” Squawking Turkey darted nervous glances over the macabre scene. “There’s been camp talk that the woondigo is returned to these parts.”
Standing Bull grabbed his placental talisman and everyone present joined in prayer, “Manitous, by Tah-Man-Ea, please, do us no harm. Shield us from the wrath of the woondigo. Keep his claws from snatching us and his poison fangs from finding us.”
Standing Bull then called his far-seer, “Billy Weasel, tell me what do you spy in this dim light?”
“I can see a small gathering of ragged looking Pitters through the smoke to the south end of the camp. It appears like it is the Cha’Kal and some of his men,” he paused, “at least the remnant of them.”
* * *
Wose hunkered down in the nearby cover of the rocks waiting through the morning watch with Ilker. They whispered to one another. Ilker spent some time conversing about captivity and his long trek home.
Wose declared, “All of us presumed you found your way to Valhalla in some unmarked grave down in Banderas. Except for Swan Ray, who has persistently insisted you were still alive.”
“In my years of traveling with the Cha’Kal I inquired of every merchant what they knew of Ilker the son of Elif, not daring to reveal my identity, but hoping they would be able to tell me what the Herewardi believed had happened to me. Only one was able to tell me that I had been taken for dead. I even hoped that one would suspect who I was and report that I yet lived, but couldn’t reveal my identity for fear of betrayal.”
Wose chuckled, “Who could recognize you in that mangled golden lion’s mane you’re hi
ding behind. The Hickoryan garb is what threw me.”
“And who would have suspected you were Starkwulf?” Ilker said with equal astonishment. They both bit back laughs.
“I wondered if I’d ever feel the royal embrace again,” Ilker solemnly spoke. “I was just getting ready to make my escape over the Three Brothers with all the intelligence I had gathered when you came slithering through the smoke.”
Wose frowned, “You’re just damned lucky I didn’t kill you first. After all, you were serving the enemy mighty cozily for me to ever think you a friend. It made me very nervous to realize you were able to see my movements. I could have killed you. Or whatever was in the darkness with us that night might have killed you. I quake to think of what dark force could kill so swiftly.”
Ilker looked bewildered as he stroked his beard. “I saw only you and no one else. But I did hear the wolves. I knew you were a Wose. Saw you the moment you began trailing us back at Stink Water and hoped deliverance might be coming to me soon. Instead of making my escape I waited to see what you were up to, not wanting to thwart any plan you had by escaping too soon. Then the bull roarer made me know you were indeed kindred Herewardi, though I could have never discerned that you were the Starkwulf. But in all soberness, I saw no other man. I must declare though, there were times when I thought you were in two places at once. When your killing hands approached me I was forced to give the grand hailing, that you would know for a surety I was a Herewardi swan lord.”
Just before dawn a Sharaka brave rode into Cha’Kal’s camp. Wose signed to be still and readied himself to spy. Together, he and Ilker viewed from their cover, Standing Bull and his braves rode over to meet the Pitters gathered near Cha’Kal’s tent and the line of female captives were left some distance off, too worn out to escape even if they had wanted to.
Wose began plotting how to rescue the women. He would not suffer them to be slain as were the previous camp whores, nor would he endure their defilement. Wose saw the braided heads of nine women, which marked them clearly as Herewardi maidens. The others were either Hickoryan or Rogue. All were in their night clothes, tattered now and filthy, their hair a mess, and their faces were smeared with blood and grime. Even from this distance he saw their bloody wrists rubbed raw by the ropes. Abandoned by the Sharaka they huddled at the edge of the camp in the desert. They were hungry, weary, and cold.
Wose was still pondering his strategy for rescuing them when Ilker nudged him. “Look at the Cha’Kal. He’s in an absolute rage. He’s become a mad man.”
The Cha’Kal shouted loud enough to be heard anywhere within four plough lengths. Wose whispered, “He’s shouting conflicting orders and garbled commands. Is he always such a blithering idiot?”
“No,” Ilker said, “I’ve never seen him this put off or frantic before. You did well, Wose.”
“Well, I did have some special help, whatever was there in the darkness with me last night.”
Even before Standing Bull dismounted, The Cha’Kal demanded answers. “What has done this? Who is responsible?”
Standing Bull said with conviction, “It was the woondigo!”
“What the hell is that?” Dirnetier demanded.
“It is a beast-spirit that comes in times of war, lust, or famine. Among my people it is called the Destroyer.”
The Cha’Kal was furious, “Nonsense,” he screamed, “you expect me to believe the superstitions of savages? I want logical explanations, not the rantings of your witchdoctors and shamans.”
Standing Bull sat mounted and mute.
“A woondigo you say, and I say bull-shit, it would have taken a force of fifty or more warriors to wreak this kind of damage, and to make all the noise we heard last night. I tell you it had to be at least a fyrd and their wolves.”
“But you did not see it, did you?” Pock Face reinforced, “I tell you it is the retribution of the woondigo, the beast-spirit. You should not have killed those girls and left them unburied! You have offended a manitou and now the manitou has done this as payment.”
Unlike their leader, the rest of the Pitters were not looking for logical answers, as they mumbled among themselves with looks of utter terror in their faces.
“Silence,” the Cha’Kal screamed. “We have got to get to Copperopolis where we have our base of operations. There we are to meet Balaban. Then we have to get to Frisco Bay before the next moon for negotiations. You and your men, Standing Bull, will have to be our surety of that.”
“Then we will have to go to Klamath for more braves and horses,” Standing Bull replied. “You must not be seen by the Klamaths, so we will have to hide you afar off.”
Pays-No-Attention said, “What will we do with those maidens we captured?”
The Cha’Kal waved his hand, “Kill them. We must go at once! They will only slow us down.”
Pock Face appeared horrified, “We dare not risk the wrath of the woondigo again!”
“For Angrar’s sake, then just leave their asses. Just get me the hell out of here.”
Standing Bull did not even bother to return and untie the captives, leave them any provisions, nor give them any water. The Pitters all mounted behind the Sharaka and rode double on the Sharaka ponies. Standing Bull and Pock Face glanced back at the girls they had left tied.
“We should at least untie them,” Pock Face said.
“No, the Cha’Kal would not stand for the delay,” Standing Bull grunted.
Wose watched and listened as a mangy red dog came out of the desert and began following the braves.
Pock Face glanced back, “The red dog! The red dog! It is an evil omen!”
“No!” Standing Bull said, “It is the Great Spirit sending us the spirit of Lone Dog. He has returned to be my guardian spirit against the woondigo.”
Pock Face persisted, “That is not how I read it. I am afraid it is the dog of death and misfortune. If we don’t heed this omen, I fear, we’ll be finding our deaths soon enough.”
After Standing Bull and his braves rode off double style with a Pitter rider on each horse with them, Ilker laughed, “They should get to know each other fairly well now.”
“When’s the last time you think those Pitter’s had a bath.” Wose said with a grin.
“The Pitter’s detest water.” said Ilker. “They think it dilutes their power. They almost never bathe.”
“Then I must be a Pitter, because I can’t tell you the last time I bathed,” Wose said.
As soon as the enemy had gone out of sight Wose and Ilker made their way over to the chuck wagon where they appropriated food, pans, and medicines. They took an abandoned handcart to carry provisions. Avoiding the wretched corpses, they made their way to the maidens. They were forlorn and apprehensive their faces bloody, sweaty, muddy, and filled with fearful suspicion. Although they appeared too exhausted and spent to act, tied and bound to their pole, the red-haired lady was watching the two men with full intent to defend herself. The redhead had managed to free herself partially from the pole, and had a rock in her hand ready to deliver a lethal blow.
Wose smiled, “Os-Frith. Is there any Cycnus among you?”
“What do you mean?”
A dark haired young woman said, “It’s alright Lilly. He is one of us. Os-Frith! As far as our Cycnus goes, only the feathered kind ever adheres to us.”
“Well,” the redhead frowned, “They look like wild men to me.”
“Trust me, these men are true Herewardi gentlemen and shall not do us a lick of harm. They will lead us in the way of safety and security, I can fully assure you.”
The one called Lilly hesitated and then dropped her rock. Wose stepped forward and began cutting the maidens’ bands, noticing a decided look of relief on the face of the tall redheaded lady before him. As he sliced through the leather thongs that bound their hands, they rubbed their swollen, bloody wrists.
He said, “I am Wose of the Herewardi, a friend, and I will do you no harm, for we are not with those corsairs that brought you here. This is Ilk
er, my pack brother.”
A warm smile emerged on the dirty face of the redhead, as her her blue eyes stared straight into his.
The maidens slumped to the ground exhausted, as if they could not take another step nor bear to stand a moment longer.
Ilker retrieved a medicine kit he had gathered out of the Cha’Kal’s chuck wagon and began dressing their bloody feet with a healing salve he used so often for similar situations. As he did so, he sought to calm their fears. One maid’s foot was so bruised that Ilker bound it thickly with linen, Wose fashioned a juniper crutch to aid her movement.
“Would you like to return to Redmond,” Wose asked, “or would you prefer the safety of Fort Rock and Queen Va-Eyra?”
The tall, well-formed ginger, a bit older than the rest, but still in her prime, spoke up in her silken voice. “I am Lilly Desposini. I am afraid they killed most in our camp. I suspect those that survived will have collected at a rendezvous point and then headed for the safety of Fort Rock where the Cat Queen of the Desert has at times granted us temporary sanctuary. At least that is what has been done in times past. Though in truth, I cannot tell you the fate of our compatriots.”
Ilker stood after administering to a young lady whose calf he had just stitched and said, “I am going back to the chuck wagon for more supplies and moccasins. I’ll be right back.”
Lilly looked long and hard at the Wose. She was assessing him deeply. Their eyes locked on one another’s and he was unable to look away. He wondered what she could possibly see in such a wild man, a man crazy with blood and destruction.
Finally, she looked away. “We can find no peace, no matter where we have fled to. It’s been the same story for the past four years.”
“Then I shall lead you safely to the Queen of the Desert. There you shall surely find peace.”
Wose went down the line and greeted each maiden personally and asked each one her name.
The Isle of Ilkchild (The King of Three Bloods Book 4) Page 4
