James Silke - Prisoner of the Horned helmet

Gath rose in place silently raising his spear to strike. Sharn, with his eyes tight and narrow to contain their astonishment, moved silently around to the left side of Gath. From there things appeared no more normal than they had on the right side.

The she-wolf advanced to within two feet, looked suspiciously from the meat to the girl three times, then snapped up the meat.

“Not so fast,” the girl whispered sternly. She tore off another piece. The animal looked at her hand from three sides, sniffed it, then snapped the meat off her palm, chewed and swallowed.

She fed the wolf the rest of the meat in this manner, and lay still as the she-wolf licked her hand clean. The animal sniffed the girl’s arm and hair, then her ear and nose, and the girl returned these courtesies of the wild, sniffed the she-wolf’s muzzle, touched the animal’s nose with her own nose. The animal licked her eye then stepped back, whimpered slightly.

The girl sat up slowly, took more chicken from her pouch and fed the wolf from a sitting position, face-to-face. Intermittently she offered the animal water from her waterskin. Before long, the wolf was chewing and swallowing at a reasonable pace and she was petting it at will.

Gath had watched with the corner of one eye, as if it were unsafe, or unholy, to watch with both. Now he kept one eye averted as he and Sharn crept down to a dark shadow at the base of a boulder not seven strides from the thorn tree.

When the she-wolf finished feeding and lay docilely beside her, the girl drew her knife and held the animal’s broken leg in her left hand. She trimmed the bloody fur away, doused the wounds with water, and gently licked the wounds until they reopened and bled cleanly. She then massaged the bones until they were loose and pliable within the body of the foreleg. As she did all this, she continued to murmur softly.

She tore lengths of cloth from the hem of her tunic, and broke two straight sticks off the tree. They were slightly longer than the broken portion of the leg. She removed a tiny jar from her shoulder pouch, and poured its pastelike contents over the open wounds. Then, with a sudden, precise jerk, she pulled on the foreleg, reset the bones. The she-wolf shrieked and started to bolt upright. The girl, petting her, held her down. She bound the medicated wounds with cloth, then positioned the sticks as splints and tied them to the foreleg. The animal tried to get up, but she gently pressed her down whispering, “Not yet.”

For a long time she leaned over the wolf, kissing the animal repeatedly about her whiskered face and whispering into her ear.

Suddenly the animal bolted upright, and the girl sat back smiling with warm pleasure. The she-wolf tottered off, stopped, sensing something, then trotted haltingly off into the night.

The girl watched the animal until it was gone. Humming to herself, she put her things away and stirred the fire to life. She sat down, drawing her covers around her, then stared dreamily into the fire.

The distant bay of a wolf rode through the night’s silence. It was strange and beautiful as it mixed with the wind’s song in the trees. The girl lay down contentedly. A moment later the savage lullaby had rocked her to sleep.

In the concealment of the nearby rocks, Sharn stared with a profound intensity at the sleeping girl. Beside him, Gath uncorked his waterskin, took a long drink, pouring some over his flushed face, then whispered, “Sorcery.”

The same star-spattered night sky which roofed The Shades also cast its faint light on a narrow trail through the cataracts miles to the east. There mounted soldiers moved north down the pass, an undulating blackness glittering metallically where starlight touched it.

A Kitzakk regiment. Filthy. Deadly. Nearing the end of a three-day march from Bahaara. It consisted of sixty-six men; two companies of light-horse Skull soldiers armed with crossbows and scimitars. Their faces were painted black to resemble skulls. They were raiders, not invaders, equipped to spread terror and take revenge.

Two commanders, mounted on heavy black stallions, led the regiment. Working soldiers. Metal clad. Cluttered with the totems of dead enemies. Wearing enough grime and sweat between them to fill a wine pitcher.

Two wagons followed the commanders. The first was lacquered black and had a cagelike carriage on which rode three hollow-cheeked, black-robed guards of the Temple of Dreams. The second was a supply wagon heaped with spare weapons, saddles, and food.

The first dim light of day tinted the night sky as the raiders reached the bend in the trail where their two scouts waited for them. Up ahead, still a half-day’s march away, the regiment could see the gorge which formed the natural border between the cataracts and the forest basin beyond.

The commanders dismounted, strode to the edge of the road and looked down at a length of the gorge where three natural bridges of earth and stone crossed it. The bridges were partially closed off by unfinished gates. Beyond the gates a village sprawled over a dirt hill, Weaver at Three Bridge Crossing.

The commanders’ names were Trang and Chornbott. They were experienced raiders, champions of the Kitzakk Horde. Trang was short and thick, with a jaw big enough to eat table legs. He wore battered pieces of armor and a red helmet with heavy steel bars caging his face. An axe rode on his back; it was big enough to be his brother. Chornbott was a head-and-a-half taller, encased in a suit of polished steel chain mail, and arrogantly bareheaded. He carried a sheathed sword in his right hand; it was as tall as Trang.

The two men studied the village, then returned to the lacquered black wagon. Two temple guards opened its side door and the commanders bowed to the shadowed opening.

A small, rounded man daintily emerged from a shadowy heap of red and orange pillows within the cagelike carriage, descended three iron steps to the ground and stretched without removing his arms from his garments. He wore a black robe over an orchid tunic with an allover pattern of tiny black and yellow butterflies. A red skullcap with long, pendulous earflaps covered his round head. He had a narrow neck, soft-boiled eyes, the milky flesh of the albino and pink baby lips. As the two commanders waited with the confidence of tombstones, he bowed with a servility that could only be matched by a throw rug.

The commanders shifted with embarrassment and uncertainty. They were obviously unaccustomed to being treated with such formal courtesy by a man who was their superior, the second highest ranking Kitzakk in the Desert Territory.

The man they faced knew this and privately enjoyed their discomfort. This was Dang-Ling, a high priest of the Butterfly Goddess’ Temple of Dreams and the secret servant of the Master of Darkness.

The high priest sauntered to the edge of the road and looked down at Weaver. When he spoke it was as if he were reading.

“The village is called Weaver. It holds approximately five hundred residents, among which are between one hundred-and-twenty and one hundred-and-forty able-bodied warriors. No more.” He turned to the two commanders. “Your regiment will steal its nine most beautiful maidens from the temple and burn the village to the ground. You two will kill this annoying Barbarian who is so partial to black.”

The commanders bowed low. When they looked up, Dang-Ling said, “Please forgive me, but I must ask you to remove your clothing.” His tone was soft, considerate, nevertheless commanding.

The two champions shed their metal and undergarments, stood expectantly in front of the high priest. Their bodies were sun dark, mostly callouses, with large patches of white scar tissue grown over old dirty wounds.