James Silke: Prisoner of the Horned helmet

The Barbarian watched thoughtfully.

Suddenly the two scouts stopped and, moving like dancers, positioned their swords behind them, tips down, nearly touching the ground, as if in surrender. It was a mocking stance. There was no sign of any real concern on their faces. No sweat on temples or under the eyes. No movement at all. They just waited, cold as stone.

The Barbarian trembled with outrage, and without warning erupted like a flung rock. With sudden quick steps the scouts shifted their weight forward, and their swords flew off the ground, came at him in measured strokes from opposite sides. The Barbarian did not break stride. He fed one sword a bite out of the handle of his axe, let the other cleave the top off his helmet, then was between them. They stepped back to make room for second blows. Too late. The Barbarian jabbed Wei ten feet back with the butt end of his axe handle, pivoted and swung the flat of his axe at Ching’s chest.

The Kitzakk’s grip on his sword went wet in his hands as he saw the flat axe head swinging for him, its metal spitting light back at the sun. Then his mind went foolish and he covered up with his arms, like a schoolboy. The flat axe head crashed through his arms, hammered him to the floor of the bridge, crushed him against it with such force that the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins exploded, ripped him apart inside so that he ballooned at his shoulders and neck.

Sergeant Yat and his scouts sat motionless, momentarily stunned before they opened fire with crossbows. But the Barbarian had planned wisely. He had turned to face Wei so that his shield faced the scouts and now caught their bolts. Wei, with his estimate of the Barbarian’s threat dramatically altered, had backed away. He now waited, sword dancing in front of him.

The Barbarian charged. Wei struck. His sword took off a piece of the wooden shield as the Barbarian swung his axe head in an arching Uppercut. It caught Wei under the chin and took off his head.

Wei’s headless body stood motionless for a moment, as if it were about to object. But his head betrayed him and tumbled to the bridge where it looked up dumbly while spewing blood on the bare calves of the scouts charging past. Then the body fell, and hit the head which rolled off gathering splinters.

The scouts, with swords and shields working in front of them, surrounded the Barbarian. He did not appear to mind. Turning quickly from side to side, he watched them from behind his shield with the eyes of a man who had worked crowds before.

He choked up his axe handle, as if expecting the scouts to work cautiously in order to avoid striking each other. But they showed no hesitation and attacked in a bunch. They cut up his shield, nicked his axe and cracked his helmet. In the process, bridge posts were hacked apart, floor beams splintered, and supporting ropes severed to fly skyward, their tension released.

The dark Barbarian’s blows clanged majestically against steel breastplates and helmets drawing blood from panting lips and removing one of Yat’s ears. But his success was limited. The scouts deliberately allowed him to attack their steel armor, and it resisted his blows. No matter how great his effort and cunning, his axe could not reach their vital parts. Finally his axe head tangled in Yat’s fringe skirt, and the Sergeant threw himself down, using his body weight to yank the axe from the Barbarian’s grip.

Instinctively, the Barbarian swung around, hammering with the flat of his shield, and bought himself a little room. As he did, the bridge sagged under him. He leaped back and the planks splintered. His legs and body crashed through them, then came to a sudden stop as his shield, too wide for the hole, caught against the floor of the bridge.

He dangled under the bridge, hanging desperately to the shield’s handle. Below him the jaws of the gorge, a thousand feet below, waited. Above him his shield concealed him from the scouts.

Sergeant Yat, the area of his missing ear spitting blood, moved over the Barbarian’s shield and began hacking at it as he shouted, “Crossbows! Crossbows!”

The scouts, limping and trailing blood, retrieved their crossbows and loaded them, then struggled back onto the bridge and peered over the side. They could not see the Barbarian, so they joined Yat as his blade splintered the shield. It crumpled apart, tumbled through the hole in the bridge, and dropped into the gorge. But it was making the trip alone.

The Barbarian, by swinging back and forth on his shield’s handle, had been able to propel his gasping body onto a supporting beam. He now straddled it as he looked up through the hole at Yat.

The Sergeant, snarling and spurting blood, drew a dagger from his belt. He flipped it once, caught it by the blade, and raised it to throw. Abruptly, the fountain of blood spurting from his ear lost force, sputtered, and became a dribble that spidered down his chin. It was the only color on his face. His expression was even less communicative. His knees buckled, and he folded up like a rope, pitched forward, crashed through the hole, and dived for rocks far below still holding his dagger.

The Barbarian did not watch him fall. He scrambled over the cross beams toward a cliffside ledge from which the bridge’s main support beam protruded.

The scouts dropped to their knees above the hole just in time to see Yat hit the rocks and explode like a flung tomato. They winced audibly, immobilized for a moment, then leaned into the hole aiming their crossbows. But they held their fire. The Barbarian was out of sight.

Akar growled, “Mother of Death!” He squirmed over the hole, shouted, “Hold my legs!”

The scouts took hold of his knees and feet and lowered him into the hole.

When Akar saw the Barbarian, he was sitting on a cliffside ledge beside the main support beam. His legs were raised and he was leaning back against the cliff. The rocks were cutting into his meaty back, tearing his flesh, but he did not appear to notice. Suddenly he kicked with both feet, hammered the main support beam and splintered it.

Akar was still leveling his crossbow when he heard the loud crunch of tearing wood. He looked up, white eyed. The entire bridge sagged, groaned, then crumbled apart and fell into the gorge taking Akar and the scouts with it. They fell like soldiers, with faces snarling, and arms and legs flailing against the air. As silent as the timbers and splinters which fell beside them.

Young Hands, who had remained at the south end of the bridge with the horses, trembled in his saddle as he watched, then looked across the gorge.

The Barbarian was gasping with relief, then a falling timber caught him in the back and another across the shoulders to knock him off the ledge. He dropped five feet, hit a piece of protruding cliff, slipped another ten feet, then clawed his way onto another ledge and lay there gasping. He lifted slightly, as if he would have liked to turn and watch the scouts hit the ground, but collapsed instead. His eyes were glazed, as if thunder had taken up residence in his brain.

Young Hands tied the horses in a string, then again watched the Barbarian as his head lifted dizzily. The big man stood, looked around, then dragged himself back up to the road and sat down tiredly in the dirt. The top of his helmet was severed and dangled at an angle to his broad shoulders. He looked around, then across the gorge and into the rookie’s eyes. The lad drew his crossbow and loaded it, but the Barbarian did not move. Young Hands angrily raised his weapon to fire. But he quickly reconsidered, turned his horse and rode off the way the scouts had come leading a file of eight horses, their saddles empty.

It was sundown before the Barbarian reached the bottom of the gorge. A family of vultures was already at work on the bits and pieces of bodies protruding from the wreckage of the bridge. The birds eyed him angrily, screeched and flapped about making a show of their gore-specked beaks and neck feathers. He kept coming and they took flight, winged back up the narrow gorge, almost beautiful in the fading orange light.