James Silke - Prisoner of the Horned helmet

With a sardonic laugh, he rose and fetched a clean tunic from a wooden hook. Balancing precariously on one foot, he stepped into it.

“Where will he take her?”

“Eventually, to Bahaara, the capital of the Desert Territory,” Brown John said, belting his tunic. He rolled his neck and stretched stiffly. “I’ll say this for you, sir, I have not been handled so roughly since I purchased my first whore. I was thirteen, and she outweighed me by sixty pounds.” The bukko laughed delightedly.

His audience did not join in. “How far is this Bahaara?”

“Many days away.”

“Then we have time to catch them.”

“Patience. Patience. There is an entire Kitzakk army between you and the girl now. If we are to succeed at all, we must have a plan, and a great deal of help.”

Turning his back, he picked up the candle holder, carried it to a wooden chest. He rummaged through it and came away with two more totem dolls, one of Gath and one of Robin. He asked, “You know what these are?”

Gath nodded.

Darkly serious now, Brown John spoke with measured words. “The man-hunter who carried these was caught by the Wowells. Being of a curious nature, the Wowells encouraged him to talk before they butchered and cooked him.” He turned to Gath. “The Kitzakks have built a base camp at the heights of The Narrows. The bounty hunters were ordered to bring the girl and your head there.”

Gath picked up his axe, moved to the stairs and stopped, looked back expectantly at the old man who had not moved.

“You have grown remarkably since our last meeting, Gath. But this is war, not personal combat. You will need an army to take the fort.” He hesitated. “And you have one. The Kaven, the Wowells, the Barhacha, the Cytherians and many others have joined forces. They are camped in the forest near Pinwheel Crossing. Ours to command if you are ready to be their champion.”

“I only want the girl.”

“Then you must have this army.” Brown John closed the chest emphatically and crossed with slow deliberate steps to Gath. “The work ahead is far more difficult, and meaner than you can possibly imagine. There are many besides Robin Lakehair who need our best efforts. The Kitzakks have enslaved hundreds, mostly women and children.” He placed a long bony hand over the massive fist holding the axe and looked hard and direct into the slots of the helmet at the eyes he knew were there. “So let us begin.”

“I will lead the army through the Narrows to the fort, and destroy those who hold her. But that is all I agree to.”

“Excellent,” Brown John said, then said it again, certain now that he was gaining control.

They started down the stairs, and Brown John began to chatter amicably.

“Now, what precisely did you expect to find on my body? A hidden mark? A sign that I belonged to some secret cult of assassins? Or perhaps that I was a servant of the Master of Darkness?” He chuckled. “Come now, say it. For what reason did you maul me so shamelessly?”

“It does not matter,” Gath said as he reached the first floor and moved for the door.

“Come, come,” Brown John halted him, “everything matters. Particularly your confidence in me. I am aware that we face the Kitzakks, but what else? Tell me. If I am not aware of all the pieces of the puzzle confronting us, then I cannot juggle them to our advantage.”

Gath’s eyes grew hot, but he said nothing.

“So, we have another mystery. Well, if you wish to leave it like that, I will be content to play the fool, but only for the time being.” He looked up at Gath’s helmet admiringly. “Perhaps then you will at least tell me this: Where did you get that spectacular and extraordinary headpiece?”

“You talk too much, bukko. Save your breath and use your feet.” He opened the door, and strode into the flickering light cast by the torches of the gasping Grillards.

The old stage master chuckled to himself. “Well, this has not been the kind of opening scene I would wish for. But it was a scene, and played by candlelight at that.” He chuckled again. “And I do like its possibilities.” He hurried after Gath. “You and I, my friend of shadows, now share the same stage. Irrevocably and colorfully, one might even say. Like the drum and the drummer.”

He laughed, stepped through the door into the torchlight, and was greeted by cheers.

Brown John led Gath through the night to a small camp laid in a clearing to the west of Pin wheel Crossing. A dying fire lit the bodies of Grillard men and women sleeping beside their weapons. Bone and Dirken were on guard. As their father emerged from the trees, they greeted him but kept their wary eyes on his massive, metal-clad companion.

The stage master, flushed by pride and the long walk, said, “Yes, it’s Gath, and he has agreed.”

Dirken’s sharp lips curled at the corners, and Bone chuckled grandly. “By Bled, this is good news.”

“There is no time for celebration,” Brown John said tersely. “Hurry. Tell the tribes and have them gather at the crossing.”

The brothers, without delay and with a minimum of explanation, woke the others and sent them off into the forest to deliver the news.

Brown John, watching his Grillards stumble and trip in their haste, smiled with a swelling sense of prophetic wonder, as if he suddenly could see the future. His Grillards were not merely messengers but heralds of a newborn legend.

The stage master guided Gath down a footpath through the forest that ended at a rock rising twenty feet above Pinwheel Crossing. When they climbed the rock’s exposed promontory, they found it flooded with torchlight. Hundreds of torch-bearing warriors massed at the crossing and in the surrounding forest, and looked up at them. Seeing the horned champion, they cheered lustily and began to bang their swords and spears against their shields.

Brown John chuckled to himself and watched with pride as Gath instinctively mounted the promontory to stand in the spilling torchlight. His metal glittered, his arms and legs pulsed with cording muscles as that power known only to men who command armies surged through him. The power swelled, and he lifted his axe like a hammer, saluted his followers.

The army returned the salute, shouting their champion’s name. This caused a reaction that Brown John could not have dreamed of or hoped for. The power inside Gath grew so hot and intense with blood hunger that it demanded release, and fire flamed from the eye slits of the horned helmet.

The reaction among the Barbarians was magical. The ragtag horde surged forward cheering, like an army.

When dawn broke, the Barbarians were marching across Foot Bridge at the base of The Narrows. The line of march was organized by long-standing custom, except for two notable exceptions. Gath led, and the stage master of the outlawed and outcast Grillards, grinning with a sumptuous satisfaction, followed close behind.

Behind Brown John marched eleven big, hairy Grillard strongmen wearing scars, swords, iron and furs. Then came Dirken and Bone riding their gaudy wagon. It was crowded with Grillard men and stacks of Kitzakk armor and weapons to be distributed to needy volunteers.

The main body of the army followed jauntily, each tribe marching as units: large, happy, strutting Cytherians with their long spears; dour, dark, skull-faced Kavens with long serpentine knives; Wowells, naked except for fur wraps around lanky hips and carrying stone clubs in their large hands. Then came the Barhacha woodmen hefting monstrous axes, and Dowats in persimmon tunics with longbows and quivers of reed arrows mounted on their broad backs. Most were on foot. Some were mounted on horseback. A few rode wagons. Three thousand, all told.