James Silke - Prisoner of the Horned helmet

The tail of the army consisted of heavily laden wagons and carts pulled by draft horses, camp followers, cooks, witches, whores, sorceresses, maidens with healing hands, hunters, wood-gatherers, messengers and entertainers. The tribes were not divided here. Everyone rode together, but the Grillards in their bright-colored patches stood out like brave banners, and the Wowell witches in their black robes followed like shadows of death.

Brown John looked over the army proudly. Flurries of fog swirled around its tramping boots, and, up ahead, dense fog hid the cataracts behind a billowing grey wall. The soupy mist was just the thing to conceal the army from the Kitzakk watchtowers. Prospects for success were growing by leaps and bounds, and he had never before seen an army move with such commitment. It marched into the wall of fog as if it were impossible to turn back, like wine poured past the lip of a pitcher.

By midday Brown John looked as if he would never grin again.

The army was not a third of the way up The Narrows. The fog had burned off and taken the army’s confidence with it. Now it marched like armies usually marched, sweating and complaining.

Brown John, wearing a frown that looked as though it had been made with a pitchfork, slumped achingly in the Grillard wagon and did more than his share of the sweating. He took a deep swallow from a waterskin and, sighing, lifted his face to the sky. Its pale, translucent blue was graced with billowing white clouds out of which poured golden shafts of sunlight so beautiful they could have been the source of a new religion.

Brown John, not being in a religious mood, mumbled unpleasantly and spat over the side of the rolling wagon. He watched his meager spittle fall a thousand feet into the gorge, then turned away, letting it go it alone for the next two thousand.

Twenty strides ahead Gath marched in the puddle of his own shadow. Apart from sweat dripping from the hem of his chain mail, he showed no sign of discomfort and moved with the same strong stride with which he had started the march. Suddenly he raised a hand, halting the column, and it staggered to a dusty stop.

A distant sound was drifting down out of the massive grey cataracts. A musical sound without melody or rhythm.

Brown John climbed off the wagon, joined Gath, and they walked slowly forward. At the next bend in the trail, they stopped short, A red glow nickered behind the slits of Gath’s helmet, and Brown John groaned.

Far up the pass a long, winding, colorful body was surging down the narrow road, appearing and disappearing, a serpentine column of scarlet, rose, crimson and vermilion. As it descended the music grew louder and the instruments became distinct.

“Chains,” Brown John whispered as a group of warriors crowded up behind their commanders. They spoke in startled whispers.

“Kitzakks.”

“Thousands of them.”

“That’s no raiding party.”

“That’s the whole bloody horde.”

Brown John turned to speak to Gath, but he was heading for the next sharp bend in the trail. The old man hurried after him, heaving and panting with each painful step, and caught up with Gath just as he started around the next bend. Again they both stopped short.

Up ahead, the road ran alongside the sheer cliff to a wide, deep-sided chasm angling off the main gorge. The chasm was spanned by a narrow wooden structure called Thin Bridge. It was a hundred strides long and wide enough for a single wagon to cross, providing it moved like a cautious caterpillar.

The bridge was guarded by a recently constructed palisade gate and a guard tower that stood on poles beside the main gorge in a small clearing at the front of the bridge. The five Kitzakk archers occupying the tower appeared to be having difficulty deciding whether to look back up the pass at the Kitzakk column or at the Death Dealer.

Gath and Brown John were having a similar difficulty. They were looking back and forth from the Kitzakk column to their ragtag Barbarians. Finally Brown John said, “Our army is not strong enough.”

Gath nodded. “But if it comes apart now, we will never get it back together again.”

Brown John glanced at Thin Bridge, then his eyes met Oath’s. They glittered with the same reckless plan as his own. Gath, moving at steady trot, headed toward the bridge as Brown John shouted for the Dowat archers. But they were frozen with fear and staring openmouthed at the road up the gorge.

The front end of the Kitzakk column was emerging, a Company of Skulls with painted faces, Beetle Red armor and flags. Their tall spears glistened in the sunshine five feet above their marching bodies.

Brown John shouted louder but without results. The Barbarians were behaving like ants standing in the shadow of a falling avalanche. He looked back at Gath in time to see the Kitzakk archers in the tower level their crossbows at him. When Gath was within five strides of the tower, two archers opened fire.

Gath leaned out of the way of one bolt, and bounced the second off his homed helmet, then dropped his axe and charged! The other Kitzakks fired. Too late. Their bolts drilled his dust, and Gath hit the nearest log support of the tower with his shoulder. The log shook with a loud ripping sound, bounced him off, and he hit the ground.

The guards, reloading, stopped and looked over the edge of the tower just in time to see the cracked log splinter and sag. The tower dipped at one corner and threw them into each other.

Gath leapt off the ground beside the splintered log with his legs wide, and circled it with his massive arms. He twisted it and, with his legs driving, pushed it over.

The tower lay over in midair, then suddenly swung around. Its weight ripped the remaining log supports loose, and it crashed through the palisade wall, taking out a large hunk. It deposited two archers on the bridge, then continued its lurching arc out over the gorge where it tossed the other three, along with their wine jars, hard biscuits and signal flags. With one long throat-tearing shriek the archers disappeared into the abyss.

Gath was left on the ground hugging the splintered log. It was still attached to the tower, which was suspended over the gorge and impatient to complete its fall. It dragged Gath half off the road before he could let go. The log ripped free, leaving him a handful of splinters as a reminder of their brief acquaintance, then clubbed him in the head by way of saying good-bye, and dropped.

Dizzied momentarily by the blow, Gath dangled half off the road until Brown John reached him. He helped Gath scramble back, and the Grillards surged forward cheering. The main body of the Barbarian army, still holding its ground at the bend in the road, cheered too. Briefly.

The Company of Skulls, their spears lowered, were charging for Thin Bridge. They were about five hundred strides away and closing fast.

Gath let out a low growl, swept his axe off the ground and strode through the wreckage of the palisade wall, leaving Brown John and the Grillards in his heat. He appeared fresher and more alert than when they started, like a wolf scenting live meat. The Grillards stared in awed wonder, and Brown John clucked with pleasure.

Two surviving Kitzakk archers, swords in hand, stood on the bridge staring down at their falling comrades. When they looked up, Gath had joined them.

He hammered the first archer’s startled face with the flat of his axe and the man’s head caved in. The other archer swung his sword, but Gath leaned out of the way and kicked him in the knee. It popped and doubled up under him. The archer staggered back, then forward. He was good at staggering, but not good enough. He stepped off the bridge and fell as the charging Skull spearmen burst around a turn not three hundred strides away.