James Silke - Prisoner of the Horned helmet

He pivoted in a dance to the music of their joy and glory. Then a drumming, pounding beat, rising out of the pass below, joined in. The Grillards rushed to the side of the gorge and looked down into the pass.

The Barbarian Army, draped in the fuchsias, scarlets and vermilions of plundered Kitzakk armor, were tramping up The Narrows at a loud steady pace, a confident one. It now carried weapons of hard steel.

Behind the army trailed horses and wagons heaped with plundered provisions, armor and weapons. In the distance new arrivals were running up the pass to join the victors.

Bone and Dirken climbed up beside the old man for a better view. Brown John threw his arms around them. “The Gods are in attendance, lads, and our cast is swelling.”

Bone and Dirken turned their awed, flushed faces to their father. His cheeks were apple red and his smile as reckless as an infant’s. They had never seen him like this before, and it unsettled them.

“I do not boast,” Brown John continued, “but it is as if the birds themselves had played a part, carrying word of our victory to the world. New volunteers were arriving even before we had time to rebuild Thin Bridge. I truly believe that before nightfall our ranks will have doubled!”

The sons, making sure their father could see them, winked at each other playfully, mocking his childish exuberance. Catching their exchange, Brown John’s eyes twinkled. Then they sobered as he looked thoughtfully at the whole scene: at his clan shouting encouragement, at the advancing army, at the dark stains of blood around the clearing, at a scatter of Kitzakk dead, at two new graves heaped with rocks. Then, solemnly, he raised his eyes to High Bridge. It was still standing, undamaged. His Grillards, by advancing over the cliff tops, had reached it before the escaping Kitzakks and saved it. He caught his sons’ attention and with a calm yet significant gesture, indicated the structure. “You have done a brave piece of work,” he allowed. “Not having to rebuild it is going to save precious time. Now, where is Gath?”

Dirken was quick to answer. “He went on ahead, to the fort at the top of the pass.”

“Oooh!” Brown John’s brow crinkled.

“He’s gone after the girl,” Bone added.

Dirken pointed at a Kitzakk tower mounted above the pass. “They’ve got signal towers all the way to their fort.”

“They’ll see him coming hours before he reaches it,” the old man muttered to himself, “but that may be to his advantage.”

He stepped up onto the wagon seat with extended arms and in stentorian tones demanded attention. When he got it, his voice resounded through the hushed crowd.

“You are to be congratulated. All of you.” Cheering interrupted him, and he paused, smiling, until it stopped. “There is an entire Kitzakk column lying dead back there in the pass. A full sixth of the Kitzakk Desert Army.” There was more cheering, but he continued, shouting over the rapturous response. “The Outlanders have not suffered such a defeat in a hundred years!”

The group went wild, hooting and whistling, and he let them. When the hysteria had subsided somewhat, he raised a triumphant finger to the sky and bellowed, “From this day forth, our champion, Gath of Baal, is going to be known forever for what he truly is. The Lord of the Forest! Invincible.”

The Grillards cheered and chanted. “Gath! Gath! Gath!”

Dirken frowned nervously at his father, and whispered, “That’s crazy. If the Kitzakks are up there waiting for him behind palisade walls, not even a nine-armed god would stand a chance.”

“We will see,” Brown John replied. “We will see.”

There were tears welling in his eyes, and his sons shifted uncomfortably. But they knew why. His Grillards were no longer merely strutting actors, but real men who had worked the brutal stage of life. The equals, perhaps even the best, of all the men in the forest.

Dirken fidgeted, then brought his father’s indulgent musing to an abrupt stop. “Are we just going to stand around and cheer, or do something?”

Brown John blinked, then wiped a cheek with the back of a hand and looked sternly at his sons. “You stay here, Dirken. When the army arrives, keep it moving at a steady pace and don’t let any of the Wowells, Cytherians or Barhacha get ahead of you. They are desperate to rescue their women and children, but if they race ahead and try to do it by themselves, we are lost. The army must be held together.”

Dirken asked respectfully, “What do we do with the prisoners?”

“There aren’t any.” The bukko watched with satisfaction as Dirken’s and Bone’s mouths dropped open. They both swallowed hard, then Dirken hurried off to meet the arriving army as Brown John hollered at a group of strongmen, “You five, get up in the wagon. The work’s up ahead.”

The Grillards piled aboard. Bone cracked the whip and the wagon rumbled south across High Bridge waving its tail of dust behind it like a proud banner.

Gath stood motionless in the deep shade. He was several hundred feet from the heights of the cataracts. Here the trail no longer followed the gorge. It zigzagged up through rock walls to an opening about twenty feet wide and thirty feet high at the top of the pass. The mouth of The Narrows. It was closed by a wooden palisade and gate that glowed with the orange-gold light of the evening sun.

The helmet sagged heavily in front of his heaving body so that he looked like a bull ready to charge. His chain mail steamed. His eyes, hard slices of white within the shadows of the metal, were active and wary. Sensing danger, yet not seeing it.

A wall-walk formed the top of the gate. It was crenellated, as were the palisades running along the tops of the cliffs on both sides of him. No soldiers stood on the ramparts. No glitter of steel betrayed any hiding behind them. Above the gate and along the palisades poles stood at regular intervals. Dangling from them were smouldering shreds of cloth; charred, stringy remnants of Kitzakk regimental flags. They fluttered timidly on the light breeze. Their modest flapping gave the silence size and weight.

Beyond the gate spires of smoke rose against the yellow sky, caught the breeze and were carried down the pass. Gath sniffed at the familiar cedar aroma, then his eyes focused on the top of the signal tower rising beyond the gate. It was only a small open-topped wooden box standing on a single tall wooden pole, and there was no sign of anyone there, either.

He looked back down the pass at an identical signal tower where the gorge turned away from the road. He had seen no sign of life in it before, and there was none now.

The prospect of having no one to fight maddened his blood, and his muscles convulsed as smoke drifted from the helmet’s eye slits. Then his head began to throb with pressure, and he strode recklessly to the gate with his axe slightly to the front, eager for blood. He pushed at the gate, but it was locked. Frustrated, he hammered it with the blunt end of his axe, then kicked it. No one responded. He slung his axe on his back, and drew two daggers. Holding them overhead, he jumped up and drove one into the wood. With that dagger bearing his weight, he lurched higher, driving in the second with his other hand. He pulled the first dagger free, stabbed it higher into the wall. The muscles of his back bunched; the tendons of his arms corded with power. The chain mail shirt kicked up like metallic wings around his hips as he lurched and swung. Reaching the crenellations above the gate, he hauled himself onto the wall-walk. Panting, with sweat dripping from the edges of his chain mail, and smoke drifting from the helmet, he studied the interior of the fort.