Gath started after Robin, then stopped short and turned toward the charging raiders, slowly, like a nail being bent by a crowbar.
Two metal-clad commanders led the screaming, skull-faced raiders. The pair carried huge weapons that glittered, and they themselves radiated streaking spears of white light from an eerie glow at their groins.
Gath blinked. His breathing became deep, racking and noisy. A vast heat filled his world. Light obliterated sound. Nothing moved for him except the two illuminated, metallic champions. They seemed to plunge slowly as if galloping through a sky of blood. He started for the raiders in a slow steady march, his feet plodding like those of a condemned man. The piercing screech of women cut through his enchanted world, brought him back to the real world of dirt, panic and the smell of fear.
He looked back at the Forest Gate. Animals, men, women and children were spewing out, heading for the safety of the trees in wagons and on foot. Gath’s face became hard and expressionless behind the mask of his helmet, then he again turned back to the raiders, as if held in the grip of an invisible demon.
The Kitzakks had split up into two groups and were plunging across the two closest bridges. The structures shuddered and shook under the pounding hooves dislodging heavy chunks of their earthen bodies into the gorge.
Cytherian defenders, spears in hand and snarling, met the charge at the bridges. Neither their weapons nor attitudes were sufficient. All but two panicked and ran before the steel-shod avalanche reached them. The two remaining took crossbow bolts in their foreheads and dropped in place. Their fleeing comrades died soon after, catching flying steel bolts with their backs and necks.
Hefting his spear and axe, Gath forced himself to turn away and march to the Forest Gate, pushing through the thin remnant of fleeing bodies. Inside, panic had sucked the life out of the village. He could hear sounds of clanging steel and cursing at the opposite end of the village where Cytherian warriors were fighting the raiders. Ignoring the inviting noise, he passed a wagonload of unshaven, leather-clad mercenaries who apparently considered fighting Kitzakks not part of their contract to protect Weaver. He continued through deserted wagons jammed at a crossroads, passed a man holding his dislocated jaw with both hands, and saw another with straw held against the bleeding stump of his wrist. The incessant clanging of the alarm stopped abruptly. He hesitated, listened, then strode on passing open windows and open doors. From the shadows beyond them came the silence of empty rooms, empty beds and empty chairs.
He climbed a zigzagging deserted street at the north side of the village until he was two tiers below the Heights. There he went up a staircase siding a building. It led to a flat roof where a ladder rose to a higher roof. From there he could see the battle unfolding at the south end of the village.
Cytherian warriors, in scattered, unorganized groups, were meeting the Kitzakks’ charge amid the rubble and streets. Their long spears, twice their height, splintered uselessly against the raiders’ steel. The Kitzakks closed with them, trampled them firing crossbows at point-blank range with brutal accuracy. Steel bolts impaled staring eyes, speared open mouths. Farther off, the main body of Cytherians, some forty strong, were gathering at Weaver Court to defend the temple and its sacred maidens.
The Kitzakks joined forces in the Market Square, dismounted and split up. A small detachment ranged through the now almost empty lower tiers of the village, mopping up stragglers. A few remained in the Market Square guarding their horses. The main body, led by the two commanders, charged up the twisting street connecting Market Square to Weaver Court. Huge dye vats stood like massive sentinels along the street’s high dirt walls. At the top of the street the Cytherian defenders met the raiders with swords and daggers, and demon war drank deep of blood.
All Gath could see was the back sides of the wooden buildings surrounding the court. From beyond them came the sounds of hysterical young girls and the clang of steel on iron. Gath leaped down to the lower roof, then into the empty street below. Up through twisting alleys he charged to the Heights.
He wound his way through ranks of drying yellow, gold and orange cloth, heading towards the bedlam of sound. Stepping out from behind a yellow cloth, Gath came across a Skull soldier who failed to notice his arrival. The soldier was preoccupied. He had a half-naked Cytherian maiden pinned under his kneeling body. Handfuls of her blonde hair were clenched in his sweating fists, and protruded between his fingers. Her big eyes were muddy pools bubbling with mindless terror as she stared past the soldier’s metal-clad shoulder. Her expression told the soldier he had company, and he turned to see who it was.
Being a civilized man, the soldier had removed his helmet in order to more fully enjoy his pleasure, but he had not bothered to remove his dagger from between his clenched teeth. It was a poor place to keep a dagger.
Gath kicked the soldier flush on the mouth. He flew off the woman in one grunting piece, landed with a metallic crunch, and rolled five feet clawing down orange bolts of cloth. When he stopped, his head was turned far enough around to look down at his buttocks. Three inches of dagger blade protruded from his left cheek.
Gath stepped over the girl, moved through the sheets of cloth, and stopped in the concealing shadows near the edge of the sheer bluff. Below him was Weaver Court.
The battle was over.
Brutal eruptions of lust, murder, torture and pillage were breaking out spasmodically about the white marble courtyard. The raiders were taking the payments due victors, rewards best collected when the blood was still hot with the kill and the mad terror of death was still fresh on the flesh.
Upended, spread-eagled Cytherian women were being raped both in the shadows and in the sunshine. Nails raked naked backs. Hands groped. Spines were bent over stairs and barrels. Mouths were gorging themselves on wine, cheese, fresh fruit and raw meat. Intransigent prisoners were being kicked to death slowly, while the reasonable were being drowned just as slowly in the well. The dead and dying, sprawled among the living, added to the hellish celebration by spewing fountains of blood and emptying their bowels into the slippery, stumbling chaos. The stench perfumed the rioting passions, and the large wooden temple provided appropriate music. There the screaming was a chorus.
Gath’s stomach bubbled and churned. His muscles throbbed, eager to throw his body into the Kitzakk hell. But he remained motionless.
A group of Skull soldiers burst out of the broken doors of the temple herding bruised and bloody young girls, many with their tunics torn away, clutching the shreds to their naked bodies.
Gath leaned forward, eyes steady and patient.
Robin was at the center of the group, framed by five of the smallest girls, young things from nine to thirteen. They clung to her tunic and arms, sobbing and hiding their faces against her. Robin held them close covering their eyes. Her legs wobbled, but the pressing weight of the girls kept her upright.
The soldiers prodded the girls across the yard toward a lacquered black wagon parked facing the main access street. When the girls reached the wagon, a small, fat priest emerged and greeted them with an unctuous, openmouthed smile. He probed their breasts, teeth, buttocks and flat stomachs with shameless fingers, mindless of their cringing and sobbing. Reaching Robin, he had the young girls driven away from her, and clapped his fat hands in relish.
Robin reeled back, as if confronted by a serpent. Two temple guards promptly seized her arms and held her in place. The priest took hold of her tunic, ripped it open exposing her breasts, then looked at them as if they were pretty peaches. With a lewd laugh, he turned to the guards and spoke to them, his voice lost amid the constant screaming.
Robin, struggling and sobbing, was forced into the wagon, and the priest proceeded through the whimpering, shuddering girls making additional selections.
Gath watched all this without showing any sign or taking action, then scanned the activity in the court, and again saw the two metal-clad commanders.
They sat on the steps of the temple consuming cheese and wine, aloof to the bedlam around them. Every so often one lifted his head, looked off at a shadow or alley as if he were expecting someone. Sitting beside their weapons, they looked like a party of four.
Gath’s world again filled with blood and light, and became devoid of sound and reality. But he shook the enchantment off and looked back at the lacquered wagon.
Robin sat in the front left corner. Her small fists trembled as they clung to the bars. Her head was down, and red-gold hair trembled in tangles over her face.
Past the wagon was the narrow street by which the vehicle must depart. High dirt walls cast deep shade on the street. The shade was filtered with steam which drifted down from huge dye vats positioned along the top of the walls.
Gath hesitated thoughtfully and stepped back into the concealing red cloth. He dodged through the bolts of cloth at a steady, quiet trot, circled around the bluff above the court, and emerged from the opposite side. In front of him were two of the massive steaming vats that lined the narrow road. They were wooden with iron bottoms heated by fire pits. Gath moved between them to the edge of the dirt wall. The narrow street below was empty. A racket of unholy pleasure and misery came from the upper end of the street, then the tramp of horses’ hooves moving slowly and the creak of wagon wheels joined the racket. He waited and a team of horses emerged around the sharp turn pulling the black lacquered wagon.
Gath settled in place. His armor heaved and glistened as his chest swelled with his racing breath. The thrill of battle slashed through his nerves and muscles. The time to abandon patience was at hand. He hefted his spear over his head, arm cocked and biceps throbbing.
The fat priest sat beside the driver of the wagon. The temple guards rode on seats built at the sides of the wagon.
When the wagon cleared the turn, the driver rose to whip the team of horses and a leaf-shaped spear blossomed on his chest, slammed him back into his seat. The whip and reins spilled from his hands, and he pitched forward, fell among the traces.
The priest’s soft-boiled eyes bulged and rolled. His head bobbled helplessly on his feeble neck as the wagon jerked to a sudden stop, then he whimpered, something he did superbly, and with reason. Gath was standing beside the lead horse, holding its bridle. The priest wheezed low in his throat, grabbed the reins and flicked them frantically, squealing at the horses.
The lead horse started to bolt, and Gath hit the animal flush on the jaw with his fist. It fell sideways, driving the horse beside it into the dirt wall. The rest of the team panicked, rearing and bucking forward, each in a slightly different direction. The wagon lurched and crashed from side to side crushing itself and the screaming temple guards against the narrow walls.
The priest struggled back over the roof, falling and crawling most of the way, then dropped off the end and dragged himself back up the street toward Weaver Court.
Gath, ignoring the priest, moved for the jolting wagon where the sounds of screaming captive girls and splintering wood mixed with the crackle of breaking bones. Nearing the wagon, a horse butted Gath against a wall. His head hit the dirt and the iron bars of his helmet sprang loose. The steel bowl flew off, and the mask fell to his shoulder. He tore off the mask, bullied the horses to a stop, and hauled himself up onto the driver’s box. From there he climbed to the roof and, working with his axe, made a hole in its front left corner.
He had figured accurately. Robin was looking up through the hole with big wondrous eyes and splinters on her face.
Gath reached into the hole and pulled her out as if she weighed no more than a leather belt. Carrying her in his arms, he jumped from the wagon roof to the top of the dirt wall, and they vanished between the vats.
The lead horse, recovering from Gath’s blow, got back onto its feet and plunged mindlessly forward. The other horses followed, and the wagon full of screaming girls plunged down the street as a crowd of Skull soldiers came charging around the sharp turn and raced after it.
A! the last soldier jumped over the fallen body of the driver, a vat fell away from the dirt wall above him and spilled a steaming yellow bulk of water the size of an elephant into midair. The water caught the soldier in the back, drove him facedown into the ground, scalding his arms and legs to the bone. Then it sluiced forward leaving his steaming body behind with raw exposed bones and pulpy muscles dyed a bright yellow.
Gath, who had pushed the vat over, stood heaving in place on the wall above the street. Robin trembled behind him. He laughed once, a dry rasp, and moved to the next vat. Flexing and straining, he pushed it over into the vat beside it. Both broke apart, then lurched into the third and fourth vats, and all emptied their contents into the street. Robin shuddered in his shadow, her eyes as terrified of her demon rescuer as of the Kitzakks.
A vivid-colored flood slewed down between the high dirt walls taking away parts of it, then caught up with the charging soldiers. Most of them ran faster. Several foolishly slowed and turned to see what was happening, and the gaudy fluid splattered over their startled faces, then hit them with its entire weight and carried their scalded, screaming bodies down the street.
The steaming liquid traveled the length of the street gathering mud, and spilled into Market Square depositing scalded and blistered bodies in all directions. Then it slewed sideways, washed down alleys and over the southern side of Weaver putting out the fires which the Kitzakks had started there. It was now a dull bloody brown.
Gath watched all this with pleasure, then took Robin by the wrist and pulled her into the rows of hanging cloth. Reaching the Heights, they looked over the village. The black wagon had crashed into a mud wall at the edge of Market Square and turned over. Three girls, who had crawled out the hole in the roof, were limping into shadowed alleys. Five were still pinned inside.
At the south end of the village, Cytherian warriors, who had been hiding in the village, now came forward and began to butcher the blinded, scalded, brightly stained Skull soldiers.
The two commanders, the priest, and a group of Skull soldiers were racing down a footpath. Reaching Market Square, the two commanders helped the priest onto the supply wagon, and the driver took off toward Weaver Pass with five mounted escorts. The commanders then led their men toward the sounds of battle at the southern side of the village. By the time they reached the area, the Cytherians had vanished and the scalded, stained soldiers were all dead.
Gath growled with satisfaction, then dragged Robin back through the ranks of colored cloth to the north edge of the Heights, and they looked down at the village and forest beyond. The smell of blood and steam hung heavily over Weaver. Below, to their left, beyond tiers crowded with alleys and buildings, they saw an open yard at ground level. At the far side of the yard footpaths angled through low buildings to the tall Forest Gate. Gath pulled Robin down off the Heights, then into the tangled alleys heading toward the open yard.