The audience cheered, howled, clapped.
Bone, grinning widely, was bowing for the fifth time when Brown John strode abruptly on stage, raised his arm and shouted for silence. The players and audience, startled and suddenly afraid, looked around, then off at Stone Crossing, and went silent.
Six armed riders on large groomed stallions were coming ever the crest of the crossing in a steady, determined pace towards the camp.
The main body of the crowd stepped aside, making way for the riders, while others fled with their precious totems clutched to their breasts. The Grillards gathered up the blankets and carried them out of sight.
The performers edged back to the yellow wagons, their eyes moving back and forth from the riders to Brown John. Bone and Dirken, who remained at the front of the stage with their father, now held real swords in their hands.
The riders reined up in front of the stage. Their large, chesty horses pummeled the ground with their hooves, raising clouds of dust which billowed around them, and swirled over Brown John and his sons as they bowed slightly in recognition.
The three lead riders were powerful Barbarian lords. The following trio were their men-at-arms. One of these held the lead rope of a pack horse with a wicker cage mounted on its back. It held a large, smokey-grey she-wolf.
Golfon of Weaver, chief of the Cytherians, had the middle position. He was a wine-flushed, fatty piece of meat in a scarlet tunic and too much brass armor for a man with a weight problem. Vitmar, lord of the Barhacha woodmen, rode at Golfon’s right. He wore fur and hides, had lots of muscular sunburned flesh, and displayed the mild expression of a man who killed without emotion. Sharatz of Coin, Lord Master of the Kaven moneylenders, was the third chief. He wore a violet tunic and jewels. His narrow face was as pious as a religious relic.
Brown John let the dust clear, then bowed again in greeting and in a generous tone said, “Welcome, mighty lords of the forest. How may I…”
“Shut up, clown!” Golfon spat the words. “Tell your bastards to drop their weapons, then get down off that stage. We’re not going to sit here looking up at the likes of you.”
“Ah,” murmured Brown John, “your business is serious.” He glanced at his sons. They dropped their weapons, and the three carefully climbed down to the ground to face the riders.
Golfon glared down at Brown John. “We want Gath of Baal, and you will tell us where he is… understand?” To make their relationship perfectly clear to everyone watching, he spit on Brown John’s shoulder.
Brown John flinched, but answered politely. “I do not understand. No one knows where he lives, so how can you expect me to know?”
Golfon darkened. Vitmar leaned forward and said levelly, “Because everyone knows you and your bastards have traded with him for years, because your minstrels sing of him, because your miserable tribe grows rich on the totems of the dead Kitzakks… and because we know you helped him murder them.”
“Lord Vitmar, you tell a splendid tale,” Brown John said. “So splendid that I can assure you that we, being the poor powerless characters we are, are not even the smallest part of it.”
Vitmar nodded without a trace of agreement, said quietly, “Be reasonable, bukko.” He glanced at the sons, then back at Brown John. “You are a proud family-I understand that-and as outlaws obliged to lie. But we cannot allow it now. Any day the Kitzakks are going to come seeking the bones of their dead scouts so they can give them a proper burial… and in the process they will seek revenge. But we do not intend to suffer for your foolishness and greed… so show us his hiding place. Now! It is a small price to pay for bringing the wrath of the Kitzakks down on all of us.”
“I see,” said Brown John with a ring of alarm in his voice. “You… you intend to negotiate with the Kitzakks?”
“Exactly. And you should be grateful for it. It is much better for you if we give them the head of the man who killed their scouts… rather than the heads of all those who stole their bones.”
“But, my lords, surely you know that the last nation to attempt to negotiate with Kitzakks concluded its discussions from the interior of Kitzakk cages.”
“Tell us where he is, you Grillard scum!” Golfon blurted. “And tell it quick, or we’ll gut the lot of you!” This time he made his point with the butt end of his spear and knocked Brown John to the ground.
Bone and Dirken started to go for their swords, but held their places as Vitmar edged his horse forward. He looked contemptuously at Brown John as he slowly got back up, and said again, “Be reasonable, bukko.”
Brown John nodded. “To see the Kaven, the Cytherian and the Barhacha in the same riding party inspires nothing if it does not inspire reason, but I cannot help you.”
“Lying outlaw filth!” Golfon struck Brown John with the butt end of his spear, drove him back to the ground.-Dirken and Bone moved for Golfon. But Vitmar spurred his horse into them, and they went down ducking and rolling away from the animal’s hooves.
Brown John motioned for his sons to stay put, then, holding his collarbone, rose onto an elbow, and addressing Vitmar from that less than lofty position, said, “I am afraid, Lord Vitmar, that the Lord Golfon has a poor opinion of reasonable discussion.”
By way of agreement, Golfon spit on Brown John again.
“Give us directions, old man,” Vitmar demanded.
Brown John, looking from Golfon to Sharatz, said, “I do not know where he is. Mere chance led my bastards and me to the sight of the massacre. Due to its amazing proportions, it was not difficult to determine that a spirit bordering on the magical had been the cause.” He looked at Vitmar. “Consequently, we choose to share, for a small price, given our efforts, that spirit with all the tribes of the forest. And, I dare say, we have done a decent job of it.”
“You were there! You helped him!”
“We were not. We only saw the results of his work, and I will tell you, I have never seen better work done by man and axe.”
“And just how, bukko,” demanded Vitmar, “did you know it was the Dark One’s work?”
Brown John squinted up and muttered, “I… ah…1 see things. In entrails. Clouds. That sort of thing. He… he was one of the things I saw.”
Golfon grunted with foul disgust, lifted his spear.
“Wait!” Sharatz intoned in a devout register. The Kaven waited until every head turned toward him, then dismounted with regal solemnity. He leveled a long finger at Golfon and Vitmar, and said, “If you choose to soil your weapons by killing this trash, you will ride without my company.”
“You have a better idea?” grunted Golfon.
“Naturally,” Sharatz said with quiet disdain. He advanced to Brown John, smiled down at him so pompously he was in danger of falling over backward. Then, ceremoniously, he unbuckled his leather codpiece and urinated on Brown John’s hip.
The Grillards gasped. Vitmar, Golfon and the men-at-arms grinned, then laughed out loud. Here and there suppressed titters erupted from the crowd.
Sharatz buckled up, then said to Brown John, “We do not need your help, clown. We have the Dark One’s wolf.” He indicated the caged wolf on the back of the pack horse. “With the beast’s quite involuntary cooperation I can guarantee you that your benefactor, Gath of Baal, will be dead before sundown. That, of course, means your totems will then be totally useless.”
The Grillards, shocked, made signs on their bodies while the customers looked at the totems they had purchased with distrust.
The three chiefs chuckled, remounted and rode out the southern end of Rag Camp in a whirl of stifling dust. They were headed in the direction of The Shades.