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.