Several Cytherian warriors, and a scatter of women who had reentered the village, stood at the edges of the yard watching the mighty victor stagger toward a footpath. His stagger was impressive, but his entrance into the path was not. He missed the opening by a foot, hit the corner of the wall with a shoulder and spun around, taking down barrels, awnings and a stack of buckets before hitting the ground.
Robin raced to him. When she reached him, he was trying to get off the ground without much success. He was crouched face down, shaking, blinking with one eye. The other was swollen closed. Tears swam in Robin’s eyes as she kneeled beside him. She offered him her hand. He took it, obviously without knowing whose it was or even if it was a hand. His nerveless fingers spent a long time before they found a grip.
Using her hand for support, he tried to stand and this time made it to his knees. This put him face-to-face with Robin, and he hesitated, recognizing her. She murmured, “We must stop the bleeding!”
He was taken back for a moment, as if the resonant truth in her words was too much to bear, then said weakly, “We are finished.”
He pushed her away, staggered through the alley brushing its sides, and reached the clearing beyond. He shuffled through Forest Gate and started for the forest. He fell to his knees twice before vanishing within its greenery.
Robin slumped in defeat against the wall in Wagon Yard and several women moved to comfort her. Before they reached her, she jumped up and raced into a side street.
When she reached the small wooden building on the first tier where she had a room, she luckily found her horse and flatbed wagon parked in the stall behind it. She fetched satchels, fire pot and blankets from her room, threw them on the wagon, and hitched up the horse. Leaping into the driver’s box, she shook the reins and clicked her tongue, and the animal trotted down the street toward Forest Gate.
Robin was driving recklessly out of the gate just as Bone and Dirken entered it. They saw her and ducked out of the way, staring in dismay as the wagon plunged across the clearing to the edge of the forest. There Robin reined up only a moment, then whispered to her horse and the animal moved into the forest following a trail of blood.
Twenty-two
It was late afternoon when Brown John’s colorful wagon burst out of the forest into the clearing outside Weaver. His team, frothing and steaming, pulled up short of a cluster of empty, parked wagons as he reined up hard. A crowd of Grillards tumbled out and hurried through the wagons into the village, where the wailing of the grief stricken mixed with music and dancing. Brown John, head erect, remained in the driver’s box.
The wagons wore the marks, colors and totems of local forest tribes, and their owners crowded the terraces of Weaver. There were left-handed Wowells in furs, lean, round-faced Checkets, plain-looking Barhacha woodsmen, and Kaven money changers from Coin in three-belted robes. There were even savage Kraniks and Dowats, who had come all the way from the high forest.
The southern edge of the village still smouldered amid large puddles of spilled dye. At Three Bridge Crossing a group of Cytherians were hurriedly raising a finished gate to block the western bridge. Other villagers labored with shovels and picks, demolishing the other two bridges.
Brown John chuckled wisely and turned as Bone and Dirken came running through the wagons to him wearing proud smiles.
“We saw it all,” Bone said triumphantly. “And up close.”
“Splendid,” said Brown John, “I want to hear every detail, but first, tell me… did the Dark One play a part?”
“A part!” Bone blurted. “He was the whole bloody thing.”
Dirken indicated Weaver with the back of his head. “There are thirty-nine dead Skull soldiers in there, three temple guards and,” he hesitated for effect, “two commanders. Champions. And all dead. He drowned and scalded most of them by pushing over dye vats, the rest was hand work.”
“He tore off one of their arms,” Bone added with a grand gesture. “Ripped it right out of the shoulder.”
Brown John grinned. “Your sense of the dramatic is commendable, Bone, but when telling a tale, do not stretch the truth beyond its endurance. You’ll lose your audience.”
“It’s absolutely true, it is!” protested Bone.
Dirken nodded. “The commanders were the strongest bastards I’ve ever seen! But Gath was stronger. You couldn’t have staged a better show yourself.” Then with a whisper resonant with impending horror, he asked, “Want to see it?”
“Yes, I would.” Brown John laughed and dropped lightly out of the wagon.
The brothers led their father into the forest to a stand of birch trees surrounded by alder shrubs. They moved in among the bushes to a pile of fresh cut brush from which Bone removed a large branch. On the ground under it was a folded blanket of green moss. Dirken unfolded the moss, and showed its contents to his father. A very large left arm.
“My, my,” whispered Brown John truly impressed.
Bone pushed the rest of the brush aside as Dirken went on.
“The Cytherians laid claim to all the Kitzakks killed inside their village, but before they got around to it we had already hauled off the best of the bunch. If things keep going like this, we’ll be the richest men in the forest.”
Dirken helped Bone pull off the last of the brush to reveal the dead bodies of three men. They were short and thin, shrouded in black robes.
“Guards of the Temple of Dreams!” Brown John’s smile twisted strangely. “Now that is an intriguing sight.”
“We’ve got better,” Dirken said. “One of their commanders.” He removed another shrub, revealing a tall massive man glittering in a suit of chain mail. He lay facedown beside a huge sword and axe. A bloody hole at his shoulder and his other wounds were packed with moss.
The old stage master chuckled, “By Kram and Bled! This will send a message to the very corners of their empire!”
“And we’ve got a wagon load of weapons,” Bone added.
“Splendid! Absolutely splendid.” The old man gingerly lifted the empty, scalloped sleeve of the chain mail suit. Its arm had indeed been pulled out.
“Amazing,” he said. “Truly amazing. And fortuitous. Tonight, around the fires, and in the coming days, many will speak of the events of this day, and you and I will play principal roles in their tales. Count on it! We placed the central player on the stage.” His arm swept elaborately over their grim trophies. “It is we, the Grillards, the ridiculed and outlawed, who now stir the pot!”
He turned intently to his sons. “Now tell me, slowly and accurately, each detail. It is critical that I know everything. How did you convince Gath to come to Weaver? How did you know the Kitzakks would strike here?”
Bone and Dirken shared a sheepish glance, then Dirken said flatly, “We didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Didn’t know when the Kitzakks would strike.”
“Then how did you get him to come here?”
Dirken hesitated. His face reddened, then he grinned. “We didn’t. The Lakehair girl brought him.”
“That’s right,” Bone added quickly. “He followed her here, all the way from Calling Rock.”
Brown John clapped his bony hands excitedly, then beckoned with long fingers to his sons. “Of course! Of course! She gave him the message. So what did he.say to her?”
Bone and Dirken shrugged. Then Dirken whispered, “We don’t know. We didn’t talk to either of them.”
Brown John’s wrinkled face surrendered to gravity with alarming speed.
“We’re sorry,” Bone blurted. “But we never got the chance. We waited for her on Summer Trail just like you said, but she just marched by us. Gath and that wolf of his were following her, so we hid ’til he went by. We followed them, you know, real careful like, and they came all the way here. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, came the bloody Kitzakks. You should have seen the people run and scream!”