Gath abandoned the bridge and, with the help of the Grillard strongmen, blocked the charge of the Skull spearmen at the north end of the bridge. They cut up whatever came their way, spears, arms, legs and snarling faces. The Kitzakks dropped in twos and threes in front of the Death Dealer and piled up quickly. Their confederates had to climb the dying bodies to get at the Death Dealer. As they did, Dirken and the Dowats rained arrows on them and Brown John shouted at the bridge, “Fall! Fall!”
At first the bridge refused to behave as the old stage master felt a good piece of scenery should. But all of a sudden the logs snapped apart, and the Skulls departed in the manner they had arrived, as a colorful body. But there was no pleasant music now, only screaming. Some fell with their spears still in their hands. Others clung to falling timbers. Both should have let go. The spears did mean things to their comrades tumbling beside them. The timbers bounced off the sides of the gorge with rock-shattering cracks and dull thuds where a clinging body padded the blow.
Gath remained standing at the end of the broken bridge with his legs apart and his chest heaving. His axe dripped blood, and his heat was so intense that the Grillards backed away. The pile of tangled dead and living bodies in front of him had been sucked back by falling comrades into the gorge. All that remained was one dying Kitzakk. He clung to the Death Dealer’s boot. His legs dangled into the ragged gap. Gath considered him a moment, then lifted his leg and shook him off. The Kitzakk fell by himself. His lonely scream echoed up out of the chasm, then was cut off when he joined his silent comrades far below.
The Barbarian Army stared spellbound, barely moving as Brown John, seeing the main body of the Kitzakk column only a hundred strides off, ordered them back out of range.
At the opposite side of the bridge, the remaining Skulls glared with dark, maddened faces at the Death Dealer, and flung their spears wildly. Gath deflected them with axe and horned helmet, as if it were a game. When they were finally empty-handed, they shouted foul curses, then turned to greet the approaching head of the main column, a Hammer regiment.
Brown John, peering around the turn in the road, watched the approaching Kitzakks thoughtfully. Slowly an expression of grotesque understanding, began to twist his many wrinkles.
Except for the soldiers at the very front of the arriving column, the Kitzakks had no idea what had happened or that the bridge was destroyed. The surviving Skulls screamed in warning, but the column kept coming. Some of the Skulls fell to the ground, others were forced back onto the remnant of the bridge and began to spill over its broken edge. That brought the front ranks of the Hammer regiment to a stop, but the column behind them kept surging forward. The surviving spearmen and the first five ranks of the Hammer regiment were fed to the gorge, then the officers managed to halt the column.
The column was trapped. There was no space on the narrow road for messengers to ride, or even walk, back along the column and explain what was wrong, so the officers dismounted and gathered in a group, chattering excitedly.
Brown John, with his expression changing to one of grotesque anticipation, was certain he knew the subject of their discussion. They were asking each other what the command for retreat was. One or two of the veteran officers might remember seeing commands for a retreat in some ancient yellowed parchment, but the old man was certain they had never bothered to read it. There would have been no need. The Kitzakk Horde had not retreated in a hundred years. Consequently, the officers, no matter how long they talked, would find no means of turning the column around in an orderly fashion.
When Gath joined Brown John, the bukko explained what was happening, and the eyes within the horned helmet darkened with anticipation. The two joined their army beyond the turn in the road, and Gath started climbing a narrow crack in the rocky cliff siding the road. Seeing the jagged break led all the way to the top of the cliffs, a surge of excitement coated the old man’s cheeks like fresh paint. He turned to his troops and just as quickly lost his color.
His sons, the strongmen and the rest of the Grillards were joking and laughing with the Dowat archers, congratulating themselves. The army was behaving no better.
Cold panic ran up the old man’s spine. He pushed his way to Bone’s big, bragging face, and interrupted his laughter by stepping on his foot and shouting, “You idiot! We’ve won nothing! We’ve only stubbed their toe. If you want something to cheer about, get up there. Follow him!” He pointed at Gath. “Hurry!”
Bone and Dirken promptly started up the cliff with the Grillard strongmen following. Brown John ordered the remainder of the army to wait in place, then set the Barhacha to cutting timber for a temporary bridge to replace Thin Bridge, and ordered messengers back to the forest to tell the tribes that had stayed behind of their glorious victory. Then, with nothing left to do but collapse on the road and wait, he did just that. He was wet and cold to the touch.
Forty-nine
The horned Barbarian and his strongmen reached the top of the cliffs within the hour. They had clawed their way up the crack without a thought to what they might find at the top. Now they hesitated as the great golden eye of the sun looked down at them to light their stage. The top of the cliff was a bald rock tier worn smooth by wind and rain, and washed clean by the same elements. In the distance, a massive spreading staircase of similar tiers rose to a world dwelling above the clouds, the birthplace of thunder and lightning. The staircase of the Gods.
The huge Barbarian moved his men inland around the side chasm, then returned to the cliffs above The Narrows.
A tumult of confusion and cursing rose out of the gorge. The sun, looking directly down at the Kitzakks trapped on the pass road, drenched them with bright light, making a perfect target. The horned helmet seemed to watch with pleasure for a moment, then the Barbarian hurried forward, leaping crevices, and the strongmen, like a physical appendage, followed.
High above the cataracts, the sun could see that they were headed for a distant crowd of loose boulders resting precipitously on the edge of the cliff above the rear third of the Kitzakk column. The intense golden eye had never found these Barbarians of particular interest before and could not remember much about them. But something about their horned leader’s movements excited it, and it brightened with anticipation, concentrated its attentive light on The Narrows. It had been decades since the golden orb, which had watched the Kitzakk Horde from its infancy and knew it intimately, had looked down on an unfolding drama with such striking possibilities.
The Kitzakk column stretched for miles back up into the narrow pass. The front third consisted of the surviving Skull regiments, the Hammer and Spear regiments, and their supply train. The middle third was made up of commercial companies of Chainmen, Cagemen and a train of huge wagons stacked with empty cages. The rear third was composed of Engineer regiments and a long wagon train bearing precut timbers for a base fort. Each group was separated by a wide interval. Well behind the last group a Wenchmaster led a wagon train of camp followers, a rowdy group of hardy whores, tinkers, magicians dealing in cheap love potions, cooks, gamblers and healers.
Earlier, when the Wenchmaster had seen the tail of the column stop far down the pass ahead of him, he had halted his wagon train. He was now barking orders, organizing a hasty retreat. The horses were unhitched. Both wagons and horses were turned around in place. Then the horses were hitched to the wagons they had formerly followed. This left one wagon without horses. It was unceremoniously shoved into the pass. The Wenchmaster then started his wagon train back up the pass toward the desert.