They giggled, and, as they approached Gath smiling, their mouths came open slightly.
Brown John and his group were still ten feet off when the old man saw their fangs and bolted forward. “Look out, Gath!”
Too late. The freshly fashioned servants of the Lord of Death crowded around Gath and Robin, lunging at his arms and legs. His axe came up. It caught the chubby one in the chest, stopping her fangs inches short of his arm. The impact lifted her three feet off the ground, and she screamed, spitting blood, as the others buried their fangs in his forearms and ankles.
Robin shrieked. Gath jerked around toward her, ignoring the girls. They still had their fangs in him when Bone and Dirken arrived. They ripped them off, threw them on the ground, cut their throats, then stepped back in revulsion.
The girls were hissing, coiling and writhing on the bloody sand as if their bodies had only spines, their legs and arms no bones.
With a gasp, Robin folded up and dropped unconscious into Gath’s arms. He touched her hair gently, then he and the Grillards looked up.
A half circle of eighteen Skulls, two squads, were forty feet off and closing on them slowly.
Gath placed Robin in Brown John’s arms, “Take care of her.”
He swung up into his saddle and bolted toward the Skulls’ line.
Brown John shouted, “No! It’s a trap!”
Gath kept riding, and Brown John, groaning, turned on Bone. “Hurry! Get the army!”
Bone started running, waving his arms and shouting, toward the rocks, as Brown John carried Robin onto the wagon. Dirken and the Grillards, already moving to aid their leader, suddenly stopped.
Gath of Baal sat on his horse strangely motionless in the their leader, suddenly stopped.
Gath of Baal sat on his horse strangely motionless in the middle of the circling Skulls. They made no move to attack.
Brown John, holding the unconscious Robin in his arms, watched uncertainly, then glanced down at the fangs on the dead girls and slumped, groaning with dismay. Slowly his eyes lifted and reluctantly watched.
Gath sank wearily in his saddle, then looked down at his hand holding his axe. His fingers trembled, involuntarily released the handle, and it fell to the ground.
Brown John and the Grillards shuddered.
Gath looked down at his weapon as if it were a long, long distance away. He leaned slowly out of his saddle until he fell and joined it on the ground.
Sixty-one
The light of a standing torch flickered over the silhouettes of two figures on the heights of Chela Kong. Below them, on the southern slope, the Barbarian Army was gathered in small groups staring south. In the distance, tiny specks of light grew fainter and fainter as the Kitzakk Army withdrew, then vanished and were replaced by the star-filled night.
“Are they retreating?” Robin whispered to Brown John.
“No,” he answered tiredly, “I’m afraid they’re just moving back to a far more favorable position, Bahaara. There they will ignore our badly equipped army and celebrate their success. Public execution is their favorite amusement.”
“Oh, Brown John, what have I done?”
Brown John patted her shoulder and whispered firmly, “Do not despair, small one. Look around you. Not a single man has fled. See!” He lifted her chin with a finger. “The army is more determined than ever now and so am I.”
A rush of hope lifted her eyes and voice. “What are you going to do?”
“We are going to do precisely what we Grillards do best. Pit our particular skills against theirs, and change our costumes.”
“You’re going to Bahaara!” she gasped.
“Of course! Bahaara is now the stage, so we are duty bound to use it.” He turned towards two figures moving up towards them and chuckled. “Here is our wardrobe now.”
The bukko gestured with dancing fingers, and Bone and Dirken stepped into the glow of torchlight. In their arms were heaps of filthy tattered clothes. They tossed them in front of their father with a flourish surpassing his own.
Bone, holding his nose, pronounced, “There has never been, nor will there ever be, a filthier bunch of rags. You can count on it.”
“Whew!” Robin wrinkled her tiny nose. “How can you call them costumes. They’re disgusting!”
Dirken, profoundly offended, thinned his eyes at her. “Because filth, young woman, is the most convincing adornment in the theatrical profession. And this is the real thing.” He threw a hand at the tattered clothes. “Those slavers rubbed camel urine in them to drive off scorpions and evil spirits.”
“They’d drive off anything with a nose, that’s a fact,” she replied jauntily.
Brown John laughed. “Robin, I believe you will find these garments to be priceless. In Bahaara, we will not only be ignored, we will be avoided.” He winked at his sons. “Well done, lads. Good thinking.”
Exchanging I-told-you-so nudges, Bone and Dirken grinned broadly.
Brown John turned to Robin and, with deliberation, bowed. “Now child, as you have the principal role, you get first pick.”
Robin choked. “Me?”
“Of course,” said Brown John. “Rags are the only clothing the Kitzakk reptile hunters wear. With some simply made forked sticks, we can enter Bahaara without suspicion and move about freely. No Kitzakk willingly associates with such disgusting characters.”
Robin nodded. “I understand, but… but you know I’m not an actress. I won’t know what to say.”
“You, child, will not need to say.anything,” Brown said with flat confidence. “You are, for reasons I have sworn not to reveal, essential to him. If he can get a glimpse of you, we have a chance.”
“We… we can save him?”
“We can try.”
Robin hesitated, then bent over tentatively and picked up a rag. She considered it solemnly for a long moment, then said, “Well, if I cut my hair, I think I could look like a boy!”
They all chuckled, then laughed out loud in a warmth of companionship Robin had never shared before. It was as if she were one of them. A Grillard player about to take the stage.
Sixty-two
Bahaara’s place of execution was an outdoor arena at the eastern extremity of the city. Its dirt stage was backed by a stone wall, and a red-carpeted staircase ascended the center of the wall to a landing with two tunnels. The one at stage right had a red arch, while the one at stage left had a black and orchid arch. At the sides of the stage were ground-level access passages linked to the stage by ramps. Facing the stage was a semicircle of empty, tiered seats.
Skull soldiers were dragging the Death Dealer’s weighty, unconscious body across the stage to a whipping post. He wore only a fur loincloth and the horned helmet. His flesh was shiny with sweat, and blotched with bruises. Several leaked thin trails of blood.
After chaining the dark Barbarian to the post, one soldier took hold of the horned helmet and pulled on it repeatedly without success. He cursed and moved back into the passage following the other soldier. Moments later he returned with a hammer and wedge and began to hammer the bottom rim of the helmet. Blood promptly started running down the Barbarian’s back and chest.
Dang-Ling emerged from the black and orchid arched tunnel and stopped on the landing. He clapped his hands, once, and the soldier looked up in embarrassment. Dang-Ling waved him off brusquely, and the soldier backed quickly down the ramp into the access tunnel. The high priest looked down smugly at the captive’s limp body, then turned and bowed as Klang’s black-robed figure emerged from the red arched tunnel.
“Why did you stop him?” Klang growled.
“I thought it best, my lord,” Dang-Ling replied in a carefully cordial tone, “that his distinctive helmet remain on his head so that when the people arrive tomorrow they will have no doubt that the man whose head you remove is the true Death Dealer. It, of course, will be taken off before the execution begins.”