"Prisoner of the Horned helmet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Silke James)

Five

The three men riding the wagon had not intended it to be a shy vehicle. Its flatbed, side boards, driver’s box and shaft were as red as a harlot’s lips and trimmed in a pink and orange so bright they would have made the same harlot blush. The men were Grillards, a clan of outcast and outlawed entertainers. Their wagon was designed to serve as a traveling stage, but at the moment it was on its way to do, hopefully, some serious hauling.

Heading south, it danced through the tall pines at the southern end of the Valley of Miracles, crested the mountain, and raced across a glen that was a riot of greens in the early morning sunshine.

Old Brown John sprawled in the bed of the wagon, and despite the clattering wheels and bouncing boards, dozed comfortably on a pile of ragged blankets beside a clutter of coiled ropes. He was the bukko, the boss and stage manager of the Grillards. He wore a ragged brown tunic with large patches which, in addition to covering holes, were the clan’s sign. He was short, wiry and bandy-legged. At first glance he appeared no more impressive than his patches, but on closer examination, even in his prone and snoring position, he had a surprisingly alert, in-charge and genial manner.

His bastard sons rode the driver’s box.

Bone, the older, held the reins. He wore bright red patches, was big all over and proud of it. Regardless of the role his father cast him in, on- or offstage, he played it as a swaggering, braggart soldier whose brain was just slow enough to make him suspicious of everyone and everything. Dirken, the younger, was short, lean, and favored deep umber patches. He picked his own roles, was always on stage, and cherished playing vile, treacherous villains, so long as he could play them well groomed.

All three men wore leather belts hung with pouches and short swords. Not stage weapons, but working tools which protected them during the cold wet season when they had to survive as thieves.

The wagon rolled clear of the forest, skidded to a stop where Thieves Trail met Lemontrail Crossing, and Brown John glanced over the side board.

His white hair fell in smooth silky slopes down over his large ears and bristled with feathered tufts at his neck. His tangled white eyebrows, rising at sharp angles, gave his face a slightly satanic expression. It was deeply cut with all varieties of wrinkles, but they only gave a vague indication of the complexity of his wrinkled mind.

Seeing the crossing, he chuckled with far more amusement than any bridge, particularly one which had been destroyed, deserved.

Father and sons got down from their wagon, moved onto the battle-scarred remnant of the bridge, and peered down into the gorge at the pile of dirt. The tips of splintered timbers protruded from it.

“There they are,” Brown John said with exhilaration. “Go to it, lads.”

“Now just a minute,” Bone said with grave caution. “If the Dark One and his axe did all this work by themselves, it’s something a man should think on some before messin’ about with it.”

Dirken, barely moving lips as thin as fork blades, asked in a theatrical whisper, “How many did he say he killed?”

“He did not say,” their father said in an instructional tone, “because I made certain there was no discussion of bodies. It would have made him suspicious. I simply inquired, while your brother traded our wine for his meat, as to where he got his new armor. All he said was, ‘Lemontrail Crossing’. Two words.”

“Then where are the bodies?”

“If you were more interested in the work, Dirken, and less in the drama, you would have noticed by now that the hyenas and jackals have already been at work on one of them.”

He pointed at the bottom of the gorge about fifty feet to the east of the wreckage where a gutted rib cage rested among rocks. It was black, and the blackness moved vaguely. Ants.

“Well now,” Bone announced, “that sure enough used to belong to something that drank from a cup, and it sure enough is dead.”

“Not completely,” Brown John corrected him. “His Kaa is exceptionally strong.”

Bone and Dirken hesitated, then nodded thoughtfully. They knew that the Kaa, the spirit of the victor, could be infused within the bones of his victims at the moment of death. It could live there for days, weeks, even months, depending on its strength, and they normally did not question their father’s evaluation of anything. Brown John had “vision”. He saw many small, insignificant things and put them together into great and important things that common people like themselves could not see. Nevertheless, they were wary. Brown John had told them the Dark One’s Kaa just might be strong enough to be contagious, and that kind of strength usually only lived in legends.

Brown John, ignoring their hesitation, pointed at the dirt pile. “You will more than likely find the bodies under that rubble. I’d say you’ll find five, perhaps even six Kitzakk scouts.”

Dirken put two sharp, black, skeptical eyes on his father.

Bone blurted, “That is a whole mess of muscle and metal for one man to murder, to say nothing of it being Kitzakk!”

“That, lads,” Brown John glared at them impatiently, “is precisely why we are here.”

Bone scowled with his entire face, two chins and both ears. “Well, if there are five scouts down there, the Kitzakks are coming for certain.”

“Yes,” said Brown John solemnly. “It is no rumor this year. They’ve been sighted in all the passes. So get to work. The kind of magic we now trade in can not be made by tossing dancing girls about a stage. It’s man’s work. Best done unseen and fast. We don’t want the Dark One, or anyone else, to know what we do until it is done.”

Brown John and Dirken glanced up and down the crossroads to make certain they were unwatched. But Bone stared at the dirt pile.

“Now just a minute.” He put his fists against his hips, looked at his father and brother. “If they’ve been down there two whole days and nights, they’re going to be nasty ripe.”

Dirken grinned darkly. “We’ll bring them up in pieces. If you forgot your spoon, you can borrow mine.”

Bone winced.

The old man said, “Bone, you bring up the large pieces. Let Dirken handle the arms and heads, we don’t want to lose any fingers or teeth.”

Bone grimaced sickly, but obediently helped Dirken drag blankets and ropes out of their wagon and down into the gorge.

Late that day, when the Grillard’s wagon was rolling west on Border Road, Brown John sat between his sons in the driver’s box. Silent. Grave of expression except for a faint flicker of pride behind his eyes. His sons were filthy with dust and blood, exhausted, and grim faced. Their expressions had not been fashioned by their theatrical training, but by the day’s work. Today they had played roles they had never played before, roles they were going to have to master, and had taken to them nicely. The colorful wagon had also taken to its new duty: It now hauled the slimy, swollen cadavers of eight Kitzakk scouts tied down under a blanket on its bed. It was doing a real wagon’s work, and doing it in style, sporting a nauseous perfume.