Lords of Destruction (12 page)

“Good,” Cobra purred, “you begin to feel it.”

Brown John unconsciously nodded agreement. He also felt it, and his eyes
wandered over Cobra’s naked curves. There was an ease and luxury to the serpent
woman. Her breasts were pillowy, her belly a soft bed, and her hips luxurious
divans. Every part of her suggested a place to lie down, but not to sleep. A
little bit more of that kind of thinking, and again he had to look away.

When he looked back, Cobra had put her cloak back on and squatted in front of
Robin. She held a jar of rouge in one hand. Dipping the tip of a small finger in
the paste, she used it as a brush and carefully began to draw on the girl’s
inner thigh.

Brown John, suddenly ashamed and sweating profusely, withdrew his head. He
took a deep breath and started back up the stairs, moving silently. Behind him,
the voices came again, Robin’s first.

“What dance will I perform?”

“One of the oldest, butterfly. The dance the whores use to ward off the poxes
and plagues of lust common to their profession. It is called the Fire Ceremony.
I can teach it to you in no time.”

“But will Brown John know it? He’ll have to play the drums.”

The
bukko,
exhausted and wet and scowling, stopped at the top of the
stairs. Cobra’s sarcastic chuckle came first, then her voice.

“The bukko, child, knows a great deal more than he chooses to tell innocent
young girls like yourself. I have no doubt that he knows the Fire Ceremony as
well as if he had invented it himself.”

The pair laughed together at that, and Brown John nodded agreement, crossing
to the ladder. He put a foot on the first rung and hesitated, listening to the
compelling rattle and shake of the wagon and the thundering hooves. They all
sang the same song, the song of the open road. He was once again plunging into
the unknown, and realizing it, he grinned, asking himself questions. What
secrets was Cobra withholding? Why was she so desperate to make certain Robin’s
motives were so pure and virtuous?

What did she know about the sacred jewels that she wasn’t telling them? And
why was he allowing her to put Robin in danger? Did he truly believe the sacred
jewels were worth risking her safety? Or were the jewels already enchanting him,
filling his mind with wishful thinking and making him act like a foolish old
man?

By the time he reached the roof, he was laughing quietly at himself. But when
he saw a clearing up ahead amid tall pines, Upper Small where Robin would dance,
he stopped short.

UPPER SMALL

C
obra waited for her cue at the side of the wagon with Gath, spear in hand,
standing beside her. Their bodies were enveloped in black cloaks and the blacker
night, only the alert whites of their eyes showing as they watched Brown John
start the performance.

The
bukko
stood between the wagon and a long, low campfire, juggling
five flaming torches. Robin, covered by a long black cloak, and Jakar stood
behind the
bukko
banging tambourines. He tossed one of the torches high
into the air; it revolved brightly against the backdrop of towering trees
surrounding the clearing, then lost force against the indigo sky and fell with a
rush of light back into his hand, as nimbly as if it were attached with an
elastic string.

The audience, gathered on the ground beyond the campfire, exhaled with
pleasure, the orange firelight flickering on the booted legs, gnarled knees and
brutish faces of those in the front rows. The bulk of the small crowd was lost
in the receding darkness, except for an occasional glitter on the tip of spear
or helmet. Not ten paces beyond the gathering, tall pines marked the edge of the
clearing, and within the trees several small fires glowed, illuminating tethered
horses and a pair of wagons.

Cobra, growing impatient, edged forward, sniffing the stench of male sweat,
rank hair, leather, metal and horses coming from the audience. The scent of
burning stone was mixed in them, and she whispered, “They’re here.”

“Where?” murmured Gath, and she lifted empty hands, not knowing.

When Brown John finished juggling, the crowd roared, and he took a long drink
from a jar, making his cheeks balloon comically, then moved around the campfire
to the audience. Suddenly he blew fluid from his mouth, simultaneously setting
it on fire with a torch, and flames spewed over startled faces. Several men
howled and cursed gruffly, much to the amusement of the others, and Brown John
moved nimbly along the front of the audience blowing more flames at the
laughing, cringing bodies, illuminating them.

They belonged to outlaw warriors and mercenaries, hardened roughs who were no
doubt on their way to the endless civil wars that plagued the Atalan Outlands in
the north. Many were young, with eager faces looking forward to their first
battle and first foreign whore. Others had had plenty of both, and it showed.
Cruel scars laced cheeks and shoulders, and eyes were drunk with wine and lust.
Several camp followers could be seen among the men, big-boned, hardy women with
small hope in their eyes and the stains of food and men on their tattered
tunics. At the back, apart from the others, sat the five bald riders who had
followed the wagon earlier in the day. When the
bukko
’s flames lighted
their bodies, their rashes showed brightly on faces and arms.

Cobra and Gath shared a sober glance and watched Brown John set fire to three
small stacks of logs which had been placed about five feet from one another. The
wood quickly erupted with flames, casting light throughout the small audience,
and it grunted with expectation, gathering around the fires.

When Brown John joined Robin and Jakar and the three began to play a new
tune, Cobra turned to Gath and whispered, “Watch me closely.”

He nodded, and she strode slowly out of the shadows, drawing sounds of lewd
expectations from the audience. With haughty, deliberate movements she took a
position in front of the fire and withdrew a tambourine, began to beat it
lightly against a thigh, her eyes holding her audience captive. Long black hair
framed the cool oval of her face, and her body was an undefinable blackness
against the firelight. Carnal. Mysterious.

The crowd leaned forward, lowering big, meaty faces toward her, and the
sounds of scratching and guttural anticipation mixed with the sounds of cricket
and hoot owl.

Cobra tossed her shoulders, and her robe puddled at her feet.

She wore a soldier’s leather jerkin and a skirt of leather thongs. The
garments were black and rent with ragged holes made by arrow, spear and fire.
Showing through the openings was creamy perfect flesh trying vainly to hide
itself, and the mercenaries’ eyes widened.

With her hips grinding teasingly to the tune of tambourine and drum, she
advanced into the audience, stepping through rawboned thighs, armored chests and
rough hands. Her eyes boldly met their leering eyes and shamelessly explored
their muscular necks, ears and shoulders, as if flirting, but actually hunting
for scales, bits of unnatural fur or pointed ears.

A tremor of suspicion made her stomach churn as her smile came to rest on a
squat, hairy freebooter, and she coyly lifted his lank hair away from his ear to
see if it was pointed, and ran a finger inside his mouth to find if the tongue
was forked. They were not. Nearing the first small fire, she pushed another
soldier off balance to see if he sat on a tail, but he did not.

She twirled slowly around the first fire, and the
bukko
’s drum picked
up the tempo. Faster she twirled, and her skirt lifted, exposing long curved
legs. The men grunted with pleasure, and she spun wildly over the fire, lowering
her dark crotch toward the flames in the cleansing ritual of the whore. The fire
licked at her, and its light probed among the holes of her rent garment,
illuminating the underside of a full breast, the curve of hip, arched throat and
crooning lips.

Cobra danced over all three fires, inspecting each member of the audience,
including the five bald riders. None of them showed any overt sign of being
demon spawn, and her stomach churned nervously. There was only one way left for
her to search deeper, and despite her shame, she decided to use it.

She picked out one of the largest louts, a big heavy-set brute missing one
ear and wearing the cocky snarl of the braggart soldier. She extended her booted
foot toward him, implying that he could undress it. The lout did not understand,
but his friends quickly explained it to him. Profoundly flattered, he laughed
with bravado and took hold of the boot lovingly. Hand over hand, he slowly
forced it off and, with his leering eyes held captive by Cobra’s wicked smile,
caressed her naked foot.

The men around him suddenly howled and cursed, drawing away and touching
their totems and groins and stomachs with superstitious gestures. The big lout
looked at them, again not understanding what was happening, and they pointed at
the foot he held, shouting incoherently. He chuckled, and not looking at what he
was doing, bent over and kissed the hideous emerald-green and ice-blue scales.

At their touch, he dropped her foot, pulled away howling and fled stumbling
and staggering through the laughing, hooting men.

Cobra, beating wildly on her tambourine and flashing her leg invitingly,
twirled among the laughing men, testing them to see who might be unafraid. But
they all drew away, wanting no contact with her blighted foot. She laughed at
them, bowing, then passed among them as they cheered and tossed coins into a
helmet she removed from one of them. Then the music of tambourine and drum began
again, and they turned toward it.

Robin now stood behind the main fire. A short twisted rope of dark kamala
leaves dangled from the corner of her mouth, its tip glowing and emitting a
trail of smoke that angled skyward across rouged cheek and buzzard feathers
dangling from dark red oiled hair. Her legs were spread wide, with hips
aggressively cocked. With a fist propped on hipbone, she tapped her tambourine
against a snapping bottom.

The men chuckled hotly and, taking her cue, began to clap in time.

Robin’s skirt barely reached her thighs, faded black rags and strings and
crow feathers, and a short-sleeved leopard-skin halter held her breasts snugly.
She was barefoot and brown and oiled, and glowed in the flickering firelight,
the smoke drifting across her face, the perfect cosmetic for her smile. Savage.
Animal. Hot.

The audience hooted and whistled approval, and Cobra, now moving silently
behind the back rows, watched it with hunting eyes.

The outlaws and freebooters chuckled and poked each other, but their eyes
never left the girl. The five bald riders behaved no differently, but got up and
moved closer, scratching their rashes nervously.

Cobra followed them, staying in the shadows, and her breathing quickened.
Nausea spilled into her stomach. She looked at Gath, saw he had edged closer to
Robin, and then spotted Jakar: he now squatted on the roof of the wagon and held
something out of sight in his hands, his loaded crossbow. She put her eyes back
on the girl.

Robin had discarded her twist of leaves, and was twirling over the long, low
campfire with her legs spread and banging her tambourine wildly. The low flames
stirred, and seemed to reach for her thighs and groin. She slowly lowered her
hips, her bent legs driving, and threw back her head gasping at the heat.

Drawing her knife, Cobra stopped within reach of the backs of the bald
riders. They were bouncing in place, scratching furiously and clapping all at
once.

Robin spun faster and faster along the campfire, losing herself to the
sensual stroking of the flames, then abandoned herself to them. Sweat broke out
on her upper lip. Her red mouth parted; her breasts heaved. Her hips snapped and
pumped, and the flames, unable to resist her invitation, shot up around her legs
booming and crackling. She danced further along the low fire, and the flames
followed, striking at the sky as she passed by.

Her thighs and buttocks were marked with lightning bolts, scarabs, claw marks
and numerals, 3, 9 and 33. They were cruel on her soft, smooth flesh, and the
hard-bitten outlaws and freebooters stared with open mouths, transfixed. The
distance between their eyes and her body had become a sacred place. Inviolate.
Magic.

Cobra shot a glance at Brown John. His smile was satanic with raw joy and
power, and his hands were thumping his drum, raising a sensual racket. She
glanced to the side of the wagon, and her stomach knotted, her body flinched.

A red glow now showed in Gath’s eyes. Did it come from the firelight, or from
within?

Cobra, trembling with fear, abruptly lifted her nose, scenting a suddenly
strong odor of burning stone on the night air. She sniffed about, found the odor
did not come from the bald riders and, gasping in sudden panic, raced around the
audience toward the wagon as the smell grew stronger and stronger.

Reaching Gath, she whispered harshly, “They’re close now, but I can’t see
them. You’ve got to…” She cut herself off with a sharp gasp, and pointed
up.

The dark silhouettes of the overhanging pines were swaying fitfully,
thrashing as if weighted down with something. Suddenly a small, dark object fell
out of the darkness and hit the side of the wagon with a wet smack. They both
jumped back, startled. Gath wiped the black smudge off the wagon with fingertips
and sniffed them. His eyes became confused, and he put his fingers under Cobra’s
nose. She sniffed them and drew back abruptly.

“Bats!” she gasped, then screamed.

A huge black object soared out of the night into the firelight directly above
Robin. A bat the size of a well-fed border dog, and wearing gold loop earrings.
The audience howled, and the bat dove, hit Robin in the shoulder and knocked her
staggering back through the flames. She screamed, fell and rolled away from the
fire. Her flesh was singed, and her hair and rags were smoking. She covered her
head with her bare arms, and the bat raked them with its claws as it swept over
her again.

Gath bolted forward, a sweeping shadow.

Outlaws and freebooters rose as a body and scrambled for their horses and
wagons, knocking each other down and cursing.

The giant bat caromed into the night, squealing.

Robin half rose, looking up, and screamed again.

Three dark shapes were falling through the firelight toward her. They had
small, thick bodies with long arms, hairy shoulders and pointed ears protruding
from dark leather armor and helmets. Their mouths were wide with lust-mad
smiles, revealing needle-sharp fangs.

Gath planted a foot and threw his spear.

It caught the first bat soldier in mid-air, and the impact drove him back the
way he had come. He squealed and windmilled in the air as if climbing an
invisible wall.

Simultaneously, Jakar fired.

His bolt took a bat soldier in the shoulder, but did not stop him.

The two falling bodies hit Robin with thudding blows and drove her to the
ground, facedown. For a moment they seemed confused, rolling her about,
uncertain whether to maul her or savage her. She kicked and flailed, and they
drew serrated knives, their snarling mixing with her screaming. Then Gath
arrived.

His sword removed a furry arm just beneath the shoulder. The owner howled and
rolled off Robin as his arm fell to the ground beside him, its hand dropping a
knife. Simultaneously, the remaining bat soldier was removed by the crunching
blow of Gath’s body. The pair hit the ground tangled together, and the Barbarian
gathered the furry body in his hands, rolled upright and threw it down on its
back. Straddling the cringing figure, he drew back a bent arm and lunged down
with a howl. Gath’s elbow drove the bat soldier’s head three inches into the
dirt and pulped its skull.

Robin screamed and rolled away, covering her face with her hands. The backs
of her legs and arms were splattered with blood as if she had a pox. She
screamed again as two more bat soldiers, swords in hand, landed beside her,
small eyes lewd and violent above hollow cheeks. She shuddered helplessly, and
Gath came off the ground, grabbed both men by a shoulder before they could react
and slammed them together headfirst. They dropped their weapons, staggered
dizzily, and Gath gathered them in his arms, lifting them off the ground. They
screamed and flailed to no avail. Gath’s arms corded and bulged as he increased
the pressure, and there was a series of dull snaps deep inside their meaty
chests, then a splintering crack, and each let out a screech cut short because
their mouths had filled with blood.