Lords of Destruction by James Silke, Frank Frazetta Page B

as sobs
racked her body.
    The brutal glint faded from Gath’s eyes, and he studied her uncertainly, like
the wolf finding a human babe abandoned in the forest, sensing her helplessness
and need.
    His fingertips explored her lips, careful now to be gentle, and memories
passed behind his eyes. Vivid memories of the first time he had seen Robin
sleeping beneath the blackened thorn tree atop Calling Rock. Her lips had danced
then in the fire’s glow, to the song of her contented sighs and the night wind
in the treetops. They had enchanted him, and brought back his childhood dreams
for the first time since he could remember. But it was different now, and he
withdrew his fingers as his flesh began to crawl and his neck hairs bristled.
    Her lips were not dancing, but shuddering, and the song they moved to was
that same song his lips had sung when, as a boy in Baal, he had been put to bed
at night in his cage.
    He released her and stepped back. His muscle and sinew contracted with
self-revulsion, bending his huge frame.
    Robin, still sobbing, placed her palms against the rock and pushed weakly,
her head hanging. Her body lifted and she sagged back facing him with her hands
outstretched, steadying herself against the boulder. Without raising her head,
she wiped her tears away. Her body suddenly heaved for breath, and she
staggered, but caught herself, again using both hands.
    Gath watched her red-gold curls tremble, watched her breasts rise and fall
against her cloak where his fingers had left dirty smudges. Lust again heated
him, and he turned away, fighting off the demands the helmet had planted within
him.
    From the river bank, the helmet’s black eyes watched him, mocking, as the
shallow water washed in and out of the mouth hole.
    He straightened, his pride returning, and strode to the helmet, stood over
it. Frustrated rage, long caged inside him, suddenly broke free, and he roared,
a sound echoing out of an ancient, howling age. His boot caught the face of the
helmet, drove it deep under the water into the muddy bottom. Geysers of water
and mud and sparks erupted to his thighs, and his body sank to one side. His leg
was knee-deep in river bottom. He yanked it out with a sucking sound, and the
water swirled around the hole, gulping and bubbling, then flowed on.
    He glared down at the tiny bubbles rising from the unseen metal. His hard
breathing slackened, and he strode out into the deeper shallows to the stallion.
Leading, the animal back into the mossy clearing beside Robin, he removed his
black cloak from a saddlebag and wrapped it around her.
    Her head lifted timidly, and she looked up under long feathery lashes. Her
eyes were vacant, hollow corridors to shocked bone and blood and mind.
    He gathered water from the river and held it up to her lips with cupped
hands. She stared at them a moment, then brought her hands up to his, but
hesitated, not touching them. Looking into his eyes, she asked, “Gath?”
    The single word hung heavily on the night air. When he answered it, his voice
was thick and slow.
    “Yes,” he said, “it is Gath.” That surprising mystical tenderness which
marked his soul even more deeply than his savage strength was back in his eyes
and voice. “Forgive me.”
    Robin, voice trembling, whispered, “It was the helmet, wasn’t it? Not you.”
    He nodded. “It will never happen again.” It was a vow.
    She took hold of his hands as if they were a bowl, and held his fingertips to
her lips, drinking slowly. Two more times he fed her water. When his hands had
emptied the third time, she held their cool, wet fingers against her hot cheeks,
and kissed his palms softly. As she did this, she spoke to him in a voice that
trembled with surrender.
    “You must forgive me,” she said. “I should not have resisted. It was wrong of
me. You saved my life… my people… everyone. I… I have no right to
refuse you. I belong to you.”
    “No!” His low, coarse voice commanded