by Terry Marcel
Baldin’s whip snaked out around the neck of the boatman, and yanked him backwards off the stern of the boat into the shallow mud.
Yells of rage and pain mingled with the bellowing fury of the Hunchback. A tangle of men rushed every which way.
Ranulf’s crossbow exploded its red bolts and sprayed them at the charging mass of men. Some spun and fell. The rest came on with berserker rage.
Hawk sidestepped nimbly. Blade caught blade and the momentum of the attacker carried him flailing past. The glowing mindsword gleamed in a swathe of light and sent the assailant to perdition.
Swords hummed from sheaths—clashed and rang. But the sharp honed steel of Hawk’s sword cleaved through mail, leather and, finally, bone.
Gort simply waded through the throng choosing some unfortunate at random to have his skull cracked with the mighty hammer.
The dwarf was fighting for his life. Three scruffs had pinned him against a covert of thorns and there was no way for the little man to escape. The cracking whip and knobkerrie had kept them at a distance but they were fast realising that they could now overcome him. Grinning, they moved in for the kill.
There was a roaring through the air and a sickening crunch as the Giant’s hammer drove at the skulls of first one man and then another and another.
“Do take them on one at a time, dwarf,” Gort chided him. “Remember that you’re a—!”
Baldin erupted into action with his lash and the ripping ribbon of leather hissed past the giant’s ear to whip around an upraised sword, poised to plunge into the big man’s unprotected back. The dwarf whisked the aggressor towards him until he was in range to deliver a hard tap with his cudgel.
“You were saying?” he said perkily.
Gort’s breath whistled from him through pursed lips. “I was saying—that you’re a fine fellow to have looking over your shoulder,” he chuckled, hoisting Baldin up on to his back.
It took Sped a thunderstruck moment to grasp that his gang of slavers were all lying at his feet, either badly wounded or dead. He snarled and threatened with his club but Hawk’s blade was suddenly tickling his midriff. Hawk motioned with a finger for him to let the bludgeon fall and Sped had no choice but to comply.
Simon and Thomas, the traders, had cowered behind the terrified slaves and now peeped out at the carnage in the camp.
Hawk gestured to the two men. “Release them,” he said, indicating the tied prisoners.
For a moment the traders hesitated and two of Crow’s arrows neatly pinned their conical hats to a tree.
With new-found alacrity, the ferrety-faced one, Simon, chopped at the slaves’ binds and, taking advantage of the melee this caused, streaked into the bushes. His fat friend squeaked after him in fearful pursuit.
Crow’s bow was already strung.
“Let them go,” said Hawk.
Gort and Baldin had rescued the treasure chest and the giant snapped the simple metal lock with ease. Inside were leather bags, each containing a number of gold and silver coins.
Hawk threw one of the money bags to the nearest released slave. “Take this and return to your homes.”
The freed men were tongue-tied and remained motionless until Baldin cracked his whip and shooed them scampering into the forest.
“What about fat man, here?” asked Gort, grabbing Sped by the scruff of his neck.
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” said Hawk cryptically.
Gort grinned and jerked the Hunchback off his feet.
“Put me down, you overstuffed bull,” bawled Sped.
“With pleasure,” rejoined the giant after getting too close to a whiff of the slaver’s charms.
He dropped Sped to the ground where he lay on his back like a struggling upturned turtle.
“Damn you, eater of dung, I’ll make you pay double for this,” he screamed.
“You still haven’t learned the lesson of humility, have you, worm?”
Gort bestrode the scrabbling Hunchback and leaned his hammer on Sped’s ample belly.
“Give me my club and I’ll crack your head like the putrid egg it is,” ranted Sped.
Gort eyed him pensively and weighed Sped’s club in his hand.
“You give me an idea, foul mouth! Since you lay great store by this club of yours …”
The giant’s laughter rang across the River Shale and it boded the Hunchback ill. By the time the echoes had paled, he found himself still on his back but this time pegged out as if for drying.
Gort hummed a merry tune as he flung a rope up and over a high bough above the prone Hunchback. “Rum, pum, rumpity pum!”
He hauled Sped’s mighty bludgeon up and up till he was satisfied that it swung like some awful Sword of Damocles directly over Sped’s head.
“Open wide!”
He took the loose end, prodded the Hunchback’s evil mouth open and stifled the obscenities and curses flowing from it with the rope end.
“Wider! Good! Now bite hard my friend.”
Too late did Sped realise what he had done as his teeth clamped on the rope. Above him the club swung ominously.
“Now, prattle tale,” scolded Gort, ignoring the choked animal noises issuing from the lump on the ground. “I advise you to stay silent. One word from that foul mouth of yours and—”
The giant looked up at the bludgeon glumly and smacked his great hands together. “But, on the other hand,” continued Gort, “one of your bought slaves might happen along and find you here. No doubt he’ll want to exchange happy memories with you. The kind to have you laughing loudly.”
Sped gritted his teeth and groaned. The giant’s voice reached him from a distance.
“Our thanks, brother,” he called as an afterthought, “for the bountiful gifts you have bestowed upon us.”
This last jibe proved too much for Sped. His good eye bulged and the veins stood out on his neck.
“Damn you all to h—!” he began to scream, remembered and looked up in terror.
As his jaw slacked open, the rope was unloosed and all he could see was that awful club plummeting down.
Gort flinched in his saddle as the bludgeon hit with a squishy sound.
“Some people can’t keep their mouths shut,” he said sadly, crossing himself.
14
DROGO, SON OF VOLTAN
Three carrion crows wheeled in the leaden sky then spiralled down lazily to roost on a single, towering pine. Their grey-hooded eyes watched the men bear the wild hog on a pole into the camp, leaving a trail of warm, wet blood back into the dark forest.
Small bivouac tents with harness and sword tackle out front were dotted haphazardly throughout the leafy glade. A huge burning central fire smoked gusts into the chill air and it was here the men bore their kill. Willing hands prepared a roasting spit but they talked in low whispers.
A sense of unease lay over the camp and the men cleaning their battle armour and weapons kept glancing at the dull-coloured pavilion which housed their leader, Voltan. When he was in one of his dark moods no man’s life was certain. It was better to wait out the ill humour and let his malaise dissipate naturally.
Within Voltan felt the gnawing pain course through the left side of his face. To allay the torment he eased the iron helmet from his head and exposed his blackened eye socket. From a corner of the expansive tent there was a sharp intake of breath. Voltan pushed the masked helm back in place and clutched the arms of the heavy wood and leather chair he sat upon to tense his muscles and drive the pain out that way.
“I know the art of curing,” said a gentle feminine voice. “Shall I tend your face?”
Voltan looked across at the Lady Abbess.
She was kneeling on some straw in a cage which, from its size, had once been used to transport a wild animal as large as a wolf. Her eyes looked at him with compassion and she held on to the bars of her prison tightly, her knuckles white.
Half of Voltan hated her woman’s ways which could so easily eat at one’s resolve but the other hal
f of him found a strange sense of peace in her presence. That he would have the strength to murder her in cold blood if the need arose, did not enter his calculations however.
“There is no cure for this face, woman,” he said in a hollow tone. “Only periods of relief.”
The Abbess would have liked to have said more but the tent flap was pulled back and Chak came in.
“Your son, Drogo, wishes words with you,” said Chak, keeping his voice flat so that his own antipathy to the youth would not colour his words in any way.
Voltan waved his hand to allow the audience and Drogo brushed past Chak without giving his father’s lieutenant a respectful glance. Chak’s eyes narrowed at the implied insult but withdrew without comment.
“My hunting party has returned,” said Drogo and waited in vain for some reaction from his father. “We caught ourselves a hog—and a meaty one by the look of it.”
There was a pause which seemed to last an eternity to young Drogo.
He bore an arrogant mien. With sun-bleached hair he had a pleasing cast of face but had decided in his years of decision that a sneering, sullen look was the best disposition to prove he had no fear of death.
At last his father spoke, dangerously quiet.
“And you required an audience to give me this news — about a hog?”
“I did wish to speak to you about another matter.”
“Speak then.”
Drogo tapped his hand with his riding quirt, grabbing a few seconds to get the words ready. He had wanted to lay a detailed plan before his father but instead it all came out with a rush.
“Let me raid the fat lords in the north. I will send cold fear into their hearts.”
There was no response from Voltan and he felt emboldened to continue.
“All I ask is that you give me command of some men to prove my strength. My blood is forever on the move. It needs excitement.”
His eyes sparkled at the prospect and there was no denying the resolve in his voice.
Voltan raised himself leisurely from his chair and faced his son. With infinite slowness he raised both arms and held his son’s face between his hands as if to study it more intently. A flicker of a smile crossed Drogo’s countenance.
All of a sudden Voltan jerked his son backwards over a trestle table, pinning him down with one arm and threatening to press him further with the other.
“If I were to press one inch more,” hissed Voltan into Drogo’s ear, “your backbone would snap like rotten wood. Is this not excitement? Is not the fine choice between living and dying more than enough to make your hot blood race through your veins?”
As quickly as he had seized him, Voltan removed the pressure and swung him off the table like an old sack to send Drogo crashing into the corner by a large, brass-bound coffer where he lay, still shaking from the back-racking pain.
“We will talk of this no more,” snapped Voltan with finality. “My face pains me!”
Drogo watched his father turn his back on him with contempt. Glimpsewise, he could feel the gaze of the Abbess stroke him with—what? More contempt, hidden laughter, a patronising sneer?
Jaws clamped, his trembling hand strayed to the dagger at his waist. It clicked and made a slight purr as he withdrew it haltingly from its velvet sheath.
Voltan heard the whisper of steel from behind his back but he did not turn around.
“Draw your dagger out one more inch and you are a dead man,” he breathed. “Be you my son or not.”
A nervous spasm knotted Drogo’s cheek. He hated the fear his father could instil in him and a red worm clawed at his belly as he rushed from the tent blindly, head down just in case there was the slightest hint of weakness in his eyes. He was damned if Chak would have that satisfaction.
Some of his cronies tried to engage his attention but the fury was boiling up into his chest and his brain reeled with blood hate.
He wrenched his horse savagely from its rail, paying scant heed to its hurt whinny, swung up on to its back and rode hard from camp scattering men and chickens alike in his path.
Drogo felt little but the hard surge of his gallop. The wind of his ride whined about him, slanting his eyes so thin that the rolling trees lost their colour and became black etchings on a grey background.
He burst into a clearing and drove hard along a well-defined forest path, whipping his animal viciously.
Across his path loomed a shape and his horse, by instinct, veered aside, reared and halted.
The shape became a bundle of clothing sent spinning into the bushes. It was a man in a long coat, trimmed with greasy fur. It was Simon, the erstwhile trader of slaves. The ferrety-faced one.
“What filthy ferret have we here?”
“I beg you,” pleaded Simon-Ferret. “Have pity on me. I barely escaped with my life.”
He had remained on his knees and waddled across on them, hands clasped together in front of a blubbering mouth.
“You may not escape so easily from the hands of Drogo, son of Voltan.”
His first thought had been to ride the man down and pound him into the dirt of the forest floor with his horse’s hooves. But the molten hate he had felt had given way to an evil wantonness which thirsted for a more lingering sense of fulfilment. He drew his sword with an exaggerated tenderness.
Simon only saw a smiling face atop the horse and the curl of Drogo’s lip iced his veins.
“If you are who you say you are, put away your sword,” the slave trader wheedled, desperately trying to think of something that would save his skin. This young blood had dead eyes, pupils which would only spark with the dying rattle of his next victim; which could very well be himself gulped Simon. “We are brothers under the skin. I buy slaves on the River Shale.”
The words had no sooner crossed his lips than Drogo leapt from his horse in a towering rage, sword fully drawn.
“You dare to call me brother,” he mouthed with venom. “You—a slaver?”
Simon fell backwards as the sword point ran at him.
“God’s teeth!” he screamed. “Listen to me! I have words of great importance for you.”
The last word tailed into a choked sob and he shut his eyes, waiting for a deathblow which never came.
“Your news had better be good,” hissed Drogo, curious in spite of himself.
“Would the news that a certain Hunchback was no longer the Master of the River Slavers be important?” Simon blurted as quickly as possible.
Drogo sheathed his sword. “Go on!”
“And that a band of warriors led by a certain man had taken possession of the Hunchback’s gold?”
“What man? Get to the point,” threatened Drogo, catching the ferrety-faced man by the throat.
“All right! But you’re choking me,” gasped Simon—and, as Drogo eased his grip—“He is a strange warrior who wields a mighty sword.”
“A warrior?”
A tingle of excitement coursed through Drogo’s veins. This had to be the man his father waited in hate for. It had to be Hawk!
“Quickly! Where is he?”
“Such information would be worth much to the right person?” Simon said cautiously but quickened his words at Drogo’s gesture of annoyance with his sword hilt. “Well, it didn’t make much sense. But as I hid in the bushes, I heard one of his men speak of a sanctuary.”
Drogo relaxed and a wintry smile flitted across his face.
“So he helps the sisters find my father’s ransom.” He looked thoughtfully at the slave-trader’s puzzled face. “Now, this must stay a secret between you and me.”
The last thing Simon wanted in this world was to be told the confidences of someone such as Drogo but the son of Voltan was bent on talking his thoughts out loud whether he, Simon, listened or not.
“Not only will I bring back the head of this Hawk, but I’ll have the gold as well. And then, Voltan, we’ll see who is the Lord of the Dance.”
He smiled inwardly. It had been a lucky happenstance for him to have me
t this greasy trader. Drogo blinked, more aware of Simon’s presence. But it certainly wouldn’t do for news of this to reach his father.
“You have done well,” Drogo said with a voice slick with oil. “And will be richly rewarded. But, first—”
Drogo put a conspiratorial arm around the trader’s shoulders to whisper in his ear while he drew his dagger stealthily and moved it under Simon’s ribs.
“—you must swear that you will tell no one of this chance remark you overheard.”
The ferrety-faced one started to swear his commitment but his mouth popped open wordlessly, his eyes glazed the moment the silvery steel snuck between his ribs and entered his heart. He lay in Drogo’s embrace While his killer whispered to him.
“Today is the day that Drogo comes of age, my father.”
15
THE CONFLICT BEGINS
The chest of gold, once the cherished desire of Sped the Hunchback, late of the River Shale, rested on the altar table of the monastery and Sister Monica placed her hands tenderly on its aged, brittle leather covering. If there was a lingering dubiety as to how its acquisition had been accomplished, she banished the dot of doubt into a less analytical area of her mind.
“It is truly a miracle,” she trilled happily to Ranulf. “Our Lady is saved.”
“Not yet!” corrected the old warrior. “Hawk still believes that once the gold is given the Dark One will kill her.”
“No, no!” Sister Monica rounded on him angrily. “He gave his word. We must trust him.”
Her raised voice caused Hawk to leave his vigil at a small, grilled window and answer her misplaced sentiments.
“To trust him is to trust the devil himself,” he told her in no uncertain terms. He made an all-embracing gesture to include the others. “We shall stay until the Abbess is safe.”
Sister Monica’s temple whitened.
“No!” she challenged him. “It will anger Voltan if he finds you here. You must go—”
“We stay!”
Hawk’s rejoinder was brusque and a tear sparked in the sister’s eye. She stormed past the men to the sanctuary of her cell.
“Our sister has great faith in Voltan’s word,” said Gort half apologetically after an embarrassed silence.
