by Terry Marcel
“Has he been found?” it queried.
“Yes! Yes!” gasped Voltan. “He dies this very night. The pain! Quickly!”
The Wizard raised the healing crystal.
Gort strained on the ropes but his captors had bound him tight, trussed like a chicken.
“Mine are as immovable as yours,” he said softly to Hawk.
“If we are not free of these bonds before Voltan returns we will not see tomorrow’s sun …”
Hawk’s voice trailed to nothing because something had caught his eye.
Voltan’s men sprawled everywhere in the chapel, snoring, snorting loudly from the heavy wine they had consumed. The one guard, armed with a billhook, stood by the great double doors, his mouth agape.
The massive wooden bar which kept the doors tight shut was rising slowly from its bolts and floated free of the doors altogether. Slowly they creaked open. A black rod poked through the crack and the guard inched forward suspiciously, the billhook raised in anticipation of attack. Of a sudden the rod emitted a crackle of energy which blinded the guard. A spinning web of green filaments engulfed the man until he was imprisoned in a strait-jacket of finely-spun, steel-like fibres.
The door opened further and the cloaked figure of Meena drifted in. Surefooted, though blind, she slipped through the soused sleepers straight to Hawk.
“You have need of my help, Lord.”
“Thank God you’ve been looking in your fire of magic, mother,” Hawk acknowledged as she cut his bonds.
“Go quickly!” she urged.
He raced to free his comrades who claimed their weapons as silently as possible.
“Voltan’s men return with the Abbess.”
Gort tenderly lifted the shallow breathing body of Baldin in his arms, carried him from the church.
“The Dark One will not be at his ministerings long.”
She snapped her fingers creating an aureola of light to circle wider and wider like the ripples on a pool. It clung for an instant around the sleeping men before vanishing.
“They will dream a little longer to give us time to get our friend, the dwarf, to a place of safety.”
The early morning air chilled their breaths. They waited in silence as Meena stretched her hands over the body of Baldin as he lay upon a soft bed of ferns.
Gort suffered most of all. He tried to suppress the tears of sadness but his compassionate spirit was too strong and they rolled down into his beard.
“Even my arts cannot save him,” sighed a dejected Meena. “He waits at the gate of death.”
They all kneeled by the stricken dwarf. Their presence seemed to give him a last, despairing surge of energy. His eyes flickered open.
“I am sorry,” he apologised, “not to be with you for the final fight.”
His voice faltered. Hawk’s jaw tightened whitely.
“I die as I wanted.” Baldin’s voice took on a strength and resonance beyond what was possible for someone so far gone. “Among my friends …”
His eyes shone brightly for an instant then the light in them clouded until all lustre was gone.
Baldin was dead but the mischievous smile was there still to be seen on his now still face.
With heavy hearts they built a cairn of rocks upon him. Meena, by her magic, fused the rock into a solid cocoon.
“This will protect him from beasts who would disturb it,” she said. “The dwarf shall sleep peacefully.”
“What now, Hawk?” asked Ranulf in a vengeful voice.
Hawk counted the cost. Another life he cherished was gone. How many would die before Voltan paid the price of destiny?
“I go to avenge our friend and repay a debt long overdue,” he stated in a voice as hard as granite.
Gort gripped his hammer more tightly while Crow nodded his assent. The giant would smash the universe itself if it helped assuage the awful loss which burdened his heart so heavily.
Ranulf primed his crossbow.
“How do we get back into the church?” he wanted to know.
“I shall give you the way,” Meena said confidently.
They retraced their steps back to the monastery. It lay in silence like a mausoleum of the dead. Whose epitaph would eventually be written on the tomb would become known before the day was much older.
20
THE FINAL CONFLICT
Chak knew something was wrong and approached the monastery carefully. He signalled to some of his squad of men to fan out, bidding a four-man guard remain with their hostage, the Lady Abbess.
Alone, he scouted around the church. He quickly ascertained that Voltan was still in control of the church but of Hawk and the other prisoners there was no sign. Puzzled by this development he marched his men openly into the monastery.
Voltan waited stony-faced.
By the door was a strange sight. Solidified in a translucent green stone was the dim outline of a man, his features barely recognisable through the solid green resinous material.
“Bar the door,” commanded Voltan. “And bring the woman to me.”
Chak did his bidding. Voltan would tell him what had happened in his own good time.
“Some sorcery was needed to free Hawk,” smouldered Voltan. To have had his hated enemy within his grasp only to lose him was more than he could bear.
“Let us hunt him like a wild animal,” suggested Chak. “We still have sufficient men …”
Voltan stopped his flow of words.
“No!” He rejected the idea. “To save the Abbess he will have to come here. We will prepare for his coming.” He gave his man the necessary orders.
Some of the nuns were made to stand on an altar table, hands tied behind their backs. Callously a noose of rope was placed about their necks straining upwards to the rafter beams. One man standing guard could easily kick away the table and hang the trembling sisters like condemned criminals. It was an idea Chak found much to his liking.
“I beseech you,” pleaded the Abbess kneeling before the seated Voltan. “Do not do this heinous thing. Release my sisters.”
Voltan’s hand clenched and unclenched on the hilt of his sword.
“If Hawk is not in my hands by dawn they will die and I will tear this sanctuary down, stone by stone. Pray hard, woman, that he may hear you.”
Hawk studied the monastery from the safe distance of a clump of bushes. Beside him the woman prepared another of her powder mixtures. They were all waiting for something.
A brown shadow flitted from tree to tree. Suddenly it materialised amongst them. Crow had made a quick survey and described what he saw within the church. His tidings brought a flush of anger to their faces. That Voltan would string innocents up was the work of the devil incarnate.
“Woman,” muttered Hawk. “I pray that your magic powders will work another miracle.”
“Have no fear,” Meena said. “The power of my sorcery will not harm you. But for a short time I will create a whirlpool of flying fireballs to blind their eyes.”
The point of her staff incandesced the laid out powder and again a cone of white vapour reared from the ground. But this time sparking dots of light swam in the motes of mist. The whirling vortex condensed from a gaseous thing into a maelstrom of white crystals and excited coloured hail. With a whoosh it rushed at the massive double doors.
There was a stupendous roar. An explosive force ripped the great doors back on their hinges. Voltan’s men fell back in disorder.
A fury of snow aflame with blazing firebolts streamed into the chapel with gale-like ferocity. The balls of energy struck at the warriors like molten bullets, searing through metal, leather, bone and tissue. But some power turned their course when they threatened any of the nuns noosed and so vulnerable.
Hawk, Gort, Crow and Ranulf hurtled in through the open doorway. Avenging phantoms who hewed, smote, ripped, arrow-pierced from the very heart of the dazzling blizzard.
Shafts, bolts, sped through the murk. Will-o’-the-wisps amidst the spindrift plucked the life away before
a man could draw his sword.
But Voltan’s warriors smote back.
The mindsword glowed an eerie green in the blanket of white. It buried itself in the neck of a screaming berserker. As he fell another appeared to take his place. Gort hammered him to perdition.
On Hawk’s right, Ranulf triggered off a round of arrows which caught one lout full in the face. Blood spouted from the bristling bolts.
Clumsy thrusts came at Hawk from all sides but the mindsword darted this way and that like a deadly green-eyed snake. All the while Voltan remained in the background.
“Take the Abbess,” he screamed to her guardians above the din. “I may yet need her.”
Four men bundled the poor woman towards the small side door.
“Hawk!” bellowed Ranulf who had seen the action and exposed himself needlessly to danger. “The Abbess—they’re taking her …”
He froze in mid sentence.
Chak, with unerring aim, sent his throwing knife at the veteran’s back.
Slowly, Ranulf pivoted. Dammit, he thought incongruously. He’d been warned often enough what happened to volunteers. The half smile stayed on his face when he fell and died.
But his words had not been in vain.
Hawk, realising he would never hack his way through the throng, retreated to the main entrance to cut off the abduction of the Abbess.
He slashed at those between him and the door. They fell aside, several badly hurt, and he won through.
Gort’s hammer toppled three men. He attacked with gale force.
Elsewhere, Crow kept up a rain of white-shafted death until his quiver was emptied. He did not flinch as two swords hummed towards him and cut him down.
Holding the hammer broadwise, the giant slammed three men against the wall, breaking their backs with the impact.
A bearded redhead grasped the opportunity to rush at Gort’s unprotected back but one nun, the little cherubic-faced one, screamed out danger and threw herself between the giant and his assailant.
The sword thrust killed her instantly.
Gort seized the assassin with one hand, lifted him three feet off the ground. He strangle-shook him as a dog would a rat and hurled him broken-necked across the chapel.
Completely forgetting his own protection, the giant kneeled by the fallen figure of the little nun.
“Little lady,” he wept, cradling her broken figure in his arms.
His head drooped in sadness, oblivious of the dark figure looming behind him.
With a flat-bladed blow of his sword, Voltan sent the giant reeling into unconsciousness.
The four guards dragged the Abbess from the side door. A strange flash of green halted their dash.
Hawk blocked their path.
There was a moment of indecision. Then they made a concerted rush.
Swords screamed at Hawk. His own blade sang, burned through one man’s shoulder to the heart.
Parry and block.
The three remaining guards snarled and grunted. Fear rode on their shoulders but still they fought, recklessly.
Hawk’s sword flew in a blur that spewed blood from two men. The last man hewed thrusts and swipes to no avail. His rushing stampede ended with a clean slice from the mindsword that cleft his backbone apart.
He had despatched the four men in one devastating moment—or so it seemed to the Abbess. She stood there, shocked, eyes wide open as Hawk cut her bonds.
“Stay here!”
She was still rooted to the spot when her young rescuer retraced his steps back to the monastery.
One other watched his progress back to the chapel doors.
“I cannot help you further, Lord Hawk,” Meena breathed to herself. “Only you can shape your future destiny. The gods go with you.”
Hawk disappeared into the smoke haze that hung like a cloud in front of the double doors: all that was left of the woman’s magic.
His silhouette rested in the doorway until his eyes could pierce the gloom and see what lay before him.
A moment ago the chapel had boiled with men, the clash of weapons, the shrieks of the dying.
Now their corpses lay strewn like discarded oddments.
On the steps at his feet Hawk saw the body of Ranulf, the dagger protruding from his back. His stomach churned. One more life wasted on this vendetta.
A moaning shape attracted his attention. The elf lay against a pillar. Quivering movements still showed that life beat within that badly-wounded frame. But for how long, wondered Hawk?
Across from him Gort stood, arms outstretched, roped to two pillars. Blood had run from a gash on his head down his face, congealing in dark streaks. His eyes blazed for an instant at Hawk’s appearance but then he slumped in defeat. A guard held a sword at his belly.
Hawk took in the plight of the noosed nuns. Chak stood beside them, one boot resting on the table. A swift kick and the sisters would die horribly. The expression on his face pleaded with Hawk to attempt something and let him satisfy his wish to execute the innocent women.
Like a spider, Voltan sat in front of them, his sword resting across his thighs, facing Hawk. The fact that this man had wiped out almost all his warriors worried him little. They were fodder. Easily replaced.
Now, Hawk,” he said in triumph. “This is the moment of my revenge. On my command I will have these counters of beads hung and your giant friend will have his heart skewered.”
Hawk clenched his teeth.
“What do you want?”
“You! Always you!”
“Let the sisters and Gort go free and I shall be your prisoner.”
Voltan stormed erect, strode over to adopt a dominating position above his brother on the entrance steps, his sword pointing at the nape of Hawk’s neck.
“You still don’t understand,” he hissed venomously. “You are in no position to bargain. Throw down your sword. Now!”
Hawk had no option. He bent down and laid the mindsword reluctantly on the paved floor.
“And your vestment,” added Voltan gloatingly.
Gort tried to make a weak protest but his guard dug his sword point at his chest.
Hawk slowly divested himself of his harness and chain mail shirt which fell heavily to the stone floor.
Voltan circled past his defenceless brother, kicked the mindsword into a corner.
“On your knees, little brother,” he directed Hawk. “If you have a God to pray to, pray to him now.”
His eerie laugh floated across to Hawk who kneeled like a suppliant.
He unhooked the crucifix about his neck and quietly, as if in defeat, held it between his hands.
Voltan could not take his eyes off the simple cross. He remembered it from some other time. It had been hers. Eliane’s. She had given it to Hawk. His eyes narrowed as he recalled that day by the lake. How he had hesitated for a fatal instant on that occasion. His hand touched the grill on his helmet. There would be no equivocation this time.
“Enough!” he barked. “You have prayed enough.”
Hawk also remembered Eliane.
She had hung the crucifix around his neck and said: “Wear it. It will protect you.”
They were the only ones who knew the secret of the talisman.
Now his finger pressed the prominent boss on it, loosing a hidden spring which flicked out a secret blade.
One small weapon and three targets.
Chak, the hangman by the altar; the guard pressing the sword at Gort’s heart; or Voltan himself.
“Gort!” cried Hawk.
The crucifix knife sped from his hand and sliced through one of the giant’s bonds. His hand free, he reached for his mighty hammer and hurled it at Chak.
The colossal weight of it took Voltan’s lieutenant full in the front. His chest caved in and he was hurtled bodily off his feet to be smashed against the church wall. He was in agony for an awful moment until his pulped insides let him die.
In one fluid movement, the minute Gort had released the hammer, his fist bunched i
nto the throat of his guard. His windpipe smashed, he scrabbled at his neck while his eyes bugged out on stalks from his head. He also suffered before he died.
Everything happened so fast that Voltan was frozen into inactivity. As the horror of what had happened flooded his mind, he screamed his hate, rushed at Hawk to stop abruptly.
The mindsword sparked with a green glow and zoomed into Hawk’s waiting hand.
“So!” Voltan exhaled the syllable explosively. “You have found the ancient power which is rightly mine.”
Hawk watched Voltan intently.
“Ten thousand times have I dreamed of killing you.” Voltan retreated, turned away, but his right hand sought out a hidden dagger. Silently he readied it. “Slowly … painfully …”
He spun on his heel. The dagger blurred towards Hawk. But the mindsword moved faster, deflected the sliver of steel.
Like a panther Voltan sprang at his brother, sword thirsting for blood. He lunged, mingling left and right slashes. His sheer bull strength had always given him victory but Hawk was imbued with an uncanny strength lent by the green-hilted sword.
Blade caught blade.
The shock slammed back into both men’s shoulders and the clangour rang on and on in the echoing chamber.
Steel flashes cut lightning swathes.
Voltan drove in with all his might. Hawk intercepted his impetus and fended him away with ease. Voltan’s charge carried him staggering up on to the steps.
A wordless roar issued from his lips. In a frenzy he crisscrossed the air with slices and cuts and leapt down at his brother.
Hawk’s sword evaded the whirling, twisting blade of his enemy, slipped through the flashing web of steel and plunged under Voltan’s breastbone straight out the other side.
Voltan lurched aimlessly, the vaulted ceiling of the church revolving. A voice told him to stay upright. But he crumpled to the ground. His incredible strength strove to make him get back on his feet. The helmet was wrenched from his head to expose the wounded, raw flesh. He rolled on his back.
“Brother,” he gasped, trying to focus his darkening vision.
Hawk kneeled by his side, the mindsword glowing on his lap.
“Brother,” repeated Voltan. The image of Hawk danced between a blur and an icy countenance. “I shall wait for you at the gates of Hell.”
