Solomon Kane

by Ramsey Campbell

He turned to stare at the Crowthorns with the same detachment that he had applied to cutting Samuel’s throat. “Take the marked one,” the unnatural voice said. “Kill the rest.”

  As the raiders guarding the family moved to obey, Katherine cried out to Kane. “Do something,” she pleaded. “Help us.”

  The raiders grew as still as puppets while their masked leader observed him. When Kane took a pace towards the Crowthorns, the one-eyed man stepped into his path and raised the blade stained with Samuel’s blood. Kane halted beside the ashes of the dead fire and lifted his eyes heavenwards, stretching his arms wide. He might have been offering himself up as a sacrifice, which was how he felt. “What is it you want of me?” he said, so quietly that only God would have heard him. “Is this all I am to you?”

  The sky was hidden by the mist that had overwhelmed the forest, and there might as well have been nothingness above him. The blank expanse at which all the topmost branches appeared to be pointing offered not the least sign of a response. Everyone in the glade might have been holding their breath – everyone but Samuel, who had none to hold. The masked rider’s horse snorted and pawed the earth, and the impatient sound seemed to be the nearest to an answer Kane could hope for. “Then so be it,” he said.

  He lowered his gaze to the man with the knife, who cocked his head as much in mockery as threat. “If I kill you,” Kane said, “I am bound for Hell.”

  The one eye glinted in derision, and the thick lips curled in a sneer. Kane heard one of the Crowthorns whisper what might have been a prayer. “It is a price I will gladly pay,” Kane said and advanced on the man with the knife.

  The man lumbered to meet him, slashing almost negligently at him. He seemed to view Kane as sport rather than as any kind of danger, and looked ready to linger over despatching his unarmed adversary. Kane sidestepped and, grabbing the man’s sword-arm by the wrist, twisted it over his own shoulder and threw all his weight against it. Brawny though the arm was, it snapped at the elbow like a branch. As the man’s fingers writhed Kane seized the knife and drove it backwards. He felt it slice deep into flesh and puncture a kidney. He turned the knife in the wound and dragged the serrated edge upwards, sawing open the man’s back.

  As Kane wrenched the blade free the man toppled to his knees and then fell prone. The nearest of the raiders rushed at Kane, roaring like beasts and brandishing their swords. Their ferocity was feeble by comparison with his. Once again he was the man he had been, but he was no longer impelled by the lust for wealth; he was driven by pure rage. When the first man cut at him with a sword Kane blocked it with the knife, which he drove deep into his assailant’s heart. The man staggered backwards, and Kane snatched the sword from him.

  He was unstoppable now. A wide sweep of the sword met two men as they ran at him from either side, and cut them both down like a scythe. He parried their companion’s sword and dashed it from the man’s grasp before chopping into his neck. He hacked at it and hacked again, and the headless corpse fell away from him, gushing blood. More raiders hurled themselves at him, and Kane stepped aside to let the impetus carry one past him, then sliced through the tendon behind the man’s left knee. As the man crumpled to the earth Kane slashed open a raider’s throat, and the man tottered away, gurgling like a crimson fountain. Another man jabbed viciously at Kane, but Kane avoided the lunge and lopped off the man’s hand, which fell to the ground with the sword still in its clutch.

  Kane was fighting his way towards the Crowthorns, but not swiftly enough. Two raiders had seized Meredith and, despite her struggles, were hoisting her into the rough embrace of one of their number on horseback. As William made a grab for her, a sword was thrust clean through him, and he collapsed with a despairing groan. Edward cried out with grief and rage, throwing himself on the attacker, but two raiders seized him and flung him on his back so that one of them could plunge a knife into his heart. The sight inflamed Kane’s fury, and as more raiders came at him he spilled one man’s entrails with his sword and drove the point deep into the chest of another. The blade snagged between the ribs, and he was striving to heave it loose when two men with axes rushed at him.

  One of them clubbed him in the stomach with the handle of an axe. The blow doubled him up and sent him backwards to fetch up against a rock at the edge of the glade. He saw the raider on the horse spur it past the remains of the wagon, Meredith sprawling across the animal’s back, one brutal hand pinning her down. Kane straightened up with a painful effort, only for his attackers to pinion him against the rock with his arms stretched wide. One man swung his axe up single-handed to split him open.

  Kane pressed his spine against the rock and kicked out with all his strength. His boot caught the man in the groin. As the grip on his wrist slackened Kane broke free of it and grabbed the axe before the man could stagger out of reach. He slammed it against the haft of the second raider’s weapon with such force that the axe sprang out of the man’s hand. Without pausing Kane swung the blade and sliced the raider’s belly open. The man floundered away, spilling blood and innards, and Kane sprinted after Meredith’s captor.

  It seemed that he might overtake the raiders. While the horses that had drawn the Crowthorns’ wagon were nowhere to be seen, and all the remaining men were on horseback, they had waited on the track for their master. The masked rider gave Kane a dismissive glance before spurring his horse out of the glade. He might have been inviting Kane to pursue them and, equally wordlessly, deriding the proposal. As Kane dashed past the blazing wagon, the rider urged his steed into a trot – a canter – a gallop.

  The other horsemen matched his speed, and the foremost was Meredith’s captor. Kane sucked in an icy breath and put his soul into a dash along the track. He was gaining on the riders; in moments he might be close enough to bring the hindmost rider down and take his steed. He saw Meredith struggling helplessly across the back of her captor’s horse, and the sight lent him a swiftness that he would never have believed he had in him. The last horseman was almost within reach of a sweep of Kane’s sword, and the horse stumbled on a fallen branch that was frozen to the track. It regained its balance, and the rider spurred it faster to keep up with his companions. As Kane managed not to slow down while he filled his lungs with a great breath, the riders drew ahead.

  They had reached the mist, which seemed eager to embrace them. Kane’s entire body felt like a single ache that had its source in his raw lungs, but he did not slacken his speed. In seconds the horsemen and their steeds were no more than fading silhouettes, and then there was only a receding thunder of hoofbeats. Kane heard Meredith utter a cry that seemed muffled by the murk before the sounds of hooves retreated out of earshot like the last rumble of a storm.

  At last Kane stumbled to a halt and stood panting as the mist gathered among the trees around him. The only sounds in the forest might have been the thudding of his heart and his harsh efforts to recapture his breath. His body burned as though it were in the grip of a fever, the taste of which was in his mouth. As he came near to shivering with exhaustion and the chill of the mist he trudged back to the camp.

  His first glimpse of the glow of the smouldering wagon put him in mind of a corpse light hovering over a grave. The mist retreated, unveiling the glade strewn with corpses. Samuel’s chest was stained with his own blood like an infant’s with food, and his face looked almost as youthful. Edward lay near him, hands clenched on the dagger in his chest as if he had died in the act of a last prayer. They were surrounded by the bodies of raiders, a sight that made Kane’s gorge rise – and then he saw that more had departed from the raiders than their lives. Their flesh no longer bore the signs of magical subjugation. One man was still alive, but he died as Kane watched. The livid marks disappeared, sinking into his flesh, and his eyes grew blank but human – clear as an empty sky after a storm.

  William was resting in Katherine’s arms against a tree at the far side of the glade. He was alive, but only just. Although he was scarcely able to raise his head as Kane picked his way throu
gh the carnage, his eyes fought off their dimness to focus on him. “Solomon,” he said in a low but fierce voice that might have been reaching up from the depths of his soul. “Get her back.”

  Kane made to take the hand that was not in both of Katherine’s. “I will,” he said.

  “No.” Perhaps William had failed to hear, unless he found Kane’s words insufficiently fervent. “You get her back,” he exhorted, seizing Kane by the arm. “Swear this to me now.”

  The last of his strength was enough to pull Kane towards him. Kane sank to his knees on the frozen leaves, which felt cold and hard as a mosaic. The plea that gleamed in William’s eyes filled Katherine’s as well. “I swear,” said Kane.

  “Deliver her from this evil. It will be –” William clutched harder at Kane’s arm as if he were clinging to a raft in the midst of a flood. “It will be your redemption,” he said.

  “Listen to him, Solomon,” Katherine whispered.

  “These are my last words. I know God in Heaven hears them.” William’s gaze was fixed on Kane, and yet he appeared to be seeing far more – a vision that included Kane. “If you save our child,” he said, “if you do this...”

  He coughed, and blood trickled from his mouth. He redoubled his grip on Kane’s arm, anchoring himself in another few moments of life. “If you do it,” he managed to pronounce, “your soul will be saved. I know it to be true.”

  Kane yearned to believe him, and it seemed to him that William was experiencing a vision he had earned with his life. “Now swear to me that you will find her,” William said, though he scarcely had the breath to speak. “Swear it, Solomon.”

  “I swear I will find her,” Kane said with all his soul.

  He never knew if William had heard. As the grasp relaxed on his arm and fell away, Kane laid a gentle hand on William’s face to close the sightless eyes. The gesture seemed to waken Katherine from her grieving trance. She lifted the chain of the locket from around William’s neck and handed it to Kane. “Go now. Find her,” she said.

  Kane could tell it was as passionate a prayer as Katherine had ever uttered. He strode from corpse to raider’s corpse, gathering weapons – swords, knives, a brace of pistols, a pouch of gunpowder. He found shot for the pistols and loaded them before thrusting them into his belt. His search had brought him close to the entrance of one of the tents, and he glanced back at Katherine, who nodded as she cradled her husband’s body. “Whatever you need is yours,” she said almost too softly to be heard.

  Kane stooped into the tent to retrieve William’s cloak. He swung it about himself and then clapped Edward’s conical buckled hat on his head. He was uniformed as a Puritan at last, and his weapons made him an avenger. A splash of crimson on the blanched ground caught his eye. It was Meredith’s shawl, cast down like a challenge. As he tied it about his waist, he could have fancied that he was wearing her colours to a tournament. All he required was a steed, and in a moment he heard a muted whinny and the sound of hooves. A saddled horse, which must have been ridden by one of the raiders, had appeared out of the mist on the track.

  Kane mounted it and wheeled it to face Katherine. Her arms were around William, her cheek pressed against his. For a moment her gaze found Kane. “God go with you,” she whispered and turned her eyes back to William. She was as motionless as her husband when Kane glanced at them from the track, and the mist swallowed them as Kane rode to meet his fate.

  EIGHTEEN

  Before Kane had ridden far along the track he heard hoofbeats ahead. He urged the horse faster and peered into the mist, from which tree after dripping tree advanced to meet him. While there was no sign of the riders, the sound of hooves was growing louder. He was not overtaking his quarry. More than one of the horsemen had turned back to deal with him.

  As they rode out of the mist they spurred their horses to either side of the track, drawing swords to cut Kane down. He drummed his heels against his horse’s ribs and sent it galloping between the riders. He had a pistol in each hand. The moment he came abreast of the riders he discharged both weapons, and the men were dashed to the ground in a flurry of leaves. Kane did not even glance at them as he rode at all speed down the track. Although he strained his ears and held his breath, he could no longer hear any hoofbeats ahead.

  Had the riders turned aside to lose him? He cursed the mist that might be hiding them. He could only follow the track for want of any other. Was that a distant sound of hooves or just the pounding of his heart? Surely the noise was ahead of him, where the mist appeared to be thinning. So were the trees, and seconds later he was in the open.

  The forest had given way to moorland. The greater part of the mist stayed among the trees. Enormous slabs of mossy rock and expanses of heather sparkling dully with frost stretched to the horizon. The moor was a labyrinth of paths, but Kane did not hesitate. A horseman was riding westwards, carrying a girl who lay across the back of his steed.

  He did not look around until Kane began to narrow the distance between them. His horse must be exhausted; it was unable to outrun Kane’s, even when the rider drove his spurs into its sides and then raked them through the flesh. In minutes Kane had halved the distance, and in another he was closer still. The horseman jerked the reins cruelly to direct his steed towards a stone circle that stood in the midst of the heath. Perhaps he thought the ancient weathered stones might retain some pagan magic that would protect him from vengeance, unless he was so desperate to take refuge that the incomplete circle looked like cover. He rode onto the patch of frozen grass encircled by the stones and reined the horse around to face Kane, who stayed at the edge of the circle. “Give me the girl,” Kane told him.

  The black eyes flickered like a lizard’s, and the livid symbols around the raider’s mouth seemed to twist it into a grimace. Kane thought the man might attempt to flee or, worse, to injure Meredith. He began to ride around the perimeter of the circle, so fast that the raider could not turn to keep him in sight. “Give her to me,” Kane said so harshly that it was clear he would use no more words.

  Perhaps the rider was as fatigued as his steed, which stood panting and dribbling foam. He raised the hand that was planted in the small of the girl’s back and shoved her off the horse. She fell to the earth with a gasp and drew in all her limbs, covering her face with her hands. Kane dismounted and hurried to her. “Meredith,” he murmured, brandishing his sword to keep the horseman well away. “If she has been harmed...”

  She flinched when he took her gently by the shoulder. He had to hold her more firmly and start to help her to her feet before she would take her hands away from her face. He had after all not recognised her long dark dishevelled hair and sombre clothes. The girl was not Meredith.

  She recoiled as Kane strode away from her to seize the rider by the throat. Before the man could find a weapon Kane dragged him out of the saddle and flung him to the ground, knocking all the breath out of him. “Where is she?” Kane demanded.

  “There,” the man panted, jabbing a thick finger towards the girl. “You have her.”

  Kane let him stumble to his feet before he hit him. The man’s face felt swollen and misshapen, and put Kane in mind of fungus. “That is not her,” Kane said through his teeth. “Where is the girl you took from our camp?”

  The man wiped blood from his split lip and turned a coaly glare on Kane. “I don’t know.”

  Kane punched him in the mouth once more and felt rotten teeth yield in their sockets. “Tell me where she is, or I swear by the living God –”

  “I don’t know,” the man protested doggedly and spat blood on the pallid grass. “I don’t know you. I was never at your camp.”

  “I am Solomon Kane.” He struck the man a third time. “You know who took her,” he said. “They are of your kind. They must have ridden this way.”

  “We are legion,” the raider said, spitting out a tooth as brown and porous as old bone. “We are everywhere in this land.”

  The girl cried out and hid her face anew as Kane took his knife fro
m his belt and held the point against the man’s cheek beneath the left eyeball. He had a sickened notion that the flesh might split like a toadstool, releasing some substance he would rather not envision. “Tell me what you know,” he said under his breath, “or you will never see again. Where will they take her?”

  “To our master’s castle,” the man said as if he were speaking of his god, and licked his bloody lips. “For sacrifice. He needs the blood of such as her.”

  “Who is your master?” Kane demanded. “The creature who must hide his face behind a mask?”

  “Not the Overlord.” Fear glimmered in the black depths of the raider’s eyes. “The sorcerer,” he whispered. “Malachi.”

  Kane sensed that dread was close to silencing his informant. He pressed the point of the knife against the skin beneath the eye. “Where is this sorcerer’s domain?”

  “Ride west,” the man muttered and struggled to regain his voice. “Ride –”

  He choked as though his tongue had withdrawn into his throat like a worm into the earth. His eyes bulged, filling with a deeper blackness. His lips twisted as if the symbols embedded in the flesh were strings that were tugging at them. “Where?” Kane said urgently.

  The ebon gaze stayed fixed on him, but all at once he knew that someone else was using the eyes to observe him. The mocking laugh that emerged from the mouth could have been no more unnatural if it had been uttered by a statue. It was followed by the voice of the creature that had slain Samuel. “Solomon Kane,” the enormous thick voice said, and the swollen lips writhed into a mirthless grin. “Will you play the torturer?”

  “I will do what I must to find the girl,” vowed Kane.

  “You may carve the flesh from this worthless body.” The raider spread his arms wide as though to parody a crucifixion. “But it will not tell you what you want to know. I will not let it,” the voice said.

  The eyes seemed delighted not just at his predicament but with the helplessness of the raider. “What in God’s name are you?” Kane demanded.