Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand

by Toby Venables

  Gisburne stared back into the gloom of the tunnel. “This will take us to the answer,” he said.

  III

  THEY MOVED ON together, following the course of the large, central drain – which, Asif informed them, ran the full length of the city, passing directly under its heart. As they advanced, the smell of petroleum grew ever stronger, patches of the stuff on the surface of the city’s waste making it ever more slick and viscous. In two side tunnels they had been able to discern the now familiar dark shapes of further piles of barrels. It seemed prudent to assume there were other heaps hidden in these depths, all placed according to some dark strategy. But even they could not be the primary source of the outflow.

  Just past the second such tunnel, Asif suddenly raised his hand. All stopped, and stood motionless. It took a moment for the sound to reach Gisburne’s ears – distant, echoing, steady and rhythmic. It was half-familiar, but he could not place it, blurred by the distance and the weird qualities of the honeycomb of passages. He could not even be certain from which direction it came. He glanced at the others, then moved off again.

  The sound grew in volume as they advanced, its steady rhythm pounding in their ears, beating against Gisburne’s nerves. He knew now what it reminded him of, though it made no sense, not in these depths. It was the sound of a tree being felled. And beneath it, now, another sound. A meandering drone that rose and fell. Wordless sounds – but clearly a voice.

  Up ahead, to one side of the main drain, they saw dimly flickering light – an entrance to another tunnel, from whose mouth the sounds echoed. But this was no mere tributary. As they neared, they saw it was another large drain at an angle to the first – not constructed in stone or brick, but hewn through the rock. “This could not be of later date than the time of King David,” whispered Asif, “and was perhaps much older even than that.” A little way along its course, it connected with what appeared to be a natural cave, on the left side of which ran an uneven ledge, almost wide enough, in parts, for two men to walk abreast. They climbed onto it, relieved to be relinquishing contact with the city’s stinking discharge.

  The curving, rocky passage extended a short distance to another opening, where it appeared to broaden out into an even bigger space – the source of the light, and also of the sounds.

  No longer speaking, they exchanged looks, smothered their torches and were plunged into gloom.

  They listened to the steady, rhythmic sound in the dark as their eyes adjusted. The glow returned. Faces again became visible. The path once more revealed itself. Then, slowly, they crept forward towards the light.

  When finally they peered beyond the mouth of the passage, their jaws dropped at what they saw.

  A huge chamber opened up before them – part Roman vault, part cave, walls and ledges of ageless rock merging with soaring, interweaving arches of brick and stone, like the great crypt of some profane cathedral. All around the margins of the chamber, torches were fixed, their flickering yellow flames reflecting weirdly on the vast lake of effluent that the walls encircled. Its undulating surface – slick with an oily sheen – seemed to give back every colour but those which could be deemed natural, the sick stink of it now so heavy with petroleum as to be almost overwhelming.

  And there, at the centre of it all, the all-dominating feature that elevated the scene to the status of a nightmare. From the hellish, rainbow-hued sea of ordure, reaching almost to the chamber’s roof: a ragged, teetering pyramid of barrels. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them – Gisburne could not even begin to reckon their number. And within this, a single point of movement – a speck of dogged human purpose. Half way up, perched like an insect on a mound, a knight was breaking open a glugging barrel whilst singing a crusader hymn, each stroke of his axe in time with the music.

  Huddled in shadow at the edge of this outlandish scene, the three companions gazed upon the man-made mountain with speechless incredulity. Gisburne had been trained to divine his enemies’ motives and capabilities – had thought he alone grasped the extremes to which this one was prepared to go. But nothing had prepared him for this. The mere scale of it baffled comprehension. The effort must have taken months. Simply for the transport of the barrels to have been kept secret, they must have come from dozens of locations. To have been hidden, smuggled, disguised – their contents obscured and mislabelled at every step. It seemed the work of madmen. But its execution was not mad. It was steady. Calculated. Purposeful.

  Yet, even as he looked upon it, that purpose utterly eluded him. He could not inhabit the unfathomable minds of his adversaries – could not follow the warped logic that had, over weeks and months, resolutely piled up this catastrophic potential. If all this were to ignite... Gisburne had seen up close what fire could do to stone, how it had been used to break castle walls and crack their towers apart. He had made use of it himself. The piles of barrels were positioned in every part of the labyrinth, and there was no part of the city under which these channels did not run.

  The Knights of the Apocalypse meant to destroy Jerusalem.

  PETROLEUM WOULD BE released into the sewer from this vast pile, and the smaller heaps set to seep their contents into their respective tunnels. The flames would spread down the main drains and into each of their tributaries, turning them to rivers of flame. The intact barrels in each pile would catch and burn, finally breaking open to fuel the inferno. The ancient stones above would split in the heat. A horde of flaming rats would spew into the streets, setting everything afire. The walls of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, the Temple Mount – all would crack asunder, the whole of David’s Holy City collapsing into the pit of its own flaming ordure.

  Jerusalem would become a Hell on earth.

  One glance at Asif and Galfrid told him that they had reached the same conclusion. Gisburne turned his attention back to the toiling knight. “We must stop him,” he hissed.

  “But how?” whispered Asif. The same question was written on Galfrid’s face. The knight’s exposed position on the mountain of barrels presented a seemingly insoluble problem: how could they get to him before he had the opportunity to cry out and raise the alarm?

  Gisburne slung the hurdy gurdy off his back.

  “You’re going to play him a tune?” breathed a baffled Galfrid.

  As his companions watched, Gisburne slid open one end, and from within it pulled out a long, flat drawer into which several parts of some device were neatly set: a steel bow; a slender, steel-reinforced stock; half a dozen tiny crossbow bolts, some shaped like grapples; a length of cord upon a free-spinning reel. Gisburne freed the bow, snapped it into place on the end of the stock, pushed forward a steel lever and – with all his strength – pulled it back to draw the thick string. He plucked up a barbed bolt – but before placing it upon the tiny crossbow, tied the free end of the cord to a loop on its nocked end. Then he checked there were no obstructions to the cord’s free movement, and took aim.

  It was not quite the purpose for which the bow had been intended. It had been meant for scaling heights – a development of its maker’s earlier experiments. In the event, once here, they had found themselves descending into the depths. There had been no chance to test its accuracy in horizontal flight; Gisburne hoped to God it would serve. There would be only one chance – and even if it found its mark, they would have to move fast.

  He held his breath for a moment, then released it slowly as his finger squeezed the trigger. The crossbow leapt in his hands. The bolt flew, the cord whipping after it. The knight gave a stifled cry, crumpled, and slithered part way down the heap.

  “He’s still alive!” said Asif.

  “That’s the idea,” said Gisburne, and hauled on the cord. It pulled taut, springing up out of the effluent with a spray of stinking liquid. The man gave a hoarse yelp as it yanked the barb in his shoulder, slipped several feet, stopped, then lost his grip completely and tumbled into the greasy muck.

  With slow deliberation, Gisburne began to reel him in like a fish.

>   It was painfully slow – Gisburne did not want to lose him – but the length of time he was beneath the surface of that putrid lake was surely far longer than any could survive. As they pulled him close, he seemed gone. For a moment, all stood in silence. Then a brown, slimy arm shot out of the ordure and grabbed Galfrid’s ankle. The squire staggered, was almost dragged in. Asif gripped the arm, lifted the flailing, dripping figure out of the lake in one seemingly effortless movement, and head-butted him into silence.

  The knight slumped flat on the ledge, apparently lifeless – then came to in a fit of coughing and retching. Gisburne dragged him further into the chamber, beneath the light of a torch, put a knee on his right arm and leaned over him. “So, shall we keep you, or throw you back?”

  The knight blinked back at him, his face contorting into a sneer. “I do not fear pain or death,” he rasped.

  “I don’t need you to fear pain,” said Gisburne. “Just to feel it.” And he gave the bolt a slow twist. The knight howled in agony.

  “The others – they will hear...” hissed Asif.

  “I’m relying on it,” said Gisburne. Asif cast a bemused look at Galfrid, but the old squire remained silent and inscrutable.

  The knight rallied for a moment, his face deathly pale. “I will tell you nothing,” he spat.

  “I’m asking nothing,” said Gisburne, and pushed the bolt sideways.

  The knight screamed again.

  Asif leaned forward, his tone urgent. “We must get what information we can from him before it’s too late.”

  “We’re past that point,” said Gisburne. “Draw your sword.” Without question, Asif did so. He turned his attention to the dark tunnel.

  “D’you suppose I am afraid of you?” coughed the knight with all the contempt he could muster.

  Gisburne gripped the man’s surcoat in his fists, and pulled him closer. “You should be,” he said.

  The knight held his gaze – but for a moment his defiance seemed to falter. “Who are you?”

  “Guy of Gisburne. The man who broke Castel Mercheval – and your master with it.”

  Recognition dawned upon the knight’s face. “Gisburne...” He slumped back and coughed up blood. Then, inexplicably, he began to laugh. It grew in intensity, in spite of the pain it clearly caused him.

  Asif stared at Galfrid in bemusement. This time, Galfrid’s face creased into a frown. The wounded knight’s left hand gripped Gisburne’s robes, and he drew himself up again. It seemed he wished to say something. Gisburne bent lower, and the man spoke, in a rasping whisper. “A red hand is coming...” With that, he began to chuckle. A mad laugh... or an exultant one.

  Gisburne stared at him with incomprehension. “What do you mean?” The knight ignored the question, his laughter rising. Gisburne shook him. “What do you mean?”

  The knight’s head jerked sideways with a horrid, convulsive movement, and something splattered across Gisburne’s cheek. He blinked, then saw the crossbow bolt sunk deep in the man’s temple. The knight fell back, his eyes like glass.

  The bolt had come from the dark tunnel. But no sooner had they grasped this fact than their attackers were upon them – three tall figures, striding out of the gloom.

  Gisburne leapt up. Two grim-faced figures – Christian knights, their swords raised – were rushing towards him. But it was not these men that commanded his attention. Between them, and a little way behind, was a third – taller, hooded, a crossbow hanging from one hand, a sword in the other, but with a face that glinted weirdly in the torchlight. At first glimpse, it seemed the fresh face of youth – pink cheeked, rosy lipped, albeit with strangely dead eyes. Then one was struck by its lack of expression, its uncanny stillness – the blank, lifeless perfection of a painted effigy.

  There was one other detail – so insignificant, that any other would have missed it – but Gisburne’s eyes sought it out. The index finger of the hand that held the sword was hooked over the weapon’s crossguard. Even in the grip of onrushing threat, Gisburne felt himself shudder. This was the man they had sought these past months.

  Tancred de Mercheval. The White Devil.

  His bearing, the way he moved; these things were imprinted upon Gisburne’s brain. Presumably, the painted visage he now wore was meant to help him pass for a normal man when forced to traverse the streets. It so nearly succeeded – perhaps actually did so when only casually apprehended – but under close scrutiny, its strangeness seemed to grow exponentially. And yet Gisburne knew that what it hid was far, far worse – that behind this strange mask was a face distorted by mutilation, its features destroyed, its scalp denuded of flesh. A living skull.

  It was a monster Gisburne himself had helped to create.

  He had left the fanatical rebel Templar for dead in the smoking rubble of his own shattered castle over a year ago, his body burned by fire and quicklime. Every day since, Gisburne had cursed that one omission – had regretted that he had not made sure the job was finished, if only for the sake of those Tancred had tortured. For the sake of Galfrid.

  Somehow – impossibly – Tancred had risen from that smouldering ruin. And he had not only refused to die, but had returned more dangerous, more twisted than before. There were those who claimed Tancred belonged in Heaven – more still who believed he belonged in Hell. All Gisburne knew for certain was that neither seemed to want him.

  The empty holes that were the mask’s eyes bored into Gisburne’s own. “You...” hissed Tancred. He flung his crossbow aside with a clatter.

  Gisburne’s was already in his hand – but before he could move, a stocky figure charged past, almost knocking him off his feet.

  Galfrid.

  He was flying headlong at Tancred, his pilgrim staff swinging wildly, its heavy steel head booming through the air. Galfrid was habitually measured in his actions – it did not benefit either squire or knight to be otherwise. But Gisburne had caught the look in his squire’s eye as he passed. It burned with anger and hatred. Such things blinded a man.

  The knight to Galfrid’s left – entirely overlooked – swung his sword with awesome force, countering the staff long before it had a chance to connect. There was a deafening crack as the two weapons met. The staff – notched, but intact – flew from Galfrid’s grip, but was evidently far heavier than the knight had anticipated. His own sword was jarred from his hand. He fumbled, grabbing at it, but it eluded his grasp. Galfrid, still in a burning rage, flew at him, grabbing handfuls of surcoat and mail. As they tussled on the narrow walkway, Asif went for the second of the two knights. Gisburne, meanwhile, braced himself to face Tancred. But as he turned his weapon, about to strike, he saw Galfrid suddenly spun by his opponent, and both pitched sideways into the dank lagoon, stinking spray flying up as they hit.

  The distraction almost cost Gisburne his life, but he was somehow was aware of Tancred’s blade as it sang through the air towards him and instinct took over. He dropped to his knees, Tancred’s sword slicing the air inches above his head, then brought his own blade up with all the force he could summon. It was an awkward blow, hastily conceived – but its edge struck Tancred square across the face. Gisburne felt metal hit metal, and fell forward, onto all fours. Tancred staggered back, a silver gash scarring the painted steel of his mask, but the tip of his sword – at the end of its great, uninterrupted arc through the air – caught the top of Asif’s skull.

  Asif, who had looked like getting the better of his adversary, teetered unsteadily, a bloody flap of flesh and hair hanging where the blade had scalped him to the bone. Then his knees buckled under him and he crashed against the rock wall.

  Asif’s opponent now advanced on Gisburne. Gisburne, about to clamber to his feet, saw and felt the knight’s foot stamp upon his sword blade, pinning it to the rock. His attacker’s own blade glinted high above, ready to smash down upon his head. Gisburne gazed up at him, weaponless.

  With a roar, the knight struck. In an apparently futile gesture, Gisburne raised his right arm against the flashing steel b
lade.

  The sword stopped dead with a jarring impact. Gisburne’s head remained intact. The knight stared at the blade, still resting upon Gisburne’s miraculously uninjured forearm, and his brutal features rearranged themselves into an expression of disbelief.

  Gisburne grasped the moment. He thrust his forearm up and to the side, and the sword went with it, flipping out of the knight’s hands as if plucked from them by a giant’s fingers. Before his opponent could recover, he launched himself upward, smashing the top of his head into his attacker’s teeth, and slammed him against the rock wall. The knight slumped, insensible. But as Gisburne turned to retrieve his sword, the whole world suddenly seemed to shift around him.

  Tancred had plucked the torch from the wall, the deep shadows shifting and dancing as it moved on its course, and now stood before him like a wraith, flame in one hand, sword in the other.

  “You fought me with fire once,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “But God’s wrath cannot be undone by earthly means. This matter that surrounds us... It is mere distraction. The Devil’s work. Corrupt flesh. And Jerusalem is its rotten heart. But it shall be revealed for what it is. It will undergo the judgement of fire.”

  Then he struck. Against all expectation, he held back with the sword, and instead swung the flame. It smashed against Gisburne’s head, sparks flying. He staggered, and tried to back away. But Tancred advanced and set about him, battering him again and again with the burning torch, his eyes fleetingly visible through the dark openings of the mask, blazing in their lidless sockets. Gisburne fell to his knees, clinging this time to the rock wall, but Tancred did not stop. With each blow, sparks flew out across the oily slick, threatening to ignite it. Finally, Gisburne collapsed.

  Tancred stopped and stared at the bloodied Gisburne for a moment. He poked at his enemy’s forearm with a foot, pushed back the ragged sleeve, and saw the plate metal vambrace that had stopped his knight’s sword, and the row of blunt teeth along its lower edge that had trapped its blade. Through his daze, Gisburne thought he heard a chuckle of admiration.