The men-o'-war in the harbour were crowded with soldiers clad in Wolf and Vulture helms and armed to the teeth with swords, spears, bows, quivers of arrows and flame lances and the flagship bore the banners both of the Grand Constable of the Order of the Wolf and of the Grand Constable of the Order of Vulture which had once been simply the Vulture Legion but which had been raised to the status of an Order by King Huon, for the fighting it had done in Europe and to honour the death of its bloodthirsty chieftain Asrovak Mikosevaar.
The ships themselves were remarkable in that they had no sails but were instead mounted with huge pad-dlewheels at their sterns. They were built of a mixture of wood and metal—the wood ornately carved and the metal wrought in baroque designs. There were panels in their sides, each carrying an intricate painting depicting some earlier sea victory for Granbretan. Gilded figure-heads decorated the forward parts of the ships, representing the terrifying ancient gods of Granbretan—Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl, Rhunga, who were said to have ruled the land before the Tragic Millennium—Chirshil, the Howling God; Bjrin Adass, the Singing God; Jeajee Blad, the Groaning God; Jh'Im Slas, the Weeping God and Aral Vilsn, the Roaring God, Supreme God, father of Skvese and Blansacredid the gods of Doom and Chaos.
The Aral Vilsn was the flagship and on the flagship's bridge stood the brooding figure of Baron Meliadus, beside him Countess Flana Mikosevaar. Below the bridge, in Wolf and Vulture masks, the captains of the ships began to assemble, having been summoned to the flagship by Meliadus.
They looked up expectantly as Meliadus cleared his throat.
"You are doubtless wondering about our destination gentlemen—and wondering, too, about the nature of these strange ships we sail in. The ships are no mystery—they are equipped with engines similar to those powering our ornithopters, and are the invention of that genius of Granbretan, Baron Kalan of Vitall. They can bear us swifter than sail across continents of water and do not need to wait on the will of the wind. As to our destination, that I will reveal in private. This ship is the Aral Vilsn, named after the supreme god of ancient Granbretan, who made this nation into what she is today. Her sister ships are the Skvese and the Blansacredid, which are the old words for Doom and for Chaos. But they are also the sons of Aral Vilsn and represent the glory of Granbretan, the old dark glory, the gloomy glory, the bloody and terrible glory of our land. A glory of which I am sure you are all rightly proud." Meliadus paused. "Would you see it lost, gentlemen?"
The answer roared back. No! No! By Aral Vilsn, by Skvese and Blansacredid—No! NO!"
"And would you do anything to make sure that Granbretan retained her black might and her lunatic glory?"
"AYE! AYE! AYE!"
"And would you all unite with me in an insane adventure such as those embarked upon by Aral Vilsn and his peers?"
"AYE! Tell us what is it! Tell us!"
"You would not shrink from it? You would follow it through to the end?"
"AYE!" shouted more than a score of voices.
"Then follow me to my cabin and I will detail the plan. But be warned, once you have entered that cabin, you will have to follow me forever. Any who holds back will not leave the cabin alive."
Then Meliadus swung down from the bridge and strode into his cabin below it. He was followed by every one of the captains who stood before him and every one of them was to leave the cabin alive.
Baron Meliadus stood before them, his dark cabin lighted only by a dim lamp. There were maps on his table, but he did not consult them. He spoke in a low, vibrant voice to his men.
"I shall not waste time further, gentlemen, but will tell you at once the nature of this adventure. We are embarking upon treason ..." He cleared his throat. "We are about to rebel against our hereditary ruler, Huon the King Emperor."
There were many gasps from around the cabin as the Wolf and Vulture masks stared intently at Baron Meliadus.
"King Huon is insane," Meliadus told them quickly.
"It is not personal ambition drives me to this scheme, but a love for our nation. Huon is mad—his two thousand years of life, has clouded his brain rather than given him wisdom. He is trying to make us expand too rapidly. This expedition, for instance, was to go to Amarehk to see if the land could be conquered, while we have barely crushed the whole Middle East and there are still parts of Muskovia that are not entirely ours."
"And you would rule in Huon's place, eh, baron?" a Vulture captain suggested cynically.
Meliadus shook his head. "Not at all. Flana Mikosevaar would be your Queen. Vulture and Wolf would take the place of the Mantis in the royal favour. Yours would be the supreme Orders..."
"But the Vultures are a mercenary Order," a Wolf captain pointed out.
Meliadus shrugged. "They have proved loyal to Granbretan. And it could be argued that many of our own Orders are moribund, that fresh blood is needed in the Dark Empire."
Another Vulture captain spoke thoughtfully. "So Flana would be our Queen Empress—and you, baron?"
"Regent and Consort. I shall marry Flana and aid her rule."
"You would be the King Emperor in all but name," said the same Vulture captain.
"I would be powerful, it is true—but Flana is of the Royal blood, not I. She is your Queen Empress by right of ancestry. I shall be merely Supreme Warlord and leave the other affairs of state to her—for war's my life, gentlemen, and I seek only to improve the manner in which our wars are conducted."
The captains seemed satisfied.
Meliadus continued: "So instead of sailing to Amarehk on the morning tide, we sail around the coast a little, biding our time, then make for the Tayme estuary, sailing upriver to Londra and arriving in the heart of the city before anyone can guess our intent."
"But Huon is well-protected. His palace is impossible to storm. There will be legions in the city loyal to him, surely," said another Wolf captain.
"We will have allies in the city. Many of the legions will be with us. Taragorm is on our side and he is hereditary commander of several thousand warriors since his cousin's death. The Order of the Ferret is a small one, to be sure, but it has many legions in Londra, while other legions are in Europe, defending our possessions.
All the nobles likely to remain loyal to Huon are abroad at this moment. It is a perfect time to strike. Baron Kalan is also with us—he can aid us with new weapons and his Serpents to operate them. If we achieve a swift victory—or at least make quick gains—then it is likely that many others will join us, for few will discover love for King Huon once Flana is on the throne."
"I feel a loyalty for King Huon ..." admitted a Wolf captain. "It is bred into us."
"And so is a loyalty to the spirit of Aral Vilsn—to all that Granbretan stands for. Is that not a loyalty even more deeply bred into us?"
The captain deliberated for a moment before nodding. "Aye—you are right. With a new ruler of the blood royal on the throne, then perhaps our whole greatness will come to us."
"Oh, it will, it will!" promised Meliadus fiercely, his black eyes gleaming from his snarling helm.
Chapter Six - The Return to Castle Brass
IN THE GREAT hall of Castle Brass Yisselda, Count Brass's daughter, wept and wept.
She wept for joy, hardly able to believe that the man before her was her husband whom she loved with such passion, hardly daring to touch him lest he prove a phantom. Hawkmoon laughed and strode forward, put-ting his arms around her and kissing at her tears. Then she, too, began to laugh, her face becoming radiant.
"Oh, Dorian! Dorian! We feared you killed in Granbretan!"
Hawkmoon grinned. "Considering everything, Granbretan was the safest place we saw in our travels! Is that not so, D'Averc?"
D'Averc coughed into his kerchief. "Aye—and maybe the healthiest, too."
The thin and kindly-faced Bowgentle shook his head in mild astonishment. "But how did you return from Amarekh in that dimension to the Kamarg in this?"
Hawkmoon shrugged his shoulders. "Ask me not, Sir Bowgentle. The Great
Good Ones brought us here, that is all I know. The journey was swift, taking but a few minutes."
"The Great Good Ones! Never heard of 'em!" Count Brass spoke gruffly, stroking his red moustachios and trying to hide the tears in his eyes. "Spirits of some sort, eh?"
"Aye of some sort, father." Hawkmoon stretched out his hand to his father-in-law. "You are looking well, Count Brass. Your hair's as red as ever."
"That's not a sign of youth," Count Brass complained.
"That's rust! I'm rotting here while you enjoy yourself chasing about the world."
Oladahn, the little son of a giantess of the Bulgar Mountains, stepped shyly forward. "I'm glad to see you back, friend Hawkmoon. And in good health, it seems."
He grinned, offering Hawkmoon a goblet of wine.
"Here—drink this as a welcome cup!"
Hawkmoon smiled back and accepted the goblet, quaffing it in a single draft. "Thanks, friend Oladahn.
How's it with you?"
"Boring. We are all bored—and afraid you would not return."
"Well, I am back and I think I have enough stories of my adventures to dispel your boredom for a few hours.
And I have news of a mission for us all which will bring you relief from the inactivity you have been suffering."
"Tell us!" Count Brass roared. "For all our sakes—tell us at once!"
Hawkmoon laughed easily. "Aye—but give me a moment to look at my wife." He turned and stared into Yisselda's eyes and he saw that they were now perturbed.
"What is it, Yisselda?"
"I see something in your manner," said she. "Something that tells me, my lord, that you are soon to risk your life again."
"Perhaps."
"If it must be, then it must be." She took a deep breath and smiled at him. "But it will not be tonight, I hope."
"Nor for several nights. We have many plans to make."
"Aye," she said softly, glancing at the stones of the hall. "And I have much to tell you."
Count Brass stepped forward gesturing to the far end of the hall where the servants were laying the table with food. "Let's eat. We have saved our best for this home-coming."
Later as they sat with full bellies by the fire and Bowgentle had finished recounting now Tozer had suddenly vanished, Hawkmoon showed them the Sword of the Dawn and the Runestaff, which he drew from his shirt. At once the hall was illuminated with whirling flames making patterns in the air and the strange bitter-sweet scent filled the hall.
The others looked at the thing in silent awe until Hawkmoon replaced it. "That is our standard, my friends. That is what we now serve when we go out to fight the whole Dark Empire."
Oladahn scratched at the fur on his face. "The whole Dark Empire, eh?"
Hawkmoon smiled gently. "Aye."
"Are there not several million warriors on the side of Granbretan?" Bowgentle asked innocently.
"There are several million, I believe."
"And we have about five hundred Kamargians left at Castle Brass," murmured Count Brass wiping his lips on his sleeve and giving a mock frown. "Let me compute that..."
D'Averc now spoke. "We have more than five hundred.
You forget the Legion of the Dawn." He pointed at Hawkmoon's sword which lay scabbarded beside his chair.
"How many in that mysterious legion?" Oladahn asked.
"I do not know—perhaps an infinite number, perhaps not."
"Say a thousand," Count Brass mused. "To be con-servative of course. Making fifteen hundred warriors against—"
"Several million," supplied D'Averc
"Aye, several million, equipped with all the resources of the Dark Empire, including scientific knowledge we cannot match..."
"We have the Red Amulet and the Rings of Mygan,"
Hawkmoon reminded him.
"Ah, yes, those ..." Count Brass seemed to scowl. We have those, too. And we have right on our side—is that an asset, Duke Dorian?"
"Perhaps. But if we use the Rings of Mygan to take us back to our own dimension and we fight a couple of small battles dose to home, freeing the oppressed, we can begin to raise some kind of peasant army."
"A peasant army, you say. Hm ..."
Hawkmoon sighed. "I know it seems impossible odds, Count Brass."
Then Count Brass suddenly broke into a beaming, golden smile. "That's right, lad. You've guessed!"
"What do you mean?"
"They're just the sort of odds I like. I'll get the maps and we can begin to plan our initial campaigns!"
While Count Brass was away, Oladahn said to Hawkmoon. "Elvereza Tozer could have returned to Londra and revealed our plans and our position. We are very vulnerable at this moment, friend Hawkmoon."
Count Brass came back with the maps. "Now, let's see..."
An hour later Hawkmoon got up and took Yisselda's hand, bid goodnight to his friends and followed his wife to their apartments.
Five hours later they were still awake, lying in each other's arms. It was then that she told him they were to have a child.
He accepted the news in silence, merely kissed her and held her closer. But when she was asleep, he got up and went to the window, staring out over the reeds and lagoons of the Kamarg, thinking to himself that now he had something even more important to fight for than an ideal.
He hoped he would live to see his child.
He hoped his child would be born even if he did not live.
Chapter Seven - The Beasts Begin to Squabble
MELIADUS SMILED BEHIND his mask and his hand tightened on Flana Mikosevaar's shoulder as the towers of Londra came in sight upriver.
"It is going so well," he murmured. "Soon, my dear, you will be Queen. They do not suspect. They cannot suspect. There has been no uprising such as this for hundreds of centuries! They are unprepared. How they will curse the architects who sited the barracks on the waterfront!" He laughed softly.
Flana was tired of the thrumming of the engines and the rumble of the paddle wheel as it pushed the ship along. One of the virtues of a sailing ship, she now realised, was that it was silent. These noisy things would not be allowed in sight of Londra once their purpose was served and she ruled. But the irritation was slight and the decision unimportant. Again she turned her thoughts inward and forgot Meliadus, forgot that the only reason she had agreed to his plan was because she, did not care what became of her. She was thinking again of D'Averc.
The captains on board the leading ships knew what to do. As well as Kalan's engines, they were now equipped with Kalan's flame cannon and they knew their targets—the military barracks of the Orders of the Pig and the Rat and the Fly and others lining the river close to the outskirts of Londra.
Softly Baron Meliadus instructed his ship's captain to raise the appropriate colour, the flag that would give the signal to begin the bombardment.
Londra was silent and still in the morning, as gloomy as ever, as darkly bizarre as usual, with her crazy towers leaning into the sky, like the clutching fingers of a million madmen.
It was early. None but the slaves would be awake.
None, that is, save Taragorm and Kalan, waiting for the sounds of strife so that they could move their men into position. The intention was to slay as many as possible, then drive the rest towards the palace, bottling them in, containing them so that they should have not several ob-jectives but, by the afternoon, one.
Meliadus knew that even if they succeeded in this plan the real fighting would begin with the attack on the palace "and they would be hard put to take it before reinforcements arrived.
Meliadus's breathing quickened. His eyes gleamed, from the bronze snouts of the cannon flame spewed, shrieking towards the unsuspecting barracks. Within the first few seconds the morning air was split by a tremen-dous explosion as the first of the buildings blew up.
"What luck!" Meliadus exclaimed. "This is a splendid omen. I had not thought to have such success so soon!"
A second explosion—a barracks on the other side of the water—and from the
remaining buildings ran terri-fied men, some so alarmed that they had even left their masks behind! As they scurried out the flame cannon caught them, burning them to cinders. Their yells and screams echoed among the sleeping towers of Londra—the first warning most of the citizens had had.
Wolf mask turned to Vulture helm in expressions of silent satisfaction as they witnessed the carnage on the banks. Pigs and Rats scuttled for cover—Flies flung themselves behind the nearest buildings and the few who had managed to bring flame lances with them opened fire.
The beasts had begun to squabble.
It was part of that pattern of destiny fixed by Meliadus when, on leaving Castle Brass in disgrace, he had called upon the Runestaff.
Yet none could say how finally that pattern would resolve itself and who would be the ultimate victor—Huon, Meliadus or Hawkmoon.
Chapter Eight - Taragorm's Invention
BY MID MORNING the barracks had been completely wiped out and the survivors were fighting in the streets near the centre of the city. They had been reinforced with several thousand Mantis warriors. It was probable that Huon still had no idea of what was really happening. Perhaps he thought the attack was by Asiacommunistans disguised as Granbretanians. Meliadus smiled as he disembarked with Flana Mikosevaar and made his way to the Palace of Time on foot, flanked by a dozen Vultures and Wolves. The surprise had been complete.
His men had remained in the few open streets and had not ventured into the maze of corridors linking most of the towers. As the warriors had emerged, Meliadus's men had picked them off. Now they were bottling them in, for there were few windows from which Huon's soldiers could fight. Windows were not a feature of Londra's architecture, for the Granbretanians had little liking for fresh air or daylight. What windows there were tended to be placed so high as to be useless to snipers.
Even the ornithopters, unequipped for fighting in a city such as Londra, were proving to be a smaller threat than Meliadus had anticipated. He was well pleased as he entered the Palace of Time and discovered Taragorm in a small chamber.
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