by Terry Marcel
The orb-eyes gleamed brightly in the depths of the hood. “You will prepare a way for his death,” it concluded.
It was part statement, part question, and Voltan already knew the answer.
He withdrew from the glowing red, no longer a pained animal but vibrant, vengeful. A sudden, deafening rush and he was once more in the quiet glade.
“Now my time for revenge begins, brother,” he whispered to the listening wild wood.
A dozen candles burned their tiny spears of flame on the cross members of oaken beams suspended high up in the rafters of the monastery. There floated up from below the soft chant of the sisters at their evening prayers mixed with the solitary voice of the Abbess as she read from a parchment tome resting on a lectern.
“And though we are beset by many terrors, we pray for the deliverance of the Land,” she intoned. “Blest be the Land,” echoed the kneeling nuns. “Free from the dangers of greed,” continued the Lady Abbess, “and the manifold cruelties of dark hate.”
The litany droned on and the sisters were oblivious of the stealthy rustling of soft-footed men who moved through the dense mist towards the dimly lit church.
“We pray for compassion and caring; for the love that is freely given and joyfully received.”
The words were indistinct beyond the thick walls of the monastery and would have fallen on closed ears had the furtive figures who sifted through the thinning trees been listening.
The men reached the cover of the walls and inched past a buttress, their objective the huge double doors of the entrance.
“Blessed is the Word and doubly blessed are the true servants of the Word.”
The Abbess closed the heavy book.
“Blest be—” began the nuns as the two unbarred wooden doors exploded open. They slammed against the interior walls with a reverberating whump which sent the nuns scrambling with shock. Tendrils of mist curled along the flagstones and clung to the black leather of boots standing there.
The Abbess looked evenly at the handful of men who formed a rough bodyguard around a giant of a warrior. Her eyes weighed each one as they stood there with a truculent authority, swords swinging menacingly.
“This is a house of God,” she challenged. “Your weapons have no place here.”
The leader moved slowly from the doorway, descended the three steps down into the well of the building and smiled thinly at the fearless woman.
“I am told, woman,” he said in a low voice, “that your church holds you in high esteem.”
The statement disconcerted the Abbess for a moment.
“I am but a humble servant of God like my sisters here beside me,” she protested. “We are here solely to assist those who most need our help.”
A tall, fair youth moved forward, pushing a sobbing and cowering novice out of his way.
“We would like you to give us your help, old woman.”
He spoke insolently, hoping to elicit the unguarded phrase of anger which would allow him to use unbridled force. But the Abbess recognised his naïve aggression and stifled the remark she would have dearly loved to make.
“My son, Drogo, speaks true,” said Voltan. “What is your answer?”
“How can I help you?” the Abbess asked. “What do you want?”
Sister Monica, her face flickering as she tried to swallow her fear, edged closer to her superior as if to derive some strength from her.
“I, Voltan, want you, old woman.”
At the sound of the name, several nuns withdrew into the shadow of the arched cloister which ringed the inside of the church. There were sharp intakes of breath which hissed into a deepening silence. The Abbess herself shuddered visibly. “I know your name,” she uttered faintly: “Killer of women and children, you are a servant of evil. But in this church we have no fear of you.”
“I am pleased that you know of me,” smiled Voltan. “It will make my task that much easier.”
He turned to his son as if tired of playing out a charade. “Take her!”
Drogo grinned, his eyelids drooping sleepily, then, suddenly, like a coiled spring, he flung a back-handed blow at Sister Monica which sent her reeling into the heavy lectern. He seized the Abbess by the thick robe on her upper arm and prepared to drag her back out the door.
“Let her go!”
The hard voice made all of the intruders spin in surprise to face the direction of the speaker.
Ranulf stood resolutely by a small side door, a cocked crossbow resting on his bandaged arm. It was levelled at Drogo.
“I said let her go,” repeated Ranulf harshly.
The men had formed a frozen tableau of indecision. Then a movement too fast to be seen emanated from Voltan and a streaking dagger plunged into Ranulf’s right shoulder to send the crossbow crashing from his paralysed hand. As he staggered and fell, one of Voltan’s men raised his sword ominously as if he would end the veteran’s life.
“Leave him!” thundered Voltan. And then, as a casual afterthought; “He will live to serve my purpose.”
“Our lady is needed here.” It was a piteous cry from Sister Monica. She struggled to get to her knees. “Why do you take her from us?” she pleaded.
Voltan studied her in silence, then crossed in front of her to stand before a small altar table which bore the few reliquaries the church possessed.
“For the gold that lies in the fat coffers of your Holy Fortress,” he declared in an almost affable manner. “Go, tell them that two thousand pieces of gold will buy her freedom. I shall return when next the moon is full.” Pointedly he paused. “The gold had best be here.”
Suddenly his manner and voice hardened.
“If not—”
His sword blasted the religious objects from the altar table with a ferocity which the terrified nuns felt like an icy wind. Prompted by his father’s action, Drogo brought the steel tip of his own blade under the chin of the Abbess hoping for a resultant recoil of fear. She thwarted him. Her eyes never blinked but stared fearlessly back at him. Hiding his disappointment, he sullenly dragged her from the church as Voltan ushered the rest of his men from the monastery.
Luckily for Ranulf, the dagger had not penetrated too deeply through his thick wool vest and even then it was in a fleshy part of his shoulder. Still in shock, Sister Monica staunched what little blood there was and applied some soft wadding to the wound.
“You are a warrior. What are we to do?”
Her question surprised him since she had given him the impression that he did not exist in her orderly world.
“Pay the ransom,” he answered a little weakly.
Even as he said it he realised that it might have sounded cruel and flippant, but the sister treated it as a straight statement.
“No, it is not possible,” she demurred. “The Church has decreed that no ransom will ever be paid for any of its order.”
She helped him arrange his wool shift. “What happens is the will of God,” she said as a matter of fact.
“Will of God!” The phrase reddened his forehead with irritation. “I know this man!” he cried. “I have seen what he can do.” He shook his head at the sister’s naïvety. “He will take pleasure in your lady’s death.”
“God help me! I know not what to do!”
Sister Monica pushed her clenched hands to her mouth. The prayers were tumbling through her brain. Guidance. God would talk to her and tell her what to do. Her entire upbringing in the service of the Church left her in no doubt that the Word would manifest itself.
“You saved my arm and skull face must pay for the death of my village.” Ranulf was feeling slightly guilty. He looked at the woman and saw how vulnerable she was in her new, enforced position as leader of the sisterhood. His words to her had all been disparaging and callous. “Somehow, I will get help,” he said in as kind a manner as possible, but it still came out sounding gruff.
However, Sister Monica had been abstracted by her own musings and was unmindful of Ranulf’s self-reproach.
&nbs
p; “You must go to the Holy Fortress at Danesford and speak to the High Abbot himself,” she said decisively. “Ask him what we must do!”
4
THE HOLY FORTRESS
For five days Ranulf had travelled uneventfully through the high, upland forests and across the moors which lay scattered between the pines and spruce, always going north to the foot of the Iron Hills. He slept cold at nights, fearful that a fire would bring an unwanted visitor or predator, and kept a vigilant watch as he rode slowly but steadily among the foothills towards the shire of Danesford.
It took a day to cross the marshland of Cadoc, an area both vast and, for the most part, trackless and unexplored. Fortunately, Ranulf had first hand experience of this region and needed little recourse to his dog-eared maps for guidance. An old warrior such as he kept an observant eye on the routes he had to march on military expeditions and the like. Always know your line of retreat, he had been advised by grizzled and aged campaigners. And so he pigeon-holed little but important details like the odd-shaped hill or the solitary, stunted tree; a dip or a hollow; a patch of water. Always know where you are and you’ll escape with your skin intact, had been the prime law of the surviving soldier in the field.
To the south, as far as the eye could see, was a dark, forbidding forest, thick and seemingly impenetrable. It stretched from the base of the Iron Hills almost to the shores of the Great Lake, a barrier to the ordinary traveller. Ranulf only knew of the tales told by veterans pickled in spiced ale. In its denseness, hidden dangers lurked; strange beasts and mutations unknown to man and, others hinted darkly, much, much worse. Whether the stories were true or not, Ranulf had no intention of testing their veracity even though it would have cut his journeying time by half. No! The wayfarer was wise to give the Forest of Weir a wide berth.
Between him and the Holy Fortress to the west, lay a desolate tract known as the Broken Lands. No creature lived there. Wreaths of oily smoke spiralled up from cracks cleft in the clay-earth which was scarred with running fissures. Pools of metallic slime bubbled and stank the air with the burning stench of sulphur.
He had little choice. This wasted land had to be crossed and Ranulf prepared himself for the ordeal. His horse drank deeply from a sweetwater spring and, as he chewed on some dry biscuit, he mulled ruefully over all that had befallen him in the past few days to bring him to this God-forsaken part of the Land. He shook his head in wonderment at himself. During all the time he had been a campaigner, he had never ever been a volunteer for anything and here he was on a perilous mission at a time in his life when he should have had a warm corner by the fire with a companion to share in his memories.
His horse whinnied and, with a sigh, he tightened the girths of its saddle, swung himself up on to its broad back and spurred it across the smoke-filled, barren land.
The poisoned air cleared gradually as he climbed from the fractured mud-basin up a rocky incline. Jagged sandstone cliffs reared on either side of the boulder-strewn pathway and the wind blew a chill through his metal-ringed surcoat. He dug out a shaggy pelisse from his pack and pulled it tightly about his shoulders for warmth, bending his head down to the mane of his horse to avoid the worst of the blast. The ravine gave way to a sheer precipice to which the track clung and ascended, leaving the valley far below. Ranulf dismounted, shouldered his pack to lighten the horse’s load and began the steep trudge towards his goal.
The Holy Fortress was built on the rugged outcrop of the escarpment, commanding a view of the narrow route which led up to it and the deep gorge which flanked the length of the stony bluff Ranulf crossed. Exhausted, he approached it, pulling a heavily-lathered horse behind him until the Fortress towered gigantic before him.
It seemed to grow organically from its granite foundations so that its battlement walls were fashioned from the rock itself and perched on top were the cloistered halls and towers of the building. The Holy Fortress was seemingly impregnable and had withstood the changing centuries, solid and aloof, a place of solitude, a small island of peace in a dark and inhospitable world.
The High Abbot had been kept informed of the lone rider’s approach by the high tower watchman and an acolyte eventually apprised him of the stranger’s identity and whence he came. While Ranulf fed his hunger and rested, the holy man stared out through the narrow window at the setting sun which suffused the far side of the valley with splashes of blood red.
Night fell.
For a long time he remained in semi-darkness until Brother Peter lit the sparsely-furnished room with a candle and ushered Ranulf in at the same time. He greeted the old warrior and waved him into a plain wooden chair by the blazing fire.
“I hope our meagre fare sufficed, my son,” he apologised. “Times are hard since the wars.”
Ranulf felt slightly ill at ease in the Abbot’s presence. He was always this way with those he immediately classed as his superiors, clumsy and awkward.
“The food was good and the rest much needed, Holy Father,” he replied in what he hoped was a suitably reverent voice.
The High Abbot smiled. He could understand Ranulf’s discomfiture. After all, he had once been a warrior himself. The Brotherhood of the Word had been founded on a core of fighting men who, although saintly, could still wield a sword when the forces of evil threatened. But nowadays, it was different. The order had shrunk and the swash-buckling fathers of the past were now getting too old to bear arms and their only weapon against the legions of the night was prayer. Hair grew thin and white, mused the Abbot, bones creaked a little more with each first flurry of winter snow and the weakening flesh needed an extra log in the hearth.
“You bear a message from our sisters at Caddonbury,” he prompted.
“I do. From Sister Monica,” said Ranulf, thankful to tell his tale. “She needs your help and counsel. Five days ago the church was defiled by a band of raiders!”
The High Abbot’s eyes narrowed and his manner became more attentive.
“The same filth that attacked and burnt my own village,” Ranulf continued. “They are led by a skull-masked monster called Voltan …”
“We have heard of this man. Continue …”
“He has taken the Lady Abbess hostage and will return her at the next full moon. The price to be paid is two thousand gold pieces or she will be killed.”
With a deep sigh, the Abbot stood up and rubbed his veined hands against the cold which seeped through the stone walls. Unbidden tears welled in his rheumy eyes and when he spoke, his voice trembled slightly but gained strength as he progressed.
“Since the war, the power of evil has spread like a pestilence across the Land. We of the Order strive against it by making our churches sanctuaries for the sick and poor. We have no defence to offer against those who would march against us; the looters and others of the devil’s cohorts. If we pay the ransom for just one of our Order, then all of us will be at risk.”
Ranulf was a simple man and his ingenuousness made him argumentative.
“This I understand,” he remonstrated. “But the Lady Abbess is irreplaceable, surely?”
“That is true,” said the High Abbot softly. “Many believe that the good lady has been touched by the hand of God. It was of her own choosing that she went from the safety of the fortress to tend to the people of Caddonbury.”
“It would be one more victory to the powers of darkness if she were no longer among us,” insisted the veteran.
The High Abbot sat down wearily and steepled his fingers, tapping them against his lower lip.
“There is one who has helped us before!” he murmured after some thought. “A warrior who has fought on the side of light during these dark years. If he can be found he may help us.”
He leaned over and searched for something in a brass coffer standing on a chest by his chair.
“News reached us of his passing through the Northern Districts several days ago.”
He uttered a small sound of triumph as his fingers found a brass-wrought medallion.
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nbsp; “If you find him, give him this,” he bade Ranulf. “He will know that his help is needed.”
Ranulf studied the coin curiously before tucking it into his belt pouch.
“By what name is this warrior called?” he asked.
The High Abbot looked at him with a proud eye.
“Hawk!” he said simply.
5
HAWK
The damp air in the forest was stirred by a light breeze as the lone horseman snaked his way past the peeling silver birches, deeper and deeper into the wood.
Hawk was a tall, finely-built man with a handsome, stone-chiselled face. His dark hair, which fell to the nape of his neck, was wet with the mist which pervaded the forest like mourning wraiths clinging and sliding from tree to tree.
A vest of chain-mail was the only armour he wore, but his arms were unprotected and clothed in a saffron undertunic which hung loosely about them. His riding breeches hugged his legs and were fashioned out of dark chestnut-coloured cordovan tucked into knee-high leather boots. Slung across his back was the great mindsword, its pommel-fist thrust defiantly into the air.
Strange odours assailed him as he skirted a swamp of muddy waste from which tall reeds and strange, giant docks grew. A gaseous milkiness covered the puddled ooze and from some mandrake roots there came a strong hissing as if from some monstrous reptile.
Hawk could feel the night-coloured horse’s fear of this boggy place and gentled him until they passed it by and were back amid the tall firs.
A woman’s scream cut through the gloomy forest with an abruptness which made his horse rear. Hawk tried to pierce the curtain of deeply-shaded trees but could see nothing. Warily, he edged his horse towards the source of the cry.
In a small clearing, a figure, clad in rags, stood arms outstretched, tied between two trees. Brushwood was piled around her feet and she hung there moaning piteously.
Hawk could not see her face as it was muffled entirely by a hood of the same rough weave as the rest of her tattered clothes.