by Terry Marcel
A brute with a livid scar running the length of his face teased her with a firebrand and his grating laughter showed he thought it great sport. As did his companion, who sat astride a horse watching the entertainment. Each scream from the bound woman elicited more raucous yells from the two louts.
“Why do you treat the woman this way?” asked Hawk. His voice was dangerously low, almost casual, but there was a hint of steel strength behind it.
The woman’s tormentor swung round to face him, the burning torch leaving a swathe of smoke in its passing. His fellow lout stiffened and readied his bow.
“If it’s any business of yours,” said Scar sneeringly, “She’s a witch.” He broke off to stab out at his captive with the flame. “And was caught practising her foul arts on one of my fine hogs.”
Hawk leaned forward in his saddle and looked in the direction of the roped figure. “Does he speak the truth, woman?”
The huddled bundle of rags swayed wearily. “I sought only to cure the animal of its ills,” she gasped.
“She lies,” bellowed Scar. “The pig died an hour after she touched it with that devil stick.”
He waved at a strangely carved staff.
“Had you let me tend it, the creature would have lived,” wailed the woman.
“Enough of your foul chatter,” snarled Scar. “This will put an end to it.”
He began to thrust the torch at the brushwood.
“No!” Hawk cracked out the word as he swung down from the horse and its hardness stopped Scar’s movement. The churl on horseback slipped an arrow from his quiver and notched it but the furtive gesture had already been noted by Hawk.
Scar waggled the firebrand, a crafty delight spreading across his evil face. “Well, old witch,” he gloated. “It seems you will have company when you burn.” With feigned coolness he signalled to his companion. “Kill him.”
The archer raised his bow to take aim, disconcerted that the stranger appeared to be taking no evasive action. The string twanged and the arrow rushed towards its mark.
Hawk flung up an arm as if to ward off the speeding shaft. His brain visualised the mindsword in his hand and instantly the mighty weapon was there to act as a shield. The arrow glanced off harmlessly and the mindstone, which had flared green, dimmed to normal.
The event was too much for the bowman; he wheeled his horse and galloped off into the thick underbrush leaving Scar mouthing obscenities after him.
Still cursing he turned to face Hawk.
“He may run like a dog, but not I,” he grunted.
“Go in peace with your friend,” said Hawk. He had no desire to fight this man and he spoke without aggression.
“Or else?” Scar challenged sarcastically, throwing to one side the lighted torch. “Or else what, my fine friend?”
He stood straddle-legged, assessing Hawk. His fingers moved slowly to his sword and tapped the butt nervously, all the while grinning confidently. Hawk’s face showed no expression. His eyes had tightened at the implicit threat in Scar’s bearing and now he waited for the other man to make his decision.
Sweat trickled down Scar’s wrist and crawled through the dirt and hair on the back of his hand. The oily itch forced the choice on him. Irritated, he pulled his sword from its scabbard and, roaring like a bull, he charged at Hawk, scything with the blade. The razor-sharp steel whistled past Hawk’s shoulder as he gave a little sidestep and sent his opponent sprawling beyond him.
Scar, confused by the other man’s agility and speed, had a moment of uncertainty but the sight of Hawk leaning on his sword hilt made his rage rise again to choke him.
“Use your sword, pig,” he spat. “Do you mock me! The time of playing games is over!”
He lunged in once more but this time Hawk parried the blow and with a twist, spun Scar’s sword out of his sweaty grip to land in the dirt. Hawk brought his blade close under Scar’s chin, making the man’s nostrils flare with fear.
“Go in peace, brother,” said Hawk, and gave his adversary a long, hard look before turning his back on him to go to the aid of the woman.
Scar’s eyes dilated with hate. His innards churned and a hot flux surged through his stomach. He thought of the way he had been dismissed by Hawk and his close escape from death was already forgotten. He bent down, grasped his fallen weapon and flashed out at Hawk’s unprotected back.
The woman screamed a warning and Hawk whirled, his sword gleaming death as it sliced through Scar’s leather jerkin and slashed his upper abdomen to cleave his vitals. Scar tottered aimlessly and then his ponderous bulk crashed to the ground.
Hawk cut the woman’s bonds and she collapsed into his arms.
“My cave is there—in the woods.” Her voice was barely a whisper and sounded centuries old until Hawk was able to see what lay within the hood. Her face was white with an albino-like pallor but young and smooth. A circlet of doeskin covered her eyes, plain but for a rude painted image of an eye in the centre. “First, hand me my staff,” she asked of him.
The woman tended to the fire and eked more warmth from it to dispel the icy dankness in the cave. Neither of them had spoken since they left the clearing.
“By what name are you called, Lord?” she queried in her peculiar, aged voice.
When Hawk responded with his name, she nodded as if she already knew the answer before he replied. “Many times have I heard it spoken,” she said. “You fight for good.”
“It is the way I have chosen,” Hawk answered simply.
The woman ladled some liquid into a wooden bowl and offered it to him. It was a light broth of some kind but as Hawk supped, it seemed to charge his inner self with a warmth which coursed the length of his body, reinvigorating him.
“I am called Meena.” She gave a self-deprecatory laugh. “Most times I am known as Meena the Madwoman. Or just plain witch, as you heard today. But I mean no harm. Sometimes I long to be able to tell them—”
Meena broke off so abruptly it was as if her words had been stopped by some external agency and Hawk frowned, believing she had heard something outside that was beyond his perception. But all he could hear was the monotonous drip of seeping waterdrops somewhere deep within the cave.
“I come from the land of Ilayet,” continued Meena after her strange pause. “Sometimes a child would be born there who was different from the other children. My people knew that such a child had the Sign of the Guardian marked upon them. I was such a child. Blind of sight but all-seeing in mind. Therefore I was taught the secrets of each element; to be a healer; to tend not only those whose ills were of the flesh but also those assailed in spirit by the devil’s kin. To help and to warn. But this was long ago and the land of Ilayet is now a waterless waste. This much I am permitted to tell you, Lord Hawk.”
“Permitted? I don’t understand.”
“I have the Sign of the Guardian. I cannot explain my being to you further as I would endanger the trust given to me as a bearer of the Sign.”
Hawk was confused by the explanation. Was it possible that she was exactly what she had confessed to being—a madwoman?
“You saved my life today and I am in your debt,” Meena said thankfully. “How can I repay you?”
“I need no payment.”
Hawk made a move to rise but the woman bade him stay.
“Wait,” she said. “Let me look into the fire. It shows these dead eyes many things.”
From a pouch around her waist, she took a small vial and scattered a pinch of the powder contents into the fire. An amber radiance filled the cave and Meena stared sightlessly at the effulgence.
Hawk shaded his eyes from the strong light which etched his and the woman’s shadows blackly on the walls and ceiling of the cave. Quartz crystals in the rock glinted with scintillating stars and suddenly the brilliance died to a fireglow.
“A one-handed man seeks you,” Meena said haltingly, explaining the images which were jumbled in her brain. “He carries a token. But I also see a man who wears a mask of death.
”
Hawk’s jaw clenched involuntarily.
“Beware of this man. He is filled with hate.”
“Voltan!” The name whispered from his tight lips. He looked at the woman afresh. Madwoman or not, she seemed to have the gift of prophecy. “Where do I find this one-handed man?”
“Go south,” she replied and then, agitatedly, “Quickly, for he rides into danger. Ranulf is his name.”
Hawk rose to his feet. “Is there more you can tell me?” he asked.
The woman shook her head. “The future cannot be altered,” she replied. “Therefore the fabric of what is to happen can only be seen dimly. But I do know that you will have need of me again, Lord Hawk. The final battle has yet to be fought.”
She directed her gaze at him and the painted eye on the leather band stared intently. “Remember,” she finished quietly, “I shall be here when you need me.”
Hawk turned to look back at her from the mouth of the cave.
“Take care,” he said, and was gone.
Meena looked sightlessly after him and then threw another pinch of powder on the fire. Images rushed at her. Bodyless voices and the scents and smells of a confused universe. Easily, she shut out the unwanted chaos and concentrated on the visions she required.
Smoke billowed over a yellowed grassland and a rider, Hawk, galloped across an endless plain, an apparition which appeared and disappeared in the miasmic haze.
“The road ahead is filled with death,” she breathed to herself. “But I shall be watching. Ride fast. The one-handed man will need your help.”
6
ENCOUNTER WITH THE AXE MEN
Ranulf slowed his horse to a walk. An uneasy feeling had grumbled at the pit of his stomach ever since he had ridden along this forest path. The prickly sensation that he was being watched tingled his every nerve and so he rode, his loaded crossbow tucked in front of the saddle.
The two men materialised on the track a little way ahead from opposite sides of the wood and Ranulf steadied his horse to a halt. Automatically he couched his bow. The taller of the two men spoke first.
“No, friend, that is not necessary,” grinned the man.
He and his comrade were dressed alike in the silver and black attire of the upland foresters and Ranulf quickly spotted the tiny axes which hung in holsters on their hips. The veteran drew in a deep breath. It had been a long time since the upland foresters had taken axe to tree. Nowadays they were known as freebooters and cutpurses, smilers with honed hammers under their cloaks. But these two didn’t seem to mind swaggering in the open.
“We are travellers,” confided the second man. “And would ask you in what direction the village of Burnby lies.”
Both men had no trace of the upland dialect in their voices and for a moment Ranulf felt he may have made a mistake and that they were of some outlandish gentry who dressed in similar fashion to the foresters when, out of the corner of his eye, he detected a slight stir in the branches of a tree to his right. There was a dull glint of metal and Ranulf spun and fired in one fluid motion.
The bolt burrowed into the chest of a third man who fell from the crook of a gnarled oak, his axe frozen in the act of being thrown. But before Ranulf could whip back to the other men, a hard object slammed viciously against the side of his head. Blackness irised in to a fine point of screaming light as he fell unconscious from the horse.
He felt fingers ferret about his body and find the small pouch tucked behind his breeches belt. When he tried to move, he was unable to because of the tight cords binding him to the branchless trunk of a spruce. The pain in his head threatened to blank him out again as he tried to open his eyes but he persevered to prise the lids apart.
“To have killed our friend was a very bad mistake,” hissed the first man, squeezing Ranulf’s face.
“A mistake that is going to cost you more than these few paltry coins,” agreed the second man, delivering a blow to the old warrior’s belly.
“Your friend … was about … to cleave me with his axe,” wheezed Ranulf.
The first man snapped his grip from Ranulf’s face causing him to jerk back in pain. He looked at his dead companion, a sour expression on his face. “Malrid was always a clumsy man,” he said. “But it will be a nuisance having to replace him.” He looked at his friend for guidance. “What punishment, then, is fitting for this one-handed murderer?”
The second man pondered the question. “Something different,” he mused. “It’s been a dull day.”
“I am no murderer,” gritted Ranulf. “I merely protected myself.”
Like a pouncing cat, the taller man slapped Ranulf ferociously across the face. “Silence, scum,” he howled.
The second man snapped his fingers, his countenance brightening. “A contest!”
He jerked his short, throwing axe from its sheath-clip and flipped it at Ranulf. It thudded into the tree several inches from the veteran’s scalp.
“Perfect,” drawled the first man, rubbing his hands together to get them dry. “I wager two silver pieces that I can get closer—without drawing blood.” Then, as an afterthought. “Winner gets to finish him off.”
“Done!” laughed his comrade, retrieving his axe. “First throw to you.”
The tall man stood facing Ranulf at a distance of twenty paces, his hands dangling by his side. He shook them a few times, clenched them, then straightened out his fingers fully. A swift motion and his axe leapt from its holster to bite deep into the wood about two inches from Ranulf’s ear.
“A good throw in the circumstances,” said the second man disparagingly. “But—!”
He assumed the same stance although his flexing mannerisms were different. His hand darted to the handle of the axe which slid from its clip below his belt and he flicked it at Ranulf.
His axe slammed into the tree between Ranulf’s head and the other axe so that the two handles smacked together like the crack of doom.
The two men studied the hits, then resheathed their axes before moving back to their throwing positions.
“The first two silver pieces are mine,” gloated the winner.
“Again!” snarled the first man. “But this time the wager is for the man who cuts our assassin’s ears off cleanly from his head.”
“Cut him down!” said a soft voice which made both men jerk around in astonishment.
Hawk stood before them, the mindsword still sheathed on his back.
The two men gave each other a knowing look and then moved a distance apart to face this apparent madman.
“It is you that will be cut down,” said the first man.
“The contest gets better,” laughed his friend.
Hawk snapped his eyes from one man to the other, watching the way their hands hung down over the axe-sheaths. Each minute finger flexion was observed.
The first man poked a wet tongue along his drying lips and the second man was uncomfortably aware of a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. The madman who faced them was only one man after all but it was the way he stood there, impassive like a block of stone and not even making the slightest move to unsheath the strange sword resting on his back. The first man cast a sidelong glance at his comrade. Now! The glance said. Throw now!
Simultaneously, the two men went for their axes. The mindstone pulsed green on the pommel of Hawk’s sword and there it was in his hand. Everything seemed to happen in slow time.
The second man’s axe was barely clear of its holster-clip when Hawk’s massive two-handed sword, still pulsating, plunged through his chest, lifted him bodily off his feet and speared him into the bole of a tree six paces back.
Cartwheeling through the air glistened the axe of the first man. In a blur of speed, Hawk plucked it out of the air, swung it in an arc back at the hapless thrower.
The first man stared in utter disbelief. He heard it cleave through his rib cage like the snapping of wet twigs, the awful thump as it ploughed inwards. He felt nothing as he somersaulted back to lie spreadeagled, eyes glaz
ed open, already dead.
Hawk cut Ranulf free. The warrior’s eyes were still frozen, wide-open at what had happened.
“What manner of man are you?” he asked haltingly. “Never before have I seen—”
“I am called Hawk.”
A look of astonishment covered Ranulf’s face and then the irony of the situation had him laughing wildly. The man he had searched for so fruitlessly these last few days, and just when he thought that his life was forfeit, up he popped.
Hawk looked at him with an amused perplexity.
“I’m sorry, Lord,” Ranulf excused himself. “It’s just funny that after all my searching …” He waved an apologetic hand, went over to the corpse of the first man, found what he wanted and said by way of explanation, “I have this for you.”
He handed the High Abbot’s medallion to Hawk, was distracted by a sudden thought and fumbled again in the pouches of his erstwhile executioners. There was a jingle of coins as he recovered what had been taken from him.
“You are from the fortress?” asked Hawk.
“Yes!” said Ranulf. “I have been looking for you for many days.” He retrieved his horse and checked its harness. “You are needed.”
7
THE TAVERN
“Chak!” roared Voltan. “Ride by my side.”
The trail was narrow and Voltan’s liegeman, Chak, had to squeeze his animal tightly against the thick leafy bushes and trees which bounded their route on either side.
He had ridden with Voltan for nigh on seven years and he still couldn’t fathom the twists and turns of his master’s thoughts. But at least he could relish the knowledge that of all Voltan’s henchmen, he was the one that their liege lord trusted most. And that included his son, Drogo. Now, there was a strange youth. Sullen and secretive, his deviousness could create a problem in that some of the younger men had attached themselves to his beck and call, creating a power clique which threatened the unity of the whole camp. The time of his come-uppance would dawn soon, Chak comforted himself, the day he stepped over the fine line of respect with his father, Voltan.