He lifted his heavy head to glower about him. At some point the raiders had blundered bellowing out of the tavern, but few of the drinkers had taken the chance to raise their cowed voices. The pinched flames of the rushlights flickered, lending every face a nervous twitch. The antics of the dim light made it harder for Kane to focus on his fellow topers, but in a few moments he located the watchers at a table close by. One looked youthful, lightly bearded and with dark hair trimmed relatively short, while his companion was bulkier, with a beard as thick and black as his unkempt hair. Neither of them seemed to pose a threat or to be of any other significance to Kane, and he let his gaze sink to the locket. As he fumbled to pick up the tankard his movement deflected the flame of the rush-light on the table, drawing a veil of shadow over the portraits. He was hoping that the ale would be as capable of veiling his thoughts when the bearded man said “Are you sure?”
“It is him.” Apparently this was cause for excitement, however muted. “I knew it,” the younger man said.
Kane did not look up, even when the pair left their table and slid onto the bench opposite him. Their arrival bowed the flame towards him, and he could almost have fancied that Meredith’s face stirred. Once he might have hoped this meant she was still alive, but the sign was meaningless to him now. “Sir?” the younger man said.
Kane kept his head low and grasped the handle of the tankard. Surely it was clear that he must be left alone – that he would do whatever was needed to preserve his state. He cupped his hand about the locket, to conceal it or at least to ward off any curiosity about it, and the shadow of his fingers plunged the women’s faces into blackness. “Captain Kane?” the man persisted.
Nobody had called Kane that for many months – nobody except Meredith. The man’s words felt like a mocking echo of her appeals to Kane. The sight of her face buried in darkness weighed his gaze down, but he scowled beneath his brows at his unwelcome companion. “I’m Henry Telford,” the man told him. “Don’t you remember me?”
If the name and the determinedly youthful face had any meaning, it seemed as dim and unreliable as the flames all around Kane. As Kane gave his head a single effortful shake, Telford said “I was a mate on the Tiercel.”
Kane remembered him now – remembered the voyage and the plundering and bloodshed that had waited at its end. Although the uninvited memories seemed prehistorically remote, they were part of Kane’s journey to losing his soul. “Telford. Henry Telford,” the man said doggedly. “You were the captain. You must remember.”
His stocky colleague grimaced at Kane and tried to pull Telford away. “It is not him,” he muttered. “He is no captain of men.”
“It is, Garrick. It’s Captain Kane,” Telford insisted and lowered his voice. “He can lead us, believe me.”
“Lead us where, Henry? To another tavern?” Garrick seemed close to spitting on the floor in disgust. “Look at him,” he objected and leaned towards Kane. “My friend here says you’re the greatest warrior he ever saw,” he said. “I don’t believe him.”
A great weariness had overtaken Kane. His quest had exhausted not just his body but his soul, and it was an effort even to speak. “You should not,” he said.
“There, Henry,” Garrick said in bitter triumph. “You have heard it from the man’s own lips.”
“He is in his cups. A leader has no need to boast of his exploits,” Telford said and appealed to Kane. “I know what you can do, Captain. I have seen it.”
His persistence reawakened Kane’s dull rage, and he grasped the front of Telford’s tunic to haul him close. “Those were distant times,” he said indistinctly. “I am no longer that man. She’s dead now and my soul is forfeit.”
Perhaps Telford took the faces in the locket to belong to Kane’s wife and daughter, though Kane had none. Sympathy glimmered in Telford’s eyes without ousting his determination. There was little sympathy in Garrick’s as he muttered “He’s no use to us or anybody. Leave him.”
“No,” Telford said with such force that it set the rushlight flaring. “Captain Kane,” he said low but urgently, “we need a leader. We have to fight back against this evil. It must never rule this land.”
Kane let go of him and fell back. His shoulders thumped the walls that formed the corner of the tavern, but either the impact was too dull to trouble him or the dullness was in his mind. “Then fight back!” he shouted.
It might have been a challenge not just to his uninvited companions but to anyone who would take issue with him. Everywhere in the gloom, faces turned to stare at him. All of them looked nervous of his words as well as agitated by the flickering light. Garrick made to rise from the bench, but Telford caught at his arm. Was Telford so stubborn that he meant to linger even now that Kane had drawn attention to him? “She’s lost,” Kane said, clutching at the table to lever himself to his feet. “And I lost her.”
He leaned against one wall and groped for the locket, scraping the table with his nails until they snagged the chain. He pulled it towards him and succeeded in fumbling the chain around his neck. He shut the locket with a snap that sounded not just flat but empty and let it dangle against his chest, where it seemed to be reaching vainly for his heart. “I am to blame,” he said and raised his voice once more. “Let them come and get me. I care not.”
Even this outburst failed to daunt Telford. As Kane stumbled out of the corner, the man moved to support him or detain him. “Captain Kane...”
“Get out of my way,” Kane bellowed and shoved him aside with such force that he sent himself staggering. “I swore to find her,” he declared, “and I failed.” He no longer knew whom he was addressing; it might have been the huddle of drinkers into whose midst he was reeling. Several hands fended him off so vigorously that he fell against a table. He clutched at it and brought it down with him as he crashed to the floor. A rush-light fell in front of his face as his head struck the boards, and then the flame went out, or his consciousness did, or both. The last flicker of the flame could have signified the extinction of all light in the world, or perhaps it was an omen of the fires of Hell.
TWENTY-NINE
Kane lay on straw and imagined he was in a manger. He was as helpless as a baby and as innocent of any thoughts. Sounds and smells of animals surrounded him in the darkness of the barn. Otherwise he seemed to be alone, and he could find no reason to expend the effort it would take to focus his eyes if he should heave them open. As he sought to recapture the stupor from which his aching skull had roused him, a wooden frame creaked beneath him. This was at odds with his sense of his surroundings, and he struggled reluctantly towards the surface of his consciousness. There were his hands, even if they seemed almost too remote from his brain to belong to him. He groped at his eyelids and fumbled them wide and peered into the gloom.
He was not in a barn. The snorts and wordless snarls that had invaded his slumber belonged not to animals but to drunkards like him. The large room owed the smell of straw to the narrow mattresses on which the sleepers sprawled, and there was an underlying stench of sweat and urine and beery breath. Three ranks of pallets were lined up along the room with hardly an arm’s length between the beds. The head of Kane’s bed was against one wall, and he was lying several pallets distant from the door, which stood ajar, affording a feeble hint of illumination. In the past such a situation would have brought all his senses alert, but now he was not just stupefied by ale and by his fall; he could think of no reason to be wary on his own behalf. He was no longer worth it. He had come to the end of himself, and he wanted nothing other than insensibility, however it might be granted to him.
He could just hear the confused hubbub of the tavern down below, and someone was climbing the stairs. As torch-flames flickered in the doorway, he closed his eyes before the sight could fully waken him and drag him back into the unrewarding world. He heard the door groan wide, and then planks began to give beneath the weight of stealthy footfalls. They halted, and a low voice spoke. “No, that is not him.”
The words sounded unwelcomely familiar. Were the searchers Telford and his men? Kane was determined that they would not rouse him. The chain of the locket dug into his neck, but he was not about to move. He confined himself to taking shallow breaths as a torch was lowered towards his face. He felt the heat on his forehead, and a glow bloomed within his eyelids. Before he would have had to breathe again, the glow diminished and the heat withdrew. He was waiting to hear the voice once more when a hand was clamped over his mouth.
The large hand bruised his lips, and it stank. Kane’s eyes sprang wide to see a raider’s blemished face leaning close to him. He was less indifferent to his own fate than he had tried to believe after all, and he sank his teeth into the hand, which tasted like tainted meat. He was too late. Hands had already fastened on his arms and legs, pinning him to the bed. The raider who had seized Kane’s face roared in pain and punched him ferociously on the chin, stunning him afresh. The yell awoke most of the occupants of the room. Presumably the raider had silenced Kane in case anyone ventured to aid him, but the men on the pallets only watched fearfully or turned away, hiding their faces. Kane was relieved of his weapons and then hauled to his feet. Trampling on beds or kicking them aside, the raiders dragged Kane out of the room.
He was flung downstairs to cannon head first against a wall at the bend of the staircase. Before he could recover from the impact he was seized again and thrown down the remaining flight to sprawl on the floor of the tavern. The room was deserted. The noise he had taken to belong to drinkers was the nervous murmur of a crowd outside, where a fitful glow seemed to mimic the illumination of the rush-lights. In a moment Kane heard an agonised yell. A raider threw open the door of the tavern, and Kane saw the triumph of evil.
Two men lay screaming in the mud on the far side of the square, in a sunless daylight as grey as the driving rain. Each man was bound to a cross by his hands and feet, and raiders were nailing the hands to the wood. At every hammer-blow the fingers of the nailed hand tried convulsively to form a fist and then recoiled, falling back to await the next stroke. The man on the left strained to raise his torso as if he could somehow heave himself free, but was able only to lift his head. Around him the market stalls were ablaze, and the light played on his bearded face. He was Telford’s companion Garrick. “Mercy,” he pleaded.
The raider who was attending to him gave no sign of hearing him. A last blow of the hammer drove the nail flush with Garrick’s palm, and then the raider stepped over the pinioned body to deal with the other hand. The man on the second cross seemed to have passed beyond words to screams as much of disbelief as pain, but his cries had no effect on his torturer. As two raiders dragged Kane on his knees across the tavern he saw that the second victim was the stable-master who had attempted to enlist him in the rebellion. Surely Kane was not responsible for the plight of either man, but he was overwhelmed by dull anger at their helplessness and his. His beaten body was as ineffectual as his soul. He was no more capable of rescuing the men than he had been of protecting Meredith.
The sounds of hammering ceased, but the screams were renewed as raiders hauled the crosses upright with ropes. Garrick’s pleas were wordless now, and in moments they grew hopeless. As the raiders fixed the crosses in position, Kane’s captors dragged him into the mud, and he saw a horseman watching him across the square – the masked Overlord. He spurred his horse past the crosses and, having allotted the victims an appraising glance, rode over to Kane. The raider at Kane’s back dealt his captive’s head a blow with the side of his fist to teach him deference, but the masked rider held up one gloved hand. He dismounted and fixed his gaze on Kane. Gouts of rain streamed down the leather mask but left the eyes untouched, and their blackness betrayed no emotion. When Kane responded with a stare smouldering with rage, the Overlord took him by the chin to lift his head.
His grasp was almost gentle. It seemed somehow secretive, and the leather glove felt like a chill wet substitute for flesh. Kane could not judge what it might contain in the way of a hand. He suffered its grip and met the eyes behind the mask, though he might as well have been staring into the uttermost depths of space. His own eyes had begun to sting with fatigue and the relentless downpour by the time the Overlord spoke. “Solomon Kane,” he said.
For the first time Kane heard the voice beyond the mask. It was little more than a whisper as cold and sharp as the rain. It was not just muffled by the mask; it seemed lacking in shape, close to mouthless. “Do you know me, Solomon?” it said.
The suggestion of familiarity revolted Kane. If he had not been so stunned and enfeebled he would have struggled free of the leathery grasp. “I know you for a foul servant of evil,” he said with all the force he could recover.
The head bent towards him, and Kane had a grotesque sense of having somehow disappointed his interrogator. “Malachi cannot be defeated,” the thin voice said. “Join us, Solomon.”
Kane lifted his face into the rain, and the gloved hand helped him. Kane was making sure his answer would be heard throughout the square. “Never,” he declared.
The gloved hand gripped his face, and the black gaze seemed to plumb his soul. “Join us,” his captor hissed, “and be saved.”
Kane’s answer was almost a shout. “I will have no part in your foulness.”
“Then you are lost.” As the Overlord let go of Kane, he might have been relinquishing any trace of humanity that had remained in him, hidden by the mask. “You will die here,” he said, “and then your true suffering will begin.”
He turned his back and mounted his horse as a raider stepped in front of Kane. The livid symbols on his dripping face seemed to work his mouth. “This man cannot save you,” he shouted to the townsfolk, who had been herded into a corner of the square. “He is nothing.”
Two of his fellows seized Kane by the shoulders and dragged him, still kneeling, across the square. Between the two crucified men, who had fallen silent from exhaustion or from loss of blood, a cross lay supine in the mud. Perhaps it was Kane’s destiny, which had lain in wait for him. Though he did his best to struggle, he could not prevent his captors from forcing him onto his back on the cross. A cord was passed around his torso, binding him to the central shaft so securely that the rope bruised his flesh. A raider stretched Kane’s right arm to its full length while a second man knelt on the other and stooped to Kane’s left hand. Kane clenched his fist, but the raider prised it open. He leaned his weight on the fingers and dug an iron nail into Kane’s palm, piercing skin and flesh.
The first hammer-blow drove the nail so deep that when the man released Kane’s fingers, their anguished convulsion could not dislodge it. Kane clenched his teeth to bite back a cry and glared at the man from the depths of his soul. Another stroke of the hammer sent the nail between the tendons of his hand to lodge in the cross, and a third blow pinned his hand to the wood.
Only instinct – the will to cling to life before it drained away, to prolong even the suffering that kept him alive – made Kane close his other hand. The raider levered the fingers back and thrust a nail deep into the palm. A blow of the hammer drove the nail through flesh and gristle with a crunch that seemed to resonate throughout Kane’s body, or the outrage did. Kane ground his teeth until his jaws ached, but the pain was no distraction from the blaze of agony in his hands. A final stroke crushed the palm under the metal head and flattened the tendons against the crossbeam. The raider stood back to take a moment’s pride in his work, and then the cross was hauled up from the mud.
If Kane had imagined that he had reached the peak of his torment, he was stripped of the illusion at once. The rope that bound him to the central shaft did not entirely support him, and his weight tugged at his nailed hands. His clenched jaws throbbed, and his bulging eyes wept with rain. As the square fell away beneath him, he could hardly separate the tilting of the cross from the vertigo his agony brought on. The cross wobbled vertical and then steadied in the socket that had been dug for it. Every movement shot a fresh pain through his hands, but
he managed to hold a solitary notion in his mind: his torment was not meaningless if it prevented any worse from befalling the townsfolk. His soul was lost along with Meredith, but at least he would have succeeded in leaving some good in the world.
The Overlord rode to the foot of the cross and gazed up at him. He might almost have been sharing Kane’s thoughts; certainly some preoccupation detained him while Kane drew a shuddering breath. The mask might have been displaying his inhuman disinterest as he turned his horse away, voicing his decision through the mouth of a raider. “Burn this town to ashes,” he said.
So Kane had presumed too much even now, and he was nothing after all, just as the raider had informed the townsfolk. He was incapable of helping anyone; he could only bring evil upon them. His eyes grew blurred, no less with agony than rain, as he witnessed the destruction of the town. Raiders smashed windows and threw blazing brands into every house, and some drove a wagon on fire into the stables. He was reminded of breaching the doors of the obsidian African castle. It seemed a lifetime ago – another man’s lifetime – but it was one of many stages on Kane’s journey into the embrace of evil. Soon the entire town was ablaze, and flames leapt from the upper windows, which were level with Kane’s face. He thought the flames were beckoning him to a greater fire – one that would never be extinguished. He turned his face up to the heavens, but no sign of redemption was to be found there. Just as the sun had forsaken the sky, so all light had forsaken his soul, and he could only wait for the darkness to take possession of him.
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