Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand

by Toby Venables

  He shuddered to think of that episode in Ireland. John had been no more than eighteen, and many of his closest friends were still young too, egging each other on in their mischief. The Irish chieftains had welcomed them solemnly, warily. In return, John and his entourage had laughed at them, poking fun at their long beards. At the Prince’s instigation, Sir John de Rosseley had tugged one of them to see if it was real.

  Though de Mortville would like to think he had been above it all, he had laughed along just as enthusiastically. What idiots they had been. The older members of the party – Bardulf, Fitz Warren and the others – had maintained some decorum, but the rest were simply too young, too foolish. They had treated it like a game. No wonder the expedition had been such a disaster.

  WITHIN SECONDS, CONAN was back, panting, stick in his jaws. De Mortville fussed him about the ears, grabbed hold of the stick, and for a moment they tussled over ownership of it. That was all part of the game. Conan soon gave it up, and leapt back, looking up at his master in eager anticipation, urging him to throw again.

  De Mortville tossed it further and higher this time. Conan disappeared entirely into the fog as De Mortville marched off after him.

  This time, Conan dropped the stick at his master’s feet with thick, panting breaths. That earned him a reward of a scrap of dried beef. De Mortville glanced back towards Clairmont. Only the gatehouse was visible, rising like a grey ghost in the murk.

  He turned back to the path, and his dog. There were places off it that he did not want Conan to go – where he would go, if there was a stick to be fetched. Some of these spots had mires so treacherous they would suck man or beast into them in an instant. But de Mortville had learned their location over the years. Even now, in thick fog, he knew precisely where to throw.

  Time to give Conan a good run. De Mortville drew back his arm and hurled the stick with all his might. It was swallowed by fog.

  Then came the sound. An impossible sound. It was the sound of the stick hitting something made of metal.

  It rang out, oddly dulled by the thick air. De Mortville stopped dead, utterly baffled. He knew every inch of this path. Directly ahead was nothing more solid than peaty earth, nothing taller than a blade of grass for a quarter mile or more. No trees. Certainly no rocks. Just flat earth.

  Then he noticed the dog.

  Conan had not moved an inch. Instead, he was staring into the blank distance, somehow transfixed, his head held low. As de Mortville looked at him, the dog suddenly hunched, his hackles up, a low growling moan in his throat.

  “Is someone there?” called de Mortville.

  Nothing.

  “Gamel?” he called, for some reason thinking it might be the most senior of his farmers, returned to speak with him – even though their business had been concluded earlier that day.

  There was another sound – one he could not identify – and Conan broke into a fit of barking that ended in one long, continuous howl.

  “If you have business, then announce yourself,” shouted de Mortville, his tone more aggressive. “Or I’ll set the dog on you!”

  Conan snarled and snapped like a wild thing, as if on cue, but did not advance.

  Then, from somewhere in the fog, came the distant clank of metal.

  It meant nothing to de Mortville – had no connection with anything that made any sense. But somehow, the sound filled him with unutterable dread.

  He did not hesitate. With a whistle, he sent Conan back into the gloom, to tackle the intruder. It was a whistle that meant fetch what’s making the noise. He used it when they were hunting, and Conan always knew what he intended. The dog would try to bring down whatever was out there, and would try to bring it back. Once, with a determination one saw only in dogs, he’d dragged a deer back to his master.

  There was a moment of silence. Then a yelp. A heavy thud that shook the ground beneath de Mortville’s feet. Then silence again. De Mortville stood, only dimly aware that he was holding his breath, listening for the sounds of the dog – of movement, of dragging. Nothing in the eerie quiet but the lonely, distant cry of a crane.

  Then, out of the murk, arcing through the air, something came spinning. For a confused moment, his sense of perspective baffled by the fog, he thought it was the stick. But it was big, and left a scarlet trail in its wake.

  It thudded heavily on the wet earth at de Mortville’s feet. The lifeless form had had its head smashed so completely it was no longer even recognisable as a dog.

  De Mortville felt icy beads of sweat trickle from under his arms. He staggered backwards, in a state of shock. His hand went to his belt – an old impulse – but no sword was there. He never wore a sword around his own home.

  Then came the other sound. A rhythmic pounding, like a heartbeat. He felt it shudder in the ground beneath him, as if throbbing in the earth itself. Heavy footfalls. And with them, something bright and sharp – the tuneless clang of metal.

  De Mortville turned and ran for the gate as fast as he knew how, the sound thumping closer behind him. He yelled to the guards in the gatehouse; aware, even as he did, that his words were barely making sense. Heads appeared on the battlement. Two silhouetted figures appeared in the open doorway.

  “Close the gate!” called de Mortville as his plunging feet crunched along the stone bridge. Two faces – one the captain of his guard – stared in startled paralysis. “Close it!”

  They began to do so even before he reached the gatehouse. He flung himself through the narrowing gap and put his shoulder to the wood until the doors crashed shut and the bar was dropped into place. De Mortville and his captain stood in the dark space beneath the gatehouse and stared at each other in mute incomprehension.

  Then a great impact shook the doors.

  It was as if they had been hit by a charging bull. In a moment of confusion, de Mortville wondered if it could be exactly that. But it was no bull that had slaughtered his dog – and no bull that clanked like metal.

  Again it struck. The entire gatehouse shuddered. Dust and grit rained down from above. The guards began to back away. The captain thrust a sword into de Mortville’s hand. He was grateful for that. Its solid weight focused his mind.

  “What is it?” he called up to the rampart. “Can you see it?” He tried to keep the fear out of his voice. But no reply came. He glanced at his captain again – then a third crash almost shook the doors off their black iron hinges.

  De Mortville hurried into the courtyard and looked up to the rampart.

  “Someone with eyes, tell me,” he shouted, his voice charged with anger this time. “What the hell is it?”

  The guard looked back down at him, his face pale. “It... It’s...” he said, shaking his head, as if struggling to make sense of what he had seen.

  Before either could speak further, there was a great whoosh. The fog about the gatehouse flickered yellow. Through the cracks in the gate, against the darkening Fen, de Mortville saw the bright glow of flames.

  “Fire!” yelled the guard upon the battlement. Men ran across the courtyard, fetching pails, scaling the steps two at a time to hurl water down upon the burning gate.

  There were chutes either side of the gatehouse to allow the gates to be doused with water from the inside if attacked. They had never been used. Until today, de Mortville had no expectation that they ever would. He heard the hiss and splatter of the water, saw it seeping in under the gates. But no matter how much his men flung down, the flames would not die. De Mortville felt his chest tighten. The whole gatehouse was a framework of wood and plaster. If the flames were allowed to spread, it would be utterly destroyed.

  They would have to open the gates.

  A dozen armed men had now mustered, and stood before the gate in tight formation, forming a shield between it and their master. They were prepared to make a stand. But against what?

  “Lookout?” called de Mortville. “Tell me what you see.”

  The guard on the battlement disappeared, then appeared again. “Nothing,” he s
aid, bemused. “It’s gone.”

  De Mortville wasted no time. “Open them. Quickly.”

  The porter and gatehouse guards flung the heavy bar upon the ground and heaved the doors inwards. The space beneath the gatehouse filled with thick smoke. Servants of all kinds – every one of them now carrying some vessel – dashed forward in ones and twos and hurled it over the already blackened wood of the castle doors, then beat a hasty retreat, coughing and spluttering as they went. De Mortville and his men stood firm, squinting into the blank fog framed by the gateway, weapons drawn and raised, ready to face whatever might try to follow.

  The flames were stubborn. They seemed alive – as if with evil intent. They leapt where one would not expect. Sometimes they burned blue. On several occasions, de Mortville could swear, he saw some portion of the wood completely extinguished, only for the flames to break out upon it yet again. But pail after pail, pot after pot of water was hurled at it until finally, the task was achieved. They stood, surrounded by smoke, the entrance – now a great pool – trodden to black mud. A few smiled as they panted and coughed, hands upon their knees. One man laughed with relief, believing the emergency past.

  Then a great, dark shape charged out of the mist.

  It was a beast that de Mortville saw thundering across the bridge towards him. Seven feet tall, as wide as two men at the shoulder. Its body glinted with blue-black scales, parts of it splashed with red. Its head bore outlandish, reptilian spikes and fins, its wide mouth grinning with rows of white teeth, its eyes dead black pits.

  It was on the knot of servants about the gate before they knew what had happened. They were smashed aside like straw dolls. Bones cracked. Teeth shattered. Air wheezed out of crushed ribs as gore splattered against wood and plaster. A lucky few fled, scrambling and splashing through the mud, their eyes wild.

  There had been no time to close the still-smoking gates.

  DE MORTVILLE AND his men had fallen back into the courtyard to form a defensive line. Once past the gatehouse, the men on the ramparts, too, would have clear shots. As it pounded towards him, he heard the thunk of crossbows. Two, three, four. One bolt glanced off its target and flew high over the battlement. Another shattered to splinters against the beast. But the beast kept coming.

  The men braced themselves. They would give the bastard a fight, if that was what he wanted.

  But there was no fight. Before any could land a blow, a plume of flame leapt from the beast’s left hand. Men were set afire. There were screams. The smell of burning flesh. De Mortville sensed hysteria spreading behind him. He saw his captain’s skull crushed and another man knocked clear off his feet, his bloodied jaw hanging. From the beast’s right hand, de Mortville now realised, swung a hammer the size of a small anvil.

  Nothing would stop it. In the split second before it was on him, De Mortville turned and fled, stumbling, the clanking giant crashing towards him, closing on him. A crossbow bolt zipped past his head. In some distant part of his mind he was aware that his right foot was burning. The flames roared rhythmically as he ran. Then the leg crumpled and he landed hard, his sword spinning from his hand, the wind knocked out of his lungs. He lay, half numb, dimly aware that those who should protect him were now fleeing in terror.

  The pounding footfalls had stopped. De Mortville turned, and stared up at the thing towering over him. The contorted, reptilian face cocked to one side, and seemed to regard him for a moment. Then, with the matter-of-factness of a farrier about to strike a nail, it slowly raised its huge, iron hammer. De Mortville lifted an arm across his face – a futile gesture.

  Then black oblivion fell.

  XV

  Walmesforde

  17 May, 1193

  THEY HAD JUST entered Walmesford when the news came from Clairmont. Galfrid’s bright mood had descended into a sulk, precipitated by the rattling of a loose shoe upon Mare’s hoof and another of Gisburne’s unexplained diversions off the road. Galfrid had pointedly not mentioned it this time – but as they had come to a halt and dismounted by the inn, John, still testy, had creased his brow and quizzed Gisburne directly about his “private little moments.” Gisburne said simply that he had need to keep a check on something. John, dissatisfied with the vagueness of “something,” had been about to challenge him further when his words were cut off by a shrill cry in a cracked voice.

  “Murder!”

  That they were outside the alehouse when the young squire galloped in was pure chance – another few minutes, and they might have been gone. But the instant Gisburne saw him, he sensed – whether the squire knew it or not – that the message was meant for them.

  The rider was unkempt, his clothes half awry, no hat upon his head. His horse had been pushed so hard it was close to collapse, and even when permitted to stop continued to skip about in state of nervous agitation beyond exhaustion. The squire – young and evidently well-to-do, but apparently near out of his mind with unbearable emotion – slithered from his saddle, his knees buckling as his feet met solid earth. His face was red and swollen, his eyes wide and raw. Gisburne had seen that look before – in battle, or soon after. Those who wore it were destined not to last.

  All those gathered there – a rag-tag of travellers – looked up. The natural assumption was that he had been accosted upon his journey – robbed, perhaps injured. A stranger – a dusty wagoner in a wide hat, about to set out in the very direction from which the young squire had come – stepped forward to offer help. Another, old and bearded – a local man, Gisburne thought – took a cup of ale to the lad. He drank half of it down, his hands shaking; the other half cascaded down his front. Paying it no heed, the squire dropped the cup into the dirt, covered his face with quivering fingers and gave such a cry of anguish that Gisburne felt the hairs on his neck bristle.

  Then, in fragmentary phrases, he jabbered of some outlandish horror at Clairmont Castle, and Gisburne knew for certain that the Red Hand had not been idle.

  “GOD IN HEAVEN,” said John. He paled at the boy’s words. “Clairmont... That’s Hugh de Mortville. He was with me in Ire –”

  “Was with you in old days, yes,” interrupted Gisburne. His eyes flicked around, checking for any who might have been listening. But all were absorbed by the new arrival. John flushed, and bit his tongue.

  “Three makes it no longer a coincidence,” muttered Galfrid.

  Gisburne pushed forward, Galfrid and John close behind. Men stood back to let them pass, some looking on resentfully. The squire gazed up at the approaching figure with eyes that were suddenly filled with longing – desperate for someone, anyone, to take control of his world, and to make sense of it again.

  Gisburne took the squire by the shoulder. “When?” he demanded.

  “Last night,” panted the boy.

  “Were you sent?” said Gisburne. The boy sobbed, and looked as if trying to focus his eyes on some invisible thing – as if the memory were so vivid he could not see past it to the world in front of him. He was losing the lad.

  “Sent, boy...” Gisburne shook him hard. The waggoner grunted in disapproval. Gisburne ignored him. “Were you sent?”

  The boy started, and looked him in the eye. “No... No... I... I... I mean...”

  “You ran away...” said Galfrid in disgust. “What use are vows to serve your lord and to never turn your back on an enemy when – ?”

  Gisburne raised a hand to silence him. “You saw it? The thing that attacked him?”

  “Yes,” whined the boy.

  “But what did you see? Tell me exactly.”

  “A beast... It was horrible. Horrible!”

  “What was? What was horrible?”

  The boy looked suddenly distraught. “The dog... Oh, God, the dog...”

  Galfrid and John exchanged looks of puzzled astonishment.

  “Dog? Your master, boy – what of your master?”

  But with that, the boy broke down, his face buried in his hands. Gisburne stood back; the squire would be of no more use.

  T
o his surprise, the Prince stepped forward to take his place, a leather flask in his hands. Gisburne caught his arm. John stopped, and looked him in the eye. “Last night I dreamt I met death upon the road. A dead man, but walking. It was just like this.”

  “Are you surprised, with all that’s going on?” said Gisburne dismissively. “It’s not some premonition. It’s a night in the woods. Those ghost stories. That cursed gallows tree.”

  “Maybe,” said John. Then he knelt, and offered the boy wine from his flask.

  Gisburne stood back and left him to it. He regretted his choice of word; he did not believe in curses. Not in ghosts or prophecies. Not any more. But every once in a while he sensed that the child who had believed was still there. There was, he knew, only one way to beat these wild notions into submission. “Clairmont,” he said, turning to Galfrid. “Do you know it?”

  “Of it,” said Galfrid.

  “I’ve been there,” said John, without looking up.

  “Is it easy to find?”

  “If you know the way. It’s out in the marshes, but find the right road and it takes you to the door.”

  “How far?”

  John shrugged. “Half a day, at a push.”

  Gisburne withdrew and moved away from the huddle, deep in thought. John, meanwhile, attempted to calm their unexpected guest. The boy drank eagerly. He would never know that he had been comforted by the heir to the English throne.