"But Bowgentle," Hawkmoon said, "you are not a warrior. You comfort us, sustain us with your kindness and your wisdom. All these things give us strength and are as useful as any comrade in arms."
"Aye—but this fight will be the last fight, win or lose,"
Bowgentle reminded him. "If you do not return, then you'll have no need of wisdom—and if you do return, you'll have but little inclination to seek my advice, for you'll be the men who broke the Dark Empire. So I will take up a blade. One of yonder mirror helms will fit me, I know. The one with the black crest"
He stood aside as Bowgentle went to the helm and picked it up. Slowly he lowered it over his head. It fitted perfectly. Reflected in the helm they could see what Bowgentle saw—their own faces at once admiring and grim.
D'Averc was the first to step forward with his hand outstretched. "Very well, Bowgentle. It will be a pleasure to ride with someone of sophisticated wit for a change!"
Hawkmoon frowned. "It is agreed. If you wish to, Bowgentle, we shall all be happier for your riding with us. But who is the other helm for, I wonder?"
"It is for me."
The voice was low, firm, sweet. Hawkmoon turned slowly to stare at his wife.
"No, it is not for you, Yisselda..."
"How can you be sure?"
"Well. ..."
"Look at it—the helm with the white crest. Is it not smaller than the others. Suitable for a boy—or a woman."
"Aye," Hawkmoon answered reluctantly.
"And am I not Count Brass's daughter?"
"You are."
"And cannot I ride as well as any of you?"
"You can."
"And did I not fight in the bullring as a girl—and win honour there? And did I not train with the guardians of the Kamarg in the arts of the axe, the sword and the Same lance? Father?"
"It is true, she was proficient in all these arts," Count Brass said soberly. "But proficiency is not all that is required of a warrior..."
"Am I not strong?"
"Aye—for a woman . . ." answered the Lord of Castle Brass. "Soft and as strong as silk, I believe a local poet said," he glanced sardonically at Bowgentle, who blushed.
"Is it stamina, then, that I lack?" Yisselda asked, her eyes flashing with a mixture of defiance and humour.
"No—you have more than enough stamina," Hawkmoon said.
"Courage? Do I lack courage?"
"There is none more courageous than you, my child," Count Brass agreed.
"Then what quality do I lack that a warrior has?"
Hawkmoon shrugged his shoulders. "None, Yisselda—save that you are a woman and—and..."
"And women do not fight. They merely remain at the fireside to mourn their lost kin, is that it?"
"Or welcome them back..."
"Or welcome them back. Well, I have no patience with that scheme of things. Why should I remain behind at Castle Brass. Who will protect me?"
"We will leave guards."
"A few guards—guards you will need in your battle.
You know very well that you will want every man with you."
"Aye, that's true," Hawkmoon said. "But there is one other factor, Yisselda. Do you forget that you carry our child?"
"I do not forget. I carry our child. Aye, and I'll carry it into battle—for if we are defeated there will be nothing for it to inherit save disaster—and if we win then it will know the thrill of victory even before it comes into the world. But if we are all slain—then we shall die together. I'll not be Hawkmoon's widow and I'll not bear Hawkmoon's orphan. I will not be safe at Castle Brass alone, Dorian, I'll ride with you." She went to the mirror helm with the white crest and she picked it up. She drew it over her head and spread her soft arms triumphantly.
"See—it fits perfectly. It was plainly made for me. We will ride together, the six of us, and lead the Kamargians against the massed might of the Dark Empire—five heroes—and, I hope, one heroine!"
"So be it," murmured Hawkmoon moving forward to embrace his wife. "So be it"
Chapter Six - A New Ally
THE WOLVES AND the Vultures had fought their way back from the Continent and were now pouring into Londra. Coming into Londra, too, were the Flies, the Rats, the Goats and the Hounds and all the other bloodthirsty beasts of Granbretan.
From a high tower, now his command headquarters, Meliadus of Kroiden watched them arrive, flooding in by every gate and battling as they came. One group puzzled him and he strained his eyes to see it better. It was a large detachment of troops riding under a black and white striped banner signifying neutrality. The banner carried beside it now became easier to see.
Meliadus frowned.
The banner was that of Adaz Promp, Grand Constable of the Order of the Hound. Did the neutral flag mean that he had not yet decided on whose side to fight? Or did it mean he planned a complicated trick?
Meliadus rubbed his lips thoughtfully. With Adaz Promp on his side he could begin an assault on the palace itself. He reached for his wolf helm and stroked the metal head.
For the past few days as the battle for Londra had reached deadlock Meliadus had become pensive—the more so because he did not know if Taragorm's device had succeeded and brought Castle Brass back to its own dimension. His earlier good humour, based on his success in the initial fighting, had been replaced by a nervousness resulting from several uncertainties.
The door opened. Automatically Meliadus reached for his helm, donning it as he turned.
"Ah, it's you, Flana. What do you want?"
"Taragorm is here."
"Taragorm, eh? Has he something positive to tell me."
The clock mask appeared behind Flana's heron mask.
"I had hoped that you would have some positive news, brother," Taragorm said acidly. "After all, we have made no great gains for the past few days."
"The reinforcements are arriving," Meliadus said pet-ulantly, waving his gauntletted hand at the window.
"Wolves and Vultures pouring in—and even some Ferrets."
"Aye—reinforcements for Huon, too—and seemingly in larger numbers than ours."
"Kalan should have his new weapons ready soon,"
Meliadus said defensively. "They will give us an advantage."
"If they work." Taragorm spoke sardonically. "I am beginning to wonder if I have not made a mistake, joining you. You struck too impetuously..."
"Brother! We must not quarrel, or we're finished.
There is no time now!"
"Aye, that I'll grant you. If Huon wins we're all doomed."
"Huon will not win."
"We need a million men to attack the palace and succeed."
"We'll find a million men. If only we can make a little headway, others will come over to our side."
Taragorm ignored this statement and turned instead to Flana. "It is a shame, Flana. You would have made a beautiful queen ..."
"She will still make a queen," Meliadus said savagely, restraining himself from striking Taragorm. "Your pessimism amounts to treachery, Taragorm!"
"And will you slay me for my treachery, brother?
With all my knowledge. Only I know all the secrets of Time."
Meliadus shrugged. "Of course I will not slay you. Let us cease this arguing and concentrate instead on winning the palace."
Bored by the quarrel, Flana left the room.
"I must see Kalan," Meliadus said. "He has suffered a setback, having to remove all his equipment to a new site so hastily. Come, Taragorm, we'll visit him together."
They summoned their litters, climbed in and had their slaves carry them through the dimly lit corridors of the tower, down twisting ramps to the rooms Kalan had adapted as laboratories. A door opened and foul-smelling heat struck their bodies. Meliadus could feel it through his mask. He coughed as he left his litter and walked into the chamber where Kalan stood, his scrawny body naked to the waist and only his mask on his head, supervising the serpent-masked scientists who toiled for him.
Kalan gr
eeted them impatiently. "What do you want?
I have no time for conversation!"
"We wondered what progress you were making, Baron." Meliadus yelled over the boiling sound.
"Good progress, I hope. The facilities are ridiculously primitive. The weapon is almost ready."
Taragorm glanced at the tangle of tubes and wires from which all the noise and heat and stink was issuing.
"That's a weapon?"
"It will be, it will be."
"What will it do?"
"Bring me men to mount it on our roof and I'll show you in a few hours."
Meliadus nodded. "Very well. You realise what depends on your success, Kalan?"
"Aye, that I do. I'm beginning to curse myself for joining you, Meliadus, but I'm in with you now and can only continue. Please leave—I'll send word when the weapon's ready."
Meliadus and Taragorm walked back through the corridors, their litters following behind.
"I hope Kalan has not lost all sanity," Taragorm said icily. "For if he has, that thing might destroy us."
"Or destroy nothing," Meliadus said gloomily.
"Now who is the pessimist, brother?"
Returning to his apartments, Meliadus discovered that he had a visitor. A fat visitor clad in gaudy silk-covered armour with a brightly painted helm representing a savage and grinning hound.
"Baron Adaz Promp," said Flana Mikosevaar, emerging from another room. "He arrived shortly after you left, Meliadus."
"Baron," Meliadus said, bowing formally. "I am honoured."
Adaz Promp's smooth tones came from the helm.
"What are the issues, Meliadus? What are the goals?"
"The issues—our plans of conquest. The goals—to put a more rational monarch on the throne of Granbretan.
One who will respect the advice of experienced warriors such as ourselves."
"Respect your advice, you mean!" Promp chuckled.
"Well, I have to admit that I thought you insane, my lord, not Huon. Your pursuing this wild vendetta against Hawkmoon and Castle Brass, for instance. I suspected that it was motivated only by your private lust and vengeance."
"You no longer believe that?"
"I do not care. I am beginning to share your opinion that they represent the greatest danger to Granbretan and that they should be exterminated before we think of anything else."
"Why have you changed your mind, Adaz?" Meliadus leaned forward eagerly. "Why? You have some evidence not known to me?"
"More a suspicion or two," Adaz Promp said slowly, fatly. "A hint of this, a hint of that."
"What sort of hints?"
"A ship we encountered and boarded in the northern seas as we were returning from Scandia to answer our emperor's call. A rumour from France. Nothing more."
"What of the ship? What ship was it?"
"One like those anchored on the river, only much larger—with the strange contraption on its arse and no sails. It was battered, drifting and had two men aboard, both wounded. They died before we could transfer them to our own vessel."
"Shenegar Trott's ship. From Amarehk."
"Aye—that's what they told us."
"But what has it to do with Hawkmoon?"
"It appears they met Hawkmoon in Amarehk. It seems they received their wounds from Hawkmoon in some bloody battle in a city called Dnark. According to these men—and they were raving—the issue of the dispute was the Runestaff itself."
"And Hawkmoon won the dispute."
"Indeed he did. There were two thousand of them, we were told—Trott's men, that is—and only four, including Hawkmoon, against them."
"And Hawkmoon won!"
"Aye—aided by supernatural warriors according to he who lived long enough to babble the tale. It all sounds like truth mixed with fantasy, but it is plain that Hawkmoon defeated a force much larger than his own and that he personally slew Shenegar Trott. It does seem, also, that he has certain scientific powers at his disposal of which we know little. This is confirmed by the manner in which they managed to escape from us the last time. Which brings me to my second tale, picked up from one of your own Wolves as we marched to Londra."
"What's that?"
"He had heard that Castle Brass has reappeared, that Hawkmoon and the rest took a town to the north of the Kamarg and destroyed every man of ours occupying it. It's a rumour and hard to believe. Where could Hawkmoon have raised an army at such short notice?"
"Such rumours are common in times of war," Meliadus mused, "but it is possible. You believe Hawkmoon a larger threat than Huon thought?"
"It's a guess—but I feel it's an informed one. I'm motivated by other considerations, Meliadus. I think that the sooner we end this fight the better, for if Hawkmoon has an army—recruited, perhaps, in Amarehk—then the sooner we should clear it up. I'm with you, Meliadus. I can put half a million Hounds at your disposal within the next day."
"Have you enough now to take the palace with those that I command?"
"Possibly, with artillery cover."
"That you shall have."
Meliadus pumped Promp's hand. "Oh, Baron Adaz, I believe we shall have victory by the morrow!"
"But how many of us will be alive to see it, I wonder,"
Promp said. "To take the palace will cost a few thousand lives—perhaps even a few hundred thousand."
"It will be worth it, Baron. Believe me."
Meliadus's spirits were rising at the prospect of victory over Huon, but mainly he gloated that he might soon have Hawkmoon in his power again—particularly if Kalan could really find a way of reactivating the Black Jewel as he had promised he would.
Chapter Seven - The Battle for Huon's Palace
MELIADUS WATCHED THEM mount the contraption on the roof of his headquarters. They were high above the streets and close to the palace where the fighting raged.
Promp had not yet brought up his Hounds but was waiting to see what Kalan's machine would do before he made an open attack on the palace gates. The huge building seemed capable of withstanding any attack—it looked as if it could survive the end of the world. It rose, tier upon magnificent tier, into the lowering sky.
Flanked by four vast towers glowing with a peculiar golden light, encrusted with grotesque bas-reliefs depicting Granbretan's ancient glory, shining with a million clashing colours, protected by gigantic gates of steel thirty foot thick, the palace appeared to look down con-temptuously at the embattled factions.
Even Meliadus felt momentary doubt as he stared at it, then returned his attention to Kalan's weapon. From the mass of wires and tubes projected a great funnel, like the bell of a monstrous trumpet and this was turned toward the palace walls crowded with hosts of soldiers, primarily of the Orders of the Mantis, the Pig and the Fly. Outside the city the ranks of other Orders were preparing to assault Meliadus's forces from the rear and he knew the time element was crucial, that if he won a victory at the palace gates others would come over to his side.
"It is ready," Kalan told him.
"Then use it," Meliadus growled. "Use it on the troops manning the walls."
Kalan nodded and his Serpents trained the weapon.
Kalan stepped forward and seized a great lever. He turned his masked face to the lurid skies as if in prayer, then he pulled the lever down.
The machine trembled. Steam rose from it. It rumbled and quivered and roared and from the trumpet grew a gigantic, pulsing green bubble that gave off intense heat. The thing broke loose from the muzzle of the weapon and began to move slowly down towards the walls.
Fascinated, Meliadus watched it drift, watched it reach the wall and settle upon a score of warriors. With satisfaction he heard their screams break off as they writhed in the hot, green stuff and then vanished completely. The ball of green heat began to roll along the wall, gobbling its human prey until suddenly it burst and green liquid boiled down the sides of the wall in viscous streamers.
"It has broken. It does not work!" Meliadus yelled in rage.
"Patien
ce, Meliadus," Kalan shouted. His men were repositioning the weapon by a few degrees. "Watch!"
Again he pulled down the lever, again the machine shook and hissed and slowly another gigantic green bubble formed at its snout. The bubble drifted to the wall, rolled over another group of men and rolled again.
This one rolled longer until there was hardly a warrior left on the wall when it eventually burst.
"Now we send them over the wall," Kalan chuckled and pulled the lever once more. This time he did not wait. As one boiling green bubble left the muzzle, he would bring another into being until at least a score of the things had drifted over the walls and into the courtyard beyond. He worked furiously, totally absorbed in his work, as the machine shuddered and hissed and threw off almost unbearable heat.
"That mixture will corrode anything!" Kalan yelled excitedly. "Anything!" He paused for a moment to point. "Look what it is doing to the walls!"
Sure enough the viscous stuff was eating its way into the stone. Huge pieces of highly decorated rock fell into the street below, forcing the attackers to back off. The mixture ate through the stone as boiling oil might eat through ice, leaving huge jagged gaps in the defences.
"But how will our men get through?" Meliadus complained. "That stuff will not care what it eats!"
"Have no fear," Kalan chuckled. "The mixture only has a potency of a few minutes." Again he pulled the lever, sending another huge green bubble of heat over the wall. As he did so, a whole section of the wall near the gates collapsed completely and when the smoke from the rubble cleared, Meliadus could see that there was now a way through. He was elated.
A sudden whine now came from Kalan's machine and Kalan began to fiddle with the improved controls-leaping about from part to part giving hasty directions to his men.
Taragorm emerged on the roof and saluted Meliadus.
"I underestimated Kalan, I see." He moved towards the Serpent scientist. "Congratulations, Kalan."
Kalan was waving his arms and screaming with pleasure. "You see, Taragorm! You see! Here—why don't you try it. You merely depress this lever."
Taragorm gripped the lever in both hands, his clock mask turning to look at the wall through which it was now possible to see Huon's troops retreating into the palace itself, pursued by the rolling spheres of death.
The History of the Runestaff Page 55