Read Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull Online
Authors: Michael Moorcock
Tags: #General, #Fantasy, #Fiction, #Fantasy Fiction, #Epic, #Hawkmoon; Dorian (Fictitious character), #Masterwork
Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull
Michael Moorcock
Fantasy Masterworks Volume 36
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Then the Earth grew old, its landscapes mellowing and showing signs of age, its ways becoming whim-sical and strange in the manner of a man in his last years.
—The High History of the Runestaff
COUNT BRASS, Lord Guardian of the Kamarg, rode out on a horned horse one morning to inspect his territories. He rode until he came to a little hill, on the top of which stood a ruin of immense age. It was the ruin of a Gothic church, and its walls of thick stone were smooth with the passing of winds and rains. Ivy clad much of it, and the ivy was of the flowering sort so that at this season purple and amber blossoms filled the dark windows, an excellent substitute for the stained glass that had once decorated them.
On his rides, Count Brass always came to the ruin. He felt a kind of fellowship with it, for, like him, it was old; like him, it had survived much turmoil, and, like him, it seemed to have been strengthened rather than weakened by the ravages of time. The hill on which the ruin stood was a waving sea of tall tough grass, moved by the wind. The hill was surrounded by the rich, seemingly infinite marshlands of the Kamarg-a lonely landscape populated by wild white bulls, herds of horned horses, and the giant scarlet flamingoes so large that they could easily lift a grown man.
The sky was a light gray, carrying rain, and from it shone sunlight of watery gold, touching the Count's armor of burnished brass and making it glow like flame. The Count wore a huge broadsword at his hip, and a plain helmet, also of brass, was on his head. His whole body was sheathed in heavy brass, and even his gloves and boots were of brass links sewn upon leather. The Count's body was broad, sturdy and tall, and he had a great, strong head on his shoulders, with a tanned face that might also have been molded of brass. From this head stared two steady eyes of golden brown. His heavy mustache was red, as was his hair. In the Kamarg, as well as beyond it, it was not unusual to hear the legend that the Count was, in fact, not a true man at all but a living statue in brass, a Titan, invincible, indestructible, immortal.
But those who knew Count Brass well enough knew that he was a man in every sense - a loyal friend, a terrible foe, given much to laughter yet capable of ferocious anger, a drinker of enormous capacity, a trencherman of not indiscriminate tastes, a wit, a swordsman and a horseman without par, a sage in the ways of men and history, a lover at once tender and savage. Count Brass, with his rolling, warm voice and his rich vitality, could not help but be a legend, for if the man was exceptional, then so were his deeds.
Count Brass stroked the head of his horse, rubbing his gauntlet between the sharp, spiral horns of the animal and looking to the south, where the sea and sky met far away. The horse grunted with pleasure, and Count Brass smiled, leaned back in his saddle, and flicked the reins to make the horse descend the hill and head along the secret marsh path that led toward the northern towers beyond the horizon.
The sky was darkening when he reached the first tower and saw its guardian, an armored silhouette against the skyline, keeping his vigil. Though no attack had been made on the Kamarg since Count Brass had come to replace the former, corrupt Lord Guardian, there was now a slight danger that roaming armies, made up of those whom the Dark Empire of the west had defeated, might wander into the domain looking for towns and villages to loot. The guardian, like all his fellows, was equipped with a flame-lance of baroque design, a sword four feet long, a tamed riding flamingo tethered to one side of the battlements, and a heliograph device to signal information to the other towers. There were other weapons in the towers, weapons the Count himself had built and in-stalled, but the guardians knew only their method of opera-tion; they had never seen them in action. Count Brass had assured them that they were more powerful than any weapons possessed even by the Dark Empire of Granbretan, and they believed him, though they were still a little wary of the strange machines.
The guardian turned as Count Brass approached the tower.
The man's face was almost hidden by his black iron helmet, which curved around his cheeks and over his nose. His body was swathed in a heavy leather cloak. He saluted, raising his arm high.
Count Brass raised his own arm. "Is all well, guardian?"
"All well, my lord." The guardian shifted his grip on his flame-lance and turned up the cowl of his cloak as the first drops of rain began to fall. "Save for the weather."
Count Brass laughed. "Wait for the mistral and then com-plain." He guided his horse away from the tower, making for the next.
