Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (37 page)

"Best get inside the tent," Hawkmoon said. "There you'll be able to take off some of the gear, at least."

D'Averc seemed unsettled, watching Hawkmoon and Oladahn prepare a cooking fire.

"What ails you, D'Averc?" Hawkmoon asked, looking up and peering through the eyeslits of his helmet. "Sit down. The food will not be long."

"I smell something wrong," D'Averc murmured. "I am not altogether happy that we are in no danger."

"Why? Do you think the Badgers suspected us?"

"Not at all." D'Averc looked across the camp.

Evening darkened the sky, and the warriors were beginning to settle down; there was less movement now. On the walls of the distant city, soldiers lined the battlements, ready to resist an army that none had resisted to date, save for the Kamarg. "Not at all,"

D'Averc repeated, half to himself, "but I would feel relieved if..."

"If what?"

"I think I will walk about the camp a little, see what gossip I can hear."

"Is that wise? Besides, if we are approached by others of the Boar Order, we'll not be able to speak the language."

"I'll not be gone long. Get into your tents as soon as you can."

Hawkmoon wanted to stop D'Averc, but he did not know how to without attracting unwanted attention. He watched D'Averc stride off through the camp.

Just then a voice said from behind them, "A nice looking piece of sausage you have there, brothers."

Hawkmoon turned. It was a warrior in the mask of the Order of the Wolf.

"Aye," said Oladahn quickly. "Aye—will you have a piece . . . brother?" He cut a slice of sausage and handed it to the man in the wolf mask. The warrior turned, lifted his mask, popped the food into his mouth, lowered his mask quickly, and turned back again.

"Thanks," he said. "I've been traveling for days on next to nothing. Our commander drives you hard. We just came in. Riding faster than a flying Frenchman." He laughed. "All the way from Provence."

"From Provence?" Hawkmoon said involuntarily.

"Aye. Been there?"

"Once or twice. Have we won the Kamarg yet?"

"As good as. Commander thinks it's a matter of days. They're virtually leaderless, running out of provisions. Those weapons they've got have killed a million of us, but they won't kill many more before we ride over them!"

"What happened to Count Brass, their leader?"

"Dead, I heard—or as good as. Their morale's getting worse every day. By the time we get back, I should think it'll be all over there. I'll be glad. I've been pitched there for months. This is the first change of scenery since we began the damned campaign. Thanks for the sausage, brothers. Good killing tomorrow! "

Hawkmoon watched the wolf warrior stamp away into the night that was now lit by a thousand camp fires. He sighed and entered the tent. "You heard that?" he asked Yisselda.

"I heard." She had removed her helmet and greaves and was combing her hair. "It seems my father still lives." She spoke in an overcontrolled tone, and Hawkmoon, even in the darkness of the tent, could see tears in her eyes.

He took her face in his hands and said, "Do not fear, Yisselda. A few days more and we shall be at his side."

"If he lives that long..."

"He awaits us. He will live."

Later Hawkmoon went outside. Oladahn sat by the dying fire, arms around his knees.

"D'Averc has been gone too long," said Oladahn.

"Aye," said Hawkmoon distantly, staring at the faraway walls of the city. "Has he come to harm? I wonder."

"Deserted us, more likely—" Oladahn broke off as several figures emerged from the shadows.

Hawkmoon saw, with sinking heart, that they were boarmasked warriors. "Into your tent, quickly," he murmured to Oladahn.

But it was too late. One of the boars was already talking to Hawkmoon, addressing him in the guttural secret tongue of the order. Hawkmoon nodded and raised a hand as if acknowledging a greeting, hoping that that was all it was, but the boar's tone became more insistent. Hawkmoon tried to enter his tent, but an arm restrained him.

Again the boar spoke to him. Hawkmoon coughed, pretending illness, pointing at his throat. But then the Board said, "I asked you, brother, if you drink with us. Take off that mask!"

Hawkmoon knew that no member of any order would demand of another that he remove his mask—unless he suspected him of wearing it illicitly. He stepped back and drew his sword.

"I regret I should not like to drink with you, brother. But I'll happily fight with you."

Oladahn sprang up beside him, his own sword ready.

"Who are you?" growled the boar. "Why wear the armor of another order? What sense does that make?"

Hawkmoon flung back his helm, revealing his pale face and the black jewel that shone there. "I am Hawkmoon," he said simply, and leaped forward into the mass of astonished warriors.

The pair took the lives of five of the Dark Empire men before the noise of the fight brought others running from all over the camp. Riders galloped up. All around him Hawkmoon was aware of shouts and the babble of voices. His arm rose and fell in the darkness of the press, but soon it was gripped by a dozen hands and he felt himself borne down. A spear haft caught him a buffet in the back of his neck, and he fell into the mud of the field.

Dazed, he was dragged upright and hauled before a tall, blackarmored figure seated on a horse some distance away from the main mass. His mask was lifted back, and he peered up at the horseman.

"Ah, this is pleasant, Duke of Koln," came the deep, musical voice from within the horseman's helm, a voice edged with evil and with malice; a voice Hawkmoon recognized dimly but could not believe in his recognition.

"My long journey has not been wasted," said the horseman, turning to his mounted companion.

"I am glad, my lord," was the reply. "I trust I am now reinstated in the eyes of the KingEmperor?"

Hawkmoon's head jerked up to look at the other man. His eyes blazed as he recognized the elaborate maskhelm of D'Averc.

Thickly, Hawkmoon cried, "So you have betrayed us? Another betrayal! Are all men traitors to Hawkmoon's cause?" He tried to break free, to grab with his hands at D'Averc, but the warriors held him back.

D'Averc laughed. "You are naive, Duke Dorian. ..." He began to cough weakly.

"Have you got the others?" the horseman asked.

"The girl and the little beastman?"

"Aye, your excellency," answered one of the men.

"Then bring them to my camp. I want to inspect them all closely. This is a very satisfying day for me."

A STORM had begun to rumble over the camp as Hawkmoon, Oladahn, and Yisselda were dragged through the mud and the filth, past the bright, curious eyes of the warriors, through the noise and confusion, to where a great banner fluttered in the newly come wind.

Lightning suddenly split a jagged gulf in the sky, and thunder growled, then exploded. More lightning came, fast on the thunder's heels, illuminating the scene before them. Hawkmoon gasped as he recognized the banner, tried to speak to Oladahn or Yisselda, but was then bundled into a large pavilion where a masked man sat on a carved chair, D'Averc standing beside him. The man in the chair wore the mask of the Order of the Wolf. The banner had proclaimed him Grand Constable of that order, one of the greatest nobles in all Granbretan, First Chieftain of the Armies of the Dark Empire under the KingEmperor Huon, a Baron of Kroiden—a man Hawkmoon thought dead, was sure he had slain him himself.

"Baron Meliadus!" he grunted. "You did not die at Hamadan."

"No, I did not die, Hawkmoon, though you wounded me sorely. I escaped that battlefield."

Hawkmoon smiled thinly. "Few of your men did. We defeated you—routed you."

Meliadus turned his ornate wolf mask and spoke to a captain who stood nearby. "Bring chains. Bring many chains, strong and of great weight. Heap them on these dogs and rivet them. I want no locks that might be picked. This time I will be sure they are brought to Granbretan."

He left his chair and descended, to peer through the eyeslits in his mask at Hawkmoon's face. "They have discussed you often at King Huon's Court, have devised such exquisite, such elaborate, such splendid punishments for you, traitor. Your dying will take a year or two, and each moment will be agony of mind, spirit, and body. All our ingenuity, Hawkmoon, we have squandered on you."

He stepped back and reached out a black gauntlet to cup Yisselda's hatetwisted face. She turned her head, eyes filled with anger and despair. "And as for you—I offered you all honors to become my wife. Now you will have no honor, but a husband I shall be to you until I tire of you or your body breaks."

The wolf head moved slowly to regard Oladahn. "And as for this Creature, unhuman, yet upstart enough to walk on two legs, he shall crawl and whine like the animal he is, be trained to behave like a proper beast, ..."

Oladahn spat at the jeweled mask. "I'll have an excellent model in you," he said.

Meliadus whirled, cloak swirling, and limped heavily back to his chair.

"I'll save all until we've presented ourselves at the throne globe," Meliadus said, his voice slightly unsteady. "I've been patient and will remain so for a few more days. We move off at first light, returning to Granbretan. But we shall take a slight detour in order that you may witness the final destruction of the Kamarg. I have been there for a month, you know, and watched its men die daily, watched the towers fall, one by one.There are not many left. I have told them to hold off the last assault until I return. I thought you would like to see your homeland . . . raped." He laughed, putting his grotesquely masked head on one side to look at them again. "Ah! Here are the chains."

Members of the Order of the Badger were coming in, bearing huge iron chains, a brazier, hammers, and rivets.

Hawkmoon, Yisselda, and Oladahn struggled as the badgers bound them, but soon they were forced down to the floor by the weight of the iron links.

Then the redhot rivet nails were hammered home, and Hawkmoon knew that no human being could possibly hope to escape such bonds.

Baron Meliadus came to look down at him when the work was done. "We'll journey by land to the Kamarg and from there to Bordeaux, where a ship will be waiting for us. I regret I cannot offer you a flying machine—we are using most of them to level the Kamarg."

Hawkmoon closed his eyes; the only gesture he could make to display his contempt for his captor.

Bundled into an open wagon the next morning, the three were given no food before Baron Meliadus's heavily guarded caravan set off. From time to time Hawkmoon caught a glimpse of his enemy, riding near the head of the column with Sir Huillam d'Averc by his side.

The weather was still stormy and oppressive, and a few heavy drops of rain splashed on Hawkmoon's face and fell into his eyes. He was so heavily bound that he could barely shake his head to rid it of the moisture.

The wagon bumped and jerked away, and in the distance the Dark Empire troops were marching against the city.

It seemed to Hawkmoon that he had been betrayed on all sides. He had trusted the Warrior in Jet and Gold and had had his saddlebags stolen; he had trusted D'Averc and found himself delivered into the hands of Baron Meliadus. Now he sighed, not sure that even Oladahn would not betray him, given the opportunity....

He found himself slipping almost comfortably into the mood that had possessed him months before after his defeat and capture by Granbretan when he had led an army against Baron Meliadus in Germany. His face became frozen, his eyes dull, and he ceased to think.

Sometimes Yisselda would speak and he would answer with an effort, having no words of comfort because he knew that there were none that would convince her. Sometimes Oladahn would try to make a cheerful comment, but the others did not reply, and eventually he, too, lapsed into silence. Only when, from time to time, food was pushed into their mouths did they show any signs of life.

So the days passed as the caravan trundled southward towards the Kamarg.

They had all anticipated this homecoming for months, but now they looked forward to it without joy. Hawkmoon knew he had failed in his chosen mission, failed to save the Kamarg, and he was full of selfcontempt.

Soon they were passing through Italia, and Baron Meliadus called out one day, "The Kamarg we'll reach before a couple of nights have passed. We are just crossing the border into France!" And he laughed.

"SIT THEM UP," said Baron Meliadus, "so they can see."

On horseback, he leaned over to look into the wagon. "Get them up straight," he told his sweating me who were wrestling with the three bodies still clad in armor and made heavier by the great weight of chains about them. "They do not look well," he added. "And I thought them such hardy spirits!"

D'Averc rode up beside Baron Meliadus, coughing, hunched a little in his saddle. "And you're still in poor condition, D'Averc. Did not my apothecary mix you the medicine you asked for?"

"He did, my lord Baron," D'Averc said weakly, "but it does me little good."

"It should have done, the mixture of herbs you had him put in it." Meliadus returned his attention to the three prisoners. "See, we have stopped on this hill so that you could look at your homeland."

Hawkmoon blinked in the midday sunlight, recognizing the marshlands of his beloved Kamarg stretching and shining away to the horizon.

But closer he saw the great, somber watchtowers of the Kamarg, the strength of the Kamarg with their strange weapons of incredible power, whose secrets were known only to Count Brass. And camped near them, a black mass of men, like so many million ants ready to sweep in, were the gathered forces of the Dark Empire.

"Oh!" sobbed Yisselda. "They can never withstand so many!"

"An intelligent estimate, my dear,'' said Baron Meliadus. "You are quite right."

He and his party had come to a rest on the slopes of a hill that led gradually down to the plain where the troops of Granbretan massed. Hawkmoon could see infantry, cavalry, engineers, rank upon rank of them;