Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (40 page)

They heard the pilot scream and saw the thing's wings cease to work. It glided out of sight, and they heard it crash at last on the side of the hill.

"I must station flamelancers in the towers," Count Brass said. "They'll have the best chance of striking back at the ornithopters. Come, gentlemen—let's to the battle."

And as they left the castle walls and rode down to the town, they saw the huge tide of men was already washing at the walls of the town where Kamarg warriors fought desperately to drive it back.

Ornithopters, fashioned like grotesque metal birds, wheeled over the town, pouring down flame into the streets, and the air became filled with the screams of the townsfolk, the roar of flamelances, and the clash of metal against metal. Black smoke hung over AiguesMortes, and in places houses were already burning.

Hawkmoon led the charge down to the town and pushed through frightened women and children to gain the walls and join in the fight. Elsewhere were Count Brass, D'Averc, and Oladahn, helping to resist the force that tried to crush the town.

There came a desperate roar from one portion of the wall and an echoing cheer of triumph, and Hawkmoon began to run in that direction, seeing that a hole had been breached in the defenses and Dark Empire warriors, in helms of wolf and bear, were gushing through.

Hawkmoon met them, and they wavered instantly, remembering his earlier exploits. He was no longer equipped with superhuman strength, but he used the pause to cry his ancestral battleshout, "Hawkmoon!

Hawkmoon!" and leap at them, sword meeting metal, flesh, and bone and driving them back through the breach.

So they fought all day, holding the town even as their numbers rapidly dropped, and when the night fell and the Dark Empire troops withdrew. Hawkmoon knew, as they all knew, that the next morning must bring defeat.

Wearily, Hawkmoon, Count Brass, and the others led their horses back up the winding road to the castle, their hearts heavy as they thought of all the innocents slaughtered that day and of all the innocents who would be slaughtered tomorrow—if they were lucky enough to die.

Then they heard a galloping horse behind them and turned on the slope, swords ready, to see the strange figure of a tall rider coming up the hill toward the castle. He had a long helm that completely encased his face, and his armor was wrought all in jet and gold.

Hawkmoon scowled. "What does that traitorous thief want? "he said.

The Warrior in Jet and Gold pulled up his big horse nearby. His deep, vibrant voice came from within his helmet then. "Greetings, defenders of the Kamarg. I see the day goes badly for you. Baron Meliadus will defeat you tomorrow."

Hawkmoon wiped his forehead with a rag. "No need to make so much of the obvious, Warrior. What have you come to steal this time?"

"Nothing," said the warrior. "I have come to deliver something." He reached behind him and produced Hawkmoon's battered saddlebags.

Hawkmoon's spirits rose, and he leaned forward to take the saddlebags, opening one to look inside.

There, wrapped in a cloak, was the object he had been given so long ago by Rinal. It was safe. He pulled back the cloak and saw the crystal unshattered.

"But why did you take it in the first place?" he asked.

"Let us go to Castle Brass, and there I will explain all to you," said the warrior.

In the hall the warrior stood up by the fireplace while the others sat in various positions around him, listening.

"At the Mad God's castle," began the warrior, "I left you because I knew that with the aid of the Mad God's beasts you could soon be safely away from there. But I knew other hazards lay ahead for you and suspected that you might be captured. Therefore, I decided to take the object Rinal gave you and keep it safe until you should return to the Kamarg."

"And I had thought you a thief!" Hawkmoon said.

"I am sorry, Warrior."

"But what is the object?" Count Brass asked.

"An ancient machine," the Warrior said, "produced by one of the most sophisticated sciences ever to emerge on this earth."

"A weapon?" Count Brass asked.

"No. It is a device which can warp whole areas of time and space and shift them into other dimensions. While the machine exists, it can exert this power, but should it, by mischance, be destroyed, then the area it has warped falls immediately back into the time and space original to it."

"And how is it operated?" Hawkmoon asked, remembering suddenly that he had no such knowledge.

"It is difficult to explain, since you would recognize none of the words I would use," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold. "But Rinal has taught me its use, among other things, and I can work it."

"But for what purpose?" D'Averc asked. "To shift the troublesome Baron and his men to some limbo where they will not trouble us again?"

"No," said the Warrior. "I will explain"

The doors burst open, and a battered soldier rushed into the hall. "Master," he cried to Count Brass, "it is Baron Meliadus under a flag of truce. He would parley with you at the town walls."

"I have nothing to say to him," Count Brass said.

"He says that he intends to attack at night. That he can have the walls down within an hour, for he has fresh troops held back for the purpose. He says that if you deliver your daughter, Hawkmoon, D'Averc, and yourself into his hands, he will be lenient with the rest."

Count Brass thought for a moment, but Hawkmoon broke in, "It is useless to consider such a bargain, Count Brass. We both know of Meliadus's penchant for treachery. He seeks only to demoralize the folks to make his victory easier."

Count Brass sighed. "But if what he says is true, and I cannot doubt that it is, he will have the walls down shortly and we all perish."

"With honor, at least," said D'Averc.

"Aye," said Count Brass with a somewhat sardonic smile. "With honor, at least." He turned to the courier. "Tell Baron Meliadus that we still do not wish to speak with him."

The warrior bowed. "I will, my lord." He left the hall.

"We had best return to the walls," said Count Brass, rising wearily just as Yisselda entered the room.

"Ah, Father, Dorian—you are both safe."

Hawkmoon embraced her. "But now we must go back," he said softly. "Meliadus is about to launch another attack."

"Wait," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold. "I have yet to describe my plan to you."

BARON MELIADUS SMILED when he heard the courier's message.

"Very well," he said to his stewards, "let the whole town be destroyed and as many of its inhabitants taken alive to give us sport on our victory day." He turned his horse back to where his fresh troops awaited him.

"Move forward," he said, and watched as they began to flow towards the doomed town and the castle beyond.

He saw the fires on the town walls, the few soldiers waiting, knowing with certainty that they would die now. He saw the graceful outlines of the castle that had once protected the town so well, and he chuckled. There was a warmth inside him, for he had longed for this victory ever since he had been ejected from the castle some two years earlier.

Now his troops had nearly reached the walls, and he kicked his horse's flanks to make it move down so that he could see the battle better.

Then he frowned. There seemed something wrong with the light, for the outline of town and castle had apparently wavered in a most alarming fashion.

He opened his mask and rubbed at his eyes, then looked again.

The silhouette of Castle Brass and AiguesMortes seemed to glow, first pink, then pale red, then scarlet, and Baron Meliadus felt lightheaded. He licked his dry lips and feared for his sanity.

The troops had paused in their attack and muttering to themselves and backing away from the place.

The entire town and the hillside and castle it surrounded were now a flaming blue. The blue began to fade, and fading with it went Castle Brass and AiguesMortes. A wild wind blew, knocking Baron Meliadus back in his saddle.

He cried out, "Guards! What has happened?"

"The place has—has vanished, my lord," came a nervous voice.

"Vanished! Impossible. How can a whole town and a hill vanish? It is still there. They have erected some kind of screen around the place."

Baron Meliadus rode wildly down to where the town walls had been, expecting to meet a barrier, but none blocked him, and his horse trampled over only mud that looked as if it had been recently plowed.

"They have escaped me!" he howled. "But how?

What science aids them? What power can they have that is greater than mine?"

The troops had begun to turn back. Some were running. But Baron Meliadus dismounted from his horse, hands outstretched, trying to feel for the vanished town. He screamed with fury and wept with impotent rage, falling at last to his knees in the mud and shaking his fist at where Castle Brass had been.

"I will find you, Hawkmoon—and your friends. I will bring all the scientific knowledge of Granbretan to bear on this search. And I will follow you, if needs be, to whatever place you have escaped to, whether it be on this earth or beyond it, and you will know my vengeance. By the Runestaff, I swear this!"

And then he looked up as he heard the thump of a horse's hooves riding past him, thought he saw a figure flash by in armor of jet and gold, thought he heard ghostly ironic laughter, and then the rider, too had vanished.

Baron Meliadus rose up from his knees and looked around him for his horse.

"Oh, Hawkmoon," he said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, Hawkmoon, I will catch thee!"

Again he had sworn by the Runestaff, as on that fateful morning two years before. And his action had set in motion a new pattern of history. His second oath strengthened that pattern, whether it favored Meliadus or Hawkmoon, and hardened all their destinies a little more strongly.

Baron Meliadus found his horse and returned to his camp. Tomorrow he would leave for Granbretan and the labyrinth laboratories of the Order of the Snake.

Sooner or later he would be bound to find a way through to the vanished Castle Brass, he told himself.

Yisselda looked through the window in wonderment, her face alight with joy; Hawkmoon smiled down at her and hugged her to him.

Behind them, Count Brass coughed and said, "To tell you the truth, my children, I'm a little disturbed by all this—this science. Where did that fellow say we were?"

"In some other Kamarg, father," said Yisselda.

The view from the window was misty. Though the town and the hillside were solid enough, the rest was not. Beyond it they could see, as if through a blue radiance, shining lagoons and waving reeds, but they were of transformed colors, no longer of simple greens and yellows, but of all the colors of the rainbow and without the substance of the castle and its surrounds.

"He said we might explore it," said Hawkmoon.

"So it must be more tangible than it looks."

D'Averc cleared his throat. "I'll stay here and in the town, I think. What say you, Oladahn?"

Oladahn grinned. "I think so—until I'm more used to it, at least."

"Well, I'm with you," said Count Brass. He laughed. Still, we're safe, eh? And all the folk, too. We've that to be grateful for."

"Aye," said Bowgentle thoughtfully. "But we must not underestimate the scientific prowess of Granbretan. If there is a way of following us here, they will find it—be sure of that."

Hawkmoon nodded. "You are right, Bowgentle."

He pointed to Rinal's gift, which lay now in the center of the empty dining table, outlined in the strange, pale blue light that flooded through the windows.

"We must keep that in our safest vault. Remember what the warrior said—if it is destroyed, we find ourselves back again in our own space and time."

Bowgentle went over to the machine and gently picked it up. "I will see that it is safe," he said.

When he had left, Hawkmoon turned again to look through the window, fingering the Red Amulet.

"The warrior said that he would come again with a message and a mission for me," he said. "I am in no doubt now that I serve the Runestaff, and when the warrior comes, I shall have to leave Castle Brass, leave this sanctuary, and return again to the world. You must be prepared for that, Yisselda."

"Let us not speak of it now," she said, "but celebrate, instead, our marriage."

"Aye, let us do that," he said with a smile. But he could not shut entirely from his mind the knowledge that somewhere, separated from him by subtle barriers, the world still existed and was still in danger from the Dark Empire. Though he appreciated the respite, the time to spend with the woman he loved, he knew that soon he must return to that world and do battle once more with the forces of Granbretan.

But for the moment, he would be happy.

This ends the second volume in the High History of the Runestaff

WHEN THAT ASPECT of the Eternal Champion called Dorian Hawkmoon, last Duke of Koln, ripped the Red Amulet from the throat of the Mad God and made that powerful thing his own, he returned with Huillam D'Averc and Oladahn of the Mountains to the Kamarg where Count Brass, his daughter Yisselda, his friend Bowgentle the philosopher and all their people underwent siege from the hordes of the Dark Empire led by Hawkmoon's old enemy Baron Meliadus of Kroiden.