Hawk the Slayer Read online

  Gradually the landscape opened out from the woodland into a sparsely treed vista. Grassy slopes led them on to a plateau strewn with boulders which, although crawling with lichen and moss, had a symmetry of shape that betokened the hand of some long-dead mason.

  Hawk and his other companions with the exception of the elf, ate while they rode. Hard-rinded cheese from the black upland goat; dry, unsalted biscuit and, when they had the chance, the tart clusters of purple berries they happened upon along the way.

  They crossed the flat table of moorland taking the better part of a day until below and ahead of them lay the Great Forest of Caddonbury and their goal—the Monastery of the Holy Word.

  The light drained from the sky and at the edge of the wood they found a narrow, gurgling brook of sweet water to slake their horses’ thirst.

  Dismounting, they stretched weary muscles. The sky had turned to frosty black velvet, clustered with sparkling points of light.

  “The stars are out,” said Gort obviously.

  Baldin, his back against a tree trunk, glanced up and nodded. “So they are,” he acquiesced mildly.

  A cold breath reached down from the infinite darkness and sidled up each man’s spine to cause a numbing shiver. They all drowsed in broken snatches, dreaming fragments of uneasy patterns and images until dawn pried their tired eyes awake.

  They had lit no fire the previous night. A spiralling coil of campfire smoke would have been a calling card to the curious. So their bones were stiff when they continued their journey, taking the better part of that day to knife through the Great Forest and reach the Monastery by nightfall.

  “Thank God you have returned safely,” welcomed Sister Monica after introductions had been made and cosseted them towards a large table. “Come and sit.” She shooed two novices towards an alcove door leading to another part of the church. “Get food and drink for our friends.”

  Crow had gathered the horses and seen them fed and rubbed down before stationing himself in the doorway to the Monastery. His diet was not that of his companions. He survived on a spartan mixture of water and special granules compounded of vegetable and mineral matter in specific quantities known only to the elfin world. Like the rest of his race, he was secretive and his kind disapproved of the open way man ate. Crow did not watch these activities so had no necessity to pass judgement. He watched and listened to things beyond human ken.

  Hawk and the others divested themselves of their heavy accoutrements while Sister Monica fretted around them impatient to ask her questions.

  “How do you propose to raise the ransom?” she was finally able to ask.

  “A day’s ride from here are men who will be only too happy to meet our needs.”

  Hawk’s words made Gort laugh heartily but perplexed Sister Monica momentarily. The humour of men was something she had never been able to understand.

  “This is good news indeed,” she went on. “Once the gold is here, our lady will be returned.”

  Hawk and Ranulf’s eyes met for a moment and the veteran’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Would it were that simple,” Hawk said carefully. “But I know Voltan as well as I know myself—” His voice faltered but only for an instant. “Let it suffice that there is no guarantee he will return the Abbess even if he is paid the ransom in full.”

  Sister Monica stopped her ears and shook her head vehemently. “No! No!” she cried. “You must not say such things. He gave his word that once the money was paid then our sister would be returned.” She swallowed hard on her anger. “What you speak of is too awful to contemplate.”

  A nun entered with a plump chicken and showed it to her. She signalled for it to be given to the men and retired to a quiet corner to pray.

  Gort rubbed his hands in delight at the sight of the chicken and Baldin’s tongue licked hungrily as his mouth watered.

  The sister’s attitude had taken the edge off Hawk’s hunger and Ranulf leaned towards him.

  “Her head moves in the clouds, I fear,” the veteran muttered. “Let me try to make her understand.”

  “Ah! Little sister,” beamed Gort, stretching out his enormous hands to grab the fowl. “This will do just for me. Return to your kitchen and get more for my friends.”

  The little nun’s eyes opened wide but she did as she had been directed.

  Damn his long reach, thought Baldin. Was there no justice in this world? But a crafty idea wormed in his brain.

  As Gort with great ceremony raised the chicken to his mouth, which threatened to demolish it with one bite, the dwarf drew in a sharp intake of breath. The giant paused at the frown on Baldin’s face.

  “What is it?”

  Baldin shrugged indifferently.

  “It’s nothing! Enjoy the food!”

  Inwardly laughing, the dwarf fought to keep a solemn countenance at the giant’s doleful face.

  “It probably wouldn’t make any difference to you in any case,” said Baldin airily.

  Gort lowered the roasted bird and eyed it speculatively.

  “You know something, dwarf, that I don’t?” He looked down at the small man dangerously. “Out with it!”

  “Really, it’s of no importance. The food will taste just the same, believe me.”

  “Little brother, you are trying my patience. If you don’t want to end up even shorter—” He curled one hand into a massive fist, “—your tongue had better speak quickly. Why do you say it will taste the same?”

  Baldin drew a deep breath as if making a big decision. “Very well, long shanks. So be it! We …” He spoke the words as if to some dullard. “We are in a monastery. Surely that must be clear to you even though you walk with your head in the clouds.”

  Gort’s eyebrows knitted together and he exhaled threateningly through his nostrils making the dwarf’s words trip out faster.

  “All I’m saying is—you might be eating holy food!” concluded the little man simply and turned his back on the giant.

  “Dammit, little brother, what does that mean? Holy food?”

  Baldin faced the big man with a pious expression. “Holy food has a flavour some find not to their liking.”

  Like a small child, Gort was suspicious of the food.

  “You think this is holy food?”

  “How do I know?” exclaimed Baldin sternly. “You’ll find out soon enough when you eat it.”

  He prepared to leave but the giant restrained him, a sly smile lurking in the corners of his face.

  “You seem to be the expert, little brother. You eat it,” he grinned, pressing the juicy bird into the dwarf’s grasp; and when Baldin made “no no” noises, screwed the little man up on tiptoe by the scruff of his neck. “But I insist. After all, what are comrades for if not to help one another.”

  Baldin, with lingering relish, bit into the succulent flesh and desperately concealed his gusto. Each mouthful the little man chewed was a knife in Gort’s belly, reminding him of the hollowness within and an answering rumble amplified his hunger.

  “Well?” he questioned.

  Baldin pursed his lips, debating the point. “It—could—be!” Then quickly added, “And yet!”

  “Little brother,” exploded Gort almost at the end of his tether. “If I thought for one moment that what you told me was a lie—”

  Fortunately for the dwarf, another nun set a platter of unleavened bread and raw vegetables on the table.

  “Sister of the faith,” he beseeched her. “Tell my ox-like friend here. Would you describe this food as being holy?”

  The nun, who was not much taller than Baldin himself and had a cherubic face, did not need to think twice.

  “All food is holy,” she said. “It comes from God!”

  Baldin turned to Gort, hunching his shoulders to give him a patronising, told-you-so look while the giant’s mouth dropped open in despair at every morsel which disappeared down the dwarf’s gullet.

  Over in a quiet corner, Ranulf patiently listened to the sister.

  “I hope I ha
ve made the right decision,” she whispered. “My mind is sorely troubled.”

  Ranulf roved his eyes around the monastery in irritation. “Sister,” he said tersely. “The return of your lady is Hawk’s first concern.”

  But there was a faraway look in Sister Monica’s eyes and she was too deep in her own thoughts to hear him.

  “We could have offered what little wealth we have and asked Voltan for sufficient time to pay the rest. I’m sure we could have made him understand.”

  “The Dark One understands nothing but the spilling of blood,” Ranulf exclaimed. “Believe me, I’m an old warrior and I know that your salvation from the likes of Voltan lies in having the strength of someone like Hawk to protect you.”

  “My son, God protects us,” Sister Monica corrected him.

  Ranulf made a wry grimace with his mouth and looked at her obliquely.

  “Sister, He was protecting the Abbess and look where it’s got her.”

  “Ranulf,” pronounced the sister sternly. “Your words flirt with blasphemy.”

  “My words are just as true nonetheless.”

  Although exasperated, Ranulf was determined to have the last word and he walked away from her cold stare.

  He slumped down on a wooden bench beside Hawk and helped himself from the trestle table. Chewing the fresh baked bread, he fretted at the intractability of some people.

  “It’s impossible to talk to the woman sensibly,” he blurted, savagely tearing the bread in two.

  Hawk nodded and smiled at the veteran’s scowl.

  “She will find her own counsel, never fear.” He called for the others’ attention. “Our first concern is the gold. Tomorrow we arrange a welcome for the slavers of the River Shale.”

  13

  THE SLAVERS ON THE RIVER SHALE

  The muffled splash of a lazy oar sounded softly across the still waters of the River Shale and echoed weakly back from the tangled, rooty undergrowth on the bank. A dirty ripple slurped through the tall reeds and pulpy mallows, gurgling another smear of mud in its dying wake.

  At this point the river swung in a giant “U” back on itself before swelling out grandly across a flat marshland to spill its liquid ooze into the Giant Lake, a stretch of water so vast it was almost an inland sea.

  The boat moved slowly upstream against the sluggish current, a low-lined, sloop-rigged vessel. It now edged towards shore and poked its garishly-painted prow-nose through the clumps of rushes to grate on a rising slope of shingle. Within it, ten heavily-armed men watched and waited warily for the longboat to beach. The reason for their exaggerated caution was a large money chest which lay at the feet of two traders, one plump and glassy-eyed, the other gloomy, cadaverous and ferret-faced. Both wore long coats trimmed at sleeve and collar with greasy fur and fluted, conical hats which somehow gave both men a slightly quizzical air. Their boatman gave a final push with his paddle shaped pole to surge the craft up to the landing.

  “Let me strike the bargain this time, Thomas,” said the ferrety-faced trader. “You know how that Hunchback cheated us the last time.”

  “Whatever you say, Simon,” agreed Thomas, his jowls wobbling.

  Simon opened out a kerchief and liberally sprinkled it from a tiny vial of rosewater. He squinted pointedly at Thomas who nodded morosely.

  “Welcome!” bellowed a voice that was half a throaty rasp and totally the roar of an enraged bull. “Welcome, friends. It is good to see you again.”

  The Hunchback, Sped, was like a gnarled, oaken tree trunk stuffed into rough-stitched hides which promised to burst apart at the seams. All four limbs protruded from his misshapen body at unnatural angles. When he walked, his knees seemed to be articulated, giving him an odd, rolling gait.

  His hairless head was a fleshy stump stuffed on his hunched shoulders slightly left of centre. A black patch covered one eye while the other one glittered with a feral ferocity from a pulpy socket. And all the while he twirled or trailed behind him a vicious-looking bludgeon.

  “I have many fine slaves for you to buy,” he enthused loudly, the mashed root he was chewing spilling brown juice in dribbles down his stubbled chin.

  Sped waded into the water and, one-handed, dragged the traders’ boat further in.

  Gingerly, Simon and Thomas clambered ashore, trying to keep their buckled shoes dry and at the same time lean sufficiently windward of the Hunchback’s rancid breath. Their irritation was doubly compounded when they succeeded in achieving neither.

  The ten guards followed bearing the heavy chest. But always with one hand on the hilts of their swords. They tried to outstare Sped’s ill-assorted gang of ruffians and both sides were so anxious observing one another they failed to notice the minute movements in the surrounding green cover.

  Crow flitted between trees, his passage a blur of brown, too smooth and quick to detect except as a light rustle such as the wind might make. His eyes flicked around the activity in the slavers’ camp, noting the position of each armed man in relation to one another. Off to his left, Ranulf bobbed up for an instant and winked at him broadly. Crow registered the wink expressionlessly. Humans always felt this need to signify their inner emotions with a body twitch of some description. Sometimes, like now, such a facial grimace was meant to convey a bond of brotherhood and Crow hoped his passive stare in return was reciprocally understood. That it wasn’t was another strangeness peculiar to humans.

  Gort held himself in readiness behind a broad boled tree close to the river’s edge. Its girth just about concealed his own diameter and he tapped silently on the handle of his hammer, impatient for the fight to begin. Idly he studied the tree more closely. It had not a leaf on its skeletal branches. They had all died, Gort realised, from the innumerable bird droppings which coated each leafless limb. At that moment the guilty ones flapped up on to the bare branches and preened themselves. Grey cormorants always had a chosen tree to dry their feathers after duck-diving into the water of the Shale’s estuary.

  An acorn cap clipped his ear, stopped his musing on diving birds. Baldin peeped from behind a giant dock, checking on his big comrade’s alertness. The dwarf nodded at the giant’s sheepish look. Probably dreaming about food as usual, thought Baldin, which proved that even dwarves can get it wrong.

  The camp was a littered mess of carelessly-hung goatskin covers, stretched on available branches to make lean-to tents. A pole spanned two stunted trees and roped to it, hands high above their heads like pink-scraped pig carcases, were a line of shivering adult male slaves clad only in loin clouts.

  Sped weaved between them, sometimes poking an unfortunate fellow with his club, sometimes breathing heavily at the traders.

  “Well? Well?” he rasped. “Did I mislead you? Aren’t they a fine bunch?” A prod at one slave’s pot belly to push back a paunch swollen through malnutrition. “It cost me blood I tell you to collect these fine specimens.”

  A chorus of confirmation rumbled round his men.

  “They don’t call Sped the finest trader the length and breadth of the River Shale for nothing, you know,” he boasted, hiding an elderly goose-pimpled man who was no more than a sagging bag of bones, with his bulk. “Play square with me and I’ll play square with you.” Each sibilant sound expelled droplets of rank-smelling root-juice. “Play foul with Sped and God help you.”

  He thumped the ground with his club and extracted some weak grins from his own men, many of whom had heard this oath a number of times before.

  Simon and Thomas made their examination of the slaves around him or over him. This time they were not going to be rushed into a price. And by the same token a few sighs of contempt for the wares, they hoped, would throw the wily Hunchback off balance.

  “Not as good as last time,” demurred the ferrety one, Simon.

  “No, indeed,” affirmed Thomas.

  “What?” exploded Sped, making the two men sway back with his loud expulsion of breath. “Look at the fine biceps on this one.”

  He was about to tweezer a slav
e’s arm muscle when there was a loud report.

  Crack! The dry twig snapped and the suddenness of sound spun Hunchback and traders alike on their heels.

  “Greetings!”

  Hawk stood on a grassy knoll above the slavers’ encampment, leaning on the mindsword. At his soft spoken word a ripple of tiny movements ran through the armed men on both sides. Steel whispered from leather scabbards and there was a rustle of arrows into bows.

  Sped crashed his club to the ground and each measured word was weighed with menace.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’ve chosen the wrong time to do it.”

  “My apologies,” said Hawk so airily it made the Hunchback dilate his one good eye even more. “But I have an urgent request to make.”

  “Request?” Sped was nonplussed.

  “Yes. I find myself in need of two thousand gold pieces and have been told that yonder chest contains sufficient for my cause.”

  Sped’s face was a medley of conflicting expressions.

  “I shall need some help to unload it,” went on Hawk, confounding his enemies into silence.

  “It’s a jest,” chortled Sped after a brief pause. “That’s a good ’un!”

  The armour plate on his chest jerked up and down as his chest heaved with wheezy laughter.

  “It’s no jest.”

  The abrupt hardness which entered Hawk’s voice stilled the Hunchback’s mirth and the sniggers of his men tailed off into an uneasy quiet. The joke of the situation palled on Sped and he pointed a stubby finger in Hawk’s direction.

  “Who will rid me of this madman?” he spluttered. “Cut him down!”

  Hardly a man moved, then the air was alive with the humming of bees.

  The white arrows from the bow of the elf, Crow, buzzed with deadly accuracy. Six men collapsed with choked cries, six shafts buried in each chest, six rapid bowshots in the time it would have taken any mortal man to unloose one arrow.