Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull (34 page)

From within came a warm smell that was at once familiar and unfamiliar to Hawkmoon and made him hesitate at the top of the ramp, for he was sure that the scent meant danger.

"Do not be afraid," said the warrior firmly. "Proceed. There lies your method of escaping this place."

Slowly Hawkmoon began to descend, the others following him.

The light that came thinly from above showed him a long room with a large object at the far end. He could not decide what it was and was about to investigate it, when the Warrior in Jet and Gold said from behind him, "Not now. First, the beasts. They are in their stalls."

Hawkmoon realized that the long room was in fact some sort of stable, with stalls on either side. Now from some of them came stirring sounds and animal grunts, and all at once a door shuddered as a huge bulk was flung against it,

"Not horses," said Oladahn. "Nor bullocks. To me, Duke Dorian, they have the smell of cats."

"Aye, that's so," Hawkmoon nodded, fingering the pommel of his sword. "Cats—that's the scent. How can cats aid our escape?"

D'Averc had taken a brand from the wall and was striking a flint to ignite his tinder. Shortly, the brand flamed, and Hawkmoon saw that the object at the far end of the stable was a vast chariot, large enough to accommodate more than their number. Its double shafts had space for four animals.

"Open the stalls," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold, "and harness the cats to the yokes."

Hawkmoon wheeled. "Harness cats to the chariot?

Certainly a whim fit for a mad god—but we are sane mortals, Warrior. Besides, those cats are wild, by the sound of their movements. If we open the stalls, they're bound to fall upon us."

As if in confirmation, there came a great yowling roar from one of the stalls, and this was taken up by the other beasts until the stables echoed with the bestial din and it was impossible to make oneself heard over it.

When it had begun to subside, Hawkmoon shrugged and stepped toward the ramp. "We'll find horses above and take our chances with more familiar steeds than these."

"Have you not yet learned to trust my wisdom?" said the warrior. "Did I not speak truth about the Red Amulet and the rest? "

"I have still to test that truth fully," Hawkmoon said.

"Those mad women obeyed the power of the amulet, did they not?"

"They did," Hawkmoon agreed.

The Mad God's beasts are trained, likewise, to obey he who is master of the Red Amulet. What would I gain, Dorian Hawkmoon, from lying to you?"

Hawkmoon shrugged. "I have grown suspicious of all since I first encountered the Dark Empire. I do not know if you have anything to gain or not. However"—he walked towards the nearest stall and laid his hands on the heavy wooden bar—"I'm tired of bickering and will test your assurances. . . ."

As he flung off the bar, the stable door was swept back from within by a giant paw. Then a head emerged, larger than an oxen's, fiercer than a tiger's; a snarling cat's head with slanting yellow eyes and long yellow fangs. As it padded out, a deep growling sound coming from its belly, its glaring eyes regarding them calculatingly, they saw that its back was lined with a row of foothigh spines of the same color and appearance as its fangs, running down to the base of its tail, which, unlike that of an ordinary cat, was tipped with barbs.

"A legend come to life," gasped D'Averc, losing his detached manner for a moment. "One of the mutant war jaguars of Asiacommunista. An old bestiary I saw pictured them, said that if they had existed at all then it was a thousand years ago, that because they were the products of some perverted biological experiment they could not breed. . . ."

"So they cannot," said the Warrior in Jet and Gold, "but their lifespan is all but infinite."

The huge head now swung toward Hawkmoon, and the barbed tail swished back and forth, the eyes fixing on the amulet at Hawkmoon's throat.

"Tell it to lie down," said the Warrior.

"Lie down!" commanded Hawkmoon, and almost at once the beast settled to the floor, its mouth closing, its eyes losing some of their fierceness.

Hawkmoon smiled. "I apologize, Warrior. Very well, let's loose the other three. Oladahn, D'Averc..."

His friends went forward to take out the bars of the remaining stalls, and Hawkmoon put his arm around Yisselda's shoulders.

"That chariot," he said, "will bear us home, my love." Then he remembered something. "Warrior, my saddlebags—still on my horse unless those dogs have stolen them!"

"Wait here," said the Warrior, turning and beginning to ascend the ramp. "I will look."

"I will look myself," Hawkmoon said. "I know the-"

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

Hawkmoon felt a vague suspicion. "Why?"

"Only you, with the amulet, have the power of controlling the Mad God's beasts. If you were not here, they could turn on the others and destroy them."

Reluctantly, Hawkmoon stepped back and watched the Warrior in Jet and Gold move with heavy purposefulness to the top of the ramp and disappear.

Out of their stalls now prowled three more horned cats, similar to the first. Oladahn cleared his throat nervously. "Best remind them that it is you they obey," he said to Hawkmoon.

"Lie down!" Hawkmoon commanded, and slowly the beasts obeyed. He went up to the nearest and laid a hand on its thick neck, feeling the wiry, bristling fur, the hard muscle beneath it. The beasts were the height of horses but considerably bulkier and infinitely more deadly. They had not been bred to pull carriages, that was plain, but to kill in battle.

"Move that chariot up," he said, "and let's harness these creatures."

D'Averc and Oladahn dragged the chariot forward.

It was of black brass and green gold and smelled of antiquity. Only the leather of the yokes was relatively new. They slipped the harness over the heads and shoulders of the beasts, and the mutant jaguars hardly moved, save for flattening their ears occasionally when the men tightened the straps too rapidly.

When all was ready, Hawkmoon signed to Yisselda to enter the chariot. "We must wait for the warrior to return," he said. "Then we may set off."

"Where is he?" D'Averc asked.

"Gone to find my gear," Hawkmoon explained.

D'Averc shrugged and lowered his great helm over his face. "It is taking him long enough. I for one will be glad when we leave this place behind. It stinks of death and evil."

Oladahn pointed upward, at the same time drawing his sword. "Is that what you smelled, D'Averc?"

At the top of the ramp stood six or seven more Dark Empire warriors of the Order of the Weasel, their longsnouted masks almost seeming to tremble in anticipation of killing the men below.

"Into the chariot, quick," Hawkmoon ordered as the weasels began to descend.

In the front of the chariot was a raised block on which the driver could stand, and beside it, in a rack once used for javelins, a longhandled whip. Hawkmoon sprang onto the block, seized the whip, and cracked it over the heads of the beasts. "Up, beauties!

Up!" The cats climbed to their feet. "And now forward!"

The chariot jumped forward with a great lurch as the powerful animals dragged it forward up the ramp.

The weaselmasked warriors screamed as the gigantic horned cats raced toward them. Some leaped from the ramp, but most were too late and went down screaming, crushed by clawed feet and ironrimmed wheels.

Out into the gray daylight the bizarre chariot broke, scattering more weasel warriors coming to investigate the open trapdoors.

"Where is the warrior?" Hawkmoon cried above the din of howling men. "Where are my saddlebags?"

But the Warrior in Jet and Gold was nowhere to be seen, and neither could they locate Hawkmoon's horse.

Now Dark Empire swordsmen hurled themselves against the chariot, and Hawkmoon lashed out at them with his whip while behind him Oladahn and D'Averc held them back with their own blades.

"Drive through the gate!" D'Averc cried. "Hurry—at any moment they'll overwhelm us!"

"Where is the Warrior?" Hawkmoon looked wildly about him.

"Doubtless he awaits us outside!" D'Averc shouted desperately. "Drive, Duke Dorian, or we're doomed!"

Suddenly Hawkmoon saw his horse over the heads of the milling warriors. It had been stripped of its saddlebags, and he had no way of knowing who had taken them.

In panic he shouted again, "Where is the Warrior in Jet and Gold? I must find him. The contents of those saddlebags could mean life or death for the Kamarg!"

Oladahn gripped his shoulder and said urgently, "And if you do not drive out of here, it means our deaths—and maybe worse for Yisselda!"

Hawkmoon was nearly out of his mind with indecision, but then, as Oladahn's words at last entered his consciousness, he gave a great yell and whipped up the beasts, sending them springing through the gate and across the drawbridge, to gallop along the lakeside with what seemed like all the hordes of Granbretan behind them.

Moving far more rapidly than horses could move, the Mad God's beasts dragged the bouncing chariot over the ground and away from the dark castle and the mistcovered lake, away from the village of hovels and the place of corpses, into the foothills beyond the lake, down a muddy road that led between gloomy cliffs, and out onto the wide plains again. Where the road petered out and the ground became soft, but the mutant jaguars had no effort in crossing it.

"If I have a complaint," remarked D'Averc, as he clung for dear life to the side of the chariot and was bounced about horribly, "it is that we are moving a trifle too rapidly. . . ."

Oladahn tried to grin through gritted teeth. He was crouched in the bottom of the vehicle, holding Yisselda and trying to protect her from the worst of the bumps.

Hawkmoon made no response. He clenched the reins tight in his hands and did not reduce the speed of their flight. His face was pale and his eyes blazed with anger, for he was sure he had been duped by the man who claimed to be his chief ally against the Dark Empire—duped by the apparently incorruptible Warrior in Jet and Gold.

"HAWKMOON, STOP, for the Runestaff's sake! Stop, man! Are you possessed!" D'Averc, more troubled than anyone had ever seen him, tugged at Hawkmoon's sleeve as the man lashed at the panting beasts.

The chariot had been moving for hours now, had splashed across two rivers without stopping, and was now tearing through a forest as night fell. At any moment it might strike a tree and kill them all. Even the powerful horned cats were tiring, but Hawkmoon mercilessly lashed them on.

"Hawkmoon! You are mad!"

"I am betrayed!" answered Hawkmoon. "Betrayed! I had the salvation of the Kamarg in those saddlebags, and the Warrior in Jet and Gold stole them. He tricked me. Gave me a trinket with limited powers in exchange for a machine with powers that were unlimited for my purposes! On, beasts, on!"

"Dorian, listen to him. You will kill us all!" Yisselda spoke tearfully. "You will kill yourself—and then how will you aid Count Brass and the Kamarg?"

The chariot leaped into the air and came down with a crash. No normal vehicle could have stood such a shock, and it jarred the passengers to their bones.

"Dorian! You have gone mad. The Warrior would not betray us. He has helped us. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by Dark Empire men—the saddlebags stolen from him!"

"No—I sensed some betrayal when he left the stables. He has gone—my gift from Rinal with him."

But Hawkmoon's rage and bafflement were beginning to pass, and he no longer whipped at the flanks of the straining beasts.

Gradually the pace of the chariot slowed as the tired beasts, no longer goaded by the whip, gave in to their instinct to rest.

D'Averc took the reins from Hawkmoon's hands, and the young warrior did not resist, merely sank to the bottom of the chariot and buried his head in his hands.

D'Averc brought the beasts to a halt, and they sank at once to the ground, panting noisily.

Yisselda stroked Hawkmoon's hair. "Dorian—all the Kamarg needs is you to save it. I do not know what this other thing was, but I am sure we have no use for it. And you have the Red Amulet. That will be of some use, surely."

It was night now, and moonlight fell through a lattice of tree branches. D'Averc and Oladahn dismounted from the chariot, rubbing their bruised bodies, and went off to look for wood for a fire.

Hawkmoon looked up. The light from the moon struck his pale face and the black jewel imbedded in his forehead. He regarded Yisselda with melancholy eyes, though his lips tried to smile. "I thank you, Yisselda, for your faith in me, but I fear it will need more than Dorian Hawkmoon to win the fight against all Granbretan, and the warrior's perfidy has made me despair the more. ..."

"There is no proof of perfidy, my dear."

"No—but I knew instinctively that he planned to leave us, taking the machine with him. He sensed my knowledge, too. I do not doubt he has it and is far away by now. I do not necessarily suspect that he takes it for an ignoble purpose. Possibly his purpose is of greater importance than mine, but yet I cannot excuse his actions for that. He deceived me. He betrayed me."

"If he serves the Runestaff, he may know more than you, may wish to preserve this thing, may think it dangerous to you."

"I have no proof he serves the Runestaff. For all I know, he may serve the Dark Empire and I am their tool!"

"You have become oversuspicious, my love."

"I have been forced to become so," Hawkmoon sighed. "I will be so until Granbretan is defeated or I am destroyed." And he held her close to him, burying his weary head in her bosom, and slept that way all night.

In the morning the sun was bright though the air cold. Hawkmoon's gloomy spirits had departed with the deep sleep, and they all appeared in a better mood.

All were ravenous, including the mutant beasts, whose tongues lolled and whose eyes were greedy and fierce.

Oladahn had fashioned himself a bow and some arrows early and had gone off into the deeper reaches of the forest to seek game.

D'Averc coughed theatrically as he polished his huge boarhelm with a piece of cloth he had found in the bottom of the chariot.