Knights Of Dark Renown (4 page)

Llaw Gyffes stood alone at the crest of the wooded hill on the edge of the forest, one hand resting on the broad trunk of a twisted oak, the other hooked into his wide leather belt. It had begun to rain, but the tall man appeared not to notice. His eyes were fixed on the jagged plain beyond the forest where several deer were grazing alongside a group of big-horn sheep. In the distance six riders were slowly making their way among the boulders and Llaw watched them for some time. It was obvious they were seeking tracks and they were not hunting deer, for the small herd could clearly be seen from their position and they showed no interest in them. The season was too early for wolf-hunting, the grey timber beasts still high in the mountains. That left only Man.

The sky darkened and rain lashed down,.-streaming from Llaw’s oiled leather shirt and drenching his green woollen leggings. Reaching up, he took hold of a thick branch and smoothly hauled himself into the sanctuary of the tree, climbing swiftly to the uppermost boughs where a crude wooden platform had been fastened and the branches above interwoven to form a thick roof. He sat down and parted the leaves so that he could see the riders. They were closer now, but still he could recognize none of them.

He pushed his blond hair from his eyes and lay back, willing himself to relax. Why should he care who they were hunting? Had anyone cared when Llaw Gyffes had been taken? Had anyone come forward to speak in his defence? Feeling his anger mount, he swallowed it swiftly. What point would there have been? You cannot blame them, Llaw. The decision was set from the moment he had smashed the bastard’s skull!

One moment was all it took to change a life. In that single heartbeat, the blacksmith had become the outlaw.

The Duke’s soldiers had been seeking a Nomad merchant accused of treason and had already ransacked several homes — stealing what they wished - when they had come upon Lydia. The officer in charge of the search ordered his men out, but stayed within himself. Seconds later Lydia’s scream was heard by many of the neighbours, but they did nothing. Only a young slave boy had the courage to run to the smithy. Llaw had dropped his tools and raced back through the narrow streets. Two soldiers were outside his door, but before they could draw their swords he fell upon them, his huge fists hammering them senseless. One suffered a broken jaw, the other three fractured ribs. When the smith kicked in the door, smashing the bronze hinges, Lydia was lying across the bed, her eyes lifeless; the officer was buckling his belt.

As Llaw Gyffes advanced into the room, the officer drew his sword and lunged. Batting the blade aside with the back of his hand, Llaw crashed a ferocious blow to the man’s face and the officer fell to his knees, the sword slipping from his fingers. Llaw moved to the body of his wife, seeing the purple bruising at her throat. Then a strangled cry of horror escaped from him and he turned on the stunned killer. Blow after blow he ripped into the man until at last the punished skull split and Llaw found himself kneeling over something unrecognizable. He staggered to his feet, his hands drenched in blood and brain, and stumbled from the house - into a fresh squad of soldiers. Llaw made no attempt to defend himself and they dragged him to the prison at Mactha.

For two months he was kept in an airless dungeon, chained to a wall. They fed him maggoty bread and stale water and left him sitting amidst his own filth. It was in this state that he was dragged before the court.

The trial was held in the Duke’s Hall, and many were the faces Llaw recognized in the balconies above, to his left and his right: friends, neighbours, associates. The Duke sat on a raised dais, flanked by his knights, as the prosecutor outlined the facts. Llaw’s anger flared as he heard the twisted version of events: there was a disturbance in the home of the blacksmith and a squad of soldiers, led by the Duke’s nephew, entered the house. There they found that the blacksmith, Llaw Gyffes, had murdered his wife. Valiantly Maradin had tried to subdue the man, but the blacksmith’s strength was prodigious and he had fought like a demon, killing Maradin and severely injuring two other soldiers.

The Duke leaned forward, his baleful eyes locking to Llaw’s. ‘What do you say?’ he asked.

‘It does not matter, I think, what I have to say,’ Llaw replied. ‘All around this hall are men who know the truth. This . . . Maradin . . . raped and murdered my Lydia . . . and he paid for it. That is all.’

‘Then bring forward these men to bear witness for you,’ said the Duke. ‘Where are they?’

Llaw looked up, his eyes sweeping the balconies. No one met his gaze.

‘That brands you for the liar you are,’ the Duke stated. ‘Tomorrow morning you will be quartered and impaled. Take the wretch away.’

Returned to his dungeon, Llaw was once more chained to the wall. But gone now was the malaise that had gripped him during his captivity and in its place was a burning hatred. Hooking his hands around the chains, he hauled on them, feeling for a weakness. There was some movement in the right-hand chain; throwing the weight of his arm forward, he strained at the metal, then relaxed. Pushing his back against the wall, he hooked his fingers into the bracket fixing the chain to the stone. It seemed loose, and he could feel rust on the bolts.

Three times more he tried to loosen it. The bracket was bent now, almost U-shaped, but still it held. He tried the left-hand side, but this was immovable. Breathing deeply and easily he gathered his strength, hooking his right hand once more around the links. The muscles in his shoulders bulged as he fought to straighten his arm . . . the metal groaned and slowly, agonizingly, the bolts slipped from the mortar binding them and the chain snapped loose. Turning, Llaw could now put both hands to the left chain and pushing his right foot against the wall, he tore the bracket loose.

Free of the wall, there was still the barred dungeon door. Gathering his chains, he moved towards it and listened. There was no sound from the corridor beyond.

Returning to the wall, he loosely fitted the brackets back into place.

‘Guard!’ he yelled. ‘Guard!’ He heard the sound of footsteps.

‘What is it? Why are you screaming?’

‘Guard!’

‘Damn you, be quiet!’

But Llaw continued to shout at the top of his voice and finally a grille opened at the centre of the door, the guard looking in to see the huge prisoner still chained to the wall.

‘Be quiet, you whoreson, or I’ll come in there and cut out your tongue!’

‘You haven’t the nerve,’ hissed Llaw. ‘You’re a gutless sack of cow droppings!’

The grille slammed shut and Llaw heard the sound of the bar being lifted clear. Then the door opened and he blinked hard against the sudden light from the torches beyond as the guard advanced.

‘I know what you want,’ whispered the man. ‘You want me to kill you. You can’t stand the thought of your limbs being cut off; you don’t want to think about the sharp stake rising through your body, ripping and tearing. Well, I won’t kill you! I’ll just make you wish you were dead.’ From his belt he pulled a hide-handled whip.

Llaw hurled himself forward, his body cannoning into the startled guard. They fell to the floor, Llaw’s hands circling the guard’s throat with increasing pressure until his neck snapped and his body jerked. Llaw rose and stared down at the body. He had no regrets; Lydia’s death and the injustice of the trial had conspired to alter the soul of the blacksmith. Gathering up the chains, he moved to the corridor. Some twenty feet to his left was the table and chair at which the guard had been stationed, and hanging from a hook on the wall were the keys to the chains. Llaw unfastened the manacles and left the chains on the table.

He was not yet free. He did not know the layout of the dungeons, nor had he any idea of a way of escape. He knew he was on the fourth level below ground, and that the stair-well led to the Great Hall. There would be no way to freedom by that route. But where the other stairs led he had no idea. He sat back on the table, thinking. To come this far and still be a prisoner was galling. Returning to his cell, he stripped the liveried tunic from the body of the guard. At the man’s belt was a knife, its edge razor-sharp. Slowly and painfully Llaw scraped away his red-gold beard, leaving only his moustache. Then, donning the guard’s tunic, he moved back to the table. The corridor was some sixty feet long, with six barred doors on either side. Swiftly Llaw opened them all, freeing the prisoners and removing their manacles.

They staggered into the corridor. All were covered in filth and many had weeping sores on their skeletal limbs.

‘You have a chance at freedom,’ whispered Llaw. ‘But stay silent and follow me.’

He climbed the stairs at a run, not bothering to look back, while the prisoners shuffled after him. On the next level a guard sat at a table, idly rolling dice. Llaw waved the prisoners back and boldly approached the man, who glanced at a marked candle.

‘You’re early,’ said the guard, grinning, ‘but I’ll not complain.’ Scooping up his dice he rose - straight into a clubbing fist - and slumped back to his seat, his head dropping to thud against the table-top. Once again Llaw opened the cell doors, freeing the prisoners. He neither knew nor cared what crimes they had committed; all that mattered was his own escape.

‘Now you may do as you please,’ he told them.

‘But how do we get out?’ asked a thick-set bearded man, with a jagged scar on his cheek.

‘Take the stairs and free the others. There are two more levels,’ Llaw told him.

‘What about you?’

‘I have other business.’

‘Who are you?’ another man asked.

‘Llaw Gyffes,’ he told them.

‘Stronghand? I’ll remember it, my friend,’ the bearded man promised.

Llaw nodded and moved away into the shadows, climbing a narrow stair-well which led to a carpeted hallway with curtained windows. Drawing back the hangings, he looked out over the courtyard less than ten feet below. The great gates were open and two sentries stood chatting in the shadows. On the walls he counted five bowmen. Beyond the gates he could see the lights of Mactha and the far mountains shining in the moonlight. Easing himself through the window, he silently dropped to the cobbles. A sudden shout froze him in his tracks, but it came from within the castle.

‘The prisoners are free!’ came the call as Llaw ran to the gates.

‘What’s happening?’ asked a sentry.

‘The prisoners have broken out,’ Llaw told him. ‘Quickly, get to the Hall and guard the stair-wells!’

The two sentries raced towards the doors and Llaw glanced at the men on the battlements. ‘Help them,’ he shouted. ‘Guard the Hall!’

The bowmen ran to join their comrades and Llaw slowly walked from the fortress, skirting Mactha and heading for the distant mountains.

He learned later that the twenty-three men he had freed had opened the cell doors for forty more. Thirty of the prisoners died in the hand-to-hand fighting inside the castle, twenty-two more had been captured in the first three days, but eleven had escaped.

Now, seven months later, as Llaw sat in his tree hideaway, the hunters were once more seeking a runaway.

Llaw hoped they caught him.

He didn’t want armed men riding through his forest, disturbing the deer and putting Llaw himself in peril.

Lamfhada crouched behind two jagged boulders and watched the horsemen. The rain was lashing at their eyes, but still they came on, led by the tracker - a wizened Nomad with slanted eyes. Lamfhada was sure the Nomad was a man of magic. How else could he track him across rocks and scree?

The youth glanced back at the mountains and the forest’s edge. There lay security - but it was at least a mile distant and uphill. He was chilled by the biting rain and his empty belly gnawed at him. Here in this desolate place he wondered at his decision to flee, cursing himself for his stupidity. Was the Duke’s service so bad, compared with this? It was ... he knew that well enough. The Duke often had his servants whipped and, at the Midwinter Solstice, had ordered an elderly slave to be flayed alive for some indiscretion. No, thought Lamfhada, better to be a runaway.

The Nomad tracker stopped some two hundred paces away from the boulders and suddenly pointed. Lamfhada blinked and shrank back as the riders spurred their mounts into a gallop. The youth leapt from his hiding place and sprinted towards the mountains, slipping and slithering on the mud and the greasy rocks. The horses thundered after him and he could hear the shouts of the riders.

In panic Lamfhada screamed the magic name and instantly felt his weight lessen, his stride lengthen. He was almost floating over the rocks. Swerving to the left, he leapt ten feet to a boulder, cutting to the right up a narrow trail towards the trees. The horsemen could not follow directly and were forced to skirt the boulder, losing ground on the runner in the process. Once more the chase was on.

Lord Errin spurred his giant black gelding into a gallop and bore down on the runaway, scarcely able to believe the speed at which the youth was moving. Had he known he was this swift, he would never have dreamt of giving him to the Duke but would have kept him and taken him to Furbolg for the races. Too late now, thought Errin, as he closed on the boy.

Hearing the hoofbeats Lamfhada cut left, clambering up a scree slope and clawing his way over the jutting boulders. Errin cursed and guided the gelding on to the treacherous slope but the horse slithered, dropping to its haunches. Another rider galloped up.

‘Give me your bow,’ shouted Errin, taking the weapon and notching an arrow to the string. Lamfhada was almost in the clear as Errin drew back the string, took a deep breath, allowed the air to drift from his lungs and, between breaths, loosed the shaft. The arrow sped to its target, catching the youth high in the back. He staggered, but did not fall and reached the sanctuary of the trees.

‘Should we follow, my Lord?’ asked the Nomad.

‘No, we are not strong enough to face the rebels. Anyway, the arrow went deep; he will not survive.’ Errin threw the bow back to the rider and led the black gelding from the scree slope. ‘What was it the boy shouted?’ he asked.