'Not so,' said Taken. She came to Blade, though he sought to push her back, and so clung, her two small hands entwining his great bicep.
Her face was flushed and her voice shrill and high. 'Fight, Blade. We will die here and now! At least we shall cheat that bitch-whore! Fight, Blade. I will die with you!'
The horns sounded then. Savage, cruel, menacing in the dank mist, the horns sounded doom and disaster for Craghead. There came a great shouting, a feral surf of barbarian voices breaking against the castle walls. And the horns squalled on and on and on.
For a moment, suspended in terror, the mob and soldiers in the vast inner court were silent. Rage died on the instant, to be replaced by fear. Men ran, women screamed and forgotten babies wailed. Blade, watching the captain of archers, saw him mouth an order. The file of archers reversed and faced the ramparts. Blade, the girl and Sylvo were forgotten.
Where had been frenzy before was now absolute chaos. A single outcry went up and hung over the courtyard like a palpable blazon.
'REDBEARD!'
Chapter Ten
It was Sylvo who saw him first. The man clutched at Blade's arm and pointed. 'See, master! Yonder by the great tower. Thunor protect us now, for that is surely Getorix. He who is called Redbeard.'
Taleen still gripped Blade's arm and he could feel her trembling. Her courage had run out. She was ashen and sad-faced as she said, 'It is over now, Blade. Nothing can save us. It is the arch-fiend and even Frigga cannot prevail against such evil.'
They were ignored for the moment, in no immediate peril, and Blade gripped the haft of Aesculp and stared up at the great tower where last night he had done such yeoman service. In that instant he began to plan ahead— new dangers meant new techniques of survival. One thought was salient over all: in what was coming there would be no margin for error. None at all.
The man who stood by the tower was seven feet tall and built to proportion. He wore a helmet that had a noseguard, came low behind to protect the neck, and was topped by a long golden spike. A rich purple cloak flowed from the Gargantuan shoulders. The man stood with arms crossed on his chest as his raiders swarmed about him, and he did not appear to be armed. Now and then he bellowed a command in stentorian tones, but for the most part he watched in silence as his men raped the castle of Craghead.
But it was his beard that most marked the man. It flowed to his waist, a pennon of flame, and it was plaited in two parts and tied with gay colored ribbons. Blade, in reluctant admiration, and seeking desperately for clues to his planning, noticed that Getorix now and then toyed with his plaited beard, adjusting a ribbon just so. And this in the heat of battle. Vanity!
Blade saw her then, for just a moment, and something sweet and sick, and at the same time cold, leaped in his heart. It was only a brief shimmer of white that could have been illusion, but was not. A moment's flurry of pale robes, a beech tree's slimness, a glint of silver hair beneath a cowl. Drusilla! She so named in his weird dream. She had been phantom then but was not phantom now— unless he was mad— and she vanished in a fraction of a second.
The tableau broke and time swept on and Redbeard was alone near the tower, shouting his orders. The ramparts had been won by this time, the Unicorn standards of Beata trampled, and the dead were piling high with each passing moment. Blade had never really doubted— Craghead was doomed.
Sylvo tugged at his sleeve again. 'Why do we linger, master? The postern I know— there is still a chance, though it grows less every second we dally.'
They had retreated— Blade so engrossed that he was not aware— into a niche formed by two great buttresses supporting the wall. It was a cul de sac and a fit place to die with their backs to the wall, had Blade so chosen. He did not so choose. He had made his decision.
He turned on Sylvo in haste. 'What do these raiders, and this Getorix called Redbeard, value above all else in life? Quickly now!'
Sylvo, poor man, stared at his master as though he thought him demented. Taleen awoke from her apathy to say, 'What matters that, Blade? We are all dead.'
He frowned through the bear blood now caking on his face and beard. 'Perhaps not. Well, Sylvo? Think, man, and answer as if your life hangs on it— for it does.'
Sylvo squinted horribly. A spear flew past his head and he ducked.
'Courage, master! That is the greatest of matters to the sea robbers. Courage and feats of battle. It is all they care about— to be a great warrior is to be everything. But we are not sea robbers, master, and they scorn anyone not of their cutthroat tribe. And they take no prisoners, but for women.' He did not look at Taleen.
The girl said: 'You will kill me, Blade, when the time comes.' She touched the broad edge of Aesculp. 'My skull is fragile— one small blow will do it.'
Blade ordered them both behind him, back against the rampart wall. 'Keep there,' he said, 'and keep you quiet. No words. None! And you, Sylvo, make no effort to help me. Or you, Taleen. You will spoil everything if you do. I am playing a desperate game for all of us, but I must do it alone. You must be alert, both of you, and follow me as this play progresses. I will have no time to explain, you must delve it for yourselves, and be not astounded at the great lies I am going to tell. If you must speak— though it is best you keep shut mouths— you will support me in every lie I tell. Now I begin. You two crouch back there and look afraid.'
Sylvo's harelip writhed in an attempted smile. 'That is not a hard part to play, master. Ar, I can do it most convincing.'
Blade turned his back on them. The alcove formed by the buttresses was some eight feet across where he stood, and narrowed behind him. With his arm extended, and swinging the bronze axe by the very end, he could cover nearly six feet. If he were nimble enough afoot, and his luck ran well, he should be able to do it.
So Richard Blade, a towering and bloody apparition, leaned on the handle of the bronze axe and surveyed the
