Count Brass Read online

  Disembarking on the white quayside of Behruk, the four took fewer precautions to hide their identities here. Their legends were familiar to the folk who dwelt along the Arabian Sea but their descriptions were not so wellknown. None the less they lost no time in going speedily to the market-place and there purchasing four sturdy camels for their expedition into the hinterland.

  Four days riding saw them used to the lolloping beasts and most of their aches gone. Four days riding also saw them on the edge of the Syranian desert, following the Euphrates as it wound through great sanddunes, while Hawkmoon looked often at the map and wished that Oladahn, the Oladahn who had fought at his side against D'Averc in Soryandum, when they were still enemies, was here to help him recall their route.

  The huge, hot sun had turned Count Brass's armour into glaring gold. He dazzled the eyes of his companions almost as much as the pyramid of Kalan of Vitall had dazzled them. And Dorian Hawkmoon's steel armour shone, in contrast, like silver. Bowgentle and Huillam D'Averc, who wore no armour at all, made one or two acid comments about this effect, though he stopped when it became evident that the armoured men were suffering considerably more discomfort in the heat and, while waterholes and the river were close, took to pouring whole helmets-full of water through the necks of their breastplates.

  The fifth day's riding saw them passed beyond the river and into the desert proper. Dull yellow sand stretched in all directions. It rippled sometimes, when a faint breeze blew across the desert, reminding them, intolerably, of the water they had left behind.

  The sixth day's riding saw them leaning wearily over the pommels of their high saddles, their eyes glazed and their lips cracked as they preserved their water, not knowing when next they might find a waterhole.

  The seventh day's riding saw Bowgentle fall from his saddle and lie spreadeagled upon the sand and it took half their remaining water to revive him. After he had fallen they sought the scant shade of a dune and remained there through the night until the next morning when Hawkmoon dragged himself to his feet and said he would continue alone.

  'Alone? Why is that?' Count Brass got up, the straps of his brass armour were creaking. 'For what reason, Duke of Koln?'

  'I will scout while you rest. I could swear that Soryandum was near here. I will circle about until I find it— or find the site on which it stood. Whatever else, there is bound to be a source of water there.'

  'I can see sense in that,' Count Brass agreed. 'And if you grow weary, then one of us can relieve you, and so on. Are you certain that we are close to Soryandum?'

  'I am. I shall look for the hills which mark the end of the desert. They should be near. If only these dunes were not so high, I am sure we should see the hills bynow.'

  'Very well,' said Count Brass. 'We shall wait.'

  And Hawkmoon goaded his camel to its feet and rode away from where his friends still sat.

  But it was not until the afternoon that he climbed the twentieth dune of the day and saw at last the green foothills of the mountains at the foot of which had lain Soryandum.

  But he could not see the ruined city of the Wraithfolk. He had marked his way carefully on his map and now he retraced his journey.

  He was almost back at the spot where he had left his friends when he saw the pyramid again. Foolishly he had decided to leave his encumbering flame-lances behind and he was not sure if any of the others knew how to work the lances, or whether they would care to, after what had happened to Oladahn.

  He dismounted from the camel and proceeded as cautiously as he could, using the little cover available to him. Automatically he had drawn his sword.

  Now words reached him from the pyramid. Kalan of Vitall was once again trying to convince his three friends that they should kill him when he returned.

  'He is your enemy. Whatever else I might have told you, I spoke truth when I said that he will lead you to your deaths. You know Huillam D'Averc that you are a friend of Granbretan—Hawkmoon will turn you against the Dark Empire. And you, Bowgentle, you hate violence—Hawkmoon will make you a man of violence. And you, Count Brass, who has always been neutral where the affairs of Granbretan are concerned, he will set you upon a course which will make you fight against that very force which now you regard as a unifying factor in the future of Europe. And, as well as being deceived into acting against your better interests, you will be slain. Kill Hawkmoon now and . . .'

  'Kill me, then!' Hawkmoon stood up, impatient with Kalan's cunning. 'Kill me yourself, Kalan. Why can't you?'

  The pyramid continued to hover over the heads of the three men as Hawkmoon looked down upon it from the dune.

  'And why would killing me now make all that has gone before different, Kalan? Your logic is either very bad, or else you have not told us all that you should!'

  'You grow boring, besides,' said Huillam D'Averc. He drew his slim sword from its scabbard. 'And I am very thirsty and tired, Baron Kalan. I think I will try my luck against you, for there's precious little else to do in this desert!'

  And suddenly he had leaped forward, stabbing and stabbing again with his foil, the steel passing into the white material of the pyramid.

  Kalan screamed as if wounded. 'Look to your own interest, D'Averc—it lies with me!'

  D'Averc laughed and passed his sword again into the pyramid.

  And again Kalan shouted. 'I warn you, D'Averc— if you make me, I shall rid this world of you!'

  'This world has nothing to offer. And it does not want me haunting it, either. I think I'll find your heart, Baron Kalan, if I continue to search.'

  He stabbed once more.

  Kalan shouted once more.

  Hawkmoon cried: 'D'Averc, be careful!' He began to run and slide down the dune, trying to reach the flamelance. But D'Averc had vanished, silently, before he had got halfway to the weapon.

  'D'Averc!' Hawkmoon's voice had a baying quality, a mournful quality. 'D'Averc!'

  'Be silent, Hawkmoon,' said Kalan's voice from the glowing pyramid. 'Listen to me, you others. Kill him now—or D'Averc's fate shall be yours.'

  'It does not seem a particularly terrible fate.' Count Brass smiled.

  Hawkmoon picked up the flame-lance. Kalan could obviously see through the pyramid for he screamed. 'Oh, you are crude, Hawkmoon. But you shall die yet.'

  And the pyramid faded and was gone.

  Count Brass looked about him, a sardonic expression on his bronzed face. 'Should we find Soryandum,' he said, 'it could come to pass that there'll be nothing of us to find in Soryandum. Our ranks are reducing swiftly, friend Hawkmoon.'

  Hawkmoon gave a deep sigh. 'To lose good friends twice over is hard to bear. You cannot understand that. Oladahn and D'Averc were strangers to you as was I a stranger to them. But they were old, dear friends to me.'

  Bowgentle put a hand on Hawkmoon's shoulder. 'I can understand,' he said. 'This business is harder on you than it is on us, Duke Dorian. For all that we are bewildered—tugged from our times, given omens of death on all sides, discovering peculiar machines which order us to kill strangers—you are sad. And grief could be called the most weakening of all the emotions. It robs you of will when you most need your will.'

  'Aye,' Hawkmoon sighed again. He flung down the flame-lance. 'Well,' he said, 'I have found Soryandum— or, at least, the hills in which Soryandum lies. We can get there by nightfall, I'd guess.'

  'Then let us hurry on to Soryandum,' said Count Brass. He brushed sand from his face and his moustache. 'With luck we shall not see Baron Kalan and his damned pyramid for a few days yet. And by that time we might have gone a stage or two further towards solving this mystery.' He slapped Hawkmoon on the back. 'Come, lad. Mount up. You never know—perhaps this will all end well. Perhaps you'll see your other friends again.'

  Hawkmoon smiled bitterly. 'I have the feeling I'll be lucky if I ever see my wife and children again, Count Brass.'

  Chapter Four

  A Further Encounter

  With Another Old Enemy

  But there
was no Soryandum in the green foothills bordering the Syranian desert. They found water. They found the outline which marked the area of the city, but the city had gone. Hawkmoon had seen it go, when threatened by the Dark Empire. Plainly the people of Soryandum had been wise, judging that the threat was not yet over. Wiser, Hawkmoon thought sardonically, than he. So, after all, their journey had been for nothing. There was only one other faint hope—that the cave of machines from which, years before, he had taken the crystal machines, was still intact. Miserably he led his two companions deep into the hills until Soryandum was several miles behind them.

  'It seems that I have led you on a useless quest, my friends,' Hawkmoon told Bowgentle and Count Brass. 'And, moreover, offered you a false hope.'

  'Perhaps not,' said Bowgentle thoughtfully. 'It could be that the machines remain intact and that I, who have some slight experience of such things, might be able to see a use for them.'

  Count Brass was ahead of the other two, striding in his armour of brass, up the steep hill to stand on the brow and peer into the valley below.

  'Is this your cave?' he called.

  Hawkmoon and Bowgentle joined him. 'Aye—that's the cliff,' said Hawkmoon. A cliff which looked as if a giant sword had sheared a hill in two. And there, some distance to the south, he saw the cairn of granite, made from the stone sliced from the hill to make the cave in which the weapons were stored. And there was the cave opening, a narrow slit in the cliff face. It looked undisturbed. Hawkmoon's spirits began to rise a little.

  He went faster down the hill. 'Come, then,' he called, 'let's hope the treasures are intact!'

  But there was something that Hawkmoon had forgotten in his confusion of thoughts and emotions. He had forgotten that the ancient technology of the Wraithfolk had had a guardian. A guardian that he and Oladahn had fought once before and had failed to destroy. A guardian that D'Averc had only just managed to escape from, A guardian that could not be reasoned with. And Hawkmoon wished that they had not left their camels resting at the site of Soryandum, for all he wished for now was a chance to flee swiftly.

  'What is that sound?' asked Count Brass as a peculiar, muted wailing came from the crack in the cliff. 'Do you recognise it, Hawkmoon?'

  'Aye,' said Hawkmoon miserably. 'I recognise it. It is the cry of the machine-beast—the mechanical creature which guards the caves. I had assumed it destroyed but now it will destroy us, I fear.'

  'We have swords,' said Count Brass.

  Hawkmoon laughed wildly. 'We have swords, aye!'

  'And there are three of us,' Bowgentle pointed out. 'All cunning men.'

  'Aye.'

  The wailing increased as the beast scented them.

  'We have only one advantage, however,' said Hawkmoon softly. 'The beast is blind. Our only chance is to scatter and run, making for Soryandum and our camels. There my flame-lance might prove effective for a short while.'

  'Run?' Count Brass looked disgruntled. He drew his great sword and stroked his red moustache. 'I have never fought a mechanical beast before. I do not care to run, Hawkmoon.'

  'Then die—perhaps for the third time!' Hawkmoon shouted in frustration. 'Listen to me Count Brass—you know I am not a coward—if we are to survive, we must get back to our camels before the beast catches us. Look!'

  And the blind machine-beast emerged from the opening in the cliff, its huge head casting about for the source of the sounds and the scents it hated.

  'Nion!' hissed Count Brass. 'It is a large beast.'

  It was at least twice the size of Count Brass. Down the length of its back was a row of razar-sharp horns. Its metal scales were multicoloured and half-blinded them as it began to hop towards them. It had short hindlegs and long fore-legs which ended in metal talons. Roughly of the proportions of a large gorilla, it had multi-faceted eyes which had been broken in a previous fight with Hawkmoon and Oladahn. As it moved, it clashed. Its voice was metallic and made their teeth ache. Its smell, coming to them even from that distance, was also metallic.

  Hawkmoon tugged at Count Brass's arm. 'Please, Count Brass, I beg you. This is not the right ground on which to choose to make a stand.'

  This logic appealed to Count Brass. 'Aye,' he said, 'I can see that. Very well, we'll make for the flat ground again. Will it follow us?'

  'Oh, of that you can be certain!'

  And then, in three slightly different directions, the companions began to ran back towards the site of Soryandum as fast as they could before the beast decided which of them it would follow.

  Their camels could smell the machine-beast, that was evident as they came panting back to where they had tethered their animals. The camels were tugging at the ropes which had been pegged to the ground. Their ugly heads reared, their mouths and nostrils twisted, their eyes rolled and their hooves thumped nervously at the barren ground.

  Again the wailing shriek of the machine-beast echoed through the hills behind them.

  Hawkmoon handed a flame-lance to Count Brass, 'I doubt if these will have much effect, but we must try them.'

  Count Brass grumbled. 'I'd have preferred a hand to hand engagement with the thing.'

  'That could still happen,' Hawkmoon told him with grim humour.

  Hopping, waddling, running on all fours, the mighty metal beast emerged over the nearest hill, pausing as, again, it sought their scent—perhaps it even heard the sound of their heartbeats.

  Bowgentle. positioned himself behind his friends, for he had no flame-lance. 'I am beginning to become tired of dying,' he said with a smile. 'Is that the fate of the dead, then? To die again and again through uncountable incarnations? It is not an appealing conception.'

  'Now!' Hawkmoon said, and pressed the stud of his flame-lance. At the same time Count Brass activated his lance.

  Ruby fire struck the mechanical beast and it snorted. Its scales glowed and in places became white hot, but the heat did not seem to have any effect upon the beast at all. It did not notice the flame-lances. Shaking his head, Hawkmoon switched off his lance and Count Brass did the same. It would be stupid to use up the lances' power.

  'There is only one way to deal with such a monster,' said Count Brass.

  'And what is that?'

  'It would have to be lured into a pit.. .'

  'But we do not have a pit,' Bowgentle pointed out, nervously eyeing the creature as it began to hop nearer.

  'Or a cliff,' said Count Brass. 'If it could be tricked to fall over a cliff . . .'

  'There is no cliff near by,' Bowgentle said patiently.

  'Then we shall perish, I suppose,' said Count Brass with a shrug of his brazen shoulders. And then, before they could guess at what he planned, he had drawn his great broadsword and with a wild battle-yell was rushing upon the machine-beast—seemingly a man of metal attacking a monster of metal.

  The monster roared. It stopped and it reared upon its hindquarters, its taloned paws slashing here and there at random, making the very air whistle.

  Count Brass ducked beneath the claws and aimed a blow at the thing's midriff. His sword clanged on its scales and clanged again. Then Count Brass had jumped back, out of the reach of those slashing talons, bringing his sword down upon the great wrist as it passed him.

  Hawkmoon joined him now, battering at one of the creature's legs with his own sword. And Bowgentle, able to forget his dislike of killing where this mechanical thing was concerned, tried to drive his blade up into the machine-beast's face, only to have the metal jaws close on the sword and snap it off cleanly.

  'Get back, Bowgentle,' Hawkmoon said. 'You can do nothing now.'

  And the beast's head turned at the sound and the talons slashed again so that, in avoiding them, Hawkmoon stumbled and fell.

  In again came Count Brass, roaring almost as loudly as his adversary. Again the blade clanged on the scales. And again the beast turned to seek the source of this new irritation.

  But all three were tiring. Their journeys across the desert had weakened them. Their run from the hills had
tired them further. Hawkmoon knew that it was inevitable that they should perish here in the desert and that none should know the manner of their passing.

  He saw Count Brass shout as he was flung backwards several feet by a sideswipe of the beast's paw. The Count, encumbered by his heavy armour, fell helplessly upon the barren ground, winded and, for the moment, unable to rise.

  The metal beast sensed its opponent's weakness and lumbered forward to crush Count Brass beneath its huge feet.

  Hawkmoon shouted wordlessly and ran at the thing, bringing his sword down upon its back. But it did not pause. Closer and closer it came to where Count Brass lay.

  Hawkmoon darted around to put himself between the creature and his friend. He struck at its whirling talons, at its torso. His bones ached horribly as his sword shuddered with every blow he struck.

  And still the beast refused to alter its course, its blind eyes staring ahead of it.

  Then Hawkmoon, too, was flung aside and lay bruised and dazed, watching in horror as Count Brass struggled to rise. He saw one of the monstrous feet rise up above Count Brass's head, saw Count Brass raise an arm as if it would protect him from being crushed. Somehow he managed to get to his feet and began to stumble forward, knowing that he would be too late to save Count Brass, even if he could get to the machinebeast in time. And as he moved, so did Bowgentle— Bowgentle who had no weapon save the stump of a sword—rushing at the beast as if he thought he could turn it aside with his bare hands.

  And Hawkmoon thought: 'I have brought my friends to yet another death. It is true what Kalan told them. I am their nemesis, it seems.'

  Chapter Five

  Some Other Londra

  And then the metal beast hesitated.

  It whined almost plaintively.

  Count Brass was not one to miss such an opportunity. Swiftly he rolled from under the great foot. He still did not have the strength to rise to his feet, but he began to crawl away, his sword still in his hand.

  Both Bowgentle and Hawkmoon paused, wondering what had caused the beast to stop.