Had Alaric been able to grease his naked form with pig-fat, he’d have found his passage through the twisting labyrinth easier. As it was, he was scraped and gouged, but almost as soon as he wormed his way into that torturous defile, a chink of light became visible. When he reached it, he found that it was nothing more than a reflection on a rock face; the true source was far overhead. The passage had become a chimney, though no chimney ever contorted as this one did. Even so, the lad snaked his way up, sweat stinging his eyes, his blood running freely. A speck of sky was visible, but it was still far above. Gasping with pain and effort, grunting incoherent prayers, he barked his shins and elbows, and cracked his head on jutting granite. The sounds of battle diminished to a distant, tinny clamour. Soon all he could hear was his own breath. But he was almost there. The air seemed fresher. The blot of sky now seemed the size of a table, but there was still some distance to go yet.
Down in the cave, two more fighters had been dragged to their deaths. Lucan had been forced back to the front simply because he was the closest. Davy Lug stood alongside him, wielding a flail. He threshed on the apes as though mad, but then Babi’s massive claw raked across his face, ploughing flesh and bone, popping an eye from its socket. The archer tottered backward, screaming, and another knight, already wounded, took his place. A smaller ape came at this one and he skewered it, but so deeply did the blade of his sword bite and so slippery with blood was its hilt that it slipped from his grasp. The disarmed knight was taken by the legs, and dragged into their midst, where a hundred rocks rained on him.
For a moment Lucan stood alone.
His eyes locked on the yellow pinpoints under Babi’s bony brow. The brute stretched open its massive maw, crouching and coiling its misshapen form as though ready to spring. The other baboons, of which there were still too many to count, also coiled. They would force their way inside through sheer weight of numbers. And then, suddenly, there was a thunderous grating and crashing from overhead — as though an avalanche of stone was descending.
What happened next was hidden from the men in the cave by a choking cloud of dust, filling their eyes and noses, coating them in fine white-grey powder. The noise was ongoing and cacophonous, yet grew louder and louder, forcing them to clamp hands to ears…
Alaric had not intended to bring half the mountainside down.
On emerging far above the milling baboons, he had seen one boulder — an immense egg-shaped stone — perched precariously on the cliff edge. Jammed beneath it, at an angle which might provide leverage, was the broken bole of a tree. The naked boy put himself behind it and heaved. A first it seemed an impossible task, his muscles straining in his wounded flesh, sweat springing from his brow. But in that isolated moment there was surely no weight in the world that Alaric — the lives of whose friends depended on him — could not shift.
With a splintering of wood and grating of stone, the mighty rock slowly moved, and then, in an instant, dropped over the precipice. It struck one ledge after another before striking the apes, and in the process took down vast numbers of other boulders, which descended on the gibbering tribe in a colossal deluge of rubble and scree.
So much of the cliff-face disappeared that, as the dust settled, Alaric found he was able to walk down the rubble, picking an easy route.
One by one, his comrades emerged from the recess, coughing in the dust. If at any stage it had occurred to him that his rash act might have buried them alive, it had proved unfounded.
The baboon tribe had enjoyed less luck.
With the echoes of the landslide still ringing in their ears, Lucan and his handful of survivors descended. The terrain in front of them had changed beyond recognition. It was little more now than a vast apron of jumbled moraine — spreading not just down the hillside, but through the stockade and far into the village. Of the baboons, only the occasional crushed face or twisted, twitching limb poked above the surface.
Babi himself was more easily found; buried to mid-way up his shattered torso, his hide thick with dust and dirt. His left arm had broken off at the elbow, only a glinting white spear jutting through the gluey pulp. His jaw had smashed sideways, and both his eyes had gone. But he was still groping feebly about, a soft gurgling rising from deep inside him. Lucan watched dispassionately. When he pressed the tip of Heaven’s Messenger against the monster’s throat, and leaned slowly forward, it was not an act of mercy.
One or two baboons had survived on the peripheries of the slide, and now bounced around on all fours, gibbering — though more with fear and confusion than anger. When Lucan brandished his sword at them and gave a battle howl, they fled.
“Did God supply you with a thunderbolt?” Maximion asked Alaric.
“I pray it was Him and not some other,” Alaric replied.
He eyed Lucan, who turned and caught his gaze. This time, for once, the emboldened ex-squire did not look away.
Twenty-Eight
As they rose higher into the Ligurian massifs, Trelawna wondered what kind of world her lover was taking her to. Rags of mist blew across a dismal, sloping landscape; a place of rocks, chasms and black, stunted trees. Each night, more soldiers slipped away under cover of dark. The tiny handful soon remaining was cold, tired and desperately hungry. Their mounts plodded listlessly, some lame, others simply exhausted.
“What is this place?” Trelawna asked. “This country, I mean?”
“Italy,” Rufio replied. “You are now in Italy’s far north.”
She smiled wryly. “Every country has a north.”
“Even my most loyal companions are abandoning me,” Rufio complained. “They owe everything they have to my beneficence. I gave many their commissions. I promoted some from the ranks…”
“They don’t want to die,” she said simply.
“Which shows what a milk-livered bunch they are. We are a day’s ride from Castello Malconi… one day, that’s all, and the danger will be past.”
“Tribune!” came a voice from behind.
They turned, to see a scout who had been posted at the rear galloping towards them. He was red-faced and sweating. Steam rose from his horse’s flanks.
“Well?” Rufio demanded.
“It’s Earl Lucan, sir. He’s less than a day behind us.”
Rufio placed a fist to his knotted brow. His eyes screwed shut.
“You can keep running, Felix, and hope we make it to Castello Malconi in time,” Trelawna advised him. “Or I can do what I said… return to my husband and beg his forgiveness. If he kills me, he kills me… but at least the affair will be over.”
“And how do I live with my conscience?” he replied. “If I send you to your death while I run for safety?”
“Your conscience hasn’t troubled you much until now,” Gerta muttered.
“Silence, you hag!” he screamed, pointing with trembling finger. “Trelawna, I swear… if your servant misspeaks herself one more time, I’ll…”
“Gerta, you’re not helping,” Trelawna said tiredly.
Gerta returned Rufio’s fierce glare. “Take it out on me if you wish, Roman lord… though you should be taking it out on your real enemy. Were you a knight of Albion you’d know there’s only one solution to this problem. You would ride down there yourself and challenge Earl Lucan to single combat.” She turned to her mistress. “But I’ll hold my tongue from now on. I know how painful the truth can be.”
She turned her animal around and rode slowly away.
Rufio watched her balefully, saying nothing, and gradually his expression slackened. “Single combat? Against the Black Wolf of the North…”
“Only a fool would consider such an option,” Trelawna said.
“Maybe I’d rather be a fool than a coward.”