'Bring the prisoners up,' Yusal said, his harsh voice now heard clearly in all corners of the square.
The guards urged their captives forward and Halt led the way up the rough steps to the platform. He felt the stairs shudder under his feet as Selethen mounted them behind him and Svengal followed behind the Arridi.
Yusal grabbed Halt's shoulder as he went to move along the platform, making way for those who were following.
'You stay here,' the Tualaghi told him. 'You will be first.'
There was an angry growl of approval from the Tualaghi warriors in the crowd. The other prisoners might provide sport and diversion with their executions. The two Rangers were hated.
The drum, which had temprorarily ceased its ominous booming, began once more.
As Gilan climbed to the platform, following Erak and Evanlyn, Yusal gestured for him to stand beside Halt. Another murmur of pleasure came from the watching Tualaghi.
There was a bustle of movement in the ranks of the crowd below them and Toshak shoved his way through to the front. He grinned up at Halt.
'This is where you get it in the neck, Ranger!' he called
Halt ignored him, looking away, scanning the crowd, hoping beyond hope that he might see Will somewhere. He still had an unreasoning faith in the fact that his apprentice had survived and that he would not let them go to their deaths without attempting a rescue of some kind.
If he were asked why he held to that belief, he couldn't have given a rational answer. It was faith. Faith in the ingenuity and courage of the young man he had grown to love as if he were a son. Will would be there because he was needed. And Will had never let him down in the past.
Vaguely, he was aware of Erak replying to Toshak, inviting him up onto the platform.
'Even with my hands tied, I'm sure I could break your treacherous neck for you, Toshak!' he said. Toshak grinned infuriatingly.
'I'll take your head back to Skandia, Erak,' he said. 'I'll use your skull as a beer tankard.'
Yusal glared at the two northerners. He had a sense of theatre and occasion and a flair for the dramatic. Their uncultured, noisy bickering had no place here.
'Be silent!' he commanded. Toshak glanced at him, shrugged indifferently, and leaned against one of the support poles to the platform. Yusal, satisfied that there would be no further interruption, held up one hand.
'Let Hassaun stand forward!' he shouted. The cry was taken up by the Tualaghi round the square.
Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!
The shouting echoed off the building fronts, keeping pace with the incessant booming of the drum. Some of the Arridi were caught up in the moment and joined their voices to the chorus. They had seen executions before. They had a good idea what was about to happen. The shouting grew in intensity, volume and urgency.
Then a massive figure appeared on one side of the square, standing high above the heads of the spectators. For a moment he seemed to be floating in the air, then Halt realised that he was on a large wooden shield, being borne at shoulder height by four Tualaghi as they forced their way through the crowd towards the execution site.
The drumbeat intensified in pace and the shouting went with it. Hassaun was a massive figure, clad entirely in black. His long, flowing robe billowed on the early morning breeze and the tails of his black kheffiyeh trailed behind him as the four warriors carried him forward. The lower half of his face was covered by the ever-present dark blue Tualaghi veil.
His hands, crossed in front of his chest, rested on the hilt of a massive, black-bladed, double-handed sword.
Will and Aloom had reached the nearer tower as the drumbeat began, deep and sonorous.
'They're starting!' Aloom cried. 'Get moving! We haven't much time!'
Will said nothing. He stripped the canvas wrapping from his longbow, bent it behind his right calf, anchoring it in place with his left ankle, and slid the bowstring up into its notch, grunting slightly with the effort of overcoming the bow's fifty-kilogram draw weight.
He tossed his cloak to one side, revealing the quiver of two dozen arrows over his shoulder, slung the bow alongside it and started to climb up the rotten timber framework of the tower.
It was slow going. In spite of Aloom's exhortations to hurry, and his own growing sense of urgency, he knew he had to pick his hand and footholds carefully. The tower was in worse condition than he had expected and there was an excellent chance that it might collapse under a hurried movement.
He'd gone up four metres, past the top of the wall itself, and was stepping carefully to one last crosspiece before he gained the observation platform.
The drum had ceased for a few minutes but, in the distance, he could hear it booming again, coming faster and faster now. Then a chant from hundreds of voices carried to him:
Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!
'Who the blazes is Hassaun?' he muttered to himself, inching carefully along a decidedly untrustworthy timber brace.
He was poised in midair, his foot reaching out tentatively for the more solid-looking platform, his weight supported by his arms so that he was utterly helpless, when he heard a voice from behind him.
'Who the hell are you? And what are you up to?'
He looked down. Aloom was below him, facing back the way they had come. Ten metres away, three Tualaghi warriors watched them suspiciously. Behind them, smiling vindictively, was the fat merchant they had seen in the inn the previous night.
Chapter 44
The giant executioner balanced easily on the shield, borne on the shoulders of four Tualaghi warriors as they made their way through the crowded market square towards the execution site. As he passed through the crowd, hands were raised and weapons brandished by the Tualaghi in admiration of the massive figure.
The four bearers stopped beside the execution platform and Hassaun stepped lightly onto it. As he did so, another bout of cheering rose up.
Now that he could see him more closely, Halt realised that the executioner really was a giant. He stood well over two metres in height and his shoulders and body were built in the same massive proportion. He whipped the huge, two-handed sword up until it was raised vertically above his head and paraded along the front of the platform, ignoring the line of prisoners and brandishing the sword to the assembled crowd.
Again the cries of his name echoed out.
Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!
He marched along the front of the platform to the far end, then back to the centre again, drinking in the adulation of the crowd. Then, when he stood at the centre, he raised the sword to the fullest stretch of his arms, reversed it with a flick of his powerful wrists and drove it, thudding, point first into the platform.
He stepped back a pace, leaving the sword slowly quivering as it stuck into the wood.
Then he reached up to the lacing that secured his outer robe, quickly released it and swung the robe out and away from his body, letting it fall in a heap behind him.
He was clad now only in a pair of wide, billowing trousers, gathered at the waist and each ankle, and the black kheffiyeh and dark blue face veil of the Tualaghi. His bare torso gleamed slightly with oil and now the hugely muscled arms, chest and abdomen could be seen clearly.
He stepped forward and, without any apparent effort, flicked the sword free of the wood, then spun it around his body and head in a bewildering series of high-speed arcs and circles. He handled the huge sword as if it were a toy, but to anyone who knew weapons and could estimate the weight of the long, heavy, tapering blade, it was an impressive display that spoke volumes about the strength and co-ordination of arm, body and wrist muscles. The highly polished black blade caught the rays of the morning sun and flashed and dazzled the eye, moving so quickly that at times it seemed more like a solid black disc than a narrow blade.