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Chapter Six

The Return to Castle Brass

IN THE GREAT hall of Castle Brass Yisselda, Count Brass's daughter, wept and wept.

She wept for joy, hardly able to believe that the man before her was her husband whom she loved with such passion, hardly daring to touch him lest he prove a phantom. Hawkmoon laughed and strode forward, putting his arms around her and kissing at her tears. Then she, too, began to laugh, her face becoming radiant.

"Oh, Dorian! Dorian! We feared you killed in Granbretan!"

Hawkmoon grinned. "Considering everything, Granbretan was the safest place we saw in our travels! Is that not so, D'Averc?"

D'Averc coughed into his kerchief. "Ayeand maybe the healthiest, too."

The thin and kindly-faced Bowgentle shook his head in mild astonishment. "But how did you return from Amarekh in that dimension to the Kamarg in this?"

Hawkmoon shrugged his shoulders. "Ask me not, Sir Bowgentle. The Great Good Ones brought us here, that is all I know. The journey was swift, taking but a few minutes."

"The Great Good Ones! Never heard of 'em!" Count Brass spoke gruffly, stroking his red moustachios and try ing to hide the tears in his eyes. "Spirits of some sort, eh?"

"Aye of some sort, father." Hawkmoon stretched out his hand to his father-in-law. "You are looking well, Count Brass. Your hair's as red as ever."

"That's not a sign of youth," Count Brass complained. "That's rust! I'm rotting here while you enjoy yourself chasing about the world."

Oladahn, the little son of a giantess of the Bulgar Mountains, stepped shyly forward. "I'm glad to see you back, friend Hawkmoon. And in good health, it seems." He grinned, offering Hawkmoon a goblet of wine. "Heredrink this as a welcome cup!"

Hawkmoon smiled back and accepted the goblet, quaffing it in a single draft. "Thanks, friend Oladahn. How's it with you?"

"Boring. We are all boredand afraid you would not return."

"Well, I am back and I think I have enough stories of my adventures to dispel your boredom for a few hours. And I have news of a mission for us all which will bring you relief from the inactivity you have been suffering."

"Tell us!" Count Brass roared. "For all our sakestell us at once!"

Hawkmoon laughed easily. "Ayebut give me a moment to look at my wife." He turned and stared into Yisselda's eyes and he saw that they were now perturbed.

"What is it, Yisselda?"

"I see something in your manner," said she. "Something that tells me, my lord, that you are soon to risk your life again."

"Perhaps."

"If it must be, then it must be." She took a deep breath and smiled at him. "But it will not be tonight, I hope."

"Nor for several nights. We have many plans to make."

"Aye," she said softly, glancing at the stones of the hall. "And I have much to tell you."

Count Brass stepped forward gesturing to the far end of the hall where the servants were laying the table with food. "Let's eat. We have saved our best for this homecoming."

Later as they sat with full bellies by the fire and Bowgentle had finished recounting now Tozer had suddenly vanished, Hawkmoon showed them the Sword of the Dawn and the Runestaff, which he drew from his shirt. At once the hall was illuminated with whirling flames making patterns in the air and the strange bittersweet scent filled the hall.

The others looked at the thing in silent awe until Hawkmoon replaced it. "That is our standard, my friends. That is what we now serve when we go out to fight the whole Dark Empire."

Oladahn scratched at the fur on his face. "The whole Dark Empire, eh?"

Hawkmoon smiled gently. "Aye."

"Are there not several million warriors on the side of Granbretan?" Bowgentle asked innocently.

"There are several million, I believe."

"And we have about five hundred Kamargians left at Castle Brass," murmured Count Brass wiping his lips on his sleeve and giving a mock frown. "Let me compute that…"

D'Averc now spoke. "We have more than five hundred. You forget the Legion of the Dawn." He pointed at Hawkmoon's sword which lay scabbarded beside his chair.

"How many in that mysterious legion?" Oladahn asked.

"I do not knowperhaps an infinite number, perhaps not."

"Say a thousand," Count Brass mused. "To be conservative of course. Making fifteen hundred warriors against"

"Several million," supplied D'Averc "Aye, several million, equipped with all the resources of the Dark Empire, including scientific knowledge we cannot match…"

"We have the Red Amulet and the Rings of Mygan," Hawkmoon reminded him.

"Ah, yes, those…" Count Brass seemed to scowl. We have those, too. And we have right on our sideis that an asset, Duke Dorian?"

"Perhaps. But if we use the Rings of Mygan to take us back to our own dimension and we fight a couple of small battles dose to home, freeing the oppressed, we can begin to raise some kind of peasant army."

"A peasant army, you say. Hm…"

Hawkmoon sighed. "I know it seems impossible odds, Count Brass."

Then Count Brass suddenly broke into a beaming, golden smile. "That's right, lad. You've guessed!"

"What do you mean?"

"They're just the sort of odds I like. I'll get the maps and we can begin to plan our initial campaigns!"

While Count Brass was away, Oladahn said to Hawkmoon. "Elvereza Tozer could have returned to Londra and revealed our plans and our position. We are very vulnerable at this moment, friend Hawkmoon."

Count Brass came back with the maps. "Now, let's see…"

An hour later Hawkmoon got up and took Yisselda's hand, bid goodnight to his friends and followed his wife to their apartments.

Five hours later they were still awake, lying in each other's arms. It was then that she told him they were to have a child.

He accepted the news in silence, merely kissed her and held her closer. But when she was asleep, he got up and went to the window, staring out over the reeds and lagoons of the Kamarg, thinking to himself that now he had something even more important to fight for than an ideal.

He hoped he would live to see his child.

He hoped his child would be born even if he did not live.

Chapter Seven

The Beasts Begin to Squabble

MELIADUS SMILED BEHIND his mask and his hand tightened on Flana Mikosevaar's shoulder as the towers of Londra came in sight upriver.

"It is going so well," he murmured. "Soon, my dear, you will be Queen. They do not suspect. They cannot suspect. There has been no uprising such as this for hundreds of centuries! They are unprepared. How they will curse the architects who sited the barracks on the waterfront!" He laughed softly.

Flana was tired of the thrumming of the engines and the rumble of the paddle wheel as it pushed the ship along. One of the virtues of a sailing ship, she now realised, was that it was silent. These noisy things would not be allowed in sight of Londra once their purpose was served and she ruled. But the irritation was slight and the decision unimportant. Again she turned her thoughts inward and forgot Meliadus, forgot that the only reason she had agreed to his plan was because she, did not care what became of her. She was thinking again of D'Averc.

The captains on board the leading ships knew what to do. As well as Kalan's engines, they were now equipped with Kalan's flame cannon and they knew their targetsthe military barracks of the Orders of the Pig and the Rat and the Fly and others lining the river close to the outskirts of Londra.

Softly Baron Meliadus instructed his ship's captain to raise the appropriate colour, the flag that would give the signal to begin the bombardment.

Londra was silent and still in the morning, as gloomy as ever, as darkly bizarre as usual, with her crazy towers leaning into the sky, like the clutching fingers of a million madmen.