Hawkmoon frowned. "We'll have to wait until morning before we can guess the answer to that. Perhaps they are out there, planning to take us by surprise."
"Do you think that sound was sent by the Dark Empire?" Oladahn asked.
"Without doubt," Count Brass answered. "They have succeeded in their object. They have brought us back to our own dimension." He sniffed the air. "I wish I could identify that smell."
D'Averc was sorting things from the wreckage of the table. "It is a miracle that we are alive," he said.
"Aye," said Hawkmoon. "That noise seemed to affect inanimate things worse than us."
"Two of the older servants are dead," Count Brass said quietly. "Their hearts could not stand it, I suppose. They are being buried now, in case it is not possible in the morning. In the inner courtyard."
"What of the castle?" Oladahn asked.
Count Brass shrugged. "It's hard to tell. I've been down to the dungeons. The crystal machine is completely smashed and some of the stonework is cracked. But this is a strong old castle. She seems to have fared not too badly. No window glass, of course. No glass of any sort intact. Otherwise…" He shrugged as if his beloved castle had ceased to matter to him, "… otherwise we are still standing as firm as we did before."
"Let's hope so," murmured D'Averc. He held the Sword of the Dawn by its scabbard and the Red Amulet by its chain. He offered them to Hawkmoon. "You'd best don these for it is certain that you will soon have need of them."
Hawkmoon put the amulet around his neck and buckled the scabbard to his belt. Then he stopped and picked up the swaddled Runestaff.
"This does not seem to be bringing us the luck I had hoped," he said and sighed.
Dawn came at last. It came slowly and it came grey and chill, the horizon white as an old corpse and the clouds the colour of bone.
Five heroes watched it rise. They stood outside the gates of Castle Brass, on the hill, and their hands were On their swords, their grips tightening as they saw the scene below.
It was the Kamarg they had left, but it was a Kamarg wasted by war. The smell they had spoken of earlier was the smell of carnage, of a burnt land. For as far as they could see, all was black ruin. The marshes and lagoons had all been dried up by the fire of the flame cannon. The flamingoes, the horses and the bulls had been destroyed or fled. The watchtowers which had guarded the borders were flattened. It seemed as if the whole world were a sea of grey ash.
"It is all gone," said Count Brass in a low voice. "All gone, my beloved Kamarg, my people, my animals. I was their elected Lord Guardian and I failed in my task. Now there is nothing to live for save vengeance. Let me reach the gates of Londra and see the city taken. Then I will die. But not before."
Chapter Three
Dark Empire Carnage
BY THE TIME they reached the borders of the Kamarg, Hawkmoon and Oladahn were covered from head to foot in clinging ash which stung their nostrils and was harsh in their throats. Their horses, too, were covered in the stuff and their eyes were as red as their riders'.
Now the sea of ash gave way to sparse, yellow grassland and still they had found no sign of the legions of the Dark Empire.
A little watery sunshine broke through the layers of cloud as Hawkmoon drew his horse to a halt and consulted his map. He pointed due East. "The village of Verlin lies yonder. Let's ride cautiously and see if Granbretanian troops still occupy it."
The village came in sight at last and when he saw it Hawkmoon began to gallop faster. Oladahn called from, behind him:
"What is it, Duke Dorian? What has happened?"
Hawkmoon did not reply for, as they neared the village, it could be seen that half the buildings lay in ruins, that corpses choked the streets. And still no sign of the Dark Empire troops.
Many of the buildings had been blackened by flame lance fire and some of the corpses had been slain by Same lances. Here and there lay the body of a Granbre tanian, an armoured figure with its mask tilting skyward.
"They were all Wolves here, by the look of it," Hawkmoon murmured. "Meliadus's men. It seems they fell upon the villagers and the villagers attacked them back. Seethat Wolf was stabbed by a reaping hookthat one died from the blow of the spade still in his neck…"
"Maybe the villagers rose up against them," Oladahn suggested, "and the Wolves retaliated."
"Then why did they leave the village?" Hawkmoon pointed out. "They were garrisoned here."
They guided their horses over the bodies of the fallen. The stink of death was still heavy in the air. It was plain that this carnage had been wreaked only recently. Hawkmoon pointed out gutted stores and the corpses of cattle, horses, even dogs.
"They left nothing alive. Nothing which could be used for food. It is as if they were in retreat from some more powerful enemy!"
"Who is more powerful than the Dark Empire?" Oladahn said with a shudder. "Have we some new enemy to face, friend Hawkmoon?"
"I hope not. Yet this sight is puzzling."
"And disgusting," Oladahn added. There were not only men dead in the streets, but children too and every woman, young or old, bore signs of having been raped before she had been slain, mostly by means of a cut throat, for the Granbretanian soldiery liked to slay their victims as they raped them.
Hawkmoon sighed. "It is the sign of the Dark Empire, everywhere you venture."
He looked up, bending his head to catch a small sound carried on the chill wind. "A cry! Someone still lives, perhaps."
He turned his horse and followed the sound until he entered a sidestreet. Here a door had been broken open and a girl's body lay half in the doorway, half in the street. The cry was stronger. Hawkmoon dismounted and walked cautiously towards the house. It came from the girl. Quickly he knelt down and raised her in his arms. She was almost naked, her body covered with a few strips of torn clothing. There was a red line across her throat as if a blunt dagger had been drawn across it. She was about fifteen, with tangled fair hair and glazed blue eyes. Her body was a mass of blue-black bruises. She gasped as Hawkmoon lifted her.
Hawkmoon lowered her gently and went to his saddle, returning with a flask of wine. He put the flask to her lips and she drank, gasping, her eyes suddenly widening in alarm.
"Do not fear," Hawkmoon said softly. "I am an enemy of the Dark Empire."
"And you live?"
Hawkmoon smiled sardonically. "AyeI live. I am Dorian Hawkmoon, the Duke of Koln."
"Hawkmoon von Koln? But we thought you deador flown forever…"
"Well I have returned and your village shall be revenged, I swear. What happened here?"
"I am not altogether sure, my lord, save that the beasts of the Dark Empire intended to leave none alive." She looked up suddenly. "My father and mother my sister…"
Hawkmoon glanced inside the house and shuddered. "Dead," he said. It had been an understatement. They had been disgustingly mutilated. He picked up the girl as she sobbed and took her to his horse. "I will carry you back to Castle Brass," he said.
Chapter Four
New Helms
SHE LAY IN the softest bed in Castle Brass, tended by Bowgentle, comforted by Yisselda and Hawkmoon who sat beside her bed. But she was dying. She was dying not from her injuries but from sorrow. She wished to die. They respected that wish.
"For several months," she murmured, "the Wolf troops occupied our village. They took everything while we starved. We heard that they were part of an army left to guard the Kamarg, though we could not think what there was to guard of that wasteland…"
"They were awaiting our return most likely," Hawkmoon told her.