Death Angel's Shadow (18 page)

Gavein set his stubbled jaw. "Demand all you want then. But no one in Sebbei will bother to obey your ranting!"

Gaethaa uttered a curse of baffled anger, "Mollyl! You and Jan talk to this fool outside where they can all see we mean business! If I have to bully them into helping us look for Kane I will! It's plain this bunch of gutless slugs won't lift a hand against us!"

With a thin smile Mollyl grabbed the scrawny mayor, while Jan painstakingly rescrewed the hook to the stump of his wrist. "Gaethaa--you can't be going to torture this man because he refuses to help us!" Alidore protested.

The Crusader's face was grave. "Regrettable I know, Alidore. But desperate measures are called for. I am prepared to sacrifice any number of lives to destroy this madman Kane--because in the end many more lives will be spared from his monstrous schemes! Anyway, in refusing to help, Gavein and his people are giving direct aid to the cause of evil! They've brought this all upon themselves!" He stalked resolutely from the room.

"Stay here with the bitch if you're squeamish," suggested Mollyl with a smile. "Jan, you and Bell give me a hand. Go call the people together, Missa."

Alidore frowned irritably and started to follow, but Rehhaile called his name. So he stopped, mind in indecisive turmoil, and hesitantly approached their captive. From the square outside came a howl of agony and an inspired laugh.

"Is that what's going to happen to me?" she asked him.

He felt a sharp nausea of unreasonable guilt. "I'll see that you'll feel no pain," he declared, then cursed his callousness as he saw her frightened tears. Damn! He had no business permitting personal feelings to intrude on a clear-cut matter like this. What difference did the fate of this devil's whore make to him? She mattered nothing weighed against the rightfulness of their mission. Uneasily Alidore realized that despite her guilt, her own fate meant a great deal to Rehhaile.

He drew his knife. "Look. You don't really belong in this mess. Your crimes aren't that important to us." He mumbled on clumsily, unable to say anything that did not sound foolish in his own ears, still unable to shut up. The knife sliced her bonds as he talked.

Unsteadily she rose to her feet. "You're letting me go," she said needlessly.

Alidore gave a tight lipped nod. "I can slip you through the rear door--I can see everyone else is out front." She shuddered, her face frightened and pale. Alidore thought of her uncanny second sight and realized she could sense every detail of the beating going on outside.

"Get away from them!" she whispered fiercely. "You don't belong with them! In your soul there is still some human feeling! All but burned out!"

"What do you mean!" Alidore protested. "These men are my fellow soldiers on a mission of good! We may be forced to resort to savage methods, but our goal is to help mankind! I'd die for Gaethaa willingly! He's the greatest man of this age!"

She laughed then--or maybe it was a sob. Alidore could not be certain. Her sightless face held him as she spat back in scornful pity. "Do you call me blind, Alidore! Gaethaa a great man! A Crusader battling the forces of evil! While Kane has lived here he has harmed no one. Since you came yesterday, your great man and your fellow soldiers have terrorized the town, raped me and threatened worse, demolished this tavern, bullied Gavein--and now you're beating him to death to force the people of Sebbei to obey commands meaningless to them!"

Alidore protested hotly. "But it's for the good of all! The man we're after is one of the most villainous..."

"Are you so much better then? Is Gaethaa a saint who has brought all this upon us? Are men like Mollyl, Jan, Bell and the others heroes? Perverted killers! Animals! Mercenaries who kill for profit and pleasure!

"Alidore! Please leave them now!"

"Get out of here! Right now!" he snarled. "I'll not desert Gaethaa!" His mind a whirl of confusion, be buried his head in his arms upon the table. Her steps moved away hurriedly, but he no longer listened.

A thousand years passed before Gaethaa called him, and he dazedly went outside. "Well, the old fool's dead!" the Crusader snapped in annoyance. "Completely useless too. These walking dead men only ran off when we tried to show them a lesson! Locked in their houses! They'll all die in their shadows before breaking out of their apathy! Never mind though! Their cowardice makes them worthless to us. We'll find Kane ourselves one way or another!"

Hoping that Rehhaile would have time to reach some place of safety before the others noticed her absence, Alidore joined Gaethaa in the square. The twisted body of Gavein lay sprawled in the dust, a patch of dampness growing in the late morning sunlight. His veins should have contained only dust, Alidore mused, avoiding the ruined face that tilted upward toward the sky. Jan caught his eye and grinned, fastidiously polishing his hook across his thigh.
"Shall I bring out the girl?" Mollyl smiled, his pale face a tight mask. "Anything's worth trying now."

Gaethaa shrugged. "Might as well. We'll stake her out in the sun and leave her. It might draw Kane's attention and keep him close by, even if he won't risk getting to her,"

Alidore casually watched as Mollyl and Bell entered the tavern. No longer did he have second thoughts on his decision to release her. He almost smiled at the angry shout from within, as Mollyl discovered her escape.

"Hey, she's gone!" Mollyl bellowed from the doorway. "Her bonds were cut! Damn you, Alidore! You turned the witch loose!"

Bristling in defense of himself, Alidore snarled back "The hell I did! She was tied tip when I left her a minute ago! One of the townspeople must have done it! Maybe Kane came back! Hell, there's broken glass all over the tavern--she might have cut herself free while you were playing with Gavein!"

"All right! Let it pass! She's gone!" Gaethaa shouted to halt the dispute. He looked at his lieutenant narrowly, but decided it was not worth an inquest. Maybe Alidore would be less moody now.

"She wasn't of any real use to us anyway," he continued. "If she's with Kane now, that's fine for us. She'll only hinder his movements, and the two should be ten times easier to find than Kane alone.

"We'll divide our forces and start searching from house to house. That will make it three to one when we find Kane, and I'd rather the odds were greater after what we've learned of him. Still it's the best we can do. If we stuck together, we'd only chase around in circles through this ghost town. And if we spread out any more he might pick us off one by one. So don't underestimate our quarry. Remember he has untold centuries of cunning to direct his every move. When you find him don't give him a chance. Call for the rest of us when you get close to him, and be ready for anything.

"Ok then. Mollyl and Jan come with me--we'll start to the west from the square. Alidore, you take Missa and Bell and search east. Good hunting!"

Dron Missa critically eyed Bell, whose left shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages. "Too bad you can't trade that sling for a hook like Jan's," he commented. "Then you'd maybe be worth something in a fight."

Bell's coarse face grew scarlet in anger. "Anytime you want to find out, kid! Anytime--you don't even need to ask! I'll push in your smirking little face just as sure with my right arm as with both! Want to try it right now?"

"All right! Save it for Kane when we find him!" Alidore ordered.

Eyes alert for the first sign of danger, the hunters strode across the square and into the silent streets. Somewhere in this city of ghosts lurked the man they had come to destroy. This mission that had already cost so much hardship and death must soon be completed.

"By the way, Alidore," Dron Missa whispered as they moved away. "That was a good move with Rehhaile."

Alidore looked at the Waldann curiously, then answered his grin.

Kane edged along the rooftop cautiously, keeping in view the three men who walked through the street below. The morning had faded into afternoon, and now the shadows again were stretching out across the empty streets. Soon they would reach all the way across, then the shadows would soften and begin to creep over the entire city. And darkness would return to Sebbei.

Kane was waiting for the night. Throughout the day be had assiduously avoided his pursuers, moving always just a little ahead of their search. This way he could keep them in view at all times, and thereby preclude a chance confrontation. He had considerable confidence in his own prowess, but he recognized that his opponents were hardened fighters as well. At present it seemed pointless to meet his enemies on their own terms. Three of them might well hold him at bay long enough for the others to arrive. Kane did not care to be caught in a trap again.

So he waited for darkness to come. Night would be to his advantage, and in the interim Gaethaa and his men could grow exhausted and careless.

The roof was hot. Exposed on the glossy slate surface, Kane was reminded most emphatically that it was a desert sun shining down over Demornte. The tiles stung his bare flesh as he crept over them--slabs of green--and gray-hued black, whose relative darkness Kane could judge from the heat that met his touch. Sweat trickled across his body, leaving damp patches wherever he rested, making his hands slip against the slate as he climbed the sloping roof.

It was easier to steal through the streets, keeping to the alleys and slipping through the empty buildings. The few townspeople that Kane encountered slunk away from him with faces averted, all but squeezing shut their eyes to avoid any contact with him. So did they creep away from his pursuers, Kane had observed, scuttling for their burrows when the strangers demanded information of them. They would not betray him, Kane felt assured. They only stood wretchedly by while his hunters searched suspiciously through their shops and houses, or pointed blindly when impatient threats demanded an indication of Kane's hiding place. At length Gaethaa's men too dismissed the townspeople as participants or even witnesses in this hunt.

But Kane made it a point to leave the maze of narrow streets and empty buildings at frequent intervals. Their cover masked his enemies' movements as welt as his own, and such apparent sanctuary could too easily become a cul-de-sac. Climbing along the rooftops he could follow their progress and alter his own course as their movements dictated.

A rustling scrape alerted him, and he spun about with knife poised. It was a long, gray lizard, crawling across the tiles away from him. The reptile hafted, settled against the sun steeped states, and regarded the human with a glassy, inscrutable stare. Kane licked his dry lips, tasting salt, and wiped his sticky face with a grimy arm. His sword belt chafed his back, and sweat dripped across his chest to soak the harness. He had rolled the sleeves and opened the front of his shirt, but his leather vest and pants offset any help this afforded toward cooling him off. With darkness the air would soon grow chill again.

The inner wall of Sebbei was growing close again, so the search had now completed half of its second circuit--once already Gaethaa's men had worked their way from the square to the wall and back again, and now they had returned to the wall a second time. Tempers were as burning hot as the slate tiles he rested upon, and Kane caught shreds of argument that he probably had left the old city altogether. Vigilance had relaxed as frustration piled up, and Kane decided it was an opportune point for him to strike.

Kane had always been careful to stay well ahead of his pursuers while he climbed across the rooftops. His boots made a soft scuffling upon the slates no matter how gingerly he moved about. In each group of searchers, one man always held an arrow ready to draw, and no building was entered until they made a close scrutiny for evidence of their quarry lurking somewhere above them. Now as he saw them approaching the empty apartment house on whose roof he lay hidden, Kane held his position.

Huddled against the stone cornice, he watched through a chink in the blocks as the three halted before the structure and looked it over. Alidore stood back with an arrow nocked and ready, his eyes scanning the building front for any sign of danger. Swords drawn, Dron Missa and Bell entered the tenement ahead of him. Once they called out to him, Alidore hurriedly stepped inside as well.

His ear pressed to the roof, Kane could bear an occasional faint crash from within, as they carried out the tedious business of examining each room of the crumbling apartment. There was no access to the roof from within, so Kane knew they could not reach him at the moment. This particular tenement had obviously been in disrepair even before the plague, and the intervening years were not far short of bringing it to total ruin. Earlier in the day Kane had almost lost his balance when a cornice stone had shifted beneath his weight, and the decrepit state of the entire building front had suggested a possibility.

Now while his enemies searched through the rotting apartments, Kane busily attacked the cornice with his knife. The dagger point dug into the crumbling mortar as if it were mud. A growing pile of grit and dirt spread about his knees as he worked, hoping that the soft grating of metal on stone would not be heard below.

The sound of voices reached the street again, and Kane sheathed his blade quickly. Rising to his feet he tried to peer through the cracks to see when the men would step out into the street. Luck was still with him--they had not attempted the rotted stairs leading from the tenement's rear exit. But his vision was limited by the position, so the best he could do would be to estimate by the sound of their voices the approximate moment they would walk beneath the cornice.

It was time to take the risk. If his timing were off this might prove catastrophic. His feet set against the slates, Kane braced his shoulder against the cornice and slowly heaved, hoping that the entire building front would not collapse as well. The cornice resisted his pressure at first, so he threw against it the full strength of his massive frame. With a sudden treacherous release of tension, the stone facade buckled outward and collapsed! Thrown off balance, Kane waved his arms wildly and tottered on the brink, about to topple after the plummeting stonework!