The Book of Kane (21 page)

The older woman crept almost guiltily from behind the mass of soldiers whose entrance she had followed. The servant’s plump checks were still ashen with fear, and she blinked and trembled as if dazed.

“So she does belong here,” said Pleddis. “We found the old woman hanging back along the road. Seemed so glad to see us she came running into our arms. Couldn’t talk two words of sense—something bad her bad scared. Now I see it was her own bogey tales.”

“She’s a servant here,” explained Ionor in a tight voice. “She had been given the night off, and I had supposed she would spend it with friends in the village near here.” She jerked her hand toward the kitchen, and Greshha dumbly followed her gesture.

Meanwhile Eriall, one of Pleddis’s lieutenants whose face Weed knew, had carried in a grisly burden. “Here they are,” he announced holding out both fists. Clenched by their scarlet-spattered hair, three heads dangled from his grip. Their jaws hung loosely, tongues lolling, eyes rolled upward in a fish stare behind half-closed lids.

“Recognize your friends?” laughed Pleddis. “Eriall, you’re dribbling blood all over your hostess’s floor. Where’s your manners?”

The other grinned and showed the heads to Weed. “Maybe this piece of shit ought to lick the boards clean.”

“Too bad the one’s skull is busted near in half,” mused Pleddis, mourning a damaged trophy. “Well, pack them good in salt with the others. They bring us five ounces of gold each in Nostoblet, and I doubt the Merchants’ League will care if their purchases are a bit damaged in transit. Mind you cut off that earring there.”

“Why don’t I just take along his while I’m doing the rest?” suggested Eriall.

Pleddis stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “How about that, Weed? Want to ride back to Nostoblet all packed in salt? They set twenty ounces of gold on your head, but maybe they’ll pay a little extra if we hand you over intact. You’d rate a public execution all to yourself. Be real nice. Which way do you want it now?”

“Let me kill him,” snarled Ionor.

Pleddis considered her gravely. “Bloodthirsty is the lust of a woman,” he misquoted. “But I’d like to carry one back alive to Nostoblet, so he can tell everyone there how Captain Pleddis ran them down and made raven food out of the whole damned wolfpack .”

Ionor’s face was twisted, her breath fast. Weed thought of a hot- cleftedslut who had been cheated of her climax. “Hang him from the railing then for me—I want to watch him die. It’s my right. You caught them in my inn. You might still be trailing them if they hadn’t stopped here.”

Pleddis seemed to be weakening. “They might pay extra if he’s alive.” “I’ve given you food and lodging here,” argued Ionor. “The extra gold will be less than payment.”

“But you owe me your lives for saving you from Kane’s men,” Pleddis pointed out. The game amused him.

“Should I add Kane’s head to the others?” broke in Eriall.

“Not when they’ll pay me five hundred ounces of gold for Kane,” Pleddis brayed. “For that I’ll bring in the whole carcass. Bad as they want Kane, they’ll likely pickle him in brine and put him on display. Bet they could charge admission just to see him. Bet they will, in fact!

“No, it’s cold enough we can sling him over a horse, and he’ll last until we can get back to Nostoblet. They won’t care what he smells like there. Stundorn, take a few men and drag Kane’s body down here. We’ll leave him in the stables wherethe frost will keep him from getting ripe too fast. Watch that the dogs don’t get at him.”

They had left Kane where he lay when they found him dead. Several minutes had passed since then, in the confused aftermath of Pleddis’s attack on the inn. But now the captain’s attention returned to the prize quarry of his hunt. Stundorn and some others disappeared up the stairs.

“Weed, I’m still not sure what to do with you,” he continued.

“Hang him,” Ionor pleaded, her memory reliving a scene eight years back. A memory of familiar faces turning purple, of limbs thrashing a death dance from an impromptu gallows, while murder-crazed animals roared in laughter below.

“I suppose I can grant the request of a handsome lady,” gallantly remarked Pleddis, thinking that his hostess had a definite beauty beneath the harsh mask of hatred.

Weed forced himself to speak with scornful assurance.

“Grant it and be damned. I can’t hope for any better in Nostoblet. And I’ll die with the secret of Kane’s hidden cache of loot.”

It was a foolish bluff, he realized in panic. But against imminent death, any respite would offer hope.

“Well, now…” began Pleddis, his eyes lighting with sudden interest.

Stundorn burst onto the balcony, his bearing totally shaken.

“Kane’s gone!” he blurted.

Kane breathed a silent curse as his boot slipped from its purchase on the limestone wall. For an instant he swung precariously in the darkness, only the steel grip of his fingers against the stone block saving him from a thirty-foot drop to the frosted earth below. The fall might not kill him, but it was crippling height for surety. Grimly he forced his scrambling boot back into a masonry crack and rested his arms from the tearing weight of his massive frame. His great strength now seemed scarcely sufficient to stand upright, and his wounded side was lancing agony—but at least the strain and the chill air had cleared his thoughts somewhat.

From the open window above him, Kane heard the startled shouts of Pleddis’s soldiers. Baffled rage flamed within him. He had needed more time to descend the wall of the inn. Weakened as he was, he could never reach the ground before a frantic search revealed him to his enemies. Again his boot slipped as he sought to hurry his descent. The limestone blocks of the inn had been set flush in the wall originally—a precaution against athletic thieves or guests who cared not to settle their account. Only because mountain winds and winters had eroded the masonry over the years was Kane able to find purchase—such purchase as there was.

Not even extreme exhaustion and the mists of opium had completely dulled Kane’s uncanny senses. The feral instincts that countless times had drawn him from sleep to full awareness of imminent danger had called to him once again. Kane had awakened to the brief clamour of Pleddis’s attack, and almost instantly he had understood his position.

Even at peak condition Kane would have stood no chance against a score of seasoned mercenaries. And he knew he was trapped—knew without wasting a glance outside that a man of Pleddis’s capability would have surrounded Raven’s Eyrie before thrusting within. In another minute his enemies would be smashing down his door—unless he decided to make a suicidal rush down the stairs, or let an archer pick him off as be scrambled down the outside wall.

A desperate plan came to him then. Pleddis knew he was gravely injured. He would let the bounty hunter find him dead. Any number of risks suggested themselves to him instantly, but plainly there was no other course. Pleddis would lower his guard only if he believed his quarry dead.

It was not too difficult for one of Kane’s knowledge. His appearance was ghastly enough for a corpse, and the cold draft through the window coupled with the chill sweat that had seized him would impart a convincing clamminess to his flesh. Over the centuries Katie had delved deeply into all mariner of occult studies, and the discipline of imposing mental control over physical functions was known to students far less adopt than Kane. For much of their ride, Kane had held himself in a near trance to conserve his strength, and now he withdrew his consciousness into a deeper coma, rigidly controlling breath and heart beat to so low air ebb as to appear lifeless to Pleddis’s inspection.

Several minutes after his enemies had quit his bedside, Kane returned to full awareness. He realized he now had only a few minutes to escape—a short interval once Pleddis had ordered his men from their surveillance of the inn. They would celebrate the success of their lone hunt; for a moment all would be jubilant confusion. Then for any of a hundred reasons someone would return to the dead man upstairs. By then Kane must be gone.

He had cut it close. Too close. Kane had barely lowered himself through the window when Stundorn entered the room. In another instant their stunned fright would leave them. Someone would peer out the open window.
And he could never reach the ground in time. Quickly Kane took the only course left to him. Another window was close at hand. Recklessly Kane clawed his way to the darkened aperture. Somehow he managed to maintain a hold long enough to rest his weight on the ledge. He pushed at the lattice.

It was secured.

Kane bit his lip and tore a knife from his belt. He jammed its blade into the crack between window and casement. His movements seemed panic-driven, but his haste was that of one experienced in his task. In only a few seconds the latch snapped free.

Swinging open the heavy lattice, Kane squeezed through the window. No sooner had his cloak and sword scabbardcleared the ledge than a shout from close by signalled that someone had looked outside.

“No one on the wall!” a soldier called out.

Kane grinned savagely and glared through the darkness of the room. He was not alone.

A small figure crouched on the room’s narrow bed. Her wide eyes were almost luminous as she stared at him—a huge, menacing figure outlined in the moonlight at her window,

“Are you alive?” she whispered. His appearance was supernatural, and she had been listening to the shouts outside her door.

Kane made no comment. He had swung into the child’s room, and he remembered that the door was locked fromoutside. His dagger still shone in his hand. “Don’t make a sound!” he hissed.

Klesst’s voice was grave. “I won’t tell them you’re here,” she said, “Father.”

“I remember one time down along the coast,” Pleddis said, staring into the empty room. “It was late fall, and we were making camp for the night. Dragging in driftwood for a fire, and one of the outfit hauls loose a big snag—and there’s a swamp adder thick as your arm, all laid out and sluggish with cold. Kid was from the coast, knew what he had, so he just laid into it with the stick of wood he was carrying, not even wasting time to pull his sword. Must of hit it fifty times, till the stick busted and the snake was half flattened out. Had to be dead; we didn’t think any more about it.

“Long about the end of second watch we all woke up—Vaul, it was a scream to chill your guts! There was the kid flopping out of his blanket roll, that damn black snake with its fangs buried in his neck. Hell, its head was bigger than your fist and full of venom, and I don’t guess the kid lived long enough for us to stir up the fire.

“After that night I never trusted a dead snake. Always hack them to chunks, no matter how dead they look. Except just now,” he concluded bitterly.

“He can’t of got far,” Eriall judged. “Hadn’t had no time, and crippled up like he was.”

Pleddis grunted and inspected the window casement. Lanterns flashed from the ground below. “What do you see?” he called down.

Nattios bawled back, “Nothing. No marks below. We’re looking along the wall.”

The mountaineer was no fool at tracking, Pleddis knew. “Well, look closer. There’s blood on the ledge here.”

“No. Nothing,” came the reply after a pause.

“There’s rocks down there,” Eriall said, craning his squat neck to look down.

“Yeah, and there’s frost, too,” Nattios retorted gruffly. “Good as sand for leaving tracks. Ain’t nothing.”

“Well, Kane couldn’t have crawled down that wall, anyway,” the stocky lieutenant declared. “Mail that big couldn’t scale these stones even if he wasn’t busted up. The blood’s a false trail.”

Pleddis’s laugh returned. It was not pleasant. “Kane could have done it. He’s not lying in bed there. He either went out the window or out the door. I got men at every exit, so if there’s no tracks outside lie has to be hiding inside. Won’t do him any good, because we’ll find him.”

“Could be he got out somewhere else, mixed his trail in with our tracks,” Eriall persisted. “We came in from all around the sides, you know.”

“Could be. But I figure Kane didn’t have the time to do anything too fancy. He’s hiding in here somewhere. If he’s not, we’ll pick up his trail with the dogs they got here. Long as we keep him from the horses, he won’t get far.”

Stundorn’s stubbled face was strange. “Captain, you’re sure he was just faking he was dead, then?”

Pleddis glared at him. “Dead men don’t run out on you.” Abruptly he scowled. “Unless some bastard slipped back and stole the corpse for the bounty!” He thought carefully. “No, I can account for all of us, and for the bunch that stay here, too, Still, if I find some bastard’s pulling a fast one, there’s going to be one more head in that salt pack, and it won’t cost the Merchants’ League a copper!”

But Stundorn remembered that his quarrel was supposed to have given Kane his death wound. “All the same, captain, it’s the Demonlord’s Moon. They say his powers hold sway over the mountains tonight. Maybe he could make the dead rise. And there’s all kinds of black legends about Kane. We may be trailing a dead man, captain.”

Pleddis stood a moment, face impassive. Then his laugh barked rustily . “Maybe so, Stundorn. But you just remember that corpse is worth five hundred ounces of yellow gold, and if he comes looking for you, just yell for me.”

“Father!” exploded Kane, in a louder tone than he intended. He crossed the room to the girl’s bed.

“Yes,” Klesst whispered. “I saw you come in, and they said you were Kane. The children in the village call me Kane’s bastard. They say you carried Mother away after you raided the inn, and after she escaped and came back she had me, and you were my father.” Kane stared at her.

“See. I have red hair like yours, and my eyes are bluelike yours.” Klesst did not flinch from Kane’s stare. “I caneven see in the dark better than the other children, like the stories tell about you.”

“Your grandmother,” Kane muttered, touching the child’s face.

“So I won’t tell those soldiers where you are,” Klesst concluded.

“You should hate me.” Her skin was feverish. As was his.

“No,” declared Klesst. “The others hate me. But when they hear stories about you, then they look frightened. I like to see them frightened. I like to think they’re even a little frightened of me.”