Four or five custodians were running his way.
He ran too. There was no point in trying to avoid attention now.
They chased him through the streets, yelling and waving their fists. Others joined in. By the time he turned the last corner and saw the gates, a howling mob was at his heels.
That wasn’t all he saw. For a start there were more guards than he had anticipated. He counted eight. There was no way he was going to overpower that number single-handed. Two, certainly; three, possibly; four, maybe. Twice that number, never.
The other thing he saw was Hobrow’s carriage. His daughter, Mercy, was sitting in it alone. Hobrow was standing some way off, talking to a custodian.
It gave him an idea. A desperate one, admittedly, but he could see no other choice.
Hobrow and the guards, alerted by the cries of the pursuing mob, turned and looked his way. Several of the custodians were already drawing weapons and starting to move in Jup’s direction.
Jup put on a spurt of speed and ran for all he was worth. He made a beeline for the carriage. The guards raced forward to cut him off. Hobrow himself, seeing Jup’s intention, also began to run.
Heart pounding, Jup reached the carriage just a few paces ahead of Hobrow and the custodians. He leapt on to it. Mercy Hobrow squealed. Jup grabbed her, ripped the knife from his boot and held the blade to her throat.
Hobrow and the guards were clambering on to the carriage.
“Hold it!”
Jup yelled, pressing the knife closer to the trembling girl’s pinky-white flesh.
“Let her go!” Hobrow demanded.
“Another step and she dies,” Jup said.
The holy man and the dwarf locked gazes. Jup inwardly prayed for him not to call his bluff. The girl might have been a pretty unpleasant example of humanity, and the offspring of a ruthless dictator, but she was little more than a child for all that. Given the choice, he would rather not harm her.
“My daddy will
kill
you for this,” Mercy promised. It was all the more chilling a threat coming from the lips of one so young.
“Button it,” Jup sneered.
“You monster!” she wailed. “You stunted ogre! You . . .
eyesore!
You —”
He let her feel the keenness of his blade. She gulped and shut up.
“Open the gates!” he said.
The mob had halted and were watching in silence. Their weapons half raised, the custodians stared. Hobrow pinned Jup with his searing gaze.
“Open them,” Jup repeated.
“There’s no need for this,” Hobrow told him.
“Open the gates and I’ll let her go.”
“How do I know you will?”
“You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Hobrow’s expression turned meaner, his tone took on a harsher edge. “How far do you think you’re going to get out there?”
“That’s my problem. Now are you going to open those gates or do I spill her blood?”
The preacher’s fury was building. “You harm one hair on that child’s head —”
“Then open the gates.”
Hobrow fumed silently for a moment and Jup wondered what his daughter’s life was worth to him. Then the holy man turned and gave the custodians a curt order. They ran to lift the crossbar. Others pulled open the gates.
For Jup it was another moment of truth. If the Wolverines weren’t out there his chances of escaping were down to near zero.
The reins of the horses in one hand and the knife at Mercy’s neck in the other, he edged the carriage through the gates and out into the road.
There was no sign of the Wolverines. That didn’t worry him unduly. He hadn’t expected to be able to see them.
Then, as he moved into the open, the band appeared from the cover of the long grass.
“Get off,” he told the girl.
She stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Get off!”
he barked.
She winced and jumped down from the carriage, then started running back toward her father’s outstretched arms.
Now she was free, the humans had no constraint. Yelling and screaming, they charged. Jup cracked the reins and started to move.
As they spilled through the gates, the wave of humans got their first sight of the Wolverines. They thought they were going to lynch a dwarf, not engage in a minor battle. The suddenness of the orcs’ appearance, and the ferocity of their onslaught, threw the humans into disarray. Further discord was sown by Coilla picking off the guards in their towers with her bow. Three grunts peppered the crowd with arrows.
Led by Stryke, the remainder of the band beat back the mob, which broke ranks and fled for the safety of the enclave. Hobrow could be heard shrieking orders and vowing revenge.
Stryke jumped up beside Jup. “They’ll be getting horses! Let’s move!”
Coilla and several other band members leapt aboard; the rest jogged along beside the speeding carriage.
“Did you get it?” Stryke said.
Jup grinned. “I got it!”
The Wolverines raced from Trinity with their prize.
Amid the chaos, Kimball Hobrow was beside himself with rage.
Custodians were scrambling for horses and climbing to re-man the walls. Citizens armed themselves for the chase. The wounded were being tended, the dead dragged clear of the gates. A team of fire fighters carted water to the blazing arboretum.
Mercy Hobrow, tearful and petulantly angry, tugged at her father’s frock coat and wailed. “Kill them, Daddy! Kill them,
kill them!
”
Hobrow raised his arms, fists clenched, and bellowed over the confusion. “Track them down, brethren! As the Almighty is your guide and your sword, find them and smite them!”
Heavily armed riders galloped out of the gates. Wagonloads of citizenry, bristling with weapons, careered through to join the hunt.
A dishevelled custodian, ashen-faced, ran to Hobrow. “The temple!” he cried. “It’s been desecrated!”
“Desecrated? How?”
“They’ve taken a relic!”
A deeper fury creased the preacher’s face. He reached out and grasped the man’s coat, pulling him close with maniacal strength. His eyes blazed.
“
What
have they taken?”
The Wolverines had left their horses with Alfray and a trooper in a copse several fields distant. Haskeer, semiconscious and groggy with fever, was there too, lashed to his steed.
Abandoning the carriage, the band wasted no time mounting. As they rode off, a massive posse appeared on the road from Trinity.
Stryke had earlier decided that they’d head due west toward the Calyparr Inlet. This gave them the advantage of an open run, and once they reached it, a terrain varied enough to hide them.
The pursuers were disorganised and still recovering from the shock of the unexpected. But they were also tenacious. For several hours they hunted the band doggedly, rarely losing sight of them. Then the less able or less energetic began to fall back, with the overladen wagons the first to be lost.
By the end of the day only a comparative handful of diehards were still on the Wolverines’ trail. Some high-speed, devious riding on the band’s part eventually shook them off, too.
Having reached the vicinity of the inlet, riders and horses near exhaustion, Stryke allowed the pace to drop to a canter.
Coilla was the first to speak since the chase began. “Well, that’s one more enemy we’ve made.”
“And a powerful one,” Alfray agreed. “I wouldn’t count on Hobrow letting the star go as easily as that.”
“Which reminds me,” Stryke said. “Let me see it, Jup.”
The dwarf dug out the instrumentality and handed it over. Stryke compared it to the one he already had, then slipped both into his pouch.
“I had my doubts about pulling that off,” Alfray admitted.
“It was as much luck as anything,” Jup remarked. He produced a cloth and began wiping the paste off his face. It was the first chance he’d had to do it.
“Don’t undervalue yourself,” Stryke told him. “You did well back there.”
“The big question now,” Alfray went on, “is what do we do next.”
“I figured we might have had similar thoughts on that,” Stryke said.
Alfray sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. Scratch?”
“There could be another star there.”
“
Could
be. We have no proof of it. All we know for sure is that Hobrow intends going there. Which might not make it the most ideal destination for us.”
“After the blow we’ve dealt him, I reckon he’s not going just yet.”
“Supposing Hobrow’s expedition to Scratch doesn’t have anything to do with the stars?” Jup suggested. “What if he’s going there as part of his crazy plan to wipe out the elder races?”
“What, to force-feed the trolls poison? I don’t think so. There has to be another reason.”
“Slaughtering other races is what humans do, isn’t it?”
“When they can let tainted water do it for them? It’s too much of a risk. I mean, would you willingly go into that labyrinth unless you had to?”
“But that’s exactly what you’re asking
us
to do!”
“Like I said, Jup, unless you had to. Let’s find a place to camp and at least think about it.”
A little later, when Stryke and Coilla found themselves riding alone at the column’s head, he asked her opinion on going to Scratch.
“It’s no more mad than most other things we’ve done lately, though I think we’d face a much more fearsome enemy in the trolls than even Hobrow’s fanatics. I’m not keen on the idea of entering that underground hellhole.”
“So you’re against it?”
“I didn’t say that. Having some kind of mission certainly beats wandering aimlessly. But I’d want to see a well-thought-out strategy before we went near the place. Another thing you shouldn’t forget, Stryke, is that we’ve managed to upset just about everybody in the last couple of weeks. We’ll have to expect enemies on every side.”
“Which can be a good thing.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It’ll keep us on our toes, spur us on.”
“It’s going to do
that,
all right. Tell me true, how much would going to Scratch be based on logic and how much on clutching at straws?”
“About half and half.”
She smiled. “At least you’re honest about it.”
“Well, I am to you. Don’t think I’d be quite so straight with them about it.” He nodded at the band riding behind.
“They have a right to a say, don’t they? Particularly as we’re now outlaws, and maybe the command structure isn’t as strong.”
“Yes, they have a say, and I wouldn’t try getting them to do anything they really didn’t want to. As for command: like I said before, we have to keep discipline to stand a chance. So unless anybody else puts themselves up for it, I’m staying in charge.”
“I’ll go along with that. I’m sure the others do, too. But there’s one decision you’re going to have to make soon, and it affects all of us. The crystal.”
“Whether it should be divided up or kept as collective band property, you mean? I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe it’s something else we’ll have to have a vote on. Not that I’m happy with the idea of voting on every move, mind.”
“No, that could undermine your authority.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, then she said, “Course, there is an alternative to going to Scratch.”
“What?”
“Returning to Cairnbarrow and bargaining the two stars for our lives.”
“We know from Delorran what they think of us there. Whatever the rest of you decide, it’s not something I’ll be doing.”
“Gods, I’m pleased to hear you say that, Stryke.” She beamed at him. “I’d rather face anything than the reception Jennesta would have waiting for us.”
There was something like a banquet in the grand hall of Jennesta’s palace.
But only something like. Although the long, highly polished dining table was set out for a meal, there was no food. There were five guests present, apart from the Queen herself, not to mention twice that number of servants, flunkies and bodyguards. But there was little evidence of gaiety.
Two of Jennesta’s guests were orcs: the newly elevated General Mersadion, and Captain Delorran, fresh back from his unsuccessful pursuit of the Wolverines. There was no mistaking their nervousness. But they were not the source of the tension. That had its axis in the three other guests.
They were humans.
Jennesta dealt with humans because of her support for the Mani cause, so seeing members of the race about her palace wasn’t in itself that unusual. What was troubling was the nature of these particular humans.
Noticing Mersadion and Delorran’s discomfort, Jennesta spoke. “General, Captain, allow me to introduce Micah Lekmann.” She indicated the tallest of the trio.
A beard would have disguised an old scar that ran from the centre of his stubbled right cheek to the corner of his mouth. Instead he favoured an unkempt black moustache. His hair was a greasy mop and his skin weather-beaten where it wasn’t pock-marked. Lekmann’s muscularity and the cut of his clothes spoke of a life of combat. He looked like a man untroubled by notions of gallantry.
“And these are his . . . associates,” Jennesta added. She left hanging an unspoken invitation for him to make the introductions.
Lekmann flashed an unctuous smile and jabbed a lazy thumb at the human on his right. “Greever Aulay,” he announced.
Where Lekmann was tall, Aulay was the shortest of the three. In contrast to his leader’s well-bulked physique, he was lean and slight. He had the face of a baby rat. His hair was sandy blond and his visible eye, the left one, hazel. A black leather patch concealed the other. His wispy goatee beard clung tenuously to a weak chin. Thin lips stretched to reveal bad teeth.
“And this is Jabeez Blaan,” Lekmann grated.
The man on his left was the biggest by far in terms of mass. He probably weighed as much as the other two put together, but it was all brawn, not fat. His totally shaved, spherical head seemed to meet his body without the necessity of an intervening neck. The nose had been broken at least once and now impersonated a doorknob. His eyes looked uncannily like twin pissholes in snow. The pair of ham fists he rested on the table could have been called upon to demolish a stout oak.