Erak's Ransom

Chapter 43

Umar crouched behind a large granite boulder at the head of the gully, his eyes screwed up, intent on the watchtower that he and Will had selected the day before. The half-fallen beam made it easy to distinguish from its neighbours.

There was a movement behind him and he turned to see Hassan. The young man had made his way forward from the position further back in the gully where the main Bedullin force waited quietly.

'Any sign of him, Aseikh?' Hassan asked.

Umar shook his head. 'He should be in position by now. It's nearly nine.'

'Maybe the executions have been delayed?' Hassan suggested. Umar scratched his beard reflectively.

'Maybe. But I can't see that devil Yusal giving up such a chance to impress the locals.' He held up a hand as for silence, his head turned slightly to listen. From inside Maashava, the deep, rhythmic booming of a bass drum carried to them on the gentle morning breeze.

'No,' he said. 'The execution's going ahead. What the devil has happened to Will and Aloom?'

'Shall I bring the men up, Aseikh?' Hassan asked.

Umar hesitated. Chances were there would be no one looking in this direction and they could get a head start down the dusty track that led to the town. But he rejected the idea. All it needed was one curious pair of eyes to see them and the alarm would be raised.

'We'll wait for the Ranger,' he said.

Surrounded by guards, the seven prisoners were led down a long earthenware ramp from the storehouse cave to the streets of the town itself.

Shoved and buffeted, they stumbled over the uneven ground, strung together in a long line, forbidden to speak to each other. For the most part, the Arridi townspeople watched them with a mixture of apathy and morbid pity. Yet, as always in a crowd, there were those who chose to jeer at the prisoners and throw stones, clumps of earth and garbage at them. Halt glared at one group of young men in their twenties. Unlike most Arridi, they had obviously been drinking the powerful spirit known as arariki. They stumbled and staggered together, their eyes red and their jaws slack as they hurled insults at the line of prisoners. Halt turned and looked back over his shoulder at Selethen, the next in line behind him.

'I thought your religion banned alcohol,' he said. Selethen glanced with distaste at the noisy, cat-calling group and shrugged.

'There's a low element in every society,' he said. 'People like that are simply too glad that they're not the ones being led to the block today.'

A guard stepped forward and stung the two men with a knotted rope end.

'Hold your tongues!' he yelled at them. 'No talking, we said!'

They emerged onto the square itself now. It was thronged with people and their escort had to shove to make a path for them. Half those watching were Tualaghi, Halt saw. They were enjoying themselves, hoping the prisoners' nerves would break at the last moment and reduce them to shrieking cries for mercy.

Not that they'd be listened to. The concepts of pity and mercy were unknown to the Tualaghi.

On the far side of the square, close beside the raised timber platform which they could now see clearly for the first time, the deep booming of a drum began. It continued in a slow rhythm, like the beating of a great heart. It was a signal for the crowd around them to re-double their noise. The single file of prisoners was forced through the crowd until they were standing by the steps leading to the platform.

Halt looked up. Yusal stood above them, dressed today in flowing robes of dark blue, his booted feet spread apart, hands on hips. As ever, his face was concealed behind the dark blue veil. Only his eyes were visible, as cold as ever. He faced the crowd now, scanning the faces before him, waiting for silence to fall.

Gradually, the shouting died away to an occasional exclamation. Then those too were stilled as Tualaghi soldiers in the crowd struck out at anyone who would interrupt their leader. An unnatural silence fell over the square.

'Bring the prisoners up,' Yusal said, his harsh voice now heard clearly in all corners of the square.

The guards urged their captives forward and Halt led the way up the rough steps to the platform. He felt the stairs shudder under his feet as Selethen mounted them behind him and Svengal followed behind the Arridi.

Yusal grabbed Halt's shoulder as he went to move along the platform, making way for those who were following.

'You stay here,' the Tualaghi told him. 'You will be first.'

There was an angry growl of approval from the Tualaghi warriors in the crowd. The other prisoners might provide sport and diversion with their executions. The two Rangers were hated.

The drum, which had temprorarily ceased its ominous booming, began once more.

As Gilan climbed to the platform, following Erak and Evanlyn, Yusal gestured for him to stand beside Halt. Another murmur of pleasure came from the watching Tualaghi.

There was a bustle of movement in the ranks of the crowd below them and Toshak shoved his way through to the front. He grinned up at Halt.

'This is where you get it in the neck, Ranger!' he called

Halt ignored him, looking away, scanning the crowd, hoping beyond hope that he might see Will somewhere. He still had an unreasoning faith in the fact that his apprentice had survived and that he would not let them go to their deaths without attempting a rescue of some kind.

If he were asked why he held to that belief, he couldn't have given a rational answer. It was faith. Faith in the ingenuity and courage of the young man he had grown to love as if he were a son. Will would be there because he was needed. And Will had never let him down in the past.

Vaguely, he was aware of Erak replying to Toshak, inviting him up onto the platform.

'Even with my hands tied, I'm sure I could break your treacherous neck for you, Toshak!' he said. Toshak grinned infuriatingly.

'I'll take your head back to Skandia, Erak,' he said. 'I'll use your skull as a beer tankard.'

Yusal glared at the two northerners. He had a sense of theatre and occasion and a flair for the dramatic. Their uncultured, noisy bickering had no place here.

'Be silent!' he commanded. Toshak glanced at him, shrugged indifferently, and leaned against one of the support poles to the platform. Yusal, satisfied that there would be no further interruption, held up one hand.

'Let Hassaun stand forward!' he shouted. The cry was taken up by the Tualaghi round the square.

Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!

The shouting echoed off the building fronts, keeping pace with the incessant booming of the drum. Some of the Arridi were caught up in the moment and joined their voices to the chorus. They had seen executions before. They had a good idea what was about to happen. The shouting grew in intensity, volume and urgency.

Then a massive figure appeared on one side of the square, standing high above the heads of the spectators. For a moment he seemed to be floating in the air, then Halt realised that he was on a large wooden shield, being borne at shoulder height by four Tualaghi as they forced their way through the crowd towards the execution site.

The drumbeat intensified in pace and the shouting went with it. Hassaun was a massive figure, clad entirely in black. His long, flowing robe billowed on the early morning breeze and the tails of his black kheffiyeh trailed behind him as the four warriors carried him forward. The lower half of his face was covered by the ever-present dark blue Tualaghi veil.

His hands, crossed in front of his chest, rested on the hilt of a massive, black-bladed, double-handed sword.

Will and Aloom had reached the nearer tower as the drumbeat began, deep and sonorous.

'They're starting!' Aloom cried. 'Get moving! We haven't much time!'

Will said nothing. He stripped the canvas wrapping from his longbow, bent it behind his right calf, anchoring it in place with his left ankle, and slid the bowstring up into its notch, grunting slightly with the effort of overcoming the bow's fifty-kilogram draw weight.

He tossed his cloak to one side, revealing the quiver of two dozen arrows over his shoulder, slung the bow alongside it and started to climb up the rotten timber framework of the tower.

It was slow going. In spite of Aloom's exhortations to hurry, and his own growing sense of urgency, he knew he had to pick his hand and footholds carefully. The tower was in worse condition than he had expected and there was an excellent chance that it might collapse under a hurried movement.

He'd gone up four metres, past the top of the wall itself, and was stepping carefully to one last crosspiece before he gained the observation platform.

The drum had ceased for a few minutes but, in the distance, he could hear it booming again, coming faster and faster now. Then a chant from hundreds of voices carried to him:

Hassaun! Hassaun! Hassaun!

'Who the blazes is Hassaun?' he muttered to himself, inching carefully along a decidedly untrustworthy timber brace.

He was poised in midair, his foot reaching out tentatively for the more solid-looking platform, his weight supported by his arms so that he was utterly helpless, when he heard a voice from behind him.

'Who the hell are you? And what are you up to?'

He looked down. Aloom was below him, facing back the way they had come. Ten metres away, three Tualaghi warriors watched them suspiciously. Behind them, smiling vindictively, was the fat merchant they had seen in the inn the previous night.