XL

 

 

THERE WAS NOTHING Londoners feared more than fire. Though there were few alive to remember it, all here had parents or grandparents who had told them of the Great Fire of 1135. It was this fire that had damaged London Bridge, and which destroyed most of the properties between St Paul’s and St Clement Danes.

As Gisburne and Galfrid rode through narrowing streets, Hamon running ahead of them, limbs flailing, they saw ahead of them a rising column of black smoke. A sense of panic gripped Gisburne; they knew the Red Hand used fire, but this could destroy the city.

Though the rain had held off all day, the streets were thick with mud – heavy going for boy and horse. At times it seemed Hamon had the advantage, disappearing entirely out of view as he pressed ahead and darted off down the next alley. It only served to emphasise how painfully slow was the horses’ progress.

They had no trouble identifying the house on Jewen Street. Smoke was billowing from an upper story window, and the orange light of flames flickered inside. All around, local people milled and shouted – many in a tongue Gisburne did not understand – rushing with pails and pots of water in an attempt to fight the flames. Without hesitation, they plunged into the front door of the burning building, emerging moments later, coughing and choking. It seemed the height of selflessness. But if this house burned, their houses burned. As Gisburne dismounted, a woman next to him put her hands over her ears and simply wailed in anguish.

Hamon, meanwhile, was already talking avidly to a spindly lad who was watching out front – Tom.

“Is this it? The house where he knocked?” said Gisburne. “You’re sure of it?”

Tom nodded with awesome vigour. Hamon put a hand on the lad’s shoulder and turned to his masters.

“’E says ’e ’eard a fearsome shoutin’ and crashin’ inside before the fire started,” said Hamon. “But ’e ain’t seen no one come out since. ’E thinks the Red ’And must still be inside.”

Gisburne and Galfrid exchanged looks. “Get your staff,” said Gisburne. He pulled his sword – his father’s sword – from beneath Nyght’s saddle, where it had been discreetly stowed, and threw its strap over his shoulder. “Mark the front,” he said. “I’ll take the back. You boys watch the streets – and holler if you see anything.”

Gisburne ran off with heavy, mud-caked feet down the thickly mired alley running down the side of the next house, his palm on his sword pommel. As he went, leaving the immediate turmoil behind, he felt a thrill rise up in him. If this were true – if it were as Hamon said... For the first time, they were close. Better than close. They had him trapped.

At the end of the alley was a low, rotting gate, leading to a lane running along the backs of the houses. It was stuck fast in the mud; Gisburne vaulted over. A clutch of scrawny chickens flew up in the next yard as he did so, setting off other animals in the process. A large dog barked nearby. A smaller yapped from a distance, the sound muffled by the damp and mud. In a small enclosed yard, a single cow lowed gruffly. Gisburne slithered along the lane, back towards the burning house, the cries at the front somehow distant. The back door, he now saw, had been smashed so completely that it was now almost non-existent. Upon its hanging top hinge, only a splinter of wood remained. Gisburne drew his sword.

As he approached the yard, his attention momentarily diverted by the deep, foot-sucking mud, he seemed to see, from the corner of his eye, a large shape drop from one of the back windows. There was a heavy thud and a clank of metal, then silence.

He stood, motionless, seeing nothing – thinking, for a moment, his mind must be playing tricks. Then, beyond the low woodpile, a great figure rose up.

He had heard the descriptions a dozen times, had pictured the thing every hour of every day. But now it stood before him – solid, real, spattered with mud and gore – he felt his mouth turn dry and his damp limbs shudder.

The man was big, but it was his armour made him monstrous. Battered, spiked projections on the helm gave the impression of height, while its nightmarish face recalled the most grotesque carvings on the cathedral of Autun, a demon ready to consume lost souls. The rest of the armour – irregular plates ranging in size from palm to platter – seemed something animal: part reptilian, part insect. Its scales were almost black, but with a sheen of blue, like the carapace of a beetle. Gisburne had seen that before – cooked metal plunged into oil to keep it from rusting. Simple pragmatism, but the effect was pure evil. From one great, clawed arm, partially obscured by the heaped logs, hung the huge hammer. Upon the other was a long, copper cylinder.

For a moment they faced each other, its dead, empty eyes on him. It took three heavy steps around the woodpile. Gisburne could hear it breathing. Then, with a roar, it charged.

To stand firm was folly. That much, Gisburne knew. He feigned a swerve as the Red Hand closed, then flung himself to the opposite way. He heard flames roar as he rolled – felt their heat in the air. He righted himself, waited for the hammer to come as he knew it would, prepared to dodge it.

But it did not come. The Red Hand did not turn or stop. Caked in mud and muck, Gisburne scrambled to his feet as the great figure pounded off into the lane. The Red Hand had already pushed his luck to the limit with this attack. His only object now was escape.

Gisburne smiled. In leaving him alive, the Red Hand had made his greatest error. He had no mail to protect him – nothing but his horsehide coat, his sword and his eating knife. But he could still run – all day if he had to. Now he would see how long the Red Hand could last.

He sped off in pursuit, closing on the lumbering giant. The hammer smashed through a side gate, and the Red Hand headed off down another alley. Then another – twisting and turning through the tangled maze of back ways and tracks. He knew exactly where he was going – and he was fast for a big man. Gisburne’s wet surcoat flapped and wrapped about his legs with every step, and the past weeks of inactivity suddenly seemed to weigh upon him – on his lungs, on his limbs. But in this task, unencumbered as he was, he knew he was still the stronger – until the Red Hand chose to stop, and face him.

As he drew closer, his pumping feet heavy with mud, his mind raced, calculating his options, his eyes scanning the back of his adversary for gaps, weak points. When he took him down, it had to be complete; if any fight was left in the big man – any at all – Gisburne would not survive.

And then it hit him with the force of revelation. The Red Hand did not know he was being pursued. His visibility – and his hearing too – were limited by his great helm. And now, he was leading Gisburne back to his wagon. He thought of de Rosseley’s advice – how stamina would be what the Red Hand lacked. If he only hung back now, and kept pace, the Red Hand would be bringing defeat upon himself with every step.

But then, as they turned down a narrow gap between two dilapidated buildings, labouring through the slimy, near-black mud, he saw it. With each increasingly heavy stride, the bottom edge of the Red Hand’s helm rose momentarily where neck and shoulder met. A gap – appearing and disappearing with the rhythm of his great stride. He could not let such an opportunity pass. The timing would have to be perfect. He would have only one chance – and if he missed, he would alert the Red Hand to his presence. Gisburne raised his sword across his shoulder.

As the Red Hand cleared the two buildings, he turned a sharp right – and Gisburne’s opportunity disappeared up a low bank and through a gap in the crumbling wall. Gisburne fought to make the turn, skidded and slithered on the bank. He recovered and leapt through the gap, to find himself in a wide trackway with scruffy yards on either side – and in the middle of it the Red Hand standing, facing him.

Whether he had heard him stumble on the bank, or glimpsed him as he turned, Gisburne would never know. But it mattered little now. The Red Hand would not run any more – not until he had put his pursuer down for good. If this great hulk charged at him, as he surely meant to, there would be little Gisburne could do. He could dodge him once – maybe twice. So he did the one thing he knew the Red Hand would not expect. He ran at him.

The hammer swung – but too slow. The weapon’s great head boomed past Gisburne’s head as his right shoulder smashed into the Red Hand’s sternum, all his weight and momentum behind the blow. It was like running into a stone wall. But he heard the great man groan, and stagger back, and as he did so, Gisburne swung his whole body round, arms fully extended, sword gripped in both fists. He turned almost full circle, the tip of his blade shrieking as it swung through its great arc.

Detached, almost curious, Gisburne watched as the Red Hand raised his left arm – not, he realised, to protect himself, but to release a burst of Greek Fire. The Red Hand’s flank was hung with thick plates of steel; Gisburne entirely unprotected. The flame would strike him full in the face from less than a yard.

As his sword completed its circuit, he brought it down low, striking the Red Hand’s left knee with such force Gisburne feared the precious sword would warp. The blade turned as it met metal, bent about the knee joint and sprung back, whipping out of Gisburne’s wet grip, somersaulting twice and sticking in the mud four yards distant. Gisburne’s unchecked momentum sent him teetering off balance. His feet slid sideways in the slimy mire, and he crashed to the ground. But as he did so, he heard a roar from within the metal mask – a roar of pain.

Strike a knee joint side on with enough force and it will make the bones shudder no matter what armour is laid against it. Gisburne – helpless, face down upon the ground – was aware of a moment of complete stillness – then felt the ground quiver beneath him as the Red Hand’s huge frame slammed upon it.

He scrambled for his sword. With the Red Hand down, he had a chance. He could find a gap, and thrust his sword point into it. But even as his hand closed about the grip, the giant was up again. A piercing, half-human squeal cut the air, and Gisburne whirled round in confusion. The huge figure was loping unevenly towards him – hammer already swinging. Gisburne had only a second to judge its trajectory – but such a weapon cannot be made to change direction. He dropped and rolled again, out of its path – and was suddenly aware of another dark shape hurtling towards him. The ghastly squeal sounded again – now right by his face. Other harsh cries seemed to echo distantly. Then the hammer struck.

Flesh and bone burst apart with a sickening crunch. Gisburne felt hot blood gush over him – buckets of it – and a pig, still twitching, its head obliterated by the hammer blow, collapsed over his chest. The blood splattered into his eyes, momentarily blinding him. Shocked, horrified, drenched in gore, Gisburne thrust the pig off him and scrambled backward in the mud, trying to blink the blood away. It rolled over like a bristly barrel, its legs convulsing as if still believing they could deliver it from harm. Behind him now, he heard a grunt. Snorting. The sticky patter of feet in mud. Ahead of him, through the stinging red mist, he could make out the looming figure of the Red Hand. But he was backing away.

Gisburne turned just as the feral, mud-caked hogs fell upon him.

They had smelled the blood. There was little they wouldn’t eat, but this had sent them into a frenzy. Grunting and squealing, they pulled at his coat and thrust their wet snouts at him. He swung and stabbed at them, and for a moment they drew back. He struggled to his knees, then the biggest of them – warty and bristled like a boar – went for him, barging into his chest.

He fell backwards – felt one bite his boot, its teeth near breaking his toes. A trotter stamped into his side as the boar-hog came straight for his throat. His foot could take its chances, but his throat he meant to keep. He lashed at the hog with his blade, catching it square across the head and cleaving its skull an inch deep. The squeal that came from it was like nothing he had ever heard – a sound no one should hear. Such a blow would have felled a man, but the great bristled beast did not drop. It bucked and shrieked, spraying blood as it bit wildly at its fellows, its brains scrambled. The squealing grew into a hellish cacophony as each turned on the other and Gisburne, for the moment, was forgotten. He crawled backwards, watching in horror as the pack feasted on the steaming flesh of its fallen comrades.

When finally he staggered to his feet, the Red Hand was gone. Gisburne turned this way and that, looking out across the impossible labyrinth of yards, paths and alleys, straining desperately to see some familiar shape, some pattern of tracks in the mud. But there was nothing. He glanced back at the pigs, still occupied with their meal. From nowhere, unbidden, a vision of the tavern and their dish with its deep red sauce entered his head, and he shuddered. As he turned to go, intent on putting as much distance between himself and them as possible, something in the mud caught his eye. He stooped, and picked it up. A thick, blue-black plate of metal, its leather bindings cut through – a piece of the Red Hand’s armoured shell.