Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand Read online

  An Abaddon Books™ Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  [email protected]

  First published in 2014 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editor-in-Chief: Jonathan Oliver

  Commissioning Editor: David Moore

  Cover Art: Luke Preece

  Design: Pye Parr & Sam Gretton

  Marketing and PR: Lydia Gittins

  Publishing Manager: Ben Smith

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  Hunter of Sherwood created by David Moore and Toby Venables

  ISBN: 978-1-84997-893-4

  Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  I. The Coming Apocalypse

  II. The Great North Road

  III. London

  IV. Dickon

  V. Judgement

  Deleted Scenes

  About the Author

  For Mum and Dad

  I

  THE COMING

  APOCALYPSE

  I

  Jerusalem

  March, 1193

  ASIF AL-DIN IBN Salah watched the rat lope along the dark tunnel ahead of the flickering light from his torch.

  It was a big rat. A fat rat. As big as the cats that darted about the alleys off the Malquisinat. Those mewling, wide-eyed creatures scavenged a fair living off the so-called ‘street of bad cooking’ – but they were puny specimens next to this hunched monster. Asif shuddered at the sight of it. For a moment it paused and waved its wet snout in the air like a dog picking up a scent. How such a thing were possible in this foul place, Asif could not guess. The mere thought of the thick stench that lapped about him – and the horrid sheen of the rat’s slimy, matted fur – made a sour wave of nausea rise from the pit of his stomach.

  He shook it off. Asif needed his wits about him, down here. If the reports were to be believed, there were far worse things than rats.

  Intelligence on what had been going on in the forgotten tunnels was garbled – fragmentary at best, and in its details, often bizarre. People had spoken of whole cartloads of provisions – dozens of barrels – disappearing near the sewer’s entry points, as if some huge thing had emerged from the subterranean labyrinth under cover of night and swallowed them up. One account – from a terrified Greek merchant who found himself alone one night near the Pool of Siloam – spoke of a man with the blank, expressionless face of a doll rising from under the ground. Another, of a walking statue of a dead Templar. More than once, Asif had heard the claim that the effigy of the Leper King had got up and walked, and was lurking beneath the city, ready to drag unwary Muslims into the depths. One old Jewish scholar muttered a word whose significance Asif had not fully understood, and which all flatly refused to explain to him: go-lem.

  There was one common feature: Christian knights. What interest Christian knights might have in Jerusalem’s sewers was baffling. Asif – who had been resident in the city for most of his adult life, and helped to keep the peace under Christian rule before he entered the service of the Sultan – knew this city as well as anyone alive. Yet even he was perplexed. Jerusalem was a city of many mysteries – it was, Asif often joked, harder to get to know than a woman. Perhaps, after all, it was nothing. But since the city’s recapture by Salah al-Din and the hapless ‘crusade’ that followed, any Christian military presence here had to be regarded with utmost suspicion.

  There was another strange fact that had revealed itself to Asif in these last few hours. He’d known, of course, that rats are ubiquitous in sewers, and when he had first descended into this forgotten netherworld, it had been immediately confirmed. He had tied his clothing tighter about him, and pressed on. But as he had progressed through the cramped tunnels, Asif had seen the quantity of rats dwindle, and for the past quarter hour at least this lone adventurer had been the only beast he had encountered. The absence troubled him. Something had driven them out. It took a lot to drive out rats.

  Just one had stayed – and was reaping the benefits.

  Asif did not fear rats as some did. Not even in large numbers. But he had no great desire to get closer to this single, grotesquely-swollen creature. It had been well fed of late. It also had no fear of man. Where it was now heading, and what he would find there, filled him with a sense of creeping unease.

  And now it was on the move again. He heard its claws scratch on the stone ledge, saw its bald, pink tail whip from side to side. Then, as he swung his torch close to where there should have been only blank wall, a horrid shape loomed from the shadows.

  A face. Half human. Less than a yard from his own.

  He reeled back, almost stumbling, his free right hand going to his sword. There, in the crumbling ancient wall, was a jagged vertical fissure, and emerging from it, as if prising the stonework apart, were the skeletal fingers of a dead man. His warped skull grinned from the spreading gap, the empty pits of its eyes turned on Asif, while below, part of a leg bone thrust out of the crack as if about to take a step towards him.

  Asif heard a harsh curse cut the thick air, only dimly aware that he himself had spoken. In a moment, he understood. He silently berated himself. They were bones, nothing more. Dead, dry, yellowed bones. But these bones, decades old at least – perhaps centuries – had been jammed into this crevice in such a way as to give them the semblance of life. To what end, and by whom, Asif could not guess. He stood for a moment, his heart still thumping in his chest – so hard he could hear it in the flat, eerie silence. A different kind of horror afflicted him now, spawned by his attempts to imagine what could have led to this terrible fate – how one who had once lived and loved could become so pitiful in death, abandoned and forgotten in this awful place.

  The flickering light of the flambeau made the shadows about the bony form dance, creating a horrid illusion of convulsive movement. He fleetingly wondered what those long-dead eyes had once looked upon – a wife, a lover; children, perhaps. But whatever this man had been in life, he was now no more than an absurd relic.

  As he stood, he felt the queasy pressure of effluent flowing past his calves, and for an instant his concentration faltered. Before entering the tunnels, in anticipation of the rising stink, Asif had stuffed his nostrils with plugs of beeswax mixed with aromatic herbs, and had been breathing through his teeth. But now – thanks, in part, to the panicked panting his skeletal friend had inspired – he was beginning to taste the foul stench. His stomach knotted, almost making him retch. He fought it down, and by way of distraction made himself stare again into the lifeless, hollow eye-sockets of the forgotten man.

  He thought of Qasim.

  Qasim had never wanted to come down here. But if you were an agent of the Sultan, you went where you were told to go – even if where you were told to go was a sewer. No one relished the idea of wading through shit, no matter how fervently they believed in the mission. To Qasim, however, there was something far worse than that, something that made him even less comfortable with the who
le enterprise: wading through the shit of infidels. Especially worrying to him was the prospect of having to traverse the drains beneath the Christian quarter. “It’s not just that they are godless,” he said. “They are unclean. They eat pig...”

  Asif sympathised, but – somewhat to his surprise – found his own feelings on the subject to be far more pragmatic. It was crazy to think in terms of degrees of uncleanliness down here. The slurry that now lapped about his ankles was about as unclean as anything could get, and the religious persuasion of the arse it had dropped out of a detail too far removed to trouble him. But no matter how many times he said it, Qasim just shook his head, and shifted uncomfortably, as if somehow troubled that his friend did not share his view.

  A week had passed since Qasim had ventured into these gloomy tunnels. There had not been sight or sound of him since.

  All at once, Asif was struck by an image of poor, doomed Qasim standing on this same spot, contemplating the same long-dead visage with its mocking grin. Asif’s desperate desire to live – to get out of this place – suddenly multiplied a hundredfold.

  The flame hissed and crackled on the damp, square stone ceiling of the cramped tunnel, snapping Asif out of his reverie. He turned from his grim companion and focused again on the narrow passage stretching before him, and became aware of a dark intersection ahead.

  Something glinted low down in the blank gloom. Two pinpoints of reflected torchlight. He took a step forward. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the rat had stopped, and was looking back at him, almost as if making sure he was still following. It turned, and scampered around the corner.

  Asif set off after it.

  He could now clearly see that this tunnel joined another, larger one just a few yards from him. This was, without doubt, the route Qasim would have taken, following the tributary into the wider drain.

  From up ahead came an echoing sound of movement. His muscles tensed. Something bigger than a rat. And a dim, reflected light, shifting away to the right. People. He instinctively lowered his torch and thrust it behind him – then cursed as it momentarily cast his vast shadow onto the far wall of the adjoining tunnel. A stupid error. He flattened himself against the slimy wall, praying it had not been seen. There came no shout of alarm. No sudden, urgent movement. Slowly he edged away from the intersection, back against the uneven stones – back to the dead man with his perpetual grin.

  Still no sign that he’d been discovered. Asif had been lucky. And it would appear he also, now, had the advantage; he knew they were there, but they, as yet, had no inkling he even existed. A difficult decision needed to be made. He could not risk announcing himself to them as he approached – but in order to avoid it, he would have to extinguish his torch, or leave it behind. Asif stared down at the soupy, lumpy liquid flowing about his feet – only half-aware that, in this light, it seemed to possess a strange blue sheen – and contemplated thrusting the torch into it. It would plunge him into near total darkness. Asif hesitated – then, turning instead to his bony companion, muttered a sheepish apology, and jammed the shaft of the torch into the skull’s gaping mouth. Fire was not easy to acquire down here. He would not throw it away unless he had to. Drawing his long, straight-edged sword, he headed on again, towards the new tunnel, the glimmer of his torch dwindling behind him.

  ONCE HIS EYES adjusted to the gloom, Asif was surprised at how much he could see. This tunnel had a higher, curved ceiling, constructed from surprisingly large stones. These tunnels were said to be from the time of Herod the Great – which seemed consistent with Asif’s observations of the city’s structures above ground (he had, over the years, become an obsessive student of its complex, layered architecture). The smaller tunnel he had just left, with its flat slab roof, would have been considerably older.

  Sound behaved differently in this tunnel. Shufflings, splashings and strange whispers echoed weirdly along its length, sometimes accompanied by a tuneless humming. They baffled his senses, often seeming to come from behind him, from the walls themselves, or just inches from his ears. The air tasted sharp and acrid.

  Then there was the light.

  The reason he could see anything at all, he gradually realised, was due to the distant torch flame of his intended prey. It was now a clear glow ahead of him – flickering and moving, sometimes bright, sometimes fading, but always there. Within it – perhaps holding it – and in near constant movement, was what he assumed to be a human figure. And, from time to time, when the figure itself disappeared from view, the light threw into silhouette a huge, unidentifiable shape – uneven, but roughly conical, far taller than a man, and at least five times as wide at its base.

  Asif advanced slowly, steadily, at pains to make no sound that peculiar tunnel might carry to his enemy’s ears.

  The light stopped moving – was raised up so Asif could clearly see its flame, wobbled once, then hung motionless in the air.

  There was a thump. The sound of some heavy wooden object being moved into place. A cough. Then the humming resumed.

  As he neared – crouched, half-pressed against the left-hand wall, sword ready in his right hand – the hum began to resolve into a tune. A Christian tune. The torch, he now saw, had been stuck in a crack in the wall. The silhouette that had placed it there now had its hands free, and was lifting what looked like a small barrel. Humming quietly to itself, it heaved the cask into place upon a great heap of similar vessels. It was heavy; full. But of what?

  Asif was now yards away, moving with painful deliberation, barely breathing. Suddenly the figure turned to face him. Asif froze, praying that he was still undetected in the shadows. The figure strode purposefully towards him. Asif raised his sword, ready to strike. It turned again, and headed to the far side of the heap of barrels, oblivious to his presence, still humming its tune.

  Asif simply stood for moment, barely able to believe he had not been discovered. The figure had been a man. For a split second, he had seen him clearly. Lean, European, with a neatly clipped, coppery beard. Beneath his dark cloak was the glint of mail, at his belt a fine sword. A Christian knight.

  The sound of his movement receded, and Asif crept towards the great pile of barrels. If he could just identify their contents before the knight returned, it may perhaps reveal his purpose. If not, his goal would be to follow the knight – and try to capture him alive. He hurried the last few yards to the barrels. He risked being heard, but his greater concern now was being seen. He had entered the pool of light spread by the torch upon the tunnel wall.

  Reaching for the nearest barrel, he pulled at the wooden bung. It was stuck fast. He tried the one next to it. The same. Then one above. It shifted, and gave. He rocked the barrel, and some of the liquid within slopped out. It was somewhat viscous. Also dark – at least, in this light – but its appearance alone told him little. It struck him, then, that he was currently denied the one sense he most needed – the sense of smell.

  Asif was about to remedy this situation when another, far more alarming fact impressed itself upon him. He could no longer hear the knight.

  His blood ran cold. He turned. The knight stood glaring at him, eyes reflecting the flame of the torch, filled with a wild hatred.

  The knight lunged, grabbing his tunic, teeth clenched, his breath on Asif’s face. Both stumbled. The knight let go with one hand, and Asif staggered backwards. His adversary was too close for him to deliver an effective blow with his blade – and suddenly Asif saw a knife flash in the man’s fist. With all the force he could muster, he smashed the pommel of his sword down like a hammer upon the knight’s temple. The man dropped like a stone, face down in the muck – and did not move.

  Asif prodded him with his foot, and turned him onto his back. No response. He appeared not to be breathing. Asif gave thanks to Allah for sparing his life – then kicked the knight in frustration. Why, when you needed someone dead, did it take twenty blows to get the better of them – then, when you needed them alive, they immediately gave up the ghost with one knock to the he
ad? Whatever secrets this man might have divulged were now lost forever.

  A glimmer of light on the wall opposite the barrels suddenly caught Asif’s eye. The dark, rectangular shape that he had thought was merely shadow was glowing feebly. Flickering. It was the entrance to another, smaller tunnel – and, deep within it, someone was advancing towards him. At some indefinable distance, two points of light bobbed into view, like eyes in the dark. Distant torches.

  For Asif, it meant a second chance. But this time, there would be two of them.

  He backed into the shadows to the side of the barrel heap, and waited.

  II

  GALFRID REGARDED THE warm, pungent sludge flowing about his calves and tried not to gag. “‘Come to Jerusalem,’ you said. ‘Good wine. Good food. Lovely climate. Walk in the footsteps of Christ...’” He poked at something lumpy with his pilgrim staff and, with a grimace, decided against further investigation. “Obviously I missed the passage in the scriptures where Jesus went down the sewer...”

  The figure advancing ahead of him said nothing. For a moment the taller man stopped, moving his torch to the left and right, his attention focused on the change in the size of the slabs that formed the ceiling of the tunnel. Then, without a word, he moved on.

  Galfrid knew they must look an unlikely pair: he, dressed as a Christian pilgrim complete with staff, pilgrim badges and hooded cloak; his master outlandishly clad in the manner of a minstrel or joglar. Nothing could have been less appropriate to his master’s temperament. The incongruity had caused Galfrid much hilarity, even in these grim surroundings. But incongruity was the nature of disguise – and disguise had been necessary.