The Bronze Axe by Jeffrey Lord

Author:Jeffrey Lord
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Pulp Adventure
ISBN: 9780523212012
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 1973-01-14T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Blade awoke in an oubliette. The slimy stone floor was covered with dank straw in which things crawled. A wick, guttering in a pannikin of fish oil, gave the only light. He was chained, hand and foot, to a ring bolt set into a wall. He itched intolerably and there was a great soreness at the back of his head. For a moment he lost control, slipped the habit of self-discipline built up over the years, and raged at the chains, tugging at them with fierce oaths and swinging and slamming them about.

"No use, master," said a voice from a dim corner. "We are well taken. The evil Queen Beata has us, and even the Lady Alwyth is merciful by comparison. I have been thinking hard, master, and my thought is that we are in a great deal of trouble!" There was a great rattling of chains as Sylvo shifted his malformed bones.

Blade, forcing calm on himself, squatted in the filthy straw. "What of the Princess Taleen?"

He could not see the man's shrug, but heard the chains rattle again.

"Safe enough, master. At least not yet harmed, as I saw. Beata holds her for ransom from Voth, as before I remember your telling of it and so we are back to the beginning. Or the lady is. What happens to us may be another matter and not one on which I like to think."

Blade quietly tested one of the chains, his huge sinews cracking with the effort. The chain held.

"Keep your heart up," said Blade. "I will somehow get us out of this." At the moment he could not have said how.

Sylvo's tone grew more cheerful. "So you will, master. I was forgetting that you are something of a wizard."

Blade, testing the chains again, scowled in the gloom. It was going to take a little more than wizardry to get them out of this. He began to question Sylvo; the basis of all effort, of all successful action, is knowledge.

"What is this place and how came we here?"

"A great castle called Craghead. On the Western Sea. As to coming here I walked, the Lady Taleen rode, and you were carried on a litter. You were well drugged to keep you sleeping, master, as Beata's men were in fear of you."

That accounted for his slight headache. He remembered the spear butt crashing down and fingered the wound on his head, swollen and sticky through the thick hair.

"They had nets in the trees," Blade mused. "I wonder how at just that place and time?"

"Ar, master. I wondered also. I was taken like a minnow and stifled without a cry. But I think I have it the Lady Alwyth must have sent word to Beata. They are in league, no doubt. King Lycanto would never have done it he and the Queen are enemies."

It was possible. Indeed it was probable. Lady Alwyth ran deep, was an intriguer by nature, and Blade had spurned her. Taleen was hated for her beauty, if nothing else, and Alwyth would have many tendrils to her web.

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