He turned his horse and followed the sound until he entered a sidestreet. Here a door had been broken open and a girl’s body lay half in the doorway, half in the street. The cry was stronger. Hawkmoon dismounted and walked cautiously towards the house. It came from the girl. Quickly he knelt down and raised her in his

arms. She was almost naked, her body covered with a few strips of torn clothing. There was a red line across her throat as if a blunt dagger had been drawn across it. She was about fifteen, with tangled fair hair and glazed blue eyes. Her body was a mass of blue-black bruises. She gasped as Hawkmoon lifted her.

Hawkmoon lowered her gently and went to his saddle, returning with a flask of wine. He put the flask to her lips and she drank, gasping, her eyes suddenly widening in alarm.

“Do not fear,” Hawkmoon said softly. “I am an enemy of the Dark Empire.”

“And you live?”

Hawkmoon smiled sardonically. “AyeI live. I am Dorian Hawkmoon, the Duke of Koln.”

“Hawkmoon von Koln? But we thought you deador flown forever…”

“Well I have returned and your village shall be revenged, I swear. What happened here?”

“I am not altogether sure, my lord, save that the beasts of the Dark Empire intended to leave none alive.” She looked up suddenly. “My father and mother my sister…”

Hawkmoon glanced inside the house and shuddered. “Dead,” he said. It had been an understatement. They had been disgustingly mutilated. He picked up the girl as she sobbed and took her to his horse. “I will carry you back to Castle Brass,” he said.

Chapter Four

New Helms

SHE LAY IN the softest bed in Castle Brass, tended by Bowgentle, comforted by Yisselda and Hawkmoon who sat beside her bed. But she was dying. She was dying not from her injuries but from sorrow. She wished to die. They respected that wish.

“For several months,” she murmured, “the Wolf troops occupied our village. They took everything while we starved. We heard that they were part of an army left to guard the Kamarg, though we could not think what there was to guard of that wasteland …”

“They were awaiting our return most likely,” Hawkmoon told her.

“That would seem likely,” the girl said gravely.

She continued: “Then yesterday an ornithopter arrived at the village and its pilot went straight to the commander of the garrison. We heard it rumoured that the soldiers were being recalled to Londra and we were overjoyed. An hour later the soldiers of the garrison fell upon the village, killing, looting, raping. They had orders to leave nothing alive so that when they returned they would not meet resistance, so that any others who came upon the village should not find food. An hour afterwards, they were gone.”

“So they plan to return,” Hawkmoon mused. “But I wonder why they left…”