The Dragon and the Djinn Read online

  He waved his hand toward the close slope to the right of the castle.

  "Some little distance in that direction," he said.

  Brian considered the area.

  "There are some large rocks at the foot of the steep slope on the beach no more than fifty yards from here," he said. "Give me three score of your men, and I will pledge to go out at night, or at some other time when they are busy, and burn or otherwise destroy their boats behind them."

  "That is exactly what I do not want done, Sir Brian," said Sir Mortimor. "If the boats are not there for their escape, then they will be left with us—whether they or we like it or not. Recall they outnumber us now, nearly five to one. With their boats destroyed, they will fight to kill or be killed; and in the end they may well own the castle and all of us will be dead—"

  A shriek, followed by a wild babble of voices, unexpectedly echoed up the air shaft.

  "Hell, blood and weeping!" exploded Sir Mortimor, his voice echoing off both headlands. He took four enormous strides to the stairway entrance and vanished down it.

  Chapter Eight

  Left alone together on the roof, Jim and Brian looked at each other. "Brian," said Jim. "Now's my chance to bring you up to date on things. The reason I could follow you this quickly was because John Chandos showed up with the order giving me wardship of Robert Falon."

  "That was fast, indeed," said Brian. "I have known such matters to take years. I had little hope. But it is good to see you here, James—doubly so, considering the circumstances."

  "I'm not as happy about the circumstances as you are, Brian," Jim was beginning, when he felt Hob stir in the knapsack on his back and sit up. A second later, the hobgoblin's small gray head poked into sight at the corner of his right eye.

  "By the way, this is Hob," said Jim hastily, "from the chimney of my serving room at Malencontri. Did you just wake up, Hob?"

  "Oh, I wasn't asleep," said Hob. "We hobgoblins never sleep. We just dream without sleeping."

  "A hobgoblin!" said Brian, staring. "What do you dream about, hobgoblin?"

  "Oh," said Hob, "nice warm chimneys, good people with food down below, plenty of children we can take for rides on the—"

  He broke off suddenly, staring back at Brian.

  "I don't know you," he said, shrinking back behind Jim's head and clasping him around the neck.

  "This is Sir Brian Neville-Smythe, Hob," said Jim. "My best friend. He comes to Malencontri all the time; and he likes hobgoblins."

  "Likes—" Brian broke off abruptly. "Nothing against them, actually. You're the first one I ever met, in fact."

  But now Hob was looking at Brian again, this time with fascination.

  "Are you really Brian—I mean, Sir Brian Neville-Smythe?" asked Hob. "Was your hair almost white, when you were very young?"

  "Of course!" snapped Brian. "As for my hair—yes, it was. Not that that is any matter for your consideration, hobgoblin!"

  "Your father brought you to Malencontri with him on the way to Malvern Castle one time when you were very little," said Hob. "That was when there were some humans named Claive in Malencontri. There was a lot of eating and drinking and singing and everybody forgot about you. I took you for a ride on the smoke. Don't you remember?"

  "Ride on the smoke…" Brian frowned. The frown slowly cleared. "Yes, by God! I do remember. Yes! We went out over the woods. You showed me where the hedgehogs were sleeping, and the bear's den where it was sleeping. And you showed me the magician's house—it was Carolinus's place, but I didn't know that till later. I do remember! So you're that hobgoblin?"

  "Oh, yes," said Hob. "You were very little and your mother was dead and your father wasn't with you most of the time. Didn't the hobgoblin at Malvern take you for any more rides when you got there?"

  "Never," said Brian.

  "Well, he certainly should have," said Hob. "I would have."

  "By St. Brian, my name-saint, I have never forgotten that! You were most kind to me, hobgoblin."

  "Oh, no," said Hob earnestly. "I liked taking you."

  "There, Hob," said Jim. "I told you Sir Brian liked hobgoblins. Here, he's an older friend of yours than he is of mine."

  "It's—it's good of your knightlyness to remember," said Hob, still a little timidly, peering around Jim's head at Brian.

  "Hah—well," said Brian. "I was a youngster then, of course. No idea of rank. Still, it was a moment I'll not forget. But Jim—what are you doing on a trip to the Holy Land, carrying a hobgoblin?"

  "That was part of what I wanted to tell you about Geronde and Angela," Jim said. "This is the time to say it, before Sir Mortimor comes back. You see, Angie and I went over to Malvern to talk with Geronde as soon as we had the wardship in our hands; and Geronde told us as much as she knew about how I could go about finding you. I got here to Cyprus actually over a week ago; but nobody knew exactly where you were, and I was afraid that you'd already taken a ship for Tripoli, which Geronde says was to be your next stop."

  "She was quite right, you know," said Brian. "I really didn't expect you to catch me, James—particularly not this soon. Otherwise I could have left word here that would have aided you in finding me. I take it that there were no important happenings either at Malvern or Malencontri since I left?"

  "No," said Jim, "outside of Sir John Chandos's bringing the parchment on Robert's wardship. He had some men-at-arms with him and was headed for the Welsh border, as far as I could understand."

  "I wonder what…" said Brian. "Outside of the building of the castle at Caernarvon, I have heard no news of Wales in some time. But, James, I still do not understand why you brought the hobgoblin."

  Sir Mortimor's voice could be heard up the air shaft; and it seemed to be drawing closer, as if the knight was climbing the stairs back to them.

  "It was Angela," said Jim hastily. "Both she and Geronde were more concerned than usual about this trip of yours. Geronde had said she'd gone as far as actually asking you not to go—at this time anyway."

  "So she did," said Brian. "However, I saw no reason to put it off. Also, you must understand, James, with that much gold sitting around, there would be a danger it might be gone by the time she felt comfortable with my leaving."

  "I understand," said Jim. "At any rate, Angie, in particular, wanted something from me. That was to know, and to know as quickly as possible, if anything happened to either of us. You've ridden on the smoke with Hob, so you must remember—"

  "I do remember most clearly, now," interposed Brian.

  "Then maybe you'll recall how, while you seem to be moving at a fairly slow speed on the smoke, actually you're covering a great deal of distance very quickly. Hob and I used his smoke for a fair amount of the time coming down here. We traveled by other ways of course, but we used the smoke too. The point is, with Hob, if anything happens to you or to me, he can get back to England in a hurry and tell Angie—who will tell Geronde; and if there is anything they can do, they'll do it—"

  He broke off, for Sir Mortimor's head had just appeared above the opening for the staircase, and a moment later the tall knight was beside them.

  "I tell you what it is, Sir James, Sir Brian," he said. "The fears these easterners have are enough to drive a man out of his wits. Can you imagine what all the trouble was about? A small brown dog—a small brown dog that was not to be found when we went looking for it."

  "Brown dog?" echoed Jim.

  "Exactly!" said Sir Mortimor. "Rare imagination! Couldn't be a dog in my castle. If one could get in, all the damned curs in the village would be nosing about here for scraps. Man or beast, it has to come in through the front doors. There's no chance for an animal to slip in. None. But here's my cook and half a dozen others, swearing they saw it—and of course, you know what they took it for? Or at least you know, Sir Brian, Sir James, you may be new enough here not to guess. They thought it was a Djinni. Anything in animal shape can be a Djinni as far as they're concerned. Everything's a Djinni. Ridiculous!"

  "Ridicul
ous!" faintly echoed the two headlands around the little bay in front of the fishing village.

  While Sir Mortimor had been talking, the two men who had been on lookout had come back up and silently taken up their post. The good knight lowered his voice to conversational level again.

  "But shall we forget all that, gentlemen, and go back downstairs? I could do with a cup of wine; and I imagine the two of you could too."

  They followed him away from the bright sunlight down into the shadowy interior of the castle and back to the same table at which Jim had met him, sitting with Brian when Jim arrived. They took benches, and mazers of wine were put before them. Jim noticed with interest that his original mazer, from which very little of the wine had been drunk, had been taken away—the wine almost certainly drunk by one or more of the servants back down in the kitchen.

  "But," said Brian to Sir Mortimor, once they were seated, "if the brown dog was indeed a Djinni, then maybe he could get in here without being seen, or without coming by the normal route through the doorways. They use magic, don't they?"

  "Oh, yes, yes," said Sir Mortimor. "But it was no Djinni, of course. What would a Djinni want here—"

  He was interrupted by possibly the one thing about the castle as penetrating in sound as his own voice. It was a sudden outburst from the gong being beaten on top of the tower. There was a scurry of footsteps running down the stairs toward them, and one of the lookouts burst in, even while the clamor continued overhead.

  "My Lord! My Lord!" he shouted. "They are here. They are almost on us. They rode around the two headlands, one galley around each just now. Within minutes they will be beaching their craft before the village!"

  "By the Wounds!" exploded Sir Mortimor, leaping to his feet and oversetting his own brimming mazer of wine on the table. "Can't a Christian gentleman have a moment of peace in his own house?"

  He glared at the messenger, who was standing white-faced before him, reached absently for his own mazer, discovered it had spilled and picked up Jim's instead, tossing it off in what seemed to be a single swallow. Rather a good trick, Jim thought, considering the mazer must have held close to a full pint of wine.

  The gong was still going mad overhead, and Jim's ears were beginning to ring. He saw Sir Brian's lips move, but did not hear what the other had said Sir Mortimor's voice, however, rose through the din without any difficulty.

  "Front doors opened for villagers!" he snapped. "Slingers and bowmen to the top of the tower. Run!"

  The messenger scuttled down the stairs toward the lower levels of the tower.

  "Could that gong be silenced now, Sir Mortimor?" Brian shouted through the din. "Surely everyone in the castle has heard it by this time!"

  "The villagers must hear too. Come with me, gentlemen!"

  He stepped to the stairs, almost knocking into eternity a bowman who was hurrying up them at the moment; and went on up, two steps at a time, leaving Jim and Brian far behind as they began to follow, Brian behind Jim simply because Jim had been closer to the stairs to start off with.

  "I am naked except for my poignard," puffed Brian in Jim's ear. "It is well you have half armor and your own sword on, James!"

  It was true. Jim had been wearing the sword, simply because, as a knight traveling, it was unthinkable that he should go without it. His half armor, which consisted of a chain mail shirt and a steel cap, he had worn as a natural traveler's protection. The men who had met him as he stepped out of his boat after getting here had not taken the sword from him—possibly because it was unreasonable that he could have overpowered the dozen or so of them even with it. In fact, Jim suddenly realized, he was getting so used to the weight of the sword and the armor that he himself had forgotten it when he was introduced to Sir Mortimor.

  "You better go down and arm and armor yourself then, Brian," he said over his shoulder. "I'll tell Sir Mortimor—"

  "No, no," said Brian. "It would not be polite. Our host should have told us if there was need for us to dress for any trouble."

  "He may just have forgotten," said Jim dryly. His opinion of Sir Mortimor so far was still something of a question mark. "If it turns out that swords are needed, Brian, I'll pass you mine. You can make better use of it than I could."

  Brian made some kind of noise that sounded like a protest, but both he and Jim were too out of breath trying to catch up with Sir Mortimor to talk much further. Also, just about then they emerged onto the roof.

  Already there were some three or four other men who had rushed up the stairs from below at the first note of the gong. One of these was the bowman who had almost been brushed into the air shaft by Sir Mortimor. Jim had come up expecting to go immediately to the edge of the battlements and look down at the invaders; and that Brian would do the same thing. Instead, both of them had halted where they were, their attention riveted on a man who was coming down a long rope, like a spider descending on his own thread from a ceiling; only in this case the rope came down from an outcropping of rock on the overhanging cliff behind the castle, the top of which looked as if it could be reached only by birds or angels, Sir Mortimor was standing wide-legged, looking balefully at the approaching man.

  "Why didn't you see them?" snarled the knight, as the man's feet touched the top of the tower.

  "Crave pardon, m'lord," said the man. "They must have hugged the shore in their galleys—at least enough so that the headlands blocked my view for several miles. They may even have slipped in to shore under darkness last night and been waiting until now to come close."

  "Hah!" said Sir Mortimor. "Well, in any case we have them here now."

  Even while this brief conversation had been going, men had been pouring up the staircase onto the roof. Jim counted only three bowmen. But there were a number of others; thin, dark-faced men, slim-bodied and not too tall for the most part. They seemed unarmed, unless the large, bulging pouches at their belt contained some kind of weapon.

  In addition, there were other men coming up who were plainly unarmed, but had their arms full of rocks, which varied from the size of a baseball to the size of a small cantaloupe. These they were piling close to the battlements on that side of the tower that faced the beach and the village below.

  Brian had already gone over to those same battlements to look down at the invaders. He was standing beside Sir Mortimor, who had also turned his attention in that direction. Jim joined them. Below them the zigzag road up to the stairs leading to the castle's now-opened door was crowded with people carrying various things, ranging from an ax to sacks holding unknown contents.

  The two galleys that had been mentioned were just now turning in, prow-first toward the beach. It was clearly their intention to come in as close to the land as possible. Indeed, they checked themselves and anchored not more than ten or fifteen feet from shore; and now men were jumping overboard at the prow, landing in water varying from waist deep to shoulder deep, and wading ashore. They varied remarkably in both armor and the weapons they carried; but most had a round, obviously wooden shield, and a curved sword—the latter carried naked in their hand as they reached the shore.

  No sooner was one out of the waves than he charged up the beach, shouting as he went, toward the village and those still trying to escape up the road to the castle.

  There was no order to the way the attackers came, but very soon a good share of them were on the land and already in among the villages. Jim had expected to see the buildings there go up in flames almost immediately; but they did not. Instead the attackers merely rushed through the structures in pursuit of those trying to escape.

  "Slingers!" said Sir Mortimor.

  There were still only about half a dozen bowmen on top of the tower, but possibly as many as three dozen of the other men. These lined the battlements facing the beach, reached into their pouches, and drew forth a length of doubled leather thong with a flat leather pad in the middle of it, which had been poked or molded into a pocket. Digging again into their pouches, they came up with dull slugs of some sort of me
tal. Each at his own rate of speed fitted a slug into the pocket of his thong arrangement, took both ends of the thong and began one-handedly whirling the whole arrangement lightly in a vertical circle, as they gazed down at the beach, the weight of the slug in the pocket stretching the thong arrangement—which was evidently and clearly a sling—to its fullest limits, so that it rotated like a solid wand in the hand of each as he twirled it.

  "Never mind any that haven't reached at least to the bottom of the road," said Sir Mortimor. "Pick off those close to the villagers. Wait for my order."

  The row of men stood apparently idly whirling their slings. It was not until the first of the attackers were within a few steps of overtaking an old woman who was lagging behind the rest of those frantically trying to reach safety, before he gave the word; and by that time the section of the road that had been left empty behind the villagers was now full of the Moroccan pirates.

  "Now!" said Sir Mortimor and all together, as if it had been rehearsed, one end of each sling was let go, the slingers leaning forward all together as they released their missiles—and, immediately, each slinger had another slug out of his pouch, fitted it into the socket of his sling and was whirling it again, slinging now as each one was ready.

  Down below, the results were remarkable. From this height, of course, the impact of the slugs was soundless and, unlike the strike of arrows, there was nothing to be seen in the way of a shaft with feathers sticking out of the person hit.

  "Balearic slingers!" cried Brian with delight. "They are Balearics, are they not, Sir Mortimor?"

  "For the most part," grunted Sir Mortimor, his eyes still on the situation below. "They have to be trained from boyhood, like those who use the longbow. But some of these are cheaper, raised closer to hand, and from the standpoint of a castle like mine, it is much easier to stock great amounts of the slugs they throw, than the carefully made arrows a bowman must use, and which usually cannot be recovered when a castle is being attacked and possibly besieged. Also, they have not the range of the longbow, but at short distances like this they are wonderfully effective."