Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [83]
LARGE TROG: “The marrow is all we need…”
Elric tries to resist, but is too weak-Suddenly from one side of the cave there comes a great roaring—
“GRRRARRRRG!”
A giant lioness is revealed, standing, confronting the trogs; she is not rearing on hind legs but standing as a human would. Trogs of all sizes, and Elric, are startled by this new arrival, but the trogs are plainly terrified, cowering. The smaller ones struggle with the door of the cage, attempting to release the creature therein.
The door opens and a huge, green, reptilian beast leaps forth out of it, towards the lioness which drops to all fours, adopting a more leonine posture, ferocious, ready to pounce. The reptile lets rip a series of piercing screeches…
“SHMEE SHMEE SHMEE!”
The two giant creatures—lioness and reptile—do battle, until finally the lioness pins her foe to the floor of the cave, tearing at its exposed throat with her fangs.
She pounces again, landing amongst and scattering in all directions the retreating trogs.
Slowly, stealthily, she approaches Elric who can do nothing to ward her off. Her great maw opens wide, revealing sharp teeth ready to tear him asunder.
But instead she picks him up gently in her mouth, as she might a lion cub, and runs, carrying him back the way he was brought down through the catacombs.
ELRIC: “Who are you? Why do you help me?”
Once again, the albino lost consciousness …
It is night. The lioness, still carrying Elric, runs on through the desert. From a top a dune, they descend, approaching a group of unguarded tents. As she places Elric on the sand outside one of the tents, he awakes.
ELRIC: “Who?”
Perhaps he passes out again, perhaps he does not, but the next Elric knows is that a veiled woman leans over him, offering him liquid from a goblet. Her eyes, all that he can see of her, are large and dark-
WOMAN: “Drink this. You'll be stronger.”
ELRIC: “Who are you?”
The woman turns her head away before answering.
REBECCA: “I am the daughter of Isaak D'Israeli. Who else would I be?”
ELRIC: “Time alone will tell, perhaps?”
PART SIX
KNIGHT OF THE FAITH
The Western Sahara. 12th August, 1000 AD.
EIric, Isaak, Rebecca and LBG are now deep in the desert, beneath blistering sun, etc. Endless dunes, many strangely shaped. Wagons abandoned, Isaak and Rebecca ride camels. Isaak consults his crude, copied map. They are paused, to check their direction. Elric holds up a lodestone and points in the opposite direction to the direction it points.
ISAAK: “I suppose it's possible I miscopied the original map …”
ELRIC: “The lodestone tells us south is yonder.”
LBG: “I'll ride ahead and look for landmarks.”
LEG comes tearing back. He's seen something. He alerts the others, who've made camp and are brewing up.
LBG: “A small force—Ouled Naf, by their squalid camp—over there—a dry oasis. They'll have seen your fire.”
ISAAK: “They'll attack?”
LBG: “It depends how desperate they are. We should prepare for the worst.”
Elric accepts a potion which Rebecca makes him drink. There is a dark intelligence in her eyes, which meet his directly.
REBECCA: “You'll need this soon …”
ELRIC: “Are you an oracle, madam, as well as all else?”
But Rebecca chose not to answer.
That evening, invigorated by Rebecca's brew, Elric felt the urge to see the Bedouin camp for himself…
Sun sets magnificently across the desert, semi-silhouetting the camp of a bunch of degenerate Bedouin men, whose only women are slaves, even more bedraggled and downtrodden than themselves. They are armed with long spears and shields, some curved swords and daggers. They have only a few horses, camels, mules and donkeys, a few very thin sheep.
ELRIC (thinks): “The rejected of every tribe. Not one without several crimes on his conscience … but cowards … no great danger to us …”
Then …
Elric is about to return to his camp when he sees two figures riding in from the left. These are a cut above the degenerate Bedouin and they know it. Half-seen, they are the outlines of the Rose and Oratio Kwyll