Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [84]
ELRIC (thinks)’-“?”
The albino recognizes the newcomers and is cynically amused… It's a haughty Rose and a scowling Quelch (Rose and Kwyll’), lording it over the cowed Bedouin.
ELRIC (thinks): “The Barbary Rose and her unsavoury ally Oratio Kwyll', the Welsh privateer …come to steal what little we have left!”
Elric is back at camp in conference with his fellow travelers.
ELRIC: “Those two could make an effective force out of that rabble.”
LBG: “DO they know we're here?”
ELRIC: “Probably.”
ISAAK: “But what are they doing this deep into the Sahara?”
Isaak smiles rather wryly as he listens to Elric's reply. The albino is contemptuous.
ELRIC: “There's not much doubt—they seek the lost gold of King Solomon, as you do. And perhaps they, too, think the Silverskin can show them the way …”
Isaak looks at Elric in some surprise.
ISAAK: “YOU know so much about us!”
ELRIC: “My people cared more for experience than profit…You humans will always mistake the symbol for the thing itself… Relatives of mine have seen whole universes made of gold. Worth how many dinarae?”
LBG looks somewhat sardonically over at Elric. Elric replies with gloomy self-mockery.
LBG: “You are quick to recognize vice and virtue, eh, Duke Elric? Is that not for God to judge?”
ELRIC: “I judge nothing but the vice within myself, dear prince.”
LBG is in whispered conference with his friends as they extinguish the fire.
LBG: “We can't readily beat them. Flight's the best…”
But even as they make to leave, a small ball of Greek Fire hurtles upwards into the night, illuminating all—it's been shot on an adapted crossbow by Oratio Kwyll’—and our companions are horribly exposed…
KWYLL’: “Modern science—so spectacular in antique climes!”
ISAAK: “Byzantine Sunshine, we used to call that horrible stuff!”
LBG: “Greek Fire. And we're surrounded!”
The Rose urged the rabble on—
The Rose appears on a magnificent black stallion, whose hoofs lash at the air. Whose eyes blaze almost as brightly as hers. She sports a great scimitar whose handle is shaped like a rose and whose blade is engraved with roses. A small silver shield on her arm. She has never looked more beautiful and never fiercer as she directs her Bedouin rabble against the four companions who now stand back to back, anticipating the worst. Rebecca whispers so that only Elric can hear—
REBECCA: “There's no lioness to help us now, Duke Elric …”
They are entirely surrounded by spear-wielding Bedouin who make an increasingly tight circle. Isaak raises his eyes heavenwards.
ISAAK: “God of Abraham, accept my soul!”
Isaak lowers his eyes and speaks to himself—
ISAAK: “And spare, Lord, I beg thee, my suffering child.”
Grinning at LBG, Isaak lifts his own sword. He prepares for his last fight.
Elric leans on a staff, a common sword in his hand which he's barely able to raise.
ISAAK: “Let our deaths be good and theirs what they deserve!”
LBG is the only one to be slightly wounded by a spear which he drags from his side and—
—breaks contemptuously. Other spears land all around them. Isaak is astonished at their continuing to live—
ISAAK: “A miracle! We live!”
LBG: “A miracle they hit me. They are naught but dog-butchers with no stomach or training for battle!”
ELRIC: “But numbers enough to extinguish us, I think!”
LBG wryly admits to this—
LBG: “Aye.”
Brightening—
LBG: “But who knows what fortune Allah plans for us?”
What indeed?
A distance away a newcomer watches the scene. Elric & Co. are seriously outnumbered. He is the camel-mounted Taureq knight, Tarak-al-Tan-al-Oorn. Mounted on a magnificent albino camel, swathed in subtle shades of indigo, with a shield full of delicate inlays and every sword and dagger on him a work of art, his long spears on his back-Every inch of his camel's harness and saddle is to the same level of workmanship. He's a dandy of the desert. He also carries the Chaos Shield on his back, a wrapped sword across his pommel. In particular he bears an uncanny resemblance