The sound of horses in the yard made him stiffen and he checked his pistols and slipped out of die back door, keeping in the moon shadows until he reached the front of the house.

Five long wagons drawn by oxen stretched in a line back to the meadow, and a tall man on a dark horse was dismounting by the water trough.

'Good morning,' said Shannow, sheathing his pistol.

'Do you mind if we water our animals?' asked the man. The sun was just clearing the eastern peaks and Shannow saw that he was in his thirties and strongly built. He wore a black leather riding jacket cut high at the waist and a hat sporting a single peac.o.c.k feather.

'As long as you replenish it from the well yonder,' Shannow told him. 'Where are you journeying?'

'North-west, through the mountains.'

'The Plague Lands?' asked Shannow. 'No one goes there. I saw a man once who had come from there - his hair fell out and his body was a ma.s.s of weeping sores that would not mend.'

'We do not believe it is the land. All sicknesses pa.s.s,' said the man.

'The man I knew said that the rocks gleamed in the night and that no animals could be found there.'

'My friend, I have heard tales of giant lizards, flying pillars and castles in clouds. I have yet to see any of them. Land is land, and I am sick of Brigands. Daniel Cade is raiding once more, and I have a yen for the far mountains where even brigands will not go. Now I myself have met a man who journeyed there - or said he did. He said that the gra.s.s grows green and the deer are plentiful, and much larger than elsewhere. He says he saw apples as big as melons, and in the distance a city the like of which he had never seen. Now I am a man who needs to travel, and I mean to see that city.'

Shannow's mouth was suddenly dry. 'I too would like to see that city,' he said.

'Then find yourself a wagon and travel with us, man! I take it those pistols are not mere ornaments?'

'I have no wagon, sir, nor enough Barta coin to raise one. And I have commitments here that must be fulfilled.'

The man nodded and then grinned. 'That's why I want you. I'd take no footloose rider straight from the Outlands and I won't import Brigands into Avalon. You are a st.u.r.dy soul, by the look of you. Do you have a family?'

'Yes.'

Then sell your farm and follow after us. There'll be land waiting.'

Shannow left him watering the oxen and walked inside, where Donna was awake and standing by the open door.

'You heard that?' asked Shannow.

'Yes. The Plague Lands.'

'What do you feel?'

'I do not want you to go. But if you do, we will go with you if you'll have us.'

He opened his arms and drew her to him, too full of wild joy to speak. Behind him the tall man from the yard politely cleared his throat and Shannow turned.

'My name is Cornelius Griffin, and I may have a proposition for you.'

'Come in, Mr Griffin,' said Donna. 'I am Donna Taybard and this is my husband, Jon.'

'A pleasure, Fray Taybard.'

'You spoke of a proposition,' said Shannow.

'Indeed I did. We have a family with us who are not desirous of a risky journey and it could be that they will part with their wagon and goods in return for your farm. Of course there will be an extra amount in Barta coin, should the prospect interest you.'

Jon Shannow rode his steeldust gelding down the main street of Rivervale settlement, his long leather coat flapping against the horse's flanks, his wide-brimmed hat shading his eyes. The houses were mostly timber near the roadside, early dwellings of some three or perhaps four decades. On outlying hills above the shallow coal-mine rose the new homes of stone and polished wood. Shannow rode past the mill and across the hump-back bridge, ignoring the stares of workmen and loafers who peered at him from the shadows. Several children were playing in a dusty side street and a barking dog caused his horse to jump sideways. Shannow sat unmoving in the saddle and rode on, reining in his mount at the steps to the alehouse.

He dismounted and tied the reins to a hitching rail, mounted the steps and entered the drinking hall. There were some twenty men sitting or standing at the long bar -among them the giant, Bard, his head bandaged. Beside him was Fletcher and both men gaped as Shannow moved towards them.

A stillness settled on the room.

'I am come to tell you, Mr Fletcher, that Fray Taybard has sold her farm to a young family from Ferns Crossing, a settlement some two months' journey to the south. She has given them a bond of sale that should satisfy the Committee.'

'Why tell me?' said Fletcher, aware of the spectators, many of whom were known Landsmen of integrity.

'Because you are a murderous savage and a Brigand, sir, who would lief as not kill the family and pretend they were usurpers.'

'How dare you?'

'I dare because it is the truth, and that will always be a bitter enemy to you, sir. I do not know how long the people of Rivervale will put up with you, but if they have sense it win not be long.'

'You cannot think to leave here alive, Shannow?' said Fletcher. 'You are a named Brigand.'

'Named by you! Jerrik, Swallow and Pearson are dead, Mr Fletcher. Before he died, Pearson told me you had offered him a place on your Committee. Strange that you now have places for known woman-killers!'

'Kill him!' screamed Fletcher and Shannow dived to his right as a crossbow bolt flashed from the doorway. His pistol boomed and a man staggered back from sight to fall down the steps beyond.

A pistol flamed in Fletcher's hand and something tugged at the collar of Shannow's coat.

The right-hand pistol flowered in flame and smoke and Fletcher pitched back, clutching his belly. A second shot tore through his heart. Bard was running for the rear door and Shannow let him go, but the man twisted and fired a small pistol which hammered a sh.e.l.l into the wood beside Shannow's face. Splinters tore into his cheek and he pumped two bullets into the big man's throat; Bard collapsed in a fountain of blood.

Shannow climbed slowly to his feet and scanned the room, and the men lying face down and motionless.

'I am Jon Shannow, and have never been a Brigand.'

Turning his back he walked into the street. A sh.e.l.l whistled past his head and he turned and fired. A man reared up from behind the water trough, clutching his shoulder - in his hand was a bra.s.s-mounted percussion pistol. Then Shannow shot him again and he fell without a sound. A musket boomed from a window across the street, s.n.a.t.c.hing Shannow's hat from his head; he returned the fire, but hit nothing. Climbing into the saddle, he kicked the gelding into a run.

Several men raced to cut him off. One fired a pistol, but the gelding cannoned into the group and sent them sprawling to the dust - and Shannow was clear and over the hump- back bridge, heading west to join Donna and Eric . . .

. . . and the road to Jersualem.

CHAPTER THREE.

Con Griffin swung in the saddle and watched the oxen toiling up the steep slope. The first of the seventeen wagons had reached the lava ridge, and the others were strung out like vast wooden beads on the black slope.

Griffin was tired and the swirling lava dust burned his eyes. He swung his horse and studied the terrain ahead. As far as the eye could see, which from this height was a considerable distance, the black lava sand stretched from jagged peak to jagged peak.

They had been traveling now for five weeks, having linked with Jacob Madden's twelve wagons north of Rivervale. In that time they had seen no riders, nor any evidence of Brigands on the move. And yet Griffin was wary. He had in his saddlebags many maps of the area, sketched by men who claimed to have traveled the lands in their youth. It was rare for any of the maps to correspond, but one thing all agreed on was that beyond the lava stretch lived a Brigand band of the worst kind: eaters of human flesh.

Griffin had done his best to prepare his wagoners for the worst. No family had been allowed to join the convoy unless they owned at least one working rifle or handgun. As things now stood there were over twenty guns in the convoy, enough to deter all but the largest Brigand party.

Con Griffin was a careful man and, as he often said, a d.a.m.ned fine wagoner. This was his third convoy in eleven years and he had survived drought, plague, Brigand raids, vicious storms and even a flash flood. Men said Con Griffin was lucky and he accepted that without comment. Yet he knew that luck was merely the residue of hard thinking and harder work. Each of the twenty-two-foot wagons carried one spare wheel and axle suspended beneath the tailboards, plus sixty pounds of flour, three sacks of salt, eighty pounds of dried meat, thirty pounds of dried fruit and six barrels of water. His own two wagons were packed with trade goods and spares - hammers, nails, axes, knives, saw- blades, picks, blankets and woven garments. Griffin liked to believe he left nothing to luck.

The people who travelled under his command were tough and hardy and Griffin, for all his outward gruffness, loved them all. They reflected all that was good in people, strength, courage, loyalty and a stubborn willingness to risk all they had on the dream of a better tomorrow.

Griffin sat back in the saddle and watched the Taybard wagon begin the long haul up the lava slope. The woman, Donna, intrigued him. Leather-tough and satin-soft, she was a beautiful contradiction. The wagon-master rarely involved himself in matters of the heart, but had Donna Taybard been available he would have broken his rule. The boy, Eric, was running alongside the oxen, urging them on with a switch stick. He was a quiet boy, but Griffin liked him; he was quick and bright and learned fast. The man was another matter . .

Griffin had always been a good judge of character, an attribute vital to a leader, yet he could make nothing of Jon Taybard . . . except that he was riding under an a.s.sumed name.

The relationship between Taybard and Eric was strained, the boy avoiding the man at all but meal-times. Still, Taybard was a good man with a horse and he never complained or shirked the tasks Griffin set him.

The Taybard wagon reached the top of the rise and was followed by the elderly scholar Peac.o.c.k. The man had no coordination and the wagon stopped half-way up the slope.

Griffin cantered down and climbed up to the driving seat, allowing his horse to run free.

'Will you never learn, Ethan?' he said, taking reins and whip from the balding Peac.o.c.k.

He cracked the thirty-foot whip above the ear of the leading ox and the animal lurched forward into the traces. Slowly the lumbering wagon moved up the hill.

'Are you sure you can't read, Con?' asked Peac.o.c.k.

'Would I lie to you, scholar?'

'It is just that that fool Phelps can be tremendously annoying. I think he only reads sections that prove his case.'

'I have seen Taybard with a Bible - ask him,' said Griffin. The wagon moved on to the ridge and he stepped to the running board and whistled for his horse. The chestnut stallion came at once and Griffin climbed back into the saddle.

Maggie Ames' wagon was the next to be stopped on the slope, a rear wheel lodged against a lava rock. Griffin dismounted and manhandled it clear, to be rewarded with a dazzling smile. He tipped his hat and rode away. Maggie was a young widow, and that made her dangerous indeed.

Throughout the long hot afternoon, the wagon convoy moved on through the dusty ridge.

The oxen were weary and Griffin rode ahead looking for a camp-site.

There was no water to be found and he ordered the wagons stopped on the high ground above the plain, in the lee of a soaring rock face. Griffin unsaddled the chestnut and rubbed him down, then filled his leather hat with water and allowed the horse to drink.

All around the camp people were looking to their animals, wiping the dust from the nostrils of their oxen and giving them precious water. Out here the animals were more than beasts of burden. They were life.

Griffin's driver, a taciturn oldster named Burke, had prepared a fire and was cooking a foul-smelling stew in a copper-bottomed pot. Griffin sat opposite the man. 'Another long day,' he remarked.

Burke grunted. 'Worse tomorrow.'

'I know.'

'You won't get much more out of these animals - they need a week at least and good gra.s.s.'

'You see any gra.s.s today, Jim?'

'I'm only saying what they need.'

'According to the map there should be good gra.s.s within the next three days,' said Griffin, removing his hat and wiping the sweat from his forehead.

'Which map is that?' asked Burke, smiling knowingly. 'Cardigan's. It seems about the best of them.'

'Yeah. Ain't he the one that saw the body-eaters at work? Didn't they roast his companions alive?'

'So he said, Jim. And keep your voice down,' Burke pointed to the fat figure of Aaron Phelps, the arcanist, who was making his way to the wagon of Ethan Peac.o.c.k. 'He'd make a good lunch for them Brigands.'

'Cardigan came through here twenty years ago. There's no reason to believe the same Brigands are still in the area. Most war-makers are movers,' said Griffin.

'Expect you're right, Mr Griffin,' agreed Burke with a wicked grin. 'Still, I should send Phelps out as our advance scout. He'd feed an entire tribe.'

'I ought to send you, Jimmy - you'd put them off human flesh for life. You haven't bathed in the five years I've known you!'

'Water gives you wrinkles,' said Burke. 'I remember that from when I was a yongen. It shrivels you up.'

Griffin accepted the bowl of stew Burke pa.s.sed him and tasted it. If anything it was more foul than its smell - but he ate it, following it with flat bread and salt.

'I do not know how you come up with such appalling meals,' said Griffin at last, pushing his plate away.

Burke grinned. 'Nothing to work with. Now, if you gave me Phelps . . .'

Griffin shook his head and stood. He was a tall man, red-haired and looking older than his thirty-two years. His shoulders were broad and his belly pushed out over the top of his belt, despite Burke's culinary shortcomings.

He wandered along the wagon line chatting to the families as they gathered by their cook fires, and ignored the squabbling Phelps and Peac.o.c.k. At the Taybard wagon he stopped.

'A word with you, Mr Taybard,' he said and Jon Shannow set aside his plate and rose smoothly, following Griffin out on to the trail ahead of the wagons. The wagon-master sat on a jutting rock and Shannow sat facing him. There could be difficult days ahead, Mr Taybard,' began Griffin, breaking a silence which had become uncomfortable.

'In what way?'

'Some years ago there was a murderous Brigand band in these parts. Now when we come down from these mountains we should find water and gra.s.s, and we will need to rest for at least a week. During that time we could come under attack.'

'How may I help you?'

'You are not a farmer, Mr Taybard. I sense you are more of a hunter and I want you to scout for us - if you will?'

Shannow shrugged. 'Why not?'

Griffin nodded. The man had asked nothing of the Brigands, nor of their suspected armaments. 'You are a strange man, Mr Taybard.'

'My name is not Taybard; it is Shannow.'

'I have heard the name, Mr Shannow. But I shall call you Taybard as long as you ride with us.'