Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 01.djvu/32

 more deeply in the soft fur robes. But the shaking was repeated and, awake at last, and angry, he sat up in the corded bed.

"Let be!" he ordered curtly. "May not a man sleep peacefully—ha, is't thou, ma bella?" He broke his petulant complaint abruptly as Basta's face showed in the semi-darkness of the candlelight. "I crave thy pardon for such churlish words"

"There is no time for courtesy, messire," she interrupted in a whisper. "Arise and do thy harness on. We must away right quickly!" She dropped his clothing on the bed and laid a sword and dagger and a set of body armor by it. "The moon e'en now is fading in the sky and dawn is not far off. Count Otto and his men-wolves will return anon, and it were well we put as many miles of road as possible 'twixt them and us ere they discover our departure."

He caught her hand and kissed it as he saw his good Toledo blade once more within his reach. "By all the saints, hast given me new courage, domna mia," he declared as he hastened to attire himself. "Is the castle then deserted while Otto quests his prey?"

"Nay, the entranceway is guarded, but by a handful only," she told him as they crept down the winding stair. "Some lie in swinish drunkenness, most range the hills with Otto, a few keep ward. It is for us to force our way through them"

He loosed his long sword in its sheath as they stepped warily into the base court and tiptoed toward the stable.

Basta had donned a page boy's livery and tucked her long hair in a velvet cap. High boots encased her slim straight legs and a sword hung by her side. Across her shoulder draped a pair of saddle-bags and in her hand she held a flint and tinder box.

Swiftly they clapped saddles on two horses, his own and a Wallachian cog, short-legged and heavy-set, but an easy steed for woman's riding. "Await me here a moment," she directed as he led the horses from the stable. There was a click of steel on flint, and looking through the stable door he saw the fire-glow on her features as she blew the tinder into life. Then she stooped quickly, and in a moment came the curl of smoke and a soft crackling, as of eggshells trodden underfoot, that told him she had set the heaped-up stable straw afire.

They tarried till the ruddy orange red of leaping flames began to paint the gray stone with bright hues, then vaulted to the saddle and with a mighty shout of "Fire!" charged clattering across the courtyard.

The provost's men on guard about the gate rushed forward to dispute their passage, but the billowing clouds of smoke that burst and tumbled from the stable door made them loom dim and indistinct as phantoms in a fog, and the roar and crack of quickly mounting flames made the confusion greater. A warder aimed a pike thrust at de Grandin; he swept the partizan aside and thrust out savagely. The fellow fell back with a scream as steel crashed through his lips and teeth and tongue. An arbalest bolt came whining past them and struck the vault above their heads, and as another pikeman hurried up he trod upon the quarrel and went stumbling as it turned beneath his foot. Basta leant across her saddle-bow and thrust her sword into the sprawling varlet's spine, and de Grandin clove another to the eyes as their horses reached the outer gate.

No time to fold the great gate's leaves back. They thrust the postern's bar aside and, bending low upon their horses' necks, rode through the narrow opening. Then while he held the watchmen bade