Read Online Solomon Kane by Ramsey Campbell - Free Book Online

that he would have rescinded his command to join thepriesthood. There were many ways to God, and perhaps Kane might have found his own sooner. But even prayer could not alter the past, and so Kane could only watch as his younger self halted once more on the cliff.
    The boy had heard voices again. He glanced at the ship that was performing its stately manoeuvre on the ocean. The wind was no longer carrying sounds from shipboard, and in any case, had one voice not been too high for a man’s? In a moment the boy heard it again, higher than ever – a cry this time, a scream. It was beyond a rise ahead of him.
    As he ran up the slope he saw the cross beyond it, a Celtic relic that his father had left intact, believing that it helped to sanctify the environs of Axmouth. It was witnessing no sanctity now. Among the grassy rocks a man was grappling with a girl, one arm holding her close to him while he tore at the fastening of her dress. “Stop,” the boy shouted, but the attacker ignored him. The girl was a servant from Axmouth, he saw – Sarah. “Stop, I say,” the young Kane yelled with all the authority his parentage might have lent him.
    For a moment he thought his disinheritance was already common gossip, since his words were answered by a jeering laugh. Sarah was gazing at him, but there was pity in her eyes as much as pleading, whether because of his youth or because she feared he no longer had the power to intervene. The man ripped the fabric of her dress, exposing one small breast, and seized her wrists with his other hand as she struggled to cover herself. The torn flap of her dress fluttered in the wind that sent a shiver through the grass on top of the cliff. The boy ran to drag the attacker away from her, and then he faltered as he saw what he had not wanted to believe. The attacker was his own brother. “Marcus, what are you doing?” he cried.
    The question sounded childish to him even before Marcus met it with a sneer. “Have you not run away yet, little brother?” he enquired, twisting Sarah’s wrists as she tried to pull away from him. “I thought you were fleeing the priesthood as fast as your legs would carry you.”
    The boy had no time to respond to the gibe, although it made his face hot. “Sarah, are you hurt?” he said.
    This was naïve too, but she seemed pathetically grateful to be addressed. “Solomon,” she pleaded, “he wants to –”
    “Quiet!” Her words had enraged Marcus, though the boy suspected that he was delighting in his rage. “I gave you no leave to speak, girl,” Marcus shouted and thrust her away from him.
    The boy was so untutored in the ways of the world that he thought his brother might have been about to let her go. Marcus was simply giving himself more room to strike her across the face. His grip must have slackened for an instant, because Sarah stumbled almost out of reach, and the back of his hand caught her only a glancing blow. She staggered but managed not to fall, a result that plainly dissatisfied Marcus. “This is none of your concern, little brother,” he said with renewed fury. “Be on your way before you come to harm.”
    As he lurched to recapture Sarah the boy stepped in front of him. “Run, Sarah,” the boy urged. “Run to my father.”
    The girl hesitated and then dodged past them towards Axmouth. Marcus whirled around to grab her, but the boy blocked his way and pulled out a knife. He had brought it with him more as a tool than a weapon. The nearest it had ever come to violence was being embedded in the trunks of ancient oaks in the forest beyond the castle, where the boy used to practice his throwing skillswhen he was allowed time to wander by himself. The sight of the knife seemed to amuse Marcus, so that he lingered rather than immediately pursue Sarah – perhaps he knew that Josiah could never take a servant’s word against his. “Would you come between a master and his sport?” he said.
    “Sport?” The word in the boy’s mouth