Zarsthor's Bane

5

Brixia awoke softly and happily. The sun had arisen far enough to send gold fingers into the Waste. She lay looking up drowsily, wrapped in a strange content, into the meeting of branches over her.

Those flowers which had been candles in the night were now tight closed in sheathing of red-brown outer casing. None had faded, fallen from the branches. As she turned her head a little the girl saw the one she had plucked resting on the ground beside her, no longer wide open, but changed into a cylinder of brown as were its sisters on the tree.

She was not hungry, nor did her feet ache now. Instead she felt alert, strong. And—

Brixia shook her head. Did dreams hold over into waking hours? She could blink, close her eyes, and see, somehow with her mind, a pathway. There was growing in her a sense of compulsion, a restless feeling that she was needed somewhere—for a task she did not yet understand.

She picked up the tightly encased flower, putting it into the front of her shirt where it might ride safe against her skin. Once more on her feet the girl looked to the tree and spoke softly:

“Green mother, what magic you have worked for me I am not wise enough to understand. But I do not doubt that it will smooth my path. In your name from this time forth shall I go not unmindful of all which grows from roots, lifts stems or branches to the sky. We share life truly—this lesson have I learned.”

That was so. Never again would she look upon forms of life different from her own without heeding their wonder. Did one who was blind and suddenly gain sight view the world with such sharp clarity as was hers in this early morning?

Each twist of coarse grass, rise of stunted and twisted bush in the land beyond, was transformed for her into a thing rare and strange. All stood differently from its fellow, offered an infinite variety of shape.

Brixia picked up the spear. As the world of green growth had come to a new life for her, so had there also been set in her mind the way she must go. In that going she must no longer tarry. There was a need for her.

On she sped at a steady trot. Those toad things that had striven to use their sorcery to her defeat were gone. Without being told the girl knew that sunlight raised a barrier against them.

Now and then, on some patch of earth, she saw tracks; boots had pressed here. Woven in and out among those markings were the pad prints left by Uta. The three she followed had come this way.

In one place Uta’s tracks were to one side, a number together. Brixia nodded, though there was no other there to see her acknowledgment of what the cat had done. Uta, she was very sure, had deliberately set those signs for her, Brixia—in a way as clear as any road sign of the Dales.

The girl no longer questioned the purpose of her own actions. Dimly she understood that she could not turn aside now from this trail.

There was life in the Waste—but none which this morning appeared threatening. Leapers jumped once or twice before her, streaking away with speed in those great bounds which had given them their country name. Brixia sighted an armor clothed lizard, its reddish scales matching the sand about the rock on which it sat. Jeweled eyes surveyed her as she passed. It did not share the leapers’ fear.

A flock of birds called and fluttered up from the earth, to fly only a short distance and then light again, searching for insects. They were dun in color, as was much of this land, for there were no sharp and brilliant greens, no flowers to star the grass. The vegetation was as dusty as the soil. One or two plants with fleshy, grey-red leaves stood isolated. Around the roots of those lay shellcases of beetles, homy legs, debris of feasts dropped from the stems ending in thorned leaf pairs ready to close on new prey.

This part of the Waste did not lie level, rather possessed a number of rounded hills—like dunes of shore sand—save that these were of earth, not so easily wind-shifted. Thus the trail Brixia now followed did not run straight, but wove a way back and forth among those. As they rose higher the less far she could see.

The feeling of rightness with the world which had been hers upon awakening under the shelter of the tree had ebbed little by little as Brixia penetrated further into the maze of the mound country. Coarse grass grew on the sides of those—but the clumps did not resemble true vegetation, rather they appeared more like rank fur covering the bodies of crouching beasts who allowed her to venture in so far amidst their herd so she would prove easy prey when they ceased to toy cruelly with her and sprang—

Fancies—yes, but such as were not normally like her to dwell upon. Brixia even paused twice to thud her spear point into a mound side just because she must so reassure herself that this was indeed only dank earth and grass and no such menace as creeping thought suggested.

A portion of her mind arose to question. These fear-forms—surely they were not hers. Fear she had long known, but that was all of tangible things, wolves of her own breed, cold, hunger, sickness—all which was ready to assault the helpless or the careless. Never had she drawn upon fancy to supply new enemies.

Brixia wanted to run blindly, in any direction which would take her free of this weaving way. Better a parched, dry desert than this! But she fought hard against these fancies; instead of taking flight as her pounding heart urged, she deliberately slowed her pace, set herself to concentrate upon one thing alone—the watching for those signs of a trail which the others had left her.

It was only then when she concentrated fully on that Brixia discovered that, while here and there was a boot mark plainly to read, a more important sign was missing. Here Uta had left no paw print.

Brixia came to a sharp halt. The lack of those paw prints rang a stout warning signal in her mind. She did not understand why it was so necessary that she be sure she followed where the cat led, but it was—enough to send her facing around.

She did not like the idea of retracing the way she had come. Nor, she argued with herself, might it be needful. But—her hand sought without thinking the furled flower bud pressed against her breast, safe so within her clothing—But—she was as certain as if a command which must be obeyed had rung out of the air over her head—this she must do.

Even more did the mounds take on unlikely, eerie shapes. Brixia felt that they were solid earth only when she faced them squarely, fighting down her fear. From eye corner they seemed to swell, to diminish, to take on strange outlines—

She broke into a trot, one hand still pressing the flower tightly above her heart, the other holding the spear at ready. Then—

There was a mound directly before her, as if it had arisen full humped out of the ground to box her in. The marks her own feet had left ran on—and vanished against the rise of the mound. This could not be—was it illusion? Some of Kuniggod’s half remembered tales flitted back from far memory. Brixia raised the spear and, without truly thinking of what she did, hurled it with full force of arm.

The point sank into soil, the shaft quivered a little. That was no illusion! Solid earth did block her retreat. She had been sucked into some kind of trap, the bait those tracks. Brixia put out her hand and retrieved her spear.

She must not panic. Though she was shaking a little, her hand so damp as it closed about the haft of her weapon that the wood turned a fraction in her grasp. She hated to turn her back on that mound which should not have been there. But she had to make a choice. To linger where she was would solve nothing at all. That courage, which she had learned as a matter of self preservation, argued that, now warned, she could do no better than go on and face what she must face—better sooner than later when fear had longer to gnaw at her resolution.

Once more she strode along the trail she had followed earlier. The boot marks were easy to read. Where had those three really gone? How long since she had been enticed from the real trail? It was useless to raise such questions now. She had no one to depend upon but herself.

But whoever had arranged that trap seemed in no hurry to announce its, or their, presence. She found that wearing, too. To be ever ready for an attack which did not come took the fine edge from her preparedness even as the edge could be blunted on a blade.

Around one mound and then another and then—

It was like stepping from a curtain darkened room into the full light of day. Earlier she had wished for desert, to be rid of the shadow throwing mounds. Now Brixia found her wish answered, but she liked the prospect far less than she believed she would.

Before her stretched open country, bare of even the tattered bushes and clumps of grass which had marked that lying on the edge of the Waste. Here was only yellow, red streaked, earth, worn by a network of channels which ran in so many opposing directions Brixia could not believe they had ever been cut by the water of some past flood.

Outcrops of stone, of a sullen red with thick veins of black, raised like protesting fists towards the sky in which hung a sun that gave a blazing heat to meet Brixia like a wave from the open door of a keep bread oven.

She gasped. To go into that, set her bare feet on that parched and furance-hot soil—such an act was impossible. Much as she distrusted the mound maze, she must return to that. Turn she did—

But where was that gap through which she had just come?

Brixia swayed, clung to the spear, set butt against the earth, as her support. She shook her head, shut her eyes, held them so closed for a long moment and then opened them once again.

What she saw must this time be truly illusion! Great weights of earth could not shift in the space of a few breaths to close the path down which she had come. Yet now, though she turned her head to look right and then left, there was nothing but a towering earthen wall, no break in its length.

Brixia flung herself at that rise which should have been a gap. She dug the spear point into the earth with one hand, with the other she grasped at a handful of the grass to pull herself up. If there was no longer any way through, then her answer was to climb up and over.

The edges of the grass were as sharp as the blade on which she had set a new edge—was it only a day ago? She gasped, and brought her fingers to her mouth, licking the blood which appeared in bright lines to drabble down her palm and wrist. And she jerked away lest her feet also have such cruel cuts.

Hunkering down where the dank earth of the mound’s foot met the bare earth, she tried to think sensibly. That something had happened which was not of human logic, there was no doubt. That it was a threat, that she must accept also. In a way totally alien to all she had ever known, Brixia had been herded, by drifts of the earth itself, to this place.

Bleakly she understood that there was no retreat. She might be able to walk along the foot of the mound wall either north or south, but there was a growing doubt that she would be allowed to so postpone whatever fate had harried her this far. This had taken on all the evil sensation of a dream out of the always to be feared DARK.

That she would remain where she was and tamely await disaster—no, she summoned her determination with that encouragement she had used many times before.

“I live,” she told the empty desert before her fiercely. “I have arms, legs, a body—I have a mind—I am me, Brixia! And I serve no will save my own!”

There came no answer to her defiance—unless the far off, harsh cry of what might have been some hunting bird provided that. She licked her dry lips. It seemed a very long time since she had drunk of the tree’s bounty. And there was no chance of water in that red and yellow land.

But into it she would go—by her own will and choice of time—not that of the intelligence which had set her to this trail. Now she pulled off her skin jacket and set to work with her knife to cut apart those strips she had so laboriously laced together. The resulting pile of skin bits she began to fashion into foot coverings, shredding the hides into lengths which could be wrapped about her feet ankle high, and secured there with the tightest knotted thongs she could improvise.

Having finished the only protection she could manage, the girl arose to her feet, and, shading her eyes against the sun’s glare with her hand, looked on across the riven land. The many sharp edged gullies formed such a network that to steer a straight course would be impossible. There were those outcrops of rock and the possibility of some shade from such. But a haze held the distance well curtained and she could not be sure what might rise, or fall, ahead.

Brixia shrugged. To wait would gain her nothing. She judged that it was well after nooning, she could hope that twilight might come with a measure of coolness. With the spear ready to use as a staff if she might have need of its support, Brixia started out into the desert.

There was enough difference in the outline of one outcrop from another that she could pick a guide ahead and so make sure she did not wander in circles. Here was one in a rounded pinnacle as if a single stumpy thumb pointed skyward. She chose that as her first objective.

Twice she had to detour because of a gully too broad for her to jump. It was like making a journey where one took three steps forward and two back. Though there were patches of bare earth here, and such were marked with tracks, none of the boot prints appeared.

The clearest of such tracks was a print with four toes, each as long as her own foot. It could be the sign of a bird—but one with such a foot—it must then stand as tall as she, even larger!

However where there were signs of life, then there must also be the means for maintaining that life. Brixia knew of no living creature which might exist without water—therefore this land could not be as dead as it looked. She stooped and chose a small red ball of a pebble and set it in her mouth, using the craft of a wanderer to serve her need.

Beside the thumb pillar she paused in the small patch of shade that provided to choose ahead another goal.

It was then that the silence of this burning waste was shattered by a scream from the air overhead. Brixia pushed back until her shoulders scraped against the sun heated rock of the outcrop. She looked up—

Across the sky wheeled a bird, not close enough yet for her to distinguish through the haze of the heat whether it was some oversize hawk such as she had often witnessed at the hunt among the hills, or a carrion eater whose domain this was.

The scream was answered. Another one of its kind planed into view. Together they circled the thumb rock and Brixia was certain that she was their quarry. As they dropped lower she gasped.

Even the gold eagle that ruled majestically in the heights of High Hallack would be as a grass warbler compared to these. If they alighted she was certain their heads with those threatening beaks agape as they now shrieked might be on a level with her shoulders.

She held her stance against the rock which at least would protect her back if she had to defend herself from an out and out attack, and gripped the haft of her spear until her hands ached.

They swooped, and glided, keeping her pent here by circling, even as the toad things had striven to imprison her under the tree. There was a third, then a fourth cry as two more joined their fellows.

That they were hunters she knew. Their beaks and the vicious talons on their feet proclaimed the threat. Had she been caught in the open they might have borne her down easily. But they seemed in no hurry to close in as yet.

More of the birds appeared until she was beseiged by six, while a seventh kept above its fellows. It was that which now uttered the piercing cries, while the rest fell silent. Brixia began to speculate that her position was now that of a snowcat who had been brought to bay on some mountain ledge, hounds baiting it while they waited for the arrival of their master.

Who—or what—controlled the birds? The feeling of being entranced in an evil nightmare grew stronger. Was it that she still lay in slumber back under that tree which had seemed such a welcoming refuge, that this was some dream to bring about her undoing?

Dream or no she was able to feel heat, thirst, and fear which was not that of a dream, but of a waking mind. Ever alert, she watched the birds, unable to do anything else. But she did go down on one knee to grub out of the baked earth about the foot of the rock some stones of a size to fit well into her palm. If she could bring down a leaper, then there was a chance she might also astound an over-confident bird, given a fair chance.

Brixia made a careful choice of her stones, weighing each in her hand, studying its shape. She knew the value of such caution. At length she had nine to suit her, too heavy to be considered pebbles, yet shaped well enough to throw.

The birds still coasted silently about, their shadows sweeping back and forth across the ground. While that one farther aloft continued to shriek. That answer Brixia had come to expect broke just as she arranged her last choice of stone well to hand in a hollow in the rock, a pocket from which she could scoop her ammunition and still remain standing.

That long drawn cry was not quite a match to the screams of the bird. And, as far as the girl could judge, it sounded from ground level not the air above. She fingered her spear and studied the stretch of desert immediately before her.

The stone escarpments were in greater numbers farther on, one melting in the haze against another, so sometimes she wondered if they did not, in truth, form a series of rock hills to match the mounds from which she had come. Now there was a flutter of movement by one to her left, angling up from the southwest.

That lone bird on sentry-go winged away, out toward what moved there. And again that call sounded. A human cry? Brixia could not be sure. While, even if what came to finish the hunt wore human shape, in this place such a familiar body could well encase a very alien entity. The Waste was never to be trusted to conform to the standards of Dalesmen.

Whatever did come traveled at a pace which was close to a run. And it looked human. True enough it seemed to speed upright on two legs and in form it was man-like—

Then—it took to the air. Being confronted by one of those gullies, the runner launched upward in a huge leap, throwing wide the upper limbs. Those appeared to expand, take on a wing-like outline. So supported the thing arose well into the air, flapped the arm wings, gained so a good distance, the bird flying ever above it.

It was close enough now so that the haze no longer cloaked it and Brixia knew her half-guess was right. This was no outlaw who had somehow managed to train birds as a hawker did his hunters, rather this was one of the legendary monsters of the Waste, some remnant of the Old Ones, either servant or master descended now to a seeker of meat in a heat riven land.

Master—no, mistress!

That lean body coming across the land in those huge sailing leaps, which were half short flights, was grotesquely female, there being no clothing to cover the heavy breasts, their scarlet nipples ringed about with a fringe of grayish feathers. Patches of feathers grew elsewhere on the body, aping the hair which so appeared on human frames. The head had a crest of pinions now erect. While broad, strong looking, flight feathers began at each wrist, extending rapidly in length size until at the shoulder they were near the length of the arm itself.

The features on the face were more avian than human. Eyes were deep set and the mouth and nose were united into a huge, wickedly curved, beak of a flame red color. The four fingered hands, at the ends of the wing arms, were mainly long talons well armed for rending, while the thing touched not feet to the ground between those leaps, but the true claws of a bird.

In height it topped Brixia, but its body was thin and both arms and legs merely bone with skin stretched across. As it drew nearer she could see that it also had a tail, the trailing feathers of which rippled through the air at its darting movements.

A last bound brought it to earth at a stand beyond the reach of Brixia’s spear. There it paced back and forth, its head slightly on one side like that of a bird when its curiosity concerning some strange object had been thoroughly aroused.

The bird which had escorted the thing settled on a stone the size of a boulder and folded its wings. But the other six continued on sentry duty around Brixia. Now the Waste creature opened its beak and cried out—not the scream, or even the song of a bird. No, Brixia thought that the thing spoke. But to her the words, if they were such, were unintelligible.

At least it had not attacked on sight. Could it be that as alien, yes, and frightening, as this thing appeared, it might still be brought to understand that Brixia meant it no harm and was willing to go her own way? Most of the greater beasts of the wild dales, unless driven by hunger or believing that their hunting grounds were invaded, were willing to preserve an uneasy peace with a traveler who gave no overt threat. If the same held true here—At least there was no harm in trying.

Brixia tried to forget the talons, the sharp bill. She kept her spear in her right hand, attempting to make it seem that that was a staff only. Her left she raised palm out in the sign of peace which was instinctive with her own kind.

Her voice was hoarse with thirst but she used it as clearly as she might:

“Friend—friend—” she repeated the word as distinctly as possible.