Horn Crown

17

“Elron!”

At first that cry arose out of my own memories—I never had heard that note in Iynne’s voice. My companion was on her knees, staring out over that land of barrows lighted with their thin and scarcely discernible grave candles.

The moon was well down the sky, its clear light muted. Iynne pointed to the west. In a moment I caught sight of them, too. Shapes were flitting among the barrows, only to be sighted as they sped from one patch of shadow to the next. I grew tense for it seemed to me that perhaps as many as a lord’s meiny might be purposefully encircling us.

They remained remarkably difficult to see, even allowing for their love of the shadows. Thus I could not get any clear idea whether they were some hunting pack of large animals—men—or another unpleasant and dangerous life form loosened in this wilderness, perhaps by that Presence which had already played a part in my life.

“I see,” I returned in a whisper. Though as far as I might determine the closest of those moving forms was still well away from the barrow where we sheltered, yet. I had no desire to make any sound which ears perhaps keener than my own might hear.

The girl moved closer to me, her shoulder brushed against my thigh as she knelt beside the great stone. In this subdued light she looked older, drawn and pale. Girlhood and that human aspect which was her birthright might have been rift from her during these past hours. Now she stared at me.

“You see—” there was a malicious glitter in her eyes. “They come for me! I—” Her hands came together on her belly, protecting, covering, what she declared she carried. “I hold the future lord—and they know it! Run, kinless one, save yourself while still you can! Not even my words can stand between you and their vengeance!”

Plainly, she believed this to be the moment of triumph for the forces with which she had so mistakenly allied herself. I had no intention of running. Nor was I as certain as she that what slunk through the night were the Dark minions in their might.

The cup moved in my hands. I would have sworn that my fingerhold on it had been tight, that it could not have shifted so by chance. It bent backwards; its hollow no longer displayed. Rather I looked down to see the face again uppermost. While the eyes in it—they saw! They caught and held me though I felt it was dangerous to turn my attention from the drawing in of those who came among the barrows.

I had believed that I had changed in a manner, was no longer the raw untutored youth who had failed his lord and been sent into exile. Now—now indeed I was becoming—

No! I strove to cry that denial aloud, to break the compelling gaze of eyes which must be—must be—only metal. Cunningly wrought so that they looked alive, yes, but still metal—not real, not reaching into my mind, fashioning a place—a place to hold what?

Strength was pouring into me. Not strength alone, but something more—an intelligence which strove to fit its identity into mine. Save that I was not the vessel it expected, it needed. There remained a barrier. To that small wall of safety my own person, whatever remained of Elron, clung, a last defender, determined to die rather than yield his post to a stranger unknown.

Whatever will sought so to encompass me and found that it could not enter in as it would, made the best of what I was forced to abandon. I was well aware that I now housed a power which I could not understand but which was determined that I serve its purpose. Or was it another that was prepared to serve mine? I distrusted that last thought. Such might be only an insidious second attack launched by this invader. I was no sorcerer, no Bard, who could open his mind, surrender his will to the unseen.

Iynne was on her feet in a quick sideways movement which took her farther from me. Before I could move, she flung aloft her arms and, facing where those hiding shadows appeared the thickest, she cried aloud:

“Holla, moon-born, light-bearer, I am here!”

I thrust that bewildering, dangerous cup again into my belt, reached for her. This time I did not try to spare her, rather threw one arm about her just below her throat and dragged her back against me, while once more she became one with Gruu’s clan, clawing, spitting her hate, striving to reach me with her fingernails. Thus we fought a wild battle until my greater strength triumphed. The cloak had slipped from her during that struggle, catching at our feet, so I tumbled backwards over the slab of blue litten stone, still holding to her flesh, now slippery with the sweat raised by our battling. I did not let go, nor was she able to break my hard held embrace enough to turn full upon me. This was like holding a maddened thing, for my prisoner was no longer the Iynne I had thought I knew.

A wind bore down upon us even as clouds closed overhead so that the only light was the ghostly beams of the “candles.” Twice I realized she strove to call again, and only a quick shift of hold to her throat choked off that summons.

I must have rendered her near unconscious, for finally she went limp. Then I released my hold a fraction to see if she was playing tricks. She did not move so I scrambled up, drawing her with me. Her heated body gave off a strange, heady fragrance as if her skin had been annointed with oil. She was panting, drawing deep, heavy breaths, as if she could not get enough air into her lungs.

Above that heavy breathing I heard something else. Far away the sound of a horn I had heard once before when I had been pent with Gathea and death sniffed about us—the first time I had sought the aid of the cup. High and clear that rang out.

The clouds above began to loose a burden of chill rain. I jerked Iynne to her feet, stooped and caught up with one hand the cloak to thrust it upon her.

“Cover yourself!” I commanded harshly. That soft and fragrant flesh in my hold, it brought back that temptation which the thing in the tower had striven to use as a weapon against me. Were I to loose a man’s hunger here and now—that would indeed open a doorway for my opposition.

The horn sounded closer. I tried to measure the position of the shadow force below us. All one could sight were the blue lights of the barrows—and not all of those were lit either. That which had flowed into me when I looked upon the cup, which had, for the moment, left off its struggle to become me, supplied a bit of knowledge. Those gathered below would not dare to climb the Har-Rests. For good or ill I had made a choice when the cup came into my hands. The force I had so allied myself with—mainly unwittingly—had protections as well as dangers. We stood on ground which had its own defenses and those were not of this world.

Iynne was sobbing again, more in anger, I believed, than for any other reason. She snatched the cloak, dragging it around her, turned from me, crouching down by the stone again, peering into the dark, her body tense with expectation. For the third time the horn sounded—still afar. The wind-driven rain pelted us furiously.

Garn’s daughter lapsed into sullen silence. I could not see into the dark valleys between the barrows but I had sensed that the menace there had withdrawn in part. It could be that she also knew. In spite of the clouds and the rain the sky was growing lighter, morning was coming. The candles became fainter, were gone. Now I could see that there were deep graven markings on the stone by our camp—runes beyond my reading, far different from those of our clan records. On the upper end of the stone toward the east—where it might even be above the heart of him who was buried here, there was the outline of a cup. In shape it was like my gift from Gunnora, save that there was no head upon it. However, above the picture of the cup there was also set in the stone the antler “horns”—these plainly formed the crown of some ancient lord.

“Dartif Double Sword—”

I raised my hand, palm bare and out, as I would to one whom I followed into battle, even though we knew little of each other.

“You name a name.” Iynne, huddled deep into her cloak, looked at mo, still sly and sullen.

“I name a name, I greet a great lord,” I replied, knowing that that greeting, that naming, came from that other within me. “This was Farthfell.” I looked out over the crowding of the barrows. “When the Dark Ones following Archon came down from the north and the war horn called in all of the Light, there was here a battle of the last days. They slew—they died—their world was finished. From that warring came no victory—only memories of a better time—”

Those words arose out of me, yet I did not understand them until I spoke. Now I bowed under a deep sadness such as I had not fell before—a faraway sadness like that which can be summoned by a skillful Bard when he plays upon the thoughts of men and sings of great deeds and great defeats which lie hidden in the past, building so the belief that men of other times were stronger and better than any who now walk, giving us heroes by which to measure ourselves—goals toward which to strive.

For men must have such heroes, even though they look about them and see only lesser men, mean and petty things. Yet if they can be led to believe that once there was greatness then many of them will seek it again. That is why we can listen to the Bards and some of us weep inside, and others feel dour anger that life is not what it once was. Still there is left the core of aroused memory to strengthen our sword arms, make us ready to fight when danger arises even in our own day. It is the gift of the Bard to tie the past to us, to give us hope. I was no Bard, I listened to no hand harp here. Still I looked down upon the semblance of that Horn Crown, knowing that I was far less than he who lay below, yet I was not altogether overshadowed by him for I was another man and I must have within me the seeds of some small gift of service which was mine alone.

The gloom of the morning lay heavy, but we could see out over Farthfell and nothing moved among the barrows. What had crept upon us under the cover of the dark was gene. I reached a hand down to Iynne to help her to her feet.

Where we would go I was not sure. The horn had cried from the west and something pointed me in that direction, though it was eastward I should have turned to return Iynne to the dales.

“Where do you go?” she demanded, refusing to move until I set hand on her arm and drew her with me, half expecting that I might once more have to struggle with her and not liking that idea.

“West—”

She looked beyond me, seeming to consider the land around Farthfell, which was open enough, though there were groves of trees here and there. “Have you thrown the luck stones for the trail?” she asked.

“I have not yet heard my name called in the battle morn.” I returned one folk belief for the other. “Thus I do not think that this day, at least, I shall die. And while a man lives, then anything is possible.”

“You do yourself no good by holding me. I have those waiting for me and for the child now within me. Let me go. I am no longer Garn’s daughter—I am she who will mother greater than any man now living.”

I shrugged. That she nursed some delusion the hag had set upon her I could well believe. That indeed she was no longer any maid—might also be the truth. I only knew that, for good or ill, our fate lines were woven together for a space. And that I would surrender her back to the forces I had fought in the Moon Shrine I would not do.

When we descended from Dartif’s resting place I found deep tracks all about the winding path which had brought us there. Some were of cloven hoofs, some of great paws, more were mishapen—humanlike but with the imprint of long claws extending beyond, or even booted, yet all so deeply pressed it would seem that these had been left behind as a warning—or a threat, insolent in its very openness.

We followed on the path until we came to a stream and there we stopped and filled the water bottle, ate a little more from my fast-shrinking supplies. I would have to turn to hunting this day if we were to have any relief from gnawing hunger.

Farthfell was a widely open stretch between two ranges of heights. I thought that those to the east might be the ones I had crossed before the adventure of the Black Tower. Viewing the western rises, I did not relish the thought of another such passage ahead with no more purpose or guide than an inner feeling that this was the road we must take.

The rain lightened into a damp drizzle which plastered clothing to the body but did not beat on our uncovered heads. Though shelter was offered by any of the copses of trees I had sighted from the barrow, still I wanted to remain in the open. I had met too much peril within just such stands.

When I shouldered the water bottle and got to my feet Iynne appeared in no haste to push on. Her hair lay in wet strings across her head and shoulders and she looked like a fetch out of an old tale. I wished I had better to offer her in the way of clothing, but one could not conjure a robe, or a shorter riding dress, out of grass and brush.

“Folly!” Her hands, tight curled into fists, beat together. “Let me go! You achieve nothing, only raise their hate against you—”

“I do not hold you now,” I answered in weariness, for this struggle had become such that I would have gladly turned and walked away from her, save that I could not.

“You hold me—with that in you now, you hold me!” Her voice soared. “May the Death of Kryphon of the Dart be upon you—and it!”

As one who is tired to the point of limbs heavy and body worn, she arose slowly, faced westward, and began to walk, her white face set in the grimace of one being herded against her will.

We had not gone more than a short distance from the stream which we had splashed through before her stooped shoulders straightened, her head came up, turned a little to the north. There flowed back into her, so strongly that I witnessed its coming, new energy. Dropping the cloak as if the covering of her body meant nothing, Iynne broke into a run, her slender legs flashing at a sprint like a horse’s gallop.

I paused only to catch up the cloak and then pounded after her. It seemed that whatever purpose moved her gave her energy past my own, with the weight of mail and heavy sword belt upon me. Still I kept her in sight and, now and then, even gained on her a little. She kept to the open, luckily, for I feared that she might dodge in among one of the stands of trees to hide until I had passed her. Rather she appeared now to have forgotten me altogether and I could only believe that she was again in a net of whatever had entrapped her from the first.

The ground was rising again. Iynne took the slope easily, even leaping now and then across a pocket of earth to the top of a rock and then ahead. Over the crown of that hill she went as I ploughed doggedly after. When the other side of the ridge came into sight I nearly stopped short as I witnessed what awaited us a little below.

There was that dark-robed crone who had been working her spells in the Moon Shrine. She was partnered, not by any human kind. Rather one of the flying monsters such as I had fought by its lair stood on her left—this being a female and much taller than the crone, its wings fanning the air lazily, but its clawed feet firm planted on the ground. To her right was another figure—and at the sight of that I slowed pace.

It was both man and beast in an evil mixture of the worst of both. The body from the waist down was covered by a bristly pelt, the feet were hoofed like those of a bull. Huge and bulllike also was its masculine organ, so fully visible that it would seem it flaunted its sex, or was prepared to use it as a weapon of sorts.

Above the waist that bristle hair thinned, though it still grew thicker on chest and along the shoulders and upper arms. The arms themselves were overlong, its huge hands dangling low. But it was the head and face which had startled me into slowing pace.

There was a resemblance, a horrible and fearful resemblance to the face on my cup. That representation was noble; this was vile. A single being might have been split in two, all good in its nature to one side, the evil pulled to the other. This man-beast was the reverse of the Horn Lord—and he was not crowned. No entwined antlers rode on his thick tangle of curly hair.

His head was thrown back, and now he mouthed a roar which was part a beast’s cry, part laughter of cruel triumph. While the crone by his side flung high her arms, her fingers moving like a weaver’s shuttle. The winged woman thing smiled, her lips parting to show fang teeth.

Iynne, seeming to see no threat in those before her, was still running eagerly toward them, though she slowed when she nearly tripped over a stone set in the grass. I was too far away to reach her. Taking n chance I flung the cape after her, aiming as well as I could with that roll of the dank cloth.

It uncoiled in the air, and I saw that I had done better than I had hoped I might, for it whipped over her head, then dropped about her. She took only one more stride; then, blinded and startled, she fell sprawling, still well away from the waiting three. I spurted to her side as she still fought with the cloak.

The laughter of the beast-man died away. What rent the air—each word she uttered was like tearing open the very sky over us—was the chanting of the crone. She called on Powers, that much I knew.

The beast-man stood, grinning now, his wide fists resting on his hairy hips, about him all the confidence of a bully, a victor in many battles. His confidence was very sure and his eyes held a glint of red fire as if there were no natural orbs within those hollows, rather some other means of seeing the world and bending what he saw to his own purposes.

Back and forth the winged woman teetered, rising now so that only her toes were fast upon the ground, her wings beating with longer and stronger strokes. I felt she was about to launch herself straight at me and I drew steel.

Seeing the blade bare in my hand moved the beast-man to more open laughter. I had thrown my left arm about Iynne, held her as tightly as I could. If she went to them, if that hag laid hand upon her, I knew that she would be utterly lost, that this time no power I could summon would bring her free again. All that was still good, clean, and human in her would die and what was left was far better dead. Death itself might be the greatest gift I could give her now—when I sensed that they could take her at their pleasure. Better far to draw the edge of my blade across her throat—

“Do it, young fool!”

I saw the beast-man’s flare of flame within his eye pits. “Give her to us in blood—we shall take her more gladly so.”

So their power could reach beyond clean and sudden death. That was a new and chilling thought. I kept glancing at him, though I willed myself not to. He was so like in part to the Horn-Crowned One, yet so dark and lost. It is human nature to be a mixture of good and bad—perhaps what was better in me had been drawn one way by that image in the cup. Now the lowest inclined to this being.

“True—you think straight and true, fool. You are mine, do I desire it so.” He gestured.

Fire burned in my loins. I was caught up in just such a wave of lust as I had been when the Presence of the Black Tower had faced me. To toss aside the cloak—to take this girl, I held to—! I clamped my hand so hard about the hilt of my sword that the guard brought sharp pain. It was that small pain which aroused me. I was able to tear my gaze loose from the hold of his stare.

There was a pulling about me, what the crone wove, that net of her sorceries, was closing about us both. I would go to death—if I was lucky. lynne to much worse.

Then that strength which had come to me among the barrows moved. I could accept or deny it. There would be only this one time of choice at last. If I accepted what it was I must do so fully. But I was a man. As a human I went my own way. To allow myself to become a tool of any power—good or evil—was I not then surrendering all that made me what I was?

Time—I wanted time! But there was no time left. I flung up my head, looked up into the dull cloudiness of the sky which closed us in as if we stood in a dungeon of a keep. Even all the land about us had taken a grim overcoating of gray which denied even the fresh green of the growth, all that I knew as life.

I moistened my lips with my tongue. For a moment more—just one moment—I held on to the Elron I knew—the Elron I had always been. Then I called: “Hi, Holla, Kurnous!”

It was like being caught up and twisted in a mighty hand, my blood sent to run in another fashion, my bones altered in a tortuous grip. I was filled with an overpowering sweep which shook me from side to side, as if buffeted by the greatest wind of any storm. Still I did not fall. There was a sharp, agonizing pain in my head. I could only think of a place with many doors long closed, all being battered inwards—or outwards—at once. So that which had been hidden behind them was freed and came flashing out.

What was I? I could not have said. I saw and heard things for which no man of my race had words, could have given name to. The tearing, the rending grew less. How long had it lasted? It had seemed to my tortured smaller self to have gone on for days out of time.

Then I was standing and Iynne crouched beside me, looking up at me with dazed eyes, a thread of spittle running from her slack, open mouth, while those other three still fronted me. Only, the winged one had lost her smile, the beast-man no longer laughed. Rather, he too, showed snags of teeth, and there was such fire blazing not only from his eyes, but the whole of him, as to set the grass about him blazing, save that it did not.

While she who Iynne called Raidhan stood with her hands upraised, yet her fingers had stopped their weaving, hung limply downward, as if all strength had been drawn out of them. What the three saw in me I could not tell. Only my heart warmed and leaped. I had thought that in this surrender I would lose all. Rather all had been drawn to me. I must make haste now, forget my wonderment at the richness I had been shown which had been locked within a child (for all men no matter what the tale of their years were children if they knew not their strength). There would be time now to savor all I had gained— later.

Once more I looked into the curtained sky and called:

“Holla, Kurnous!” Those talents which had been body bound linked within me, so more than my voice rolled across the land.

My answer came—the fluting of the horn—not in search, but in a peal of triumph, as if a quarry was not only sighted, but had been brought to bay. Though I was no questing hound, rather the sword of the hunter.

Then—

He came out of nowhere. No, not out of nowhere, but from the other place which marched beside this world, and which in time might become mine also. He was as tall as Garn, but his mail was a coat of shifting light which glowed about his body in green, and brown, and blue. I had been right—though the head on the cup was but a very dim imagining of what the Horn-Crowned Lord was—still his features were not too far from those of the beast-man. There were the Light and Dark. And I remembered in a flash then something Gathea had once said:

As above, so below. Each Power must have its light side and the dark—they were balanced. Save when that balance was disturbed and one grew the greater, then the fates—the need for all things being equal—took a hand. The righting of the balance might be bloody and dire, still it must come within all existing worlds.

The three before us gave no ground. Instead they began to swell, to take on stature, more and greater substance—striving to balance even now against the Horn-Crowned Hunter.

There was another disturbance of air.

Longing caught at me even to look upon her. Rich gold and amber light made her garment as she fronted the crone, her head high as a lady of power giving judgment. Yet—there was that in Raidhan which was a withered, far-off remnant of the same bountiful richness my amber lady wore as the body she had chosen now to assume.

A third coming—there was another winged one. But the brightness of this hurt the eyes. I could not look at her directly. The air raised by her wings blew against me, bringing the clear scent of small spring flowers, among last year’s dead leaves.

“As above, so below,” I said softly. There was movement beside me. Iynne pulled upward, her hand groping out as if she sought some support. I took her fingers into mine. They were cold and she was shivering as one who stood beset by high drifts of winter’s snow