The Fellowship of the Talisman

29

The wailing had become louder and heavier-heavier in the sense that it seemed to press down harder on the earth and water and all those things that lived or traveled on the land and water, as if a great invisible hand, with its palm spread wide, was pushing down, squeezing all that lay beneath it.

Conrad stumbled and pitched forward, his hand slipping from Duncan's shoulder, which it had been gripping for support. Duncan thrust himself forward and sidewise in an attempt to block Conrad's fall and got one arm around him, but it slipped away, and the impact of the big man's fall shoved them both into the water.

It was the third time Conrad had fallen since they had started the grueling drive to reach the wailing island before dawn set in. On several other occasions Duncan had been able to catch him soon enough to prevent a fall.

Now Duncan struggled up out of the water and by hauling and shoving got Conrad on his knees. The big man snorted and coughed, spitting out the water he had swallowed.

"M'lord," he wheezed, "why not go on without me?"

"Because we started this together," said Duncan, "and we are, by God, finishing it together."

Conrad struggled up, stood swaying on his feet.

"It's the arm," he said. "The pain of it has drained my strength. I am shaken by a fever. Go ahead. I can follow after. On hands and knees, if need be, but I'll follow after."

"I'll carry you if I have to."

"M'lord, you can't carry me. It would be like carrying a horse."

"Or drag you by the heels," said Duncan.

"Where's my club?" asked Conrad.

"Snoopy's carrying it."

"It's too heavy for Snoopy. He might drop it and it could float away from him."

"Look," said Duncan. "There's the wailing island, dead ahead of us. A half a mile away. That's as far as we have to go. And we'll get there in time. There's no sign of dawn as yet."

"Where are the dragons?" Conrad asked. "There should be dragons. Scratch said so. I heard him say it."

"Come on," commanded Duncan. "Get your legs moving. Get going. Grit your teeth and move. Lean on me."

"It's not right I should lean on you, m'lord."

"Goddamn it, lean on me," yelled Duncan.

Conrad lurched forward, leaning heavily on Duncan, breathing hard, shivering and shaky. Step by step they inched themselves along.

They had fallen a little behind the others, but not by much. The line of march was moving slowly. Everyone was worn down by this terrible trek across the fen, Duncan told himself. Somewhere near the head of the line, Diane was shepherding Andrew along, keeping him awake, keeping him from falling, keeping him going.

So far there had been no sign of dragons. Maybe, Duncan told himself, there would not be any dragons. Although that, he knew, was more than one could hope for.

If only the wailing would stop, he thought, stop at least for a minute to give one a slight breathing space. The wailing and the pressure, the sense of the weight of wailing bearing down upon one, the pressure that held the fen tideless and motionless, flat and calm, a great palm pressed against the water.

Then, for some reason that he didn't know, in an intuition that came to him as unquestioned truth, an intelligence that suddenly blossomed in his brain, he knew that it was not the wailing alone that was pressing down upon him, but the misery of the world-all the misery and hate, all the terror, all the pain and guilt-somehow collected, drawn from all the peoples of the world and concentrated here, funneling down upon this island just ahead, to present itself, to make the force of itself known. As if, he thought, here all the people of the world were coming to confessional, seeking the solace and the comfort that might be gained from such a rite, and, perhaps, getting it, in at least some degree, from the wailing that came off the island. Were the misery and guilt, the pain and terror, he wondered, here converted into wailing and given to the winds to be swept away?

It was a stunning knowledge and he fought against it, for it was horrible, it was unreasonable and not possible, it was unseemly that such a thing could be-shameless, an obscenity, a barbarity. It was a wonder, he thought, that the island did not writhe in throes of agony, that the fen did not steam and boil under the impact of this stream of misery.

And yet, struggle as he might against this unbidden knowledge, he knew it to be true, and knowing this, the pressure seemed greater and more oppressive, more unrelenting than it had been before.

A short distance ahead a small island loomed, no more than a tiny clump of rocks jutting out of the water only a hundred yards or so from the wailing island. Looking up, Duncan looked again at the three sharp peaks of the bigger island, outlined as deep blue spires against the paler blue of sky. The moon was almost down; it swam just a hand's breadth above the darkness of the western horizon. Looking toward the east it seemed to him that just possibly dawn might be breaking soon. He could not be certain, but it appeared that the eastern sky was lightening, the first faint hint of a rising sun.

The stubby dark form of the demon climbed the little rocky islet just ahead and disappeared down its far side. Behind him came Daniel, with Meg clinging like a bug upon his back. Behind Daniel was Beauty, mincing daintily along, choosing her footsteps precisely and with grace. The whiteness of the pack strapped to her back glimmered in the dark. Then Diane, supporting the stumbling Andrew, who still carried his staff, clutching it in a death grip despite his feebleness. And behind these two came the spidery figure of Snoopy, skittering busily from rock to rock, with Conrad's club carried precariously upon a shoulder, the club threatening every now and then to overbalance him.

Tiny came splashing back through the water to see how Duncan and Conrad were making out, his forehead all wrinkled up with worry. He nuzzled gently at Conrad.

"It's all right," said Conrad, speaking to him with teeth clenched against the pain. "Go ahead now. Catch up with the others."

Satisfied, Tiny turned and trotted through the water.

They came up to the small clump of rocks. "Take it easy," Duncan said to Conrad. "Grab tight hold of me. I can take your weight."

"Yes, m'lord," said Conrad.

"Be sure of your footing before you move," said Duncan. "You can't fall down and hurt that arm again."

They worked their way slowly and carefully up the rocks, went cautiously down the other side, were in the water once again. Those ahead of them were more than halfway to the wailing island.

There had been no dragons. Thank God, said Duncan to himself, there have been no dragons.

"Just a little ways farther," he said to Conrad. "Then we can rest. Get some sleep."

He had not thought, he remembered, that it would be this way. Two days, he had figured, when they had started out, for them to cross the fen. But instead they had crossed it, or almost crossed it, in a single night.

He had been watching his feet, he realized, as if watching them might tell him how best to place them. Now, looking up, he saw that those ahead of him had stopped, all of them with their heads bent back, staring up into the sky. Diane had let loose her hold on Andrew, who had fallen and was floundering in the water. Daniel was rearing on his hind legs and Meg was sliding, as if in slow motion, off his back, to sprawl into the waters of the fen. Directly above Daniel was a black shape against the sky, a batlike shape with wings far stretched out, curved tail lashing behind it, vicious head thrust out.

"Stay here!" Duncan yelled at Conrad. "A dragon! Stay here."

He wrenched himself free of Conrad's clutching hand, leaped forward, sword rasping from its sheath. Beneath him one foot skidded on the slippery underwater rock and as he tried to right himself, the other foot also slipped and he went down upon his back, the water closing over him.

He tried to rise, feeling a sense of blind panic washing over him, and slipped again. A shrill scream split the silence and he saw that the dragon, gripping Beauty with its two taloned feet, was beating its wings frantically to lift itself. Daniel, rearing high, had seized the dragon's neck with his teeth and was hanging on. As Duncan watched, the struggling dragon lifted Daniel off his feet and then sank down again. To one side Duncan saw the flash of Diane's sword. As she swung, a second dragon, seeking to avoid the blow, slithered sideways, almost crashing into the water. The sweep of one of its wings knocked Diane off her feet.

Conrad was running toward Daniel and as Duncan watched, he launched himself into the air, his one good arm reaching out. The arm encircled the dragon's neck and the dragon sprawled in the water, unable to beat its way to safety with Conrad's added weight.

Beauty had ceased her screaming. Her limp body, released by the dragon, bobbed in the water, which was being thrashed into foam by the dragon's struggles to escape. Tiny leaped at the dragon's throat, his head making a slashing motion. The dragon stiffened, tried frantically to hump itself out of the water, and then collapsed and lay still. The dragon that had attacked Diane was beating its way upward. Diane had regained her feet.

There was a sound of wings above him, and looking up, Duncan saw that the air seemed full of dragons circling swiftly in upon them, heading for the kill. And this, he knew, was the end of it; this was where the journey ended. His company, beaten down by the long night of travel, caught in the open no more than a hundred feet from the safety of the wailing island, could not stand against such an attack. Bitterness flared so deeply within him that he tasted gall inside his mouth. Roaring out a challenge that had no words, a berserker roar of hate, he lifted his sword arm high, running forward to take his stand with the others of the band.

From overhead, above the circling dragons, somewhere in the deep blueness of the sky, came the sudden clatter of driving hoofs, a wild bugling and the baying of a hundred hunting hounds.

The dragons broke their circling, milling wildly as they sought to get away, and down through them, scattering them, came the Wild Huntsman on his neighing charger whose pounding hoofs struck sparks in the air. The horse and huntsman swooped so low that for a moment Duncan caught sight of his face, eyes glowing wildly under bushy brows, beard blowing back across his shoulder in the wind of his own charge. Then the horse, with frenzied hoofs, was climbing into the blue again, the Huntsman flourishing his horn in hand. The dragons were fleeing wildly from the hunting dogs that bayed them down the sky.

The rest of his band, Duncan saw, was lunging through the water toward the safety of the island, Diane dragging a limp and struggling Andrew, Conrad plunging steadily ahead on his own.

Duncan waded out and seized Beauty. When he touched her he knew that she was dead. Her body floated and he towed her to shore. There he sat down and laid her head across his lap. He put down a hesitant hand and stroked her, pulled gently at her long and silky ears. No more, he thought, the little mincing feet, dancing along the trail ahead of him. The least and the humblest of them all and now it had come to this.

A soft nose nuzzled his shoulder and he turned his head. Daniel snorted softly at him. He reached up a hand to stroke the horse. "We've lost her, boy," he said. "We have lost our Beauty."