Year of the Unicorn

9 The Hounds of Death

The ashen forest about me again—and the hunt! But this was, in its way, worse than it had been before. I looked down upon my breast for that amulet which had been my safety in a sea of terror. This time it did not warm my flesh. I was bare of any defence. Yet I did not run. As once I had said, when fear comes too often, then it loses its sharp edge. I braced my back against one of the dead trees and waited.

Wind—no, not wind, but a purpose so great it sent its force before it as a wind—stirred the leaves which were pallid skeletons of their living brothers. Still did I make myself stand and wait.

There were shadows—but not dark—these were pale and grey and they flitted about, their misshapen outlines hinting of monstrous things. But, as I continued to stand my ground, they only gathered behind the trees, menacing, not attacking.

A wail to follow on that wind of purpose, so high and shrill as to hurt the ears. The shadows swayed and fluttered. Now down the forest aisles moved those who had substance. Bear, wolves, birds of prey; boar, and others I could not name. They walked erect which somehow made them more formidable to my eyes than if they hunted four-footedly.

The need for speech struggled in my throat. Let me but call aloud their names! Only that relief was denied me, and it was as if I suffocated in the need to scream.

Behind the beasts the shadows gathered thickly, their outlines melting, re-forming, melting again, so all that I knew was they were things of terror, utterly inimical to my form of life. Now the pack of beasts split apart and gave wide room to the leader of their company. A long horse head, the wildness of an untamed stallion gleaming in the eyes. And in its human-hands a weapon—a bow of grey-white tipped with silver, a cord which gave off a green gleam.

He who wore the bear’s mask held out an arrow. It, too, was green. A spear of light might have been forged into that splinter shaft.

“By the bone of death, the power of silver, the force of our desire—” No spoken words, the invocation rang in my head as a pain thrust, “Thus do we loose one of three, never to be knotted together again!”

The shaft of light set to the cord of light. Now had I desired in that last moment to seek a small and doomed moment of safety in flight, yet I would not have succeeded, for their united wills held me as fast as if I were bound to the tree. And the cord twanged, or else that small sound was sensed rather than heard.

Cold—a bite of frost so bitter and so deep that it was worse than any pain I had ever known. I stood still against the tree—or did I? For in strange double vision now I looked upon the scene as one who had no part in it. There was she who stood, and another she who lay upon the ground. Then she who stood moved forward to that company of beasts, and they ringed her around and vanished among the trees. But she who lay did not move. And now I was she who lay—and the shadows were drawing in to—

I had said fear could become so familiar it no longer was a goad. But there was that in those shadows which caused such a revulsion and terror in me that I answered with a frantic denial of them, of what I saw—And was answered by dark and no knowledge at all—

Cold-piercing cold—I had never known such cold. But cold was my portion now—cold, cold, cold—

I opened my eyes. Over me a leaden sky and from it the falling of snow. Tent—surely there was a tent—?

Slowly I moved, struggled to sit up. Memory also awoke. Those cliffs I had seen before—this was the valley which led to the gate of the Riders’ lost land. But it was empty. No tents stood, no mounts in a picket line. Snow drifted a little, but it had not quite yet hidden a ring of fire blackened stones. Fire—heat to banish this body aching cold! Fire!

I crept to those stones on hands and knees, thrust my fingers into the ashes. But they were long dead, as cold as the flesh and bone which probed them.

“Herrel—Kildas—Herrel!” I cried those names and had them echoed ghost-fashion back to me. There came no other answer. The camp, all those who had been within it—gone—utterly gone!

That this was another dream I never believed. This was the truth, and one my mind flinched from accepting. It seemed that the Riders had indeed rid themselves of one they did not want, and by the simplest of methods—leaving me behind in the wilderness.

I had two feet—I could walk—I could follow—

Swaying I got to those feet, staggering along. Only to return again to hands and knees, to crawling. And then—there it was—that unbroken cliff wall. Had there ever been a gate? After all I had not seen it. If there had it was firmly closed once more.

Cold—it was so cold—I would lie in the snow and sleep again and from that sleep there would come no waking. But sleep—sleep perhaps meant an ashen forest and the shadow that crept in to—feed! Painfully I made my way back down over the rubble. There, already powdered with snow was the furred rug on which I had lain. I shuffled to it, to find something else—my bag of simples.

My hands were so cold I could hardly feel anything my fingers handled, but somehow I brought out one of the vials, got it to my lips, sipped, waited for inner warmth to follow.

No warmth—cold—cold—As if some part of me had been frozen for all time, or else drawn out to leave an empty void into which ice had moulded. But my head cleared, my hands answered the commands of my brain with more skill.

I had the rug on which I had lain, and my bag, the travel stained clothing I wore. There was naught else—no weapon, no food. I might have been left for dead on some battlefield where the victor cared not to honour the remains of the vanquished.

Cold—so cold—

Wood, some wood left. And they had not been wise to discard my simple bag—ho, that had been a grievous mistake on their part. I was better learned in the worth of what I carried so far than they might guess.

I dragged the wood to the fire stones, laid it as best I could, and then smeared on some twigs a fingers tip of salve, to which I added drops from another vial. My hands were steady. They moved easily now. Flame answered, caught easily at the branches around. I drew as close as I might to its warmth.

Warm—on my hands, my face, my body, yes, there was warmth. But inside me, cold, cold, cold emptiness! At last I found the right word for that sense of loss. I was empty—or had been emptied! Of what? Not life, for I moved, breathed, knew not hunger and thirst, which I assuaged with handfuls of snow. The cordial from my bag had quieted the pangs of physical hunger. Still I was empty—and never would I be whole again until I was filled.

That me which the beasts had taken with them—that was what I must find again. But a dream—? No, not wholly dream, they had wrought some sorcery of their own over me when—last night—many nights ago? By all accounts sorcery could alter the wave of time itself. They had left me to the shadows in the dream world—perchance thus, they believed, to one form of death. And if that failed, as it had, then to this other death in the wilderness. Why had they so feared—or hated—me? Because I could not be ensorcelled or shaped, controlled as those others from the Dales?

“Witch.” Herrel had named me. And he had spoken as one who knew well of what he spoke.

Dame Alousan was a Wise Woman. She had known more of things outside the beliefs of the Abbey than she had ever said. In her library of old knowledge there were books, books I had understood only in part. Sorcery existed. All men knew that. It was remnants of a kind of learning from a very old day and from other peoples who lived in the Dales before the men of High Hallack came from the south to spread out among the hills. And the Were Riders—all men knew that they controlled powers and forces beyond human ken.

Some such powers were for the good of those who sought them, or they could be shaped for good or ill. And a third sort were neither good nor evil. But beyond the bonds laid by men, yea or nay. There was a flaw in the use even of good powers. That had been early impressed on me until I learned it as an undeniable lesson. For the sense of mastery such use gave the one who practised it led to a desire for more and more. And finally, unless one was strong willed enough to put aside temptation, one ventured from light into shadow, and into the dark from which there was no return.

No return—there might have been no return from that ashen wood for me. And—also there had been something rift from me there. Cold—cold—I pressed my hands tight to my breasts—so cold! Never would I be warm again, filled again—until I won back from those who had taken it that other self of mine. Won back? What chance had I of that? I would die here in the wilderness, or this part of me would die—Oh, I could keep life in me for a short period using those simples and my knowledge—but it would only stave off an inevitable end.

Cold—would I never be warm again? Never?

If only I knew a little more! If I have not been denied my birthright—birthright? Who was Gillan? Witch, Herrel had laid name to me—witch? But one who could not perform her witchery, who had power of a sort but could not use it to any great purpose—a witch who was maimed, even as Herrel had claimed to be maimed, unable to be whole. Whole?

I found myself laughing then, and that laughter was so ill a thing to hear that I covered my mouth with both hands, though my shoulders still shook with the force of those convulsions which were not mirth, were very far from human mirth.

Whole? The laughter which had torn me subsided. I must—I would be whole. Slowly I turned my body until I faced the gate which was no longer a gate. What would make me whole had vanished—behind that. But—it pulled me—it did, it did! As my body grew stronger, my mind more alert, so did I feel that pull, as well as if I could actually see a cord trailing away, leading into the stone.

The snow had stopped and the firewood was almost consumed. I could not take the back trail; that which dragged at me would not allow it. Thus I must find some way through the barrier—or over it—

“Stand!”

My head jerked on my shoulders.

Men coming up the valley. As the Riders, these were helmed. But their head covering bore ragged crests and were equipped with eye pieces which fitted down over their eyes mask fashion. They had short coats of furred hide and their boots arose on the outer side of the leg in a sharp point.

Hounds of Alizon!

When they had first come to this continent as invaders they had been armed with weapons strange to the Dales, one of which had shot a searing beam of fire. But when their supply ships had ceased to arrive, some two years ago, these had grown fewer and fewer among them. Now they rode as did the other fighting men of this land with bow, sword, spear, and I saw arrows on cord—

I did not move. It would seem prospective danger was now real. For the fate of any woman in the hands of the Hounds was not good to think upon. I had that in my bag which would give me a last freedom, had I chance to use it.

“A woman!” One of them rode past the archers, slid from his saddle and ran towards the fire. Wearing his mask helm he was more alien even than the beasts.

I had no road of escape. Should I try to scramble over the rocks I could be pulled down with ease, or caught when I came up against the barrier of the gate.

Because I did not flee I surprised him. He slackened pace, looked from the fire to me, glanced about—

“So your friends have left you, wench?”

“ ’Ware, Smarkle,” an order snapped from the others, “have you never heard of baited traps?”

He halted almost in mid-stride, and dodged behind a rock. There was a long period of silence wherein the archers sat their saddles, their arrows centred on me.

“You there.” a man stepped out from between the horsemen, his shield well up to cover his body, a captured shield since its surface bore a much defaced bearing of the Dales. “Come out—to us! Come or be shot where you stand!”

Perhaps the best choice would be to disobey, to go down now in clean death with the arrows reaching into that emptiness. But there was a need in me greater than any other, to regain that which I had lost, and it would not let me turn away from life so easily. I walked past the fire, to the rock behind which Smarkle crouched.

“She is one of the Dale wenches right enough, Captain!” His voice rang out.

Still with his shield before him the Captain dodged from one bit of cover to the next in a zig-zag course.

“Come, you, on!”

Slowly I went. There were four archers, the two men behind the rocks—how many more might be in the valley I could not guess. Plainly they had trailed our party here, which showed strong determination on the part of these hunted men, since the course brought them deep into the waste and away from the sea which was their path homeward, could they ever find a ship. As Herrel had said, these were desperate, with naught to lose which counted longer, even their lives. And so they were also beasts, perhaps much worse than the Riders.

“Who are you?” The Captain fired a second demand at me.

“One of the Dale brides.” I made answer with the truth, knowing now that these men were not as they had been weeks, or even days ago. Even as I they had lost some part of them, worn away by hardship and the abiding loneliness and despair which dwelt in the waste.

“Where are the rest then?” That was Smarkle.

“Gone on—”

“Gone on? Leaving you behind? We are not fools—”

Small inspiration came to me. “Neither are they, men of Alizon. I fell ill of hill fever—to them it is doubly dangerous. Do you not know that the Were Riders are not as we? What ails us is sometimes doubly fatal to them—”

“What do you think, Captain?” Smarkle asked. “If this be a trap, they would have cut us down by now—”

“Not and risk her. You—go back, beyond that fire, against the rocks! Keep your arrows on her as she goes.”

I returned, passing the dying fire, setting at last my shoulders against the stone.

“You—back there—” Now the Captain did not address me, nor his own men, but the debris in the valley which masked the gate wall. “Move, and we arrow slit this dainty piece of yours!”

His words echoed about the walls as they waited tensely. And when the last sound died away, he spoke to Smarkle.

“Take her!”

He came at me in a run, dodging about the smouldering fire, slamming his body against mine, pinning me to the rock by his weight. His breath was hot and foul in my face, and through the eye slits of his helm I could see his eyes, a-glitter with a vicious hunger.

“Got her!”

They moved, still cautiously, towards us. Smarkle contented himself for the present with whispers, the obscenity of which I could guess, though most of the words he used I had never heard. Then he pulled me away from the rock and held me with my arms clamped to my sides, though I had made no struggle.

“She’s no Dale wench.” One of the archers leaned forward in the saddle to stare at me. “Did you ever see such hair on one of them, now did you?”

My braids had loosened and fallen, and against the snow their black hue was startlingly dark. The Hounds looked me up and down as Smarkle held me for their inspection, and now I thought I saw a wariness in their eyes. Not as if they feared me to be bait in some baffling trap they had not yet uncovered, but that something in my appearance alone made them uneasy.

“By the Horns of Khather!” swore the archer. “Look upon her, Captain—have you not heard of her like?”

Beneath the half mask of his helm the Captain’s lips curled in an evil leer. “Yes, Thacmor, I have heard of her like. Though in this land—no. But have you not heard there is a way to disarm such sorceresses, a very pleasant way—”

Smarkle laughed, his grip tightening painfully on my arms.

“Let us not look into her eyes, Captain. It is so a man is held in spell. Those hags of Estcarp know how to bewitch mortal men.”

“So they may. Yet they are also mortal. We have caught us some fine sport.”

The sun had come from behind clouds, its westerning rays struck full in my face. Of what they spoke I had no clue. Though that they believed me of a race of old enemies of theirs I could guess.

“Build up the fire.” the Captain flung the order to the archers. “It is cold here—these walls hold out the sun.”

“Captain.” Thacmor asked. “Why would she stay here—unless she means us harm—”

“Harm to us? Perhaps. But rather do I think she was found out for what she is, and so left—”

“But those devils also deal in magic—”

“True. But wolves of a pack turn upon one another when hunger bites deep. There may be some quarrel we do not know. Perhaps even these Dale sheep laid plans and planted her among the rest to bring their ‘Bargain’ to naught. If so, she has failed or been found out. At any rate they have left her to us. And we shall not nay-say them!”

As yet Smarkle held me, and his touch was an offence it would shame me to put into words. Feeling was left me, like a dim memory of something which had once been alive—and good.

They gathered more wood. At one time this valley must have been a channel for a stream of size and storm drift was still caught among the boulders. They stirred the fire I had kindled into higher blaze. Smarkle threw a loop of hide thong about my shoulders and arms, another about my ankles, making me prisoner.

But with them one kind of hunger seemed greater than the other, for one brought a brace of birds, a large rabbit to the fire side, and these they cleaned and spitted for broiling. One of the archers had a leathern flask. He unstoppered it, strove to drink, and then hurled it from him with a curse.

“Witch.” the Captain stood straddle-legged before me. “Where did they go the Were Riders?”

“On.”

“And they left you because they found you out for what you are?”

“Yes.”

That might or might not be true, but I thought he guessed rightly.

“Therefore their magic was greater than yours—”

“I cannot judge their power.”

He thought on that, and I do not think he relished his thoughts.

“What awaits ahead?”

Again I gave him the truth. “Now—nothing.”

“Did they become thin air and float away?” Smarkle twitched the cord about my ankles in a cruel pull. “The same you will not, witch wench!”

“They passed a barrier, it closed behind them.”

The Captain glanced up at the sun, now almost gone from this shadowed valley, and then at the choked passage ahead. He did not appear to like its looks, but he was a seasoned warrior and prepared to make sure of his ground. At a gesture from him two of the archers laid aside their bows, drew swords, and worked their way up the piles of slide debris.

To one side lay the fur rug which had been left with me. Smarkle advanced a hand to it, and then lifted it higher with the toe of his boot, scudding across the frozen ground.

“Stupid fool!” The Captain turned on him. “That is a shape changer’s hide. Would you touch it?”

Smarkle shivered, his leering grin gone. He grabbed a branch from those laid ready for the fire and lifted the finely dressed hide, thrusting it yet farther away. A rug—they so feared a fur rug? But these men must have faced the fur of the Riders in their battle guise, to them it was indeed an animal’s pelt.

My bag of simples—I could see the end of its carrying strap lying in the shadow of a rock. Doubtless they would deal the same with that should they find it, mistrusting the “magic” it might contain. Were I free and had it in my hands, then I might indeed work “magic”—

But they did not sight it, not yet. And now the Captain came back to his interrogation of me.

“Where did they go? What lies behind this barrier?”

“I do not know—save that they sought another land—” The Captain snapped up the eye piece of his helm, took off the head covering. His hair was very fair—not the warm yellow, or light red-brown of a Dalesman—but rather almost white, as if he were an old man—yet that he was not. He had a sharp and jutting nose, not unlike an eagle’s beak (an eagle’s beak...would I ever now look for such signs on a man’s face?) and high cheekbones set wide apart—though his eyes were small and narrow lidded so that he appeared to ever squint.

He ran his hand from one temple back up his head. There were marks of fatigue on his face, and that kind of tautness shown by a man driven to the edge of endurance, perhaps beyond. He sat down on a stone, no longer looking at me, but staring into the fire. Moments later the scouts returned. “Well?”

“Much fallen rock and then just cliff—they could not have gone that way.”

“They came in here.” the other scout said, a thin, unsteadiness in his voice. “They could not have doubled back past us. They came in here—but now they are gone!”

The Captain’s gaze swung once more to me. “How?” his voice rasped that one word demand.

“To each his own sorcery. They asked a gate to open—it did.”

It had opened for them—not me. But that would not stop me, any more than this remnant of broken, fleeing men would stop me. Somewhere beyond that wall was a part of me. It would draw me on, guide me, and I would be whole once again!

“She—she can get us by—” Thacmor nodded at me. “The witches—they say wind and wave, earth and sky, obey them.”

“One witch alone, who could not use her power before?” The Captain shook his head. “Do you think she would have been here, waiting for us, had she been able to break their spells? No, the hunt’s lost now—”

Smarkle licked his lips, the others shifted uneasily.

“What do we do now, Captain?”

He shrugged. “We eat, we—” He paused to grin at me, “amuse ourselves. On the morrow we lay plans again.”

Some one of them laughed. Another slapped his near companion on the shoulder. They were pushing aside tomorrow, living for the hour as was customary with fighting men whose lives were long forfeit. I glanced at the meat by the fire. It would soon be done, then they would eat and then—after—

If I only had the knowledge. There was that in me, I was sure, which might act as shield and sword at this hour could I release it. Will—I had always thought of it as power of will. Will-power—Could I channel will to make of it a weapon?