The Castle Оf Hape. Caves Оf Fire Аnd Ice. The Joining Оf Тhe Stone

FIVE

Lights swung wildly in Ram’s face, voices shouted, more lights were flung up so men could stare at him. His horse shied and spun. He wanted to kill every man in the compound, but was helpless as a babe. Numb and cold, likely all his ribs broken after that abominable ride, and the wolf bell had gouged a raw place and his wound was a screaming pain. If he could get his hands on just one . . .

A lantern was shoved into his face, blinding him. When his vision cleared at last, he could see corral fences in the swinging lights, and some sheds. Men crowded around him. Someone poked his wound, bringing pain like a knife. Someone jerked his plunging horse until it stilled.

“Fires of Urdd, a Seer! AgWurt has brung us a Seer!” A hunk of Ram’s hair was pulled, bringing a roar of laughter.

“A better day’s work than one o’ them unnatural winged horses, I say!”

“Where’d they get a Seer?”

“Look, ’e’s a young one, looks—them’s Carriol clothes, this . . .”

“It’s the wolf one, Brage! They call Ramad! Ramad of wolves, this! Why . . .”

“They’ll pay a price for this one in Carriol! Better than a flying horse, AgWurt! Better . . .”

Ram was poked and exclaimed over, then at last was left to himself, still tied face down across the saddle. Much later he was cut loose and jerked roughly off his horse to drop in the mud, so stiff he could hardly roll away from the gelding’s hooves. Someone jerked him up, and he was dragged, still bound, to a pen of thick crossed bars, was shoved inside with such force that he fell against a post and lay with his head reeling.

No one bothered to untie him. The mud in which he lay was redolent with manure. He was too weary to try to rise. He heard a lock snap shut. He must have slept in spite of pain, for when he was aware of anything again the night was still and much colder and there were no lights, just the thin glow of the two moons that had risen higher and were reflected in puddles in the mud. What had waked him? His hands and feet were numb from the bindings, and icy cold. Someone whispered close beside him, a girl’s voice.

She was reaching through the bars, holding out a mug. “Try to move your hands, I’ve taken off the ropes. Try—can you move your feet?”

He reached out, could hardly feel the mug, had to consciously direct his fingers to close around it; drank greedily.

“You are in Kubal,” she whispered. “My father caught you in a snare meant for . . .”

“For the horses of Eresu.” Ram’s voice was hoarse.

“Yes. I tried—I can’t reach your bandage. It’s bloody. Is the pain very great?”

“I’m all right.” He touched numb fingers to his side, felt the wetness; then pulled himself up until he could lean against the wooden cage. She drew back, startled, seemed suddenly uneasy at his closeness. He caught the smooth, slim turn of her cheek, a brief glimpse in the thin wash of moonlight, then she was in shadow again; a strange, stirring glimpse that unsettled him for no reason.

She had lifted her hand, now she touched the fence, seemed lost in some depth of thought he had no way to follow. She said at last, urgently, “Why were you there in the foothills? Did you mean to come to Kubal, Seer?”

“I—I am of Carriol.” She was watching him so intently, almost as if he frightened her. Why was she here in the dark by his pen, why was she helping him? “I was traveling away from Kubal, I was traveling toward the mountains.”

She moved until she could see his face more clearly in the faint moonlight. He was covered with mud and dung, a pretty sight. She almost reached again, drew her hand back. “You are . . . you are Ramad.”

“How did they know me, those men?”

“There are fifteen Seers in Carriol. Jerthon of Carriol is older than you. There are some old men, some women. There is only one other young man, and he is thin and freckled, older. There is only one as young as you and red of hair. And brazen sometimes, so the captives say.”

He grinned. ‘Tell me your name.”

“I am Telien.”

“Yes, Telien. You freed a woman and her daughters and they came to us.” He wanted to tell her something, to share with her something, but he did not know what. He wanted to give her something. “I was riding toward Eresu,” he blurted, and he had not meant to tell anyone this. He saw her eyes widen: green eyes, cool green in the glancing moonlight. He wanted to touch her cheek and didn’t understand his feelings. She studied his face, and he was stirred by her, and restless and afraid. What was this strangeness? He felt a closeness to her like nothing he could remember, a closeness as brothers of blood would feel, yet not like that at all; the closeness of a woman, but unlike what he had felt for any woman.

How could a man feel tenderness, feel passion, kneeling in the muck of a corral, freezing cold? Yet he felt all this for Telien. She started to speak but a lantern flared nearby, and at once she was gone into the night as if she had never been.

When he woke again it was dawn, and some chidrack were screaming and pecking after bugs at one side of his pen. He rolled over, stared at the crossed bars. He had been sleeping in the mud like an animal. He rose painfully, saw the ropes lying half buried in the mud, and remembered Telien. He moved stiffly, every bone ached, and his wound pulled painfully. His stomach was empty as a cavern, his mouth dry. Hardly light, nothing stirred. There were no cobbled streets here, only mud. No stone houses. Rough wooden sheds, many pens. No smoke from the tin chimneys yet. He stood looking through the bars, knowing he should try to make a plan of escape and unable to think of anything but Telien.

At last he stirred himself, found the gate to his pen, and began to examine the lock, a huge heavy thing set into wide steel straps so it could not be pried loose. He gave it up finally and turned once more to sorting out his surroundings.

The nearby pens held horses slogging in mud so it was a wonder they weren’t all lame. In a far corral human captives slept on the ground like dead bodies—could have been bodies scattered, except some of them snored. In a corral to his left stood a great mare, her rump turned to him. She—he stared, not believing what he saw. When she turned, he caught his breath.

A mare of Eresu! And her wings shorn bare so he went sick at the sight of her. Wings clipped to the skin like some fettered barn fowl, wings made ugly and monstrous, misshapen, held tight to her sides in pain or in shame, ungainly bony protuberances that once had been graceful arcs commanding winds, commanding the skies of Ere. Her body was covered with the long welts of a lash, cruel and deep.

He tried to reach her with his thoughts, but she stood hunched and unresponding. How long had she been in this place? Had she been captured in AgWurt’s snares? What did AgWurt intend for her? To clip her wings like this, to cripple her—and the poor mare was heavy with foal. What did he want? Only to bedevil and degrade these wild creatures whose spirits he could not touch? Or to ride them, to become their masters in some sick-minded attempt at mastering that which no man could ever master.

He turned his attention again to the compound. He could not help the mare, not yet. But AgWurt shared now in the cold, purposeful hatred Ram held for Venniver who burned children, and for the dark Pellian Seers.

The sky was growing lighter, the compound taking fuller shape. There was a long shed beyond the pens that could be a central kitchen and sleeping hall, perhaps an arms store as well. How many men did the encampment house? He could see another row of sheds some distance beyond the first, and more corrals. He counted sixty-two horses, some of them very good mounts, many from Carriol. He caught his breath when he saw the dun stallion standing tall among the other mounts.

And where was Anchorstar, then? He could not see him among the prisoners. He stood looking, outraged, uncertain. Was the tall, white-haired man sleeping in the hall among the Kubalese? Was he friend to the Kubalese, had he spoken to Ram in deceit?

Had he alerted the Kubalese that Ram was near, traveling alone?

He could hardly believe that, and yet . . . why had Anchorstar come here? What business could the man have with the Kubalese?

In the closest prison pen, figures were beginning to rise stiffly from the mud where they had slept. Ram watched them, hoping to see Anchorstar among them, but assuming he would not; and Anchorstar was not there. When Ram turned, Telien stood beside his cage.

Her green eyes, the shock of recognition he felt for her held him frozen. Her face so familiar, he knew it so well; yet he had hardly seen her before this moment, seen only her moon-touched shadow last night. But he had seen her, knew well the tone of her skin, the curve of her cheek just there—and suddenly without warning he knew, went weak with knowing: Time spun, twelve years disappeared, and he was caught again in the vortex of Time spinning at the top of Tala-charen. Telien was there among the shadowy figures; thunder rumbled and the mountain shook; he saw her pale hair fall across her shoulders as it now fell, her green eyes watching him as they now watched; saw the jade shard in her hands turning slowly from white hot to deep green; and she disappeared.

And Telien stood holding out a plate of bread and meat, puzzled by his scowl, uncomprehending. He took the plate woodenly. She frowned, trying to understand, did not speak. He gripped her wrist so she stared back at him in alarm, then with pain; but she showed no sign of the recognition he felt.

He could not gather words. When he released her, she continued to stare, unable to turn away.

He swallowed, found his voice at last, stared at her pale hair, her golden skin, seeing her still as she was in Tala-charen—exactly as she was now. “Do you not remember, Telien?” How could she not remember? She had been there. “You held the runestone in your hands—the runestone of Eresu.”

“The runestone of Eresu?” She frowned, studying his face. “You make fun of me, Ramad of wolves. The runestone of Eresu lies in the sacred tower of Carriol. How could I have held it?”

“You did not hold that stone, Telien. You held its mate. You held it and you . . .” He stopped speaking, could not explain, was gripped with such longing for her; and with a sudden longing for Tala-charen and for that moment that had caused him such pain. She touched his cheek hesitantly; they saw a figure emerge from the hall and she left him at once slipping away, did not return until night.

He gazed after her, trying to understand. Why did she not remember?

She had brought bandages, salve. At last he busied himself with changing the dressing of his wound. He did not like the look of it, angry and swollen, torn open where it had earlier begun to heal; very painful. He was leaning tiredly against the wooden bars feeling light-headed when he saw, so suddenly that he jerked upright, the tall, lean figure of Anchorstar going across the compound led by two soldiers, the old man’s hair white as snow in the dull morning. Ram nearly cried out, held his tongue with effort, watched as the soldiers pushed Anchorstar roughly into the long hall and pulled the door closed behind them.

They had come from the direction of the prison pens. Surely Anchorstar was captive, then, and not a friend of the Kubalese as Ram had feared. He had thought of Anchorstar as friend, had trusted him even with so short a meeting, felt, for the old man a kinship it was difficult to explain. He remembered, now, Anchorstar’s words as they sat before Klingen’s fire. You are one dedicated to the good, Ramad of wolves. Whatever comes to your hand will be used to the good of Ere. No pronouncement at all of his own position, yet Ram had felt with every fiber of his Seer’s strength that Anchorstar was as committed as he to the good of Carriol, of Ere.

But was feeling, even a Seer’s feeling, ever enough?

He stood pondering this when the vision came, abruptly: Anchorstar kneeling before AgWurt, held like a dog, beaten by guards so the lashes cut through his leather jerkin and into his skin. Anchorstar, silent and ungiving; Anchorstar beaten raw and still unwilling to speak. What did they want of him? Ram gripped the bars, Seeing with terrible clarity. Saw, then, the small leather pouch in AgWurt’s fist, knew he had taken it from Anchorstar’s tunic, the starfire pouch, heard AgWurt’s words briefly before the vision faded: You will tell me where! I will know where they came from, or you will die in Kubal’s pens, old man!

*

When Telien returned, she came from the direction of the mare’s fence. He had not seen her go there in the dark; her hands were freezing, as if she had been standing a long time inside that corral. The night was broken by loud voices and laughter from the hall, as if AgWurt’s men sat drinking there. A thin fog lay across the moons. He wanted to look into Telien’s face, but she stood with her back to the dull moonlight. She had brought meat and bread. He reached through the bars, touched her hand. She pushed the plate at him, seemed shy and confused. When she looked at him, it was with veiled, wary eyes; and yet he thought there was more. Something . . .

She said, abruptly, without greeting, “He keeps—AgWurt keeps the key chained to his wrist.” As if she had thought all day about how to set him free. “I—he almost never takes it off. Once, by the water trough . . .”

“Yes, when you freed Mawn Paula and her children.”

“Yes.” She moved along the fence until Ram had turned so the faint moonlight fell on his face. She reached as if she would touch his hair, then stilled her hand, remained silent, watching him.

He wanted to whisper to her, to hold her.

“You can’t dig out, Ram. The posts are buried a long way and the ground is like rock.”

He touched her hand, her cheek—that face he had seen in dreams for half his life. Why didn’t she remember? He wanted to speak of Tala-charen and could not.

“I can steal a knife, though. If you . . .”

He searched her eyes. So direct, so concerned for him. “A knife, yes. If I could get AgWurt to enter this cursed pen . . .” Should he speak of this? AgWurt was, after all, her father.

“If you could do that, you could kill him and take the key. I want to kill him. I am—I am afraid. I have tried. He—he wakes in his sleep. It is the—the only way I know to do it, in his sleep, and I can’t even do that.”

“He will die,” Ram promised. “He needs to die. Is this . . . Telien, is this why you help me? Only so I will kill AgWurt?”

She looked shocked, drew back. “I—I suppose it is, in part. But . . .” She came close again. “But there is more to it than that, Ramad. I don’t understand. I would help you anyway, you are a Seer of Carriol. But . . .” She was so close to him. “There is something more that I do not understand.” She searched his face, trying to make sense of it. “We are together. In a way I do not understand.” Was there a glint of fear on her cheek? He seemed unable to tell her how he felt. They stood on the brink of wonder beyond any he had ever known, and he could not speak. The moment on Tala-charen was a part of it, he could almost feel again Time warping, space warping beyond comprehension to form new patterns—and then suddenly terror gripped him. Terror for Telien swept him as he Saw her sucked through the barrier of time, in a vision so abrupt, so lucid, a vision of Telien’s fate. . . . Gone. Lost in Time, perhaps for eternity.

It could not be! He would not let it be! He felt her stir and found he was gripping her hard, hurting her. He loosed her. She touched his clenched fist. For an instant she thought his pain was from the wound and then, watching him, she knew it was not; she saw his fear and her eyes were huge with it.

When he did not move or speak, did not draw himself from the vision that held him, she dug anxious fingers into his arm and reached to turn his face to her. “What is it, Seer? What vision holds you?”

His fear for her and his sudden rending pain for himself because of it, his pain for the two of them, shook him utterly. He could not touch the edges of the vision, nor grasp the causes of the chasm of time through which he saw her fall. He could only taste his own fear and then his terrible, unbearable aloneness.

She watched him with sudden growing understanding—at least of what he felt, of what she herself felt. Of what she had felt last night, this strangeness, this sense of having known him always. She was amazed and shaken by it. There had been men; this was not like that. This was as if a part of her had suddenly, irrevocably, come home. As if her very soul had come to her suddenly out of unimaginable space.

She bent forward so her cheek was pressed against the bars and drew him to her. He held her fiercely in a grip he could not quell, kissed her, was unaware of the bars pressing into his side and shoulder; they clung together wounded by the bars of his cage, clung with a terrible sudden knowledge; and a sudden awesome fear that would never again quite fade.

For long after Telien left him, he paced, could not settle to sleep. Long after the warriors’ voices died and lanterns were extinguished so the compound lay dark, he walked the perimeter of his pen, examining again and again his feelings for Telien.

Had they always been linked in some crevice of fate that had swept them incredibly to this place at this time? Had they always been one by some turn of their very spirits that neither one understood?

And why, then, did Telien not remember?

*

He woke. Something was screaming, he thought it was a woman, then knew it was not: Terrifying animal screams, nearly human, a scream more of rage than of pain. He flung up, trying to locate the direction while still half-asleep. The night was clear, the stars uncovered, the moons brighter. There was wild stirring in the winged mare’s corral. She screamed again, Ram saw her rear up, saw the broad figure of a man pulling at her rope. She reared again as he spun in a dance around her trying to throw a saddle on her back. Ram could smell honeyrot, watched AgWurt’s clumsy movements with fury. The man was dead drunk, meant to saddle a mare of Eresu and ride her. Ram tore at his bars uselessly, calling AgWurt every filth he could name, but the Herebian leader paid no attention. He had the mare snubbed now against the fence, had the saddle on in spite of her fighting, and was reaching to pull the girth under her belly when she kicked him so hard she sent him sprawling in the mud. But he was up again, animal-like in his rage. He set on her, beating her with the bridle. Ram tried with all his skill to weaken the man, tried and could do nothing, was sweating with effort, calling the powers of the wolf bell; yet could not touch AgWurt. The man had succeeded in getting the saddle girthed as the mare fought uselessly against the tight snub. He was trying to mount her and so drunk he fell twice. She struck at him, screaming. Ram could sense soldiers in the darkness watching, routed from sleep, sniggering. The mare’s poor wings flailed uselessly, pitifully.

Ram felt the wind, heard the rush of wings, looked up to see the stars blotted away as dark wings swept overhead, heard the stallion’s screams challenge AgWurt, saw the great horse descend in rushing flight.

The stallion dropped straight for her pen like a hunting falcon, then startled suddenly, leaped skyward again, great wings pulling as he sensed the pen too small and that he would be trapped there, his wings entangled. He hovered in confusion, wanting to get at AgWurt, then dropped down outside her pen striking at the fence in a frenzy, thrusting himself against the rails, his need to free her terrible, his need to kill AgWurt terrible. He would tear himself to pieces. Lights flared as running men struck flints, lamps caught. The great horse spun to face the shouting soldiers, pawed as they surrounded him. The soldiers fell back, their lanterns swinging wild arcs. Ram saw AgWurt slip out of the mare’s pen, stealthy, rope held low, could feel AgWurt’s lust as he leaped for the stallion’s head.

He tried for the stallion’s head and the horse struck him, he was down under its hooves, rolled free beneath the fence as the stallion lunged at him screaming with fury. Ram gasped as AgWurt drew his steel blade and came out under the bars crouched, stalking the winged horse of Eresu, meaning to kill; and then Telien was there snatching away a soldier’s lantern, facing AgWurt. The man swung around, his raised blade close to her, and she flung the lantern, splashing oil across him. Fire caught at once. AgWurt screamed, aflame. Soldiers threw him to the ground, stifling flame with their own bodies.

AgWurt rose at last, limping, white with fury. He advanced on Telien coldly, slowly. She stood her ground, staring at him, Ram could not tell whether in rage or in terror. Ram’s hands were bleeding from fighting the walls of his pen. AgWurt would kill her. He clutched the wolf bell in a desperate bid for power; but the dark Seers held him immobile, emasculated of all Seer’s power. It was then the winged stallion spun, struck AgWurt full in the face, struck again, felling AgWurt, towered over his fallen body pounding with hooves like steel, tearing him, screaming, his rage like the sky breaking open.

The soldiers had fallen back. One raised a bow. The stallion spun again and sent him sprawling. Several men dropped their swords and ran. AgWurt lay crushed beneath the stallion’s hooves, and the great horse loomed over him still, challenging soldiers, and then reared over Telien; and the soldier who held her loosed her and fled.

Now the stallion stood quietly beside Telien. She leaned for a moment against his shoulder, trembling. Then she turned to where her father lay.

AgWurt’s arm was bent beneath him, his body bloody and crushed. Telien knelt, her face twisted. Would she weep for her father now? Ram watched her steadily.

Slowly she turned AgWurt’s bloody body and pulled his arm from beneath him. She glanced up at Ram, removed the iron bracelet from the bleeding wrist, and let Agwurt’s hand drop.

She saw the lump under his tunic then, paused, then drew out the small leather pouch and pulled it open, spilling starfires into her palm, catching her breath. She looked up at Ram, this time with wonder, tipped the starfires back into the bag, and dropped the bag into her pocket. Then she rose without another glance at AgWurt.

She unlocked Ram’s pen first, then the mare’s. When she had removed the saddle, the mare nudged her gently, then broke away at once in a lame gallop up through the camp and out toward the dark mountains. The stallion remained facing the soldiers with flaring nostrils, his ears flat to his head. No man dared move before him. As Ram and Telien started toward the pens of the captives, one soldier tried to draw bow, and the stallion struck him down. He did not move again.

They released the prisoners. Men flocked to catch and saddle horses, to pack the food stores, to take up weapons. Telien found herbs and bandages for those who must be tended. Children too small to ride by themselves would ride before their elders; the sick and the injured would have the one wagon. A dozen men guarded AgWurt’s soldiers. The stallion had gone now, leaping into the sky to follow his mare and guard her, she who went helplessly earthbound through the night mountains heavy with foal and unable to fly to safety; for though the great wolves were her friends, the common wolves of the mountains were not, the common wolves would take pleasure in her flesh.

When Ram turned to looking for Anchorstar, he was gone. No one had seen him. The dun stallion was gone, Anchorstar’s saddle, every sign of him. Telien could not remember when she had last seen that white head among the prisoners, seen the dun stallion. When she reached into her pocket to draw out the little pouch of starfires, it too was gone; one stone gleamed with eerie light in her palm. She raised her eyes to Ram. “How could that be? How—who is he, Ram?”

“I don’t know. Nor do I know from where he came except—except I’m beginning to imagine he came from a distance farther than any place we know.”

“Then will we not see him again? He—I trusted him, Ram. He was—I thought he was very special.”

“Special? Yes, very special. With talents I have not mastered, Telien. But, see him again? I don’t know.” He looked down at her and a shiver touched him, of cold terrible wonder. If either of them were to see Anchorstar again, where would they see him? In what time would they see him? If Telien were to see him—he touched her hair and felt again that heart-rending fear for her.

When at last the prisoners were mounted, Telien kept herself apart from them, pulled her pony aside and held back to Ram. He touched her pack, tied behind the saddle. “You carry food, Telien. But there is food in plenty in the wagon. And this pony . . .”

“He is a sturdy pony for the mountains, Ram. I do not follow the rest.”

His heart lifted. “Do you mean you ride with me, then, into the valley of Eresu?”

“No, Ramad. You go where you are needed, and I must do the same. The mare will need me. She will need salves until her wings are healed, care the stallion cannot give her. She will need, very soon now, tending while she bear her foal, which no stallion, no matter how wise, can give her. I will follow Meheegan into the mountains.”

He took her hand, held the lantern up. “Still you do not remember the thunder, the shaking earth.”

“I remember nothing such as that. How can I remember something that has not happened to me?” Her eyes were huge, very green. “I’ll tell you this, Ramad of wolves. If that memory has to do with you, if it is something we should remember together, then I promise you I would never forget it.”

Ram reached to touch her cheek, said without understanding his own words until after he had spoken them, “If you do not remember, Telien, then—then that which I remember has . . . not yet happened to you.”

They stared at each other perplexed, and Ram went cold with the knowledge of what he had said. Time, for Telien, was yet to warp. The sense of her being swept away from him in Time was yet to happen. Yes, all of it, waiting for her somewhere in Time itself, as a crouching animal waits. What would happen to her after those few moments in Tala-charen? What would the warping of Time do to her then? He could not let her go, could not part from her now, knowing not when she would be swept away; when or if he would see her again.

She saw his fear for her and could not ask, saw that he would have her stay. She leaned and kissed him. “I—I will be in the mountains when—when you come to me.” There were tears on her cheeks. She swung her horse around suddenly and broke it into a gallop up through the muddy camp in the direction the mare had gone.

He turned, grabbed the reins of a saddled horse, had his foot in the stirrup when he stopped himself, stood staring after her with a new feeling, a feeling he would not have for another.

He had no right to stop her because of his fear for her, because of his own need for her. She must do what was necessary. But part of him was with her, would always be with her. He tied the horse, turned away desolate, turned to getting the captives started on their journey home.

He chose three men to ride south to intercept Jerthon. The rest of the band set out at once straight for Blackcob. Ere’s two moons had lifted free of cloud at last, to hang like slim scythes. With their light, the band would make good time. Two men remained in Kubal to meet the small band from the north and to dish out gruel to the penned prisoners, the soldiers of AgWurt. Once the two had left, releasing the prisoners, not a horse would remain in Kubal, not a weapon save one or two for hunting meat.

At last Ram headed out north, up toward the source of the river Urobb, for there, so the old tales told, so inscriptions in the caves of the gods told, he would find Eresu.

*

Alone in the night, Telien was stricken with a terrible longing for Ram. She tried with difficulty to keep her thoughts to guessing which way the mare might have gone. With AgWurt dead, Meheegan might well return to the cloistered, grass-rich valley in spite of her memory of the snare. Telien headed north through the land that AgWurt had taken from murdered settlers. Now that he was dead, could his men hold this land? AgWurt, dead—because of his own cruelty and blood lust. And for the first time since her mother had died when she was very small, Telien felt the sudden light, free sense of wholeness that comes with the absence of fear.

Nothing she could face in these mountains, nothing in the night or in all of Ere itself could make her afraid in the way she had feared AgWurt. She was suddenly made of light; she lay her reins on her mount’s neck and stretched her arms upward into the cold night, stretched her body up and felt the last harness of fear slip away as if she lifted herself into a world she had forgotten existed.

And she thought of Ram, now, with joy. No matter the future, her life was remade with Ram’s. How could you know someone so short a time yet feel you had belonged together forever? She spoke his name into the night like a litany, “Ram. Ramad of wolves.” An immensity of space seemed to surround Ram, the very air around him to break into fragments that revealed a world beyond, revealed wonders and freedom she could hardly imagine. The freedom of Carriol was a part of it, but more than that: a freedom of spirit such as she had never known. There would be no lies with Ram. If there was pain and danger, they would know these things together. She would accept pain gladly now, so that Ram should not bear it alone.

*

In the hills south of Kubal, most of Jerthon’s battalion slept soundly, their heads couched on saddles, their bows and swords close beside them—colder companions than women but sometimes steadier. Jerthon, riding guard, saw the signal fire first. It flared three times, then twice, then three. Ram’s signal. Jerthon and the other three who rode guard woke the battalion to saddle up, then all sat their fidgeting horses waiting to see what would come down out of the hills. Maybe Ram. Maybe something else. The journey through Folkstone had been strange, with dark, unsettling winds and a heavy blackness sweeping the stars above them, then gone; and something unseen running through the woods jibbering so the horses were strung tight with fear.

They waited in silence, the horses restive. The night wind had stilled and the cold increased. At last they could make out a rider moving down toward them, then another, finally could see three riders. And then Emern’s voice came suddenly, Emern who had been captive of the Kubalese; Emern’s voice light and questioning on the cold night air. “Captain? Is it Jerthon?”

“Yes! Great Eresu, man, where have you come from? Who rides with you?”

“Cald and Lorden, Captain!”

They rode down fast, their horses sliding and blowing. The three men leaped from their saddles to be embraced by their fellows and by Jerthon. “Shadows of Urdd!” Jerthon bellowed, “How did you get free? Where are the rest?”

He had the story quickly and with confusion from the three of them, how Ram had come captive into Kubal, how the stallion of Eresu had killed AgWurt. Ram had then ridden off into the mountains and the rest of the captives headed straight for Blackcob. The elation among Jerthon’s troops was as wild as if foxes danced, and a jug was passed, then soon enough the battalion was heading for home double-time across the night hills; and all of them knowing they would meet their comrades and brothers and wives safe in Carriol. They rode hard and forded the Urobb near dawn to come onto Carriol land, the narrow valley that marked her western border.

Strange that no herd animals could be seen, for the herds grazed heavily here. At the first farmhouse they found all the animals crowded into barn and sheds, gates locked. They approached the house, saw it was shuttered and bolted.

Jerthon dismounted and approached the door, bow drawn. A tiny opening in the door was bared, a face looked out, and then the door was thrown open and Jerthon could see the farmer’s family inside blinking in the sudden light like a bunch of owls; and they had nine young colts in there with them corralled between cots and table. He stood staring in, wondering if the whole tribe had gone mad. Old Midden Herm, the patriarch, said gruffly, “Something came here, Captain. Something dark and wild is come down out of the sky.”

Jerthon stared at Midden. “Out of the sky?”

“Yes, Seer. Out of the sky. Something dark and huge as the clouds and so fast you never see it. It is there and gone, and the animals lay stripped of flesh where they stood.” He led Jerthon out and showed him five horses’ skeletons stripped clean, scattered on the turf. “You see the darkness come, the wind goes wild, you see the dark that is its shadow maybe. It is all screaming wind, then it is gone and the horses are like that.” Midden stood staring sickly at the scattered bones. “Like that, Seers. Our animals—our poor animals.”

Jerthon put his arm around the old man. He had worked so hard with the breeding, had taken such care with the selection of a stallion, with the nurturing of the mares and the careful, gentle training of the colts. He felt the old man’s sickness as his own at this mindless destruction.

Mindless? Was it mindless?

“And the dark—the thing of dark moves eastward, Seer. Toward the ruins.”

Jerthon and his troops rode fast then to the east, pounding hard across the early morning hills, arrived on sweating, blowing horses to find the town shuttered and bolted just as Midden’s farm had been. Every house and shop closed tight. No animal to be seen, no person.

He stared up at the citadel and saw that the portals had been covered with the slabs of stone that slid across from within.

*

The council and the townsfolk all had gathered in the citadel, sealed the portals, had chambered the horses and cattle in the lower caves and sealed these portals, too, as the invisible dark murmured and swept round the tower.

At last the council drew together and began to make its way down stone flights toward the main portal that led to the town. Skeelie stared at Drudd’s broad back where he marched before her and thought she had never been this afraid, even in Burgdeeth. Behind her, behind Pol and the others, the people of Carriol crowded down the stairs too, all of them armed. And in front of Skeelie, Tayba held the runestone. Their minds—their every strength—were linked to it to create one power against the dark; and beyond the portals as they descended, the dark creature screamed out is fury, and it descended too, its great maw lusting after flesh. At the far end of the deserted town, Jerthon and his battalion came silently, walking their sweating, spent horses in between the farthest cottages.

And neither group of Seers touched the thoughts of the other, each blinded in silence by the dark; and the dark increased until morning was as night. And creatures began to be born from the dark, horned, slithering creatures that swept the blackened sky with leathery wings then descended without sound onto the thatched rooftops and began to creep in silence down the stone walls.

In the portal, the runestone glowed in Tayba’s hands as the Seers’ powers gathered, as slowly they tried to force the creature of dark back, to force half-seen monsters back and back into darkness; but still the dark advanced: their powers were not enough.

Without, the dark creatures lurched and faded, became winds raging. Became, then, a part of the sea, so waves lashed in fury upon the tower seeking to break it away. The sea pounded in tidal humpings against the lower caves, and they filled with rushing water then drained, then filled again and the frantic cattle and horses swam in the cave blindly and in terror, and the weakest among them drowned.

The runestone shone with the power of the Seers as Tayba held it high, battling the wind and the raging sea, battling the dark with every fiber she possessed. Then as Jerthon came closer, the dark swept down in the form of a huge bird-monster, silently above him, changeable as wind, brother to wind, and clawed, with great beak reaching; he did not sense it; it dropped low over Jerthon’s band and followed them, invisible to them, as the battalion came through the narrow streets in darkness knowing there was danger but blinded to its source, every man’s weapon drawn. The sweating horses cowed in fear as unseen creatures shadowed them and crouched waiting among houses and shops.

Tayba saw Jerthon come, a sudden glimpse, tried to cry out to him and could not, tried to run through the streets to him and couldn’t move, was held as if she were stone, and her voice would not come in her throat.

What was this power come so strong out of Pelli? She pushed at her dark hair with quaking hand as if it would stifle her; her every fiber strained, yet no sound or forward movement could she make, and when she turned she saw Drudd’s fury—did he think she wasn’t trying? Did he think—she stared at Pol, white beneath his freckles, at Skeelie, her thin face drawn with effort; then she turned back and felt the dark descending around Jerthon, and she tore with her very soul at it, with a will close to hysteria against the surging dark.