The Warding of Witch World

Prologue III Shrine of Gunnora, South of Var

Destree n’Regnant strode back from the bathing pool, her wet towel swinging in one hand, the fingers of the other busy with the latches of her jerkin. Destree had never been one to linger over the matter of arising in the morning, with its attendant need for dressing, preparation of food, and the like, but she accepted such as a matter of living.

She had slipped a silver ring over her shoulder-length fall of fair hair, tethering the locks out of the way at the nape of her neck, though some remaining drops of water sprinkled from side to side as she walked.

Already her thoughts were well ahead of her body, busy with the known demands of the day before her. There was the potion to be enflasked for Josephinia, whose joint pain had awakened fiercely during the recent weeks of one storm after another, and she must swing by the Pajan farm to look upon the new colt that was reported a weakling. But there never seemed enough time between sunrise and sunset to do everything.

Also, this morning she had awoken with a faint troubling of mind. It was not a lingering from one of her Lady’s outright informative dreams—she would have remembered every detail of such—yet she could not altogether forget it.

The huge black cat, sitting on the steps of the ancient shrine Destree had worked with her own hands and strength to restore, opened his mouth in one of his silent meows. By the Lady, Chief seemed to grow larger every season! He certainly was far more impressive than any of the farm cats of the valley. Cleverer, too, or else the others hid what they thought from the minds of her kind. But Chief was not of this world and so not of the native feline blood at all. With Destree he had survived the ordeals of the Port of Dead Ships, as well as transportation through one of those strange gates. Though this particular gate no longer existed—thanks be to the Lady and her Powers. The cat bonded with her, who was outcast and shunned, in a tie so strong she did not believe even death would break it.

“Ready for breakfast, my lord?” she grinned down at him. “Though I do not doubt your night’s hunting has already given you a full belly!”

There was no expression in his large yellow eyes. Instead, he yawned widely, exposing fangs which she knew he could use to good or bad purpose, depending upon the nature of his prey.

Within were two chambers. Destree had restored fallen stones to their places, swept, washed, and then worked patiently to rub down the walls with a mash of scented herb leaves from the garden run wild. The outer room was her own domain for housekeeping tasks, though there was no hint of disorder allowed. A table of the very hard—and precious—varse wood, which held a metallic sheen of the purest gold when it was well rubbed, was accompanied by two benches of the same. There was a corner where a fireplace did not dare to strew any ashes onto the floor, and shelves and a cupboard or two.

Here were no tapestries, no rich carvings, but Gunnora’s fancy itself had taken command. For, up from the meeting of wall and flooring around the room had risen a weaving of vines. No matter the season these retained their flowers and their fruits, mingled together, bringing the peace of the outer world in.

The second chamber was the shrine. Destree spread her towel over the end of the table to dry and surveyed the flowers on the vines.

Not blue—no—that faint shadow which had followed her out of the night forbade that. Then—she made a deliberate choice carefully plucking, by their long curls of stem, a handful of the vine’s bounty. The white blossoms which stood so often for a seeker who was not even sure of what he or she sought; the gold for the promise of harvest, which was Gunnora’s own high season.

Destree passed into the shrine. Here stood a block of pure white stone such as was to be seen nowhere else in this countryside. Its sides were carved with Gunnora’s seal—the shaft of ripe grain bound by fruited vine. She crossed quickly to that, avoiding the long couch placed directly before it, where seekers for wisdom might sleep and learn.

There was a single slender vase on the altar, shaped skillfully as the rare river lilies. Destree took from it the withered flowers of yesterday and replaced them with her handful of gold and white.

She cupped between her hands her amulet, the heritage which served her so well. Its amber felt warm, as if another hand rested within her hold.

“Lady,” she said slowly. Of course the Great One could already read what lay within her mind; still, as all her species, she clung to speech. “Lady, if there is trouble, let me serve as you have called me to do.”

She was well into her morning tasks when she heard the creaking of farm cart wheels. Stoppering the flask she had been filling, she went to the terrace outside the shrine entrance.

The road up from the village was hardly more than a track and the huge plow beast that pulled the rude cart protested from time to rime with a bellow.

Josephinia! But Destree had meant to deliver the potion herself to the farm. Trimble, the woman’s husband, tramped beside the work beast, prod ready in hand. But there also swung from his belt an axe, the edge of which gleamed after a fresh sharpening. And coming behind, bows in hand, watching alertly from side to side, were Stanwryk and Foss, the two most expert hunters of the valley.

The small procession took on, as it emerged from the curtaining wood, the appearance of travelers abroad in perilous country.

Destree was already hurrying to meet them.

“What is to do?” Her early morning premonition was now well enforced.

“Woods monster, Voice.” Trimble’s voice raised to out rumble the cart. There came a whimper, half pain, and half fear, from his wife bundled between rolls of blankets.

“Aye.” Stanwryk pushed forward eagerly. “Last night, Labert o’ th’ Mill—he heard his sheep in a pother an’ loosed Tightjaw. There is nothing living in the valley willin’ to stand up to that hound, as you well know, Voice. Only then there came such a screeching an’ to-do that Labert took to his house an’ barred his door. This morning…” He paused his spill of words and Foss took up the tale. He was always a man of few words, but today he was freer of speech than Destree had ever heard him.

“First light come and Labert was out—had his bow, he did, an’ his grandsire’s sword. In th’ graze land over th’ mill—a dead sheep, more than half eaten—an’—

Stanwryk demanded his chance again. “Tightjaw—that hound was torn in two—torn in two, I’m sayin’ an’ I seed th’ body for me-self! Just like he was no more than a rabbit under the’ wolf’s teeth. An’ that was not all, Voice. There was tracks, mind you—an’ they warn’t made by no hill cat nor bear. They was like a man’s—but a man with twice the length of foot of Trimble here.”

Trimble clumped forward a step or so. “Voice, since we was children, our paps and mams, afore us, we have heard tales of creatures of th’ Dark who hunt an’ savage all true men. This here shrine of th’ Lady, why, ’tis said it was set right here that there be a strong place of Light against the Dark from the north. But this here night thing which has come upon us, truly it be of the Dark, an’ we asks you, Voice, call now upon th’ Lady that She may hold us under Her cloak.”

“Yes,” Destree said.

How well she knew that things of evil could wander far. Her body tensed. Had she not fought with one remnant of the Black Power—that which was set to swallow the crews of ships it captured, even from other worlds than that of Estcarp? Had another gate gone wild—activated in some fashion so that it had provided a doorway for a thing from an entirely different world? Or had some skulking monstrous creature come prowling far south to establish for itself new hunting grounds? She must somehow discover which and what they faced. For these people of the valley had no defenses against any strong manifestation of the Dark.

Did she—? Her hand went to her amulet. She had the Lady, and promises between them would hold until the world’s end.

As Destree worked with Josephinia’s poor, pain-twisted body, the men waited without the shrine. But when she issued forth again having put her charge under a soothe-sleep, she found only Trimble there, striding distractedly up and down, while the draft animal sampled the sweet, high-growing grass of the shrine field. Foss and Stanwryk were gone.

“Voice!” The farmer hurried toward her, his big hands outstretched as if to wring what he wanted out of her. “What can a man do against th’ Dark Ones? Long ago our kinfolk fled ’ere to be away from such danger. Now—

Destree laid her hand gently on his shoulder. “The Lady takes care of Her own, Trimble. She will show us a way.”

He stared at her as if he wanted to accept her words as a sworn oath.

“Foss—Stanwryk—they have gone to raise th’ valley that we can form a hunt. Pacle’s hounds—” he shook his head slowly. “Voice, there has never been a hound whelped in the valley as dangerous as Tightjaw, nor as sly and clever in th’ hunt. Yet this thing took him with ease.”

He smeared the palm of his hand across his face. “Voice, those who hunt the Dark are many times fools.”

Trimble was no coward, that she well knew. He only spoke bare reason. But how many would listen to it?

“There is another way of hunting.” She glanced over her shoulder to the shrine behind. “Be sure that that will be tried.”

It was well into midday when the clamor of leashed and impatient hounds and horses’ pounding hooves, as well as one man striving to bring them to order, sounded from the cart track. Josephinia had wakened from her sleep and stretched cautiously.

“But there is only a memory of the pain now, Voice,” she said excitedly. “I am as new!”

Destree showed her a flask. “Be sure to drink of what this holds night and morn. Also eat sparingly of meat but well of that which grows in the earth through the Lady’s bounty.”

The ragged body of the assembled hunt came bursting in to shatter the peace of the shrine meadow. Slavering hounds strained at the restraint of collar and the leash. Their handlers were a motley crowd—from lads still to name themselves men to a grandsire or two, they were milling about. Foss pulled off his peaked leather cap and came directly to her.

“Voice—Hubbar’s youngest, he was down by th’ river an’ he saw a thing—a thing of hair an’ huge of body, with fangs for tearing. It was by the water laving one arm—for Tightjaw must have left his mark after all. But when Yimmy came with th’ news an’ we went there it was gone. Now we ask the Lady for arm strength and weapon strength to take it before it kills again!”

“I shall ask,” she said, “but this I must say. If this is but some wild beast of a kind new to us, then it can be well hunted. If it is more—then go with caution.”

He nodded as he put on his cap again. They were on their way. Trimble and his cart, with his wife now sitting upright clasping the flask to her ample bosom, had a handful to play guard. But the majority struck off northward, into the first thick fringe of the forest. Destree watched them go with concern.

However, what she had to do lay elsewhere. She returned to the outer room of the shrine and quickly stripped off her homespun clothing. Into a large basin she ladled water from the hearth pot and measured into that, drop by careful drop, oils from several different vials.

Then she washed herself from head to foot, even dipping her hair into the basin, smearing the oily liquid over her whole body. Making no effort to dry herself, she then sought the inner room.

Drawing from the couch before the shrine the covering on which the farmer’s wife had lain, she substituted another taken from a small chest by the altar. Green it was and brown, gold, and purple, all intermingled so no human eye could follow any pattern, and though it was very old yet it was still intact.

Destree spread it with care over the couch and then stretched herself upon it, folding her hands beneath her full breasts and closing her eyes.

The transition came quicker than it ever had in the few other times she had tried this ritual. Fear—pain—the need to run—run—run—Strange—all the world about was strange, there was nothing to be seen as a guide—yet—fear/pain—the need—the need to escape—

And the world she saw dimly was strange.

That strangeness fed fear. The very color of a leaf, the shape of a branch was all wrong. The ferns which beat about her legs as she ran—she shrank from their touch. This was not her world—where had the Lady led her?

She—she had been in the home wood and at peace with herself and the world about. Then there had been the tall stones. One of them had been shiny, and that had attracted her so that she went and laid hand upon it. Then—then she had been whirled away into nothingness and when she could see again she was in this fearsome place where all was alien and wrong.

Destree tried to cut behind the ever-present fear. The Dark? She sought the smell, the feel of evil. But there was none—only confusion and fear, pain—

Gruck! Out of nowhere came that name. She was… Gruck! In the same moment that became clear to her, she strove to break the bond. But she realized now where the Lady had sent her. She—she was the hunted monster.

But it was no beast. It thought, it strove wildly to learn what had happened to it. Nor was it anything of evil wandering southward. It now rested under the compassionate hand of the Lady. So somewhere another of those cursed gates had made a capture, and the innocent would be hunted down and slain unless she could prevent it!

Destree’s eyes snapped open. She was already pushing herself up from the couch. She paused long enough to return the covering to its time-set folds and then, from a chest in the foreroom, she brought her own woodsrunning clothes. Not the skirts such as she wore for the sake of making the valley people receive her more easily. Instead, she drew on over her still oily body breeches, a shirt, a sleeveless jerkin with oddly fashioned silver latches, boots made for hard service over indifferent trails. There was a belt with knife and small pouch, and at length she pulled from near the bottom of the coffer the backpack she kept ever ready for travel needs, checking to make sure that it held salves and herbs for the treatment of wounds.

There was no question in Destree’s mind that she would find Gruck—that this poor refugee from another place was now her charge. Chief leaped out of the shadows and took the fore, entering the woods- at a different angle than the hunters had followed. She listened but could hear nothing of their clamor and she wondered how far back into the thickly wooded hills they had gone.

“Gruck?” She sent out a mind-call. But there was nothing to anchor it and so draw her to her quarry. She did not know what Gruck looked like. She knew little more than the creatures emotions at its displacement and perhaps the hunt on its track.

Chief appeared to have no doubts about direction. For want of a better guide, Destree followed the leaping passage of the great cat.

Now—now—she could hear!

The clamor of the hunt suggested that Gruck was at bay. She hastened her pace from trot to run. They must not kill this stranger! It was not of its doing that it had come here. Yes, it had killed a sheep)—but that was because it hungered. It had killed a dog which attacked it. Certainly no man there ahead could say that he would have done otherwise in its place.

Destree came into the open. There had been a forest fire, storm-set, here a year ago. The land was all blackened stumps and sprouting green between. And there was a tall rock firmly planted. Around that the battle now raged.

Three dogs lay dead and a fourth crept away, uttering a keening howl. With its back against the rock, the monster half crouched. It was taller than any man Destree had seen, and its entire body was covered with thick curls of wiry black hair. Yet its head was well proportioned by human standards and its green eyes held intelligence. One of its arms had been crudely wrapped in a covering of leaves already torn and half gone.

About its waist, seemingly too small for the width of those heavy shoulders, there was a wide belt, along which ran glitters with every movement of its body.

Why Foss or one of the other bowmen had not already shot it down Destree did not know. Perhaps that was by the grace of the Lady. She raised her voice now. The land about them seemed to amplify her call.

“Hold!”

With Chief running at the same easy pace before her, she cut down into that place of desolation. The hunters had turned their heads at her call, though Foss’s attention swung almost instantly away and he had arrow to string now.

“This is not of the Dark.” her voice came pantingly. She shoved between two of the men before they knew she was upon them and threw herself into place before the creature at bay.

Foss’s face was bleak. “Stand aside, Voice. We owe you much, but we have no place for monsters.”

“I tell you”—Destree had her voice under better control now—“the Lady’s hand stretches out to this one.” She tried to sign the truth of that by reaching behind her to where Gruck leaned weakly against the stone. Her fingertips were fretted by alien fur.

“This thing is a killer. Protect it at your own peril, Voice. If you would have any one in this valley heed you an’ th’ words of your Lady ’ereafter, you will stand aside.”

She could read only a shadow of doubt in a few faces. They were as one on this. Yet her duty had been set upon her. Destree drew a deep breath as she tried to summon words which might break their resolve.

What came was something far different. A huge furred hand shot out and gripped her. She smelled the strange odor of alien flesh sharpened by fear. But there was only an instant for them to cling together so.

The blast which beat down upon them all was none of the Lady’s calling. Destree knew that, before her senses reeled and she clung to her strange companion even as it held to her. This was strange magic, raw, without a check.

Her throat filled with bile as she saw men tossed about like straws in a tempest. The whole world split apart. Not the Lady’s doing, no. Nor, she was certain, did Gruck have aught to do with this. Gate—had the gate which had captured this refugee gone as wild as that gate at the Port of Lost Ships when they put an end to it? No, something within her—perhaps the Lady reaching through the torment of assaulting magic—assured her. This was the beginning of something else—something such as no record she knew of listed.

Its mind-blinding attack ended. Dimly Destree saw the men of the hunt helping each other to their feet. One of them took up the injured hound. Then they turned and went away as if both Destree and their quarry had ceased to exist.