Warlock of the Witch World

IV

WE CAME DOWN into the lower lands with all the speed we could muster. There the Renthan and those from the Valley awaited us. It had been bright sunlight when we had begun that descent. But when we reached the meeting place clouds were gathering. Dahaun gave slight greeting to those from Estcarp—rather she turned her head from right to left, surveying the country. About her flew, constantly coming and going, her winged messengers.

In part Kyllan and I felt, too, a lowering of spirit and a chill which was not born of the cloud sky nor the rising winds. It was a foreboding which was folly to dismiss.

But those who had come overmountain were wearied, and among them were women and children for whom the climb and descent had been a trial of strength. We should camp soon.

“We must ride!” Dahaun’s gesture brought up the Renthan. “This is no place in which to face the dark and that which may prowl there this night.”

“And what may prowl?” demanded Kyllan.

“I do not know, for such lies now unseen to the eyes of my feathered ones. Yet that it comes, I have no doubt.”

Nor did we. Even those from Estcarp, who had none of the gift, glanced now and then over their shoulders, and made a wall about their women folk. And I saw that the Borderers went helmed, their mail scarves fastened high.

“These cannot make the Valley without a rest,” I warned Dahaun.

She nodded. “There is a place, not as far as I would like, but better than here.”

She led us. Under the clouds she was all sable and silver, no longer red and gold. We shared our mounts, taking up women and children with us for that riding. A little maid, her hair close braided beneath a scarlet hood, her gloved hands holding tightly to my sword belt, went with me on Shil.

“Please, lord, where do we ride?” Her voice was a clear pipe.

“To where the lady leads us.” I gave her the truth. “This is her country and she knows it well. I am Kemoc Tregarth, and who are you?”

“Loelle, of the House of Mohakar, Lord Kemoc. Why do those birds fly with the lady? Ah, that is no bird, it—it is a little man!”

One of the Flannan beat wings, hovering shoulder high beside Dahaun, while she turned her head to look at him.

“A Flannan, Loelle. Have you not heard tales of them?”

I felt her grip grow tighter. “But those—those are tales, Lord Kemoc! Nurse Grenwel said they were but stories, not the truth!”

“In Escore, Loelle, many old stories are true. Now, hold tight—“

We had come to a level space and the Renthan burst into speed to shame any horse out of Estcarp, Dahaun setting the pace. That brooding menace I had felt in the foothills was almost tangible as the clouds gathered, twilight dark, over us.

Through that gloom were glimmers of light, reminding me of the ghostly “candles” we had seen on tree and bush that night when the Witches of Estcarp had readied their power for the mountain twisting. Pale, hardly to be distinguished from the general gloom, these clung to a rock, a bush, a twisted tree. Looking upon them, I knew that I did not want to see them any closer.

Once more the land began to rise, and on the crown of a small hill stood some stones. Not gray, but blue in hue, and they glowed. Once before had we refuged with such stones, when Kaththea and I had fled after Kyllan had disappeared, taking sanctuary in a place where a great altar of such blue had been our guard.

To this place Dahaun brought us. This was no standing circle of pillars about an altar stone, but rather scattered blocks, as if a building, once there, had been shattered into rubble. But the blue glow welcomed us and we slid down from the Renthan with a sense of freedom from that which had followed us from the mountain’s foot.

Dahaun broke a branch from a bush which grew among the stones, and, holding that in her hand, she walked down the hill, to beat the leafy end against the ground. So she encircled the entire hill, appearing to draw some unseen protective barrier about it. Then, as she came back to us, she stopped now and again to pull leaves and twigs from plants.

When the Green Lady was back among us she had her cloak gathered to form a shallow bag and in that was her herb harvest. There had been a fire kindled in a sheltered spot between two stones and she stood by that, tossing into it first a pinch of this, and then three or four leaves of that. Smoke puffed out, bringing an aromatic scent. This Dahaun fanned so that it wreathed among our company.

As the smoke cleared and I could see better again, I noted the darkness had grown. In that unnatural twilight the “candles” were brighter. But the light burning in them did not spread far. It also seemed to me that there was movement beyond the hill, a stirring which could only be half seen, to vanish if one looked straightly at the suspected spot.

“Against what do we bare swords here, Kemoc?” It was Rothorf of Dolmain who came up beside me as I watched that interweaving which seemed so sinister.

“Strange things.” I gave him the best answer that I could. He was one of the half-blood ones found among the Borderers. His mother had been of the Karsten refuges. Rescued by Sulcar seamen, she had later married into that seaborne race. But it was a mixture which had not proved too happy. When her sea lord had fallen in one of the raids along the coast of Alizor, she had returned to her own people. Her son had the frame of the bull-shouldered sea rovers and their fair hair, so that always among the Old Race he was marked. Inwardly he was of his mother’s people, having no wish for the sea, but a love for the hills. Thus he had come to the Borderers and we had been blooded together in a raid before we were truly men.

“It is true then; this is a land bewitched.” He asked no question, but made an observation.

“Yes. But once it was a fair land. By our efforts it may so be again. Yet it will be a long time—”

“Before we cleanse it?” he finished for me. “What manner of enemy do we front?” There was a briskness in that which returned me to the old days when Rothorf had looked upon maps in the hills and then waited for the orders to move out.

Uneasiness moved in me. These old comrades (drawn from a war, it was true, but a war which seemed simple beside the complexities which faced us here), would they be as children blundering among the dangers they could not foresee? What had we done to them? Kyllan, when he had returned from that geas sending into Estcarp, had reasoned so: that he was drawing after him those of his blood, perhaps untimely to their deaths. Now I knew what he had felt then.

“All manner, Rothorf, and some of which we have no knowledge.” I spoke then of the Gray Ones and the Rasti, but also of such deceits as the Keplian-stallion which had nearly borne Kyllan to his death, and of the traps which awaited the over-curious and under-cautious. He listened to me gravely, not questioning anything I said, though much of it must have sounded wild.

“A place where legends walk,” he commented at last. “It would seem we should search our memories of childhood tales to be warned. How far is it to this safe Valley of the Green Folk?”

“Another day’s journey. We muster there.”

“To attack where?”

I shook my head. “That we do not know. They still wish to bring to our warn-horn any uncommitted forces left.”

We posted guards as the night drew in, the clouds bringing it early to us. No rain fell from them, though they looked heavy-bellied, as if they carried pent within them some tempest. I saw flashes of light about the hills, as bright and crackling as the force whips of the Green People, but knew them to be lightning, foretelling the storm which sullenly refused to break.

Kyllan was no more inclined to sleep than I and we paced around the ruins among which our people sheltered as if we walked sentry beats on the walls of Es City, constantly alert to the least suspicion of change beyond the perimeter Dahaun had drawn.

The Lady of Green Silences remained by the fire, having about her all the women and children, creating for them a pocket of safe feeling in which we caught glimpses of smiling faces and from which we heard soft laughter. I saw Loelle on Dahaun’s lap, staring up into her face and listening to what she said as a thirsty child might drink crystal water from a bubbling spring.

There was such a spring among the ruins, fed into a very old and silted basin. It might have been the remains of a fountain which no longer proudly played, defeated by time.

We had shared out journey rations earlier. At last those about the fire rolled in cloaks and slept. Still the storm did not break, yet the threat held above us. Godgar tramped to where I stood behind an earth-buried rock staring down the slope. The gray candles grew more confusing to the eyes and I tried not to look at them. Yet still they drew my attention, and I found myself engaged in a small struggle not to stare at them.

“There is something brewing this night,” Hervon’s man told me, his voice harsh and heavy. “It is not the storm. This place may be good for defense, but I do not like to be driven to making a defense.”

“Neither could we ride on through the dark, not in this country,” I answered.

“That is so. There is something . . . Come you here with me and see.”

I followed him to that basin where the spring bubbled. Going down on one knee, he gestured to the far side of that pool. There was enough light from the fire to show stones set there, as if at one time the basin had been broken at that point and then hurriedly built up again with rocks conveniently at hand. That they had served the purpose well was manifest in that there was no seepage from that place. But why this should so interest Godgar, I had no idea and looked to him questioningly.

“That was done, I think, for a purpose,” he said.

“Why?”

In answer he beckoned me to come a little beyond the basin. Earth had drifted and tufts of grass rooted. But not enough to cover a slab of stone which was part of the small remaining fragment of pavement. Godgar dug about that stone with the point of his hunting knife, laying bare the cleavage between it and the pavement.

“I think that the water was made to pour down here.”

“Why?”

“That I do not know. But it had great importance for those who did it. That basin was broken in haste. When it was patched again, it was not made to stand for all time, but so that it might be freed again.”

“What meaning for us now?” I was impatient.

“Again—I do not know. Save that all things which are strange must be considered when men rest as we do this night. And—” He stopped suddenly. His hand had been resting on that block of stone and now he stared down at it wide-eyed. Then he threw himself on the ground and set his ear to the cold surface.

“Listen!” It was a command I obeyed, stretching my body on the ground so that my head might rest with his, ear on stone.

Sound or vibration, I could not say which. But it came from below. I made very sure I was not mistaken and then summoned Kyllan, and he in turn, Dahaun.

It was she who had an answer for us. “Thas, perhaps . . .” She knelt there, her fingertips resting on the slab. Her eyes were closed, as if she now called upon a different kind of sight to serve her. Then she shook her head slowly.

“What lies below the earth’s surface is another world and not mine. This I say—something comes upon us from below. Fortune favors us with this much warning. I had not thought that the Thas would join the enemy. It may be that they are only curious, though why . . .” She shook her head. “To come secretly thus is not the way of a friend or a neutral.”

“Your boundaries—” Kyllan broke in.

“Will hold against what walks the soil, but not under it. And look you—this stone is not of the blessed kind, but of another fashioning.”

“The basin—” I got to my feet. “If it were once used to answer an attack from below as Godgar believes; why not again?”

“If they are only curious, then such a use would make enemies needlessly. But it is a thought to keep in mind. Let us inspect this water trap.” Dahaun said.

She brought a brand from the fire and held it close so we could look upon the stones which had put a stopper in the broken basin. I believed that Godgar was right in his reconstruction of what had happened here long ago. It was plain that the basin wall had been shattered so that its contents could flow out at this point, and that the rebuilding of that break had been done with no idea of permanence.

“Strike it here and here,” Godgar pointed out, “and it will give way again.”

We went back to the stone. But this time we could hear no movement beneath it. Only, that unease which had been over me since we had come from the mountains increased a hundred-fold.

“Can the stone be sealed?” Kyllan looked to Dahaun.

“I do not know. To each his own power. The Thas can do much with earth, as the Krogan with water, and we with growing things.” She picked up her torch and glanced at the place where the women and children were asleep. “I think we must be prepared. Get away from any standing stone which might be overthrown.”

Godgar still squatted on his heels, his hands resting on the stone. Even as Dahaun went toward those who slept, he cried out. I think I must have echoed his cry, as did Kyllan, for the ground under us moved, slipping under our feet, carrying us with it. I caught at a stone, one of the blue ones, and held to it, as soil poured about my boots. I heard crashes and shouts from the camp, saw stones slide and bound downslope.

Something fell into the fire sending sparks and flaming pieces of wood scattering. I heard screaming. For a moment I could only hold to my rock, for under my kicking feet, as I tried to find some stable spot, the earth moved as the waters of the Krogan lake might have splashed and eddied.

Then I saw Kyllan using the point of his sword, dug into the shifting earth, to pull himself along. I followed his example, trying to reach the confusion marking our campsite.

“Ha—to me!” called Godgar. About him whirled other things, small flitting figures ringing him in, in a frenzy of attack. I cut and slashed, felt steel meet flesh and was not sure of what flesh. Then I saw Godgar stumble and go down, and things scurried to leap upon him as he fought to regain his feet. At those things I aimed strokes which sent them flying. Points of angry red sparked about us and I knew them for eyes. But in what faces those eyes were set, I could not see.

Godgar clawed at me and I used my maimed hand to draw him up.

“The pool—break the pool—drown them out—” He lurched from my hold toward the basin, fell there again, fumbling at the stones set in the break. Then I heard a sharp hammering even above the squealing of the things through which I waded to join him. There were sharp pains in my legs and thighs. I shook off a small body which leaped to plaster itself against my back and tried to over-topple me. But I reached Godgar and bent to pry at the stones.

Though we worked in the dark, fighting off the foul smelling rabble which poured out of the earth, yet by some stroke of fortune one of us loosed the main stone of that barrier. There boiled out a flood which surprised me, since I had thought that not so much force would come from a pool fed by such a quiet and sluggish stream.

The squealing of our half-seen enemies rose to screams, as if they looked upon water as a danger even greater than that steel and fire we used against them. They fled, uttering their piercing cries, while the water dashed around us with the force of a strong river current. Surely more poured from there than had ever been pent in the basin.

Godgar cried out and tried to drag me to one side. I looked over my shoulder. Visible, glowing with some of the blue light of the stones, a tall pillar of water rose even higher, its plume crest dashing down in the flood faster and faster. This fountaining had no relation now to the gurgling, puffing bubble which earlier fed the basin.

I saw small shaggy things caught in that overflow, whirled back and down, rammed by the water into the hole from which they must have emerged. For the flood sought the stone Godgar had earlier marked, or rather the dark pit that stone had capped, and now it poured hungrily into that cavity with the activity of a falls feeding a river.

We stumbled yet further back. The torrent of rushing water was now between us and the fire. The noise of its passing drowned all other sound. Something whirled along in it clutched at my leg, nearly toppling me. In instinctive reaction I struck down to free myself from that hold, but not before swift, sharp pain struck into my thigh and brought a cry out of me.

I could not rest my weight upon that wounded leg, but fell back against one of the blue stones, trying to feel in the dark the extent of the damage. But so tender was my flesh, that I could not bear the touch of my own fumbling examination. I could only hold to the rock, Godgar gasping and choking beside me, while the water continued to run from what seemed an inexhaustible source.

There were no more of the squealing things on our side of the stream. Now across the flood the fire flared again so we had a better measure of light. I could see men there and the gleam of swords. On the very edge of the flood, the water licking eagerly at it, lay a body, face turned up and eyes staring sightlessly straight at me.

I heard a cry from Godgar and would have echoed that had I not needed all my strength to cling to consciousness. For the pain from my thigh had become red torment such as no other wound I had ever taken.

The thing was small and twisted, its arms and legs, if those four limbs could be dignified by such human applications, were thin, covered with coarse bristles which made them resemble roots with a matting of finer fibers. In contrast the body was thick and bloated and of a white-gray which grew rapidly paler while we looked upon it. This, too, was covered with hair in shaggy patches, not like any hair I had ever seen on man or beast, but very coarse and upstanding from the hide.

It had very little neck; its skull seemed supported directly by wide bowed shoulders. The jaw and chin, and very little chin there was, jutted forward to a sharp point; the nose was a ridge joined to that vee of jaw, with two openings just above the lips. The eyes were deep sunk on either side of that ridge. It wore no clothing, nor was there any sign it was more than animal . . . yet I knew that it was.

“What is it?” Godgar asked.

“I do not know.” Except, all my instincts told me, that it was one of the servants of evil, as were the Gray Ones and the Rasti.

“Look!” Godgar pointed. “The water—”

That fountain, which had stood so tall and poured forth such a volume of water, was dropping lower and lower as it continued to play. The flood which had cut us from the fire was growing narrower by the moment. I watched the dwindling dully, knowing that if I loosed my hold upon the rock which supported me I would fall. I doubted greatly that I could then rise once again. The river became a runnel; the runnel, a trickle.

“Kemoc!” I heard a cry raised from the fireside and tried to answer. It was Godgar’s shout which brought them to us. With Kyllan’s arm about me I fell forward, not only into his ward, but also into darkness in which pain was lost.

I roused, only too soon, to find Dahaun and my brother in counsel over me. It would seem, I understood with a kind of dreamy unconcern, that the wounds of the Thas—for it was those underground dwellers who had sprung the attack—were poisoned and that, though Dahaun could apply certain temporary measures to alleviate my pain, the healing must take place elsewhere.

I was not the only wounded. There were broken bones from the falling rocks, and several more poisoned cuts among the defenders. But mine was the deepest hurt and the one which might slow our retreat.

Kyllan spoke quickly—saying that he would stay with me until help could be sent. But, catching the look in Dahaun’s eyes, I knew our peril, and, in this dreamy state where her remedies had placed me, I did not fear riding. This much I did foresee: that although the Thas attack had failed, mainly by reason of that extraordinary flood, it would not be the last. To be trapped away from the Valley meant defeat.

“Tie me on Shil.” I managed to get out the words, though those sounded faint and far away in my own hearing. “We ride—or we die—as well we all know.”

Dahaun looked deep into my eyes. “This is your will, Kemoc?”

“This is my will.”

So at dawn we did ride, I bound to Shil as I had said. Dahaun had given me leaves to chew. The sour juices in my mouth were bitter, but they kept that barrier between me and pain, leaving me aware of it yet not subject to its tearing.

We traveled under clouds, still heavy with the storm which did not break. I went as a man might go in a dream, seeing here a bit sharply, there a fraction with a clear mind, then sliding once more into a haze.

It was when we came to the river that I awakened out of that state. Or was awakened—by a mind thrust, so keen, so inimical, that I gasped and tried to right myself on Shil’s back. The Renthan gave a great trumpeting cry, whirled, to race away from our party, down the bank. I could do nothing to control our going. Behind sounded shouts, cries, the pounding of hooves in our wake.

As if he would escape any pursuit, Shil leaped from the bank into the river. Water closed over me as I struggled against the ties which kept me on the back of the plunging Renthan who seemed utterly mad.

Something gave and I was free, gasping and choking.

I had been well taught to swim by Otkell, the crippled Sulcar warrior our father had sent to lesson us. But my wound had made of my left leg a part which would not answer the orders of my mind. Still gasping, choking, I came against a boulder and held to it despairingly. All mist had gone from my mind, and the fierce pain of my wound left me too weak to keep that grasp against the pull of the current.

A clutch on me from behind. Kyllan! I tried to say his name. But I could not shape it. I used mind touch . . . To meet nothing!

The grip was very strong, pulling me away from the rock anchorage, out into the current. I cried out, thrashed about with my arms, trying vainly to turn my head far enough to see who or what held me. But I continued to be borne along, my head a little above water, away from the bank and the shelter of the rocks.

I saw Kyllan, mounted on Shabrina, look out to where I spun in the grip of the unknown. I thought he looked straight at me, but there was no sign that he really saw me. I tried again to call . . . but there was no sound from my lips. With mind touch it was as if I beat against a high wall in which there was no opening.

Kyllan rode along the bank, still visibly searching. Yet I was there plain to see. Then fear closed upon me as I was drawn farther and farther away, leaving Kyllan and those who came after him. I saw Shil climb from the water and stand with hanging head. Then the bank curved and all of them were hidden from me, so I lost my last hope.