Year of the Unicorn

14 The Shadowed Road

“Has this land of yours no water?” I ran tongue over dry lips. “Also, one of humankind can not live on hope and words alone—there needs must be bread and meat—”

“Ahead—” his answer was one curt word where I had attempted to make my complaint light. Broken as the land about us was, yet did it seem empty of all but us and the birds. But the meadows had not been empty yesterday, save to the outer sight. And mayhap Herrel saw more here than I did. That I must know.

“Herrel—is this land empty as I see it under the illusion, or is it inhabited?”

“Under the illusion—how so?” He sounded genuinely perplexed, so I told him of the manor and the village, and how I had run from there because I believe I had been detected, if not really seen.

“This man in the inn room, of what manner was he?” Out of all my story Herrel caught upon that first.

From memory I tried to build a picture of him. When I had done I ended with a question: “Who was—is—he? And could he have known I was there?”

“He was of the Border Guard by your description. As such he is sensitive, one trained to the ferreting out of any invader. Hard though the way into Arvon may be, still through time men have come into these lands unknowing. For the most part the illusion holds, they see naught but the road, or some ruins. And they are worked upon by threats to the spirit which gives them a dislike of the place, so they pass through. But when you sought the inn, the guard would know an alien presence was there, and that it was aware of more than an empty land. That was why the alarm went forth. You after kept to the road, which was your safety—had you known it—”

“Why can I see only the illusion, save when I call upon my power?”

“You entered not by the gate, but by the mountain.”

Again his arm tightened about me. “And those are filled with many entrapments. How you came safely by all those snares, that is also magic—yours. Tell me, what of that road, and how did you find it?”

So I went back to my awaking in the deserted camp and when I spoke of the coming of the Hounds, then did I hear his breath quicken with a sound like unto a cat’s hiss of anger. I told of the vial and the way I freed it from my bag and there he interrupted:

“True witchery! There is no denying your gift. Had you the proper lessoning in it then—”

“Then what?”

“I do not know, it is not our sorcery. But I think in some ways you might challenge the whole Pack and come off unscathed. So you left those dogs of Alizon asleep in the snow. Let us hope that winter cold made that sleep death! But the Gate was closed-spell laid and bound again—so how found you another way?”

“Up and over the heights—” I told him of that climb, of my blind struggle with the shifting stones.

“Those were the ruins of Car Re Dogan—reared by wizardy to be a fortress against the evil which once roamed the waste and which is long since gone. You found a very ancient way, one our race has not trod for half a thousand of Dale years.”

I spoke of the barrier of light and its overthrow, and then of my coming into the places of the Guardians.

“The Setting Up of the Kings” Herrel identified for me. “They were the rulers of an elder age. When we first came to Arvon those of that blood were very few, but we mingled with them and took from them some customs which had merit. Thus they did use their kings when each died in turn. So was he buried, standing, allowed to look out upon the world. And should his successor need good council he went thither and abode for a night, waiting to hear that wisdom, or to dream it. Also they were ensorcelled to guard this land.”

“I felt that I was weighed, yet they passed me through—”

“Because they knew the kinship of your power. But—” Herrel’s voice was troubled, “if you came that way, there are other and far worse dangers to be faced—”

I could not repress a shiver. “Yes, one of them I saw—or saw in part.” And I told him of that noisome, clouded thing which passed me in the night.

“That which Runs The Ridges—! Gillan, Gillan, you have such fortune cloaking you as I have not heard of before! That you survived even so chance a meeting as that! It can not come into our fields, but it is death such as no living thing should ever meet.”

“The rest you know—” Suddenly I was very tired. “Herrel, where is this drink you promised me? It seems an age since I had aught to even wet my lips.”

“For once I may give you what you wish as you wish it.” He swung the horse off the road and we came to a small shallow stream bubbling along over a pebbled bed. The very sound of that water increased my thirst, so that I wanted nothing more than to plunge head and arms into it, lap at its surface as a dog might lap. But when Herrel aided me down from the saddle I was almost too weak and tired to move.

He brought me to the water’s edge and took a small horn cup from his belt pouch, filling it and lifting it to my lips.

“It would seem that I need this and food greatly.” I commented when I had drunk my fill. “I am as one emptied—”

“For that also there is an answer.” But I thought that he spoke too briskly and avoided my eyes.

“You said that you believed I was one who could listen to the truth, Herrel. It is more than need of food and drink which makes me thus weak, is that not so?”

“I said that time was our enemy. By now they know that I failed them. Now they draw on your life substance to feed their Gillan. They can not slay so, but they can weaken, and so slow your searching, until it is too late.”

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling a little, and I could not, by will or muscle, control that tremor. But—

“Fear is also a weapon they must use, my fear.” I do not know whether I meant that as a question or a statement, but he answered me.

“Yes. In any way they may shake your confidence, or your spirit, by that much do they profit.”

I returned then to the question I had asked earlier. “Is this an empty land through which we ride, or has it those living here who can be roused against us?”

“It is not as populated as the plains beyond the forest. There are scattered keeps and manors. As to their being set against us—had you been alone they would have mustered against you at the bidding of the Border Guard. Now that you are with me they are willing to let it be a personal thing with the Were Riders.”

“But you said we ride a dangerous way—”

“The Riders will rouse what they may to front us.”

“I had thought Arvon was a fair and smiling land, without peril.”

Herrel smiled a wry smile. “Alas, my lady, one remembers, when one is far apart from one’s beloved, only the fairness of her face, the sweetness of her words. Long were we severed from Arvon and our small memories were of her smiling face, which was what we wished most to recall. All lands hold both good and evil. In the Dales of High Hallack such good and evil is born from the deeds of men or nature. In Arvon it may be born from sorcery and learning. I told you once—we rode in exile because we were deemed disturbing factors, like to bring dissension into seeming peace. But that was not altogether so—though we were made to remember it thus. There have been struggles for power here, too—though sometimes fought with more fearsome weapons than sword blade and arrow head or even those Alizon arms which spit killing fire. We rode in exile because we had supported lords who went down to defeat in one of those ancient battles. And then the memory that exile was of our own unworthiness was fostered upon us. As there was a treaty we were allowed our time of grace to apply at the Gate—and it was opened to us.

“That war which sent us riding into the waste is long since done and gone. There are new rulers in Arvon. But also were forces loosed then which are neither truly good nor ill, but which can be moulded for the service of either. These can be commanded by the Riders working together—”

“Rulers!” I interrupted him. “Herrel, is there no law which runs in Arvon? Can one appeal to no overlord for justice?”

He shook his head. “The Riders are without the law, and you are also an outsider. We have taken no oath-service. They can not deny us Arvon, for that is our birthright and the terms of the treaty have been fulfilled. In time the Riders will take service, with some one of the Seven Lords. Now no man can move against them as long as their targets are of their own company—me—and you, an alien from the Dales. There is nothing for us save what lies here—” he spread out his hands, “or here.” He tapped his forehead.

Out of his saddle bags Herrel brought food and we ate. For a little that revived me and I walked along the stream feeling strength and life rise in me. So I believed that Herrel could not be sure they were draining me to build their Gillan the stronger.

“Have you no kin here, Herrel?” I asked. “You could not always have been a Rider. Were you never a child with a home, mother, father, perhaps brothers?”

He had put aside the cat-crested helm, was kneeling by the brook laving his face with water in his cupped hands.

“Kin? Oh, yes, I suppose I have kin—if time and change have spared them. You have set finger on my difference, Gillan. Just as you are not Dale brood, but were fostered so, I am not wholly Were strain. My mother was of the House of Car Do Prawn—their hall lies to the north—or did. She fell under the love spell of a Rider and came to him across the hills. Her father paid sword ransome to take her back, and I do not know whether that was by her will or no. When she came to child bed her son was accepted as of her blood. Then, when I was very young—I shape changed—perhaps I was angered, or frightened—but it made my inheritance plain to read—I was Rider rather than Redmantle. So they sent me to the Grey Towers. But still was I half blood and so not truly of the Riders either. Thus my father in time liked me as little as did those of Car Do Prawn. On this day I can claim no aid from Redmantle clans.”

“But your mother—”

He shrugged and shook the water drops from his, hand. “Her name I know—the Lady Eldris—and that is all. As for my father,” he stood up, his face averted from me, he was—is—among those who have set this ill upon us. It has humbled his pride that he has only a half-son.”

“Herrel—” I came to him, put my hand into his. And when he would not tighten the grasp then did I, but still he kept his face turned from me, and I did not try to do more than I had done.

“Well and well.” I said at last. “Since we have naught but ourselves, then that must do—” But my words were far lighter than my thoughts and did nothing to dampen my growing fear.

Herrel whistled to the stallion and the horse trotted to him. He put on saddle and bridle and then looked to me, his eyes remote, withdrawn. “It is time to ride.”

We returned to the road. Now it wound through steadily rising dale hills. At last I broke the silence between us to ask:

“You spoke of the Grey Towers. Are they the home of the Riders? Do they return there now?”

“Yes. And it is needful we reach them before they enter the Towers. In the open we have a small chance. To follow them into the Towers is hopeless folly, for there the very stones are steeped in sorcery they can draw upon for aid.”

“How far?”

“We are perhaps half a day behind them. They may send on the women, wait for us—”

“Send on the women! If they send Gillan—”

“Yes!” His interruption and the tone of his voice was enough. I had put into words one of his own sharp fears. “Herrel, can I will myself into the Gillan and so somehow delay them?”

“No! They will be watching her with great care. They would know and when they did—then they would have what they want. This time they would not drive you forth, they would bind you—to become the Gillan they wish.”

There was movement behind a bush some paces ahead.

I noted the horse’s ears a-prick.

“Herrel!” I hardly breathed that.

“I see.” his whispered answer was as faint. “This may be their first move. Hold well your seat.”

Though Herrel gave no signal I could detect, the horse quickened pace. We came even with the bush. There reared out of it such a creature as might have sprung from some legend. Not furred, but scaled, still also in its body shape like unto a giant wolf thing, with a kind of mane of stiffened spines across its head and down its shoulders. At the same time it reached for us, horse and riders, Herrel kicked out, striking aside its taloned paw. The thing squalled.

Scales melted into skin. Now I saw not a reptilian monster but a small brown creature a third its size raising a head which was a travesty of human with eyes in it which held no intelligence, only brute anger and ferocity. It was worse in a way than the illusion it—or others—had used to cloth it. I cried out, but I did not move in the saddle.

Herrel flailed down at the thing, using his sword flat bladed to beat, rather than edged to cut. It crouched back, slavering its rage. He shouted words which cowered it more than his blows, and it scuttled back into the bush.

“Wait.” Herrel slipped from his horse. Sword in hand, he went towards the brush in which the brown thing had vanished. Just before this bolt hole he drove the sword point down into the earth and rested his two hands upon its hilt, right over-lapping left as he spoke again in that other tongue, this time sing-songing the words until they made the pattern of a chant. Having so done, he pulled free his sword and, using the tip as a writing tool, he drew symbols in the dust of the road behind us and along both sides for a space of several feet.

“What was it?” I asked as he returned to me.

“A wenzal. One alone is no great danger. But when one sniffs, more follow, and in a pack they are no foe to be smiled upon.”

“Those marks—” I pointed to those he had traced in the dust.

“To murk our trail. That scout will seek out his kind.

They will up the hunt.”

“Are they of those whom you spoke—neither good nor ill, but able tool to either?”

I heard him laugh. “You listen well, my lady. No, the wenzal is wholly ill, but it is also cowardly, and it can be routed by knowing the right weapon with which to face it. Usually it comes not down from its high places. Mayhap it was intended for a guardian thing, made to be a lock upon our borders. If so, it was marred in the making, for it turns against all comers.”

“Then it might be here only by chance—” I ventured.

Again I heard his laughter, but this time with less amusement in it. “This far from the border? No, the wenzal is not that great a traveller. And, as I said, it is a coward, keeping well away from Arvon’s core lands. If a pack runs here now, they have been summoned.

“They must know that you have a defence against them—”

“Against one wenzal, or even five perhaps—against a full pack that is another matter. These creatures gain courage from numbers and their rage feeds in proportion to their company. When that rage reaches a certain point, then they care for nothing—save the overwhelming of the enemy. And stopping them at that moment is far beyond a single sword or any small sorcery I possess.”

“There is also this.” he added as he took up the reins once again. “Each small delay works to the Riders’ favour.” Then he fell silent. Perhaps he strove to see with the mind’s eyes what new plague they could send upon us. But I had other thoughts.

As I had the day before I began to try to break the illusion, searching the ground before us. And so I was rewarded by marking a mist-walled keep backed against the dale hill side. But try as I would, I could not deepen nor darken its outlines. It would not become solid in my sight. That worried me, for I guessed that my power was lessening. Was it. true that the other Gillan grew the stronger on what she drew from me?

“Herrel.” I broke the silence. “When we come to that other”—I would not allow myself to say “if”—“then what happens? How do two become one again?”

He did not answer at once.

“How?” I demanded with more heat. “Can it ever be so? Or is that one truth you have decided to spare me?”

“It can be so, but as to the doing, that I am not sure. It may be that, once face to face, you will be drawn to one another as a magnet reaches for iron. I only am sure of this, apart there is grave danger which increases every moment. And because they have her, you are the one under most threat.”

“If I only knew more!” Once again I knew that old frustration. “To be half-witch—that is to be already half defeated!”

“Do I not know—” he answered out of his own bitterness. “Hold this in mind—they strive to make you less than half. Had we but time we would ride to the Fane of Neave, but that is half the land away and there is not that much time left us.”

“Who is this Neave that he or she has power you may look to?”

“Neave is—no, I can not put name, a single name, to Neave. The wind blows, the rain falls, the earth is fertile and brings forth fruit—and behind that fruitfulness stands that which is Neave. Man seeks maid and she does not deny him, bearing other fruit in turn, and Neave is there also. Neave works not against the natural order of things, but with them. The beginning of life, its natural ending, is Neave’s. War sorcery, evil sorcery done for ill purposes—can not exist in the Fane of Neave; only that which nourishes and abides. I could not enter that fane—but you could and perhaps be safe—though of that I am not sure.”

“But you are not evil!”

“I am Were—and so against the true course of nature. My kind may not ride in the deep dark, but we go overshadowed through our lives. Our sun has many clouds.”

“I hazard you call upon Neave—in the night—”

I could feel the sudden tension of his body through those encircling arms.

“At such times men call upon each and every Power they may know. But I am not Neave’s liegeman. I would not be accepted.”

So I had been led away from the question he could not answer, whether I might ever be whole again, even if I met face to face that Gillan Halse wooed. It was another fear I must keep at bay by thinking only of the here and now and not of that which lay yet to come.

“You have no plan, except to overtake them?”

“I have a plan, if by nightfall we reach a certain stage on this journey. But only a plan of shadow—not yet of any substance.”

I did not press him. Instead I watched for more habitations in the hills and thought that, in the afternoon, I saw a second ghostly collection of walls and roofs. Only this time my second vision was even fainter.

We came to where the road split again about one of those earth mounds. This bore a single pillar at its centre and Herrel drew rein beside it.

“Off with you and up.” He helped me to dismount. “Swear you will remain at that pillar’s foot until I come again. That is a place of safety for you.”

I caught at his sleeve. “Where do you go?”

“To find that which I must have to aid us this night. But remember—at the pillar foot you are safe. These are spell encircled and only that which is harmless and of good meaning can so abide.”

I obeyed, clinging to the top of that earthen platform. Again that weakness was upon me, and the effort I expended left me spent, willing to drop at the foot of the pillar. Herrel had left the road and rode along the land. Now and then he dismounted to look at what seemed to me to be the protruding roots of long buried trees, where soil had washed away to show the gnarled wood. Perhaps this had once been a forested place, but the trees still growing were small of girth and widely scattered. These, too, he studied, but from the saddle. And at last it was under one that he set to digging with his sword. He hacked at what he had uncovered, and then gathered up a bundle of what he had unearthed and cut up. Bearing this before him, he rode back to me.

At the forefront of the mound he dumped his harvest and I could see they were indeed roots or parts of roots, crumbling with age but with yet a core of hardness. Three times he dug, hacked, and brought that ancient wood, until he had a pile of pieces which, with care, he built into a conical heap. This done, he climbed to join me, bringing the saddle bags with food and the bottle he had filled from brook water.

“What do you with that?” I gestured to the wood pile.

“That will at least reveal the nature of the peril which may creep upon us at moon rise. I think Halse will force the issue. He has never counted patience among any small story of virtues he possesses. But we do not need to watch until dark closes in. Sleep now if you can, Gillan. The night may be long and without rest for us when it comes.