Year of the Unicorn

15 Herrel’s Challenge

After a long space I spoke. “There is no sleep this night for me, Herrel. Tell me what you would do. To be warned by scout horn is to have shield on arm before the foes arrive.”

His head turned. Though the upper part of his face was shadowed by his helm, I could see his mouth and chin. He smiled.

“Well do you speak in the terms of war and battle, Gillan. You are a shield mate and sword companion as good as any man could wish. This then is what I would do—I wait not their will, their choice of the hour and field for battle—I summon them to mine! At moonrise I shall set fire to that root heap there—and they will be drawn—”

“More sorcery?”

Now he laughed. “More sorcery. It is laid upon us that our true nature is revealed and we are drawn to flames which dance from wood as old as we. A thousand dale years—even so long a span of time would not suffice to hold a Were from answer if you found a tree of his age. I do not think they will expect me to challenge them even this far. They will believe I shall be content to leave well enough alone—live so on some scrap of hope. For if I summon them thus, then I must be prepared to meet them with full power and array—”

“And you believe this possible?” I could not stifle that question. I must have his reply.

“Fortune will rule the field this night, Gillan. I do not know what shape they will wear, but if I can name Halse, throw him sword challenge, then they must allow me that right. So can I bargain—”

So many chances and so little assurance that any would be the right ones. But Herrel knew the Pack and this land. He would not choose so reckless a course unless he saw no other way. I could find no protest which was right and proper for me to offer.

“Herrel, it was to me that they did this thing—have I no right of challenge in my turn?”

He had drawn his sword, and it rested across his knee. Now he ran one finger tip down the blade from hilt to point. After a long moment he raised that weapon and held it out, hilt first, to me.

“There is a custom—but it puts a heavy burden on you—”

“Tell me!”

“If you can give a shape changer his name in the firelight, then he must take man’s form again. Whereupon you may demand blood right from him and name me your champion. But if you speak the wrong name to him whom you so challenge, then you are his to claim.”

“What difference might my success mean?”

“It would give you the right to set the stakes—that other Gillan. If I challenge there is an equal chance they could deem this Pack quarrel only, with no stakes other than life or disgrace.”

“Do you think I might not name Halse? He is a bear.”

“The beasts you have seen are not the only shapes we may take upon occasion, only those which are the most familiar. And at such a test as this he would not show as bear.”

“But you could warn me—”

Herrel was already shaking his head. “That I could not, by word, or gesture, or even by thought! The naming would be only yours and on you the burden of its success or failure. If you stand out before them, holding this sword, then you will be the challenger.”

“I have the true sight. Have I not proved that?”

“How well does it serve you now?” he countered. I remembered the mist-halls I had seen in the afternoon and my feeling that the power ebbed.

“This afternoon—I tried to see—” I was not really aware I had spoken that aloud, but Herrel drew the sword out of my reach.

“It is too great a risk. I shall challenge by Pack right and bargain as I can—”

He sounded decisive but still my mind played with what he had told me, and I leaned back against the pillar, running my hands along its age pitted stone. My sight, if I could but regain that illusion-breaking sight only for the few moments needed for the naming of true names! Up and down the stone my fingers moved, around and around in my mind thoughts spun, seeking some solution. There were herbs in my simple bag which cleared the head, sharpened the senses—as well as those which cured wounds and illnesses. My bandaged arm moved now without pain. Surely there must be some way to strengthen my inner power for as long as was necessary. If I only knew!

“Herrel—the healer’s bag, please fetch it.” To expend even so much effort as to hunt for it would endanger what I would try. “What—?”

“Bring it hither! How long have we before they come?” He moved slowly, gazing at me over his shoulder as if he would have out of my mind what I planned. But he brought the bag and laid it in my lap.

“I do not know. I light the fire at moonrise—then we wait.”

But that would not do—I must have a better idea of time. My fingers released the latching of the bag. I searched within for a small bottle cut and hollowed from a prism of quartz. “What do you plan?”

I opened my fingers. Even in this shadow light the prism seemed to glow.

“Have you ever heard of moly, my lord?” His breath caught in a half gasp. “Where got you that?”

“From an herb garden. Dame Alousan used it. Not because she would work sorcery, but because it has the power to sooth those who have come under the ill-looking of witchery. Though I do not remember that she used it save twice, since witchery is not practised in the Dales. The last time,” I smiled, “was for a man-at-arms who claimed he had been ill-looked by a Were Rider, and so lay with no life in his limbs. Whether it was only an illness born of his fear, or true sorcery, I do not know. But he walked again after he had a few drops of this in his ale for three days. However, it has by legend property. It can break illusion.”

“But you do not know who will come—or which to try it on—”

“That is not needful. It is my illusions which I must break. But I dare not use it too soon. And neither do I know how long it takes these drops to work. If I choose the time wrongly I may be either clear-sighted too soon, or too late. Therefore if you can give me warning—”

“It is a great risk—”

“All we strive to do this night is by chance, good or ill. Herrel, will not this be better?”

“And if you fail?”

“To see ever the cloud and not the sun is to woefully and willingly blind oneself. But can you give me warning—?”

“This much. I can tell you that they come before I sight them. For I, too, will experience the drawing, and will know how strong it grows.”

With that I must be content. But as I enfolded the prism in my sweat-dampened palm, I knew how small a warning I must depend upon.

“Herrel, ’til the moon rises, tell me of this Arvon of yours. Not as it threatens us now, but as it might be.” And he told me—unrolling his country before me, with its strange people, its grandeur and might, its dark places.

To everyone the hills and plains of their homeland have a beauty and colour beyond the rest of the world. More is this the truth when one has been in exile. But still the Arvon which came alive to me in Herrel’s words was a country fair beyond the sparsely inhabited, war torn Dales of High Hallack, and like unto a nation—time-set and sunk, that is true—yet mighty.

Though they all, those who dwelt in Arvon, shared in some use of magic and that which can not be weighed or measured and of which only the results may be seen, yet that varied in degree and kind. There were adepts who dwelt apart, wrapt in their studies of other times and worlds which touched ours only momentarily at intervals, and who were now scarcely even of human seeming. On the other hand the people of the manors, the four clans, Redmantle, Goldmantle, Bluemantle, Silvermantle, worked sorcery very little, and, save for their very long lives, they were close akin to humankind. Between those two extremes ranged a number of alien folk—the Were Riders, those who tended the Fanes of personified Powers and Forces, a race which lived in rivers and lakes, one which chose not to be too far parted from woods and forests, and some that were wholly animal in form, yet with an intelligence which set them apart from any animal the outer world knew.

“It would appear,” I said, “that there are so many marvels in this Arvon of yours one could ride for ever, looking, listening, and still never come to the end of them!”

“As I have come to the end of this telling?” Herrel got to his feet and slid down the mound to the side of the piled tree roots. Then I saw that a silver moon was rising. He touched sword point into the heart of the wood and a small green spark broke from the meeting of steel and wood.

They did not leap, those flames, rather did the wood smoulder contrarily, as if it had no wish to be summoned from ancient sleep, to die in ashes. Thrice did Herrel thrust with his sword, each time the point going more deeply into the pile. Then flames did crawl reluctantly to the air and there arose a smoke which thinned into a grey-white column.

I closed my hand so tightly upon the prism which held the distilled moly that the edges of the crystal cut into my flesh. Already I had loosed the stopper, but I kept my thumb upon it, making sure I would spill none.

Herrel raised his head high. His eyes were glittering green, shadows swept across his face, and vanished, only to return. But the alien shape did not take possession of him as he stood there, naked sword bright in his hand. At last he turned his head and spoke to me. His speech was no longer quite human words, but I understood.

“They are drawn—”

I stood up, away from the pillar. He did not move to aid me down from the mound, it was as if he were held prisoner there. But I came to him and held out my right hand, the left still grasping tight the prism.

“Your sword, champion.”

Herrel moved stiffly, as one who fought some force, to hand me that blade. So we waited by the fire. The moon lighted the road, but nothing moved along it that I could see. After a while Herrel spoke again—sounding as if he stood afar from me and not within touching distance.

“They are coming.”

How near, how far? When must I put on such armour as a few drops of golden liquid would give me? I thumbed the stopper out, held the prism to my lips.

“They are swift—”

I drank. It was acrid on my tongue, unpleasant. I swallowed quickly. The road was no longer empty. Beast and bird did not lope or fly as I had expected, in spite Herrel’s warning, but a multitude of shapes, ever changing—A mounted warrior who dropped to be a belly crawling thing out of nightmare. A scaled dragon who rose to be a man, but one with wings upon his shoulders and the face of a demon. Ever changing—I realized I had been over-confident. How could I find Halse in all this throng mocking me with their disguises? If the moly did not aid my undersight then, indeed, were we defeated before we ever did battle. I strove to fasten upon one figure, any figure in that weaving of dissolving and reassembling forms. And then—

From the hand which gripped the hilt of Herrel’s sword sprang runnels of blue fire, dripping down the blade. And I saw—

There was a web of changing forms, behind which was a company of man-like beings, concentrating upon holding the sorcery screen they had wrought.

“I challenge you!” Though I knew not the words of custom, I spoke those which came naturally.

“All or one?”

Did that buzz in my ears, formed by no man-voice? Or was it only a thought answer which came so to me?

“One, letting all rest upon that.”

“And what is’all’?”

“My other self-sorcerers!” Grimly I held to the undersight. Halse, yes, I had found Halse—to the fore and left of where I stood.

“Do you name names, witch?”

“I name names.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed in all?” I pressed.

“In all.”

“Then,” I pointed with the sword to Halse, “do I name among you Halse!”

There was a greater weaving of their shadow disguises, a rippling—Then it vanished and we stood facing men.

“You have named a name rightly,” Hyron stood forth. “How do you challenge now?”

“Not mine this challenge. It is another’s right, all resting upon it. “ My hand slid from hilt to blade. I passed the sword to Herrel so that his fingers could grasp the hilt and he took it from me eagerly.

“So be it!” Hyron spoke as if he pronounced a doom, and clearly he meant that doom to rest upon us and not those in his company. “Pack custom?” That he asked of Herrel.

“Pack custom.”

Men moved swiftly. Hyron took the cloak from his shoulders, laid its glossy horsehide lining down upon the pavement of the road, its dun-grey surface uppermost. Harl and three of the others doffed their helms, set one on each corner of the cloak, their crests facing inward.

Some feet beyond the edge of the cloak men set up four sword, points wedged well to hold them upright, and other cloaks, rolled rope fashion, were laid to connect each, forming a square.

Halse put aside his cloak and the baldric of his sword. He stepped now on to Hyron’s cloak and Herrel moved to face him. Halse smiled as I had seen him do and hated him for—as one who has only to stretch out his hand to take what he wants, no one saying him nay.

“So she has more power than we thought. Wrong-hand. But she has made her mistake now—in choosing a sword and you to wield it.”

Herrel did not answer, and there was no expression on his face. Rather did he watch—Hyron who had moved into the centre of the cloak between the two fighters.

“This is the field. You will match swords until blood flows, or one or the other of you be driven over the battle line. By moving so only one foot, it will be deemed he who does so had fled—and full right yielded to the other.”

Then he turned his head and looked to me.

“Should your champion lose, then you are fully subject to us. And what we wish shall be done.”

I knew what he meant—they would give the remainder of my life to their false Gillan. So did he lay the greater burden of more fear on me. But I hoped that he could not read that in my face, and I tried to make my voice steady and cool as I answered:

“When your champion goes down to defeat, my lord, then you shall render freely to me what you have stolen. That is our bargain.”

Though I had not made that a question, he replied.

“That is our bargain. Now—” in his hand he held a scarf and this he flashed up and down in the air, leaping away from the cloak and its guardian square.

I am no warrior who knows the proper use of the blade, each nicety of thrust and parry, the art of sword mastery. And I had thought, after the brush with the Hounds, that the Riders went to war as beasts who needed no such schooling. But it would seem that though they used claw and fang, they also knew steel.

They circled, ever watching, now and then thrusting as if to try the enemy’s skill or strength. And I remembered a bit of war knowledge which I had heard at the Abbey-stead table when kin of the refugee ladies came a-visiting—that it was always best to watch a man’s eyes rather than his weapon—

The slow beginning erupted in a flurry of blows aimed and parried, a wild dancing to the clash of steel meeting steel. Then, retreating, they once more circled. Whether Herrel was accounting himself well, I did not know. But no blood flowed and, although he had put one foot off the cloak, he had beat his way back with speed.

For a short time was I so dazzled by that murderous play that I did not sense what else was going on. Perhaps it was the power of the moly which awakened that other acute sense in me. Halse willed his sword hand on the cloak, and so did Herrel. But outside there was a uniting of wills. Perhaps that ill wishing could not reach and weaken Herrel physically and prepare him for the finishing stroke, but it hung as a fog working for his defeat. And, if he were sensitive enough—A man’s belief in himself can be delicately poised. All his life Herrel had thought himself less than whole. His anger, our need had worked upon him to refute that. But should seeds of doubt begin to grow?!

I had used my will as a tool—to see—to hold the guard in the hall, to fight the Hounds, to carry me to Arvon. Now I strove to make of it a buckler against the desire of the Pack. And because I had my own fears, this was a thing nearly beyond my doing.

My undersight was failing. Monsters ringed in that fight. I saw not two men with swords in hand, I saw a bear reared upon hind feet, reaching great furry arms to catch and crush a cat which snarled and wove about it.

“You—”

So sharp was that demand for my attention that I jerked my eyes from the fight to look at him who so hailed me. A stallion—a man—a monster stretching forth great crab-claws to my hurt.

“Hyron,” I named a name and saw a man.

You can not win, witch, having chosen a half-one for your service—

The Captain of the Riders was turning his whip of defeat now to my beating, his thoughts thrusting at me as those swords thrust and cut on the cloak field.

I have chosen the best among you!—Confidence, and I must feel that as well as give lip, or thought, service to it.—This is a man!—

A man is not a Rider. He fronts those who are more than men—

Or less—I retorted.

You fool! Look upon your hand which had held the sword. In the moonlight my fingers were pale, thin, with an odd transparency about them. And swiftly Hyron gave me what he hoped would be the death blow to my aid for Herrel.

You waste. Each time you use your power now, witch, you waste. She grows the stronger! You will be shadow soon; she all substance. And what then will any victory here avail you?—

Even as he spoke I felt that draining weakness. Shadow, yes, my hand had a shadow look—

No! They were tricking me, drawing my attention away from the fighters! Herrel was being driven back, he was close, too close, to the cloak rope. If Halse could not wound him, perhaps he wished to give his enemy the greater shame of breaking the square. Herrel’s face was set, he was a man still fighting dogged against some inevitable defeat.

No!—I tried to reach him, build up the wall of strength and confidence. And now there gnawed at me the belief that Hyron had spoken the truth, that my very efforts to support Herrel were death to me. I was trembling; the ground reeled under me. I must let go—keep what I had left.

My hands—they were thinner, whiter. Do not look upon my hands! Watch Herrel, fight the dog of defeat the Pack had raised. Herrel—shadow hands—Herrel—

Herrel!

It cost so much to break their united desire—and I was no longer sure I could.

Fool, you fade—

Herrel, you can—you can defeat the bear! Herrel!

There was a mist between me and the men, or did cat and bear still circle on the cloak? I stood, blind, holding to what small strength I still had.

There came a shout—cries—or were those animal growls, screams of bird, neighing of a horse?

I rubbed my hands across my eyes, strove to see—A cat crouched with switching tail, fangs bared. Facing it still a bear, but one of the clawed hind paws was beyond the roping—Halse must be counted fled!

They were men again, all of them, drawing together, ranged against Herrel still. But that wave of defeat they had woven was gone as if torn away by a rising wind. Herrel raised his sword—pointed the tip to Halse.

“He is fled!” His voice rang loudly, a sharp demand in it.

“He is fled.” Hyron returned sombrely.

“A bargain is a bargain, we claim all—”

When Hyron did not reply, Herrel strode forward a step or two.

“We claim all!” he repeated. “Does Pack law no longer hold? I do not believe you will nay-say our right.”

Still the Captain made no answer. Nor did the others. Herrel went the closer. His eyes were green fire in his face, but he was all man, not cat.

“Why do you not keep your bargain, Hyron? We spoke for all, you promised it on our winning—”

“I can not give it to you.”

Herrel was silent for a long moment, as if he could not believe he had heard aright.

“Dare you name yourself honour-broke then, Captain of Riders?” His voice was softer, but in it an ice of deadly anger, the more perilous because of the control he held Over it.

“I can not render unto you what I do not have.”

“You do not have? What has become then of the Gillan you wrought through your powers?”

“Look,” Hyron inclined his head in my direction. Herrel turned his flaming eyes upon me. “The tie is broke; that which we summoned is gone.”

Tie is broke—I swayed. Where was it, that cold which had led me out of the wilderness into this land? It was gone, I felt it no more—I was adrift. Then I heard laughter, low, evil, gloating—

“She has only herself to blame.” Halse said. “She would use her power. Now it has destroyed her. Nourish your bride while you yet can, Herrel. She is a shadow bride, soon to be not even shadow!”

“What have you done?” Herrel sprang then past Hyron to seize upon Halse. His hands closed about the other’s throat, he bore him back to the ground. While I watched as one in a dream, far less real a dream than those they had pushed me into, the men struggled.

They dragged Herrel from his enemy, and held him in spite of his efforts to come at Halse, who lay gasping on the ground. Then Hyron spoke:

“We have played as true as we can. But the tie is broke, that other one is gone—”

“Where?”

“Where we can not follow. She was wrought in another world, she returned there when the tie holding her here was broke.”

“You brought her to life. Upon you lies the burden of returning her—or go honour-broke.” Herrel shook off their hold. He spoke to Hyron but he came to me. “I asked all, Gillan asked all and you gave oath on that. Now, redeem your oath! Gillan!” He reached me, his arms were about me but I could not feel his touch. I strove to raise my hands—they were thin, transparent. No tie—I was tired, so tired, and empty—never to be filled now—never—