The Forge in the Forest (19 page)
"Let him go!" gasped Elof. "Help Borhi!" Together they scooped him up, sprang for the dell, and tumbled gasping into the hands of their friends.
With a howl like the stormwind, something went crashing through the undergrowth behind them, something large and behind it others, their stride a bounding, loping sound like dog or wolf, but longer, wider. And all who heard thought that they went not on four legs, but on two. Past they streamed, while those terrible howls pierced the travelers' hearts, and then it seemed that the last of them
turned aside and came padding, more slowly, in their
direction.
"The fire!" gasped Kermorvan. "Light torches, all! Stay well within the firelight!" Then in the shadows beyond it another and most fearful howl shocked the travelers rigid as rabbits before a weasel. Somebody kicked aside the leaves, the firepit blazed up in yellow flame as the torches were thrust in, and the clear glare scoured the darkness from the dell. At its margins slivers of another light awoke, and Roc and Elof shuddered to see again the pale foxfire gleams that had so startled them among the undergrowth. Only now they floated in the darkness higher than a man's head, and they were not alone; other pairs of eyes appeared, moving this way and that to the sound of soft feet padding, pacing like fell beasts encaged. Ils moved close to Elof, and he heard the tremor in her breath. She seized his free hand, and he squeezed hers hard. Defiantly Kermorvan stretched out his sword. A low growl answered, and such was its menace that the travelers all shrank together. But the eyes came no nearer, pacing back and forth, back and forth, just beyond the reach of the light. For a long hour it lasted, till Elof thought his nerve could stand no more; it did not help to hear the trembling chatter of Borhi's teeth. But then, abruptly, it ended.
From far off to the north of the silent Forest came a rending scream, a human scream, and then another, louder even than the single triumphant howl that blended with it. The eyes swung away as one, northward. On it went, a frenzied, mind-cloven shrieking that rose to a single long thin note, and then died away to nothing. Feet crashed in the bushes, a sudden gust of wind pressed down fire and torches; shadows rushed in. But Kermorvan dashed forward, swinging his torch, and hurled it out high into the dark. Like a blazing starstone it fell, and in that brief streak of light they caught one glimpse of a hunched shadow higher than a man, yellow fangs foam-flecked in a narrow muzzle, a long flank pelted in black, wiry and close-curled. Then the loping feet passed swiftly northward, and were gone.
Kermorvan let out a long, shaky breath. "They could have run any man down in moments. All this time they must have been toying with him."
"Till dawn!" said Ils tremulously. "Praise the Powers, it nears." And Elof too saw the faint promise of light in the sky, and drew breath more easily.
"Well, Borhi," he sighed. "It seems he has himself paid dear for the bad turn he meant you…"
But Borhi, huddled against a root, seemed scarcely to hear; he shivered and knitted his fingers. "An offering, 'e said… they'd have it t'set foot in the woods… or him instead… his bargain with 'em… their price for a good hunt… like the rabbit… clear trail an' a sure kill…" And they saw that hanging round his neck were two more of the black steel-headed quarrels from Kasse's arbalest.
The heavy bow itself lay on the ground where its owner had laid it. After only a moment's hesitation Kermorvan picked it up. "I wonder what manner of blessing was laid upon this? But we cannot lightly abandon a good hunting weapon. Tenvar, Bure, do you help Borhi! He must recover as best he can afoot. Our need bids us begone, ere we starve."
They moved out into the growing light, and a forest that seemed a different place, the least likely shelter for the horrors of the dark. But they were not yet quit of them. Gise, the most practiced hunter left them, claimed to find some promising scents on the breeze, so they followed it westward. A little way on a towering fir rose before them, and when Gise and Elof rounded its great bole they beheld a thick spattering of blood, still fresh in the mold. They looked up, and sprang back with the shock. Elof gestured frantically to keep Borhi away, but it was too late. He also had seen, and stood staring, his face as dusty gray as the bark. There, propped high beyond reach among the upper branches, hung the body of Kasse. Of his clothes, of his flesh, rags alike remained, like a pitiful carcass worried by a scavenger pack. Yet one arm, more whole than the other, was laid across a bough, stiffly outthrust in the direction of a trail that opened out eastward before them, sloping uphill among the trees.
Kermorvan inclined his head grimly, his gray-green eyes cold as the sea they resembled. "So justice of a sort is done, it would seem…"
Elof looked at Borhi, and shook his head. "Justice?" he remarked. "Say rather, an offering is accepted. Even if it was not the one intended."
Kermorvan looked at him sharply. "You may be right. In any event, there is no more we can do for him, not even bury him. And that trail leads eastward, which is our road in any event. So let us press on, at once!"
"Aye," said Borhi quietly. "That's best." And from that moment he seemed to recover his wits; it was his good cheer that never quite came back.
Their scant meal of the night before had only served to sharpen hunger, and for all their hurts and aches, and the persistent dampness of their clothes, they moved swiftly and eagerly up the shadowy trail. It was a strange hunt, for they followed no spoor; only that macabre signpost, and what Gise read in the breeze, gave them any assurance. But ere long Kermorvan, too, caught the scent, and wrinkled his narrow nostrils. "Not an unclean smell, but strong. I guess that we follow a herd, but of what, that is another matter. Perhaps Gise may…"He stopped. Gise, padding along the trail just ahead, had ducked nastily behind the bole of a stout red oak. Now he was gesticulating furiously to the others, beckoning them on yet waving them
to
stay down. Cat-quiet, they crept forward taking every pain to avoid the least rustle or crackle; the last few paces they all but crawled, and crouched down behind the thickest bushes, quietening even their breath. Now the musky, earthy reek of the mysterious herd was in all their nostrils, and none would dare be first to alarm the creatures. The breeze had freshened, as if the trees grew thinner; strange sounds it carried, the thudding of heavy hooves upon the earth, the creak and snap of boughs, and underneath them all, now and then, a soft rumbling snort, deep enough to come from the very stone underfoot. Very cautiously they peered over the leaves. But it was as well the breeze was in their faces, for despite their care they could hardly help but gasp at what they saw.
"What are they?" whispered Arvhes in awe, almost too loud.
"Deer, idiot!" snarled Ils under her breath, clutching at her axe. "Scare them and I'll butcher you instead!"
"But such deer!" breathed Elof, and even Kermorvan nodded agreement, his eyes alight with the wonder of the sight. This far up the slope the trees did indeed seem thinner. The summer morning sent a torrent of light between the trunks, and it spilled down hazy and golden upon a host of high antlers. There, basking among a drone of dancing flies, was the herd they sought, and it was vast.
In shape they were not unlike the red-coated deer of the Western Lands but, like all else in Aithen, grown regal and immense. Their bodies had the bulk and majesty of the great bulls Elof had once herded, but they stood far taller, higher at the shoulder than a tall man could reach. Broader and heavier than a bull's were those shoulders and the neck they bore, and small wonder when such antlers crowned the long head. They did not rise in narrow branchings, as in lesser deer, but swept out to either side in a vast flattened spread, upturned at each end like fantastic many-fingered hands. Their coats were shaggier and lighter than western deer, a dusty dappled bay that was hard to make out among the denser clump of trees. There were perhaps forty or fifty of these giants in the herd, chiefly does that browsed in little groups. Many had fawns by them, leggy and light-spotted. The immense stags circled the outskirts of the herd, browsing among the coarser undergrowth; one stayed to pull at some bushes near them, and Elof's mouth grew dry with awe. A crown in truth he thought those regal antlers, for one branch alone would span almost his own height.
"I've got that feeling again," growled Roc softly as they sank back behind cover. "As if it's myself that's shrunk…" Gise nodded calmly, and flexed his bow to be sure of the string's tension in the wet air.
"How may we dare attack such monsters?" muttered Arvhes, swallowing with difficulty. "One kick from those hooves would shatter a man, one sweep of the antlers fell us all…"
"Yet we must," whispered Kermorvan bleakly, tugging at the arbalest's thick cord and working the cocking lever, his face pitiless as the hunger and care behind. "There is more to be seen out there than deer. Look up, past the treetops."
Elof followed his glance, and stiffened with surprise. The branches stood out against the clear blue of summer, but over them loomed a vaster bulk, gleaming white in the brilliance like cloud castles made solid. With sinking heart he realized that their eastward way had led them to a range of mountains, jagged and high, capped with snow even under that blazing sun. They seemed impossibly sudden and close, as if they had only this minute sprung out of the earth as a new and daunting barrier. Thus it was that Elof first looked upon the Meneth Aithen, the Forest Mountains, the backbone of that vast realm and guardian of its most cherished secrets.
"We would have seen them from far downriver, had we not had the Forest over us," rasped Kermorvan. "To north and south they spread, as far as I may make out. There will be no going round them, I am sure. We must find a pass, and cross." He looked around at them all. "You understand, then! There may be scant game up there, or none at all. We need to find and prepare as much food now as we can. This nearest stag…"He said no more, but dropped a quarrel swiftly into the bow. Gise nocked an arrow, and together they slithered silently into the last wall of bushes, slowly and in no rhythm. More hesitantly the others moved after them, crouched on tense legs, ready for a rush. They froze as they heard a sudden angry snort and saw antlers toss above the leaves. But the great deer was only striking at a persistent fly, and the antlers rose and fell gently once again as it returned to cropping the bushes. Elof's heart sank as he saw Kermorvan rising on one knee, taking careful aim; the quarrel seemed minute, hardly more than a fly sting to that bulk of muscle. He would as soon have attacked thus the monstrous mammut they had encountered in Aithennec. But as Kermorvan's finger curled on the trigger there came a sudden screeching cry, and from among the branches behind them a winged flash of red arrowed upward, crying alarm and havoc. The antlers jerked upward, the pendulous muzzle tossed back in a cloud of steaming breath, the huge nostrils flared rigid and the stag gave a loud blaring cry that was at once chal-
lenge and warning. The other stags trumpeted to the echo, the does stared, ears twitching, and bounded to herd in the fawns, who jumped and stumbled on overlong legs. Gise and Kermorvan sprang up to shoot, but it was too late. All at once the giant herd was surging about the clearing, hooves churning in the damp soil, bunching and milling together in a tight ring.
Elof turned to glare at whoever had alarmed the bird, and so saw the true cause. He had barely a moment to shout a warning and spring aside, the others spilling after him. A deep coughing growl sounded; Borhi tried to spring up but Elof and Tenvar held him down. Kermorvan caught Gise's arm and they dived headlong among the bushes, barely in time. Then through the brush there burst three brindled beasts as big as ponies, and more bulky, bounding heavily on their thick legs. Their flat heads were held low, the wide jaws agape, their long fangs outthrust like assassin's daggers; claws sprang out on the wide paws. They spared the travelers no glance, but sprang into the clearing and, crouching low, circled about the herd to pen them in. The stags bellowed deafeningly and struck out with hoof and antler, but the attackers moved too fast, the does panicked and the herd became a milling stampede. One tall stag, a fraction slower than its fellows, passed the wrong side of a tree and was thrust out from the threshing cordon of hooves. Then the killers struck. It was a clean, expert kill, almost graceful save for its deadly end. One daggertooth sprang at a kicking rear leg, dragging the stag to a halt; another leaped for the muzzle and hung there by the wide lip, dragging the head down and hindering the deadly sweep of the antlers. Then the third lunged up at the lowered neck, twisting in midair to embrace the throat in its long forelegs, hung there and bit. Deep into the thick mane sank the long fangs, stabbing down into the great veins, and the jaws clamped shut about the windpipe. Blood fountained among the sandy fur; the stag struggled and threshed and gave great snoring moans, but the killers clung, scrabbling upward with huge hind claws at belly and flanks the antlers could no longer defend. Their sheer weight held it in place while it stifled in the iron grip. Its long head threshed back once in anguish, then the pillar legs bent and folded, the great beast sank forward, kneeling, and toppled sideways with a crash. The killers rolled aside between the quivering legs and fell on the spilling belly, ripping at it with muffled snarls of satisfaction. The herd, relieved of its pursuers, wheeled about and went streaming off into the distant trees, and the thunder of its passage drummed long in the earth.
"Now!" shouted Kermorvan suddenly, dropping the bow. "Now, if ever!" And leaping to his feet, he tucked his cloak over his arm, so that it flared out around him, drew sword and went charging out into the clearing.