The Horse Lord (3 page)

“Listen to the hounds! They’ve got him at bay somewhere!”

“Those yapping puppies would bark at their own shadows; you know that.”

“At my age I should know when hounds are giving tongue and when they are not!”

Aldric remained calm with an effort. “And at your age you should know when you’re in the wrong,” he pointed out. Their wrangle was over a boar which had somehow evaded Joren’s favourite thrust, and it was injured pride rather than the loss of his roast pork which made the big man so peevish. Aldric did not much care for pork, which explained his lack of interest. Also he enjoyed gently teasing his brother; it always proved rewarding. All at once the yelping died away and Aldric shot an “I-told-you-so” glance from the corner of one eye before lifting a horn from his belt.

“It’s too late to start again,” he said. “I’m calling the others in and then we’ll go home, eh?” Joren expressed his opinion in several crude syllables and began easing his horse round in the confined space of the path. Suddenly a cry went up away to the left and with it the renewed baying of hounds. Joren saw Aldric’s face and laughed aloud, then jabbed heels to his steed’s flanks and crashed off through the undergrowth, whooping as he went. Aldric rolled despairing eyes heavenward, then shrugged, put the horn away and followed—rather more cautiously.

The scene was familiar enough; dogs raved in a semicircle round the base of a tree, while horsemen fussed and fidgeted behind them. Their quarry hunched almost invisible in the shadows between a fork of roots, huge and black with a drool of froth hanging from his champing tusks. The boar regarded them with mad red eyes, secure in his defensive redoubt and quite content to wait for his antagonists to make the first move. His wait proved to be short.

When cries of encouragement failed to move the hounds, one hunter used his spear-butt. The beasts snarled and one twisted to snap at the iron-shod ash wood. Through this opening the boar came charging like a bristled thunderbolt, chopping one of the hounds as he passed before sidestepping a clumsy jab and shooting away with the hunt hot after him. As the bracken gave way to open woodland the speed of the chase increased, heedless of the low branches which scraped an occasional rider from his saddle.

The forest ended abruptly in a smooth valley, dotted with clumps of gorse and carpeted with poppies. The setting sun glared across it, making everyone blink and slow down. All except the boar. Instead of crossing the valley he fled along its rim in an attempt to double back, only to find stragglers emerging from the woods all along his escape route. And still he tried to avoid running in the obvious direction. A thrown spear changed his mind; faced with immediate death or the strange fear welling from the valley, he galloped over the ridge and began to descend the slope.

The hounds’ baying stopped in mid-cry, while that of their masters redoubled as horses reared, wild-eyed and whinnying. Neither soft words nor hard blows would induce them to enter the valley. Normally fierce hounds backed off with tails curled to their bellies and hackles bristling. Adding to the hunters’ rage was the boar; no longer pursued, he slowed to an insolent amble and then stopped with a piggy sneer seeming to curve his chops.

“What in hell’s the matter?” snarled Aldric, his coolness slipping. He thumped his stamping, sidling horse. “Why won’t this brute follow that one?”

“Sorcery,” said Joren flatly. “And I don’t know why it’s here,” he put in quickly as Aldric’s mouth opened for the inevitable question. “This is an ancient part of the forest.”

As Joren spoke, his brother looked around with dark un-Talvalin eyes wide with curiosity. That same curiosity had driven him to read many of the writings which lay forgotten in Dunrath’s great library, and had given him knowledge beyond that offered by his most liberal-minded tutors. “It was here before the fortress was built,” Joren continued, “though mother’s people were here even before that. You’d better read the Archive when we get back.”

“And leave the boar?” Aldric’s imagination landed, returning him to reality. “Not I!” He favoured the beast with a thoughtful glance.

“The horses won’t…” began Joren, then stopped as Aldric dismounted. “Idiot! We haven’t cross-head spears— he’ll come right up the shaft to get at you.”

“Let him try,” grinned Aldric, but the grin was a little thin and stretched. Drawing a heavy falchion from its sheath under one saddleflap, he thumbed the edge, nodded and strapped the weapon to his belt. Joren made a disbelieving noise and then exploded.

“What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” he blazed. “You’re not impressing anyone… ! Light of Heaven, if you get killed what am I to tell father?”

“You’ll think of something,” mocked Aldric gently.

“I… just be careful.” Joren playfully ruffled his youngest brother’s hair and Aldric flinched away. It was
kailin-length
now, and he was close enough to the
Eskor-rethen
ceremony to resent its being touched by another warrior. No
kailin
put hand to another’s queue except to lift his severed head. That was a tradition old enough to be almost law.

Then he regretted the hasty move and smiled crookedly up at Joren. “Me, careful? But surely, aren’t I always?” He hefted his spear, loosened the falchion in its sheath and walked down towards the boar. The animal watched him, snapping its tusks nastily as he continued to advance.

Then it charged.

Aldric dropped to one knee, spear braced, and let the boar run straight onto its levelled point. As Joren had said, the creature came on up the shaft as if nothing had happened, but by that time the boy had let go his spear, sidestepped quickly and drawn the falchion. Its wide blade lifted, hovered and whipped down across the boar’s thick neck even as Aldric skidded and fell flat. Even so, he was in no danger. With its head half off the boar was down and dead before its slayer could pick himself up. Aldric shook his head, feeling foolish. There was a lot of blood and its coppery stink clogged his nostrils, making him sick and giddy. His head buzzed inside and the walls of his mouth went dry and sour.

Then he shuddered violently and stared about him. For a few ugly seconds the valley had become a battlefield, the ground scarlet not with poppies but with gore, strewn with corpses in ancient, ornate armour hacked and torn with fearful wounds. He rubbed his eyes and the fit was past. A skylark chirruped faintly high up in the blue dusk, and things were all so ordinary now that Aldric thought he had been dreaming. But looking at the carcass he felt more than willing to leave without it.

He lost his chance when the others came running and sliding down the slope, bubbling with congratulations and good-humoured banter. When they started the butchery Aldric retreated hastily. Then a hound whined and licked his hand. Dogs and horses alike had followed their masters into the valley as if they had never feared it. Odd… Aldric shook his head again, to clear it of confusion this time, and looked across to the far slope. A few hazy mist-patches trailed like forgotten scarves along the ground, ghostly pale against the shadows. Remnants of sunset glowed amber behind the trees silhouetted blackly on the skyline. Aldric sighed and sat down.

With a yelp he sprang up again, rubbing an injured rump. There were no trees nearby, so the offending object could hardly be a root. He kicked at it irritably, but when something shifted under the turf he looked more closely. Then his eyebrows went up and he dug the object free with falchion and fingers. It was a sword-hilt, in the blocky, massive style not made since the Clan Wars so long ago. He had seen one before in Dunrath; horseman’s weapons both, as the chained pommels and wrist-bands bore witness. They were constructed so that, if the weapon was knocked from its owner’s hand in battle, with the band around his wrist at least his sword was not lost underfoot. There was something strange about this rusty remnant of someone’s forgotten battle, something Aldric could not at first pin down. Although the weapon had been lying out under the sky for years uncounted, and was deeply corroded, it was still in passable condition for something which one would have expected to have been entirely eaten away.

Aldric recalled his hallucination, wondering now if it was anything so simple. Before
an Mergh-Arlethen
, the Horse Lords, came out of the sea mist to claim Alba for their own, Cernuek and Elthanek scholars had already been writing history, legend and plain gossip for an age and an age. But some things they had not written. These survived only as tales told in winter by the great log fires, stories for children and the credulous. Or truths no one dared to believe.

A wolf howled balefully among the distant trees and Aldric’s fingers clenched the ancient hilt. He scowled, both at the display of nerves and at the beast which should have been miles further north at this time of year. Making a mental note to organise another hunt, he moved the hilt towards one of his hunting-jerkin’s deep pockets. Then an odd thing happened: between one heartbeat and the next, he lost all interest in the relic. If it had not been easier to complete the pocketing movement, he would have dropped it back on to the ground, and even so he had forgotten the hilt’s existence before it had completely slithered out of sight.

As he mounted up, Aldric’s mind wandered down macabre lanes, the back alleys of imagination. He recalled stories read, overheard or gloatingly told by Baiart when they were both much younger. Stories of men who, willing or not, became beasts at the full of the moon.

He sat back in the lofty Alban saddle—then shivered involuntarily. Just visible through the eastern trees was a disk which shone like a newly minted mark: the full moon. Wiping chilly moisture from hands and face, Al-dric laughed hollowly at having worked himself into such a state.

Joren, laden with joints of boar, overheard the laugh and gave him a strange look, but withheld other comment. Stars had appeared before they were ready to leave, and as the moon rose further it washed woods and valley with a frosty sheen. Aldric felt cold, and as the others rode off he gladly turned his horse to follow. Then he jerked on the reins and stood up in his stirrups.

A fragment of shadow had detached itself from the forest and was flitting from one gorse-clump to the next. Without reason the fine hair on Aldric’s arms and neck stood on end. There was a crossbow hanging in a loop by his knee, and he reached for the weapon’s cool walnut stock as if seeking comfort from its weight. He had had enough irrationalities for one night; at least the bow was heavy, solid and real. Spanning and loading it, he strained his eyes to see what the lean shadow might be. He thought he knew already.

He was right: a monstrous wolf, its grey coat tipped silver by the moonlight, came padding up the slope. It ignored the dark patch where the boar had been cut up—most unwolflike and suspicious, had Aldric been noticing such things—and made for the small patch of disturbed earth where something had recently been exhumed. Aldric frowned slightly as a faint memory nagged him for a moment, but could recall nothing of importance. Whimpering eagerly the wolf began to dig, carefully at first and then with increasing frenzy until soil flew in all directions. Then abruptly it stopped and raised its long muzzle in a wary sniff.

Downwind, and invisible under the trees, Aldric levelled his bow, hoping the uncertain light would not spoil his shot. Taking a deep breath he set finger to trigger, noting absently how the beast’s eyes reflected the moon, glowing like tiny bluish candles. They seemed almost to be watching him; ridiculous of course, or the creature would have run long ago.

Just before he tripped the sear a low, rumbling snarl reached his ears and the wolf crouched, not to flee but to pounce. A beast of that size could have him out of the saddle in two bounds and a snap…

“Aldric!” Both boy and wolf started and the crossbow went off, its bolt flinging the animal backwards in a squirming heap. Wood snapped as it bit the missile from a hind leg and rose unsteadily, blazing eyes fixed on Aldric as if etching his shocked face into its memory. Then Joren came trotting up, the younger man glanced towards him and when they both looked back the wolf was gone.

“What’s the matter with you?” After hurrying back in case his little brother had fallen foul of roots or hanging branches, Joren was none too pleased to find him shooting at shadows. “Well?”

“Nothing,” Aldric replied, far too quickly. “Nothing at all.”

Joren eyed him narrowly. “Does ‘nothing’ usually make you sweat like a wash-house window?” he asked rather more gently. Aldric realised with clammy distaste that his whole body was damp and cold, and he tugged a shirtsleeve away from sticky skin.

“I saw a wolf down there,” he explained lamely. Joren blinked.

“Oh, did you? I think I heard one earlier, but… Pity you missed it—if it was there at all.”

Aldric coloured. “It was! And I didn’t miss!”

“Then where’s the body?”

“I… it ran off when you appeared…”

“As I said—pity you missed.” There was something in Joren’s tone of voice which stopped any further protests. “Now come on home, or you’ll catch a chill.”

Aldric stared doubtfully across the valley one last time, then shrugged and did as he was told.

On an evening some five weeks later, the great feast-hall at Dunrath was filled with music and ablaze with light made brilliant by the shifting hues of
elyu-dlasen
, the formal Colour-Robes of the Alban clans. It was Aldric’s twentieth birthday, his coming of age, and Haranil-
arluth
was making an occasion of it, inviting relatives and friends to the least degree. He was even willing to welcome total strangers.

“My lord?” The
arluth
looked up to where his steward had appeared silently by his chair. The man bowed low. “There is a man at the gatehouse, my lord. He craves shelter.”

“So?” Although travellers were unusual at this season, it was equally unusual to be told of their arrival. Normally they were simply admitted with courtesy, since such hospitality was expected by the fortress-lord. Looking uncomfortable, the steward bowed again, twitchily.