The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (23 page)

Backwards and forwards along the crest the conflict raged, until the ground was red and black, and still they came. Not before fully a quarter of their number had been hewn from the air did they abandon the fight.

Durathror and Fenodyree leaned on their swords, heads hanging. All were torn and bleeding; but the wounds were not deep.

“It is well they broke,” panted Fenodyree, “for I was near spent.”

“Ay,” said Durathror, “it will go hard with us if they come again.”

Gowther reversed his grip on his ash stick, which he had been wielding with terrible effect, and pointed.

“And yon have not been idle, sithee. We'll have to be thinking quick!”

The morthbrood were pouring in from all sides; only to the south-west was the land not thickly dotted with running figures. The near groups were not heading for the top of Shuttlingslow, but were moving to encircle it; and out of the valley of Wildboarclough, seven hundred feet below at the foot of the hill's eastern slope, came a band of svarts, five hundred strong. There was no Cadellin.

“Can we stem this flood, cousin?” said Fenodyree.

Durathror shook his head.

“By weight of numbers they will conquer. But since it has come to this we must draw what teeth we may before we go down to rest. And it is how I would wish to die, for so have I lived.”

“Well,
I'm
not going to let them have the stone as easily as that!” cried Susan. “You stay if you like, but I'm off!”

And she started down the hill at a mad speed towards where the numbers of the morthbrood were thinnest.

“Come back, Sue!” shouted Colin.

“No!” said Gowther. “She's the only one round here as is talking sense. Well, come on! Are you fain to let her go by herself?”

They sprang after Susan; floundering in the snow, leaping, bounding, falling, rolling, they hurtled after her, unmindful of
bruises, caring nothing for safety, while the air clamoured with the shriek of birds.

Once off the escarpment their gait slackened, yet they were making every effort to hurry. The snow was knee-deep, and clogged the feet like a nightmare. Rocks, reed clumps, hummocks of grass sent them stumbling at every stride. The birds flew low but did not attack.

Over Piggford moor Susan ran, flanked by dwarfs with gleaming swords. A few stray svarts, and the loose-limbed scarecrow creatures barred the way from time to time, but they fell back at the sight of the hard blades. They preferred to join the crowd that was now sweeping round the sides of Shuttlingslow.

The moor curved down three hundred feet to a stream that Susan did not discover in time, and they all slithered into the water, and lost precious seconds there. Choking, they scrambled up the opposite hill. And that climb exhausted the last of their strength. It beat them mentally as well as physically, for it was a convex slope, and the skyline, the apparent top of the hill, was always receding. It was never far away, but they could never reach it. Soon it was nearly beyond them to climb the stone walls that blocked their path, and when they did totter to the crest, and saw that it was only a wide shelf, and that a further incline awaited them, all but Durathror
collapsed as though their legs had been cut from under them.

Durathror looked behind him. Except for one or two stragglers, Piggford moor was bare. Yet the noise of the chase was loud: he heard it clearly, even through the bedlam of the milling birds. The morthbrood must have crossed the stream.

“
Up
!” he cried. But they were not at the top of the final rise when the pursuit came into sight. The svarts, with their snow-skimming feet, and the tireless, bobbing lyblacs had outstripped the morthbrood, and they had at their head one that was worse than all – a mara, grey and terrible. And before the mara ran the two hounds of the Morrigan, their blind heads low to the scent, and their mouths hanging red.

“Stay not for me!” shouted Durathror, facing about.

For a second Fenodyree wavered, then he nodded, and pushed the others on towards the crest of the hill.

The hounds were well ahead of the mara, and the first, drawing near, slowed to a walk, ears pricked forward.

“Ha!” cried Durathror.

The hound paused.

“Ha!”

And as it leapt he ducked, and thrust upwards with both hands to his sword, and the beast was dead before it hit the ground. But it wrenched Dyrnwyn from Durathror's grasp in its fall, and then the other sprang. But Durathror was lightning itself in battle, and the teeth closed not on his
throat, but on his forearm which he rammed between the wet jaws, and over he went, hurled on to his back by the weight of the monster. And while they wrestled the mara strode by unheedingly.

Durathror fumbled for the dagger at his waist: he found it, and the end was quick.

But he could do nothing to save the others. Already the mara towered over them. Bravely, rashly, Fenodyree launched himself upon it, but Widowmaker flew from his hands in a shower of sparks at the first blow, and, leaning down from its twenty feet of grim might, the troll grasped Susan by the wrist, and plucked her from the ground.

The scream that cut the air then stopped svarts and lyblacs in their tracks, and even the birds were hushed. Durathror hid his face, and groaned; tears flooded his cheeks. Again the piteous cry, but weaker now. And again. Shouting wildly, mad with grief, he rose, and snatched for his sword. But the sight that met him brought him straight to his knees. For, limp, in the snow, just as she had fallen, was Susan. Beside her was the mara, and it was shrinking! Like a statue of butter in a furnace heat it writhed and wasted. Its contours melted into formlessness as it dwindled. No sound did it utter again, save a drawn-out moan as movement finally ceased. And there on the moor-top stood a rough lump of rock.

Half-unconscious, Susan knew little of the mara's fate. As
the spiral-patterned clouds and flashing lights withdrew from before her eyes she could only stare at Angharad's bracelet, dented and misshapen from the grip of the stone-cold hand that had fastened upon her wrist.

“Are you all reet, lass?”

“What did you
do
?”

“I'm not hurt. It was the bracelet, I think. What's happened?”

The svarts and the lyblacs were in confusion, and, for the moment, lacked the united courage to advance. Durathror was quick to seize the chance. He faced the crowd, and spoke in a voice for all to hear.

“See how the invincible perish! If such is the fate of the mara, how shall
you
endure our wrath? Let him who loves not life seek to follow further!”

The mob slunk back. But now the morthbrood were at hand, and they were not to be so promptly awed. He knew he had won only a breathing space – just long enough to prevent their being overrun while Susan gathered her strength.

And then Durathror saw what he had lost all hope of seeing: a lone man on the top of Shuttlingslow, two miles away. And as he looked he saw the fall figure leave the crest, and begin to descend.

Durathror joined the others; they, too, had seen.

“But I dunner think yon bunch have,” said Gowther. “Now, how are we going to hold out while he gets here?”

“It is an hour's journey over this ground,” said Fenodyree.

The morthbrood were conferring with the svarts: there was much shouting, and waving of hands. The svarts were not keen to risk the mara's end, while the morthbrood did not want to take the brunt of the dwarfs' swordsmanship themselves. The Morrigan, in her black robes, was screaming furiously.

“Cowards! Liars! They are but
five
! Take them! Take them
now
!”

Fenodyree did not wait for more.

“Come,” he said. “We cannot hold them if
she
is here. We must seek where we may make a stand against them.”

A hundred yards was all they had, and as soon as they moved, the morthbrood surged after them. From the beginning there was little promise of escape, but when they crossed over the top of the hill, and came to a deeply sunk, walled lane, and saw warlocks streaming along it from both sides, they realised finally that this was the end of all pursuits, and, though it may seem strange, they were glad. The long struggle was nearly over, either way: a heavy load of responsibility was lifted from their hearts.

“We shall run while we can!” cried Fenodyree; and he
jumped down into the lane and pulled himself over the wall on the other side. “Look for a place for swords!”

But they had no choice. Lyblacs, armed with staves, thronged the side of the valley below them.

“A circle!” shouted Gowther. “Colin! Susan! Into th' middle!”

And so they took their stand: and all evil closed upon them.

“They are not to die, yet!” cried the Morrigan. “Who takes a life shall answer with his own!”

Back to back the dwarfs and Gowther fought, silently, and desperately. And in between crouched the children. The bestial shouts, the grunts and squeals of dying svarts, echoed from valley to valley. Fenodyree and Durathror wove a net of light with their swords as they slashed, and parried, and thrust. And when Gowther swung his stick skulls split and bones cracked. Their one hope was to survive until the wizard came, but where an enemy fell there was always another to take his place; and another, and another, and another, and another.

They fought themselves to a standstill. Gowther's stick was knocked from his hands, but he bent and took up a svart-hammer in either hand, and from that moment the slaughter increased. Following his example, the weaponless children snatched themselves weapons, and entered into the fight.

And thus for a while the battle ran their way. But it was the last flare of a guttering candle before the night swamps all. The end came suddenly. A svart-hammer crashed home above Fenodyree's elbow, and the bone snapped with the noise of a whiplash. His sword-arm hanging useless, Fenodyree was a broken wall, and soon the enemy would pour through the breach. Durathror acted. He pushed out his free hand behind him while keeping his eyes fixed on his work.

“The stone! Give me the stone!”

Without questioning, Susan ducked behind Gowther, took off the chain bracelet, and locked it about Durathror's wrist. As she did so, a dozen pairs of hands clutched her, and dragged her backwards: but too late. Durathror sprang into the air. Valham enfolded him, and he turned towards Shuttlingslow in a last attempt to save the stone.

And the birds fell upon him like black hail. He disappeared from sight as though into a thunder cloud. The lightning of his sword flashed through the smoke of birds, and the earth grew dark with their bodies; but there were also white eagle feathers, with blood upon them, and their number grew.

The battle on the ground was done: all eyes were upon that in the air. Nothing of Durathror could be seen as the cloud moved slowly away, but few birds were dropping now.

Lower down the hillside a round knoll stood out from the slope, topped by a thin beech wood; and on its crown a tall pillar of gritstone jutted to the sky like a pointing finger. Clulow was its name.

Over this mound the last blow was struck. A white object fluttered out of the base of the mass, hovered for a moment, pitched forward, and crashed through the trees, and lay still.

Down rushed the lyblacs and svarts, howling. At the noise, the figure stirred. Durathror raised his head. Then he hauled himself upright against a grey trunk, steadied himself, and began to walk up the hill. He lurched and stumbled from tree to tree. His mail shirt was ripped half from his back, and Valham hung in ribbons. Often he would stand, swaying on his feet, and it seemed that he must fall backwards, but always he would stagger on, bent almost double, more wound than dwarf, and, at the last, leaning his full weight upon his sword.

So Durathror came to the pillar of stone. He put his back against it, and unclasped his belt. Loosening it, he threw it round the column, and buckled it tightly under his arms so that he should not fall. When this was done, he grasped Dyrnwyn in both hands, and waited.

For ten yards around, the hilltop was bare of trees, and at the edge of the circle the svarts halted, none wanting to be the first to cross the open ground and meet that sword. But it was only for a moment.

“There is the stone!” cried Shape-shifter from behind. “
Take it
!”

“Gondemar!” thundered Durathror.

Where he found the strength is a mystery and a great wonder. But such was his fury that none could withstand him, not even Arthog, lord of the svart-alfar, that was as big as a man. In the thick of the press he came against Durathror, and Durathror brought his sword round in an arc. The svart parried with his hammer, but Dyrnwyn clove through the stone, and Arthog's head leaped from his shoulders. But no sword can shear through stone unpunished, and at the next stroke the blade snapped halfway to the hilt. Yet still Durathror fought, and none who faced him drew breath again; and the time came when the svarts and lyblacs fell back to the trees to regain their strength and to prepare a last assault.

Durathror sagged in his harness, and the stump of Dyrnwyn hung by his side. His head dropped forward on to his chest, and a silence lay upon the hill.

G
rimnir ran. Fear, excitement, greed drove him.

From the top of Shuttlingslow he had watched the chase right to the fall of the mara; and from that high vantage point he had seen something else, something approaching rapidly, away to the north, and although he had been on his guard against danger from that quarter for months, the form it had taken, and the time it had chosen to appear, could not have disturbed him more.

He came unnoticed over the hill above Clulow soon after Arthog died, when every eye was upon Durathror as the svarts withdrew from that still figure with the splintered sword. His gaze rested on the prisoners, each held by two warlocks of the morthbrood, standing between the main body and the wood; and Grimnir checked his stride, hope and distrust conflicting within him.