Three Hearts and Three Lions (22 page)

She sank to her knees and covered her face. Carahue stooped over her, but she pushed him aside. Hugi’s gnarled shape approached, laid an arm over her back, and took her hand. She clung to the dwarf. The breath hissed between her lips.

Carahue went to Holger and said grimly, “So ’tis true what I heard in Huy Braseal and what has been rumored among men since my return. Chaos arms for war.”

He stood a while longer, silent among shadows, before he raised his sword a trifle and said, “My last time on earth, hundreds of years agone, I once wandered into these same marchlands. In those days the hillmen were heathen too, but a clean sort of heathen. They did not worship devils nor eat human flesh. They’ve been corrupted, to be the instruments of man’s enemy. Their chiefs have been received into the coven, and the coven gives those chiefs orders to lead the tribesmen against the valley folk. Mayhap this meeting tonight was the last of many. The cannibals may start gathering their hosts tomorrow.”

“I think so,” Holger answered mechanically.

“You think much you do not choose to relate,“ Carahue said.

He thrust his blade into its sheath. “No matter. We need sleep worse than we need talk. Another time I shall take up certain questions with you.”

“Thanks for the warning,” said Holger.

He hadn’t expected he could sleep at all, and certainly his slumber was not restful, an uneasy half-consciousness crawling with visions. He was glad when Hugi roused him to take his watch, gladder still when day broke.

They bolted their rations, saddled their horses, and were off. Holger did not look back at the lake, where it glimmered beneath white vapors, and soon it was far behind. The weather had turned chill, a scud of gray clouds under a leaden overcast. The mountain slopes up which the party rode grew ever more barren, until nothing covered them but clumps of harsh silvery grass. Pinnacles thrust eroded outlines across a horizon dominated in the north by a sheer scarp. Alianora said they must climb this, through a gap she had spotted from the air, to get out on the wold. There were easier passes, but those lay too close to the savage towns. Nobody dwelt near this one.

Hugi wrinkled his nose and spat. “Aye, well micht they folk shun these parts,” he rumbled. “Each step forward strengthens the troll stench. Yon cliff maun be riddled wi’ his caves and burrows.”

Holger stole a glance at Alianora’s troubled face, where she rode between him and Carahue. “We’ve overcome quite a variety of creatures thus far,” he said, hoping to cheer her. “Witches, Pharisees, a dragon, a giant, a werewolf. What’s a troll among friends, except a Christmas song?”

“Eh?” Startled, she blinked at him.

“Sure.” But he discovered that the Romance language would not render the English phrase: “Troll, the ancient Yuletide carol. “

Hugi said dourly, “Methinks I’d liefer face all oor past playmates rolled into ane, than the haunter o’ yon pass. Like a wolverine to a bear, so be a troll to a giant. Not so big, mayhap, but fierce beyond measure, cunning, and gripsome o’ life. Many giants ha’ been killed by mortal men, this way or that, but the tale is that no knicht ha’ ever come off victor against a troll.”

“So?” Carahue lifted his brows. “Are they not pained by iron?”

“Aye. That is, iron will burn ’em, as a red-hot poker’ud burn ye. Yet ye micht easily overcome a man who fought ye wi’ sic a weapon, and soon recover from what wounds ye got. Trolls are akin to the ghouls, and thus may gang near holiness if it be not too great. Yer cross will give scant help unless ye be a saint. More I dinna know, for few who saw a troll ha’ e’er returned to describe habits nor habitat.”

“It would be a famous exploit to slay one,” said Carahue on a note of chivalrous ambition.
Me, I’ll stay obscure if I may, Holger thought.

They plodded on. It was near noon when they emerged from a rocky defile and spied the hillmen.

There was no warning. Holger reined in with a curse. His heart slammed against his ribs, once, before he lost fear in simple urgency. He stared ahead. Whetted, his eyes saw with the fullness of vision by lightning.

There were perhaps a score, dogtrotting from the north, down the mountainside. They swerved as they glimpsed him and approached quickly. Their cries were like dogs barking.

The leader was big and gaunt, his yellow hair and beard in twin braids, his face painted in red and blue stripes. A headdress of plumes and ox horns rose over him. His shoulders were covered by a mantle of badger skins, his midriff by a shaggy kilt. But he had a steel battle ax in his hand.

The others were similar. Axes, swords, spears gleamed among them. One wore the rusty tilting helmet of some murdered knight, a horrible faceless thing to see upon his naked body. Another blew a wooden whistle as he ran; the notes trilled between wolfish voices.

“Back!” exclaimed Carahue. “We’ll have to flee!”

“We can’t escape them,” groaned Holger. “Men can run down horses. And we’ve got to reach St. Grimmin’s soon.”

A javelin clattered yards before him, “Get aloft Alianora!” he shouted.

“Nay,” she said. One hand clutched blindly for his.

“You can fight better thus,” said Carahue. Holger wished his own wits operated that quickly. The girl nodded, kicked loose from her stirrups, and transformed. The swan rose in a thunder of wings.

The war band stopped. A yell went up. Several covered their eyes.
“Allah akbar!”
exploded Carahue. “They’re terrified of magic. Merciful saints, I meant to say.”

The swan dove toward the savages. The leader shook his ax at her, snatched a bow from one of the men and nocked an arrow. The swan veered just in time. The leader shouted at his men, uncouth noises borne faintly down the wind to his quarry. He kicked those who had fallen prostrate until they climbed to their feet.

“Aye.” Hugi’s mouth tightened in the white beard. “That un be in the coven. He’s seen worse witchcraft nor this. He’s heartening the others to rush on against us.”

“Their nerve is none too steady, though,” said Carahue, lightly as if he sat at a banquet. He strung his own short double-curbed bow. “Could we pull another trick or two—” He cocked an eye at Holger.

The Dane thought wildly of parlor tricks, of urging the cannibal chief to take a card, any card... Wait! “Hugi,” he gasped, “Strike me a light—”

“What is’t ye do?”

“Light! Damn your questions! Fast!”

The dwarf got flint and steel from his belt pouch while Holger stuffed his pipe. His fingers shook. By the time he had it lit, the hillmen were horribly close. He could see the scar on one cheek, the bone in another nose; he heard their bare feet slap the ground, almost he heard their breath. He inhaled, raggedly, to fill his mouth with smoke.

He exhaled.

The savages skidded to a halt. Holger fumed till his eyes smarted and his nose ran. God be praised, there was no wind just now. He guided Papillon with his knees, raising his cloak behind his head with both hands, to provide a dark backdrop for the smoke. Slowly, he rode toward the warriors. They had stopped dead. He saw them waver. Their jaws were slack and their eyes a-bug.

Holger flapped his arms. “Boo!” he shouted.

One minute afterward, the heathen were out of sight. The slope was littered with weapons they had dropped. Their screams drifted from the ravine into which they had bolted. The leader held his place alone. Holger drew sword. The leader snarled and ran too. Carahue shot an arrow after him, but missed.

Alianora landed, became a girl, threw herself against the Dane and hugged his leg. “Oh, Holger, Holger,” she choked. Carahue dropped his bow to clutch his sides, for the echoes had begun to ring with his laughter.

“Genius!” he whopped. “Sheer genius! Rupert, I love you for this!”

Holger smiled shakily. He’d simply taken another crib from literature—the
Connecticut Yankee
—but there was no reason to discuss that point. Enough that it had worked.

“Let’s get going,” he said. “Their boss may yet whip some courage back into them.”

Alianora sprang to the saddle. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked happier than she had for some time. Hugi observed grumpily, “Aye, their guts oozed oot fast enough. Yet ’twas ne’er said yon breed are aught but bonny fighters. Why should they shy from a seeming touch o’ wizardry? Because o’ late they’ve seen so much o’ ’t, and so nasty, that their nerves are close to breaking. That’s all. We’ve no seen the last o’ them.”

Holger had to agree. He doubted the band had intercepted him coincidentally. Morgan must have ordered it out—even across the feared pass—the moment she learned Rusel had not been able to keep him prisoner. She wouldn’t quit after this failure, either.

Carahue edged his mount close. “Methought I heard the fair lady call you by a name strange to me,” he remarked.

Alianora flushed. “N-n-nay,” she stammered. “Ye must ha’ misheard.”

Carahue arched his brows, too polite to call her a liar in so many words. She moved her own horse beside his until knees touched. “This is a wearisome journey,” she murmured. “will ye no beguile our way with some further tale o’ your exploits? Ye’ve done so many bold deeds, and ye relate them so well.”

“Oh, now... Ahem!” Carahue grinned, twirled his mustache, and launched into a recital. The girl listened wide-eyed to the most outrageous, if smoothly phrased, brags that Holger had heard in his life. Presently her respectful oh’s and ah’s got too much for the Dane to bear. He jerked harshly on Papillon’s reins and rode to one side by himself. The pleasure of his victory had quite departed.

21

EVENING FOUND THEM under the pass. It proved to be an upward gash through the cliff, covered deep with sharded rock, where the mountain had been faulted. The climb to the plateau next day would take hours. Thereafter, Alianora said, they would not lack many miles of their goal, and travel should be easy.

Easy as the descent to hell
, Holger thought with a shiver. The agnostic engineer in him observed that so far the path had been more like the proverbial road to heaven. But the engineer’s world seemed infinitely far away, in time as well as in space, a dream he had once had, fading out of his memory as all dreams must.

Beneath the precipices they found a meadow, if that patch of soil was not too barren to rate the name, and established camp. In the center loomed a tall monolith. It might have been a pagan menhir, before the troll that Hugi smelled came to nest in some nearby cave and drive humans away. Darkness clamped down. The wind had resumed, and strengthened hourly. Orange flames streamed along the ground; sparks flew off like meteors and were as swiftly snuffed. Overhead lay a blackness where the gibbous moon was seen in rare glimpses, racing among monstrous cloud shapes. The night was full of whistlings, rustlings, and croakings.

The party were too exhausted to do more than swallow a little food and roll up in their blankets. Hugi took the first watch, Holger the second. By that time the night was absolute. Holger poked the fire, drew his cloak tightly about him against the cold, and looked down at his companions.

The blaze picked them out in guttering highlights. Carahue slept like a cat, as quiet and easy as when he was awake. Hugi had rolled himself into a cocoon of blanket from which only his lustily snoring nose projected. Holger’s eyes went to Alianora and remained there. The blanket had slid off her. She lay on her side, legs drawn up and hands clasped over the small breasts. Her face, glimpsed through a tangle of hair, was childlike, blind with sleep, a strangely helpless look. Holger stooped to tuck her in. His lips brushed her cheek and she smiled without waking.

He rose. A heaviness was in him, more for her than himself. If he had been snatched by irresistible warring powers, too bad, but he hated the thought of her being whirled along with him, he knew not whither. What could he do, though? What could he do?

He struck one fist into the other palm. “God damn it,” he mumbled, “God damn it,” and didn’t know if he cursed or implored.

“Holger.”

He jerked around. The sword leaped into his hand. Nothing met his glare but murk, out beyond the firelight. The wind blew, the dry grass murmured, somewhere an owl screamed.

“Holger.”

He trod to the edge of the charmed circle. “Who’s that?” Despite himself, he spoke softly.

“Holger,” said the voice. “Do not call out. You are the only one I would speak with.”

His pulses sprang. The sword dropped, as if grown too heavy for him. Morgan le Fay walked into the light.

It wavered, painting her red against blackness. Shadows caressed the body within the fluttering long dress. The fire touched her eyes and lit tiny flames therein. “What do you want?” Holger husked.

Her smile was slow and beautiful. “Only to speak with you. Come here to me.”

“No.” He shook his head violently, hoping to clear it. “Nothing doing. I won’t step beyond the circle.”

“You need have no fear. At least, not of any beings whom your symbols would halt. They are elsewhere, readying for battle.” She shrugged. “But do as you wish.”

“What have you got, then, to threaten me with?” he asked. “More cannibals?”

“Those whom you met today were under my command to take you alive at any cost,” she said earnestly. “You would have done best to yield to them. They would have borne you to me, unharmed.”