Year of the Unicorn (15 page)

"I woke-I was-called-" Out of somewhere I chose that word to describe the uneasiness which had impelled me here.

"Did I not tell you?" broke in Herrel. "All of the true blood would answer when we-"

"Silence!" That carried the force of a blow in the face. I saw Herrel's body tense, his eyes glitter. He obeyed, but only just.

"And you came where?" Hyron continued.

"Up there." At that moment I could not have raised hand to point. I used my eyes to indicate the rise from which I had viewed their calling.

"Yet-" Hyron said slowly, "you did not fall, you climbed down in return-"

"Kill!"

Halse? Or another? But Hyron was shaking his head. "She is no meat for our rending, pack brothers. Like draws like." He raised his hand and lined a symbol in the air between us. Green it was as if traced in the faintest curl of mist, and then that green became blue which was grey at its dying.

"So be it." Hyron spoke those three words as if he pronounced some sentence. "Now we know-"

He did not move towards me, but Herrel did. And I yielded to his hand. Together we walked slowly, none of the Riders following closely behind, letting the distance grow between us.

"Your gate is open?"

"It is open."

"But-"

"Now is not the time for talking. We shall have many hours for that ahead of us-"

Then he broke the moment of new silence. "I wish-" he began but did not continue, looking never at me but at the way ahead, picking out ever the easiest footing for me.

"What do you wish?" I did not really care much. I was so tired I wanted nothing but to slip into some dark place and there rest content.

"That there was more-or less-"

More or less what? I wondered mistily, not that it mattered. But to that he made no reply.

We came to the tents. The fire was dead, and there were no signs of life-the others must still sleep. Why had I not been able to share that? Since we had passed through the Throat of the Hawk I had shared nothing-nothing-

Herrel brought me back to the bed where the sword had lain between us. Weary I lay down upon it and closed my eyes. I think that I slept-or swooned-because of my great weariness of body and mind.

Had I been adept in the power born in me, but which I used only as a clumsy child would play with a weapon which could either save or harm, then I would have been armed, warned, perhaps able to defend myself against what the new night brought. But Hyron, in that testing, knew me for what I was, witch blood right enough, but unskilled, so no foe to stand against what he could summon and aim.

I had thrown away the one defence Herrel might have set between me and what they intended. Though I was not to know that for long to come.

Hyron moved quickly, and he had the backing of all the pack but one in that moving. Illusions they dealt in-but illusions may be common, or very complex. And the opening of the gate allowed them to draw upon sources of energy which had been dammed from their use for a long time.

I roused as Herrel knelt beside me, cup in his hand, concern in his face, his touch tender. He would have me drink-it was the reviving fluid which had restored me before. I could recall its taste, its spicy scent. Herrel-I put out my hand-it was so heavy-so hard to lift. Herrel's cheek bearing my nail brand-Why had I so misused one who-one who-?

But that cheek wore no brand! Herrel-cat-Or wax it a cat's green eyes watching me? Cat-bear-? My eyelids were so heavy I could not hold them open.

But though I could not see, yet still it would seem that hearing had not foresaken me, the dregs of my power leaving open that small channel to the outer world. I could hear movement in the tent about me. Then I was lifted, carried-

I was aloof, apart from what my ears reported.

"-fear him-"

"Him?" Laughter. "Look upon him, brothers! Can he move to raise his hand, does he even know what we now would do?"

"Yes, he will be content enough to ride with us in the morning."

It was like that beat of their desire in the valley, but now it formed a huge, stifling cloud of will-their will-pushing me down into darkness-with no hope of struggling against it.

The Hounds of Death

THE ASHEN forest about me again-and the hunt! But this was, in its way, worse than it had been before. I looked down upon my breast for that amulet which had been my safety in a sea of terror. This time it did not warm my flesh. I was bare of any defence. Yet I did not run. As once I had said, when fear comes too often, then it loses its sharp edge. I braced my back against one of the dead trees and waited.

Wind-no, not wind, but a purpose so great it sent its force before it as a wind-stirred the leaves which were pallid skeletons of their living brothers. Still did I make myself stand and wait.

There were shadows-but not dark-these were pale and grey and they flitted about, their misshapen outlines hinting of monstrous things. But, as I continued to stand my ground, they only gathered behind the trees, menacing, not attacking.

A wail to follow on that wind of purpose, so high and shrill as to hurt the ears. The shadows swayed and fluttered. Now down the forest aisles moved those who had substance. Bear, wolves, birds of prey; boar, and others I could not name. They walked erect which somehow made them more formidable to my eyes than if they hunted four-footedly.

The need for speech struggled in my throat. Let me but call aloud their names! Only that relief was denied me, and it was as if I suffocated in the need to scream.

Behind the beasts the shadows gathered thickly, their outlines melting, re-forming, melting again, so all that I knew was they were things of terror, utterly inimical to my form of life. Now the pack of beasts split apart and gave wide room to the leader of their company. A long horse head, the wildness of an untamed stallion gleaming in the eyes. And in its human-hands a weapon-a bow of grey-white tipped with silver, a cord which gave off a green gleam.

He who wore the bear's mask held out an arrow. It, too, was green. A spear of light might have been forged into that splinter shaft.

"By the bone of death, the power of silver, the force of our desire-" No spoken words, the invocation rang in my head as a pain thrust, "Thus do we loose one of three, never to be knotted together again!"

The shaft of light set to the cord of light. Now had I desired in that last moment to seek a small and doomed moment of safety in flight, yet I would not have succeeded, for their united wills held me as fast as if I were bound to the tree. And the cord twanged, or else that small sound was sensed rather than heard.

Cold-a bite of frost so bitter and so deep that it was worse than any pain I had ever known. I stood still against the tree-or did I? For in strange double vision now I looked upon the scene as one who had no part in it. There was she who stood, and another she who lay upon the ground. Then she who stood moved forward to that company of beasts, and they ringed her around and vanished among the trees. But she who lay did not move. And now I was she who lay-and the shadows were drawing in to-

I had said fear could become so familiar it no longer was a goad. But there was that in those shadows which caused such a revulsion and terror in me that I answered with a frantic denial of them, of what I saw-And was answered by dark and no knowledge at all-

Cold-piercing cold-I had never known such cold. But cold was my portion now-cold, cold, cold-

I opened my eyes. Over me a leaden sky and from it the falling of snow. Tent-surely there was a tent-?

Slowly I moved, struggled to sit up. Memory also awoke. Those cliffs I had seen before-this was the valley which led to the gate of the Riders' lost land. But it was empty. No tents stood, no mounts in a picket line. Snow drifted a little, but it had not quite yet hidden a ring of fire blackened stones. Fire-heat to banish this body aching cold! Fire!

I crept to those stones on hands and knees, thrust my fingers into the ashes. But they were long dead, as cold as the flesh and bone which probed them.

"Herrel-Kildas-Herrel!" I cried those names and had them echoed ghost-fashion back to me. There came no other answer. The camp, all those who had been within it-gone-utterly gone!

That this was another dream I never believed. This was the truth, and one my mind flinched from accepting. It seemed that the Riders had indeed rid themselves of one they did not want, and by the simplest of methods-leaving me behind in the wilderness.

I had two feet-I could walk-I could follow-

Swaying I got to those feet, staggering along. Only to return again to hands and knees, to crawling. And then-there it was-that unbroken cliff wall. Had there ever been a gate? After all I had not seen it. If there had it was firmly closed once more.

Cold-it was so cold-I would lie in the snow and sleep again and from that sleep there would come no waking. But sleep-sleep perhaps meant an ashen forest and the shadow that crept in to-feed! Painfully I made my way back down over the rubble. There, already powdered with snow was the furred rug on which I had lain. I shuffled to it, to find something else-my bag of

simples.

My hands were so cold I could hardly feel anything my fingers handled, but somehow I brought out one of the vials, got it to my lips, sipped, waited for inner warmth to follow.

No warmth-cold-cold-As if some part of me had been frozen for all time, or else drawn out to leave an empty void into which ice had moulded. But my head cleared, my hands answered the commands of my brain with more skill.

I had the rug on which I had lain, and my bag, the travel stained clothing I wore. There was naught else-no weapon, no food. I might have been left for dead on some battlefield where the victor cared not to honour the remains of the vanquished.

Cold-so cold-

Wood, some wood left. And they had not been wise to discard my simple bag-ho, that had been a grievous mistake on their part. I was better learned in the worth of what I carried so far than they might guess.

I dragged the wood to the fire stones, laid it as best I could, and then smeared on some twigs a fingers tip of salve, to which I added drops from another vial. My hands were steady. They moved easily now. Flame answered, caught easily at the branches around. I drew as close as I might to its warmth.

Warm-on my hands, my face, my body, yes, there was warmth. But inside me, cold, cold, cold emptiness! At last I found the right word for that sense of loss. I was empty-or had been emptied! Of what? Not life, for I moved, breathed, knew not hunger and thirst, which I assuaged with handfuls of snow. The cordial from my bag had quieted the pangs of physical hunger. Still I was empty-and never would I be whole again until I was filled.

That me which the beasts had taken with them-that was what I must find again. But a dream-? No, not wholly dream, they had wrought some sorcery of their own over me when-last night-many nights ago? By all accounts sorcery could alter the wave of time itself. They had left me to the shadows in the dream world-perchance thus, they believed, to one form of death. And if that failed, as it had, then to this other death in the wilderness. Why had they so feared-or hated-me? Because I could not be ensorcelled or shaped, controlled as those others from the Dales?

"Witch." Herrel had named me. And he had spoken as one who knew well of what he spoke.

Dame Alousan was a Wise Woman. She had known more of things outside the beliefs of the Abbey than she had ever said. In her library of old knowledge there were books, books I had understood only in part. Sorcery existed. All men knew that. It was remnants of a kind of learning from a very old day and from other peoples who lived in the Dales before the men of High Hallack came from the south to spread out among the hills. And the Were Riders-all men knew that they controlled powers and forces beyond human ken.

Some such powers were for the good of those who sought them, or they could be shaped for good or ill. And a third sort were neither good nor evil. But beyond the bonds laid by men, yea or nay. There was a flaw in the use even of good powers. That had been early impressed on me until I learned it as an undeniable lesson. For the sense of mastery such use gave the one who practised it led to a desire for more and more. And finally, unless one was strong willed enough to put aside temptation, one ventured from light into shadow, and into the dark from which there was no return.

No return-there might have been no return from that ashen wood for me. And-also there had been something rift from me there. Cold-cold-I pressed my hands tight to my breasts-so cold! Never would I be warm again, filled again-until I won back from those who had taken it that other self of mine. Won back? What chance had I of that? I would die here in the wilderness, or this part of me would die-Oh, I could keep life in me for a short period using those simples and my knowledge-but it would only stave off an inevitable end.