Spell of the Witch World (Witch World Series) Page 3

We found a way into a small upland dale which had never been settled or visited save by shepherds in season, or cattle drovers, who left huts where they had sheltered during the grazing months. There we stayed, our handful of sheep, our half-score of footsore ponies, glad to be at rest. And the people who had spent their lives combing a living from the sea turned with patient labor to win some sustenance from the hills.

  In high places overlooking the two passes we kept guards. So different had life become that those guards were mainly women, armed with bows and with spears which had once been the harpoons of deep-sea fishermen. Well did we keep watch and ward, for we had seen several times what chanced in small settlements when those raving wolves of scavengers came down.

  It was midsummer of our second year in that pocket of earth, and most of the others were at labor tending what grain and roots we had saved for this season's planting, that I was on hill watch and saw for the first time riders on that faint track which would bring them to the south pass. I raised my bared sword and with the sun flickering on its bright blade signaled the alert down valley. I myself went by previously learned ways to spy closer upon those who came. For by this time we judged all strangers enemies.

  As I lay upon a sunwarmed rock and watched, I could see that they were little threat to us. For we made up in will and preparedness enough to handle these two.

  They were plainly fighting men, but their mail was rusted and gashed. One had been tied to his saddle and drooped so he might have fallen to the ground had it not been for those ties and the fact that his comrade rode close beside him, leading his mount. There were bloodied rags bound around the head and the shoulder of the half-unconscious rider, and about the forearm of his companion.

  That companion looked time and again to their back trail, as if he expected pursuers. He still wore a helm topped with a crest of a swooping hawk, though one wing of that was shorn away. And both had the ragged tatters of heraldic coats over their mail, though whatever device those had once displayed was so raveled as to be unreadable. Not that I was learned in the symbols of the noble Dale houses.

  Both men had swords, now sheathed. And the helmed one a crossbow. But they had no field packs, and their mounts ambled at a footsore pace, as if nigh to floundering.

  I inched a little back and got to my feet in the shadows, setting arrow to bow cord.

  “Stand!”

  My order must have seemed to come from empty air. The helmed man jerked his head. I could not see his face clearly because of the overhang of his headgear, but his hand was on sword hilt in swift, sure movement. Then he must have thought better of what might be useless defiance, for he did not draw.

  “Stand forth yourself, lurker, steel to steel!” His voice was hoarse and low, but he bore himself as one ready to meet trouble as it came.

  “Not so,” I answered. “I have that which will pin death to you, bold man! Come out of your saddle and put your weapons from you.”

  He laughed then.

  “Cut me down as you will, voice from the rocks. I put aside my blade for no man. If you want it—come and take it!”

  Now he deliberately drew his weapon, held it at readiness. Even as he faced me so his comrade stirred and groaned, and the other urged his horse a little on, pushing between the wounded man and where he must believe I stood.

  “Why do you come here?”

  His constant glancing at his back trail remained in my mind and I wondered if he led more trouble to us. Two such men we could handle—but more—

  “We come no place.” There was vast weariness in his voice. “We are hunted men as you can guess if you are not blind. Three days ago Haverdale stood rearguard at the Ford of Ingra. We are what is left of that force. We bought time as we promised, but how much—” He shrugged. “By your speech you are of the Dales, not the Hounds. I am Jervon, once Marshal of Horse—this is Pell, my lord's younger brother.”

  That bristling defiance seeped from him; the weariness lay like a heavy burden on him. And I knew—as if I had cast runes on it—that these men were no menace to my people, unless they drew after them what we could not handle.

  So I came out of hiding. As I wore mail, he believed me a man, and I let him think it. But I brought them into the Dale and to the tending of Aufrica.

  Those with Omund were first ready to find me at fault, saying trouble rode with such strangers. But I asked what else I might have done—slain them out of hand perhaps? And that shamed them, for though their hard life had brought a certain callousness to them, yet they still remembered the old days when a man's door stood open to the world, with bread and drink set always at the table as welcome to all travelers.

  Pell was gravely injured and Aufrica, for all her skill, could not hold back the shadow of death, though she fought valiantly for his life. Jervon, though he had appeared strong and ready to fight, took a fever from his ill-tended wound, and lay with wandering wits and burning flesh for some days. Pell had slipped beyond help and was laid in our small Field of Memory (where four others of our people slept) before he spoke again rationally.

  I had been standing by his bed, watching and wondering if he, too, in the fierce burning of the fever would go from us, and thinking that would be a sad waste of a man, when he opened his eyes and looked straight at me. Then he frowned a little as he spoke:

  “I remember you—”

  His greeting was odd, but many times a person out of grave illness carries half dreams which are confused.

  I brought a cup of herb drink and put my arm about his shoulders to raise him to drink of it.

  “You should,” I told him as he sipped. “I brought you here.”

  He said nothing more, though he still watched me with that faint frown. Then he asked:

  “My lord Pell?”

  I used the saying of the country people. “He has gone ahead.”

  His eyes closed, but I saw his mouth tighten. What Pell had been to him, I did not know. But they were at least battle comrades, and I guessed that he had done much to try to save him.

  But I did not know what to say then. For to some sorrow is a silent thing which they must battle alone, and I thought perhaps Jervon was such a one.

  However, I surveyed him as he lay there. Though he was wasted and gaunt from fever, and perhaps from earlier hardship, he was a man of good presence, tall, if spare of body, but, like my father a swordsman born. He was a Dalesman in that his hair was golden-brown (lighter than the skin of his face and hands which were darkly browned by the weather) and his features well cut. I thought I could like what I saw, save there was no reason to believe that I would ever have any closer contact to continue or deepen such liking. He would heal and then ride away, as had my father and Elyn.

  3

  Tarnished Silver

  YET JERVON did not heal as speedily as we had thought, for the fever weakened him, mainly in his wounded arm. Although he worked grimly at exercises to restore full use, still he could not order fingers to tighten to grip as they should. Patiently, or outwardly so, he would toss a small stone from hand to hand, striving to grip it with full strength.

  However he took part in our work in the dale, both in the ragged fields and as sentry in the hills. And in this much we favored, none trailed him.

  We gathered at night to listen to his accounts of the war, though he spoke of dales, and towns, fords, and roads of which we had never heard, since those of Wark had never traveled far overland until they had been uprooted. By his account the struggle was going ill for the Dales. All the southern coast holdings had long since been overrun, and only a ragged, desperate force had withdrawn to the north and the west. It had been during that last withdrawal that his own people had been overwhelmed.

  “But the Lords have made a pact,” he told us, “with those who have powers greater—or so they say—than those of sword and bow. In the spring of this Year of the Gryphon they met with the Were-Riders of the wastes and those will fight hereafter with us.”

  I heard a low whistle or tw
o, for what he spoke of was indeed an unheard-of thing—that Dalesmen should treat with the Old Ones. For of those the Were-Riders were. Though the Dales had lain mainly empty at the coming of the settlers, yet there were still a few of those who had held this land eons before. And not all of them were such unseen presences as my mother had dealt with, but rather resembled men.

  Such were the Were-Riders, men, in part, in other ways different. There were many tales about them and none which could be sworn to, since they were always reported third- or fourth-hand. But that they were a formidable force to enlist on our side no one could deny. And such was our hatred for the invaders—those Hounds of Alizon—that we would have welcomed monsters if they would march with our host.

  The long summer became fall and still Jervon worked to restore skill to his hand. Now he took to combing the hills with his crossbow, bringing back game, yet not going as a hunter. He was a lone man, courteous and pleasant. Still as my father had been, one who erected a barrier between himself and the world.

  He stayed with Aufrica until his hurt was healed as well as she could manage then went to make a hut for himself a little apart. Never was he one with us. Nor did I see much of him, save at a distance. But since my skill with the bow was in much demand to lay up meat to be dried and salted (we had found a salt lick, a very precious thing), I was not often in our straggle of huts.

  Then one day I slid down a steep bank to break my thirst at a bubbling spring. There he lay. He must have been staring up at the sky, but at my coming he started up, his hand to sword hilt. But what he said to me was no greeting:

  “I remember where I saw you first—but that cannot be so!” He shook his head as if completely puzzled. “How can you ride with Franklyn of Edale and also be here? Yet I would have sworn—”

  I turned to him eagerly. For if he had seen Elyn, then indeed he would be bewildered by our likeness.

  “That was my brother, born at one birth with me! Tell me. when did you see him—and where?”

  The puzzlement faded from Jervon's face. He sat working his hand upon a stone as he always did. “It was at the last muster at Inisheer. Franklyn's men have devised a new way of war. They hide out in the land and allow the enemy to push past them, then harry them from the rear. It is a very dangerous way.” Jervon paused looked at me quickly, as if he wished he had not been so frank.

  I answered his thought. “Being his father's son Elyn would glory in such danger. I never believed he could be found far from action.”

  “They have won great renown. And your brother is far from the least among them. For all his youth they name him Horn Leader. He did not speak at our council, but he stood at Franklyn's shoulder—and they say by Franklyn's will he is handfasted to the Lady Brunissende. who is Franklyn's heiress.”

  I could think of Elyn as a fighter and one of renown, but the news that he was hand-fasted made me blink. Seasons had passed, yet I saw him still in my mind the boy who had ridden out of Wark, untaught in the ways of war, yet eager to see sword bared against sword.

  Moved by the thought of time, I wondered about myself. If Elyn was a man, then I was a woman. Yet of the ways of a woman I had little knowledge. In my father's day I had learned to be a son, from Aufrica to be a Wise Woman. But I had never been myself—me. Now I was a hunter, a fighter if the need demanded. But I was not a woman.

  “Yes, you are very like,” Jervon's voice broke through my straying thoughts. “This is a strange, hard life for a maid, Lady Elys.”

  “In these days all is awry,” I made swift answer. For I was not minded to let him think I felt that there was aught strange in what I did, or was. It questioned my pride and that I would not allow.

  “And it seems this must be so forever!” Now he looked at his hand, flexing his fingers.

  My eyes followed his. “You do better!” It was true, he had more control.

  “Slow, but it mends,” he agreed. “When I can use arms again I must ride.”

  “Whither?”

  At that he smiled with a touch of grimness. But, limited though it was, that change of expression made him for an instant like another person. And I suddenly wondered what Jervon would be if the darkness of war were lifted from him and he free to seek what he wanted of life.

  “Whither is right, Lady Elys. For I know not where this dale of yours lies in relation to those I rode with. And when I set forth it will be a case of hunting to find—rather than be found—by the enemy.”

  “The snows are early in this high country.” I drank from a palmful of water. It was very cold, already there might have been ice touched at its source. “We are shut in when the passes close.”

  He looked to the peaks, from one to another.

  “That I can believe. You have wintered here though.”

  “Yes. It means tight-pulled belts toward spring, but each year we make better of what we have, lay in more supplies. There were two extra fields planted this year. The mills have ground twice as much barley this past month. Also we have salted down six wild cows, the which we were not lucky enough to have last year.”

  “But what do you do when snow closes in?”

  “We keep within. At first we suffered from lack of wood.” I could shudder even now at the memory of that and the three deaths which came of it. “Then Edgir found the black stone which burns. He did it by chance, having set his night-hunter-fire against such a stone—it caught afire and kept him well warmed. So now we haul in baskets of it—you must have seen the bins against each hut. We spin, we weave, we carve deer's horn and wood, and make the small things which keep life from being too harsh and gray.

  “There is a songsmith—Uttar. He tells not only the old tales, but fashions new ones from our own wanderings. He also has made a lap-harp to play upon. No, we are not lacking life and interest during the cold.”

  “And this is what you have known all your life, Lady Elys?” There was a note in his voice I did not understand.

  “In Wark there was more. We had the sea and trade with Jurby. Also—Aufrica and I—we have much to keep us busy.”

  “Yet you are what you are—no fisher maid, nor farm wench.”

  “No—I am Wise Woman, hunter, warrior— And now I must be about my hunting.”

  I arose, disturbed at that note in his voice. Did he dare to pity me? I was Elys and I had much more within the hollow of my hand than perhaps any dale lady. Though I might not have my mother's learning, yet there were places I could go, things I might do, which would turn such fragile flowers into quivering, white-faced nothings!

  So I left him with a small wave of the hand, and went seeking hill deer. Though I had little luck that day and brought back only two forest fowl for all my tramping.

  Through all these days I never ceased to draw out the cup binding Elyn and me and look upon it each day. Though I did this secretly. It was on the fourth day after my chance meeting with Jervon that I drew aside the covering and was startled. For the gleaming beauty was dimmed, as if some faint tarnishing had spread a film across it.

  Aufrica, seeing that, cried out. But I was silent, only inside me was a sharp thrust, not of pain, but of fear which was in itself a kind of pain. I rubbed hastily at the metal, to no purpose. This was not caused by any dust, or moisture condensing on the surface, but an inner clouding. It was not lifeless and dead, which would mean Elyn was beyond any help of mine, but that he was in danger this was the first warning.

  I spoke to Aufrica. “I would far-see—”

  She went to the rude cupboard now the safekeeping place of all her painfully gathered stores. From there she took a large shell with a well-polished interior.

  Also she gathered small vials and a leathern bottle and a copper pot no bigger than my hand. Into the last she dropped powder pinch by pinch. Then began to combine in a beaker a drop of this, a spoon measure of that, until she had a dark red liquid washing there as she turned it around and around to mix it.

  “It is ready.”

  I pulled a splinter from the
firebox, dipped it to the flame, and with it ignited the contents of the pot. Greenish smoke, strong scented, curled up. Aufrica poured the crimson stream into the dragon cup, taking care it reached almost to the inner rim yet did not overflow. Then quickly she repoured it into the shell basin.

  Before that I sat. The scented smoke made me feel a little lightheaded, as if, did I not use my will to remain on the stool, I might float away. Now I leaned forward and looked into the ruby pool in the shell.

  This was not the first time I had used the power of scrying, yet never before had it been of such importance to me. So I was tense and willed the sight to come quickly and clearly. The red of the liquid faded and I saw, as one looking into a room from a far distance. For it was a room which was pictured there. The details, though small, were clear and sharp.

  By the shadows it was night, yet a candle-holder as tall as a man's shoulder stood at one end of a curtained bed. In that a fist-thick candle burned bright. The bed was rich, its curtains patterned by a skillful needle, and those curtains had not been closed. Resting therein against pillows was a young girl of the Dales people. Her face was fine of feature and very fair, her unbound hair ribbons of gold about her shoulders. She slept—or at least her eyes were closed.

  In all it was a scene of rich splendor such as might be from some tale a songsmith created.

  But the girl was not alone for, even as I watched, one moved out of the shadows. As the candlelight fell full upon his face, I saw it was my brother, though older than I remembered him. He glanced at the sleeping girl as if he feared her waking.

  Then he went to the wall where was a window. That was closed by a great shutter with three bars locked across it, as if he, or those who had closed it, wanted to make very sure it could not be opened in haste.

  Elyn brought forth a dagger and began to pry here and there. On his face was intent concentration, as if what he did now was of such importance that nothing else mattered.

  He wore a loose bedchamber robe girdled about him, and, as he raised his arms to lever with the dagger, the wide sleeves fell back to show his bare, well-muscled arms. On the bed the covers were tumbled, the pillow dented where he must recently have lain. Yet he worked with such dire determination that I could feel it as I watched.