To The King A Daughter Page 4

  There was, of course, a rational answer, but Ashen preferred to keep them in awe for as long as possible. Tusser snarled. He was never one to take opposition lightly.

  "Are you lost, shield-men?" The girl inquired as one who had been asked for directions and was able to give them. "You must retrace your steps—"

  Tusser merely laughed unpleasantly. "C'mon over here and let's all play. We knows nice games." He wriggled his body in a suggestive manner, and Ashen knew that her worst suspicions had been correct.

  She tightened her grip on the cord around her neck that held the stone. They were watching her closely, yes. But—

  She leaped to her feet. In one hand she clutched the carry-basket containing her reed harvest, and with her other, she sent the power- stone whirling in a circle over her head at the end of the woven string.

  A thunderous roar filled the little clearing. Then, after the first burst of sound that sent her pursuers, frightened, back a few steps, it dropped to a droning hum. From the power-stone there spread a growing shadow; it descended to encase and befog her whole body. This trick, one that Zazar had told her about and that she had practiced against just such an occasion as this, was working.

  By the open astonishment on their flat-nosed, wide-mouthed faces, she knew they could scarcely see her, though she could make them out clearly enough.

  She had to pick her path very carefully now, so that she would not come too close to them once she crossed the water onto the firm land. They were drawing in, bringing their shields up, one throwing-spear at the ready and the other in reserve.

  Ashen touched one foot to the murky water. The opaque surface shivered about her ankle as she put her full weight upon it. She was sure of her earlier explorations. Well-hidden under the discolored surface she had discovered broad stepping-stones, certainly arranged by intelligent purpose in the past.

  Though Tusser was now stubbornly holding his ground, his two companions had retreated a few more steps again. Some of Ashen's own confidence was shaken. If she held to the path of the stones hidden beneath the water, she would emerge on the high land almost directly in front of Tusser. She kept the power- stone on the blue-and- green cord buzzing in a constant circle above her head, and she was sure that she remained unseen.

  Now, however, Tusser was raising his spear. His desire to get at his quarry was beginning to overpower his first startled awe. She had never tested it, but thought that the shadow was no real protection. It would provide no barrier, no shield against a weapon, for it was meant only to guard her by confusing another's sight.

  Ashen had reached the final step. With a sinking heart, she felt that she had dared too much—had believed they would falter before the unknown. As Zazar had pointed out on several occasions, Ashen was inclined to act too soon after gaining any new knowledge. Silently, she vowed to listen more carefully the next time, if there were a next time.

  Now she pursed her lips and whistled. This trick she had never tried. She had read it only as a faint line on the graven tablet from which Zazar had shown her the use of the power-stone.

  It might not have been pitched as well as it should have been, but the throaty half-whistle was picked up instantly by the hum of the stone. And, to her relief and amazement, it was answered! The layer of protective mist around her deepened, and from within it, she could tell that the sound of the stone held its listeners so they could not move, at least not for a while.

  Ashen prepared to step off the last submerged stone and past Tusser. His gaze was now fixed not on the shadow enveloping her, but on something else, something she sensed behind her. She needed all her courage not to look. But the stark fear that masked Tusser's face was a fierce warning. The water about her ankles washed higher, not from her movements, and with a paralyzing chill, she knew that something was stirring in the depths of the pool.

  His fear overcoming the effect of the humming of the stone, Tusser threw his spear. Todo shrieked as he hurled himself back into the brush curtain. Sumase had already disappeared.

  Though Ashen had stopped whistling, the sound continued to echo at each swing of the stone. Whatever it was behind her, it uttered a horrible, croaking bellow.

  Tusser half crouched, his second spear ready.

  Then his shout rang out, challenging both Ashen and the creature that had made the bellow. "The deep one! Boggit! Be you his feast, Outland witch, and not me!"

  And she might well be just that if she could not get past that last stepping-stone and reach safe footing— which was too near to Tusser, much too near!

  Water swirled higher. Desperate, she kept the power-stone humming. She would much rather take her chance with the enemy in front, one she knew, than with that which was rising, almost lazily, behind her.

  Ashen steadied herself to take the last step. The croaking grew louder, higher-pitched, and became a sound that was like a thrust of sharp light through her temples.

  Tusser dropped his spear and clutched at his head. His wide mouth opened and a scream of sheer terror overrode the droning hum of the stone.

  He did not retreat backward; rather, he made a sidewise leap away and landed in the brush. The branches broke under his weight. Not even trying to regain his feet, he scrambled on all fours, hindered by his shield, which caught between two of the thicker branches until he shrugged it off and left it behind. The broken spikes of the greenery arose to conceal him.

  Ashen had wit enough left to make a try for the solid land while the creature's attention was presumably still focused on Tusser. She stumbled and fell to her knees. The power-stone on the cord faltered in its swing and hit her shoulder, hard.

  The echo of its last round was swallowed by a thick bellow. Against her will, she turned and looked back.

  The horrors that dwelt in the lowest portion of the Bog-pools and dark streams were well known to all by story, by legend, by drawings in mud and on walls. In a way, the Bog-folk were grateful to these creatures and considered them an additional barrier to penetration from the outer world. But few, a very few, of the boggits had ever been seen in the open day.

  The monstrous shape showed only its forequarters clearly; the rest of it was still hidden under the churning surface of the pond. Ashen knew well the small swamp-luppers, for it was part of her duties to hunt them for the pot and for their leather. But even the drawings had not conveyed the immensity of the ones

  Zazar named "boggarts" and the people called "boggits." This wide mouth— a yellow-green cavern, a tooth-walled cave—could belong only to a lupper of more mass than the hillock Ashen had recently left. The baleful yellow eyes, set high on its head, swiveled independently, searching for… for what?

  Frantically, she scrambled forward on the firm land, even though she sensed that this boggart was one that could exist in the open air as well as in water. She dared to glance backward. It floated at ease, eyeing her as if it were supremely confident that it could finish its hunt at leisure.

  The Bog-lands were ever treacherous, sometimes only a quivering surface over the peril beneath. Though Ashen was again on ground able to support her weight, with that thing lurking behind her, she must move, and her choice of direction meant perhaps the difference between life and death.

  Her arm was now wearied to the point that she could no longer swing the stone; even that small defense was useless now.

  Ashen struggled to her feet. In addition to ruining her covering spell, she had lost her basket, though she still had her stone, as well as her shell knife.

  This was small comfort; she doubted that any weapon known in the Bogs would serve her now. Before her, broken branches marked Tusser's retreat.

  She plunged forward even as a mighty croak sounded from behind. She did not look back. In spite of the thorn scratches and whip-stripes the brush left upon her, she thrashed her way through it with all the speed she could summon.

  The brush was like a miniature forest, raising tips of growth well above her head to swallow her from any ordinary danger. However, that
would be no barrier to the creature behind if it chose to follow. She must not fall. There were always slick patches of footing on even the largest and most stable of the landmasses, quick to bring the unwary down.

  She still had the stone. It swung against her knee and struck flesh bared and bloody from the rents that thorns had torn in her lupper- skin garments. Her knee hurt as if a brand from a cook fire had seared it, and she took a reckless forward leap, which landed her face down. Under her, the earth quivered, as if from huge footsteps. The thing from the pool must have picked this moment to hunt, and its huge body now shared with her this scrap of firm land.

  As Ashen tried to crawl on, another bellow erupted from the creature pursuing her. It was not a hunting call, but a sound of pure rage and pain. The beast must have met with some unknown mishap, perhaps from the thorns that had tormented her. Whatever had happened, it was a fortune for which she would be forever thankful. As she tore her way deeper into the brush, her every movement released from the spongy carpet beneath her the fetid breath of long- dead vegetation. She panted for lack of clear air. At last she broke out, gasping into an open space. As she ripped flesh and garment on the last sharp- tnorned branch, she dared to look back again.

  The taller growth, through which her last plunge had taken her, was moving.

  There was another cry of rage, but different this time, not that of a boggit.

  Then a spearshaft skimmed across her shoulder; it would almost certainly have brought her down had she not turned when she did.

  "She-demon!"

  Tusser! He was almost close enough to touch her.

  Ashen threw herself to the left. He would have to turn aside to retrieve his spear, now lodged in the brush. She knew he was still armed with one of those deadly bone-knives that Bog-folk used with ease.

  He made a mad rush in her direction before she could gather her feet under her.

  Then he stopped as suddenly as if he had slammed into an invisible barrier. She could see his features actually mash out of shape. He cried out; the knife fell from his hold, and then he was down, scrabbling it into his grasp again.

  With all the quick skill of a Bog-hunter, he threw the knife her way. However, just as his leap for her had come to such an abrupt halt, so did his weapon halt. It struck nothingness—a nothing that echoed—and fell to the ground.

  Tusser's cry of rage was nearly as loud as that of the horror from the pool.

  Flecks of white appeared at the corners of his thick lips. "Call off boggit!

  Call off Gulper! It—"

  At the shoreline, past her enemy, Ashen could still see motion in the brush.

  Whatever the invisible protection might be that had risen to save her, she could not guess, but she found her energy renewed. On her feet once more, she edged toward the left. Now Tusser had retrieved both spear and knife. One spear; he had not retrieved the other that he had surely thrown at the creature from the

  Bog.

  Suddenly Ashen knew what had caused the creature's cry of pain and why Tusser had been frantic to get away. Fear of the monster he had wounded and lust for her had to be warring within him. His burst of boldness told her he must think that his companions were nearby. Indeed, if Sumase and Todo were now to appear on the path she had been forced to choose, she would truly be trapped.

  An earsplitting cry erupted from the brush wall. Tusser whirled, and with a leap nearly as long as any water-creature could make, he was gone.

  The last cry of pain and fear still ringing in her ears, Ashen fled also, in the opposite direction Tusser had taken. Had Sumase or Todo fallen prey to the water-dweller? Surely that cry had come from a human throat! Could she dare hope mat whatever invisible Power had saved her from Tusser's attack could also shield her from the monster?

  Her lungs were laboring as she ran. Then, faced once more by a wall of growth, she fell to a frenzy of pushing and breaking apart the branches, hoping that there would be free space beyond. She could no longer think or plan, but only keep on with such strength as she could summon.

  In the stables attached to the royal residence at Rendel-sham, fifteen- year-old

  Prince Florian was beating one of the grooms.

  "You left a tangle in my horse's mane!" he cried, his voice shrill. "I ought to beat you until you die, die, die."

  "Have pity, Master," the groom pleaded, trying to shield himself from the blows.

  "I could, you know. Beat you until you died. I wonder how long it would take."

  "Florian!"

  The Prince turned with a guilty start. "We were only playing, Mother," he said.

  "It was just a game."

  "Dinas?"

  "It is as Prince Florian said, Lady," the groom replied. He tried to hide the bloody stripe the Prince's riding whip had made across his cheek. "We'm, played a little rough. Please forgive."

  "I am not certain that I believe any of mis," the Queen said, the corners of her mouth turned down sourly. "But no great harm done if the—the game stops now."

  "Oh, we're tired of it anyway," Florian said. He strolled toward his mother.

  "How is Father today?"

  'That is why I came looking for you. He seems a little better. He wants to see you."

  "Oh." The Prince appeared downcast. "If I go and am very, very good, will there be plum pudding for dessert?"

  "You should visit your father's sickroom with a pleasant heart, not angle for a bribe," Queen Ysa told him.

  "Yes, but will there be plum pudding?"

  "Very well. I'll give orders to the cook. And you must be on your best behavior at the midday meal. We have an ambassador at court this day."

  Florian made a face. Having ambassadors at court and having to entertain them was always a trial to him. "I won't sing."

  "Nobody has asked you to."

  "And you can't either."

  "It is manners for the hosts to entertain their guests. You are excused only because you can't carry a tune."

  "I don't want you to sing for anybody but me." He pouted for a moment, and then he shrugged. "Actually, I don't care, as long as there are jugglers and dancing girls."

  So much like his father, Queen Ysa thought, shaking her head sadly. Well, he was still very young. There was plenty of time to train him to loftier pursuits, to make him worthy to succeed to the throne. Boroth was ill, certainly, but in no danger. And he was definitely better this morning. Perhaps he would even recover sufficiently that he could begin to take over his son's instruction himself.

  So thinking, she led Florian away from the stables, toward the lightly fortified residence, in all but defensibility a castle, where the royal apartments were kept. Her mind was already on the errand the man from the northern lands had come seeking.

  Count Bjauden was as bored as Prince Florian was, but he knew better than to show it. Nevertheless, he found himself fiddling with his armlet, a band carved of iridescent, milky stone. It was an heirloom of his House. He twisted it firmly into place and told himself to pay attention.

  He sat in the place of honor at the high table set up in front of a chair upholstered in red velvet. Over this was draped a cloth of state. Had the King been present, he would have occupied this seat, with his favored companions on either side. The Queen, as his deputy, sat in this spot, but not in his chair.

  Down the Hall, at right angles to the high table, there were tables seating others of the court. The din of their conversation was nearly deafening.

  The Prince twisted in his seat and yawned openly while the feast in Bjauden's honor toiled on. A whole roasted swan, prepared in its feathers, lay demolished on a platter, and several bowls of sweetmeats had disappeared into Florian's mouth after he had devoured more than half of a plum pudding. No wonder he was yawning, and no wonder also that he was more than a little plump, and despite his obvious youth, his face was beginning to break out in spots. Bjauden thought of his own son Gaurin, safe in the court of Cyornas NordornKing. Cyornas would not have allowed such behavior from Gaurin,
even though he was but a royal ward, for the length of time it took to pinch out a smoking candle. Bjauden hid his disapproval, however, for the boy's mother doted on her son, and it was from this royal lady that he must beg permission for his people to come and live—those who preferred to escape the turmoil that now gripped the northernmost lands.

  Somewhat to his dismay, the entertainment was not, as he was accustomed to, soft music and brilliant, polished conversation. First, Queen Ysa had sung a song, her husky contralto not entirely sure on some of the notes. Then came the antics of rude acrobats who juggled fire and live puppies in the space between the high table and the rest of the company, followed by the loud, only sometimes harmonious, singing of strolling players—he could not call them musicians. His head was beginning to hurt.