The Fellowship of the Talisman (33 page)

“Well, all right, then,” said Duncan, “if that's the way it is. We'll value your company. Although I must warn you that somewhere along the way we may meet with dragons.”

“I give that for dragons,” said Snoopy, snapping his fingers.

Twigs snapped in the darkness and Conrad came blundering into the firelit circle. He made a thumb, pointing into the air above him.

“See who I've found,” he said.

They all looked up and saw that it was Ghost, who floated down to mingle with them.

“I had given you up, my lord,” he said to Duncan. “I searched and searched for you, but there wasn't any trace. But even as I searched I held true to the task I had been assigned. I watched the Horde, in its many various parts, and lacking anyone to whom I could report, since you were gone, I passed my knowledge on to Snoopy. He was as puzzled as I was as to what could have happened to you, but he had suspicions that your disappearance had something to do with the castle mound and this has now been confirmed by Conrad, whom I was delighted to stumble on just a while ago and …”

“Hold up,” said Duncan, “hold up. There's word I want from you.”

“And I, my lord, have word to give you. But first I must ask, for mine own peace of mind, if you still intend, despite the many interruptions, to continue on to Oxenford. I still retain the hope of getting there for, as you know, I have many troublesome questions to ask the wise ones there. Troublesome questions for me, perhaps, but I hope not for them. It is my most earnest dream they can give me answers that will set me more at ease.”

“Yes,” said Duncan, “we do intend to continue on to Oxenford. But now my question. What about that part of the Horde traveling up the west bank of the fen?”

“They continue north,” said Ghost. “They've picked up speed. They are traveling faster now.”

“And show no sign of stopping?”

“There is no sign of their slackening their pace. They continue lunging onward.”

“That settles it,” said Duncan, with some satisfaction. “We start tomorrow, as soon as we are able.”

27

At the first paling of the eastern sky, they searched for Hubert. They swept the grounds surrounding the castle mound and the stretch of river meadows below and to every side the castle without finding a trace of the griffin. There were, now, fewer of the Little People than there had been the night before, but those who were left aided in the search with a will. Once the search was done, they disappeared, drifting off with no one able to mark their going. All that remained to show they had ever been there were a dozen smoldering, dying campfires spread out on the slope above the castle mound.

Duncan and Conrad pulled their small force together and started out, heading for the fen. To the north loomed the great mass of the hill through which Duncan and his band had passed, its western end cut off sharply where it met the fen. To the south the river wound lazily through the marshy meadows.

The band traveled spread out now rather than in a column, through open land broken here and there by small groves of trees and sparse woodland, the space between covered by low ground cover and patches of hazel. The morning, which had dawned clear and bright, became dismal as heavy clouds moved in from the west, not covering the sun, but dimming it so that it became little more than a pale circle of light.

Less than an hour after starting, they heard the first faint sound of wailing. Subdued by distance, it still was clear, a far lament of loneliness with an overtone of hopelessness, as if the cause of wailing would never go away, but would endure forever.

Walking beside Duncan, Diane shivered at the sound of it.

“It goes through one,” she said. “It cuts me like a knife.”

“You've never heard it before?” he asked.

“Yes, of course, at times. But from far off and I paid no attention to it. There are always funny noises coming off the fen. I had no idea what it was and …”

“But the wizards would have known.”

“Knowing, they might not have told me. Except when I went to search for Wulfert, I seldom left the castle. In many ways, although I was not aware of it, I lived a protected life.”

“Protected? You, a warrior maid …”

“Don't mistake me,” she said. “I am no forlorn waif, no damsel in distress. I rode on certain forays and I learned the art of arms. And that reminds me, there's something I must thank you for. You believed with me in the blade.”

She carried it naked in her hand, for there was no scabbard for it. She cut a small figure with it and it flashed even in the faint sunlight.

“It is a good piece of steel,” he said.

“And that is all?”

“Snoopy told you nothing. You should ask no further.”

“But there was a sword lost long ago and …”

“There have been many swords and many of them lost.”

“All right,” she said. “That's the way we leave it?”

“I think it's for the best,” said Duncan.

They had been breasting the uplift of a long and gentle swale and now they came to the top of it, all of them bunched together and staring toward the west, where they could see the thin faint blueness of the fen. At the bottom of the uplift lay a long thin strip of forest lying between them and the fen, running from the cut-off mass of the northern range of hills as far south as they could see.

Scratch edged up to Duncan, tugging at his jacket for attention.

“Scratch, what do you want?” asked Duncan.

“The woods.”

“What about the woods?”

“It wasn't there before. I remember from the time that I was here. There wasn't any woods. The land ran smooth down to the fen.”

“But that was long ago,” said Conrad. “A long, long time ago.”

“Several centuries,” said Diane. “He's been chained in the castle for that long.”

“In several centuries,” said Duncan, “a woods could have grown up.”

“Or he remembers incorrectly,” said Conrad.

Andrew growled at them, thumping his staff on the ground. “Pay no attention,” he said, “to that imp of Satan. He is a troublemaker.”

“Meg,” asked Duncan, “do you know about this woods?”

“How could I?” asked the witch. “I've not been here before.”

“It looks all right to me,” said Conrad, “and I always am the first to sniff out trouble. Just an ordinary woods.”

“I can detect nothing wrong with it,” said Snoopy.

“I tell you,” shrilled Scratch, “it was not there before.”

“We'll proceed cautiously,” said Conrad. “We'll keep on the watch. To get to the fen, it is quite clear that we must make our way through the woods.”

Duncan looked down at Scratch, who still was standing close beside him, still with a hand upon the jacket as if he meant to tug it once again, In the other hand he held a long-handled trident, its three tines barbed and sharp.

“Where did you get that?” asked Duncan.

“I gave it to him,” said Snoopy. “It belonged to a goblin that I know, but it is too heavy and awkward for such as we to wield.”

“Giving it to me,” said Scratch, “he remarked that it was appropriate to me.”

“Appropriate?”

“Why, certainly,” said Snoopy. “You are not up, my lord, on your theology.”

“What has all of this got to do with my theology?” asked Duncan.

“I may be wrong,” Snoopy told him, “but I thought it was an old tradition. I happened, not too long ago, upon a scroll that I supposed, from what I saw of it, must have recorded Bible stories. I did not take the time to puzzle out any of the barbarity of your written language, but I did look at the pictures. Among them I found a drawing, rather crudely done, showing demons, such as this friend of ours, pitchforking a number of disconsolate humans into the flames of Hell. The instruments the demons used to do the forking very much resembled this trident that our present demon holds. That is all I meant when I suggested that such a weapon might be appropriate to him.”

Duncan grunted. “Let's be on our way,” he said.

A faint path, seemingly one that was not often traveled, angled down the gentle slope toward the woods. From a short distance off the edge of the woods seemed quite ordinary. It seemed in no way different from any other patch of woodland. The trees were ancient, with a hoary look about them, thick through at the butt, quickly branching to form a heavy tangle of interlocking branches. The faint pathway they had been following continued on into the thickness of the woods, providing enough clearance through the tangle for a man to follow it with ease.

“You're quite certain,” Duncan asked Scratch, “that this woods was not here when you last saw this place? Can you be absolutely sure this is the place you saw?”

Scratch lifted his clubfoot and scratched the other leg with the misshapen hoof.

“I am fairly certain sure,” he said. “I doubt I could be mistaken.”

“In any case,” Conrad pointed out, “we shall have to cross it if we are to reach the fen.”

“That is true,” said Duncan. “Conrad, I think you and Tiny should take the point, as you always do. The narrowness of the path means that we must go in single file. Diane and I will guard the rear. Don't let Tiny get too far ahead of you.”

Meg, who had been riding Daniel, slipped off his back.

“You'd better get back on,” said Conrad. “We'll be moving out.”

“All the more reason why I should not be in the way of a fighting horse,” said Meg. “I can hobble by myself through this small patch of woods.”

“I'll walk beside her,” said Andrew, “to help her on her way.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” said Meg. “It is not often that an old bag such as I has offer of an escort.”

“Meg,” asked Duncan, “is there something wrong? You would not encumber Daniel, you tell us. Is it that …”

The witch shook her head. “Nothing wrong at all, my lord. But these woods are close quarters.”

Duncan made a sign to Conrad, who moved out, walking down the path, with Tiny stalking close ahead of him. The others fell into line. Diane and Duncan brought up the rear, with the crippled demon limping painfully ahead of them, using the reversed trident as a staff to help himself along.

The woods held a somber sense, such as one would expect of a woods in autumn, the sense of the dying, drifting leaf, of the frost-shriveling of the little plants that grew on the forest floor. But otherwise there seemed to be nothing and that, thought Duncan, in itself was not wrong, for that was the way that it should be. Most of the trees were oaks, although there were other scattered kinds. The path, he, told himself, was the sort of trail that deer, over the years, might beat out for themselves, going in single file, stepping in one another's tracks. A hush hung over everything. Not even a leaf was rustling and that, Duncan thought, was strange, for there seldom was a time when leaves did not do some rustling. Even on the calmest day, with no wind at all, in an utter quietness, somewhere in a woods a leaf would rustle for no apparent reason. Fallen leaves, lying on the path, muffled their footfalls and no one spoke a word. The hush of the woods had imposed a hush on the people who entered it.

As is the case with most woodland trails, the path was a crooked one. It dodged between trees, it wound around a fallen, moldering forest giant, it avoided lichen-covered boulders, it clung to the slightly higher ground, skirting the small wet areas that lay on the forest floor—and in doing all of this it wound a twisted way.

Duncan, bringing up the rear, with Diane just ahead of him and ahead of her the limping, lurching demon, stopped and turned halfway around to view the path behind him. For, unaccountably, he felt an itching between his shoulder blades, the sort of feeling a receptive man might have from something watching him. But there was nothing. The path, the little that he could see of it, was empty, and there was no sign that any other might be near.

The feeling, he told himself, came about from the almost certain knowledge that in a very little time the entire area held by the Little Folk would be swarming with the hairless ones and other members of the Horde, closing in to make their kill. The Little Folk, more than likely, by now had cleared the area. They had started sifting out before the night was over and by the time he and his band had left, there had been none about—none but Snoopy, who now was marching up there in front with Conrad, and Nan, who presumably was flying about to spy out whatever might be happening. The magic traps the Little Folk had set out might impede the Horde for a time, but perhaps for only a few hours at the best. The traps, wicked and mean as some of them might be, could not stand for long against the more powerful and subtle magic of the Horde. In the final reckoning, all the traps would be little more” than minor nuisances.

He put his hand to his belt pouch, felt the small, round hardness of Wulfert's talisman, the yielding softness of the manuscript, listening to its crackling rustle as he pressed his fingers to it.

If only Scratch should be right, he told himself—if they could cross the fen, if the main body of the Horde kept moving northward up the west margin of the fen—then they still would have a chance. With the south open for the run to Oxenford, there still would be a chance to carry out the mission. It was the only chance they had, he reminded himself. There were no alternatives. There were no choices, no decisions to be made.

With one last look down the empty path behind him, he turned about and hurried to catch up with Diane. As he hurried along the path, he caught the first faint sound of wailing he had heard since they'd entered the woods. It seemed farther off than ever, a mere whisper of a sound, muted and broken up by the denseness of the trees.

Suddenly, ahead of him, the heavy growth lessened, and he stepped out into a small clearing, an almost circular clearing, as if in some time long past a woodsman had chopped down the trees and hauled off the logs to make a cleared circle in the forest.