Horn Crown (Witch World: High Hallack Series) (9 page)

She shook her head, a single sharp jerk. “I do not know what either was—only that the nature of one was of the Dark. Thus it could be met by those devices which are a protection against evil. Of the hunter—” she paused so long that I thought she would not continue before she said: “Perhaps it was also of the Dark, but it was no friend to that which stove to reach us. Its nature—that I could not read. We deal with both Light and Dark, but there may be those in this country that are neither, or that can be both at will. I know—so little!” There was unhappiness in her voice. I wondered if she meant her words for me at all or if they were only a cry against her own lack.

“Oh, I have a measure of the talent,” she added, “otherwise I would not have been trained from first childhood by Zabina. Like knows like even if one looks upon a babe in the cradle. Also I know that I have in me more than Zabina can bring to flower or fruit. I learned of her in the same way that you, you know yourself to be a swordsman, were once put to fence with wooden blade among the younger boys. She has called me impatient, a fool, and foreseen dire disaster for me because I push and push to know more. But the moment I came through the Gate—then it was as if I had set foot on a homeward path which I did not know before could exist—there lay ready to my hand such wonders as those of Zabina's craft have only touched upon in dreams! This,” Gathea flung forth her arms wide, on her face a fierce pride and hunger, “this is a place which
I
have dreamed of though I knew it not. I went to that moon shrine for the first time as if I had walked its path all my days. What was there welcomed me as daughter and handmaiden. Therefore,” and the fierceness of her voice matched her look, “can you not see what your dainty keep maid has robbed me of? She, who has none of the talent in her—or else it is far buried under training of custom and of House— reaped where I was meant to harvest! Much good shall it do her!”

“You have spoken in riddles all along,” I returned with matching sharpness. “What
has
happened to the Lady Iynne?”

She glanced at me over her shoulder, for she always kept a stride or so in advance, as if impatient. Around her sun-browned face there were loose tendrils of hair which had dried and now blew free, giving her a less severe and remote look.

“A gate of sorts opened.” Her reply was tense. “Oh, not into another world, like that Gate which brought us here. Rather it is a way of finding another and more powerful shrine elsewhere—in the west—for the places of power left here are largely emptied, or whatever once filled them is much enfeebled and drained. To the Moon Shrine I brought knowledge which was a key, but the lock was old, it had not been turned for perhaps hundreds of seasons. I worked the ritual—I called down the Moon—I—” She raised her free hand and laid it between her breasts. “
I
did this! Then I was delayed on the night when there should be an answer and your reckless lady walked in where she should have feared to set so much as the toe of her slipper. Thus she gained, and I lost—”

I thought of Lady Iynne caught in some trap—for it must seem so to her—ensorcelled in a distant place. Though how she might have been so transported I still did not understand. Fear must have caught her—it might be enough to strike her wits from her. Realizing this I turned on the girl with me.

“You knew that she was visiting the shrine, still you did not warn her!” I accused.

“Warn her? But I did! Only there are calls against which no warning will hold unless the hearer is so trained, so staunch in spirit, that he or she is armed and armored. Iynne is a woman, a maid, so she, as all of the clan folk, was and is Moon's daughter. Moon magic rises in all women, though most deny it. Or, feeling it, do not understand that one must work with it and not against it, She has been so sheltered, so bound about by all the shall nots and do nots of a keep that she answered that call in spite of herself every time she stole away to look upon that shrine. You might have kept her in bonds, by door locks, but the quest already worked in her and her first visit there locked her in its power.”

I glanced about at that wide plain of the valley, at the hills beyond which were hidden now by mists, so that now and then a dark bit of them loomed against the sky, only to be hidden once again.

“You believe you can find her.” I did not make a question of that, for I was sure that she thought she could.

“Yes. For it is
my
magic that she dabbled in and—look you!”

She paused then, turning to face the north. On her out-held palm lay balanced the wand, and she stared at it with a tense concentration there was no mistaking. I looked from her fixed eyes to the wand and then I saw—

That tree branch, lying on her flattened palm where in no way she could control it by some trick of hand, began to move. It had pointed north and south, now it swung slowly but unmistakingly so that the narrow tip of the wood length indicated the misty heights westward.

“You see!” she demanded. “That which I summoned and worked so hard to gain has grown within me. It pulls me on, so that I may be truly whole as I was meant to be! Where I go—there will she be.”

I had seen her do so much, I did not doubt she believed entirely in what she said. Perhaps this was no different from the other strange things in this land—that I should follow a maid who was certain she sought high magic, and that it had the strength, not only to call her, but to take another to it.

We found no traces of any other powers within that valley, only the herds of animals which kept their distance. It took us two days to cross that expanse and each night we cleared a patch of earth for Gathea to make a safe camp with circle and star. There were no visitors out of the dark. On the second night the moon was clear, the clouds were gone. Gathea had stood then in the full light of silver glow and sang—though I could neither understand the words nor remember them after. Between us an unseen wall grew thicker. This was no place for mo, a man and a warrior; I was her companion on the trail by sufferance only.

At midmorning of the third day we entered the foothills of the heights. Now Gathea picked her way slowly with halts to allow her wand to point the way. There was no mistaking its swing, enticing us on into a broken country where the tall grass disappeared and outcrops of stone, gray, sometimes veined with dull red or a faint yellow, were more common. Though we had left the river behind us as its source lay farther north, we discovered mountain springs—or rather Gruu nosed them out, just as he hunted and we ate of his kills. I began to feel that we had traveled for seasons across land which was barren of any but animal life.

Now we discovered a valley leading back into the hills where there was more vegetation, stands of dark trees, which I thought curiously stunted and misshapen and which I did not like the look of. That night when we camped Gathea was so alive with excitement that she could not sit still. Time and time again she was on her feet, staring up that valley way, muttering to herself, slipping the wand back and forth through her fingers, as if to remind herself of what must be accomplished soon. Gruu, too, was uneasy, pacing around the fire, his eyes turned in the same direction as the girl's, as if he searched for a possible source of trouble.

“Feel it!” Gathea threw back her head. She had not bound her hair in the tight braids again since we had left the river; now I witnessed a strange thing. Those loose tendrils about her face lifted of themselves, not blown by any breeze (here the air was heavy and weighed upon me). Perhaps it was otherwise for Gathea, as, in turn, the ends of her longer strands of hair stirred also, as if her whole body soaked up some force which then manifested itself so.

She held out the wand, and, I will swear the Blood Oath of the Flame, I saw upon its tip a star of light dance for an instant.

“Here—I am
here!”
She shouted as if standing before a deep gate where she had every reason to call for entrance and could not be denied.

Then—

Gathea began to run. So startled was I that, for a moment or so, I did not move. Then I caught up our two wallets, for she had dropped hers, and started after her. Gruu had bounded ahead, a silver streak, weaving a path among the trees where she had already vanished. Into the night I pounded after, though it appeared that, though I tried to keep directly on Gathea's track, I had not chosen well. Trees’ low branches made me duck and swerve (they had not obstructed the progress of those other two). I ran into one trunk which I had not seen even a moment earlier, nearly stunning myself, and bringing a fresh ache to the old head wound.

Branches caught at me, tripped me up, struck me hard blows, until, afraid to lose Gathea in this place and never to find her again, I had out my sword, slashed and cut to clear the way as best I could.

The crash of my own passing covered any other sounds. In truth, I was afraid to stop and listen for fear I would be left so far behind I might never catch up with her.

There were things roosting or living in those trees which added raucous squeakings and hootings to the disturbance I made. Twice something flew directly into my face, once scoring my bruised cheek with either bill or talons. I tried to protect my face with my arm as I chopped a path. Sweat flowed down my face, plastered my too-well-worn undershirt to my body. It was stifling under those trees and I gasped for breath, yet I fought on.

A fight it was. I began to believe that these trees possessed an awareness of who and what I was and were determined to prevent my invasion. I fancied I heard faint cries, as from a distant battle. I was near overcome by the heat and my own exertions. Still I kept on because something in me took command and sent me forward, until at length I stumbled up a last hard slope, nearly losing my balance, breaking past the last thorn-studded limb of a tree into the open.

9.

I had reached the crest of a ridge bare of any growth, thus could look some distance ahead. There was no sign of either Gathea or Grau—only bare rock. Not too far away a cliffside led upward again. I listened, wondering if cat and girl still struggled as I had to fight a way free of the trees and if I had outpaced them. There came no sound to tell me that was so. They might have been snatched up bodily or perhaps vanished through one of those “Gates” I had come to distrust.

Slowly I advanced across the open. The moon was on the wane; it offered just light enough to see the ground, where I tried to pick up some track left by either girl or cat. On this ledge of stone there was little hope of that.

So I approached the cliffs foot to see what had not been visible from afar. Deep cut into the surface of the stone was a series of regular holes large enough for hands and feet. However, I could not believe that Gathea had taken this path with such speed as to be out of sight completely before I had reached the end of the wood. Surely, I would have seen her still climbing!

Like a hunter who has lost the trail, I cast about. If she were yet in the wood, then to go on would serve no purpose. Finally I had to accept that she was indeed beyond my finding—unless I tried that rude stairway.

Slinging the straps of both wallets over my shoulders, making sure that my sword and belt knife were well anchored in their sheaths, I began to climb. It was not easy, for I discovered that the spaces between those holds had been designed for someone taller than myself, so that I had to stretch to reach each hold. How Gathea might have managed this ascent confused me.

Doggedly I kept on and up, testing each fresh hollow before I shifted my weight. My fingers scooped deep into dust filling those pockets, so I become convinced that the girl had not come this way. However, I determined to get to the top and from there gain a wider view of the countryside.

Breathing hard, I pulled myself over the lip of that cliff, to stare ahead at what faced me. This was not the top of the rise—rather a platform ledge which had been leveled by the work of some intelligence.

What dominated that space towered so above me, that I had to hold my head well back to view it in entirety. Great skill had gone into its making. At the same time the very finish of that skill suggested that whoever, or whatever, had conceived such a portraiture had been of an alien turn of mind, perverse, ill-tuned to consort with my own kind.

The represented form, which had been cut from the cliff's face so deeply that it was enclosed in an arched niche, stood erect on hind feet. However, it had only its stance in common with human beings, for it was clearly avian in form, and just as clearly female—blatantly so. It went unclothed, unless a wide and ornate collar could be considered covering of a sort.

The slender legs were stretched far apart, and its hands were outstretched from the ends of upper limbs, reaching forward, while the face beneath an upstanding crest of tall feathers was barely like my own. There were two eyes, but these were overlarge and set slanting in the skull; also they had been inlaid with red stones, perhaps gems, which glowed in the dim light as if they carried at their core a spark of burning fire.

Those reaching hands were claw-fingered, taloned. Looking upon them I thought of that lump of torn flesh I had buried back on the plain, though these were not mere skin and bone as that had been.

The expression the unknown carver had given the face agreed with the menace suggested by those claws, for most of it was a great beak, slightly open as if to tear, while the whole of the upper part of the body stood framed by wings which drooped, only a quarter open, behind each thin shoulder.

Between those arching legs a dark hole had been left as a doorway into the cliff. As I crouched where I was, staring, from that black archway wafted an odor which was rank and foul. Some beast of unclean habits might well lair there. My gaze kept, in spite of me, returning to those red eyes. I had a growing uneasy feeling that something watched me.

I did not accept that Gathea had gone into that hole. This was no Moon Shrine with a feeling of peace and well being. No, this was as threatening as the Silver Singers, or those crawlers in the dark who had menaced us in our first camp on the plain.

Slowly I arose, and, with a real effort, broke the bond of gaze those eyes had laid upon me. I would not take that door the thing guarded. There must be another way ahead.

It was then I discovered I was averse to turning my back on that carved figure. The sense of a waiting intelligence had been so well caught by the sculptor I could believe that, stone or not, it only remained here at its own choice. Thus I moved along that wide ledge crab fashion, so I could both search for another path and yet keep a wary eye on the leering bird-female.

Here were no more carved handholds to aid my escape. At the northern end of the smoothed ledge there was, however, a break in the cliff which might afford me a way to climb beyond.

I had no more than reached that promising crevice and was giving a last wary look to the figure when there was a stirring within the dark hollow between its legs. I swung swiftly about, my back to the wall and my sword out. There was a rustling, and then a loud hoot.

Into the wan light crawled a thing misshapen and hunched. It crouched for a moment before pulling upward to stand on clawed feet. Unlike the figure which guarded its lair it was a male and much shorter—near bone thin, still it possessed the same talons, the same beak.

The head turned on crooked shoulders (it appeared to be deformed when compared with the statue—and closer to the alien even than that). Only its eyes were as red and glowing—and utterly evil!

Those wings sprouting from its shoulders did not open to the full as it came about to face me squarely. The creature seemed to use its pinions as a balance as it leaped at me, making for me, talons outstretched and ready. At the same moment it let loose a deep scream.

Now fanning the wings, it attacked. I was ready with my blade. Whether the thing had ever been fronted by a determined fighter before I could not tell, but it left itself open to my counterblows as if it had expected no opposition at all.

The cutting edge of my sword struck true, between the rise of one wing and the thing's throat as its talons shredded the straps of the wallets, grated and scraped along my mail.

That head flopped onto the other shoulder as great gouts of dark stuff sprouted high, some drops hitting my hand, to sting my skin like fire. The creature stumbled back, striking fruitlessly into the air with both armored forepaws, wings now fully extended and beating hard so that their activity lifted it from the ledge and it was actually airborne. I thought that blow must bring death when it fell just as I aimed it, but it appeared far from ending our duel.

The head now dropped onto its chest, attached still to the body only by a strip of flesh and cartilage. Blood spouted fountain high about it as the creature came again at me. I might have to hew it to pieces to stop its attack.

Once more I struck, this time bringing the blade down across one of those raking forepaws. The edge again cut through, so that the claw fell to the stone before me. Only —from the corner of my eye I saw, as I prepared to face the monster's third rush—that severed hand now took on life of its own, crawling toward me as if the fingertips were legs of some noisome insect.

A great gout of blood from the severed wrist (which the thing still held out before it as if it yet possessed the missing talons to rake me down) spattered on my sword hand. Again flames not only licked my flesh but seared deeply. I kept hold of sword hilt by sheer will, through the path which continued to eat at me.

Perhaps this creature which would not die sensed or already knew my torment for it whirled its maimed arm in the air (keeping its body beyond my reach) spattering the dark blood outward. Flying drops stung my cheek; more brought flaming agony to my throat where there was no helm guard to protect me. I feared for my eyes when a third gout struck high on my cheekbone.

Still, in spite of my seared fingers, I attacked once more, coming in low so that the next shower of blood fell on my mail-covered back and shoulders. Protected thus, I struck upward into the belly of the thing, then leaped back, its blood running down me, living fire where it touched flesh.

There seemed no way of killing it. That ripping blow which had opened its body from ribs to crotch only added to the blood flow, as if I had broken through a filled water skin. I could not believe that the thick liquid which flowed so steadily, which spouted afar, would so long continue to drain from that thin body, as if, beneath its outer hide, this creature was hollow, filled only with blood. For its attacks it visibly depended more and more on wings for support. I must dare the spouting poison from its hurts to slash at those. Then I nearly lost my balance, skidding forward into the slippery pool of blood. Furiously I struck down at what had so near tripped me, caught on the point of my sword the living hand, to flick it away, even as the creature moved in, arms still outstretched, though surely, with its head dangling so upon its breast it could no longer see me.

In a way that attack by the crawling hand had saved me by sending me off to the side. For the thing fluttered to my right, near enough for me to risk a blow at the other wing. Again steel sheared straighter than I dared hope.

My attacker fell away, still flapping the maimed wing, the other one fanning air with great sweeps. That onesided effort dashed it into the side of the cliff, and it went down, sprawling forward. I leaped to strike the second wing, then stabbed downward between its shoulders.

A moment later, breathless, I reeled back against the cliff myself, watching in dull horror as that mutilated thing strove to rise, to come at me. While the full tide of its poisonous blood spread out and out and I cringed away from the deadly pool.

I thought the thing was helpless now. However, had it been the only one of its kind in the statue-guarded hole? There was no movement within, but if this creature was nocturnal its fellows might be already a field. The sooner I was away the better, though to try to climb the cliff with more winged monsters arriving to pluck at me was risky. I could only hope to be allowed to reach the top without another fight.

Letting my fouled sword hang from my wrist by its cord, not daring to allow the blood near my flesh, I wiped my blistered hand hastily against my breeches. The splashes which had struck my cheek burned with increasing agony.

Catching up the wallets by their sheared straps, I knotted them to my belt, turning with all haste to the crack in the cliff's surface. Fortune had decided to favor me, for, not far above, the crack widened out far enough I might edge my body into it, leaving very little chance for any other winged attacker to grasp or tear. The creature I had wounded was not dead. Still it flopped about,

The sight and the sound of that floundering body gave me fresh strength for escape, made me forget the pain in my hand as I hunted for holds to draw me up. My need to escape, to find some better defense than this tissue in the cliff face offered, lent me both the strength and speed to win to the very crest of the heights.

Here was a second gift of fortune. For on the plateau was a stand of trees. Toward those I went at a stumbling run, sure that the winged things, if more of them came, could not reach me beneath that roof of branch and leaf.

Even as I had forced my way through that wood below, so now I thrust forward into this one, eager to win under-could not reach me beneath that roof of branch and leaf. grabbed handfuls of leaves to cleanse my sword as best I could, before opening my wallet to hunt out those salves which Zabina had packed for me. Breathlessly I rubbed sticky stuff first across the back of my hand and then along cheek and jaw.

Gradually the pain eased, and I only hoped that the creature's poison was assuaged. Of that I could not be sure, for I began to shiver with a cold which was certainly not of the night. Also I retched and retched again, so shaken with nausea that my head whirled. Nor could I hold myself upright without clinging to a tree.

Maybe that poison also reached my mind, for I kept slipping to a daze during which all I saw was the cleft, scuttling up it that severed hand, still trailing blood, sent ahead like a hound to hunt for its master. Then I would become alert and aware, knowing dimly where I was. Yet I looked about me for that crawling thing, listening for a scrabbling sound announcing its coming.

I must have drifted in and out of such horrors for a lengthy time, for when I roused from a last dream in which the hand confronted me and I was too weak to draw my sword against it, day had arrived to lay patches of sun here and there on the ground, for these trees were not so tightly banded together as to shut out that welcome light. Thirst made an ache in my throat, and I drank from my water bottle, which I held with shaking hands.

The stench of those now dry stains which covered much of my mail front and back again brought sour bile rising in my throat. When I tried to get to my feet I discovered I must cling to the tree. My hand bore a brown brand across the back, which cracked when I moved my fingers, making me grimace with pain. I had no idea of where I would go, save that I must find water to cleanse my clothing and mail and see again to my hurts.

Where in this wilderness I could find any spring or stream I did not know, but maybe fortune would not turn her face from me now.

Insects buzzed out of nowhere to plague me, drawn, I supposed, by the odor which clung to my clothing. I staggered from one tree to the next, lingering at each to hold for a moment or two, fighting for strength to carry me on, until, at length, I wavered into the brightness of the full sun at the edge of that copse to stand blinking, gathering more energy to forge ahead. I was somehow sure that the creature I had tried to slay, or its like, was of the night, and that the day would favor me while I could put distance between me and its ledge lair.