Deverry - A Time Of War Part 27

The longer they travelled, the more Rhodry grew inured to hiking in rough country, but still he tired early, stumbling along after the dwarves on blistered feet by the end of the day. Their route kept climbing, higher and higher toward the white mountains, which grew larger at the edge of the view. Finally, too, their luck with the weather broke, and it rained. Late one afternoon a storm came blowing up so fast that he first thought it dweomer, but the dwarves explained that the mountains sp.a.w.ned fast storms.

'It'll blow over soon enough, too.' Garin said. 'But we'll make an early camp.'

Although tents were too heavy and bulky a luxury to bring on a journey like this, the dwarves did have lengths of coa.r.s.e-woven linen canvas, smeared heavily with grease from sheep's wool, that could be laced together and pegged out as a lean-to of sorts. Just as the clouds were piling black and swollen overhead, they found a rise of boulders with a couple of scraggly, twisted pines growing among them where they could sling their canvas and weight the edges with loose stones against the gathering wind. In among the boulders was a narrow s.p.a.ce where they could cross-tether the mule as well, and give the poor beast a bit of shelter. Nearby a river, narrow but cut deep, threaded its way between rocks.

'Going to be dark, and it's going to be noisy.' Garin announced. 'What if that stork-like creature comes snooping round? Or somewhat worse? I say we stand watches, lads.'

Even Otho had to agree to that. Just as the first drops of rain began falling, in a round of broken twigs for want of straws Rhodry drew the longest and the last watch with it. Huddled under the scant shelter, they all spent a cramped and miserable night of it, but Rhodry managed to sleep, no doubt more than the others, simply because he was so tired. Even so, he was glad when Mic wakened him for his turn on guard. It was a chance to stretch and to get away from the smell of other people's damp bodies and clothes, to say nothing of the rancid lanolin of sheep long gone.

Although the rain had stopped by then, the air was cold, and he was shivering as he picked his way down to the stream over the wet and uncertain footing. Since he was thirsty, he squatted down, fumbling for the tin cup tied to his belt. From behind him he heard a sound that might have been a footfall. Sheer warrior's instinct brought him to his feet and spun him round just in time to sec a grey shape rushing for him. As his hand went for the bronze knife at his belt, the thing stopped and hovered some ten feet away.

It was roughly man-shaped, but its head was a lumpish affair with no features that he could pick out, clven sight or no. When Rhodry drew the bronze knife and flourished it, the creature snarled like a wolf and disappeared. Well, fancy that, Rhodry thought. Someone just tried to drown me. Behind him the river raced fast and swollen, with the occasional gleam of foam or bubbles in the broken light. He decided that his thirst could wait till the others woke.

Garin was first up, squirming out of the shelter just as a pale streak of silver in the east announced the rising sun. When Rhodry told him of the attack he considered for a long moment, running his hand through his beard.

'Well, now, I don't know what to do,' he said at last. 'So they fear that bronze knife of yours, do they?'

'They always have before. Jill told me it has dweomer upon it.'

Garin nodded, combing busily.

'Don't know what to do,' he said again. 'Well, the thing is, we're almost home. To Lin Serr, that is, the town where Otho and I were born and all that. I say we make a quick march there, fast as we can in this rotten weather.'

Rhodry glanced round at the silent, empty hills. Up among the pines anything could have been hiding, waiting.

'If we'd only gone by the main road,' Garin went on. 'We'd have been there by now, but Otho insists, we come skulking about to the back door, like. Jill put the wind up to him, I gather, saying he'd best be careful as careful.'

'And here enemies went and found me anyway, for all our caution.'

'So they did. You're quite right. Well, then. We'll leave this wretched back road, since there's no use in hiding. We're bound to be safer, once we reach a proper town. It's the cursed dweomer at work in all of this, I suppose. We dwarves mostly leave such things alone, you know, except for a few spells and suchlike for our metals. Well, the women make a talisman or two, but that's them, not us. I don't trust dweomer, never have, either. A man starts mingling the natures of this world with some other one, or travelling round to peculiar places and messing about with what he finds there, and who knows where that'll end up, eh? With trouble, usually, so there you are.'

On this flood of plat.i.tude Garin sailed away to wake the others.

When they set out that morning, they left the road they'd been following - such as it was - and headed across wild country, following a stream that wound between two hills. T'he footing there ran narrow and slick, a mere ridge bitten into the hillside in places, a series of rocks and puddles beside the stream at others. Garin spent most of his time and attention fussing with the mule, encouraging it where he could, giving it a good whack when it balked. Mic helped him, Otho hiked along wrapped in some black mood of his own, which all left Rhodry as the only man on any kind of guard. Although he considered carrying the bow strung and ready, its arrows had already failed him once. He slung it across his back and trusted in the bronze dagger instead.

The hills on either bide of this difficult trail had once been forested, it seemed, because stumps and straggly saplings poked up among the tangled ferns and gra.s.s that covered them now. While they would have provided no hiding places for a man or even a dwarf, Rhodry could never be sure what size his peculiar enemies might take. As they picked their way along he kept his eyes moving, watching endlessly, searching both hillsides for unnatural motion, a possible threat. Since the storm was breaking up, the light kept changing, too, dark one moment, sunny the next in a dance of confusing shadows.

They had just cleared the first hill to the slightly better footing of a valley when Rhodry heard the sound, something like a whistle, more like a screech, and very familiar. He stopped dead, c.o.c.king his head to listen. Faint, very faint it sounded, and yet he could have sworn that it emanated from a spot nearby.

'Come along, you stupid elf!' Otho called out. 'Don't go falling behind. It's dangerous.'

'Oh hold your ugly tongue! Didn't you hear that?'

The sound whispered again, a little trill of three sour notes.

'Hear what?' Otho said.

The other dwarves had stopped to listen as well, but they merely shrugged in puzzlement. For a moment Rhodry wondered if he were going daft. Yet again the whistle sounded, a little louder, a little nastier.

'That!' Micsaid. 'I do hear it.'

So, apparently, did the mule, because it flattened its ears and kicked out, rather randomly, with one hind leg. Rhodry spun round, staring at the hillside, examining every bit of the view. The whistle sounded a four-note melody, all warped and rasping, as if to mock his efforts.

'No one's there,' Mic whispered. 'But we hear it'

'Let's get marching, lads!' Garin snapped. 'Hup! Forward! Let's get out of here!'

Even the mule agreed, striding along briskly from then on. All that day they heard the whistle, sounding at random intervals, sometimes a screech, sometimes an ugly little tune. Whether they trekked through open valley or wooded hill, Rhodry never saw who was playing it. Early on, though, he recognized the sound as being like that of the whistle made of bone that he'd once carried round himself. He'd even played the thing once or twice, a bare few notes out of idle curiosity, though he was rather sorry now that he had.

Since he had no way of knowing then that Evandar had given the whistle away, he a.s.sumed that there was a fashion for such things among Alshandra's ugly followers and left it at that.

Late in the afternoon they reached what Garin called the 'proper road', narrow but banked and covered with sod, perfect footing for the mule and the men alike.

'This will get us home by tomorrow,' Garin remarked.

'Huh,' Otho snorted. 'If we're not s.n.a.t.c.hed and carried off to the Otherlands by these misshapen louts that keep following us.'

Although he was only grumbling, his choice of words gave Rhodry pause. Until then, he'd been a.s.suming that their enemies were doing what he would have in their situation - trying to kill them. He'd forgotten about that mysterious other country where beings like Evandar lived. They could travel back and forth with great ease, it seemed, judging from his one brief experience with it. What if they were after prisoners?

'You know,' Rhodry said. 'I think we'd best march late, and stand watches again once we camp.'

Otho snarled a few words in Dwarvish.

'He's right.' Garin spoke in Deverrian. 'Hum. I wonder. If we had a bit of a rest now, could we do a forced march all night? The mule's not carrying much, being as we've eaten most of the food.'

Everyone looked to Rhodry for an answer.

'I don't know,' Rhodry said. 'I've got a dread in my heart that marching at night could well be more dangerous than staying in one spot. We can all see in the dark, truly, but not all that far ahead. I'd hate to mistake the road.'

'Listen, elf-wit,' Otho snapped. 'We're on the home road now. We're not going to be wandering off it -'.

'You don't understand. These creatures can cast dweomer on roads. You think you're walking down one path only to find yourself on another, and heading somewhere you never wanted to go.'

'Oho!' Garin put in. 'Makes me wonder about that whistle. I wouldn't mind guessing that they were hoping we'd follow the sound, like, just to see what we could see.'

Rhodry shuddered, just an involuntary twitch.

'I wouldn't mind agreeing with you. We'd best be good and careful from now on.'

'Sharp eyes, lads, and no leaving the road.' Garin looked at Mic and Otho in turn. There's a shelter not far ahead, and we'll camp there.'

The shelter turned out to be a peaked roof of slates and beams, supported on stone pillars, over a wooden wind-break and floor. The pillars were amazingly slender for the weight they were bearing; Rhodry had to marvel at them, delicately carved in a vertical pattern of chained links. Garin noticed his interest.

'There's iron bars inside them. That's how they hold all that weight.'

'Interesting idea, that. You know, I was thinking. We'd best tether the mule close, in here if that's possible. I don't want it being chased away in the night and having Otho insist on chasing after.'

'Good thinking. We'll do that.'

Although Rhodry drew the second watch, he was wakened long before by the sound of Mic yelling and the mule braying. Half-asleep as he was, he grabbed his sword rather than a knife and rolled free of his blankets. From nearby Otho and Garin were waking in a flood of Dwarvish curses. Rhodry got to his feet and ran down the length of the shelter to help Mic, who was hanging onto the panicked mule's tether rope as the animal kicked and bucked, braying all the while.

'I've got the mule,' Mic yelled. 'Look outside!'

Circling round the shelter were misshapen beings, mostly human but never quite, dressed in bits of bronze armour and waving bronze knives - a jumble of human bodies or animal torsos on human legs, human heads, cat heads, dog faces, braided manes like the Horsekin, dwarven hands, elven hands, ears like mules, fangs like snakes swirling round in a whirlpool of malice. At the sight of Rhodry they began to curse and shout in a babble of languages, but though they threatened, they never came closer. Rhodry was never far from going berserk, and as he listened to their insults something snapped in his mind.

Half-dressed and barefoot though he was, he screamed out a battle cry and charged, swinging the flat of his sword from side to side. Dimly he was aware of Garin's voice, ordering him back, but he ran straight for the clutch of creatures.

Bird-headed, hum an-headed, clawed and pawed and handed, the screeching pack howled with terror and pain at every whack of his good steel sword. Although a few of the bolder ones darted his way, they fell back screeching the moment the blade touched them, even though it seemed to leave no wounds, merely pa.s.sed right through their illusions of flesh. Slashing back and forth he drove them round the shelter. As they raced away from him, they began to disappear, a few at first, winking out like sparks flying up from a fire, then more and more, until all of a sudden he stood alone and panting for breath in the middle of the road. His red berserker rage lifted like fog, leaving him feeling more than a little foolish.

'Rhodry!' Garin was howling. 'Get back here!'

Rhodry took two steps to follow the order and realized that he was no longer alone, that facing him in the roadway stood Alshandra. That night she appeared as the beautiful elven woman he'd met before, years past, standing almost as tall as he was, but slender, with honey-blonde hair that cascaded round her shoulders and down to her waist. She held out delicate hands and smiled at him.

'Rhodry, Rhodry, come help me. I'm so alone now, and my poor daughter, I must save my daughter.

Won't you help me, Rhodry Maelwaedd?' All at once tears ran down her cheeks, 'There's naught I can do to save her, all alone as I am.'

Even as well as he knew her, her sobbing touched him, the silent way her shoulders trembled, the sincere pain in her golden eyes.

'Oh Rhodry,' she whispered. 'You'll have a reward, the best I can offer. I could love a man like you, easily, easily. Come with me and let me love you forever. In my country you'll never grow old, you know. Just put down that sword and come with me. I'll give you a better sword, all made out of silver like the dagger you carry.'

All at once he found it hard to speak, to put rational thoughts together. When he glanced round he found that the road, the shelter, and the dwarves had disappeared into an opalescent mist.

'Take just one step forward, Rhodry,' she whispered. 'Please, please, help me, and then we'll be happy forever. Just drop that ugly sword and take but one step forward.'

With a wrench of will he swung the sword and held it straight up, a barrier between them. She shrieked and leapt back out of his reach, but though every muscle in his body ached to charge after for the kill, he made himself stand where he was, on his own side of the invisible border between their worlds. As she moved she changed, a huntress now, towering up huge, a gleaming bronze battle axe clasped in her hands. She swung it up high, her face contorted in pure rage, as Rhodry tensed, half-crouched. Since attacking would take him forward, his one desperate chance lay in a dodge when that axe began to swing down. The mist dissolved; light gleamed all round them; a shout echoed.

Alshandra screamed and bent backwards, the axe flying from her hands and dissolving in mid-air. Her entire body seemed to ripple and waver, her image flapping like a sheet of cloth in the wind. With her magic broken, Rhodry risked leaping forward, sweeping his steel blade through her. With a scream she disappeared.

He was standing back in the road, and round him towered the mountains he knew as part of his own world. In a grey dawn Garin stood facing him, holding a woodsman's axe. The dwarf was grinning.

'From the look of things, those friends of yours couldn't abide the touch of iron,' he said. 'You hear of such, in the old lore. So once I could see her again, I just ran up and tried it out. Worked like a charm.'

His smile disappeared. 'Well, that's an ill-omened way of speaking.'

Rhodry laughed, a bubbling howl of his berserker's mirth that made Garin turn pale. He choked it off.

'My apologies and my thanks. The apology's because I didn't follow my own advice, and the thanks are for my life.'

'Think that axe would have killed you? I wasn't sure if it was real or not.'

'Oh. I hadn't considered that, truly. Well, let's just say that I prefer the wondering to the finding out that it could cut me in half.'

'Now that's true spoken.'

'But I tell you, Garin, I owe you a debt.'

'Maybe some day I'll call it in, silver dagger. I'll keep that in mind.'

Together they walked back to the shelter, where the other dwarves stood gaping. Mic had a chunk of bread in his hand, Otho some cheese, and the mule was grazing peacefully nearby as the sun brightened.

'Ye G.o.ds,' Rhodry said. 'It's dawn.'

'It is,' Mic said. 'What was happening to you, all that time when you were gone?'

'It was only a few moments to me. Just time enough to have a bit of a chat with her.'

'Indeed?' Garin rolled his eyes. 'I take it that she was this Alshandra female you've been telling us about.'

'She was, and I hope to every G.o.d and his wife that we've scared her off.'

'Scared - you mean she isn't dead?'

'Jill says she can't be killed, not in any ordinary way. She's gone back to her own country, I'll wager, to nurse her grudges.'

Garin started to speak, then merely shook his head. Mic made a strangling sort of sound, deep in his throat.

'Let's hope she stays there, then,' Otho snarled. 'An elf, that's what she was. All at once Garin here swears and drops his breakfast, and the next thing I know he's grabbing an axe and running out into the road to attack some elven sorceress.'

'Nah nah nah,' Rhodry said. 'She may have looked like an elf, but she's not true flesh and blood. Jill says she can take on any form she wants.'

Otho silenced himself on the edge of some other nastiness.

'Get yourself somewhat to eat, silver dagger,' Garin said. 'I want to get on the road soon. If the iron bothers her as much as all that, we'll be as safe as safe in Lin Serr.'

Whether their enemies had spent themselves the night before or whether the sunlight hampered them, Rhodry didn't know, but whatever the truth of it, they travelled all morning in peace. Toward noon the road climbed hard and fast, but that last effort brought them to the top of a summit. Far ahead of them unrolled a broken plateau toward the distant rise of the white mountains. Rhodry could see forests ahead, striped with open land, but nothing that looked like a city to him.

'Is Lin Serr under the mountains?'

'It's not,' Garin said. 'You'll see soon now.'

For some miles the road climbed and fell over a series of hills like vast ripples in the earth. They pa.s.sed through a woodland and across a wild meadow, then climbed to the top of one final ridge to find themselves standing on a raised tongue of gra.s.sland, stretching about a mile in front of them Ahead, at the end of this obviously artificial formation, the land sloped down fast to a huge basin, mostly gra.s.s-covered though Rhodry could see a few trees. On the far side pale grey cliffs rose, their tops level with the ground on which Rhodry and the dwarves were standing. At the sight, Otho burst into tears and stood sobbing with his arms hanging helpless at his sides.

'Lin Serr,' Garin said. 'Home.'

He clapped his hand on Otho's shoulder in silent comfort, then walked on with Mic and Rhodry, all of them moving slowly to allow Otho time to recover himself. The view was one to be savoured, anyway, Rhodry felt. A horseshoe of cliffs embraced the park-like basin, with the tongue or spit of land upon which they walked entering it in the centre of the open side. Off to the right ran a river, sparkling in the clear mountain air as it curved round the tongue to continue downhill in a deep-cut channel. Off to the left, in the basin but even with the end of the horseshoe, stood a tall structure that at first seemed a natural spire, free-standing with the cliff to one side and the vast open basin to the other, though it towered a good fifty feet higher than the cliff tops. When Rhodry shaded his eyes for a better look, it proved to be worked stone, carved like a statue from one living rock, even though it must have been well over two hundred feet tall. The main shaft rose as straight as a column but so smoothly it almost shone, except for that portion extending higher than the cliffs, which had been added on with masonry. Here and there a window indicated that the tower inside was hollow.

'The old watch tower,' Garin said to Rhodry. 'You can just see the gap twixt it and the cliff. That gap used to be the only way into Lin Serr.'

Blowing his nose on an old rag, Otho stomped up beside them.

'Humph. The place looks a bit bigger than I've been remembering it.'

'Well, the clans keep growing, and so we keep digging it out, a bit here and there.' Garin said. 'Let's go round and walk through the old gate. No need, but we all do it, somehow, for the ritual of the thing. Silly, I suppose, but there you are.'

Once down on the basin's level floor, Rhodry realized that the circling rise of cliff had to be a constructed thing, not some natural phenomenon. Looking up he could tell that the tops of all the cliffs were perfectly flat and all the same height. As they came closer, he saw that the vertical formations he'd taken for the natural cracks and outcrops of a cliff were actually sculpted corrugations and pyramidal bays marching at regular intervals all round the basin. What he'd taken for caves and erosions seemed to be air shafts and doors.

'You dug the basin out,' he said, and his voice shook a little. 'Your people dug this whole thing out, and those cliffs are what? Exposed bedrock?'