Dark Magic (61 page)

As if in approval of his resolve, he saw the sun then, at that exact moment, striking from between looming banks of black cloud, shedding light over the grassland, a great, radiant shaft, such as had illuminated Dera as the goddess stood beside the Gannshold road.

“Aye, faith,” he said, unaware he spoke aloud.

And then the heavens vented one final blast of sound and the rain blew away to the south, the sky above cleared to a high, fierce blue, and the wind was warm again. Birds began to sing, and from the prairie came the sweet perfume of rain-washed grass, rising with the vapor that drifted up as the sun shone hot.

It was late in the afternoon, the sun westering, and before them stood a ridge, misted as the soaking grass dried. They crested the summit and by common, unspoken consent halted there, Calandryll staring in awe at what lay before them.

The grass ran down gently to flat land, and then ended where a wall of green darkness spread beyond the limits of sight across the prairie. From east to west and farther north than the keenest eye could range, it seemed as though shadow was painted over the grass, as though the northern limits of Cuan na’For were marked by that vast darkness, as though a great and silent black sea lay there. Calandryll heard Bracht say, “The Cuan na’Dru,” softly, his voice reverent. He stared, daunted by the immensity of it. He had thought the woodlands of Kandahar were large, but they were no more than copses set beside this enormous forest, its extent unimaginable, limitless, it seemed. Silent, he followed Bracht down the slope as the setting sun washed the treetops in red light, the great forest seeming to blaze.

They camped that night on the grass, by a little beck that meandered careless, babbling softly, and at dawn set off again, riding hard. The escorting Lykard, Calandryll saw, were solemn-faced, as though wary of approaching this holy place, and, indeed, he felt the presence of it, as if the dark swath that filled all the horizon now cast its spiritual shadow over the land.

Three long bowshots away, close on noon, the escort slowed pace and the leader, Nychor, brought his mount alongside the three questers.

“By your leave, we’ll ride no closer,” he declared. “Without the drachomannii to intercede . . .”

Bracht nodded, understanding. “Wait here,” he said, reining in. “At least until we enter.”

Nychor smiled his gratitude. “Well watch you approach,” he promised, “and do the Gruagach grant you entry, wait until tomorrow’s dawn.”

His tone, and the way he eyed the forest, suggested he doubted that permission would be given. Bracht smiled, himself by no means easy, and passed the rein of his spare mount to Nychor.

“Take these back to Dachan, with our thanks.” He turned to Calandryll and Katya. “So, come.”

Not waiting for a reply, as though anxious to confront a test without delay, he drove his heels against the black stallion’s flanks and galloped forward. Swiftly, his companions tossed reins to the nervous Lykard and thundered after him.

It seemed to Calandryll the air grew quiet as they came closer to the Cuan na’Dru. Insects darted over the grass and birds flew above, but their noise seemed subsumed, swallowed by the stillness of the forest. A wind blew, soft, the constant rustling of the prairie barely discernible, even the drumming of hooves dulled, overwhelmed by the silence of the trees that now filled all his vision. Rowan and blackthorn grew about the perimeter, and ash, elder, like outguards or acolytes to the greater trees that rose over the lesser species. The oaks dominated, mere saplings among their cousins of the edgewood, but rising vast-trunked a little farther in, with massive limbs imperiously out-thrust, all hung with leaves like shining green jewels. They were majestic, and he felt their power.

Bracht slowed to a walk some distance off, and then reined in. Calandryll and Katya followed suit, none speaking as they dismounted, leading the horses slowly forward until the Kern raised a hand, wordlessly bidding them halt.

“Wait here.”

He gave Katya his reins, and for a moment she clutched his hand. Calandryll saw his face was grave, set in somber lines. Then he nodded once and released
her grip, walking forward, much as he had, Calandryll thought, gone to his execution. The sun stood overhead now, and all the forest shone green, patterns of shifting shadow dappling the ground between the outermost trees as Bracht approached. Calandryll watched him skirt a clump of blackthorn, moving cautiously toward the closest oak.

He reached the tree, a youngster by its size, but still massy, and fell to his knees, his arms flung out, the fingers of both hands spread wide. What he said was spoken too soft to hear, and too far distant, but after a while he rose and pressed both hands against the furrowed bark, his head bowed. For long minutes he stood thus, then turned away, walking back to his companions. His face, Calandryll saw, was still set in solemn lines, impassive, unreadable. When he spoke, his voice was equally muted.

“I know not if Ahrd deigned to hear me. We must wait.”

“Not enter?” Katya asked, her question met with an expression almost of outrage.

“Without permission?” Bracht shook his head. “That would be sure death.”

He turned, silently pointing. Calandryll looked to where he gestured and saw, almost hidden among the tangling of undergrowth, the long grass, the white of bones, the dulled glint of metal. His eyes alerted, he saw the edgewoods were a boneyard, that the mortal remains of men lay there, all twined with roots, become part of the wood. There, a rib cage thrust up; there brambles wove a thorny mask over a skull; an elder hoisted a carapace of bone, the branch extending from the socket where once an eye had sat; the parts of a man hung from a blackthorn.

Glum doubt assailed him, and must have expressed itself on his face, for Bracht said, “Some were slain by the Gruagach; others were sacrificed,” and shook his head as Calandryll gasped in horror, explaining, “not lately. Long and long ago. Now only those foolish enough to enter without permission fall prey.”

“To the Gruagach,” Calandryll said very softly.

“Aye.” Bracht smiled, briefly and without much humor. “Do you see now why I was reluctant to enter here?”

“I do,” Calandryll murmured. “But now?”

“Now we can only wait,” Bracht answered. “If we are to cross the Cuan na’Dru, it must be with the Gruagach’s consent.”

“How shall we know that?” Katya demanded. “That they grant us the crossing?”

“We shall know,” Bracht said. “They’ll come to us, or not.”

“When?” asked the warrior woman. “How long must we wait?”

“Until they come.”

Bracht shrugged; Katya said, “And if they do not come?”

“Then we’ve a long ride. Nychor and his men wait until the dawn: I think they’ll come ere then, but if not . . .”

“We must ride around?” Katya flung out an arm, gesturing at the vastness of the woodland stretched before them. “Around this? Be we forced to such a detour, Rhythamun must surely escape us.”

Bracht ducked his head, and as the warrior woman’s face grew dark with frustration said, “Be that the way of it, then that way we must go.”

Katya’s grey eyes narrowed, her lips pursing as if she would argue, but Bracht preempted her. “Heed me,” he said in a tone that closed her mouth tight on any argument, “I’ll not allow you to go in there, save with the consent of the Gruagach. I’d not see your bones join those others so foolish as to make that attempt.”

“You’d prevent me?” she asked, her gaze speculative as she studied his determined face. “With force?”

“I would,” Bracht said. “You mean too much to me that I’d see you die so senselessly.”

“Then,” said Katya, a smile of resignation curving her lips, “I suppose we must wait.”

T
HEY
took the opportunity to eat. Cold food, for none wished to offend the god by taking kindling from his forest, and afterward busied themselves with grooming the horses and checking gear. It was makework: a means of passing hours that dragged slowly by without indication Bracht’s prayers had been heard, each of them wondering if consent would be given, if the Gruagach would come; and what those strangeling creatures would prove to be. They spoke little, for when they did, it seemed inevitable their conversation should veer to discussion of Rhythamun’s progress, and then frustration mounted, which Bracht sought to quell, for fear Ahrd take offense and deny them help. Off to the south they could see the Lykard setting up shelters for the night, their horses cropping contentedly, though all the time the warriors turned nervous faces to the forest, wondering no less than the three what should be the outcome of their unprecedented request.

The afternoon aged toward evening, the lengthening of the day as summer neared serving to fuel their impatience. Katya strode restlessly along the forest’s edge, constantly peering inward as irritable fingers drummed a tattoo against her scabbard. Calandryll joined her for a while, but her nervousness served only to renew his own doubts and he chose to settle on the grass, endeavoring with scant success to sleep. Bracht seemed the only one calm, squatting cross-legged, his face fixed phlegmatic on the timber, as though he momentarily anticipated some sign, or was resigned to the waiting.

The sun closed on the horizon, that dark with its covering of trees, and a new moon climbed the eastern sky. The air assumed the blue shades of dusk; birds flocked homeward to their bosky roosts. And Bracht’s stallion whickered a challenge, stamping, its ears flattening back on its plunging head. The chestnut and the grey, too, began to fret.

Instantly, Bracht was on his feet.

Calandryll rose to join him, and Katya came running from her inspection of the woodland, all of them staring toward the timber.

The Cuan na’Dru was draped with shadow now, ghostly, forbidding in its sheer immensity. Ghostly, too, were the shapes that moved within the darkness, flitting from trunk to trunk, silent despite the detritus littering the forest floor. They were impossible to define: they moved too furtive, leaving only an impression of huge eyes, limbs longer than a man’s, a preternatural agility.

Calandryll had half expected a byah to appear—that manifestation more comforting for having once been seen—to speak, bidding them enter, but these things were infinitely more menacing, and he felt his skin grow cold as his eyes struggled to discern them.

He could not, even as they drew closer, moving past the oaks to the outer growths of elder and rowan, to where the bones lay. It was as though they remained constantly on the periphery of his vision, never quite in focus, but always shifting too swift, too sudden, for his sight to hold them. He heard them, though, as they flitted ever closer; not speaking, it seemed, but communicating with soft whistles, sighs, murmurs, such as the trees themselves make, when the wind stirs rustling through the branches.

He thought of the syfalheen of Gessyth, of Yssym and his kin, who had, at first, seemed very strange, but proven true friends, and told himself that these creatures—the Gruagach, of that he had no doubt—were no more odd, nor any more dangerous. But then he remembered the bones, and wondered if he only sought to reassure himself.

A hand fell unwittingly to his sword, reflex action as a shape stepped closer still, picking a delicate way among the thickets of blackthorn, halting in the bushes’ shadow. It raised an arm, long, oddly jointed fingers curling in an unmistakable gesture.

“Come,” Bracht said in a soft, almost hesitant voice.

Calandryll felt saliva fill his mouth, and spat as he took the chestnut’s reins. To his side, he heard Katya let out her breath in a long, wary sigh as she followed Bracht toward the waiting figure.

The Kern led his stallion forward, halting on the edge of the wood and calling, “Do you grant us entry into Ahrd’s holy forest?”

The Gruagach beckoned, and in the fast-waning light Calandryll saw that its elongated fingers were tipped with sharp claws. It was difficult, in the twilight, to be sure, but he thought its skin was a mottled fusion of green and grey, like the bark of some ancient tree, and when it opened its mouth, he saw serrated teeth set in double rows, like a shark’s. Its eyes were huge and pale, the pupils vertical slits, overhung with ridges of bone that sloped dramatically back to form a broad forehead, the nose vestigial, a flat hump that flared wide over the nostrils. It spoke, or seemed to, the sound a fluttering whistle, and gestured again.

Calandryll saw Bracht’s shoulders square as he led the stallion toward the strangeling creature. The Gruagach stood immobile as the Kern approached, and then extended one long arm, pointing at Bracht’s right hand. The man, in turn, thrust out his arm, the hand suddenly grasped, turned this way and that as the Gruagach brought it close, examining it, sniffing it, touching the healed skin with a delicate claw. It whistled then, answered by a chorus from the darkness, and let go its hold, moving away. Bracht stepped a pace forward and the Gruagach fell back, as though, satisfied, it was now unwilling to stand too close, or to allow itself to be clearly seen, moving with such fluid grace it seemed not to walk, but to glide, drifting from the shelter of the thicket to halt again, beckoning, beneath an elder.