The Fellowship of the Talisman (23 page)

Again the wind took up and the voices came once more, if they were voices and not his imagination. And now above the shrieks of fear and the screams of agony one voice boomed out, drowning all the others. The voice kept saying, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” the one word repeated over and over again, each repetition of it embodying an ecstatic and terrifying fervor. At times it seemed to Duncan that the one word was quite clear, and at other times he could not be entirely certain of it, although a moment later he would be convinced that he had heard the word correctly. But whether clear or uncertain, it carried in it that unsettling, almost embarrassing fervor of euphoric rapture—the kind of rapture to which a condemned soul might give expression should it suddenly and unexpectedly be raised from the torture of Purgatory to the very gates of Heaven.

Duncan put his hands to his ears to shut out the sound of that joyous paean, and when he took them away a few moments later, Conrad was shouting up ahead.

“Light!” he was yelling. “I can see light. We are coming to the end.”

Staring fixedly ahead, Duncan could see no light, although that was not greatly to be wondered at, for here the trail was exceptionally narrow and Daniel's big body filled the most of it, blocking his view. But in a short while he could distinguish a faint glimmer that made the walls of stone a little brighter. The ecstatic voice still was shouting “Holy! Holy! Holy!” but as the light grew stronger, the sound lost its strength and some of its ecstasy and finally faded out entirely. The shrieking of the wind came to be no more than a mumble and the damned souls grew silent and ahead he could see a glimpse of the green and pleasant land that Snoopy had told them of.

It was, in all truth, a green and pleasant land, a wide sweep of valley backdropped by the hills through which they had come. Before them lay the ruins of the castle against which they had been warned by the goblin.

The castle was little more than the mound that Ghost had described. Two crumbling turrets still stood guard at each end of it, but between the turrets, the stone lay heaped in an untidy pile, the rough edges of the fallen stones rounded and modified by weather. But the thing that caught Duncan's attention was the well-spaced standing stones, no longer upright, but canting at various angles. At one time, it was apparent, the entire castle had been surrounded and fenced in by a circle of massive stones of the kind that one might see, or so it was said, at Stonehenge and on a smaller scale in many other places. But this circle was larger than the one at Stonehenge, if traveler's tales could be credited, perhaps a great deal larger, for this castle circle once had enclosed many acres. In an earlier day, Duncan thought, it must have been an impressive sight, but now, like the castle, it was considerably dismantled. The lintel stones, with the slow canting of the uprights, had fallen from their places and lay half buried on the surface, or, not falling entirely free, still lay with one end propped against a standing stone.

The sun was no more than a few minutes above the western horizon, and shadows were lengthening and growing deeper in the valley. Just beyond the castle ran a quiet river, unhurried in its flow, with small flocks of ducks flying above it, and others floating on its surface. Behind him Duncan could hear the subdued mumble of the wind blowing through the rift.

He walked forward to join. Conrad. Tiny had trotted on ahead, quartering the slope of hillside below them, nosing out the land.

“I would say we should go down to the river and camp the night,” Said Duncan. “Get an early start, come morning.”

Conrad nodded his agreement. “It will be good,” he said, “to have some open land. Now we can make better time.”

“We need to,” Duncan said. “We have wasted a lot of time.”

“If we could have caught some of the Reaver's horses.”

“We tried,” said Duncan. “They were having none of us.”

“We still can make good time,” said Conrad. “We have good legs.”

“The hermit will hold us up.”

“We could put him up with Meg on Daniel. That horse could carry both of them and never notice.”

“We'll see about it,” said Duncan. “The hermit would raise hell. He wants to be the same as you and I.”

“I'll grant him that,” said Conrad, “if he'd just keep up with us.”

They started down the slope, the others trailing along behind them. They had reached the bottom of the slope and started out across the valley when Meg let out a shriek.

They whirled about.

Filing out of the timbered hill to the east of the rift came a long rank of hairless ones, and behind them loomed a bank of fog, or what appeared to be fog, disturbed and agitated, as if some sort of commotion were taking place inside of it. Tendrils of it spurted out in front of the rolling bank so that the slouching hairless ones seemed to be wading knee-deep through a patch of ground mist. In the broken rifts of the swirling fog could be caught occasional glimpses of obscene monstrosities—an impression of teeth, of horns, of beaks, of glittering eyes.

Conrad sucked in his breath. “Magic,” he said.

The rest of the band was piling down the hill. They reached Duncan and Conrad and swung into line to face the oncoming hairless ones, who were backed by the roiling cloud of smoky fog.

“We make our stand here?” Conrad asked.

“We might as well,” said Duncan. “There's no place to retreat. If we ran, they'd pull us down.”

“The ruins of the castle,” suggested Conrad. “We could place the mound at our back. Here they'll sweep around our flanks. They'll be down on us like wolves.”

“There isn't time to reach the castle,” Duncan said. “Besides, Snoopy warned us of the castle.”

Daniel was at his right hand, Andrew at his left, Beauty and Meg next, with Conrad and Tiny anchoring the left.

“Meg, what are you doing here?” demanded Duncan. “Get out of here. Run for your life.”

She cackled at him. “I can bite and scratch,” she squealed. “I can kick. I can summon up some magic.”

“A pox on your magic,” Andrew told her. “Those coming at us are the ones with magic.”

The hairless ones came slowly down the hill with their lumbering gait, the clubs in their hamlike fists held ready. Behind them rolled the cloud of fog that now seemed shot through with lightning bolts, flaring as it seethed. Within it loomed horrific shapes, revealed momentarily by the lightning flares, then shut from sight by the roiling of the fog.

The last rays of the sun still touched the top of the hills to the north, but in the valley, shadows were beginning to creep across the land.

Duncan held his sword at ready and was pleased to find that there was no fear in him. It was useless, he told himself, to attempt to make a stand before such a force. The hairless ones would strike them and for a moment there would be a flurry of fighting, then the hairless ones and the monstrosities coming on behind them would roll over their thin line and that would be the end of it. But what was a man to do? Run, to be hunted down and dragged down, like a fleeing animal? Collapse upon his knees and plead for mercy when he knew there would be no mercy? Simply stand and take death as it came? No, by God, he told himself, he'd fight and when it was all over, once it all was known, there'd be no shame at Standish House.

For a moment he remembered, as clearly as if he stood before him, that old man at Standish House, with his plumb-line upright body, his rugged face with the short clipped mustache, his gray hair and the clear, honest grayness of his eyes. The kind of a man, Duncan knew, that a son could never shame.

He raised his sword as the foremost hairless one came toward him. Another step, he told himself. The hairless one took the other step, his club raised and already beginning to come down. Duncan chopped with his blade. He felt, rather than saw, the striking into flesh. Then the hairless one was falling and another took his place. The sword slashed out again, missed the stroke that he had intended, deflected by the club, but took off the club arm just above the elbow. Beside him Daniel was screaming in battle rage, as only a fighting horse could scream, standing on his hind legs, striking out with his forelegs, crushing skulls, bowling over the hairless ones as they leaped at him. To Duncan's left Andrew was tugging to free his staff from the belly of one of the attackers. Another hairless one aimed a club at him as he was tugging at the staff, but before the club could strike Duncan brought his sword down, slicing open the throat of the thing that held the club.

Duncan lost track of time. There was no past, no future, simply a bloodstained, straining present in which he thrust and struck, as if somewhere back there someone was lining up the hairless ones for him to strike at, as if it were some sort of silly game, replacing the one that went down with another that came charging in upon him to supply him with another target for his swordsmanship. It seemed to him incredible that he could keep on, but he did keep on.

Quite suddenly there was in front of him not a hairless one, but a spitting, vicious fury that was all claws and fangs, blank as the deepest pit of night, oozing loathsomeness, and in a flare of blinding hatred, a hatred he had not felt against the hairless ones, he brought down the blade upon it, hewing it in half.

Something struck him from one side and he lost his balance, going over. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw what had struck him. A raging griffin, poised with beating wings over the swirling cloud of fog, which was still streaked by lightning flashes, was reaching down with grasping claws and stabbing beak, slashing, clawing, stabbing, rending the things that hid inside the cloud. Leaning from the griffin's back, a woman clad in a leather jacket, the red-gold glory of her hair streaming in the battle wind, wielded a shining battle axe that was smeared with the red of blood and black ichor such as had spouted from the body of the spitting fury Duncan had killed.

As Duncan surged to his feet he heard the thunder of hoofs coming from above him, as if they were riding down the sky, the sudden blaring of a hunting horn, and the deep bay of hunting dogs.

He took a step forward and stumbled again, coming down with one knee across the fallen body of the hermit. Ahead of him a hairless one was shambling forward, rocking on his bowed legs, heading for Tiny, who was systematically tearing apart a horror that squealed and shrieked. Duncan lunged to his feet, surged toward the hairless one. The point of his blade took it in the throat, and the club, coming down, thudded into the ground, falling short of Tiny.

Then the thunder of the hoofs and the deep hoarse baying of the hunting dogs seemed to fill the valley, and down out of the sky they came—black silhouettes of horse and rider and hunting dogs—fog-draped shadows that still had some substantiality, and a howling wind came with them that almost blew Duncan from his feet.

The Wild Huntsman and his pack swooped down to tear through the roiling bank of fog that concealed the hideous shapes with the obscene teeth and beaks and talons, emerged again, climbing in the sky, then wheeled to return.

Atop the griffin, her high-lifted battle axe dripping blood and ichor, Diane shouted at Duncan. “The castle! Run for your life. Run to the castle!”

Duncan turned to pick up Andrew, but the hermit was getting to his feet, using his staff to pull himself erect. One side of his face was raw, the blood dripping from his wispy beard onto his tattered robe.

“To the castle,” Duncan shouted at him. “Run. As fast as you can go.”

Diane still was shouting, “Everyone to the castle. It's your only chance.”

Duncan reached for Daniel, grabbed him by the mane.

“Daniel, come,” he shouted.

There were no longer any of the hairless ones charging in upon them. The fog bank lay in tatters, the lightning flashes gone, and a mass of dark shapes were hopping and running, crawling and wriggling up the hillside.

Duncan spun around to look for Conrad and saw him limping toward the ruined castle, one hand gripping the collar of a raging Tiny, dragging the dog along. Meg and Beauty were running a footrace for the castle, Meg hobbling and wobbling in a frantic effort to keep pace with the little burro. Andrew stumped along behind them, angrily striking at the ground with his staff.

“Come, Daniel,” Duncan said and set off at a swinging pace, the big horse following.

Looking over his shoulder, Duncan saw the Huntsman and his pack in a sharp climb up the sky. He heard a swirl of leathery wings and saw Diane and the griffin also heading for the castle.

The canted standing stones were just ahead of him and as he ran toward them, he wondered what kind of safety might be offered by the castle. If the Evil forces and the remaining hairless ones attacked again, and probably they would as soon as they had reassembled, he and his band would have to fight again. They would be fighting, this time, with the castle mound to protect their backs, but even so, how long could they hope to stand against such a force? It was sheer good luck they had made the stand they had. Had it not been for the intervention of Diane and the Huntsman, they now would all be dead. And the Wild Huntsman, he wondered. Why had this wild rider of the skies taken a hand in it? What interest could have brought him to it?

He looked quickly behind him and saw the irregular lumps of the dead hairless ones lying in a ragged row. The hairless ones and the other things as well—the spitting fury that he had sliced in two, the squawling thing that Tiny had torn apart, and perhaps there were others of them, too.

He passed between two of the standing stones, Daniel pacing at his side, and as he stepped between them, the grass beneath his feet turned from unkempt meadow grass to a well-kept, pampered velvet lawn.

Startled, he looked up and gasped at what he saw. The castle mound was gone. In its place stood a splendid castle, a building out of fairyland, brand new and shining, stone steps leading up to a great front entrance that was agleam with candlelight and with lights showing as well in some of the many windows.