Year of the Unicorn (11 page)

I could hear the clop-clop of hooves ahead, the creak of saddles, growing fainter by the moment. Surely Halse or one of the others would come pounding back to see what delayed us.

Herrel dismounted. He looked up at me, his face a blur not easily read beneath the shadow of his helm.

"Ride!"

He went down on one knee to examine the forefeet of his mount, not looking at the hooves but rather in the longish hair above them. His fingers stilled and his whole body tensed.

"What is it?" I asked for the second time.

But there was no answer-only singing in the air, shrill, ear-piercing in high notes. Herrel's mount reared, screamed, striking out, and sending the man at its feet rolling.

There was no controlling my mare either. She dashed ahead so wildly that she might have been blind. I fought against her terror with hands on reins and my will-that same will which leapt ever to my defence when there was need. Then, when it seemed she was truly mad, I leaned forward in the saddle, grasping her mane. Against my breast I felt a burning coal, eating into my flesh. The amulet-but why? I dared loose hold with one hand, clutched for that packet. Why I did then what I did I had no knowing, any more than why I had performed many actions these past days.

Jerking the cord until it broke, I pressed the amulet between my palm and the mare's foam spattered neck. She ceased the terrible neighing which had been bursting from her as a woman might scream; her wild run slackened. My will caught her-we turned back. I was sure that what had moved her and Herrel's horse had been no freak of nature but a deliberately planned blow.

Almost I feared I could not find my way back. The rocky outcrops all looked the same. But I urged the mare on, my amulet still pressed to her sweating hide. And I could feel the shivering which racked her. Fear was a stench in the air, and mine a part of it.

Behind me the pounding of hooves. Halse drew even, his cloak swept back on his shoulders. I could see sparks of fire...man's eyes...bear's eyes. He leaned forward as if to grasp at my rein, bring me to a halt. And I flung out my hand to ward off his. The amulet swung forward on its broken cord, struck across his bare wrist.

"Ahhh-" A cry of pain, as if I had laid a whip there in earnest. He jerked back and his horse reared with a startled neigh. Then I was out of his reach, riding on to where I had seen Herrel roll away from his mount's striking feet.

His horse stood there, spraddled of leg, muzzle close to the ground. It shivered, plunged once as I moved up, yet did not run. Whilst on a rock ledge of the outcrop crouched that which I had last seen by moonlight on a bed.

"Man-man!" My mind fought fear. But this time my will did not dislodge a phantom. The great cat was silent, it did not even look at me. Those green, glowing eyes were turned elsewhere, down slope, and above its head was a flicker of slender green flame.

"Herrel?" So intent was I on winning man back from cat that I forgot all caution. I slid from the saddle, ran to the rock. As I called the cat's stare broke, it arose in a great bound to clear the fear stricken horse and reach the ground beyond.

The hair along its spine arose, its ears flattened against the skull, and the long tail quivered at tip. Still it looked back down our trail. Then for the first time it yowled.

Herrel's horse plunged and screamed. My mare bolted. Now the cat growled, slinking into a crevice between two rocks, belly to the ground. Seeing that hunter's creep I shrank back against the outcrop, losing touch with the reality of the world I had always known.

I still held the amulet, though I did not remember that until once more in my hand it was burning hot. When I snatched away my fingers I saw, standing out from a crack in the stone, a strange thing. It was perhaps as long as my fore-arm, and it glowed when the amulet approached it. There was such an effluvium of evil exuding from it that before I thought clearly I pulled it free and flung it to the ground, setting my boot heel upon it as I might upon some noxious insect, grinding against the stone until it splintered.

"Harroooo!" Echoed, changed by the rock walls and the wind, but still that was no animal cry. It had come from a human throat, and with it other shouts and a beast's growling.

By me, with more speed than I could have thought possible for such a clumsy seeming body, raced a bear, on its way down trail. A whistle of wings in the sky and a bird, beyond my reckoning large, followed after. A great grey wolf, another cat-this one with fur spotted black on tawny-red, a second wolf, black-the company of the Riders on their way to battle. But that struggle I did not see. Perhaps that was well, for there came a cry so horrible that my hands went to my ears and I crouched against the outcrop with no courage left, only filled with a desire not to see, hear, or think, of what passed where men met beasts in the twilight.

I found myself then, me, who had never believed in the service of the Abbey, muttering prayers I had heard there years on end, as if those words could build a wall between me and terror unleashed to walk the earth. And I strove to concentrate upon the words and their meanings, using them as a shield.

Hands upon my shoulders-I tried to free myself as if they had been claw-set paws. Still I would not open my eyes. For how could I bear now to look upon a man who was also a beast?

"Gillan!" The grasp which held me tightened. I was shaken to and fro, not in punishing anger as my Lord Imgry had used me, but as one would awaken another caught in a nightmare.

I looked-into green eyes, but they were not set in a beast head. Only, still could I see them so. And above them was that helm on which crouched a cat-a stark reminder. I was too weak to pull away from Herrel's hold yet my flesh shrank from it.

"She saw us-she knows-" Words from beyond the narrow world which was mine, in which only the twain of us stood.

"She knows more than you think, pack brothers. Look upon what she has in her hand!"

Anger rising about me. Almost I could see that with my eyes as a dull red mist. I stood on a high and open place and they would stone me with rocks of their hate.

"Doubtless sent to lead us into some trap-"

There was an arm about me, holding me close, promising security. Once I thought I could accept that with open eyes. Now there was such a revulsion working in me that I had to force my will to stand fast, lest I run screaming into the wilderness. And the anger continued to thrust spears of rage at me.

"Cease! Look you well, this is what she holds within her hands. Take it-you, Harl, Hisin, Hulor-Magic, yes, but where is there any evil in it, unless evil was intended in return? Harl, say the Seven words while it rests in your fingers."

Words-or sounds-so sharp they hurt ears, rang into one's skull-words of alien power.

"Well?"

"It is a charm, but only against the powers of darkness."

"Now-look yonder!"

The red wall of anger was gone. I saw again with my eyes and not my emotions. From where I had trampled and broken that shaft I had found in the rock arose a line of oily black smoke, as if from a fire feeding on rottenness. And there was a sickly smell from it. The smoke swirled, formed into a rod which had the likeness of the unbroken shaft.

"A screamer, and one under a dark power!"

Again they spoke words, this time several voices together. The rod swayed back and forth, was gone in a puff.

"You have seen," Herrel said, "you know what kind of a spell that bore. One who wears such an amulet as Gillan can not dabble in dark learning. And there was another charm here also. Harl, I ask of you, look to the fetlock of Roshan's left forefoot."

I saw him who wore the eagle go to Herrel's mount, kneel to feel about the hoof. Then he arose with a thread between his fingers.

"A hinder-cord!"

"Just so. And this also do you say is of the enemy, or of my lady's doing? Perhaps," Herrel looked at each of them for a long instant, "it was a trick for amusement. But almost it worked to my bane, and likewise to those of you who came hither. Or was it more than a trick, a hope that I fall behind to some undoing by fate or enemy?"

"You have the right to ask sword-battle then!" flashed

Halse.

"So I do, as I shall call upon you all to witness-when I find the one who tried to serve me so."

"This is one thing," boar-crest broke in, "but she-" he pointed to me, "is yet another. She who deals in out-land charms, who and what is she?"

"All peoples have their wise women and healers. We know well the skill of those of High Hallack. Gillan had for mistress one who was well learned in such arts. To each race its own powers-"

"But such a one has no place in our company!"

"Do you speak for all the pack, Hulor? Gillan," Herrel spoke to me, far more softly, as one who would win words from a sorely frightened child, "what know you of this other thing-this shaft?"

And as simply as a child I made answer. "The Amulet burned my hand when I rested it on the rock. There was a break in the stone and that stood within it. I-I pulled it loose and broke it with my foot."

"Thus," he swung back to the others, "it would seem, pack brothers, that we owe herewise a debt. With that still potent what might have happened had we gone into battle shape changed and then returned, unable to be men, to face so these we would shield from the truth?"

I heard murmurs among them.

"Upon this matter the whole company must have their say." Halse spoke first.

"So be it-with you witnessing as to what happened here." Herrel replied evenly. His arm tightened around me, I fought against the shudders with which my body would have resisted that hold. "Now, we have no threat left behind, but that does not mean it has vanished from the land. Only, hold in mind, pack brothers, that you return now to those whom you cherish as men this night because of the courage and wit of this my lady."

If he expected any outward assent from the others he did not get it. They drew away. Herrel lifted me into the saddle and climbed up behind, the circle of his arms holding me. Yet I was alone, alone in a company who had let me feel the fire and storm of their hate, and in arms which now I thought of as wholly alien.

Night Terrors and Day Dreams

OF THAT night I remember very little, waking, but of sleeping-Even now my mind shrinks from that memory. Dreams seldom linger in the mind far past the waking hour, but such dreams as haunted me that night were not the normal ones.

I ran through a forest, leaved and yet not green-but a sere and faded grey, as if the trees had died in an instant and had not thereafter lost their leaves, but only become rigid ghosts of themselves. And from behind their charred black trunks things spied upon and hunted me-never visible, yet ever there, malignant and dreadful beyond the power of words to make plain.

There was no end to that forest, nor the hunters, nor to my anguish. And there grew in me the knowledge that they were driving me to some trap or selected spot of their own wherein I would be utterly lost. I can yet feel beneath finger tips the rough bark of trees against which I leaned panting, pain a sword in my side, listening-oh, how I listened!-for any noise from those who followed. But there was no sound, just ever the knowledge they existed.

A wild hunt-though the hounds, the hunters I never saw-only the fear which preceded them drove me.

Time and time again I strove to hold to courage, to turn and face them, telling myself that fear faced is sometimes less than fear fled, but never was my courage great enough to suffer me to hold, past a quivering moment or two. And always the dead-alive trees closed about me.

Growing in me was the knowledge that the end would be horrible past all bearing-

And when I broke then and screamed madly, beating upon the trunk of the tree where I had paused, there was a murmur in my head, a murmur which was first sound and then words, and finally a message I could understand:

"Throw it away-throw it away-all will be well-" It? What was it? Sobbing with breaths which hurt, I looked first to my hands. They were scratched, bleeding, the nails torn-but they were empty.

It? What was it?

Then I looked down at my body. It was bare, no clothing left me. And it was so wasted that the bones showed clearly beneath scarred and scratched skin. But on my breast rested a small bag patterned with runes stitched on in black. Memory stirred faintly, fading before it really told me aught. I caught at the bag. That which stuffed it crunched, and from it arose a faint odour to sting my nose.

"Throw it away!" A command.