The Great Alta Saga Omnibus

by Jane Yolen

  “Our Alta denied us all men until the coming of the Three. Your Alta went among men and had commerce with them. Our Alta sat in the circle. Your Alta sits on a throne. Our Alta …” Maltia said.

  “Alta has many faces,” Petra interrupted smoothly, “yet in the end we are all babes again at her breast. Is that not so?”

  “In the end, and in the beginning, yes,” said Maltia. “And by thy coming, we know it be the end. That is why we go from M’dorah, this high and holy place.” Her face was bereft of all happiness.

  Jenna looked around. All the women, intent on their final duties, wore the same mask of sorrow. They are in mourning, she thought, not for any one death but for the death of M’dorah.

  They set fire to the Hame, each with a torch so that everyone shared equally in the ending. It was accompanied by a plainsong chant:

  Came we out of fire

  Came we out of grove

  Came we from desire

  To the rocks above.

  Now return to fire

  Now remake the grove

  Now the heart’s desire

  Goes to ground with love.

  Then, driven by the fierce heat of the conflagration, they dropped a dozen ladders over the side of the rock and began their descent.

  Once over the edge, with the fire unable to cast shadows, Skada and the other dark sisters disappeared, cutting the numbers of women in half. Jenna felt more alone than she had in days.

  At the bottom of the ropes Piet was waiting, arms crossed. He looked as though he had been waiting in that position all night long.

  “What is the fire?” he asked when Jenna reached the ground. “It set the sky ablaze. When I saw it, I would have climbed up to get girl. But there were no ladders and no footholds that I could find.”

  “It is the end of M’dorah,” Jenna explained. “More I will not say. Now we have a hundred warriors to add to Pike’s army.”

  “I count but half that,” Piet said.

  “When the moon rises …” Jenna began.

  “It is days until the moon.”

  “Then the force will double.”

  He nodded. “But now?”

  “Now we have all that move by day. There is no one left in that eagle’s nest.”

  He nodded again and started to turn toward them. Jenna put a hand on his arm.

  “Hold, Piet. They will take no direction but my own.”

  “The king be not pleased at that,” Piet murmured.

  “The king will have to live with it,” Jenna answered. She turned and waved her hand and the women followed her, threading carefully down the pathless hillside. They were more silent than any army Piet had ever heard. Even the three babes, swaddled and strapped against their mothers’ backs, were absolutely still.

  When they got to the place where the horses were tied, Piet mounted up but Jenna and Petra remained on foot.

  “Ride on, Piet, and tell King Gorum we come with a dozen dozen women behind.”

  “I was not to leave ye,” Piet said.

  “If you do not leave now, he will not know in time.”

  Piet nodded.

  “And faithful Piet,” Jenna said, moving by him and putting her hand on his leg. “I have a special message for you alone, not the king.”

  Piet bent over, steadying the horse with the reins in his right hand.

  Jenna whispered, “These women came not because they believe in me but because of some strange holding of theirs about three heralds, three messengers of their own Alta. Those messengers carry crown, wristlet, and collar.”

  “The boys …” He stopped himself, nodded again.

  “Tell them. Tell the boys. Warn them.”

  “They will be warned.”

  “And something else.” She hesitated. “Tell Carum I …”

  “He knows, girl,” said Piet.

  “Knows?”

  “And I know. We all know. We have eyes. Cat knew even afore thee.”

  “No one knew before me.”

  Piet grinned. “The first, that’s the hardest. And the dearest. And the best.” There was some sort of forgiveness in his eyes. As quickly, it was gone. He nodded again, sat up straight, jerked the horse’s head with the reins, and plunged them both into the undergrowth.

  She could hear the sound of his passage for a long time after.

  With that many women, it took them several more hours to reach the deep woods. Jenna could read Piet’s passage before them and hoped that he was already with the king for the sun was peeking through the interlacing of the trees. When she turned to look at the women behind her, she saw what a great swath they had left.

  “An army cannot move easily in the woods,” she murmured to Petra.

  Petra agreed. “We do not leave a trail but a highway.”

  “What does it matter what we leave behind?” Iluna asked. “It is what lies ahead that matters.” Her eyes were bright with excitement.

  “What lies ahead,” Jenna pointed out, “is war. And that means some of us will die.” Without thinking, she flexed the fingers of her sword hand, suddenly remembering the feel of the sword sliding through a man’s flesh. She shuddered. “Many of us will die.”

  Petra put her hand around Jenna’s, folding her fingers tightly under. “But some of us will live, Jenna. You must remember that after the ending is the beginning. So it is prophesied.”

  “On the slant, Petra. We must read prophecy on the slant, or so I have been told often enough,” Jenna said.

  They walked on.

  They were nearly halfway through the woods, following Piet’s easy trail, when Jenna held up her hand. The women stopped at once as she strained to listen.

  “Do you hear that?” she asked at last.

  Petra shook her head. “Hear what? I hear some birds. The wind through trees. And”—she smiled—“and a baby chuckling.”

  Iluna put her finger over her shoulder and the baby took it into her mouth.

  “No more baby,” Petra said. “And the birds have quieted as well.”

  “No. Another sound. Deeper. Unnatural.”

  “I hear something.” Iluna moved closer to Jenna. “But it is not one sound. It is several. Some are high, some low. Not the sound of the woods, though. I have been here often on the hunt and that I know.”

  Maltia and several other women moved closer to Jenna, silently over the fallen leaves and low branches. Only one twig was snapped, and it shockingly loud in the stillness. They formed a tight circle around Jenna, Petra, Iluna, and the horses, and stood in an attitude of listening.

  After a long moment, Jenna said, “There. Do you hear it?”

  “We hear,” Maltia said. The others nodded.

  Jenna drew in a deep breath. “Do you know what it means? I fear I do. It is the sound of sword on sword and the cries of men. I have heard that sound in my dreams. There is a battle raging—and I am not with them. I must ride.” She put her hand on Duty’s back.

  “I will go with you, Jenna,” Petra said.

  “No, Petra, you have no skill with a sword, and these women need you.”

  “Not to show them the way, Jenna. They know these woods better than I.”

  “You know the world, Petra. That is the way you must show them. Come as soon as you can. And take this.” She stripped the priestess ring from her finger, placing it gently in Petra’s hand. “You have the map of the Hames and now the ring. If anything happens, you must carry on the warning and the women of M’dorah with you.”

  “Nothing will happen,” Petra whispered. “You are the Anna.”

  “I am Jo-an-enna first and anything can happen to her.” She mounted her horse.

  “You cannot go alone into battle,” Petra said.

  “I will not be alone. The men are already fighting and you will come right after. Besides we have only two horses and who but you can ride.” She gathered Duty’s reins.

  “I can!” Iluna cried. “At least I have been on a horse before. Once before.” She turned to Petra. “
Give me the lines.”

  “The lines?”

  “She means the reins,” Jenna said. She pulled back on her own reins and Duty reared suddenly, nearly throwing her. “And take the child from her back.”

  “I will not be parted from my Scillia. Is it not so with the sisters of thy Hame?”

  Jenna nodded her head and quieted Duty while Iluna was hoisted onto the horse by Maltia and Petra and two other women. Mounting was not something Iluna had acquired in her brief riding lesson. But once atop the horse, she sat with the kind of stillness necessary, though whether from fear or from skill, Jenna could not have said. She pulled roughly on the reins once again and, as Duty spun to the right, called out to them all:

  “Follow as swifly as you can. Your swords will surely be welcome. The king thought to pit force against force, but he has too small an army yet. This battle is an unwelcome surprise. His brother and I had hoped to convince him to use cunning, the mouse’s wits against the cat’s claw. Let us hope that there are some mice left.”

  Maltia put her hand on Duty’s neck. “But if they all be men, how will we know which to draw against?”

  The simple question stunned Jenna. What answer indeed? To these women all men were the enemy. In battle how could one be distinguished from the other?

  Petra smiled. “If a man draws against you, True Speaker, he is your foe. Our men will be the ones who welcome your help.”

  Jenna nodded, though some part of her still resisted that easy answer, hearing again in her mind the woman at New Steading protesting: Girls dressing like men, playing at war, taint natural. We’ve all said it. Aloud, she spoke only soothing words. “Petra is right. The men who welcome you are the men you should aid.” Then she kicked Duty hard with her heels and the horse took off down the faint path.

  Behind her Iluna’s horse began to trot, with Iluna hanging on grimly to the reins. Jouncing merrily, the baby at her back waved her hand at the women who followed.

  It did not take them long to bull their way through the rest of the forest, the sounds of the battle drawing them on. Jenna cursed herself for the meal at M’dorah, the necessary arguments, the slow walk through the woods, all conspiring to keep her from the start of the battle. She knew that she was but one more sword, but if that sword could keep Jareth or Marek or Sandor alive … She did not let herself think about Carum. In her mind she called him Longbow, just another warrior in the king’s troops. She urged Duty ahead with a hard kick of her heels.

  Then they burst out of the woods and the battle sounds exploded around them. Jenna pulled up short when she saw the once-pleasant field. Beside her Iluna, too, reined in her horse.

  To the left across the meadow, under a stand of overhanging trees, three men were setting upon one. He was hewing with his great sword, keeping them at bay. Ahead a knot of nearly thirty men were tangled together, their swords gone, wrestling and kicking, and hitting with their fists and knees. Over to the right, where a few horses grazed disconsolately, was a ring of a dozen men, swords drawn, standing shoulder to shoulder. Their swords pointed outward, and inside the circle lay several fallen comrades. One, half upraised on his elbow, was being tended by a great bear of a man. The rest of the field was littered with bodies, some in uniform, some in fine cloth. Jenna scanned nervously for one in wine-colored weave. She thought there were several, but she was too far away to be sure.

  Dropping Duty’s reins, she whispered, “Too late. Again too late. Just as the Grenna said.” Her hands fell helpless to her sides and she was overcome by a sudden strange lethargy.

  But Iluna, raising her sword, dug her heels into her horse and headed toward the stand of trees where the one man fought against the three. She screamed “M’dorah!” as she rode.

  The three men scattered before her charge. Dropping the reins, she slid off the horse’s back and turned to say something to the big man she had just rescued. As Jenna watched from afar, the man lifted his sword and struck Iluna in the middle of the breast with his blade. She fell, twisting at the last onto her side in order to save the child at her back. The man straddled her body and threw his head back, roaring. Jenna could hear it all the way across the field.

  Suddenly the warmth of the lethargy gave way to a surge of ice-cold power. Screaming Iluna’s name like a battle cry, Jenna dug her heels again and again in Duty’s side and they galloped toward the stand of trees.

  The man waited for her, grinning. She knew who it was even before she was halfway to him. What had been icy cold running through her body turned into a red heat in her head. She recalled Alta’s words in the grove: Remembering is what you must do most of all. She remembered the fire on top of the towering stone, and it became a river of fire in her veins. She could feel the sweat on her forehead and under her arms.

  Just before reaching the trees, she leaped from Duty’s back. The horse veered right, Jenna rolled to the left, then stood, sword upraised. She wondered the man was not seared by her heat.

  “So, little Alta’s bitch, do you think you have the blood to do now what you could not do before? And with my hands free this time?” He lifted the sword over his head with both hands, swinging it around. It cut the air, making a horrible whirring. The sword was much heavier than hers, its blade still slick with Iluna’s blood, but if its weight tired him, Jenna could not tell. She had no hope blade against blade to defeat him. She would have to cool her fire and use cunning, the cunning of the mouse.

  Something sounded in the broken grass behind her but she knew better than to turn. It had to be the three who had scattered before Iluna’s horse. Whoever they were, if they had been fighting the Bear, they were on her side.

  “Name yourselves,” she cried out to them, her eyes on the Bear.

  “Anna, it be Marek.”

  “And Sandor.”

  The strangled sound coming from the third proclaimed it as Jareth. Alive—all three!

  “Blessed be,” she whispered, then said aloud, “Good boys!”

  “Boys they be right enough,” the Bear said. “Pups! And even three full-grown hounds are not strong enough to pull me down. Not even three grown hounds and their bitch mother.” He laughed.

  Jenna heard one of the boys gasp and start forward.

  “No!” she cried. “Let him waste his breath in boasts. Do not crowd him. His sword has a long reach.”

  “A very long reach,” the Bear agreed. “And after I dispose of the pups, I will teach the bitch a lesson. A lesson you will long remember. At least as long as you live.” He laughed again. “Which will not be that long after all.”

  “Anna …” It was Sandor.

  “No. After this is over I will tell you a story that Ca—that Longbow told me. About a cat and a mouse. For now, I would have you remember the Grenna and how they rule.”

  “What be your meaning—oh!” Someone had obviously elbowed Sandor in the side. Probably Jareth. Jareth would have understood first.

  The boys fanned out in a wide circle, none higher or lower, none nearer or farther, under Jareth’s silent tutelage. Just like the Grenna’s circle.

  Then another sound reached Jenna, though she never took her eyes from the Bear. She suspected from the sound and the slight widening of his eyes that the tangle of men in the center of the field had at last unknotted itself. Or the circle of swords had dispatched several warriors. She could tell that the number of men around the Bear had doubled and guessed that none of them had arrows left, or he would have been dead by now.

  “Follow Jareth’s lead,” she cautioned to them. “Do not get within the Bear’s sword range.”

  “Come, little puppies; come, little snuffling hounds,” the Bear taunted. “One of you must make the first move. One of you must be brave enough to show the others how to die.” He kept turning, keeping them off guard, bringing his sword from left to right. “Which shall it be? You, with the pretty green band round your throat? Or you, with the long stalks for legs? Or shall it be Alta’s slut, whose white braid I shall cut off and hang upon my
helm?” He continued turning, addressing them all, but Jenna’s warning kept them far enough away so that even when he thrust forward, they were out of his reach.

  “Let him tire,” Jenna said. “Do not let his sword take more of us.”

  “I do not tire,” he said. “I will outlast you all.”

  If she hoped to tempt him into making a false move, he was too smart an old warrior for that. He continued circling Iluna’s body, never losing his footing, never stumbling over her corpse, occasionally kicking at it as if to underscore his ability to kill them all, one at a time.

  Jenna began to feel his rhythm. Catrona had taught her that: how to watch for an animal’s particular rhythm in the woods. What the pace? Catrona had cautioned them. What the pattern? It had been a constant lesson in the woods, the only way to be sure a hunt would end successfully. And this was just another hunt, Jenna thought. Hunting the Bear.

  What was the Bear’s pattern then? He moved feint, feint, feint, thrust; feint, feint, thrust. But always, right before the thrust, there was the slightest of movements, a hitching of his right arm that signaled the forward cut of the sword. She watched another few minutes to be sure, all the while cautioning the men to wait. The waiting was clearly wearing on them, but it would wear on the Bear as well.

  When his back was momentarily turned to her, she bent swiftly and removed the knife from her boot. Across the circle, several men watched her. One man’s eyebrows went up. It signaled the Bear, but he did not quite know what it meant. As he turned toward Jenna, more alert than he had been before, he saw the knife and smiled, guessing what she meant to do. He hitched his shoulder. But fooling him, she flung her sword point first, as they used to do in the game of wands at the Hame.

  The Bear startled for a moment and beat the sword away with his and was back at attention in seconds. But at the same moment, Jareth, alert to Jenna’s every move, flung his sword as well. He had never played at wands and did not understand the balance of a sword, how to compensate for the heavy braided hilt. Instead of going point first, the sword flipped and struck the Bear in the chest with the grip. He grabbed it with his left hand, laughing.