by Andre Norton
Was it, Thora's antagonism roused again, that he believed no female dared meddle in such matters as this of the blood-sisters— brothers? That the furred ones could only company with men?
“I go where the Lady would have me,” she retorted sharply. “I have met with Tarkin and we understand each other—and that there is that we must do, blood-bond or no.”
“But you are not sister-blood,” Eban said slowly.
“All roads are not the same, even if they lead in a common direction,” Makil said before the girl could answer. “She has been accepted by our little ones after another fashion. There is nothing for us to question if the Folk have already decided it so. It is only good that we can be as one in the matter now before us.”
As one? Something within Thora queried that statement. “Not yet do I say that, Makil of the Sword. I owe a debt to you perhaps. To these others of your kin I owe nothing. What I do is because the Lady wills it—not through or by any command issued from this Hunter Priest of yours.” She favored Borkin with a glance which perhaps he did not see, but which measured the man she still distrusted and would continue to, until she was sure that he would not try again to use her for his own purposes.
They would join against the common enemy because that was willed. However that did not mean that she surrendered any part of her will or talents to any except the Lady!
Thora speedily discovered that these valley men were trained in the art of journeying across open land with as little exposure of their presence as possible. She thought that she had learned much of such sulking during her own wandering, but these four and their furred companions were masters of such craft. Kort fell into his old role of scout—ranging ahead. And even Borkin came to grudgingly admit that the hound served better than any spy they had previously employed.
They used every scrap of cover which a zigzag path afforded them. It was plain that, away from their own valley, none of her new companions held anything in trust. When they camped at night they chose cover carefully, and always they headed westward—but now their direction angled also south toward the river up which she had come with Malkin.
It was not only against any who might sight their passage by day that they guarded. Each night Borkin and Makil followed a ritual about their campsite, setting up a barrier of force. Makil unsheathed his sword, and, with its point, drew lines in sod or soil. Borkin recited words, of which Thora only recognized a few. This done the travelers seemed at greater ease, though she noted they still kept watch by lot and were alert to anything which might move in the dark.
12
The men from the valley were a silent lot, or perhaps they were chary of words because they found Thora too strange to hold in trust. She could not tell which motive kept them largely without speech save for very necessary remarks. The furred ones hiss-whispered among themselves from time to time, but if they shared any thoughts with those two they were blood-bound to, the girl could not detect it. At first she was willing to be as uncommunicative in turn.
On the third day she began to tire of this continued silence, was no longer willing to rest on her pride and wait for them to explain where they went, or what they sought—besides their missing comrade. Though she did believe that it was Karn's capture which had partly brought them into this debatable land.
Still Thora studied eagerly the land they traveled through, hoping to spy some landmark out of her vision. But perhaps because that had been taken in complete darkness any such were not disguised. At last she addressed Borkin directly, determined that, since he was so obviously her unfriend here, he was the one to be approached first. The most difficult must always be assailed from the beginning—the greater trial before the easier one.
“You seek a place of the Dark Ones—” That could be either a question or a statement. “What trail do we follow to find such?”
He glanced at her with no warmth, only a frown of impatience.
“We cannot find them. With fortune perhaps we might sense one of their trails. But we can more readily seek what they want most. Then, seemingly as far as they can know—we can betray our presence in our excitement. Having thus broken our own defenses, they will speedily come seeking us—”
It was as she had suspected, they believed (as she also had been taught) that those of the Dark could detect any use of power within a land they knew. But what did they seek—besides valley men for prey? She opened her mouth to ask that and then understood—the storage place in which she herself had already found the dead Dark One and those he led! That must be where they were headed now—to set bait in a trap the Dark could not resist.
Thora thought of the rat things they had fought there during their own escape—and of what secrets unknown, unlearned, might lie waiting for the uncovering. One might easily so loose more than could be controlled. Now she looked from Borkin to the other three and found them watching her—Borkin and Eban narrowly, Martan and Makil more openly.
“Do you believe, Borkin,” she asked deliberately, “that those who stored their things of knowledge left no safeguards? It may be that both you and the Dark Ones will find more than you bargain for—”
“You speak,” Makil broke in, “always of ‘you’, as if you have no part in this. Chosen. Still you continue to walk our way and the sister,” he indicated Tarkin where she stood a little apart with her own kind, “travels it with you and says that a task has been laid upon you.”
“Perhaps that is so. I am willing to walk your trail and wait to see what is required of me—but not by you.” Her chin arose a little and she held herself very straight. “That we have a common enemy binds us. Yet we have not drunk Friend-cup, nor are we kin-named. I do not know why I have been sent, only there is HER purpose to be served. That is sufficient for a Chosen. In HER own time She will call me. Yet what lies in the place you would invade—that is not or Her—nor perhaps even of such power as we could wish to use. To meddle there may be a costly mistake.”
Makil shook his head. “We do not meddle; we shall use it for bait. The matter lies as Borkin says. Those of the Dark hunt such caches. Let them know that this one is found and they will pour forth from their lair. Thus can we learn where that lies and perhaps more of the full weight of what is ranged against us. For a find such as Malkin has spoken of is a mighty matter—perhaps it would even bring their chief out to view it.”
They came to the river—and then the dead tree where Thora had been moved to hang the tattered cloak of evil. Of that there remained no sign, save there were prints on the ground about the shattered trunk, the marks so overlaid that one could not sort out any of one definite pattern.
Martan went down on one knee to study these closer. Then he held out a finger, moving it back and forth, as if trying to outline the half seen. Yet never did he touch the disturbed earth itself. As the younger man drew back, Borkin closed in, holding in one hand a small bag of the same dark green material as their clothing and which bore on its sides the silver marking of the spiral. Out of it he took a pinch of coarse grained stuff like silver sand, and, with a practiced swing of his wrist, he sent that flying out to form a spiral on the ground, covering those unreadable tracks.
It was as if he had sown fire instead of dust. For there arose from the center of the spiral a puff of smoke no larger than Thora's little finger. That traveled along the length of the spiral outward until it reached the very end of the line. For a second or two it hung so—then its tip dropped—pointed—before it was gone and the spiral which had given it birth also faded away.
“West,” Martan stood, his hands on his hips, staring over the level lands. Nothing lay there—only in a far distance some dark blots moved slowly—grazing beasts Thora believed. Still she guessed that what Borkin had just done was not because they truly wanted to know in what direction the Enemy had gone, but rather he had deliberately induced his first troubling with Power—one which should be quickly picked up by any watching for just that.
From that time on they traveled by night, their camps as hidden
as they could make them. Makil took greater care with the invisible guards he put about each. Thora now understood that it was a race with time to find what they sought—that crevice leading into the ancient storehouse where they proposed to set up their trap.
Doubts hung heavy in her mind though she did not voice them. Four men—and a Chosen without full training—three of the furred ones whose abilites and talents might be great but of whose strength she was ignorant. So small a band—and what could the Dark hurl against them? She thought of the night-black citadel into which she had gone in vision and, though she had seen but few there, that did not mean the Dark Ones could not summon perhaps as great a following as the raiders who had so easily overrun the Craigs. They must have a vast belief in themselves, these valley men. Or else they were desperate in their taking of chances. That she had become a part of this—Inwardly she continued to wonder at the folly of her presence here, and then was a little frightened at such rebellion against what must have led her to this band.
Lying in hiding during the day, Thora slept only fitfully. Kort ranged farther and farther. Sometimes they did not see him from dawn to dusk. Always when he returned he brought prey with him, rabbits, large birds of the open country who were poor flyers.
Malkin and Raskin, the male, had what remained of the vials from the cavern. In addition they drank the blood of such offerings as Kort brought. But they were also nourished otherwise, and Thora, seeing what they were given by their chosen companions, found it distasteful, that bond even more one to be questioned by one of her own kind.
For each morning Makil and Eban moved aside heavy bands they wore on their wrists and reopened small cuts from which the furred ones sucked for the space of a breath or two. Such small tastes apparently were worth more to Malkin's species than any other food, and they needed but little of it.
Though Thora could not have found her way back to the crevice, Kort and Malkin together were able to do so. They came at dawn to that black slit which she had no wish to enter again, but down which she had no choice but to go. They were alert for the rats in the dark but the men produced from their packs sticks, the tips of which had been dipped many times to build a thick coating of a hardened green substance. They peeled the covering from one of these and set it alight. Borkin carried it into the crevice and the torch was strong enough to reveal every detail of the slit through which they went, Kort, growling, his back hair raising, walking stiff-legged back to the scene of their own battle.
The vanquished enemy was revealed shortly by a huddle of bones already picked clean of even the last tufts of hairy skin. Eban bent closer to look at the skeleton.
“The great rats, yes. Eaten by their own kind, doubtless. But larger even than any we have seen before.”
There were three more such skeletons. Then there came a faint squeaking from a break in the wall at the level of their heads. But none of the creatures of the dark ventured out into the light of the torches, so their party made their way on without any attacks. Twice they paused for Makil to face the back trail, to touch sword point to rock on either side. Not in a protective pattern this time, Thora was sure, but rather to set deliberate guides for those who might follow.
But surely those of the Dark forces would not be so lacking in cunning as not to suspect that this might have been done on purpose? Perhaps that thought of hers showed in her face, for Makil, allowing the rest to get a little in advance, said in a low voice:
“We do not underrate those we go against, Chosen, even if it seems thus to you who knows not our ways. In the past, before the Dark arose to be such a danger in these lands, it was always our custom to mark trails so—especially if they might lead to some discovery of the Days Before. Then those summoned to help us explore could find our path quickly. The Dark may well believe now that we are so avid for what we seek that there will be other parties of our people following and that these marks are left for them. Also they have that pride which is the cloak of their belief in themselves and contempt for us. It is very common for them to judge that we are less than ground-crawling insects which they can easily crush beneath a boot sole.
“They have swept far and fast during the past four years, and I think that they may have begun to believe that there is nothing and no one who cannot be bent to their purposes. Unless,” and now he looked at her very searchingly “—unless they have been alarmed since you faced their leader in his own foul chamber.”
“From which,” Thora immediately pointed out, “I would perhaps not have come forth again without your aid. Do not build too much on any power of mine—for I was the least of the Circle Servants in my own place, being only one who waited to be raised to full power.”
“Still you possess what they have not faced before—at least among us,” he continued. “Do not cry down what you have to offer. The People,” he made a slight gesture to where Malkin pattered before him, “are never wrong in their weighing of our potentialities. That Tarkin accepted you, and without forging any blood bond, is a new, strange thing—so it means much. You do not have the People among you?”
The girl shook her head. “No. And in our legends familiars are said to be servants of the Dark—though when I met with Malkin, my Moon jewel told me that this was not so. But your bond with them is one I cannot share—” Perhaps a shadow of distaste crossed her face then for he was looking at her very soberly.
“Yes. The paths we walk are divided. But for the present it is enough that those run side by side forward to a common end. I think that you feel Borkin is difficult to deal with, but among us he is a ‘Chosen’ also.”
“But you,” Thora was moved to say then, raising her hand to indicate his sword, “are perhaps more than Borkin. What is this Weapon of Lur,” she remembered what he had named it, “which you carry to such purpose?”
“It is a focus of the Power, even as is your own jewel. No, I am not greater than Borkin. He is much more learned in the old rites than any now among us, save for those who have withdrawn and meditate away their day and nights in the High Hall—where he in time shall also take his place. But, as with you, we have our Chosen. It happens that in this generation I am the only one who can lay hand to the Weapon—so I became its servant. To carry it is no easy task—and one no man would wish because of ambition. It lays many bonds upon its bearer and his life becomes wholly that of Lur.”
In the torchlight his gaunt face showed the hollowing of cheeks, the setting of lips, marking one who had long borne a heavy burden and learned endurance as a deep and bitter lesson. Thora knew a stir of awe when she looked upon Makil, whereas Borkin, for all his vaunted power, aroused in her only opposition and dislike. Martan, the Windrider, she felt she understood—in spite of her wonder for the art he had mastered which made him free of the air. He was not unlike a young man of the Craigs—one of those restless seekers from whose ranks the Winter Hunter was usually drawn—men who were not content with flocks, herds and fields, but needed a different way of life.
Eban, she did not know beyond the fact that he seemed of consequence to the valley's defenses. But Makil was a different type of man, new to her. In him she sensed things which she might never understand were they to travel in company for their lifetimes. She discovered that she no longer held any shadow of resentment toward him, not merely because he had brought her out of the Dark with his mysterious weapon, but because he was what he was. She would like to know him better, for he presented to her a mystery—though she doubted that even were she to appeal to the Lady would she ever be able to solve such.
They scrambled down shortly into the great spread of the underground storage place and came to that party of the dead led by the ancient enemy. Borkin stooped close over the form of the Dark Master which was so well covered by the folds of the cloak upon which time had seemed to have no effect. Having inspected the body very closely as it lay he stood to rummage in his pack and finally brought forth a well-polished length of wood which was pure white for half its length, a deep and lustreles
s black for the rest.
The black tip of this he inserted very carefully under the outflung edge of the cloak. With a sudden movement of his wrist, heaved the folds up and back to reveal the inner side. This was, as Thora had expected, covered thickly with those same symbols she had seen on those worn by the Enemy in her vision. Some of those metallic-hued designs made her queasy, so blatantly foul were they. Still Borkin studied them intently as if their meaning was such he must learn more and more, in spite of their vicious evil. Again and again he lifted, pulled, twisted at the cloak until they could finally see the body it had covered.
The limbs were now only bone beneath a covering of dark, dried skin—still somehow the corpse did not look as dead as those among which it lay. Thora shifted uneasily, though she would not allow herself to move away. She tensed—there was something like a wind touching her—save this was within and not outside the envelope of her body. She pulled free her spear, half expecting to see those limbs twitch, the thing strive to rise.
Kort crouched beside her snarling, fangs bared. It would seem that he shared her feeling. While Tarkin crowded in upon the girl's left, her eyes ablaze. Thora saw a flame in the air which was not from the torch which they no longer needed in this grey lit place. Makil had his sword out and in the hilt—for he gripped that weapon now by its blade, the jewel crystal began to glow. Suddenly—
She had not been mistaken in her fears. One of those skeleton legs had drawn up a little, not shifted by Borkin's moving of the cloak which had covered it. Yes, it was drawing up—!
“Back—all of you!” Makil ordered. Thora's hand gripped the spear, ready to stab.
Borkin leaped away, so quickly that he tottered, not quite sure of his balance. That which was under the cloak heaved, started truly to rise. But from the crystal of the sword hilt shot a beam of light which was like that she had seen in her vision of the crossroads. It struck full upon the dead-alive thing.
