Quag Keep

by Andre Norton

  The fate Yevele had not wished even on a sworn enemy was now theirs also. They were afoot in territory where there was no refuge, and how far ahead their comrades rode they could not even guess. Yevele gave one level-eyed glance at what lay there. There was a pinched line about her mouth and she turned her head quickly.

  But Naile approached more closely, while Milo leaned against the trunk of a tree and fought his battle against admitting pain into his mind. The berserker gave a snort of disgust.

  “Nothing of the supplies left,” he commented. “We are lucky there is the river. Now we had best be on the move. There are scavengers who can scent such feasts.”

  Milo only half heard him. Along the river, yes. It was to be the guide of their party north and at least they would not go without water. Water! For a moment the fire in his arm seemed to touch his throat. He wanted—needed—water.

  “What if”—he forced the words out—“there were more than three of those things?”

  “If there had been we would already know it,” returned Naile. He ran his fingertips, with an odd gesture as if he feared to really touch, down his side. “They do not hunt singly. And, since the druid’s summoner is ground to dust, he cannot call them down upon us again.”

  Milo stood away from his tree. “Back to the river then.” He tried to get the right note of purpose into his voice, but it was a struggle. Naile’s suggestion that the claws of those black devils might be poisoned ate into his mind. He had taken wounds in plenty—with scars on his body to prove it—but he could not recall any pain as steady and consuming as this before. Perhaps washing the gash out with cold water would give some relief.

  Twice he stumbled and might have fallen. Then a hand slipped under his arm, took his shield and tossed it to Naile who caught it in one fist as if it weighed nothing. Yevele drew Milo’s arm across her own mailed shoulder, withstanding his short struggle to free himself. His sight grew hazy with each faltering step and in the end he yielded to her will.

  He did not remember reaching the river, though he must have done so on his own two feet. Cold, fighting the heat of his wound, made him aware that his mail, his leather, and his linen undershirt, had been stripped away and Yevele was dripping water on a gash along his arm from which the blood oozed in congealing drops. So small a gash—yet this pain, the lightness of his head. Poison?

  Did Milo say that word aloud? He did not know. Yevele leaned down, raised his arm, held it firm while she sucked along that slash and spat, her smeared lips shaping no distaste for what she did. Then Naile, his great hairy body bare to the waist, gashes longer than that which broke Milo’s skin visible near his ribs, loomed into the swordman’s limited field of vision.

  The berserker held his hands before him, cupped, water dripping from the fingers. Kneeling beside the girl he offered what he so held. With no outward sign of aversion, she plucked out of the berserker’s hold a wriggling yellow thing, hardly thicker than a bow cord. This she brought to Milo’s arm, holding it steady until it gripped tight upon the bleeding wound. Three more such she applied before settling the arm and the things that sucked the dark blood by his side. Then she set about doing the same for Naile, though it looked as if his skin was not so deeply cut after all, for there were only two or three patches of drying blood. Perhaps the boar’s hide that Naile had worn during his change was even better than man-fashioned mail for defense.

  Milo lay still and tried not to look upon his arm, or what fed there, draining his blood, their slimy lengths of bodies growing thicker. There was a shimmer in the air and Afreeta hung once more above them, planing down to settle her claws in the thick mat of hair that extended even upon the berserker’s shoulder. Her long beaked head dipped and lifted as she hissed like a pot on the boil.

  “They are fools—” Milo heard Naile’s words from a kind of dream. “Not all men make their own choices. It may be that their master will have some use for them again, enough to see them out of the wilderness. But to take to the plain without food or water—” Naile shook his head and then spoke to Yevele. “Enough, girl. Those draw-mouths are a-plenty to do the work.”

  He had five of the yellow things mouth-clamped to his wounds. Turning to the stream he tossed those he still held in his hands back into the water. Then he approached Milo and leaned over, watching closely the wrigglers the swordsman did not dare to look upon lest he disgrace himself by spewing forth whatever remained in his stomach.

  “Ah—” Naile sat back on his heels. “See you that now?” he demanded of Yevele.

  Milo was unable to resist the impulse to look, too.

  The bodies of the wrigglers had thickened to double their original size. But one suddenly loosed its mouth hold and fell to the gravel where it moved feebly. It was joined moments later by a second that also went inert after a space of three or four breaths. The other two remained feeding.

  Naile watched and then gave an order. “Use your snap-light, comrade. They would suck a man dry were they left. But their brethren have taken the poison, the wound is clean.”

  Yevele brought from her belt pouch a small metal rod and snapped down a lever on its side. The small spark of flame which answered touched the suckers one by one. They loosed, fell, and shriveled. Naile examined his own busy feeders.

  Three followed the example of the drinkers of Milo’s poison and fell away. At the berserker’s orders, the battlemaid disposed of the rest.

  Milo became aware that, though he felt weak and tired, the burning he had tried so hard to combat was gone. Yevele slit his shirt and bound it over the wound, having first crushed some leaves she went into the edge of the wood to find, soaking them before placing them directly on the skin.

  “Deav Dyne will have a healing spell,” she commented. “With that you will forget within a day that you have been hurt.”

  Deav Dyne was not here, Milo wanted to comment, though he found himself somehow unable to fit the words together, he was so tired. They were without mounts, perhaps lost in this land. Now. . . . Then the questions slid out of his mind, or into such deep pockets they could be forgotten, and he himself was in a darkness where nothing at all mattered.

  He awoke out of the remnants of a dream that bothered him, for it seemed that there was a trace of some message which still impressed a shadow on his mind. Yet it drifted from him even as he tried vainly to remember. He heard a whinny—and awoke fully. The horses! But he had seen those slain. . . .

  A face hung above him—familiar. He strove to put a name to it.

  “Wymarc?”

  “Just so. Drink this, comrade.”

  Milo’s head was lifted, a pannikin held to his lips. He swallowed. The liquid was hot, near as hot as had been the torment in his arm. But, as its warmth spread through him, Milo felt his strength fast returning. He sat up, away from the supporting arm of the bard.

  There were horses right enough—he could see them over Wymarc’s shoulder—fastened to the fringe trees.

  “How—” He was willing to lick the interior of the pannikin to gather the last of that reviving brew.

  “Deav Dyne did another seeing having been able to renew his energy. I came back with mounts.” Wymarc did not even wait for him to finish his question. “He sent the elixer too. Comrade, it is well that now we mount and ride.”

  Though most of his shirt was now bandaged about his wound (his arm stiff and sore but with none of the burning pain he had earlier felt), Milo was able with the bard’s help to pull on once again the leather undergarment, even take the weight of mail. They were alone and Milo, seeing that his sword was once more in sheath, his battered shield ready to be hung from the saddle, looked to Wymarc for enlightenment.

  “Yevele—Naile?” He still had odd spells of detachment, almost drowsiness, as if he could not or had not completely thrown off the effects of the poison.

  “Have gone on—we shall catch up. The old boar,” Wymarc’s face crinkled in what might be an admiring grin, “is stouter than we, comrade. He rode as if hot for a
nother fight. But the river is a sure guide and we must hurry for there lies a choice ahead.”

  Milo was ashamed of his own weakness, determined that the bard need not nurse him along. Once mounted he found that his head did clear, even though he was haunted by the vague impression of something of importance he had forgotten.

  “What choice?” he asked as they trotted along the riverbank.

  “There are watchers on the frontier. It would seem that Yerocunby and perhaps even Faraaz is astir. Though who they watch for—” Wymarc shrugged. “Yet it is not wise to let ourselves be seen.”

  Milo could accept that. The disappearance of the druid came to him in vivid recall. Magic could meddle with the minds of unshielded men—make friends or the innocent into enemies to be repulsed.

  “Ingrge urges we go back to the plains to the north. Deav Dyne has rigged a protection for the scaled one—a cloak wet down with water—so he can stand the dryness of such traveling. We have filled the drinking sacks also. Ingrge leaves certain guide marks to take us west while once more he scouts ahead. He swears that once among the mountains we shall be safer. But then there will be forests, and to the elven kind forests are what stout defense walls are to us.”

  They caught up with Yevele and Naile before night and took shelter in the fringe forest. The battlemaid came to Milo, examined his arm where the claw slash had already closed, and rewound the bandage saying, “There is no sign of the poison. Tomorrow you should be able to use it better. We have indeed been favored by the Horned Lady thus far.”

  She sat cross-legged, looking down now at the bracelet on her wrist.

  “In a way, the wizard’s suggestion works. When I laid the spell upon those skulkers, I thought on these.” She touched the dice with the tip of that overlong forefinger. “And it is true—of that I am sure—they moved farther by my will. Thus the spell held the longer.”

  “You cannot use that one again,” Milo reminded her.

  “Yes, it is a pity—that was a good spell. But I am no follower of magic, nor a priestess of the Horned Lady, that more of the Great Art be mine. I do not like,” she now looked at him and there was a frown line between her wide-set eyes, “this druid who can vanish in a puff of smoke. There was nothing of the art in the two I held—only their own cunning strength. But he whom you fronted is a greater danger than near a hundred of their kind could be. Still Naile says he was not of Chaos, when he knew him of old, rather one of those who went from side to side in battle, striving to choose the stronger lord to favor. What lord has he found, if it be not one of the Dark?”

  “Perhaps that—or the one we seek,” Milo returned as he laced up his leather jerkin once again.

  He saw her shiver, and she moved a little closer to their small fire. Though he did not believe what chilled her came from the outside, but rather lay within.

  “I have ridden with the Free Companies,” she said. “And you know what quest I followed alone when this wizard swept us up to do his will. No one can lose fear, but it must be mastered and controlled as one controls a horse with bit and bridle. I have heard the clan victory chants—and know”—her face was somber and set—“of their defeats. We have gone up, sword out, arrow to bowstring, against many of the creatures of Chaos. But this is something else.”

  Now she pulled her riding cloak closer about her, as if the chill grew. “What do you think we shall find at the end of this blind riding, swordsman? Hystaspes said it was not of Chaos. I believe he thought it could master even Chaos—the Black Adepts and all who are bound to their service. This being true, how can we prevail?”

  “Perhaps because in a manner we are linked to this alien thing,” Milo answered slowly. His fingers ran along the smooth band of the bracelet. “We may be this stranger’s tools, even as the wizard said.”

  The girl shook her head. “I am under only one geas—that set by Hystaspes. We would know if another weighted upon us.”

  “—Up by dawn—” Naile came close to the fire with his heavy tread. Once more Afreeta lay, a necklet, about his throat, only her eyes showing she was a living thing. Wymarc had come with him to open a bag of provisions. They shared out a portion of its contents, then drew lots for the night watch.

  Once more Milo paced and looked up at stars he did not know. He tried not to think, only to loosen his senses, to pick up from the world about him any hint that they were spied upon, or perhaps about to be beleaguered by the unknown. That they had defeated the druid and that which he had summoned once was no promise that they could be successful a second time.

  Dawn skies were still gray when they rode on at a steady trot. It was close to noon when Wymarc halted, pointing to a rock leaning against another on the far side of the river.

  “We ford here. There is the first of the guides as Ingrge promised us.”

  There had been little talk among them that morning; perhaps each in his or her own mind, thought Milo, was weighing all that had happened to them, trying to foresee what might lie ahead. The compulsion of the geas set upon them never lessened.

  Another day they rode with only intervals of rest for their horses. Milo learned fast to watch for the twist of grass knotted together which pointed their way onward. One of them at each such find dismounted to loose the knot, smoothing out as best they could the marking of their way.

  On the third day, close to evening, even though they had not dared to push their horses too much, they came to the second tributary of the border river. A camp awaited them there, where the cleric and Gulth had pulled brush to make a half shelter. The clouds had broken earlier in the afternoon to let down a steady drizzle of rain, penetrating in its cold, but there was no fire for them.

  Gulth lay in the open, moisture streaming from his skin. He watched as they rode up and picketed their horses, but he gave not so much as a grunt of welcome as they pressed past him into the shelter.

  Deav Dyne sat cross-legged there, his hands busy with his prayer beads, his eyes closed in concentration. Respecting that concentration they did not break silence even among themselves.

  Milo had drawn his sword during their day’s ride and used his arm over and over again, determined that he would be able to fight and soon. The wound still was bandaged, and there was an angry red scar as if indeed fire had burnt his flesh. But he was content that his muscles obeyed him, and the soreness his actions left could be easily ignored.

  They had settled down, sharing out food, when Deav Dyne opened his eyes. He gave them no formal welcome.

  “The elf has gone on. He seeks the mountains as a man dying of thirst would seek water. But his trail we can follow. It is in his mind that he can find some clue to the dwelling of Lichis.” His voice kept to a level tone as if he gave a report. “He has gone—but—”

  For a long moment he was silent. Something made Milo look away from him to the opening through which they had crawled. Gulth shouldered his way in. But it was not the lizardman the swordsman was looking for. Milo did not know what he sought—still there was something.

  “We light no more fires. That feeds them,” the cleric continued. “They must have a measure of light to manifest themselves. We must deny them that.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” growled Naile. He, too, slewed around to look without.

  “The shadows,” returned Deav Dyne promptly. “Only they are more than shadows, though even my prayers for enlightenment and my scrying cannot tell me what manner of manifestation they really are. If there is no light they are hardly to be seen and, I believe, so weak they cannot work any harm. They came yesterday after Ingrge had ridden forward. But they are no elven work, nor have I any knowledge of such beings. Now they gather with the dark—and wait.”

  9

  Harp Magic

  THEY WATCHED, NOW ALERTED, AS THE TWILIGHT FADED. MILO noted patches of dark that were certainly not born from any tree or bush, but lay in pools, as if ready to entrap a man. Always, if you stared directly at them, they rested quiescent. But if you turned your head you caught, f
rom the corner of an eye, stealthy movement, or so it would seem.

  “These are of Chaos,” Deav Dyne continued. “But since they take shape in no real substance—as yet—perhaps they are but spies. However, the stench of evil lies in them.” His nostrils expanded. Now Milo caught, too, that smell of faint corruption which those who gave allegiance to the Dark always emitted.

  The cleric arose. From the bosom of his robe he brought forth a small vial carved of stone, overlaid with runes in high relief. He went to the mounts Wymarc and Milo had ridden, and taking the stopper from the bottle, he wet the tip of his right forefinger with what it contained.

  With this wetted finger he drew invisible runes on the horses’ foreheads and haunches. When he returned he sprinkled a few drops across the entrance to their cramped camp.

  “Holy water—from the Great Shrine.” He gave explanation. “Such as those may spy upon us. But we need not fear their attempting more—not while they are out there and we are here.”

  Naile grunted. “These are your spells, priest, and you have confidence in them. But I have no liking for what I cannot turn axe or tusk against.”

  Deav Dyne shrugged. “The shadows have no weight. If you could put axe against them—then they would be something else. Now, tell me how you fared—more of this druid who set a calling spell . . .”

  He held his hands cupped about his prayer string, not looking at any of them, remaining tense and listening as each in turn told his or her part of the story. When they had done, he made no comment. In fact they had brought out supplies and were eating when he, not noting the share Yevele had laid near his knee, spoke. “A tamer of beasts, an adventurer who may be of the Thieves Guild, and one who can summon—You know this druid?” It was too dark now to see much, but they knew he asked that in the direction of Naile.