The White Hart (The Book of Isle 1)

by Nancy Springer

  He thought he might never come out of the gloom, that Pel had shadowed the earth. It was not until he noted the gleaming orb overhead that he realized he had emerged into the clearer darkness of night. Flessa winged out of it to meet him, but he sent her flapping away. He wanted no companion, not even the bird.

  The army camped all around the rim of the pit. As soon as he could, Cuin left his young cousin in the care of the healers and wandered blindly away. Presently he came to where three men conferred around a fire. Kael and Dacaerin only stared, but Bevan jumped up to meet him.

  "Cuin!" he exclaimed. "Where have you been? I feared for you!" Seeking an explanation, he glanced at the rumpled mass in Cuin's arms and smiled wryly. "You need not have taken pains for that. Whatever the hands that made it, 'tis but cloth."

  Dazedly Cuin became aware that he still carried the banner of the white hart. "Ay," he replied slowly, "but my father's blood is on it."

  Amidst utter silence Bevan took it from him and spread it wide. A broad, bright red stain colored the body of the running deer. "Then shall it have the more honor," Bevan whispered. "What news is this, Cuin?"

  "Is Clarric dead?" Dacaerin demanded.

  "Ay," Cuin replied dully, "dead and headless." He turned and walked aimlessly away into the night. Bevan came after him.

  "Go back," Cuin said.

  "I would not leave you in your need," Bevan told him softly.

  "Go back to your captains." Cuin faced him without warmth. "I need no living comfort this night."

  He strode away again, and Bevan stood and watched him go. Sometime after the setting of the moon, when all the camp was silent with exhausted sleep, Cuin wandered to the bedside of Dene Dale's son and found him also waking.

  "How goes it?" Cuin asked with something of gentleness in his voice.

  "I shall be well," the lad replied bitterly. "I wish that I had died; it would be better honor. I turned to defend him, but a sword pierced my shoulder behind."

  "He went cleanly," Cuin muttered.

  "Ay," the lad answered shakily; quiet tears wet his face. Cuin turned away and went to look at the night sky with dry and burning eyes. The heir of Wallyn wept gently in his bed, but Cuin Clarric's son could not weep.

  3

  The next day passed in heavy silence. Looking down into the barren distances of the Pit, guards could see the shattered walls and Pel's priests rummaging amongst the bodies. Nothing else chanced.

  When Bevan met with his counselors that day, Cuin was there, with Flessa on his shoulder. His face was pale and hard. Bevan glanced at him inquiringly.

  "I shall be well," he replied to the look, "when we have set Pel and his priests on a spear's end. Curse that mantled coward! Where is he? Why does he not show himself and fight?"

  Bevan half-smiled, a mirthless grimace. "He fights hard enough for my taste, Cuin! But as for that formless flesh of his, why should he risk it, when he need only keep to his adamant walls? Small wonder he waited so peaceably for our attack."

  "Then you have thought of no way to break the keep," Kael said.

  "I have thought of no way. Pel's power holds all things of that Pit to his will; the very light accedes to him. He is strong with the strength of ages, and I am young and half-spent." Bevan spoke without self-pity, but even in his own misery Cuin had noted how weariness tightened his comrade's face.

  "Moreover," Bevan continued, "the stone of the keep is stolen from the inner depths. It is the very bones of earth. No weapon can match it for potency."

  "The gates are of wood," Dacaerin remarked.

  "They are protected with runes of ancientest power. Pel Blagden can turn all good things to evil use, it seems."

  "Fire will break wood or stone," Cuin said flatly.

  "I have never had much dealing with red fire," Bevan answered slowly. "Yet there is truth in what you say, Cuin. Fire is a power even ancienter than earth."

  "Fire will destroy all that is to be gained," Dacaerin objected.

  Bevan raised his eyebrows. "What greater gain than the destruction of Pel? Yet have no fear for the treasures, my lord." Bitter amusement was in Bevan's glance. "I warrant you they will be stored below; the wyverns show that. Such heavy creatures of darkness live only in the bowels of earth. Pel's stronghold must be a gateway to the regions beneath."

  "I do not like that!" Kael exclaimed wryly. "What fell foes might await us there?"

  "Strange things, indeed, but not entirely evil. Dwarfs, perhaps, and cold-drakes and other delvers in the inner lands. And perhaps jewels, for which they seek." Bevan almost smiled as he cocked an eye toward Dacaerin. The result was what he expected.

  "It is settled then," Pryce said eagerly. "Tomorrow we go with torches—"

  "Nay, tonight," Bevan told him. "Night is the time for fire and shadows. Moreover, we will use no torches. Need-fire has virtue against evil things, with which man makes very free."

  "It will take hours!" Dacaerin protested. "And how can we spare men to tend such fires?"

  "My people are far cleverer with fire than with fighting," the King of Romany spoke up serenely. "Let us tend the fires."

  "Still, it does not seem wise to take the slower way if a faster way will serve," Kael said worriedly. "What do you say, Cuin?"

  "I say let it take until dawn if it must!" Cuin's speech burst from him. "I hope we can slay every heartless lackey of the lot in that time; for slay them we must, soon or late. Would you leave such as them to walk the earth?"

  "Look," said Bevan, while Cuin's words still rang on the air. He pointed northward. A marching host raised the dust of the distant plain; above them floated the ship emblem of Firth.

  "There are your men," Bevan added quietly.

  The Firthola tramped in, a hundred strong. Tall, blond-braided men they were, palely shining like the surface of the deep. They had moored their boats under the shadowing Forest of the dark river, and had come south in two long marches by land. That afternoon they rested, and by evening they were more than ready to fight.

  In dim twilight Bevan led his warriors down the crooked road and steep slopes once again. Cuin rode at his side, and Kael, bearing the bloodied banner of the white hart. Behind the mounted defense of Kael's retinue, the tribesmen of Romany led their shaggy ponies, each with a heavy load of firewood. Pryce Dacaerin headed the wide ranks of foot fighters that pressed after them.

  Bevan's face was white and taut. "I have grieved you," Cuin murmured as they rode. Bevan shook his head.

  "Death grieves me," he replied softly. "There is that in this place, Cuin, which could put an end to death, if we can free it… But too late on Clarric's behalf."

  The gloom of Pel's making hung thickly on every movement, though its darkness was lost in the darkness of night. Bevan shone through it palely, like a candle descending a darkened stair. At the ruined walls the servants of the mantled lord waited. In eerie blackness battle was joined. The priests of Pel numbered far fewer than formerly, but they were still plentifully sufficient to hold the small space of the tower.

  "Horsemen to me!" Bevan shouted.

  The mounted men rallied around him and drove like a wedge into the courtyard. Cuin fought with reckless passion, venting his hatred and despair on the dark cloaked figures that swarmed before his feet. At his side Bevan's golden sword killed with darting precision; no man could say which comrade felled more. Bevan and Cuin each slew like six men.

  In the space they cleared the gypsy tribesmen prepared for the making of need-fire, that most potent of fires which springs unbegotten from the heart of wood itself. Between piles of seasoned fuel they laid a log in which they had carved a hole, and in the hole they fitted a post topped with a wheel and ropes. Post and log were of that most puissant of woods, the oak; but the kindling was of silvery, mystic beech.

  While the battle toiled around them, the sons of Romany whirled the upright post, wielding the ropes quickly but with steady rhythm. Powder formed around the post, and presently it began to smoke and glow. While the
men still swayed with their ceaseless twirling, the King of Romany approached and shredded bark onto the smoking powder. Tiny flames shot up.

  "My lord Bevan!" the gypsy King shouted.

  Bevan turned from the combat. The others closed ranks to defend him, but there was little need; already the priests of Pel shrank from the smoke of the infant fire. Bevan spread his hands over its brightening glow and chanted words of blessing.

  "Bellet en soldis," he whispered, "shalde mir nillende es olettyn whe solistet than dilbyst nelltes. ["Child of the sun, help us destroy those things that would dishonor your sister Darkness."]

  The fire licked its way up the upright post. The gypsies rested their efforts and let their ropes feed the flames. They heaped on wood, and soon the blaze roared man-high and bathed the gloomy courtyard in its scarlet light. The priests of Pel gave way before it, hastily fleeing into the keep. Men cheered and pressed after them, but in vain they battered the gates with their swords; wood and iron held fast.

  "Bowmen!" Bevan cried.

  The men who walked the fringes of the western Forest were skilled in the shooting of arrows. They tipped their shafts with flame and sent them winging like bright birds through the black sky, arching them into narrow barred windows. Bevan himself took a fiery brand and rode with it to the gates. Stretching to his fullest height, he spoke to it and held it against the ancient rune of protection carved overhead; then he hurled it through the pikes into the inner darkness. Within he heard footfalls as the unmade men scattered from before it.

  Straw and rushes that line a stony floor will blaze if the defenders fear to prevent it. Presently the upper windows of Pel's stronghold showed red. Bevan's warriors cheered and piled flaming sticks against the gate; already it felt warm from fire within. Soon fire scorched up the flanks of the hulking tower and leapt like dragon tongues from its gate. In moments the hard walls were cloaked in flames whose searing heat drove the attackers back as Pel's priests could not. Near the gate the blood-darkened oak smoked sullenly, then flared like a giant torch. Its sparks fed the furnace that once had been called Pel's tower. Within the roaring heart of the fire, stones cracked and tumbled, the iron bars of the gate twisted and snapped like sticks. No screams could be heard above the tumult of the flames, so perhaps the unmade men went voicelessly to their doom. From time to time a scarcely human figure toppled through the glare, and dark cloaks rose in bits of ash to join the gore-crows above.

  The most embittered of the attackers danced and cheered to see the unmade men shrivel in the flames. Others turned away in sickness. Bevan sat his steed and watched quietly. Beside him Cuin also gazed speechlessly at the fire, spent and shaken by the force of hot fury that surpassed even his own.

  "Nothing of flesh can live in that," he whispered at last.

  "Still I feel a foreboding of evil yet to come," Bevan murmured.

  Dacaerin strode up to them, his hair flaming as red as the tower. "What now?" he growled. "We cannot stand here watching a fire all night."

  "We can sit," retorted Bevan. "Set a guard, Dacaerin, and let the others rest and sleep. And as for the need-fire, let no one think to quench it, but let it burn out of itself."

  "I will take a post of guard," Cuin said.

  "Nay, Cuin, sleep," Bevan urged. "I am likely to have dire need of you on the morrow."

  "I cannot sleep," Cuin told him.

  "If you will let me," Bevan replied gently, "I can bring you sleep."

  "Nay," Cuin answered heavily, "this is a path I must walk myself, Bevan…" He turned away to stand his guard, a steely straight figure against the glare of flame.

  With the dawn a shower of rain came and cooled the stones somewhat, sending white clouds of steam into the dispersing gloom. By mid-morning the ruins of Blagden loomed fireless and bleak in the gray filtered light of the Pit. The charred and ragged stump of the oak jutted from the lifeless shale. Not even bones of the dead remained near what had been the keep. Only its stones crouched in their lair like a huge lowering animal, and the black void of the gateway gaped like its maw.

  With Cuin beside him Bevan strode to the ominous arch. Kael and Dacaerin followed close behind, with their trusted retainers. They all filed into the blackened hall, peering about in the dim light of arrow slots and twisting cracks between the stones. Bevan moved surely even in the murky shade. He summoned them to a broad stone stairway descending to depths below even the depth of the eerie Pit. With swords in hand, soft feet and straining ears, they started down it.

  Some priests of Pel had sought refuge here. Their cloaked bodies littered the steps like giant crumpled bats. All were dead; the warriors made sure of each of them as they passed. Presently the stairway ended, not in dungeons but in a cavern sculpted by no hand of man. Sinuous stone curved down to a distance where showed a glow of red. Bevan raised his flickering sword.

  "Wyverns?" Cuin whispered, for no one spoke but to whisper in those inner parts.

  "Duv knows."

  Tensely they all stalked down the curling corridor, past more corpses of Pel's cloaked dead. The bodies clustered thickly, but beyond the curve of the cavern there were no more. Bare, damp stone showed plainly in a liquid, ruddy light.

  The glow came from a lake like a pool of blood, with a surface of viscid scarlet and black, congealed depths. Bevan led his company to its brink, but scarcely had they set foot on its sculpted bank when the battle-hardened warriors shrieked and ran shaking away. Terrible serpents most of them feared, things of horror that no man could withstand, though some were frightened by more personal demons. Pryce Dacaerin screamed and fled, from what he would never say. Kael dropped his sword clattering to the stone, and Cuin cried out and covered his eyes. Clarric was coming at him out of the bloody pool, a mutilated Clarric carrying his severed head; sorrow and reproach were in its sunken gaze. "I had to!" Cuin whimpered.

  He felt an arm around him, a warm touch not of this deathly place. "Cuin," Bevan asked, "what is the matter? I see nothing."

  "Horror surpassing nightmare." Cuin forced himself to look once more. Clarric still faced him; the vessels pulsed and poured in his severed neck. Cuin stumbled away, catching hold of Bevan like a terrified child. "Let us get hence!" he gasped.

  "We must go around," Bevan said.

  "I cannot withstand it!" Kael moaned, trembling where he still stood by his dropped sword.

  "Then go back with all honor," Bevan told him kindly. "Tell the others to fall back from the Pit; there is no work for them here. Only let our horses be left, mine and Cuin's—that is, if he goes with me."

  "I go with you," Cuin panted like one in physical pain. "But let it be quickly!"

  So Cuin was led around the stone rim of the pool, blindly and faltering in his blindness, clutching tightly to Bevan's warm and luminous hand. Presently he felt the horror fade behind him and was able to look around once more. Ever downward they went. The cavern had broadened to a sloping stone hall with many twisting passages leading away. Cuin started; wyverns puffed and woofed from their caves, but they jumped back from the flash of Bevan's sword. Bevan hesitated in the center of the hall, testing the air to all sides.

  "What is it?" Cuin asked.

  "Pel," Bevan replied abruptly, striding into the darkness to his left. "Hurry, Cuin!"

  But they need not have hurried, for the mantled lord awaited them. Tall and shapelessly dark, he stood before the red light of coals. On the glowing fire shone the giant golden vessel, Coradel Orre. Piled around it were many treasures, but topmost and chiefest among them was a silver crown with shapely tapered rays: essence of gentle white light it seemed, even in this fiery red place. The very walls glowed red and warm with depth. This small cave was indeed the deepest haven of Pel's den, and his treasure chamber, and it was here that he chose to make his stand.

  "My lord Pel!" Bevan called sardonically. "Well met at last!"

  "And well met, landless Prince," Pel replied coolly. "You have lost your loyal servitors, it seems." His voice was deep and smooth, breath
less as the hush before a storm. No mouth moved in the black shadow of his hood; no eyes met theirs. Cuin would have preferred even the most baleful of stares to that form of nothingness. But Bevan seemed unmoved.

  "By the great wheel, I still have one friend left to me," he answered placidly. "He will second me. Are you ready, Pel?"

  From the flowing shadows of his cloak, the evil god produced a long black sword. No hand showed where he held it; the hilt disappeared into his gaping sleeve. "Have at you," he said tonelessly.

  Bevan raised Hau Ferddas. Like a golden flame it lighted that stony place, but even it could not light the shadow that should have been Pel's face. Suddenly Cuin stepped forward. All fear and sickly horror had left him; he had found his deepest strength.

  "Bevan," he said urgently, "your father lives, but mine is dead. Mine is the blood-right; let me have the vengeance."

  Startled, Bevan glanced at him, measuring his resolve. Cuin was weary, but filled with courage and a need Bevan could not deny him.

  "Then use the blade which is your birthright," Bevan said softly. "But you'll not get much blood from that fellow, Cuin!"

  Bevan proffered the jeweled hilt of the legendary sword, and Cuin took it quickly as their enemy inched nearer. But as his hand closed around the heavy weapon, Cuin felt a surge of power such as he had never known. It was as if a god had entered into him. Strange words he shouted: "To nessa laif Elwestrand!" ["For the sake of sweet Elwestrand!"] He cried out, and then he rushed upon the mantled lord.

  Pel Blagden gave way before him like air; yet like air he remained. Cuin had never met so elusive a foe. The golden sword in his hand struck with eagle power and swiftness, but to no avail. Among the dark folds of Pel's garments and hood it met with nothingness. Yet Pel's sword was real; more than once Cuin caught its crashing force on his blade. Perplexed, he took up the posture of defense, studying his adversary. But then he became aware that Bevan was not idle. The black-haired Prince stood with his hands on Coradel Orre, and his face was taut with strain.