Three Against the Witch World ww-3

by Andre Norton

  Nor did I look back as long as I thought I might see anything of Escore to lay ties upon me. But before I set out on the perilous swing across the tree limb valley, I took my last glance at this lost world, as one does when going into exile. I had not felt so torn when we had left Estcarp; this was different. But the mist curtain was closed, I could see nothing, and for that I was very glad.

  I spent the night among the mountain rocks, and with the day began the descent up which Kemoc and I had brought Kaththea blindfolded. It was easier, that descent, since now I had only myself to think on. But I did not welcome traveling the broken lands on foot. There was a need to make plans. Those to whom I might appeal had been in camp on the plains when I set forth on my ride to join Kemoc at Etsford, but there was no reason to think that they would still be where I left them.

  No Falconer would be tempted by what I had to offer. They lived for fighting, yes, supplying mercenaries for Estcarp and marines for the Sulcar ships. But they were rooted in their Eyrie in the mountains, wedded to their own warped customs and life. There would be no place for them in Escore.

  Sulcarmen never ventured too far from the sea which was their life; they would be lost where no surf roared, no waves battered high. I had hopes only of the Old Race uprooted in the south. A few, very few, of the refugees from Karsten had been absorbed into Estcarp. The rest roved restlessly along the border, taking grim vengeance for the massacre of their blood. It had been close to twenty five years since that happening, yet they would not forget nor really make one with Estcarp dwellers.

  Karsten would never be theirs again. They had accepted that. But if I could offer them land of their own, even if they must take it by sword—I believed they might listen. It remained now to find them, and not be found by those who would deliver me forthwith to the justice of the Council.

  I climbed the ridge from which I had sighted the campfires of those who had hunted us, and waited there until night fell, watching for any trace of continued sentry go there. But the land was dark, although that did not necessarily mean that it was unpatrolled. Kaththea’s ruse with the Torgians—how well had that served us? I shrugged. Magic was no weapon for me. I had my gun, my wits, and the training drilled into me. With the morning I must put all to the test.

  Even in the last rays of the sun and well into twilight I found myself watching for the bird Dahaun had dispatched across the mountains. Just what service that could perform I had no idea, but just seeing it would have meant much in that hour. But all the flying things I sighted were common to the land, and none flashed emerald.

  In the early morning I started along the same trail which had brought us into that twisted land. Though I wanted to hasten, yet I knew the wisdom of checking landmarks, of not becoming entangled in the maze. So I went slowly, nursing my water bottle’s contents and the supplies Dahaun had provided. Once I was trailed for a space by an upland wolf. But my gift held so that I suggested hunting elsewhere and was obeyed. That disorientation of sight which had been troubling when we had come this way was no longer a problem, so perhaps it only worked when one faced the east, not retreated from it.

  I advanced upon the campfire sites, utilizing every scouting trick I knew. The fire scars were there, as well as the traces of more than a company of men, but now the land was empty, the hunters gone. Yet I went warily, taking no risks.

  Two logs close together gave me a measure of shelter for the second night. I lay unable to sleep for a while, striving to picture in my mind a map of the countryside. Kemoc had guided us this way, but I had studied as I rode, making note of landmarks and the route. Hazy as I had been, I thought that I would have no great difficulty in winning westward to country where I would know every field, wood, and hill. Those were the fringe lands of deserted holdings where the dwindling population no longer lived, and where I could find shelter.

  It came to me through the earth on which my head rested—a steady pound of hoof beat. Some patroller riding a set course? There was only one rider. And I lay in thick cover which only ill luck would lead him to explore.

  The approaching horse neighed and then blew. And it was heading directly for my hiding place! At first I could not accept such incredible ill fortune. Then I squirmed out of my cramped bed and wriggled snakewise to the right; once behind brush, I got to my feet, my dart gun drawn. Again the horse nickered, something almost plaintive in the sound. I froze, for it had altered course, was still pointed to me, as if its rider could see me, naked of any cover, vividly plain in the moonlight!

  Betrayed by some attribute of the Power? If so, turn, twist, run and hide as I would, I could be run down helplessly at the desire of the hunter. So being, it would be best to come into the open and face it boldly.

  There was a rustling, the sound of the horse moving unerringly towards me, with no pretense of concealment. Which argued of a perfect confidence on the part of the rider. I kept to the shadow of the bush but my weapon was aimed at where the rider would face me.

  But, though it wore saddle and bridle, and there was dried foam encrusted on its chest and about its jaws, the horse was riderless. Its eyes showed white, and it had the appearance of an animal that had stampeded and run in fright. As I stepped into the open it shied, but I had already established mind contact. It had bolted in panic, been driven by fear. But the cause of that fear was so ill defined and nebulous I could not identify it.

  Now the horse stood with hanging head, while I caught the dangling reins. It could, of course, be part of a trap—but then I would have encountered some block in its mind, some trace, even negatively, of the setting of the trap. No, I felt it was safe, the four feet I needed to make me free of the country and give me that fraction more of security in a place where safety was rare.

  I led it along, traveling to the south, and in it was a desire and liking for my company as if my presence banished the fear which had driven it. We worked our way slowly, keeping to cover, so setting some distance between us and the place to which the horse had come as if aimed. And all the time I kept mind contact, hoping to detect any hint if this was a capture scheme.

  Finally I stripped off the saddle and bridle, put field hobbles on the horse and turned it loose for the rest of the night, while with the equipment I took cover in heavy brush. But this time I pillowed my head on the support of a saddle and tried to solve the puzzle of whence and why had come what I needed most—a horse. My thoughts kept circling back to Dahaun’s winged messenger, and, improbable as it seemed, I could accept the idea that this was connected. Yet there had been no memory of a bird in the horse’s mind.

  My new mount was not by any means a Torgian, but its saddle was the light one of a border rider and there was an intricate crest set into the horn in silver lines. Sulcar crests were simple affairs, usually heads of animals, reptiles, birds or mythical creatures out of legend. Falconers, recognizing no families, used only their falcon badges with a small under-modification to denote their troop. This could only be the sign of one of the Old Race Houses, and, since such identification had fallen into disuse in Estcarp, it meant that this horse gear was the possession of one of those I sought, a refugee from Karsten.

  There was an extremely simple way of proving the rightness of my guess. Tomorrow morning I need only mount the animal I could see grazing in the moonlight, set in its mind the desire to return whence it had come and let it bear me to its master. Of course, to ride into a strange camp on a missing mount would be the act of a fool. But once in the vicinity of such a camp the mount could be turned loose as if it had only strayed and returned and I could make contact when and if I pleased.

  Simple, yes, but once at that camp what brave arguments would I use? I perhaps a total stranger to all therein, striving to induce them to void their allegiance to Estcarp and ride into an unknown land on my word alone—the more so if they rode as blind as Kaththea had had to do! Simple to begin, but impossible to advance from that point.

  If I could first contact men I knew, they might listen even i
f the fiat of outlawry had gone out against me. Men such as Dermont, and others who had served with me. But where to find them now in all the length of the south border country? Perhaps I could fashion a story to serve me in the camp from which the horse had come, discover from the men there where I could meet with my own late comrades.

  No battle plan can be so meticulous that no ill fortune can not upset it. As small a thing as a storm-downed tree across a trail at the wrong time may wipe out the careful work of days, as I well knew. The “lucky” commander is the one who can improvise on a moment’s notice, thus pulling victory out of the very claws of defeat. I had never commanded more than a small squad of scouts, nor had I before been called upon to make a decision which risked more than my own life. How could I induce older and more experienced men to trust in me? That was the growing doubt in my mind as I tried to sleep away the fatigue of the day, be fresh for the demands of the morrow.

  Sleep I did, but that was a troubled dozing which did not leave me much rested. In the end I took my simple solution: work back to the camp from which the horse had come, free the animal without being seen, scout to see who might be bivouacked there. And that I did, turning the horse south at not more than a walking pace. One concession to caution I made: we kept to the best cover possible, avoiding any large stretch of open. Also I watched for green against the sky. Still haunting me was that thought—or was it a hope?—that Dahaun’s messenger might be nearby.

  We had left Estcarp in late summer, and surely we had not been long away, yet the appearance of the land and the chill in the air was that of autumn. And the wind was close to winter’s blast.

  In the day I could now see the purple fringe of the mountains. And—nowhere along that broken fringe of peaks did I sight one that I could recognize, though I had studied that territory for most of my life. Truly the Power had wrought a great change, one such as stunned a man to think on. And I did not want any closer acquaintance with a land which had been so wrung and devastated.

  But it was south that the horse went, and it was not long before we came into the fringe lands. Here there were raw pits in the earth from which up-thrust the roots of fallen trees, debris of slides, and marks of fire in thick powdery ash. I dismounted, for the place was a trap in which a mount could easily take a false step and break a leg. And once, in impulse, I put my hand to a puddle of that ash, wind-gathered into a hollow, and marked my forehead and chest with a very old sign. For one of the guards against ill witchcraft was ash from honest wood fire, though that was a belief I had never put to test before.

  The horse flung up its head and I caught its thought. This was home territory. Straightaway I loosened my hold on the reins, slapped the animal on the rump and bade it seek its master. . . while I slipped into a tangle of tree roots, to work my way stealthily to the top of a nearby ridge.

  XVI

  WHAT I SAW as I lay belly flat on the crest of the slope was no war camp. This was centered by a shelter built not for a day nor a week’s occupancy, but more sturdily, to last at least a season—a stockade about it. Though that safeguard was not yet complete—logs were still waiting to be up-ended and set into place to close its perimeter.

  There was a corral in which I counted more than twenty mounts and before which now stood the horse I had loosed, while its companions nickered a greeting. A man ran from among those busied with the stockade building to catch the reins of the strayed mount. He shouted.

  I saw the saffron yellow of a woman’s robe in the doorway of the half-finished hall, and other colors behind her. The men had downed tools, were gathering around the horse. Old Race all of them, with here and there a lighter head which could mark one of Half-Sulcar strain. And they all wore the leather of fighting men. Whatever this household was now, I was ready to wager all that they had been Borderers not too long ago.

  And as a Borderer I could well believe that, as peaceful and open as the scene below appeared from my perch, they had their sentinels and safeguards. So that to win down into their midst would tax any scout’s ability. Yet to be found skulking here would do me no good.

  The same intricate device as was set on the saddle horn had been freshly painted on the wall of the hall, but I did not recognize it. The only conclusion I dared draw was that the very presence of such a to-be-permanent holding here meant that the dwellers therein believed they had nothing to fear from the south, that Karsten had ceased to be an enemy.

  Yet they fortified with a stockade, and they were working with a will to get that up before they finished the hall. Was that merely because they had lived in the midst of danger so long that they could not conceive of any house without such protection?

  Now what should I do? This household had come into the wilderness by choice. They might be the very kind I sought. Yet I could not be sure.

  Below, they continued to inspect the returned horse, almost as if it had materialized out of air before their eyes, going over the saddle searchingly before they took it off. Several of them gathered together, conferring. Then heads turned, to look to the slope on which I lay. I thought that they had not accepted the idea that the mount had returned of its own will.

  The saffron robed woman disappeared, came back again. In her arms were mail shirts, while behind her a slighter figure in a rose-red dress brought helms, their chain-mail throat scarves swinging.

  As four of the workers armed themselves in practiced speed, a fifth put fingers to mouth and whistled shrilly. He was answered from at least five points, one of them behind and above me to the left! I flattened yet tighter to the ground. Had I already been sighted by that lookout? If so—why had he not already jumped me? If I had not yet been seen, then any move on my part might betray me at once. I was pinned. Perhaps I had made the wrong choice; to go boldly in would be better than to be caught spying.

  I got to my feet, keeping my hands up, palms out before me, well away from my weapons belt. Then I began to walk down. They caught sight of me in seconds.

  “Keep on, bold hero!” The voice behind me was sharp. “We like well to see open hands on those who come without verge horn warning.”

  I did not turn my head as I answered. “You have them in your sight now, sentry. There has been no war glove flung between us—”

  “That is as it may be, warrior. Yet friend does not belly-creep upon friend after the manner of one come to collect a head and so enslave the ghost of the slain.”

  Head-collecting! Refugee holding right enough—not only that, but at least this sentry was one of the fanatics who had made a name for themselves, even in the tough Borderer companies, for the utter ferocity of their fighting. There were those come out of Karsten who had suffered so grievously that they had retreated into barbarian customs to allay, if anything ever could, their well-deep hatred.

  I made no haste down that slope and to the holding. The man or men who had chosen to plant it here had an eye for the country. And, once the stockade was complete, they would be very snug against attack. They waited for me in the now gateless opening of that stockade, armed, helmed, though they had not yet drawn sword or gun.

  The centermost wore insignia on the fore of his helm, set there in small yellow gem stones. He was a man of middle years, I believed, though with all of us of the Old Race the matter of age is hard to determine, for our life spans are long unless put to an end by violence, and the marks of age do not show until close to the end of that tale of years.

  I halted some paces from him. My helm veil was thrown well back, giving him clear view of my features.

  “To the House greeting, to those of the House good fortune, to the day a good dawn and sunset, to the endeavor good fortune without break.” I gave the old formal greeting, then waited upon his answer, on which depended whether I could reckon myself tolerated, if not a guest, or find myself a prisoner.

  There was something of the same searching measurement as Ethutur had used on me back in the Green Valley. A sword scar had left a white seam long his jaw line, and his mail, though
well kept, had been mended on the shoulder with a patch of slightly larger links.

  The silence lengthened. I heard a small scuffing behind me and guessed that the guard who had accompanied me was ready to spring at the Manor Lord’s order. It was hard not to stand ready to my own defense, to hold my hands high and wait upon another’s whim.

  “The House of Dhulmat opens its gates to whom?”

  I heard a choked sound, a bitten off protest from my guard. Again I was presented with a dilemma. To answer with my true name and family clan might condemn me if I had been outlawed, and I had no reason to believe that that had not been done. Yet if this holding already had its gate-crier in place, that protection device would detect a false name instantly as I passed it. I could retreat only to a very old custom, one which had been in abeyance in time of war. Whether it would have any force in the here and now I did not know.

  “The House of Dhulmat, on which be the sun, the wind, and the good of wide harvest, opens gates to a geas-ordered man.” It was the truth and in the far past it meant that I was under certain bounds of speech which none might question without bringing me into peril. I waited once more for the Lord to accept or deny me.

  “Gates open to one swearing no threat against Dhulmat, man or clan, roof-tree, field, flock, herd, mount—” He intoned the words slowly as if he pulled them one by one from long buried memory.

  I relaxed. That oath could I give without any reservations. He held out his sword blade point to me, a sign I accepted the death it promised were I foresworn. I went to one knee and laid my lips to the cold metal.

  “No threat from me to man or clan, roof-tree, field, flock, herd or mount of the House of Dhulmat!”

  He must have given some signal I did not detect, for the woman in saffron approached, bearing with both hands a goblet filled with a mixture of water, wine, milk, the true guesting cup. So I knew that here they clung to the old ways, perhaps the more because they had been rift from all which had once been home to them.