Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 01]

by The Fire Sword (v0. 9) (epub)

  The scream became audible, which seemed to surprise the man as much as it did her. He hopped around in a circle, holding the smoking hand away from him and plucking at his body with the other hand, as if he were fighting unseen insects. He slapped and screamed and finally tumbled into a heap of whimpering misery some feet away from her.

  The fire died upon his body, and he struggled to regain his feet. Eleanor took the tiny vial of holy water from her pouch and removed the stopper. She splashed some drops on his face as he rose, saying, "In nomine Sanctus Spiritus, benedicte,” remembering her childhood, when Latin was still the tongue of the Church.

  He sobbed and clutched his brow where the water touched it. "Naw, naw, stop. Hurt. Aargh! Kill! Eat! Kill! Aargh.” He bunched himself for another attack, but Eleanor touched the stave to his chest and he collapsed, hugging himself.

  Wrolf sat down and watched the man with an air of disinterested curiosity. The horse stamped his hooves and tossed his head a little. The stave-fire made a flickering ball of light over the man’s heart, shining through his hands as he beat his chest.

  "Naw! Hate, kill. Eat, eat.” He gurgled words out and finally curled into a ball, pulling his bony knees up to his shoulders, moaning terribly.

  Eleanor hated to see a fellow creature in pain, but she was terrified to dismount and get closer. The horse gave her an advantage she was reluctant to lose. The goddess’s admonition to heal was less strong than her need to survive.

  After a few minutes, he sat up and looked at her. One eye was now a quite normal brown-and-white orb, but the other was still an unreflective pit. There were red weals along the flesh where the fire had touched, and spots like drops of blood where the holy water had fallen.

  "Filthy bitch! I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. I’ll give you fire. Cook you slow, very slow, till you beg for death, and eat your flesh.”

  "Silence!” She was puzzled for a second, because she thought the holy water should have worked some curative power on the man. The condition of the eye told her either the water or the stave had effected some change. Then she realized that the man did not wish to be healed and resented her interference fiercely. It had not previously occurred to her that anyone might like the Darkness. Clovis had still been near human, human enough to want food and sex, even if only in terms of rape. But this poor creature was too far gone for her to reach with her limited knowledge. Whatever lessons she had learned in Sal’s Mound, they were buried too deeply to offer any counsel.

  Lady of Light, Lady of the Willows, what should I do?

  Go! You have done what you could. Go now!

  The horse began moving almost before the thought was complete. He broke into a bone-jarring trot as the man started to get up, then fell back.

  "I’ll tell Master! Eat you! Oh, the warmth. It hurts! Curse you, Servant of Light. I was happy, and you ruined it. I was fine! Find Master. Tell Master! Eat you... aahh...” He picked up a stone and shied it weakly at them. It fell a few feet from him, and the last view Eleanor had of him was that of a scrabbling crab, crawling over the ground, weeping and tossing stones.

  The horse stretched its legs into a canter, Wrolf racing alongside, over the broken ground. Eleanor hung on to the silky mane and thought of nothing at all.

  After a distance, the horse slackened its pace back to a walk. They appeared to be following a road of some kind, and Eleanor wondered where it would take them. Wrolf trotted along, panting.

  It was nearing the dreary sunset when they came to the church. The horse stopped and indicated that they would go no farther, so Eleanor dismounted and entered the shattered building cautiously. Wrolf came with her, sniffing but showing no signs of danger.

  The roof of the building sagged inward at the center, as if smashed by an enormous fist. It made great patches of shadow even in the dim light. Something skittered nearby, and Eleanor gave a shrill squeak in her fright. Wrolf leapt into the darkness, and she heard a short scream and the sound of crunching bone. She decided that whatever it was, it was quite normal, and Wrolf’s dinner in the bargain. She hoped it was a rabbit or a squirrel, for rats were not among her favorite beasts, not even the cute ones in laboratories.

  One corner of the church was less damaged than the rest. She kicked the litter aside and unloaded the horse, then she wiped him down with the saddle blanket.

  The rowan staff cast a slight silvery light when she took it into the corner. She spread her bedroll out and put the shrouded sword at one end. Then she sat with her back against the wall and ate. The nasty twilight faded into starless darkness and silence, broken only by the click of Wrolfs nails on the stones and occasional squeaks as he hunted dinner through the ruin.

  Then, far away, she heard a keening wail. Something very like the Stone Wolf was out there, and she hoped it would find other sport. Eleanor undid the sword just in case.

  Wrolf came and sprawled next to her, and the horse wandered in, smelling of cropped grass on his breath. She lay down and slept almost immediately.

  The sharp bark of her wolf awakened her instantly. The horrid keening was closer. The wolf bounded around in the faint light, whining and scrabbling at the flagstones. It was still full night, for the horse and wolf shone completely. She knew something was hunting her, and she decided not to wait around to see what it was.

  She got the horse saddled and packed, retied the sword across her aching shoulders, and led him outside the little church. She managed to mount with the stave in one hand.

  "Okay, big fellow. Show your silver heels.” As she spoke the last words, she knew she had named the great black horse. He whinnied his response, and they sped into the night.

  X

  The next two days were always a blur in Eleanor’s mind. They rested twice, for a few hours each time, once in a circle of stones and once in an abandoned farmhouse. The few people they saw gaped at them, but Eleanor was gratified by a wave from a shy toddler. The sound of wailing was always behind them, and she got a crick in her neck from looking back. She learned she could nap, after a fashion, on horseback, and that it was possible for all seven hundred plus muscles in her body to hurt. She discovered that willow water rubbed on aching thighs numbed the pain. She longingly remembered Sal’s sacred pool, despite the still frightening memory of her rough baptism therein. There were fogs and mizzling rains, but Eleanor just hugged her cloak around her and rode.

  Sometime after noon on the second day, the smell of the air changed. Eleanor breathed the clean tang of salt and knew she was somewhere near the sea, though just where she was, she was not sure. Silver Heels had brought them vaguely south and west, and the mountainous terrain told her she was in Cornwall, but she knew there was a lot of coastline between Lynmouth on the Bay of Bristol and Penzance at the tip of Britain. She had tried to guess how far they had traveled, but she had no idea how fast the horse went in his different gaits or how to count the distance when a great deal of it was vertical. But the smell of the sea revived her, and she began to look around her with more interest.

  Silver Heels picked his way along a trail that came out onto a cliff overlooking the ocean. Eleanor could hear the sea more than she could view it, for there was a modest fog. The slap of waves against rock offered her no clue as to how high she was above the water. The path wound upward to end in a crumbling tower.

  She dismounted and looked at the building. It looked somewhat familiar, but her interest in fortifications merely allowed her to distinguish between Norman castles and Tudor ones. As this structure was neither, she was puzzled, but decided it must be very old. She was so tired, she was not thinking very clearly, so she pulled out the last of the food from Nunnally and ate it. Wrolf sprawled on the ground, and Silver Heels hung his proud head.

  Eleanor got up and unsaddled the horse.

  He moved off a little to crop the thin grass.

  "Well, Wrolf, now what?” He whined a little and pointed to the ocean. Then he trotted around the base of the tower and vanished from view.

&
nbsp; She followed him to the mouth of a cave. When she saw it, she was fairly certain where she was, for she had seen photographs of it hundreds of times. Wrolf stood just inside the entrance and barked at her. This was Tintagel, and the cave led to another, called Merlin's Grotto by a twentieth century that sincerely wished that Arthur lived, down at sea level.

  Eleanor went into the cave cautiously, but Wrolf stood in her way and gave his "no” bark, then led her back out and over to the pile of gear. He whined and took the worn strap of Ambrosius’s bag in his jaws and pushed it at her hand.

  After a moment, she took the sack and then the other, her bedroll and the staff. Wrolf trotted toward the cave. Eleanor looked at the horse. He stopped eating and blew an equine kiss in her direction. She went over and stroked his soft nose and fine neck.

  "So long, Silver Heels. Thank you for everything. I hope you’ll be all right, but you’re probably better off without me.” The terrible keening that had pursued them for two days sounded nearby, so she planted a hasty kiss on the horse’s nose and hurried to the cave.

  The path beyond the entrance was wet and slippery. It was dark except for Wrolf’s glimmer and the faint light from the staff, but Eleanor found her eyes were much better in the gloom than they had ever been in her own time. She assumed it was accommodation, forgetting that like her companion, she gave off a light, too.

  The tunnel curved slightly and went down. She could hear the whisper of the sea below her and the screaming of the hunter behind. She moved as quickly as she could, envying Wrolf his extra legs a little, and wondered if she was going to swim to Ireland or hail a passing whale.

  When she reached the grotto below and saw the toy of a boat hobbling in the water, she was both relieved and terrified. Swimming seemed almost preferable to entrusting herself to this fragile craft. On the other hand, she was not about to deny a gift of the Lady, not with an unknown pursuer hot on her heels.

  She pulled off her boots and waded into the icy water to pull the little craft closer to the rocks. It was almost round, made of leather, and on a wooden framework. She dropped her bags and bedroll in it, then clambered in, using her staff to balance on. Wrolf hit the water with a large splash and paddled over to the craft. He got his forequarters over the side but could get no farther and almost overturned the bobbing boat in his efforts. Eleanor climbed out and heaved his hindquarters over the side, then got aboard again. She was soaked and freezing, but she grabbed the staff and pushed it against the nearest rock.

  A gibbering howl echoed down the tunnel. Something came into the grotto, but she didn’t pause, poling at the rocks and floor frantically. As she passed under the arched entrance of the cave, she caught a glimpse of something like an enormous wolverine, a nightmare of teeth and eyes, straining after her on the rocks. A splash of seawater hit the great clawed paws, and the flesh hissed. She didn’t wait to see if it could swim but bent her back to get across the small tidepool at the mouth of the grotto.

  The current caught them and swept them around and around, spinning the boat farther and farther from the jagged shore. Eleanor collapsed on the bottom of the boat and gasped for breath.

  After several minutes, she was recovered enough to look at her craft. There was a sort of bench dividing the boat in two. Wrolf was in the foresection, dripping seawater and giving her his wolfly grin. The bench was made of wicker, and she found the seat lifted. Inside there was a flat oar. She got it out and put her bags into the space. She opened the bedroll, which was remarkably dry, and got out her old tunic and the tattered hose. She slithered out of her wet leggings and tunic and, balancing carefully, managed to redress. Eleanor put Bridget’s sword on top of the bags and draped her soaking cloak over one part of the boat, hoping it would dry.

  Finally, she positioned herself carefully in the middle of the bench and began to use the oar. After ten minutes, she was exhausted, but she had the satisfaction of seeing that the shore was more distant and was, in fact, fading into a fog bank. She was warmer now, but the breeze off the sea was fairly brisk, so she wrapped the blanket around her. The ocean jostled them back and forth, and she hoped she could decide on some form of navigation.

  "You are one helluva fine wolf, Wrolf. You don’t by any chance have a knowledge of celestial navigation, do you? What am I saying? For that you need stars. We haven’t seen any stars for ages. Let me think. Do storms blow from the east or the west? From the west, I think. Yes, the Atlantic Ocean makes a big weather front. I think that means I have to go against the current. Except there is probably also a northerly current in the Irish Channel. If we were up in Scotland, it would be easy. We could island-hop across. Ireland is a big island, Wrolf, but we could miss it altogether. That’s a cheery thought. The Lady has been good to us so far, so I will have to trust to that. But I’d give a lot for a compass.” She fell into thought and finally began paddling in the general direction in which she had last seen the sun. When her arms began to ache, she stopped.

  Eleanor decided she had to rest. She curled up miserably in the rear of the boat, but sleep refused to come. Finally, she opened the bench and got out the wine Iseult had given her.

  She removed the stopper, and the boat bobbed a little more. Eleanor smelled the slightly acrid scent of wine no Frenchman would put on his table. But it brought back memories of the fire in the hall at Nunnally and

  a fine Beaujolais her father had served on her eighteenth birthday. It reminded her of the golden sunlight of the vineyards of California and the almost eye-aching sun in the south of France. The boat jostled sharply.

  She leaned carefully to one side of the boat, knowing she was giddy with exhaustion, and clumsy as well. "Are you thirsty, Mother of Oceans? I thank you for bearing me upon your bosom. Here is wine,” she said as she shakily poured a large amount into the sea, "in gratitude of my salvation. I wish it were a better vintage, but three days on horseback would ruin anything.” Then she took a large swallow herself, thinking of Homer’s "wine-dark sea” and a choral piece by Frederick Delius. The boat settled into the waves and became like the music in her mind, a setting for Whitman’s "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking.” Eleanor stoppered the bottle and slipped into a state between trance and sleep.

  A woman rose from the waters, sweet and majestic all at once. The moon bound her fair hair and silvered her unclad body, outlined in the cloak of starry sky behind her. She smiled, and the gesture was a benediction.

  Eleanor knew her by many names, though her mind recalled none now. But her heart was glad, and the little slivers of doubt and fear that pierced it melted away and vanished under the Lady’s calm gaze. Then she knew nothing until a splash of water smacked her face.

  The wind had risen, for the waves were higher now. The boat was bouncing between troughs and crests like a piece of cork, and she was surprised they hadn’t been swamped already. She got on the bench and started paddling, trying to steer the little vessel between the waves. The boat wallowed, and Eleanor prayed and tried to keep it afloat. It seemed to be going in some direction, but whether it was away from Britain or back to it, she had no idea.

  When her arms could paddle no longer, she paused. There was something she should remember, but it eluded her. Something about Bridget. She knelt down by the bench and shoved the plank aside. With cramped fingers, she untied the cloak from the sword. Obeying some inner voice, she clasped the cloak around her throat.

  It felt as if the four winds were battling in her face. Sea spray stung her cheeks like slaps, and she was almost blinded. She turned slowly and carefully in place, trying to keep her balance against the pitching of the boat.

  Suddenly, the wind caught the folds of the cloak and billowed them out. She spread her arms out under it. The little craft bobbled and wavered, then steadied and began to skim across the waves. Wrolf crouched in the bows, his forepaws resting on the edge, and became a figurehead, a ghostly, silver wolf upon the prow.

  Her arms ached and her eyes stung with saltwater, but Eleanor gritted her teeth a
nd kept her arms out. They raced across the waves, with Eleanor as the sail and the wolf as a dim beacon. It took her awhile to realize that what they were doing was probably impossible, because they were moving against the wind, but by the time she noticed, she was too tired to care and could only sympathize with Moses keeping his arms up to hold off the Amalekites. She only wished she had an Aaron to help out. ,

  The wind faded finally and died. Eleanor let her arms drop to her sides and flopped bonelessly into the bottom of the boat. It was ankle-deep in water, and she bailed with her icy fingers until she remembered she had a bowl that would serve her better.

  She twisted her neck and rubbed her shoulders to ease the cramps. "First, straighten this mess up. Then rest.” She crouched down and opened the bench and removed the contents. The two leather bags had repelled most of the water, and the sword was unharmed. She got out her bowl and re wrapped the sword carefully. Her blanket and old cloak lay in the aft section, fairly wet. She sat on the bench and shoved them into the water in the boat with her soaking feet. They absorbed an astonishing amount of water, and after she had wrung them out as much as she could, there was not a great deal of bailing left to do. Eleanor crawled around carefully and spread the two things out as much as possible. Her movements kept her fairly warm, and she was too tired for the effort of redressing in the tiny boat. Instead, she drank some water and followed it with some mead.

  Dawn was rising, and to her surprise, the sun seemed more like its old self. It wasn’t quite the golden solar body she was accustomed to, but it was more than the sullen spot that lightened Albion’s slate gray skies. It rose out of the sea in a blush of pinky grays and violets, and Eleanor felt her heart rise. She toasted the sun in honey wine, then realized that it was behind her. The boat was pointing west, and if the wind had not driven her too far in that direction, Ireland should be somewhere before her. Eleanor curled up in the aft section and dozed.