The Eye of the Hunter

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Saying nothing, Faeril only hugged Gwylly tightly, then stepped back, her eyes glittering, but Riatha spoke. “I pray that Urus recovers swiftly.”

  With a glance at Faeril, who nodded that she was ready, the Elfess and damman slipped away into the moonlit night, while again the earth trembled. Gwylly watched them go, anguish in his eyes, then turned and trotted toward Aravan, the Elf yet hauling Urus across the snow.

  * * *

  Gwylly could see Riatha and Faeril for some time, as slowly the two courses diverged from one another, Elfess and damman tracking southerly, Elf and buccan veering southwesterly. Gwylly had overtaken Aravan with Urus on the travois, and then had pressed on, seeking the best route through the rugged land ahead, toward the abandoned monastery whence they were bound.

  To their right loomed the wall of the glacier, its edges rounded and sloping and raddled with great cracks and ravines, eroded by weather. Huge ridges of ice extended outward from the interior mass, like titanic fingers on a vast hand. Skirting the tips of these ridges, Gwylly went slowly forward, the jumbled terrain rising up to meet the massifs of the dark mountains beyond.

  Now and again Aravan would stop to rest, the Elf perspiring freely, for the task was arduous. And Gwylly always returned to the Elf’s side during these pauses, describing the land to come, advising Aravan as to the easiest way, though at times there seemed to be only hard passages ahead. And on this difficult terrain, often would Aravan have to hale the travois and Urus up rough steeps, and at times they were beyond the Elf’s strength; even with Gwylly helping, some places could not be traversed, and another way would have to be found.

  And when they rested, they did not speak of the dire straits in which they found themselves—stranded in shuddering, icy mountains teeming with foe, Gwylly himself unable for the moment to use his sling, the party split, all of their food and most of their supplies lost, an incapacitated comrade on their hands, the route to the monastery all but impassable burdened as they were. Instead they spoke of the trail ahead, of finding the monastery, and of Urus.

  During one of these stops, Gwylly looked down at the huge Man, and Urus drew in a breath and exhaled, then was still. “I say, Aravan, Urus’s beard reaches below his waist, and his hair is long enough to come to his belt. Do you think that they’ve been growing all these hundreds of years?”

  Aravan glanced at Urus. “If so, wee one, then it has grown very slowly.”

  Gwylly thought awhile. “Slowly, slowly, like his breathing.”

  Aravan nodded. “It is said that extreme cold will slow the pulse of life.”

  “How so, Aravan?”

  “That I do not know, Gwylly. But heed, things go to ground in winter. Growth stops. E’en those things which do grow throughout the year—pine trees, some shrubs and grasses, lichen, and the like—all slow to near imperceptibility in the winter season. Some animals go to ground as well, sleeping as do the plants.”

  Gwylly looked at the Elf. “Like Bears in the winter, neh?”

  “Exactly so, Gwylly. And in this case, thine example is most apt.”

  Gwylly again looked at Urus, remembering what he had read—that Urus at times took on the form of a Bear.

  Aravan stood and shouldered the harness, and Gwylly once more clambered through the land ahead, leading the way.

  * * *

  Again they paused, and this time Gwylly examined the aspergillum affixed to Urus’s belt. Some eight or ten inches long it was, and made of ivory and silver: a hollow ivory cylinder joined to an ivory handle, sparsely decorated ’round with heavy silver wire crisscrossing in an open geometric pattern. A silver chain was attached to the tip of the handle, forming a wrist loop. The top of the cylinder had tiny holes in it for dispensing contained liquid, though Gwylly’s inspection saw no manner by which it could be filled, other than perhaps submergence. Along the top rim of the cylinder, carven into the ivory, were some runes. “Ho, Aravan, look at these.”

  The Elf peered at the runes. “Ai, this is in the language of the Mages of Rwn!”

  Gwylly’s eyes widened. “Magic,” he breathed.

  Aravan cast his mind back thousands of years, recalling. At last he translated the ancient markings: “Adon, I ask for aid—my need is great.”

  The Warrow looked at Aravan. “When Urus was trapped in the ice, then did the dispenser glow. But as soon as aid came to him and he was set free, it stopped.”

  “Nay, Gwylly,” responded Aravan. “The glow disappeared when I touched it.”

  Gwylly made a negating gesture with his hand. “Nevertheless, Aravan, it did summon aid, and when aid came…well, the glow ceased. Like blue stones that grow cold or swords that glimmer when enemy is nigh, or rings that render the wearer invisible or strong or swift, this, too, is a thing of magic!”

  Aravan slowly shook his head. “Wee one, that glowing swords do exist I’ll not deny. And I wear the blue stone. But rings? I have never seen such. I think you speak of hearthtale fables.

  “Even so, this aspergillum is indeed special, though how it came to be in Urus’s possession, I cannot say.”

  “Oh, that,” replied Gwylly. “I can explain that, for it is recorded in Petal’s journal. Urus found it…in the monastery.”

  * * *

  Onward they moved across snow and ice, struggling up and westerly through a trembling land. Still they had some three miles to go through the rugged terrain, and the Moon slid down the sky.

  At the next stop, Gwylly sat at Urus’s side, feeling for a pulse, finally locating it, though the time between beats was amazingly prolonged. “Tell me, Aravan, though Urus is alive, still his life is slowed beyond compare, made so by the cold, or so you deem. Yet Baron Stoke was in the ice, too. But we heard him howl—that is, Riatha said it was him. Why is it that Stoke was able to howl and yet Urus remains unconscious, his life hanging by but a feeble thread?”

  Aravan shook his head. “I can only guess, Gwylly, I can only speculate, for we move through a realm of knowledge unknown to me. What thou dost say is true—Urus wakes not, while Stoke howls. Possibilities spring to mind, and they are these: Stoke was in animal form, while Urus was not, and in the wild, feral animals seem to have great capacity to survive damage and to recover quickly, as perhaps has happened to Stoke, for I can think of no animal more feral, more savage than a Vulg; or mayhap Urus is in a sleep beyond our ken, as thou didst liken unto that of a wintering bear; or, Urus may be damaged in a way that is not apparent, a hurt to the head, though no sign of such can I find.”

  Again Urus took a breath and exhaled.

  * * *

  Up a long slope they fared and through a col, emerging onto a narrow plateau above the glacier, the ice in the distance below gleaming whitely in the remaining moonlight. But it was not down at the glacier they peered; instead Gwylly pointed across the flat. “There.” Yon where his outstretched arm indicated, a mile or so away, on a rocky slope above the glacier, there stood a tower and several large buildings and some small, walled about, all made of stone.

  It could be nought but the monastery.

  Suddenly Gwylly blanched. “I just thought of something, Aravan: what if the Rūcks and Hlōks and Vulgs are bringing Stoke here? What if they already have?”

  The earth juddered beneath their feet.

  Aravan glanced at the eastern sky. “It will be dawn soon. Even so, we must proceed with caution. Thou must wait here with Urus while I range ahead, scanning for spoor.”

  “Nay, Aravan, this is mine to do. You stay, I’ll range ahead. Should you go and aught happen, then Urus will die, for I have not the skills to tend him and I am too small to haul him to a place of aid. But should I fall while seeking tracks, then Urus will live, for you will be with him and can take him elsewhere.”

  Aravan objected. “But thou canst not use thy sling—”

  The Elf’s words were cut short by the buccan. “To do elsewise risks more than just the scout. Besides, I am no hero. I can run and hide.”

  “Thou canst not o
utrun a Vulg, wee one. Nor canst thou hide thy scent from such here in this barren land.”

  “Even so, Aravan, it is you who must stay with Urus.”

  Now it was Aravan who was forced to bow to the logic of another, and he nodded at last. “Then go, Gwylly, yet ’ware, for e’en though we’ve seen no tracks, thou couldst be right—Stoke and his band may be nigh, having come by different route.”

  Aravan removed the blue stone from ’round his neck and handed it over to Gwylly. “Here. Wear this. It is now warm, yet the monastery is a distance away. At first sign of chilling, of danger, flee. Go with caution, though, for the amulet does not detect all.”

  Gwylly, his heart leaping about in his chest as would a caged bird, left Aravan behind and set off across the snow, swiftly ranging back and forth, seeking sign of foe. Slowly he drew near the monastery, dark stone in the night. But a furlong or so from the buildings his feet came upon windswept barren rock, where no track could be made. Despairing, for here on stone any sign of passing Spawn would end, Gwylly ranged along where the snow ended and the stone began, running the perimeter of an area kept scoured clean by fierce winter winds, winds channelled through a slot in the mountains above. At the moment, though, the air blew steadily down toward the glacier beyond and only occasionally twisted in eddies. Still the Warrow found no tracks in the snow along the edge of the bare expanse.

  Keeping low and following what cover there was, he slipped to the wall of the monastery. Some fifteen feet high it was, and made of stone. Sheltered from the wind by the bulwark, a wide, irregular band of snow fetched up against it. Gwylly saw no tracks as he worked his way ’round to the high wooden gate—it was closed. Before the gate lay more snow, again without tracks, yet he well knew that swirling wind could have erased any sign of passage, not only here but in any of the expanses that he had scanned.

  Gwylly pressed against the heavy planks and remained still for a long while, holding his breath, listening—hearing nothing but susurration of mountain air and perhaps the beat of his own heart. He felt the amulet at his neck—Is it chill? It felt cool—How cold would it be if foes were within the stone buildings? The Warrow peered through the narrow crack between wooden gate and rock wall. Within, he could see a bit of the main building and the bell tower above. No light shone from that part of the darkened stone structure within his restricted view, and no light shone onto the stone courtyard from the parts he could not see. Too, glancing up—his heart leapt into his throat—through the crack he could see fetched up against the planks on the opposite side of the portal a silhouetted portion of what had to be a large horizontal wooden beam, in place, barring the gate.

  Gwylly dashed back across the stone plateau and snow, coming to where Aravan waited with Urus. “I found no tracks, and the monastery seems deserted, but the gate is closed and barred—from the inside! Someone is there!”

  Aravan touched Gwylly at the throat. “Did the stone grow icy?”

  Gwylly shook his head, No.

  Aravan fell into thought. “Then mayhap the gate was left so by Riatha years past.”

  Gwylly shook his head. “Petal’s journal says that she and Riatha and Tomlin left it standing open when they departed. And granted, Riatha has been here since, yet why would she have left it barred from the inside? She would have had to clamber over the wall after doing so. And if she knew that it was barred, why did she not tell us?”

  Aravan’s eyes were lost in thought, and he slowly shook his head.

  Urus took another breath, then was still.

  Aravan looked easterly. Dawn was on the horizon. “Let us go forth, Gwylly. We dare not delay any longer, for Urus needs our aid. I deem the Sun will lip the horizon ere we arrive, and Rûpt cannot abide such. If they are in there, we shall use Adon’s light as our protecting shield and as our avenging sword.”

  Exhausted, Aravan stood and again took up the travois harness, and following Gwylly, set off across the snow and stone and toward the dark buildings looming in the distance ahead. Behind, the skies began to pale as dawn brightened.

  * * *

  They stood before the heavy wooden gate, Urus on the travois lying on the snow beside them. The final mile had been relatively easy, for the plateau was nearly flat. Even so, both Warrow and Elf were weary beyond measure, for they had journeyed up through a rugged land, the Elf hauling a wounded comrade, the Warrow ranging back and forth, clambering and scaling, finding the way.

  And now Gwylly looked up at one more wall, this one he hoped the last. Loosening the small grapnel from his belt, he clicked the tines into place and began affixing a line to the haft ring. Aravan glanced at the Waerling, nodding his approval. “I’ll climb over, Gwylly. The beam barring the gate may be too heavy and high for thee to remove.”

  Gwylly cinched the knot and then let dangle the hook at the end of a foot or so of slack. “It should catch better on the wood of the gate,” he said, and with a whirl or two, let fly, the grapnel sailing up and over the headbeam and beyond, the rope uncoiling behind. With a thnk! the hook swung back to strike the planking somewhere opposite, and Gwylly slowly reeled in the line, pulling the grapnel upward, a tine digging in as the hook reached the top of the gate. First Gwylly and then Aravan set their weight against the line, sinking barb into wood. Then Aravan shed his cloak, preparing to ascend.

  In that moment a metallic scrape sounded from the stone wall to the left, and Gwylly’s heart leapt as he saw silhouetted against the paling sky the shape of a crossbow slide over the edge and catch them in its aim.

  “Who goes?” called down a voice, that of a male.

  “Friend!” answered Aravan immediately.

  “Friend you say, yet you stand in the dark and one of you is small, as small as a child…or a Rutch!”

  “No Rukh,” declared Aravan.

  “Faugh! Who would bring a child into this wilderness?”

  Gwylly threw back his hood. “I am a Warrow!”

  “We shall soon see,” responded the voice, the crossbow aim unwavering.

  “Friend, we urgently need thine aid,” called Aravan. “Our comrade is nigh death.”

  “You will wait,” snapped the voice, “till the Sun comes. Then we shall see.”

  Behind, at that moment on the edge of the brightening sky, the rim of the Sun came into view between mountains eastward.

  The crossbow remained upon them for a moment longer as light fell on the land, then the weapon disappeared. Gwylly and Aravan heard footsteps clambering down from above. The wooden bar of the gate slid on its tracks, and then the leaves of the portals swung inward. Before them stood a grey-bearded Man dressed in coarse brown robes.

  “I had to make certain,” he said, beckoning them inward. He turned and took up his crossbow from where he had laid it aside, and stepped out to peer across the ’scape beyond. Apparently satisfied that no enemy was upon the land, he grumbled, “Except for Gavan and me, they’ve killed all the rest.”

  Wearily, Gwylly scooped up Aravan’s cloak while the Elf settled his shoulders into the travois harness. Pulling Urus, through the gates they went, pausing as the grey-haired Man set aside his crossbow to close and bar the gate once more. Gwylly flipped loose the grapnel now that he was on this side of the barrier.

  As the Warrow coiled the line he looked about, his gaze gritty with fatigue. They stood at the entrance of an open yard ringed ’round by grey stone buildings, most appearing to be storage sheds, though some were dwellings. Directly ahead, standing in the morning sunlight, was the main tower, backed against the wall. Forty or fifty feet high it was, and round, some eighteen feet across, and made of stone as well; and it was capped with a steep-canted slate roof. The tower bore window slits, shuttered, winding up and about, as if following a spiral stair—except nigh the very top, where wide archways ringed darkly ’round, archways through which Gwylly thought he could see the shapes of bells hanging.

  The tower itself jutted up on the mid line of a large squarish building, a building perhaps eighty feet wid
e and twice as many deep, and two or three storeys high, itself with a slanted slate roof all way ’round. Window slits there were, shuttered over, along its high stone walls. And facing into the courtyard, up a step or two, stood a joined pair of great wooden doors, closed.

  A tremble juddered through the earth.

  With the gate barred once more, the old Man turned and peered at his visitors. “Why, you really are a Waldan!” he exclaimed to Gwylly, then looked at Aravan. “and a Deva!”

  He turned to gaze at Urus on the travois. “Adon, he’s a wild-looking one.” Again he took up his crossbow and started across the courtyard. “Come. Come. In to where it’s warm. Then we’ll see what needs doing.”

  No sign of life did they see as they trudged across the courtyard toward this main structure, the dragging sound of wooden travois poles echoing back from the hard stone walls within. Up the steps they went, the Man swinging the leftmost panel inward upon oiled hinges.

  A vestibule they entered, the hallway short, and before them stood another set of closed doors. The Man motioned them to stop, then opened one of the doors, the panel swinging outward.

  They stepped into a large open chamber with a high-vaulted ceiling, unlighted but for the daylight seeping inward, pressing back the gloom. Off to the sides in the shadows loomed pillars buttressing overhead galleries to left and right hugging the walls, narrow, enclosed stairs pitching upward immediately at hand, to either side, east and west, leading up to those balconies. Across the chamber, near the far wall, stood an altar, with Adon’s glyph carven thereupon. And farther on, at the back wall, off to left and right, again enclosed stairs led upward unto the galleries.

  The old Man bowed toward the altar and then led them on inward, across the stone floor, the scrape of the litter poles resounding in the great hollow space. Behind, the portals they had entered slowly swung to, hinged as they were to close without an aiding hand, deepening the darkness within. And now only the light streaming through the large window above the western balcony pressed against the gloom.