The Door Into Shadow totf-2

by Диана Дуэйн

  (May our sorrow soon pass,) she said silently. A knife turned slowly within her at the memory of the last time she had said those words. Herewiss broke their gaze. With a thoughtful look, he reined Sunspark about and took the path again.

  It took two more hours to complete the rest of the ride down. The slope grew gradually less steep, and the ledges a bit wider, but the snow continued. Lang was not the only rider who was lost. Just minutes after his death, another horse and rider came plummeting down past Segnbora. The falling rider's glance locked with Segnbora1 s in the second of her passing. Still weeping, Segnbora could do nothing but pour herself into the look, see Who was falling, and aid Her in accepting what was happening. In that second, the woman's fear-twisted face calmed. Then she was gone. Segnbora rode on, trembling. She turned a switchback and suddenly found herself at the top of a long skirt of scree and rough stones, which lead down to a slope carpeted in snow-covered grass. Glancing at the sky, Segnbora knew the storm wasn't going to let up. In front of her, Eftgan was checking her saddlebags to make sure the Regalia were safe. Herewiss had drawn Khavrinen and was pointing at the snow. There were prints in it: the big splayed tracks of a horwolf, and a keplian's pad-and-claw set. Both trails were only minutes old. Both led to the cliffs foot and away again, westward.

  "We're expected," Herewiss said. "I'm done with being circumspect, Queen." Fire flowed down Khavrinen's blade in defiant brilliance. "We've got to stay alive. Meantime, we had better get to the Heugh fast. The Bindings are slipping from the pressure of so many beings in this area."

  Eftgan nodded. ""Can you shore up the Bindings until we complete the ritual?"

  "I can," Herewiss said. "I've been doing it for several hours. But its* tiring. How long I can hold out, I've no idea." "Once we begin, the blood-binding won't take long," Eft-gan reassured him. Thumping Scoundrel's sides, she wheeled westward. "The ground between here and the Heugh is smooth. Let's 'make time." They had to go slowly at first, so that the Darthene riders

  still on the slope would have time to catch up. It was about fifteen minutes into this process thai the first cohort of Fyrd found them. There were only twenty or thirty: horwolves and keplian who had been patrolling the heights and thought it wise to attack before the main force was down off the Fell. It was a mistake. Like lightning dancing a death-dance, Khavrinen rose and fell in the forefront of the skirmish. What its blade didn't slay, Herewiss's Fire did. Sunspark was in-censed; any Fyrd at which it looked became ashes in seconds, F6rlennh and Suthan flickered red and blue in Firelight and flamelight. Segnbora swept Skadhwe's blackness about her in an utter calm that felt very strange. Shortly, nothing moved but Darthenes and the wind. Drifts began forming around the bodies in the snow. The Darthenes had a few wounded, none seriously, and none lost — a small miracle for which everyone was thankful. "What's the time?" Freelorn said.

  "Three hours past noon.*' Eftgan looked around and saw the last of her riders corning down off Britfell. " Wyn will be moving the forces forward at four. Let's get up that Heugh." It was only a mile to Lionheugh, but they bought every furlong of the distance dearly. The fourth cohort of Fyrd was the biggest, some three hundred of the creatures. There were not many nadders, because of the coldness of the weather, There were, unfortunately, many maws and keplian, the worst Fyrd breeds for riders to handle. There were also four death-jaws, three of which Herewiss dealt with, and one of which Eftgan destroyed with an astonishing blast of blue Fire. By the time this attack was over, no one was quite as lively as they had been. Nearly everyone had a, wound of one type or another.

  Eftgan and Freelorn were unhurt, but Herewiss had a long set of slashes from, a keplian *s claws, and Mods and Dritt and Harald all had maw bites. But no Fyrd had been allowed to get away and warn others of what had happened. "You and I were lucky," Freelorn said to Eftgan. "Luck has nothing to do with it. If our blood falls on this land and we have the brains to do a binding right away, that One would lose a great deal of its Power." Eftgan. whipped blood off Forlennh. "Herewiss?"

  He was sitting astride Sunspark with a look on his face that was either annoyance or strain. Khavrinen in his hand was flaring with a wild glory of Fire as he healed himself. "It's putting on pressure," he said. "Things are trying to return to the way they were before the Binding, and this Fyrd blood isn't helping matters."

  "Let's go. 'Berend?" She glanced at Segnbora as they began to move through the blinding snow. "You all right?"

  "Fine." Segnbora held Skadhwe over her knee at the ready. "You always used to be so noisy in battles! I keep looking around to see if something got you."

  "My lodgers are doing my hollering for me," she said. The Dragons didn't care for Fyrd, and her mdeihei had been sing-ing martial musics laced with Dragonfire ever since she came down from Britfell. Battlecries seemed superfluous with that inner thunder going on. Eftgan met her glance with an odd expression, as if seeing some stranger who was Segnbora's twin. " 'Berend, you've become more than your lodgers, somehow. What happened up there?"

  It was a poor time to explain. "I'm not sure," Segnbora said. "Nothing of the Dark One's doing, that's certain." She knew it to be true as she said it.

  If there was anything the Shadow didn't want mortals to know, it was what Segnbora had learned. Once one knew Who one was, It lost Its power over that person. She shook her head and kicked Steels been into a gallop, getting Skadhwe ready. The realizations were coming too close together. The hugeness of them was dazzling her. She needed something concrete upon, which to fasten her mind. . Unfortunately, she got it. To their right, the crest of Britfell had been getting lower as they headed west. With little warn-ing the fell simply stopped in a sheer cliff. Out of the falling snow their destination loomed: Lionheugh.

  To the west, not even the snow could muffle a great con-fused roaring — shouts and battlecries, the bray of Reaver war-horns and the thin silver cries of trumpets. As they drew rein under the shadow of the Heugh, Eftgan waved Torve over, putting up Forlennh and unsheathing her Rod.

  "Leave me fifty," she said. "Take the rest and hit them hard wherever it seems best. My compliments to my Consort when you see him, and tell Wyn I'm sorry we're late, but we were detained. Ride!"

  "Madam!" Torve said, and rode offhard with four hundred fifty of the Darthene cavalry behind him. The snow swallowed them. Freelorn rode up to join the Queen, with Moris and Dritt and Harald close behind.

  "I have to do something about this weather, even if it's only temporary," said Eftgan, shaking the Fire down her Rod. "Then we'll do our business. Herewiss, how are you doing?" He was holding Khavrinen before him in both hands, his eyes fixed on it. A frightening brilliance of Fire streamed about man and sword. "I'll hold/' he said, but there was strain in his voice, and the feeling of malicious intent in the air hung closer than it had before. "The Shadow's pressing, though. There's much bloodshed going on and It's feeding on that. I daren't be distracted long—" "Up with us," Eftgan said.

  Punching Scoundrel, she rode at a gallop up the path to the Heugh. No one was surprised by the Fyrd, waiting for them there. They dropped from rocks and leaped up under the horses' hooves. Eftgan's Rod crackled with Fire as she laid it about her like a whip. Whatever she struck didn't move again. Segnbora and Freelorn galloped behind her, watching the Queen's back, slicing down with Skadhwe and

  THE DOOR INTO SHADOW

  Suthan. Behind them came Herewiss, with Moris and Dritt and Harald about him as guard.

  Very quickly, it seemed, they made the top of the Heugh and gathered there on the level ground, the Queen's riders and Freelorn's followers circling around in case any more Fyrd should attack uphill.

  "No Reavers yet, and none of Cillmod's people," Eftgan said, dismounting hurriedly and raising her Rod. "That's a mercy; maybe they don't know we're here. E'kstirre na lai'tehen dndrastiw vhai!"

  Eftgan cried into the wind in Nhaired, lifting her Rod. two-handed and pointing it at the roiling sky. She sighted along

  the Rod's length as if along the st
ock of a crossbow. At the last word of her wreaking, another piercing line of blue Fire lanced upward and struck into the underbelly of the cloud above them.

  The wind screamed, the cloud tore away from the ravening Fire like flesh from a wound. It tore, and tore — ripping back-ward and dissolving, revealing blue sky and afternoon sun-light. The snow stopped as the clouds retreated, until a great patch of sky the width of Bluepeak valley was clear.

  Standing on that height, for the first time they could see what was happening. The Reavers and the main Darthene force were locked in battle in the pass, and the Darthenes were already well ahead of the position at which Eftgan had intended them to start. Even as they watched, the Reavers lost some ground, pushed uphill by heartened Darthenes who knew why the weather had suddenly cleared up. A sudden blot of darkness from the east — the riders who had followed Eft-gan over the fell — smote into the Reavers' uneven right flank and scattered it.

  "The clearing won't last," Eftgan said, breathing hard and leaning against Scoundrel. "I have to save some Power for the binding. Lorn, the Regalia, quickly!"

  Freelorn had already undone Eftgan's saddle-roll, and now unrolled it before her. It contained an odd assortment: an old knife of very plain make, black of hilt and blade, and a rough circlet of gold that looked as if it had been hammered out by an amateur. It had, Segnbora knew, for this was Dekorsir, the Queen's Gold — the crown that each Darthene ruler ham-mered out unguarded in the open marketplace, once a year, to give the people a. chance to dispose of an unfit ruler if there was need. There was also another circlet, this one of exquisite workmanship, woven as it was of strands of linked and braided silver.

  Freelorn lifted the circlet up with a blaze of angry delight in his eyes. It was Laeran's Band, the crown of the kings and queens of Arlen. "Where did you get this!"

  "1 had it stolen several days ago,"' Eftgan said, kneeling down beside the saddle-roll, "In the middle of last week, when. Citlmod took it out of Lionhall."

  Freelorn stopped still as death and stared at Eftgan. "When he what …?" he said.

  His voice failed him. No one but the members of the royal line of Arlen could set foot in Lionhall and come out alive. And Freelorn was an only child. Or had thought he was.

  "It occurs to me that your father may have had a sharing-child he didn't know about," Eftgan said, setting Dek6rsir on her head. "Or one he didn't

  care to legitimize. No matter right now. I'm just sorry we couldn't find Herg6tha."

  Freelorn turned the supple strip of metal over in his hands. "The thought of Cillmod wearing this—"

  "I couldn't stand it either. Shut up and put it on, Lorn. Herewiss can't hold the Binding by himself much longer." It was true. Herewiss had dismounted from Sunspark, una-ble to spare even the small amount of concentration needed to stay astride, and was sitting with his back against a rock. KhЈvrinen lay across his lap, clutched in both hands. He had begun to shine, growing almost translucent, as he had at Barachael, and the stones of the Heugh sang with the Power that was poured out of him. He was holding his own, but just barely. Segnbora looked around her and found that under-hearing was no longer necessary to feel the strain in the earth and the air.

  Eftgan's riders and Freelorn's followers were all looking over their shoulders, hunting the source of the strange feel-ings inside them. Herewiss's will could clearly be felt battling with the One that poured Its rage into the valley. He was keeping away the ancient reality, as if he had his back braced against a closed door. But the pounding on the other side, the rhythmic throb of rage and hatred, was getting stronger—

  "We are the land," Eftgan and Freelorn were saying in unison. They knelt before one another, knee to knee, holding the black knife together, Lorn wearing the strip of silver, Eftgan the circlet of gold. Their joined voices — Freelorn speaking the ritual in Arlene and Eftgan in Darthene — made an uncanny music. The hair on Segnbora*s neck rose at it, hearing in human voices an echo of the mdeikri. "Its earth is our flesh; its water our blood; its well-being our joy; its illness our pain … "

  The ritual continued, speaking of mysteries particular to the royal priesthood. Many of the riders turned away, trying not to listen to a ceremony that no one of common blood had heard since the founding of the Kingdoms. Segnbora stood by with Skadhwe in her hand and listened fearlessly, in won-der, hearing once again the Goddess speaking to Herself: one Lover speaking to the Other in solemn celebration of Their eternal relationship.

  She saw Lorn take the knife and cut Eftgan's upheld left wrist with it, crosswise and careful. Both of them paused a moment, trembling. At the stroke of the ritual wounding the hammering of hatred in the air grew more savage. It was almost physically perceptible. Eftgan took the knife from Freelorn and reached for his left wrist—

  — the Fyrd came up the hill in a wave, horwolves and maws together. Behind them came two-legged forms in rough skins and crude metal and leather corsets, bearing leaf-shaped bronze swords and bows of horn, howling like the beasts they followed. Eftgan pitched forward gasping from a black-fletched Reaver arrow lodged between her shoulder and throat. Hor-rorstruck, Segnbora watched helplessly as Lorn sat her up straight, breaking the fletching off the arrow and pulling the point end out of the wound with brutal efficiency. He snatched up the black blade and something else — then there was a Reaver in front of Segnbora, blocking her view. She met the man's brown eyes, sank into them as Shihan had taught her, felt the move he was about to make. A second later, Skadhwe had countered and sliced the man's chest through from side to side. As he died she didn't break that gaze. She' knew Who she had killed, and let the Other know Who had killed him. She grieved for his death and accepted it as 'her own, completely. Thee she looked up at her next opponent — a madder this time — saw Her there too, and killed again, out of necessity, in love.

  She killed again, And again. And again. The' Darthene riders encircling the hill knew immediately what Segnbora didn't have leisure to notice for some time: there were too many Reavers and Fyrd. If they attempted to

  hold this position, they'd be killed off slowly. Most of the riders had pushed to the side where the worst attack was coming from, the west side, so that behind them Eftgan and Freelorn and Herewiss could get away.

  Freelorn shoved Eftgan up into Blackmane's saddle and fastened Scoundrel's reins to the stirrups. Rushing over to Herewiss next, he literally picked him up from where he sat, snapping orders at Sunspark. The shocked elemental knelt to take Herewiss on his back. Segnbora had her hands very full of Reavers and Fyrd for a few wild minutes, until slowly they began to give her breath. Their first charge was exhausted. In addition the Reavers, ever wary of sorcery, had begun to stay clear of Skadhwe's uncanny blade. There was a madwoman wielding it, her face streaming calm tears.

  " 'Berend!" Freelorn «houted at her. Segnbora took a moment before answering to look with her sharpened vision at the battlefield. The sight was a shock. More forces were pouring into the valley's mouth from be-hind the Spine — not Reavers, and not Darthenes, certainly. They were falling on the Darthene right flank and crushing it as easily as a stone falling on an egg.

  "Damn him!" she cried, and turned away from the hill-crest, running for Steelsheen and the others. The Queen's scrying had been accurate after all. Cillmod had gotten wind of the upcoming battle, and had evidently decided that this was an expeditious time to both

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  distract the Darthenes from retalia-tion on his borders and exterminate their fighting force as well. There were none of the Royal Arlene army down there. Such loyal Regulars might have been persuaded to turn against Cillmod since Freelorn was in the field. All these were mercenaries.

  Flinging herself into Steelshcen's saddle, Segnbora rode down the trail to clear a path for Freelorn, swearing all the way. It was very obvious now why there were so few unat-tached mercenaries for hire in the Kingdoms. The Darthenes down t
here were badly outnumbered.

  Behind Segnbora, Sunspark was doing some swearing of its own. (What's the matter with him? Did they hurt him somehow?) It danced a little as it cantered down the trail, obviously wanting very badly to let its fire loose. (If he doesn't come out of this shortly, the whole lot of them are going to make a very nice cloud of smoke!)

  Freelorn, holding the bleeding Eftgan in front of him on Blackmane, looked as haggard as if he had been shot himself. Remembering Herewiss*s true-dream, the thought made Segnbora's heart turn over. "Firechild," she said, "he's all right, he's just keeping things from getting much worse. For the love of him, save it for later!"

  The Power Herewiss was pouring out was astonishing. It frightened Segnbora. She had witnessed great wreakings in the Precincts in which fifty or more Rodniistresses had worked in consort, and all of them together hadn't let out a flood of Fire like this. Khavrinen struck razor-sharp shadows from everything its light touched, and Herewiss's flesh burned transparent as an imminent dawn. Some of the Reavers were turning away from them even now, frightened by the sight of the statue-still rider with the thunderbolt in his hands. One Reaver, though, got up the nerve to fire an arrow. The instant it touched the writhing aura of Flame that wound about Herewiss, it flared and fell away in ashes.

  "Can you gallop without dropping him?" Freelorn shouted at Sunspark as they made it down off the Heugh onto the plain again. It bared its teeth at him in scorn. (Gallop! Is that all? Where do' you want him?)

  Freelorn looked from west to east, and got a look of sudden recognition on his face. He flung out an arm, pointing. "There!""

  East and a little south of the Heugh, one of the spurs of Kerana came down in a little scraped-away scarp, sheer on all sides except for one