Halfmen Of O

by Gee, Maurice

  He sat by the fire with Brand and Breeze and Jimmy, listening to the Birdfolk sing tales of their ancestors. He felt he would be happy to stay here forever; then knew that he could never belong. This was the last night he would spend with the Birdfolk. He wondered if, years from now, his name and Susan’s and Jimmy Jaspers’ would be remembered in Morninghall. Perhaps there would be a song – The Quest of Susan Ferris and Nicholas Quinn. He liked the sound of that.

  In the morning their little band gathered in the entrance of the hall. Nobody made speeches. One by one the Council members folded Susan in their wings. Redwing gave her a belt made of beaten goathide. She had stayed up into the night making it, working Birdfolk motifs along its length and colouring them with dye. Two small pouches were fixed on it, one on each side of the buckle.

  ‘For the Halves, Susan.’

  Susan belted it round her waist, under her cloak. She put the Half in the right-hand pouch. Nick glimpsed its amber gleam.

  ‘Carry our strength in your heart,’ Wise One said.

  The Birdfolk of Morninghall rose in the air. This time they made no shield, but flew informally, swooping and weaving casually in the air. All through the morning they followed the band down the Yellow Plains and along the river. Then, one by one, they dropped away, and flew back to Morninghall or the mountains. Soon only Redwing and Wanderer were left, and five young Birdfolk who carried the packs. Jimmy Jaspers would not give up his axe. Apart from that they travelled light, and made good time. At nightfall the Birdfolk came dropping out of the sky and laid the gear in a camping-place Wanderer had chosen. Nick and Susan slept deeply after their day’s march.

  At the end of the second day they were opposite the pass. Nick did not look forward to crossing the snow.

  ‘Won’t Odo Cling have some guards there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Brand said, ‘a company of guards. They are down below the snowline on the other side. Wanderer flew high and spotted them.’

  ‘They’ll stop us going over,’ Nick said.

  ‘We’re not going that way. And we’re not going round the end of the range. There are guards there too.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘Wanderer knows a secret trail. It lies a day’s march south. He does not know what lies on the other side, but it must come out somewhere in Wildwood. Once there we are safe. We can find the Stonefolk.’

  Susan drew her blanket round herself. ‘Where’s the Bloodcat?’

  ‘Wanderer does not know. He has not seen the Cat. Or Odo Cling.’

  ‘Cling?’ Jimmy Jaspers said. ‘’E’s mine. You leave Cling ter me.’

  Next day they followed a river on the plains. The mountains rose sheer on their right, with rocky cliffs and giant slides of shingle. Streams ran out of gorges or tumbled down in summer waterfalls. In the afternoon they began to climb. The way was broken, barred by streams and boulders. Redwing flew low over them, pointing out the easier paths. They came on to a plateau grown over with mountain grass and thorn trees. On the other side the mountain wall made an unbroken line. They trudged towards it, and got there by nightfall, scratched and weary. Wanderer and the young Birdfolk had made a fire. They had food cooking and hot drinks steaming in mugs. That night they did not fly back to Morninghall, but slept about the campfire, standing balanced on their wingtips. Nick lay in his blankets watching them. They were like tall statues made of wood, like guardian angels. It made him cold to think that tomorrow they would fly away for ever.

  In the morning Wanderer flew into the mountains, climbing steadily where the wall was less steep. Redwing watched him anxiously. The morning sun gleamed on his wings. ‘He goes too far. He is near the mark of forbidding. Ah, ah, no!’

  Wanderer seemed to stagger in his flight. But he managed to turn. With his wings half-closed he made a lumpy glide back down to them. He skidded on the ground and tumbled over. Redwing rushed to him and covered him with her wings. He lay groaning for a moment. ‘I went too close. It took my wings like a cramp.’ He managed to climb to his feet. ‘The way is open. I could see no further. But it is clear to the top. What lies beyond I cannot say.’ He looked at Brand. ‘It is a hard way. You must have care. I shall show you where it begins.’

  ‘No,’ Redwing said.

  ‘Yes. If we can ask this child, Susan Ferris, to go into the Darkland and face Otis Claw, then I can carry Brand awhile, even though my wings are tearing off.’

  He launched himself and hovered over Brand. Brand took hold of his legs. ‘He is lighter than Susan Ferris,’ Wanderer joked. He rose laboriously into the air, and flapped away to the mountains, with Brand clinging beneath. They circled there, climbing and gliding, for several minutes. Two of the young Birdfolk flew close, keeping an anxious watch on them.

  ‘Everyone gets a ride but me,’ Nick grumbled.

  Wanderer and Brand came back and landed. ‘It is a hard way,’ Brand said. ‘But the only way. We must start at once and be at the top by nightfall. I do not want to spend more than one night on the mountains.’

  The young Birdfolk flew the packs as far up the trail as they could go. Then they hovered over the party, making their farewells, and flew away north.

  ‘We must go now,’ Redwing said. ‘Remember us, Susan Ferris. We will remember you.’ She embraced her in her wings. She embraced Nick and Brand and Breeze. ‘Them feathers’ll make me sneeze,’ Jimmy Jaspers protested. But he could not escape.

  ‘Keep your axe sharp, Jimmy,’ Wanderer said.

  Then he too embraced Susan. ‘Go well,’ he said simply. He kissed her on the brow. Then he went to the edge of the camp, sprang into the air, and beat away north. Redwing ran, and jumped, and followed him. ‘Goodbye,’ she called in a long fading cry.

  Nick and Susan watched until they vanished in the sky. ‘We’ll never see them again,’ Nick said.

  ‘No,’ Susan said. She felt inside her cloak, inside her T-shirt, and drew out the feather streaked with red. All morning as they climbed she held it in her hand.

  Brand led them up a gorge slanting into the mountains. It climbed in a series of broken steps. A stream of thawed snow-water ran down darkly in the shadows. Several times they had to wade through it. Their legs grew cold as ice. When the gorge opened out thorn trees blocked it. Jimmy Jaspers cleared the way with his axe. Towards midday they came to the place where the Birdfolk had left their packs. Climbing was harder after that. At midday Brand made a fire of thorn branches and heated food in a pan. He handed Susan a drink of warmed goat’s milk.

  ‘Do you think you can keep going?’

  ‘I’m all right. Will we get to the top tonight?’

  ‘With luck. How are you, Nick?’

  ‘Fitter than I’ve ever been,’ Nick groaned.

  The gorge went on, narrow as a hallway. Its slanting sides blocked out the sun. Once Brand had to haul them up the side of a waterfall, using his rope. The rocks were slippery with ice. Lips of snow jutted out above them.

  ‘An hour till sundown,’ Brand said. He sounded anxious. But soon the floor of the gorge levelled out. The water lay in still pools, filmed with ice. They travelled miles it seemed on a kind of switchback, scrambling up, stumbling down. The shade began to thicken. Then Brand made a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘Do you notice anything?’

  Nick looked about. The water at his feet was moving again. ‘The stream’s running the opposite way. We must be going down.’

  ‘We’re over the top,’ Brand said. ‘This gorge runs like a cut through the middle of the range. Tomorrow you’ll see Wildwood.’

  Jimmy Jaspers had packed wood for a fire. They warmed food and dried their shoes, and slept curled in their blankets, shivering in the frozen air.

  ‘I’ve knowed worse,’Jimmy said. ‘I’ve ’ad me clothes froze so stiff I was like a knight in bloddy armour.’

  In the morning Brand found a way to the top of the gorge. He led them up one by one. And there was Wildwood, sombre green in its morning shade. It ran so tightly up under the mountains it seemed they w
ould be able to take two steps through the snow and float down into it.

  ‘I know where we are,’ Brand said. ‘The stream runs down to the Mirror Cliffs. By midday we will find the Lizard Path. Tonight we will sleep in Wildwood. Wanderer’s path has saved us many days.’

  The gorge fell steeply to a plateau covered with bush. They went down easily, and turned away as the stream flowed south. ‘We will see it again where it falls down the Mirror Cliffs. We call it Mountain’s Grief. But we must take a quicker way. There is a cleft that will take us down to the path.’

  He led them through the forest. Breeze kept darting off to pick leaves and berries, and brought them back for Nick and Susan to taste. Jimmy Jaspers would have nothing to do with them. His pack was stuffed with dried meat. The land dropped sharply into the cleft. They clambered down through mossy rocks and tall fern trees and came out on the Lizard Path, half-way between the plateau and Wildwood. The Mirror Cliffs stretched away to the north and south. They were smooth as ice and they folded in soft curves like a sheet of paper set on edge. Here and there tongues of bush ran down and licked the path.

  ‘Sheercliff is taller, but these are just as steep. The path will take us to the southern end. You must walk carefully. Even Woodlanders have been known to fall.’

  They ate lunch at the foot of the cleft. Then Susan lay back to rest. The sun was overhead. She felt warm for the first time in two days. For a moment or two she drifted off to sleep. Fragments of dream passed through her mind: dreams of warmth, of beds and fires and feathers. She smiled and murmured happily. Then she was flying high up by the sun, cosy in her nest; and then came swooping down close to the ground, over the Yellow Plains, over the tops of trees – and she came to a cave and circled close to its mouth, which drew her like a magnet, the way the yellow smoke had drawn her into the mineshaft. The pressure on her head was terrible. Suddenly the Bloodcat leapt out, screaming.

  Susan woke with a cry. She sat up, looking wildly about.

  ‘Susan,’ Breeze cried, ‘what is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I heard the Bloodcat.’

  ‘You were dreaming, child.’

  ‘No, no, I heard it. There! That’s it again. The Bloodcat’s coming.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Nick said.

  Brand had moved out on to the path. ‘Quiet,’ he said. They were all still. They held their breath. The silence was like iron. Moment after moment it went on. Then Brand knelt on the path. ‘Breeze.’ She went to his side and looked where he was pointing. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they have been this way.’

  ‘Come,’ Brand called. ‘We must leave at once.’

  ‘What is it?’ Nick said.

  ‘Halfmen have been this way.’

  ‘With the Bloodcat. I can smell its scent,’ Breeze said.

  ‘They have been patrolling the Lizard Path. Odo Cling must have guessed we would come this way. Their spoor leads north. We will go south.’

  ‘I heard the Bloodcat,’ Susan said.

  ‘No, child. That was in your mind. You were dreaming.’

  ‘She weren’t,’ Jimmy Jaspers said. ‘I can see the bloddy thing.’

  They looked where he was pointing. The Mirror Cliffs had turned dull silver in the sun. The path ran along it like a thread, dividing it neatly in two. Three folds of the cliff away, black figures were moving on the thread. They were shapeless as inkblots in their cloaks. Except for Odo Cling. Odo Cling was upright as a nail. He strained back on the leash, keeping the blood-red eager Cat in check. It writhed along the Lizard Path, sinuous as a lizard. It raised its head and gave its unearthly scream.

  ‘It has your scent,’ Brand cried. ‘Quickly, Breeze. Get her on the path. I will take the rear.’

  ‘No yer won’t,’ Jimmy Jaspers said. ‘I got me axe. No pussy’s scarin’ me. I’m gunner have a whack at Odo Cling.’

  ‘No,’ Brand cried, ‘you’re crazy. The Cat is like nothing you have ever seen. It will have you torn in half before you can blink.’

  ‘Yer reckon? I got a trick or two.’

  But he hefted his pack and started after the others. Brand brought up the rear. They ran desperately, Breeze leading, then Susan and Nick. The path was only a foot-pace wide. Wildwood yawned at their feet. A wrong step would send them spinning down.

  ‘Too slow,’ Brand yelled. ‘Throw away your packs.’

  ‘Me meat,’ Jimmy Jaspers said.

  ‘And my brush that Brightfeather gave me,’ Susan cried.

  ‘Throw them. The Bloodcat will be on us.’

  There was no space on the path to put them down. They dropped them over the edge, and they fell, turning lazily, down, down, towards the distant treetops.

  ‘Move!’ Brand yelled.

  They ran on. Jimmy had his axe, and Susan her feather, and the goat-leather belt with the Half inside. That was all that was left of Morninghall. She could not believe the nightmare had started again. That chase up the path to the Living Hill – now this. It was as if nothing had happened between, that safe time with the Birdfolk only a dream. The Bloodcat was screaming continuously. She felt as if she wanted to leap off the path and fall for ever down to the safety of Wildwood.

  ‘How close are they?’

  ‘About five minutes back. Maybe ten.’

  ‘Nick, we’re going to get caught.’

  ‘We’ll have to fight.’ But he knew it would be impossible. How could they fight on a path as narrow as this? One wrong step and you’d need a parachute. The Halfmen would get them one by one – Brand and Jimmy first. That axe would be no good, there was no room to swing it. Then him. Then Breeze. He saw them falling, with their arms outspread. He seemed to hear a wailing scream, fading away to nothing. What would it be like to be dead? And Susan would be left – alone with Odo Cling and his Halfmen; and the Cat.

  ‘Keep moving. We’ll get away.’

  They came round a bulge in the cliff. It was like running in space. Two folds back the Halfmen slid from view. The Bloodcat’s screaming thinned and died. A steady dull thunder filled the air. It was the noise of a waterfall; it was the Mountain’s Grief. It came down from the cliff-top, hundreds of metres above, dropping straight in a groove cut in the cliff, and fell away, broken and foaming, into Wildwood. A wooden foot-bridge ran across it, half a dozen metres out from the water.

  They ran through misty spray, ran on the slippery planks. Nick looked down. The moving water drew him into the forest. It seemed miles below. He felt his stomach falling. Brand gripped his arm and shoved him on.

  ‘Jimmy!’ Brand cried. It was no more than a thin bird-cry in the thundering water. Nick looked back. Jimmy had stopped on the far side of the bridge. He had taken a grip on his axe.

  ‘Jimmy,’ Nick screamed, ‘you can’t fight them.’

  But Jimmy grinned. He gave his shoulders a flex. He yelled something that was torn away by the water.

  ‘Stop him, Brand.’ Susan and Breeze had come back. The four stood helplessly on the narrow path.

  ‘We’ll have to leave him.’

  ‘No.’

  Then Nick laughed. ‘He’s not going to fight. He’s going to chop the bridge down.’

  Jimmy swung his axe. With a couple of blows he loosened the first two planks of the deck and sent them spinning away. They had been fixed with spikes to two slender beams, the trunks of trees, that ran the full length of the bridge. Jimmy jumped on to one of the trunks and set his feet apart. He was agile as a monkey. The water roared at his back, Wildwood lay hundreds of metres below. He took no notice. He swung his axe and brought it down between his feet. It bit deeply into the log. He loosed it, swung again.

  ‘The underhand chop,’ Nick yelled. ‘He told me he could do it.’

  ‘He’ll get marooned over there.’

  ‘No he won’t. He’ll get back.’

  Chips the size of dinner plates sprang in the air. Jimmy hopped neatly, turning about. He faced the waterfall and chopped into the other side of the log. But he did not cut right through.
He left a centimetre of wood holding the beam. He stepped across and started on the other.

  ‘Hurry, Jimmy,’ Nick screamed. The Halfmen and the Bloodcat had come round the cliff, only one fold away. They would be here in a moment. Brand loosened his knife in its sheath. But Jimmy chopped precisely, without hurry. He jumped about, and swung his axe again. Chips of wood jumped out and fell away. Again he left the beam secured by a centimetre of wood. He ran along the bridge.

  ‘Gimme some room.’

  ‘Jimmy, you’re marvellous.’

  ‘Told yer I knowed a trick or two. Get back or yer’ll ’ave no ’ead.’ He smashed the planks, stepped on to the log. This time he chopped right through. The bridge made a shrieking sound and sagged a little on its outer side. ‘One more,’Jimmy yelled. He stepped on to the last log. The wood was yellow as cheese and seemed to cut as easily. Half a dozen blows: a deep V appeared in one side. Jimmy hopped. He swung again, just as Odo Cling and the Cat appeared round the bulge in the cliff.

  ‘Jimmy, hurry, hurry.’

  Jimmy chopped. One, two, three, four blows. He left a centimetre of wood again, and the bridge stayed, groaning, in its place. He jumped back on to the path. ‘There. One more whack an’ she’s down.’

  ‘Jimmy, do it, do it.’

  Jimmy grinned. He leaned on his axe. He was sweating. ‘I reckon I broke me record. Wish they coulda seen me at Fells Bush.’

  ‘Jimmy!’ Cling was a dozen steps away. The Bloodcat was straining on its leash.

  ‘I will,’ Jimmy said. ‘When that Cling gets on.’ He lifted his axe and faced the bridge, grinning. ‘Gidday, Cling,’ he yelled. ‘Reckon yer caught us this time.’

  But Cling stopped. His red eyes glared at the bridge, then at Jimmy. The Bloodcat leaned forward on its leash. Cling struck it on its snout with his whip, and it sank dog-like at his feet, but kept its glowing eyes fixed on Susan.

  Then Cling beckoned behind him, where his dozen Halfmen stood in file. The path was wider at both ends of the bridge. A Halfman slipped by him. Cling pointed and the man raised his knife, gave a soundless yell, and jumped the gap on to the planks. The beams held. He came across the slippery bridge, quick as an eel in water. Jimmy met him easily. He stood on the path and swung his axe in a way that seemed almost careless, and sent the man spinning away into space with a single blow. He seemed to float down slowly to the forest, his knife point still winking in the sun.