by Mary Brown
Scuttling along as fast as I could I reached the lakeside to see a lick of flame and then another reflected from its black surface. I looked up at the tower: smoke was now thick and oily, fed well by the rancid fat I had poured over the rubbish earlier. A freshening wind from the west pushed the tongues of flame towards the roof between the northwest and northeast turrets. A cry of "Fire!" and I ran back towards the castle to the point where I had seen Corby fall. I found a still, black shape on the grass. Sobbing with fear I reached forward and gathered him into my arms, feeling with a sudden stab of relief the strong heart beating warm and fast beneath the draggled feathers.
He opened one eye. "Hullo, Thing: sorry to be a nuisance, but I still feel a bit groggy. Knocked myself out, I did, when I tried a glide—forgot all about the blasted old wing, didn't I? Sorry and all that . . ." and his eye closed. It opened again. "How's it going, then?"
I ran back to the lakeside, to find the others huddled expectantly beside the baggage, laid Corby on Conn's pack, with strict instructions to the others to look after him, then went round to the sluicegate. Grabbing the lever I heaved with all my strength: nothing. I heaved again, crying out with the pain in my stomach as the muscles of lifting fought with the cramps from the red stone, that contracted as the others expanded. At last there was movement beneath: a grudging, slurring sound, and the lever moved a little and I heard the rush of water seeking its lower level in the pipe. Eagerly, in spite of the pain, I strained at the lever again and with a crack! the handle broke off in my hand and I tumbled back onto the bank, the loose wooden lever sailing over my head to land on the grass behind me.
I crawled back to the sluice; the water was still running, but even as I listened I could hear the suck of mud and stones against the gate. Despairingly I shook the wooden structure, but the water had slowed to a trickle now, and there was the sound of running footsteps behind me. I turned to see three or four of the castle servants making for the near side of the lake, leather buckets in their hands.
There was only one thing for it: I dived into the stinking water, my hands scrabbling at the stones that choked the partially opened sluice. Lungs bursting I tugged and pulled upward at the gate, but it wouldn't shift. I rose to the surface gasping and blowing, to be greeted by a hand on the scruff of my neck hauling me out onto the bank to lie in a half-drowned heap.
"Out of the way, stupid child! This is man's work," said Conn, and he dived into the water just as the servants with the buckets arrived.
I was in a panic, and instead of realizing that three or four buckets of slopped-out water could not possibly halt the fire that was now almost enveloping the whole of the wooden upper structure of the castle I lost all reason, and flung myself at the servants, knocking the bucket out of one's hand and doubling another over with a butt to the stomach, then ran back to look anxiously at the turmoil of water that swirled where Conn had disappeared.
His head emerged, black with mud, his eyes like eggwhites in a dirty frying pan, his mouth opening briefly. "Bloody thing's well and truly stuck—" then he disappeared again. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see one of the servants, dagger upraised, but even as I ducked beneath his arm a grey shape snapped at his heels. He swung with his knife and kicked out at the same time and the cabling wolf yelped as his shoulder was laid open and spun and collapsed as the boot caught his head. Instantly I straddled his inert body and snatched up Conn's broken sword, which lay where he must have dropped it.
"Don't dare touch him!"
The servant circled warily, dagger glinting in the lurid light that heralded storm; he feinted but I stood still, the hilt of Conn's sword to my stomach, both my hands to it, the jagged end of it about two feet from my body. Two of the other servants came running to his aid, the other went back to the castle presumably for more support, but help for me was at hand. Two other wolves, full adults, a dog and a bitch, hackles raised, had come to look for their cub and now snarled at my side. The young cubling struggled to his feet, shaking his head, obviously not too badly hurt. Even so, we were outmatched, for each of the servants was armed. I do not know how it would have ended but there was a sudden tremendous flash of lightning, a crack of thunder and then a roar that shook the ground as the sluicegate at last opened fully and a torrent of water plunged down the pipe towards the dungeons.
That was not all: a figure, back-lit by another flash of blue sheet-lightning, appeared to leap from the disappearing waters, as black in itself as the clouds now racing in from the west, its mouth and eyes white gashes in the dark, and it howled like a devil from hell. What it actually said was: "Thank Christ that's over! I thought I would choke . . ." but it came out like: "Worra-worra-worra!" To a man the servants flung down their weapons and fled convinced, I am sure, that some black demon had drunk the lake dry and, appetite unslaked, had now risen to devour them. Watching them run I laughed weakly and collapsed, shouting: "We've done it! We've done it! Oh bravo, Conn!"
"Bravo, maybe," said my Rusty Knight, looking more like a tall, thin hobgoblin than a warrior, "but how the hell do we get out of here? And what in the name of goodness are you doing with a wolf in your arms?"
For I was soothing the young cub, afraid he was concussed still, and the two adults were anxiously nuzzling and licking his injured shoulder. But even as Conn spoke, the answer to his first question came in the form of two mountain ponies, who galloped up, manes tossing nervously at sight of the wolves. They patently offered themselves as mounts, though we had not their language: out of the corner of my eye I saw a further detachment of men appear beneath the castle walls, this time armed with swords and staves. With them was a knight, fighting to control a panic-stricken horse that screeched with fear as burning sparks from the building floated down on its quarters, singeing its tail.
"Up!" said Conn briefly, tossing me onto the back of the first pony and handing me a frightened Moglet, (inside-jacket-at-once), a pocketed Puddy and Pisky's bowl. Corby was recovered enough to ride on my shoulder and Conn snatched his sword from my hand and mounted the other curvetting pony, the packs set before him. "Right: go!" he shouted and dug his heels into his mount, which careered off in the direction of the wood, mine following, the wolves bringing up the rear, the youngster recovered enough to run, albeit with a limp.
We fled across the field to the white blur that was Snowy, guarding, encouraging and shepherding at the entrance to the ride in the woods that led to the river and safety. I glanced quickly back at the castle: all the upper part was well ablaze by now, and, as I watched, one of the towers, the southeastern, swayed and collapsed into the cobbled courtyard behind. The slaughter-yard was still full of people milling around, and even now the stragglers among the animals were making their slow way to safety: a couple of bewildered coneys, a disorientated boar, a hind heavy with young, the last glancing anxiously behind her to where her stag, horns flailing, hooves striking out, was discouraging those few who essayed to follow the escaping animals, though few among the former audience could still believe that this flight and fire and flood was part of a planned entertainment.
My heart lurched for the stag when I saw his reason for lingering: an older hind lay twitching in her death throes, an arrow in her throat. I slipped from my pony's back and ran over to Snowy, indicating the stag. "Call him in, dear one! She is dead, his lady, but he has another in calf to care for and this one." I nodded at a younger hind who trembled indecisively just inside the wood.
Snowy nodded. "Just wait for the coneys—they are smaller, but just as precious," and a moment later he called out shrilly. Reluctantly the great stag, a twelve-pointer red, still angry and sad at the death of one of his wives, joined the other hind and the one in calf, snapping at two arrows sticking in his shoulder as if they were of no more consequence than buzzing flies. I slipped over and pulled them out as gently as I could.
"Come," said Snowy, "to the river. There is nothing left for us here . . ."
We were lucky that no humans followed until daybreak
, for some of the animals, good for short runs, were paw-weary and fur-dulled by the time they reached the river. The swine had passed their lower brethren and crossed the bridge first, without a word of thanks; most of the hares, too, were over by the time we stragglers reached it. The five or six houses in the village on the other side were all barred tight shut—I should think the vision of all those animals charging across must have been too much for them. Even the bridge-keeper was missing.
The she-bear had waited with her cub to thank Snowy: she, too, had arrows in her hide but nothing serious for her coat was thick, and we removed the barbs before the animals slipped into the river, noses making arrowheads in the flowing water as they swam quietly upstream to a place they called Malbryn, bare hills to the northwest. The ponies who had carried Conn and me clattered across the bridge, all wild again; the shuffling badgers, tireder I should think than the rest of us put together, rattled their claws, snuffled and shuffled off bandy-legged into the undergrowth, and the great stag—so like the mosaic on the floor of the Great Hall we had left—bowed his head to us and led off his two surviving hinds.
It was the poor bewildered coneys who needed most help, and in the end we had to go back and find the last ones, weary and disorientated. I also ended up carrying one little doe in my arms across the bridge, but luckily on the other side we found a wise old buck who had come to investigate the commotion, and agreed to lead the survivors to a warren some two miles away, by easy stages.
As I watched them leave us it was sad to think that these animals, united in purpose so short a while ago, were reverting again to hunters and hunted, without more than a breath's pause. A cold nose touched my hand and I started back as three great grey shapes fawned at my feet, pushed at the back of my knees, nudged my thighs.
"They give you thanks for the cub," said Snowy. "They wish me to say that they and theirs are yours to command until the debt is paid."
"Ask them—ask them then not to hunt those who were their companions," I said, thinking of the tired coneys. I glanced down doubtfully at the pointed muzzles, the swelling cheeks, the slanting yellow eyes, and smelt the breath of meat-eater that curled up through the sharp teeth and the grinning, foam-flecked jaws. "That will repay, and more."
"They promise," said Snowy. "But they will travel a couple of leagues before they kill anyway, to lose the trail."
"Call it quits, then," I said, and knelt to embrace each of them. This time the words came plain to me.
"There is still a debt to pay," said the bitch softly. "One day, when your need is great, one will come . . ." and they melted into the trees like shadows.
Dawn was breaking. I looked at Conn. "You're filthy!"
"Seen yourself?"
"The river is clean and flows quiet on this side," said Snowy. "Go wash, children."
As I luxuriated in the clear, sharply cool water, washing the ooze and slime of the lake, the sweat of flight and the smuts of burning from my aching body, conscious of Conn, a shadow to my left, doing the same, I glanced up and saw a buzzard wheeling lazily against a sky the colour of daisy-petal tips.
"Ki-ya, ki-ya, ki-ya," he called.
Snowy on the bank above neighed once in answer. "He says the castle is in ruins: they are coming to seek for succour this side . . . Sir Rusty Knight, if you push quite hard on the bridge-piling to your left—"
The piling collapsed, its weakness no doubt exacerbated by the unusual amount of traffic it had had during the night, and the whole structure slid gracefully into the river, to drift away down the current even as the thud of hooves announced the arrival of the advance-guard from the castle. There were shouts, curses; Conn leant over to pull me from the water. Hurriedly I donned clothes and mask, grateful to realize that he had been too busy bridge-pushing to see I had been barefaced.
We set off along the riverbank towards the rising sun, but I don't remember much of the next half-hour or so; I was so tired that I could not even feel elation when Conn swung me up in his arms to carry me after I had stumbled and fallen for the second or third time.
Later, as he laid me down in the shelter of trees to sleep, my head on a mossy bank, and had assured me that, yes, the others were all right, I heard something that sounded strange after all those terrible days at the castle. Momentarily I forgot all about how tired I was and sat up, clutching at his arm.
"Listen, Conn, oh listen! All the birds in the world are singing!"
The Binding: Toad
The Trees that Walked
And after that all the birds in the world did indeed sing for us day and night, for a while at least. Although we found the stones we sought quite soon and followed the line of the second one, it was many recuperating days later before we happened on the next test. Meanwhile, I found we all seemed to be drifting into a dream-like state, not noticing the world about us. Towns and villages, feuds and dissensions, forests and rivers, all drifted past like a vision, and the most detached of all was myself, who probably should have been the most impressionable after my long years incarcerated with the witch. But now only our quest seemed real, the rest grey and apart . . .
When our next adventure came it was over almost before we realized, in a flash of fire: like paying one's penny in advance for the entertainment and then finding the performance over before one had had a chance to lay one's cloak upon the ground to appreciate the entertainment.
Only this was not entertaining . . .
The country we travelled turned upwards, and before long we were in the high down where wind twisted our clothes and pulled our hair and puffed from behind boulders and blew up our trews. Grey rock stuck up through ling and bracken like knees and elbows through tattered clothes and birds slid sideways in the wind. Villages were few and far between and the people startled and shy at our approach; not because they saw in us any threat, I think, it was just that visitors were rare.
Perhaps because of this the hospitality was greater when they granted it. One night, a week or so after we had escaped from the castle, we had been regarded at first with suspicion followed by tolerance, then given pallets and marrowbones, hare-stew, goat's milk cheese and bread, and were invited to sit round the host's fire for music with pipe and tabor. No one at any time thought it strange of us to be travelling with an assortment of animals, and all expected a story, a song, a tune to pay the way rather than the few coins we had to offer. That night Conn told a tale, I sang a lullaby I remembered from somewhere, Corby picked out a chosen stone or two and everyone was cosy and warm when one of the host's friends—for we were an entertainment in ourselves, and the whole village expected to be invited to meet us, that was clear—asked our destination.
But when we pointed north and east he crossed himself.
"Not the way of the Tree-People?"
"Tree-People?" questioned Conn.
"Yes. Those that walk the forests and devour travellers . . ."
"Walk the forests . . . ?"
"We never goes that way now. Time was there was safe passage through the heathland to the northeast. Time was trade came through the hills. But then they came . . ."
"Come, now, Tod," said our host uneasily. "That's talk, no more. None here's seen them—"
"Ever travellers come from that way?" said Tod. "No. Ever travellers go that way and come back to tell? No. Ever anyone from round here go that way? No . . ."
I took a nervous sip of my mead. "But we are bound that way . . ."
"Then more fool you," said Tod. "More fool you . . ." Around that fire others seemed to agree, for there were shaking heads, spittings into the embers, a furtive crossing of hands, pointing of two fingers, sighings, groans . . .
"Oh come now," said Conn. "What solid proof have you? Travellers do not return the same way if they quest as we do; visitors do not come that way for probably there is an easier route. And if you listen to old wives' tales here no wonder none of you ventures further!"
I looked at him with admiration. Since our time at the castle he seemed in some sub
tle way to have grown into his years. No more did he think of this as some careless expedition to be endured, now he was as dedicated as the rest of us; no longer was he just my dearest Rusty Knight, he was a thinking, caring man. But not once had I referred to the things he had confessed to me at the castle, nor had I ever mentioned the faithless Lady Adiora, much as my bitter tongue had wished it. For I knew, deep down in that submerged part of me that was totally female, that a man sets great store by his pride and that only a nagging wife or a fool would remind him of his fall from sense, and then be lucky not to have a slammed door and empty chair to remind them of their folly.
And I was neither wife nor nag—but would have wished for the choice.
The men round the fire stirred uneasily, glanced everywhere but at each other, then a short, stout man spoke up.
"We've been up there. Found a skellington. Flesh cleaned clear off . . ."
"Up where?" asked Conn sharply.
The man shrugged. "Anywheres. Near the trees. Doesn't matter: they can walk. Come out of the night . . ."
I shivered. "What come?"
"Knobby peoples. Root peoples. Tree peoples . . . Folks say as they are trees. Eating trees . . ."
