Enraged, Engvyr made to lunge for her but his father barred his way with an extended arm.
“No, Engvyr! You cannot cure hate with blows.”
The crone cackled again and bowed to his father in mock-respect.
“Such wisdom must be rewarded. A day's travel north you will find the Laagelliev, built by the First Men to contain the Dead Gods in this place. Safety lies beyond that gate.”
His father bowed stiffly to the ancient figure.
“We thank you for your help.”
She waved a hand in dismissal.
“Oh, I have not helped you! I tell you of this to give you hope, but you will never make it to that sanctuary alive. The thought of your horror and despair as that hope is betrayed will be the last, greatest joy of my life!”
The sound of her hideous cackling followed them long after she was lost to their sight.
Chapter Nine
“There is greater evil tucked away in the odd corners of this world than is held by the hearts of men. The earth was ancient beyond imagining before the first man set foot upon her soil and it would be prideful to suggest that we stand at the peak of this world’s achievements in good or ill.”
As dawn approached, Berget, who had been looking into the desert with increasing frequency when they stopped for rest, tugged at her mother's hand.
“They are gathering. I think we should hurry.”
Engvyr agreed. He had been feeling more and more nervous. A sense of a malign presence had been growing on him. Several times he had thought that something had brushed against him.
His father distributed more of the candied leaves, a larger portion this time to each of them, and his aunt brewed more of her spicy medicinal drink. They gave the ox and pony the last of their feed and water, along with a cautiously small portion of the leaves, and set out at the best pace that they could manage.
The rising sun did not dispel the half-seen shapes in the corners of their eyes, which were constant companions now. Neither did it reveal them. They were each aware of a growing sense of menace and they hurried their steps, gasping for breath in the thin air, hearts pounding.
His aunt handed Berget up to her brother. They were all exhausted but the stimulus of the leaves kept sleepiness at bay, though it also made them edgy. They drove themselves on as the sun climbed in the sky. More and more often Engvyr felt invisible hands pluck at his clothes, his beard and hair. Sudden flurries of wind blew grit in their faces. From time to time his Aunt or father would flinch for no reason he could see. Berget buried her face in his father’s cote, peeking out occasionally with wide, fearful eyes.
Abruptly the ground fell away before them in a long slope. Far away they could see a structure of some sort nestled between the distant hills.
Without a word they all picked up their pace though they felt as if their lungs would burst. As if this was a signal to their strange pursuers the manifestations increased. Engvyr stumbled as an unseen presence shoved him. The strange wind-bursts now pelted them with gravel as well as grit. Ghostly hands- or some other appendage- pinched and tugged at them. Egerta cried out and fell. When she rose Engvyr could see a triple-row of welts running from her temple to her cheek. She clung to the pony's harness to keep her feet under her as the invisible assault continued.
Sounds that he had thought were the wind resolved into inhuman voices, chanting, wailing and shouting. He grabbed the pack-straps and held tight as he was pummeled by small stones and rocked by sourceless blows. They staggered down the slope towards the distant structure, helpless against enemies they could neither see nor touch.
Dust devils raced them down the trail and the voices grew louder in their ears. They spoke in no language Engvyr knew, words that no human throat could form that twisted his guts and made his head spin.
As they drew near the gate the pony, as if sensing that sanctuary, broke into a fast trot. His aunt held the harness and bounded alongside. The ox would not be left behind and Engvyr found himself letting it pull him along, struggling to keep his feet under him.
He looked back and saw the dust-devils converging into a single great, translucent shape that towered into the pale blue sky. It strode towards them on more legs than any natural creature possessed. The blowing dust seemed to form mouths and limbs randomly, only for them to swirl away an instant later.
The pony and ox succumbed to panic and began to race across the final ground before the stone arch. The voices merged into one great wall of sound that hammered at their ears and tore at their sanity. He saw his father grab his aunt's cote and lift her feet from the ground as the pony, screaming in fear, bolted the last few feet to the gate.
Engvyr fell but kept his grip on the pack-strap and his legs were dragged along the barren ground. The massive shape of wind-blown dust was solidifying into a form his mind recoiled from comprehending. It seemed to be reaching for him as the maddened ox plunged through the stone arch into silence.
The instant he passed beneath its stones, the voice was cut off and the massive shape dissolved into blown dust. The ox slowed and stopped, eyes rolling and sides heaving. Its long, matted hair was soaked with sweat. Engvyr released the strap and fell to the ground, his lungs clawing for enough of the thin air to catch his breath. He lay on the ground, content for the moment to wait for his racing heart to slow. Already the memory of that massive, eldritch shape was slipping from his mind.
“Engvyr! Are you alright?”
He looked up to see his aunt standing over him and levered himself to a sitting position, wincing as various hurts made themselves known.
“More or less,” he half-gasped. He could see that she was no worse off than he and asked after his father and Berget.
“Well enough.” She braced herself against the ox's pack-frame with one hand and extended the other to help him to his feet. Boyish pride be damned he thought, and accepted her help gratefully.
His father stood, his great-cote torn and his face flecked with blood from many small cuts, holding Berget next to the tumbled body of the pony. The altitude and fear had burst its great heart, he guessed sadly. His father had protected Berget as he rolled from the saddle when the beast went down. But other than superficial wounds and exhaustion they were all whole, for a miracle.
The trail wound down a steep slope into a small valley before them. At first glance it appeared no different than the lands they had just left, but further study showed grey-blue lichens coating the rocks, and a trace of green along a crevice in the valley floor that hinted at water.
They took the tack, harness and saddlebags from the pony and tied them to the ox's pack. It now stood phlegmatically as if nothing had happened at all. His father patted the great beast with an expression of wonder.
“If we live to see the Clanhame, old fellow, it's green fields and never again the road for you! You've earned a bountiful retirement.”
Though they needed meat they had not the heart to butcher the brave pony that had seen them through so much. Engvyr wished that they had the energy to build a cairn for the poor beast but knew that they could not spare the strength.
Though they ached to rest they had nothing to drink and no water to cook with, so they made their way down the steep trail and across the rocky valley as the sun dropped behind the peaks. There was indeed a stream, and the ox woke to new life and broke into a trot.
“Let him go,” his father said, “It's not as if you could hold him back from it anyway.”