The girl moved closer to me, her shoulder brushed against my thigh as she knelt beside the great stone. In this subdued light she looked older, drawn and pale. Girlhood and that human aspect which was her birthright might have been rift from her during these past hours. Now she stared at me.
“You see—” there was a malicious glitter in her eyes. “They come for me! I—” Her hands came together on her belly, protecting, covering, what she declared she carried. “I hold the future lord—and they know it! Run, kinless one, save yourself while still you can! Not even my words can stand between you and their vengeance!”
Plainly, she believed this to be the moment of triumph for the forces with which she had so mistakenly allied herself. I had no intention of running. Nor was I as certain as she that what slunk through the night were the Dark minions in their might.
The cup moved in my hands. I would have sworn that my fingerhold on it had been tight, that it could not have shifted so by chance. It bent backwards; its hollow no longer displayed. Rather I looked down to see the face again uppermost. While the eyes in it—they saw! They caught and held me though I felt it was dangerous to turn my attention from the drawing in of those who came among the barrows.
I had believed that I had changed in a manner, was no longer the raw untutored youth who had failed his lord and been sent into exile. Now—now indeed I was becoming—
No! I strove to cry that denial aloud, to break the compelling gaze of eyes which must be—must be—only metal. Cunningly wrought so that they looked alive, yes, but still metal—not real, not reaching into my mind, fashioning a place—a place to hold what?
Strength was pouring into me. Not strength alone, but something more—an intelligence which strove to fit its identity into mine. Save that I was not the vessel it expected, it needed. There remained a barrier. To that small wall of safety my own person, whatever remained of Elron, clung, a last defender, determined to die rather than yield his post to a stranger unknown.
Whatever will sought so to encompass me and found that it could not enter in as it would, made the best of what I was forced to abandon. I was well aware that I now housed a power which I could not understand but which was determined that I serve its purpose. Or was it another that was prepared to serve mine? I distrusted that last thought. Such might be only an insidious second attack launched by this invader. I was no sorcerer, no Bard, who could open his mind, surrender his will to the unseen.
Iynne was on her feet in a quick sideways movement which took her farther from me. Before I could move, she flung aloft her arms and, facing where those hiding shadows appeared the thickest, she cried aloud:
“Holla, moon-born, light-bearer, I am here!”
I thrust that bewildering, dangerous cup again into my belt, reached for her. This time I did not try to spare her, rather threw one arm about her just below her throat and dragged her back against me, while once more she became one with Gruu’s clan, clawing, spitting her hate, striving to reach me with her fingernails. Thus we fought a wild battle until my greater strength triumphed. The cloak had slipped from her during that struggle, catching at our feet, so I tumbled backwards over the slab of blue litten stone, still holding to her flesh, now slippery with the sweat raised by our battling. I did not let go, nor was she able to break my hard held embrace enough to turn full upon me. This was like holding a maddened thing, for my prisoner was no longer the Iynne I had thought I knew.
A wind bore down upon us even as clouds closed overhead so that the only light was the ghostly beams of the “candles.” Twice I realized she strove to call again, and only a quick shift of hold to her throat choked off that summons.
I must have rendered her near unconscious, for finally she went limp. Then I released my hold a fraction to see if she was playing tricks. She did not move so I scrambled up, drawing her with me. Her heated body gave off a strange, heady fragrance as if her skin had been annointed with oil. She was panting, drawing deep, heavy breaths, as if she could not get enough air into her lungs.
Above that heavy breathing I heard something else. Far away the sound of a horn I had heard once before when I had been pent with Gathea and death sniffed about us—the first time I had sought the aid of the cup. High and clear that rang out.
The clouds above began to loose a burden of chill rain. I jerked Iynne to her feet, stooped and caught up with one hand the cloak to thrust it upon her.
“Cover yourself!” I commanded harshly. That soft and fragrant flesh in my hold, it brought back that temptation which the thing in the tower had striven to use as a weapon against me. Were I to loose a man’s hunger here and now—that would indeed open a doorway for my opposition.
The horn sounded closer. I tried to measure the position of the shadow force below us. All one could sight were the blue lights of the barrows—and not all of those were lit either. That which had flowed into me when I looked upon the cup, which had, for the moment, left off its struggle to become me, supplied a bit of knowledge. Those gathered below would not dare to climb the Har-Rests. For good or ill I had made a choice when the cup came into my hands. The force I had so allied myself with—mainly unwittingly—had protections as well as dangers. We stood on ground which had its own defenses and those were not of this world.
Iynne was sobbing again, more in anger, I believed, than for any other reason. She snatched the cloak, dragging it around her, turned from me, crouching down by the stone again, peering into the dark, her body tense with expectation. For the third time the horn sounded—still afar. The wind-driven rain pelted us furiously.
Garn’s daughter lapsed into sullen silence. I could not see into the dark valleys between the barrows but I had sensed that the menace there had withdrawn in part. It could be that she also knew. In spite of the clouds and the rain the sky was growing lighter, morning was coming. The candles became fainter, were gone. Now I could see that there were deep graven markings on the stone by our camp—runes beyond my reading, far different from those of our clan records. On the upper end of the stone toward the east—where it might even be above the heart of him who was buried here, there was the outline of a cup. In shape it was like my gift from Gunnora, save that there was no head upon it. However, above the picture of the cup there was also set in the stone the antler “horns”—these plainly formed the crown of some ancient lord.
“Dartif Double Sword—”
I raised my hand, palm bare and out, as I would to one whom I followed into battle, even though we knew little of each other.
“You name a name.” Iynne, huddled deep into her cloak, looked at mo, still sly and sullen.
“I name a name, I greet a great lord,” I replied, knowing that that greeting, that naming, came from that other within me. “This was Farthfell.” I looked out over the crowding of the barrows. “When the Dark Ones following Archon came down from the north and the war horn called in all of the Light, there was here a battle of the last days. They slew—they died—their world was finished. From that warring came no victory—only memories of a better time—”
Those words arose out of me, yet I did not understand them until I spoke. Now I bowed under a deep sadness such as I had not fell before—a faraway sadness like that which can be summoned by a skillful Bard when he plays upon the thoughts of men and sings of great deeds and great defeats which lie hidden in the past, building so the belief that men of other times were stronger and better than any who now walk, giving us heroes by which to measure ourselves—goals toward which to strive.
For men must have such heroes, even though they look about them and see only lesser men, mean and petty things. Yet if they can be led to believe that once there was greatness then many of them will seek it again. That is why we can listen to the Bards and some of us weep inside, and others feel dour anger that life is not what it once was. Still there is left the core of aroused memory to strengthen our sword arms, make us ready to fight when danger arises even in our own day. It is the gift of the Bard to tie the past to us, to give us hope. I was no Bard, I listened to no hand harp here. Still I looked down upon the semblance of that Horn Crown, knowing that I was far less than he who lay below, yet I was not altogether overshadowed by him for I was another man and I must have within me the seeds of some small gift of service which was mine alone.