The gloom of the morning lay heavy, but we could see out over Farthfell and nothing moved among the barrows. What had crept upon us under the cover of the dark was gene. I reached a hand down to Iynne to help her to her feet.
Where we would go I was not sure. The horn had cried from the west and something pointed me in that direction, though it was eastward I should have turned to return Iynne to the dales.
“Where do you go?” she demanded, refusing to move until I set hand on her arm and drew her with me, half expecting that I might once more have to struggle with her and not liking that idea.
“West—”
She looked beyond me, seeming to consider the land around Farthfell, which was open enough, though there were groves of trees here and there. “Have you thrown the luck stones for the trail?” she asked.
“I have not yet heard my name called in the battle morn.” I returned one folk belief for the other. “Thus I do not think that this day, at least, I shall die. And while a man lives, then anything is possible.”
“You do yourself no good by holding me. I have those waiting for me and for the child now within me. Let me go. I am no longer Garn’s daughter—I am she who will mother greater than any man now living.”
I shrugged. That she nursed some delusion the hag had set upon her I could well believe. That indeed she was no longer any maid—might also be the truth. I only knew that, for good or ill, our fate lines were woven together for a space. And that I would surrender her back to the forces I had fought in the Moon Shrine I would not do.
When we descended from Dartif’s resting place I found deep tracks all about the winding path which had brought us there. Some were of cloven hoofs, some of great paws, more were mishapen—humanlike but with the imprint of long claws extending beyond, or even booted, yet all so deeply pressed it would seem that these had been left behind as a warning—or a threat, insolent in its very openness.
We followed on the path until we came to a stream and there we stopped and filled the water bottle, ate a little more from my fast-shrinking supplies. I would have to turn to hunting this day if we were to have any relief from gnawing hunger.
Farthfell was a widely open stretch between two ranges of heights. I thought that those to the east might be the ones I had crossed before the adventure of the Black Tower. Viewing the western rises, I did not relish the thought of another such passage ahead with no more purpose or guide than an inner feeling that this was the road we must take.
The rain lightened into a damp drizzle which plastered clothing to the body but did not beat on our uncovered heads. Though shelter was offered by any of the copses of trees I had sighted from the barrow, still I wanted to remain in the open. I had met too much peril within just such stands.
When I shouldered the water bottle and got to my feet Iynne appeared in no haste to push on. Her hair lay in wet strings across her head and shoulders and she looked like a fetch out of an old tale. I wished I had better to offer her in the way of clothing, but one could not conjure a robe, or a shorter riding dress, out of grass and brush.
“Folly!” Her hands, tight curled into fists, beat together. “Let me go! You achieve nothing, only raise their hate against you—”
“I do not hold you now,” I answered in weariness, for this struggle had become such that I would have gladly turned and walked away from her, save that I could not.
“You hold me—with that in you now, you hold me!” Her voice soared. “May the Death of Kryphon of the Dart be upon you—and it!”
As one who is tired to the point of limbs heavy and body worn, she arose slowly, faced westward, and began to walk, her white face set in the grimace of one being herded against her will.
We had not gone more than a short distance from the stream which we had splashed through before her stooped shoulders straightened, her head came up, turned a little to the north. There flowed back into her, so strongly that I witnessed its coming, new energy. Dropping the cloak as if the covering of her body meant nothing, Iynne broke into a run, her slender legs flashing at a sprint like a horse’s gallop.
I paused only to catch up the cloak and then pounded after her. It seemed that whatever purpose moved her gave her energy past my own, with the weight of mail and heavy sword belt upon me. Still I kept her in sight and, now and then, even gained on her a little. She kept to the open, luckily, for I feared that she might dodge in among one of the stands of trees to hide until I had passed her. Rather she appeared now to have forgotten me altogether and I could only believe that she was again in a net of whatever had entrapped her from the first.
The ground was rising again. Iynne took the slope easily, even leaping now and then across a pocket of earth to the top of a rock and then ahead. Over the crown of that hill she went as I ploughed doggedly after. When the other side of the ridge came into sight I nearly stopped short as I witnessed what awaited us a little below.
There was that dark-robed crone who had been working her spells in the Moon Shrine. She was partnered, not by any human kind. Rather one of the flying monsters such as I had fought by its lair stood on her left—this being a female and much taller than the crone, its wings fanning the air lazily, but its clawed feet firm planted on the ground. To her right was another figure—and at the sight of that I slowed pace.
It was both man and beast in an evil mixture of the worst of both. The body from the waist down was covered by a bristly pelt, the feet were hoofed like those of a bull. Huge and bulllike also was its masculine organ, so fully visible that it would seem it flaunted its sex, or was prepared to use it as a weapon of sorts.
Above the waist that bristle hair thinned, though it still grew thicker on chest and along the shoulders and upper arms. The arms themselves were overlong, its huge hands dangling low. But it was the head and face which had startled me into slowing pace.
There was a resemblance, a horrible and fearful resemblance to the face on my cup. That representation was noble; this was vile. A single being might have been split in two, all good in its nature to one side, the evil pulled to the other. This man-beast was the reverse of the Horn Lord—and he was not crowned. No entwined antlers rode on his thick tangle of curly hair.
His head was thrown back, and now he mouthed a roar which was part a beast’s cry, part laughter of cruel triumph. While the crone by his side flung high her arms, her fingers moving like a weaver’s shuttle. The winged woman thing smiled, her lips parting to show fang teeth.
Iynne, seeming to see no threat in those before her, was still running eagerly toward them, though she slowed when she nearly tripped over a stone set in the grass. I was too far away to reach her. Taking n chance I flung the cape after her, aiming as well as I could with that roll of the dank cloth.
It uncoiled in the air, and I saw that I had done better than I had hoped I might, for it whipped over her head, then dropped about her. She took only one more stride; then, blinded and startled, she fell sprawling, still well away from the waiting three. I spurted to her side as she still fought with the cloak.
The laughter of the beast-man died away. What rent the air—each word she uttered was like tearing open the very sky over us—was the chanting of the crone. She called on Powers, that much I knew.