“What you can do,” Scaga said, “we beg you do.”
“Beware, Scaga, what you have already asked. You have horsemen; ready them to ride with us, if they will.”
The old warrior stood still several beatings of a mortal heart. He was wise, and feared them. But he called men to him, and came down the stairs, shouted orders at boys, and commanded the horses saddled. Arafel stood still, thoughtfully took her bow from off her shoulder, and strung it. She might, she thought, go to the wall, might aid them there. But iron arrows flew in plenty, and there was time enough for that.
“Mind,” she said to Ciaran, “when you ride the shadow-ways, you are safe from iron—but you cannot strike at Men. Shift in and out of them; that is wisest”
“We can die,” he said, “—can we not?”
“No,” she said. “Not while you wear the stone. There is the fading. And there are other fates, Ciaran. Death is out there. Step into the shadow-ways and you will see him. Leave Men to me, where Men want killing. I am kinder than you know how to be. The arrows—save them: they are too dire for Men.”
“Then what shall I do?”
“Ride with me,” she said softly. “When one can do much—wisdom must guide the hand, or folly will.—Hist, they are ready.”
Boys and men brought the horses of the keep, handled, a clattering in the yard, and men ran from the defense of the walls and the gate to take them. Aodhan whickered softly and Fionnghuala saluted them too, and the mortal steeds herded together, ears pricked, nostrils straining. But Arafel walked among them, touched one and the other, named them their true names, and calmed them. “He is Whitetip,” she told a rider; “and she if Jumper. Call them true and they are yours.” The Men stared at her, but none durst question, not even Scaga, Whitetip’s rider.
She looked toward the gate, which tottered beneath the ram. Fionnghuala stepped closer to her, dipped her head and shook it impatiently.
“Do not leave me,” she bade Ciaran. “You have compelled my help. I do not compeclass="underline" I ask.”
“I am by you,” he said.
“Scaga,” she said. “Bid them open the gates.” And quietly, to Ciaran: “Oftenest, Men see what they will, and cannot truly see us. Even these. Well for them they do not.”
“Do I,” he asked, “see you as you are?”
“I cannot know,” she said. “But I know you. And you had power to call my name. One must see to do that.”
He said nothing. She seized Fionnghuala’s mane and swung to her back. He mounted Aodhan, and the horse suffered it with a shiver, a flaring and quivering of the nostrils, for it was not his rider, but Ciaran knew the dream about his neck, of which Aodhan was part. Fionnghuala tossed her head, and the wind rose.
EIGHTEEN
The Battle before the Gates
The gates yielded, a groaning and splintering of wood as the braces which held them were let go and the gates grated inward. Ciaran felt the horse dance aside, light as thistledown, ears still pricked toward the enemy: no need of harness, no need of holding. Aodhan picked up his feet and began to move as effortlessly as the wind which stirred about them, and his feet came down in the boom of thunder. Lightnings cracked, making hair and mane fly. Arafel rode beside him, as the white mare, tinted with the elven moon, paced stride for stride with Aodhan.
And the enemy who had rushed against the gate saw them, mirrored terror in lightning-lit faces, a soundless, horrid screaming. They brandished weapons, and still came on, impelled by hordes behind.
“Follow me!” said Arafel, and Fionnghuala flickered into shadow as she drew the silver sword. Ciaran clung to Aodhan and the horse strode into the shadow-ways.
Horror followed. A sickness passed him near: that was iron, a blade which passed through his substance, harmless in shadow-shape. Arafel thrust at that man; she flickered out of otherwhere in the midst of that thrust and back again: the silver blade had killed. The movements of Men and mortal horses were slow, and slowing still, as the elven horses strode their gliding and fearsome way, seeming to gallop but gaining less ground than speed. Ciaran had the sword in hand, but skill failed him—he struck, and failed his mark and struck again. The stone sang in his mind and something far colder than himself seized his heart; Aodhan sprang forward feeling it, and the thunder grew. There were other shapes with them, low, loping shapes of hounds, the taller blackness of horse and rider, which raced with them. Ciaran reached for his bow, overcome with horror.
“No,” said Arafel. “Strike no blow at those.”
Death drew away, parted from them in the course, and Ciaran looked back—saw Scaga and the other riders in that same slow movement of Men, cutting their way behind them. Cloaks and hair flew in frozen swirlings, with lightning flashes. Arafel called to him and the elven horses lengthened stride, began to move forward as well as swifter. Men passed by them, faster and faster, shadows through which they could move. Iron shivered past them with pain and poison, and the horses shied farther into otherwhere, flickered out again enough to see their way.
We are phantoms on the earth, Ciaran thought, and knew not which heritage wemeant—for between those flickerings of otherwhere, like lightning-strokes, there was no army, only murky day, a strange placid landscape void of farms and wars and Men.
Yet not deserted. A horn sounded, braying, and came small folk scurrying from the hooves of the elven steeds—some fair and some foul, some direly misshapen. A weapon glanced from Ciaran’s mail, and there was no fleeing. The thunder cracked and the horses leaped forward. Ciaran struck with the sword while it profited, saw Arafel herself beset by a tide of shadows which poured out of the thickening air. She vanished and he thought her slain, but the shadows poured after her into that nothingness.
“Go,” he cried at Aodhan, and the horse leaped, following Arafel into mortal daylight. The shadows had not come through, or they hid, or transformed themselves. Arafel slew Men, a dire dream in which Ciaran’s heart was chilled . . . I am of them, his heart cried; but another mind rose up in him, flowing into his limbs and his hands.
Give over, give over, the stone sang in his heart, showing him his helplessness to wield these weapons.
He fought that voice, that one who strove to live, to come back. Aodhan ceased to obey him, raced wildly, while the wind grew and grew, while nightmares passed on either side. An anger rose in him at these ill-shapen things, these shadows that twisted into vision, the prickling of old hostility.
“Liosliath!” he heard them shout in rage; and the anger grew in him, lifted his arm, swelled in his heart. He shouted—he knew not what he cried. Aodhan leapt under him willingly, bore him along while his hands strung the elvish bow and he gathered up an arrow. The air swirled with storm: the arrow flew, ice-tipped, feathered with light A horror shrieked and fled, and others coursed the winds. There was a light by him, which became Fionnghuala and her rider, and he saw Arafel’s face calm and terrible as she sent shafts winging after his. Men ceased to matter. They were nothing. This was the war, these the enemy, old as earth, as they were old. Shapes fled before them, turning sometimes to strike and suffer wounds.
Suddenly they were alone, in a place gone gray and full of mists—They are fled, fled, the dream sang to him; and elsewhere, wherever he looked, was an iron-poisoned hush.
“Come,” said Arafel, and shadow-shifted to a bloody and littered field. Rain came down and failed to reach them, pocked bloody puddles in the mire instead, drenched the broken human bodies and the shattered spears. They were in the midst of the field, with both sides drawn back for breath. Ciaran turned Aodhan and beheld Caer Wiell, with its men ranged before it afoot, the dozen riders still remaining to them standing huddled to the fore.