“I shall ask,” she said, “but this I must say. If this is but some wild beast of a kind new to us, then it can be well hunted. If it is more—then go with caution.”
He nodded as he put on his cap again. They were on their way. Trimble and his cart, with his wife now sitting upright clasping the flask to her ample bosom, had a handful to play guard. But the majority struck off northward, into the first thick fringe of the forest. Destree watched them go with concern.
However, what she had to do lay elsewhere. She returned to the outer room of the shrine and quickly stripped off her homespun clothing. Into a large basin she ladled water from the hearth pot and measured into that, drop by careful drop, oils from several different vials.
Then she washed herself from head to foot, even dipping her hair into the basin, smearing the oily liquid over her whole body. Making no effort to dry herself, she then sought the inner room.
Drawing from the couch before the shrine the covering on which the farmer’s wife had lain, she substituted another taken from a small chest by the altar. Green it was and brown, gold, and purple, all intermingled so no human eye could follow any pattern, and though it was very old yet it was still intact.
Destree spread it with care over the couch and then stretched herself upon it, folding her hands beneath her full breasts and closing her eyes.
The transition came quicker than it ever had in the few other times she had tried this ritual. Fear—pain—the need to run—run—run—Strange—all the world about was strange, there was nothing to be seen as a guide—yet—fear/pain—the need—the need to escape—
And the world she saw dimly was strange.
That strangeness fed fear. The very color of a leaf, the shape of a branch was all wrong. The ferns which beat about her legs as she ran—she shrank from their touch. This was not her world—where had the Lady led her?
She—she had been in the home wood and at peace with herself and the world about. Then there had been the tall stones. One of them had been shiny, and that had attracted her so that she went and laid hand upon it. Then—then she had been whirled away into nothingness and when she could see again she was in this fearsome place where all was alien and wrong.
Destree tried to cut behind the ever-present fear. The Dark? She sought the smell, the feel of evil. But there was none—only confusion and fear, pain—
Gruck! Out of nowhere came that name. She was… Gruck! In the same moment that became clear to her, she strove to break the bond. But she realized now where the Lady had sent her. She—she was the hunted monster.
But it was no beast. It thought, it strove wildly to learn what had happened to it. Nor was it anything of evil wandering southward. It now rested under the compassionate hand of the Lady. So somewhere another of those cursed gates had made a capture, and the innocent would be hunted down and slain unless she could prevent it!
Destree’s eyes snapped open. She was already pushing herself up from the couch. She paused long enough to return the covering to its time-set folds and then, from a chest in the foreroom, she brought her own woodsrunning clothes. Not the skirts such as she wore for the sake of making the valley people receive her more easily. Instead, she drew on over her still oily body breeches, a shirt, a sleeveless jerkin with oddly fashioned silver latches, boots made for hard service over indifferent trails. There was a belt with knife and small pouch, and at length she pulled from near the bottom of the coffer the backpack she kept ever ready for travel needs, checking to make sure that it held salves and herbs for the treatment of wounds.
There was no question in Destree’s mind that she would find Gruck—that this poor refugee from another place was now her charge. Chief leaped out of the shadows and took the fore, entering the woods- at a different angle than the hunters had followed. She listened but could hear nothing of their clamor and she wondered how far back into the thickly wooded hills they had gone.
“Gruck?” She sent out a mind-call. But there was nothing to anchor it and so draw her to her quarry. She did not know what Gruck looked like. She knew little more than the creatures emotions at its displacement and perhaps the hunt on its track.
Chief appeared to have no doubts about direction. For want of a better guide, Destree followed the leaping passage of the great cat.
Now—now—she could hear!
The clamor of the hunt suggested that Gruck was at bay. She hastened her pace from trot to run. They must not kill this stranger! It was not of its doing that it had come here. Yes, it had killed a sheep)—but that was because it hungered. It had killed a dog which attacked it. Certainly no man there ahead could say that he would have done otherwise in its place.
Destree came into the open. There had been a forest fire, storm-set, here a year ago. The land was all blackened stumps and sprouting green between. And there was a tall rock firmly planted. Around that the battle now raged.
Three dogs lay dead and a fourth crept away, uttering a keening howl. With its back against the rock, the monster half crouched. It was taller than any man Destree had seen, and its entire body was covered with thick curls of wiry black hair. Yet its head was well proportioned by human standards and its green eyes held intelligence. One of its arms had been crudely wrapped in a covering of leaves already torn and half gone.
About its waist, seemingly too small for the width of those heavy shoulders, there was a wide belt, along which ran glitters with every movement of its body.
Why Foss or one of the other bowmen had not already shot it down Destree did not know. Perhaps that was by the grace of the Lady. She raised her voice now. The land about them seemed to amplify her call.
“Hold!”
With Chief running at the same easy pace before her, she cut down into that place of desolation. The hunters had turned their heads at her call, though Foss’s attention swung almost instantly away and he had arrow to string now.
“This is not of the Dark.” her voice came pantingly. She shoved between two of the men before they knew she was upon them and threw herself into place before the creature at bay.
Foss’s face was bleak. “Stand aside, Voice. We owe you much, but we have no place for monsters.”
“I tell you”—Destree had her voice under better control now—“the Lady’s hand stretches out to this one.” She tried to sign the truth of that by reaching behind her to where Gruck leaned weakly against the stone. Her fingertips were fretted by alien fur.
“This thing is a killer. Protect it at your own peril, Voice. If you would have any one in this valley heed you an’ th’ words of your Lady ’ereafter, you will stand aside.”
She could read only a shadow of doubt in a few faces. They were as one on this. Yet her duty had been set upon her. Destree drew a deep breath as she tried to summon words which might break their resolve.
What came was something far different. A huge furred hand shot out and gripped her. She smelled the strange odor of alien flesh sharpened by fear. But there was only an instant for them to cling together so.
The blast which beat down upon them all was none of the Lady’s calling. Destree knew that, before her senses reeled and she clung to her strange companion even as it held to her. This was strange magic, raw, without a check.
Her throat filled with bile as she saw men tossed about like straws in a tempest. The whole world split apart. Not the Lady’s doing, no. Nor, she was certain, did Gruck have aught to do with this. Gate—had the gate which had captured this refugee gone as wild as that gate at the Port of Lost Ships when they put an end to it? No, something within her—perhaps the Lady reaching through the torment of assaulting magic—assured her. This was the beginning of something else—something such as no record she knew of listed.
Its mind-blinding attack ended. Dimly Destree saw the men of the hunt helping each other to their feet. One of them took up the injured hound. Then they turned and went away as if both Destree and their quarry had ceased to exist.