“She saw us—she knows—” Words from beyond the narrow world which was mine, in which only the twain of us stood.
“She knows more than you think, pack brothers. Look upon what she has in her hand!”
Anger rising about me. Almost I could see that with my eyes as a dull red mist. I stood on a high and open place and they would stone me with rocks of their hate.
“Doubtless sent to lead us into some trap—”
There was an arm about me, holding me close, promising security. Once I thought I could accept that with open eyes. Now there was such a revulsion working in me that I had to force my will to stand fast, lest I run screaming into the wilderness. And the anger continued to thrust spears of rage at me.
“Cease! Look you well, this is what she holds within her hands. Take it—you, Harl, Hisin, Hulor—Magic, yes, but where is there any evil in it, unless evil was intended in return? Harl, say the Seven words while it rests in your fingers.”
Words—or sounds—so sharp they hurt ears, rang into one’s skull—words of alien power.
“Well?”
“It is a charm, but only against the powers of darkness.”
“Now—look yonder!”
The red wall of anger was gone. I saw again with my eyes and not my emotions. From where I had trampled and broken that shaft I had found in the rock arose a line of oily black smoke, as if from a fire feeding on rottenness. And there was a sickly smell from it. The smoke swirled, formed into a rod which had the likeness of the unbroken shaft.
“A screamer, and one under a dark power!”
Again they spoke words, this time several voices together. The rod swayed back and forth, was gone in a puff.
“You have seen,” Herrel said, “you know what kind of a spell that bore. One who wears such an amulet as Gillan can not dabble in dark learning. And there was another charm here also. Harl, I ask of you, look to the fetlock of Roshan’s left forefoot.”
I saw him who wore the eagle go to Herrel’s mount, kneel to feel about the hoof. Then he arose with a thread between his fingers.
“A hinder-cord!”
“Just so. And this also do you say is of the enemy, or of my lady’s doing? Perhaps,” Herrel looked at each of them for a long instant, “it was a trick for amusement. But almost it worked to my bane, and likewise to those of you who came hither. Or was it more than a trick, a hope that I fall behind to some undoing by fate or enemy?”
“You have the right to ask sword-battle then!” flashed Halse.
“So I do, as I shall call upon you all to witness—when I find the one who tried to serve me so.”
“This is one thing,” boar-crest broke in, “but she—” he pointed to me, “is yet another. She who deals in out-land charms, who and what is she?”
“All peoples have their wise women and healers. We know well the skill of those of High Hallack. Gillan had for mistress one who was well learned in such arts. To each race its own powers—”
“But such a one has no place in our company!”
“Do you speak for all the pack, Hulor? Gillan,” Herrel spoke to me, far more softly, as one who would win words from a sorely frightened child, “what know you of this other thing—this shaft?”
And as simply as a child I made answer. “The Amulet burned my hand when I rested it on the rock. There was a break in the stone and that stood within it. I—I pulled it loose and broke it with my foot.”
“Thus,” he swung back to the others, “it would seem, pack brothers, that we owe herewise a debt. With that still potent what might have happened had we gone into battle shape changed and then returned, unable to be men, to face so these we would shield from the truth?”
I heard murmurs among them.
“Upon this matter the whole company must have their say.” Halse spoke first.
“So be it—with you witnessing as to what happened here.” Herrel replied evenly. His arm tightened around me, I fought against the shudders with which my body would have resisted that hold. “Now, we have no threat left behind, but that does not mean it has vanished from the land. Only, hold in mind, pack brothers, that you return now to those whom you cherish as men this night because of the courage and wit of this my lady.”
If he expected any outward assent from the others he did not get it. They drew away. Herrel lifted me into the saddle and climbed up behind, the circle of his arms holding me. Yet I was alone, alone in a company who had let me feel the fire and storm of their hate, and in arms which now I thought of as wholly alien.
7
Night Terrors and Day Dreams
Of that night I remember very little, waking, but of sleeping—Even now my mind shrinks from that memory. Dreams seldom linger in the mind far past the waking hour, but such dreams as haunted me that night were not the normal ones.
I ran through a forest, leaved and yet not green—but a sere and faded grey, as if the trees had died in an instant and had not thereafter lost their leaves, but only become rigid ghosts of themselves. And from behind their charred black trunks things spied upon and hunted me—never visible, yet ever there, malignant and dreadful beyond the power of words to make plain.
There was no end to that forest, nor the hunters, nor to my anguish. And there grew in me the knowledge that they were driving me to some trap or selected spot of their own wherein I would be utterly lost. I can yet feel beneath finger tips the rough bark of trees against which I leaned panting, pain a sword in my side, listening—oh, how I listened!—for any noise from those who followed. But there was no sound, just ever the knowledge they existed.
A wild hunt—though the hounds, the hunters I never saw—only the fear which preceded them drove me.
Time and time again I strove to hold to courage, to turn and face them, telling myself that fear faced is sometimes less than fear fled, but never was my courage great enough to suffer me to hold, past a quivering moment or two. And always the dead-alive trees closed about me.
Growing in me was the knowledge that the end would be horrible past all bearing—
And when I broke then and screamed madly, beating upon the trunk of the tree where I had paused, there was a murmur in my head, a murmur which was first sound and then words, and finally a message I could understand:
“Throw it away—throw it away—all will be well—” It? What was it? Sobbing with breaths which hurt, I looked first to my hands. They were scratched, bleeding, the nails torn—but they were empty.
It? What was it?
Then I looked down at my body. It was bare, no clothing left me. And it was so wasted that the bones showed clearly beneath scarred and scratched skin. But on my breast rested a small bag patterned with runes stitched on in black. Memory stirred faintly, fading before it really told me aught. I caught at the bag. That which stuffed it crunched, and from it arose a faint odour to sting my nose.
“Throw it away!” A command.
There was sound now and not only in my head. With the bag between my fingers. I turned to look upon the masks of beasts—standing manlike on their hind legs. Bear, boar, cat, wolf-beasts—and yet more, far more—far worse!
I ran, witlessly, with a pain in me which seemed to burst the ribs about my heart. From the beasts I ran, back towards that which had hunted me. And behind I heard a cat’s yowl.
Perhaps I might have died, caught in the horror of that dream. But the pressure of the bag in my clenched hand, from that spread—what? Courage? No, I was too far past the point where courage could return. I was only an animal—or less—filled with fear and a terror beyond what we call fear. But there came a kind of new energy and then an awareness that I had outrun the beasts. And after that, a small ray of hope that there would come an end to all this and perhaps it was better to face that end than go mad with terror.