That me which the beasts had taken with them-that was what I must find again. But a dream-? No, not wholly dream, they had wrought some sorcery of their own over me when-last night-many nights ago? By all accounts sorcery could alter the wave of time itself. They had left me to the shadows in the dream world-perchance thus, they believed, to one form of death. And if that failed, as it had, then to this other death in the wilderness. Why had they so feared-or hated-me? Because I could not be ensorcelled or shaped, controlled as those others from the Dales?
“Witch.” Herrel had named me. And he had spoken as one who knew well of what he spoke.
Dame Alousan was a Wise Woman. She had known more of things outside the beliefs of the Abbey than she had ever said. In her library of old knowledge there were books, books I had understood only in part. Sorcery existed. All men knew that. It was remnants of a kind of learning from a very old day and from other peoples who lived in the Dales before the men of High Hallack came from the south to spread out among the hills. And the Were Riders-all men knew that they controlled powers and forces beyond human ken.
Some such powers were for the good of those who sought them, or they could be shaped for good or ill. And a third sort were neither good nor evil. But beyond the bonds laid by men, yea or nay. There was a flaw in the use even of good powers. That had been early impressed on me until I learned it as an undeniable lesson. For the sense of mastery such use gave the one who practised it led to a desire for more and more. And finally, unless one was strong willed enough to put aside temptation, one ventured from light into shadow, and into the dark from which there was no return.
No return-there might have been no return from that ashen wood for me. And-also there had been something rift from me there. Cold-cold-I pressed my hands tight to my breasts-so cold! Never would I be warm again, filled again-until I won back from those who had taken it that other self of mine. Won back? What chance had I of that? I would die here in the wilderness, or this part of me would die-Oh, I could keep life in me for a short period using those simples and my knowledge-but it would only stave off an inevitable end.
Gold-would I never be warm again? Never?
If only I knew a little more! If I have not been denied my birthright-birthright? Who was Gillan? Witch, Herrel had laid name to me-witch? But one who could not perform her witchery, who had power of a sort but could not use it to any great purpose-a witch who was maimed, even as Herrel had claimed to be maimed, unable to be whole. Whole?
I found myself laughing then, and that laughter was so ill a thing to hear that I covered my mouth with both hands, though my shoulders still shook with the force of those convulsions which were not mirth, were very far from human mirth.
Whole? The laughter which had torn me subsided. I must-I would be whole. Slowly I turned my body until I faced the gate which was no longer a gate. What would make me whole had vanished-behind that. But-it pulled me-it did, it did! As my body grew stronger, my mind more alert, so did I feel that pull, as well as if I could actually see a cord trailing away, leading into the stone.
The snow had stopped and the firewood was almost consumed. I could not take the back trail; that which dragged at me would not allow it. Thus I must find some way through the barrier-or over it-
“Stand!”
My head jerked on my shoulders.
Men coming up the valley. As the Riders, these were helmed. But their head covering bore ragged crests and were equipped with eye pieces which fitted down over their eyes mask fashion. They had short coats of furred hide and their boots arose on the outer side of the leg in a sharp point.
Hounds of Alizon!
When they had first come to this continent as invaders they had been armed with weapons strange to the Dales, one of which had shot a searing beam of fire. But when their supply ships had ceased to arrive, some two years ago, these had grown fewer and fewer among them. Now they rode as did the other fighting men of this land with bow, sword, spear, and I saw arrows on cord-
I did not move. It would seem prospective danger was now real. For the fate of any woman in the hands of the Hounds was not good to think upon. I had that in my bag which would give me a last freedom, had I chance to use it.
“A woman!” One of them rode past the archers, slid from his saddle and ran towards the fire. Wearing his mask helm he was more alien even than the beasts.
I had no road of escape. Should I try to scramble over the rocks I could be pulled down with ease, or caught when I came up against the barrier of the gate.
Because I did not flee I surprised him. He slackened pace, looked from the fire to me, glanced about-
“So your friends have left you, wench?”
“ ‘Ware, Smarkle,” an order snapped from the others, “have you never heard of baited traps?”
He halted almost in mid-stride, and dodged behind a rock. There was a long period of silence wherein the archers sat their saddles, their arrows centred on me.
“You there.” a man stepped out from between the horsemen, his shield well up to cover his body, a captured shield since its surface bore a much defaced bearing of the Dales. “Come out-to us! Come or be shot where you stand!”
Perhaps the best choice would be to disobey, to go down now in clean death with the arrows reaching into that emptiness. But there was a need in me greater than any other, to regain that which I had lost, and it would not let me turn away from life so easily. I walked past the fire, to the rock behind which Smarkle crouched.
“She is one of the Dale wenches right enough, Captain!” His voice rang out.
Still with his shield before him the Captain dodged from one bit of cover to the next in a zig-zag course.
“Come, you, on!”
Slowly I went. There were four archers, the two men behind the rocks-how many more might be in the valley I could not guess. Plainly they had trailed our party here, which showed strong determination on the part of these hunted men, since the course brought them deep into the waste and away from the sea which was their path homeward, could they ever find a ship. As Herrel had said, these were desperate, with naught to lose which counted longer, even their lives. And so they were also beasts, perhaps much worse than the Riders.
“Who are you?” The Captain fired a second demand at me.
“One of the Dale brides.” I made answer with the truth, knowing now that these men were not as they had been weeks, or even days ago. Even as I they had lost some part of them, worn away by hardship and the abiding loneliness and despair which dwelt in the waste.
“Where are the rest then?” That was Smarkle.
“Gone on-“
“Gone on? Leaving you behind? We are not fools-“
Small inspiration came to me. “Neither are they, men of Alizon. I fell ill of hill fever-to them it is doubly dangerous. Do you not know that the Were Riders are not as we? What ails us is sometimes doubly fatal to them-“
“What do you think, Captain?” Smarkle asked. “If this be a trap, they would have cut us down by now-“
“Not and risk her. You-go back, beyond that fire, against the rocks! Keep your arrows on her as she goes.”
I returned, passing the dying fire, setting at last my shoulders against the stone.
“You-back there-“ Now the Captain did not address me, nor his own men, but the debris in the valley which masked the gate wall. “Move, and we arrow slit this dainty piece of yours!”
His words echoed about the walls as they waited tensely. And when the last sound died away, he spoke to Smarkle.
“Take her!”
He came at me in a run, dodging about the smouldering fire, slamming his body against mine, pinning me to the rock by his weight. His breath was hot and foul in my face, and through the eye slits of his helm I could see his eyes, a-glitter with a vicious hunger.