“Got her!”
They moved, still cautiously, towards us. Smarkle contented himself for the present with whispers, the obscenity of which I could guess, though most of the words he used I had never heard. Then he pulled me away from the rock and held me with my arms clamped to my sides, though I had made no struggle.
“She’s no Dale wench.” One of the archers leaned forward in the saddle to stare at me. “Did you ever see such hair on one of them, now did you?”
My braids had loosened and fallen, and against the snow their black hue was startlingly dark. The Hounds looked me up and down as Smarkle held me for their inspection, and now I thought I saw a wariness in their eyes. Not as if they feared me to be bait in some baffling trap they had not yet uncovered, but that something in my appearance alone made them uneasy.
“By the Horns of Khather!” swore the archer. “Look upon her, Captain-have you not heard of her like?”
Beneath the half mask of his helm the Captain’s lips curled in an evil leer. “Yes, Thacmor, I have heard of her like. Though in this land-no. But have you not heard there is a way to disarm such sorceresses, a very pleasant way-“
Smarkle laughed, his grip tightening painfully on my arms.
“Let us not look into her eyes, Captain. It is so a man is held in spell. Those hags of Estcarp know how to bewitch mortal men.”
“So they may. Yet they are also mortal. We have caught us some fine sport.”
The sun had come from behind clouds, its westerning rays struck full in my face. Of what they spoke I had no clue. Though that they believed me of a race of old enemies of theirs I could guess.
“Build up the fire.” the Captain flung the order to the archers. “It is cold here-these walls hold out the sun.”
“Captain.” Thacmor asked. “Why would she stay here-unless she means us harm-“
“Harm to us? Perhaps. But rather do I think she was found out for what she is, and so left-“
“But those devils also deal in magic-“
“True. But wolves of a pack turn upon one another when hunger bites deep. There may be some quarrel we do not know. Perhaps even these Dale sheep laid plans and planted her among the rest to bring their ‘Bargain’ to naught. If so, she has failed or been found out. At any rate they have left her to us. And we shall not nay-say them!”
As yet Smarkle held me, and his touch was an offence it would shame me to put into words. Feeling was left me, like a dim memory of something which had once been alive-and good.
They gathered more wood. At one time this valley must have been a channel for a stream of size and storm drift was still caught among the boulders. They stirred the fire I had kindled into higher blaze. Smarkle threw a loop of hide thong about my shoulders and arms, another about my ankles, making me prisoner.
But with them one kind of hunger seemed greater than the other, for one brought a brace of birds, a large rabbit to the fire side, and these they cleaned and spitted for broiling. One of the archers had a leathern flask. He unstoppered it, strove to drink, and then hurled it from him with a curse.
“Witch.” the Captain stood straddle-legged before me. “Where did they go the Were Riders?”
“On.”
“And they left you because they found you out for what you are?”
“Yes.”
That might or might not be true, but I thought he guessed rightly.
“Therefore their magic was greater than yours-“
“I cannot judge their power.”
He thought on that, and I do not think he relished his thoughts.
“What awaits ahead?”
Again I gave him the truth. “Now-nothing.”
“Did they become thin air and float away?” Smarkle twitched the cord about my ankles in a cruel pull. “The same you will not, witch wench!”
“They passed a barrier, it closed behind them.”
The Captain glanced up at the sun, now almost gone from this shadowed valley, and then at the choked passage ahead. He did not appear to like its looks, but he was a seasoned warrior and prepared to make sure of his ground. At a gesture from him two of the archers laid aside their bows, drew swords, and worked their way up the piles of slide debris.
To one side lay the fur rug which had been left with me. Smarkle advanced a hand to it, and then lifted it higher with the toe of his boot, scudding across the frozen ground.
“Stupid fool!” The Captain turned on him. “That is a shape changer’s hide. Would you touch it?”
Smarkle shivered, his leering grin gone. He grabbed a branch from those laid ready for the fire and lifted the finely dressed hide, thrusting it yet farther away. A rug-they so feared a fur rug? But these men must have faced the fur of the Riders in their battle guise, to them it was indeed an animal’s pelt.
My bag of simples-I could see the end of its carrying strap lying in the shadow of a rock. Doubtless they would deal the same with that should they find it, mistrusting the “magic” it might contain. Were I free and had it in my hands, then I might indeed work “magic”-
But they did not sight it, not yet. And now the Captain came back to his interrogation of me.
“Where did they go? What lies behind this barrier?”
“I do not know-save that they sought another land-“ The Captain snapped up the eye piece of his helm, took off the head covering. His hair was very fair-not the warm yellow, or light red-brown of a Dalesman-but rather almost white, as if he were an old man-yet that he was not. He had a sharp and jutting nose, not unlike an eagle’s beak (an eagle’s beak…would I ever now look for such signs on a man’s face?) and high cheekbones set wide apart-though his eyes were small and narrow lidded so that he appeared to ever squint.
He ran his hand from one temple back up his head. There were marks of fatigue on his face, and that kind of tautness shown by a man driven to the edge of endurance, perhaps beyond. He sat down on a stone, no longer looking at me, but staring into the fire. Moments later the scouts returned. “Well?”
“Much fallen rock and then just cliff-they could not have gone that way.”
“They came in here.” the other scout said, a thin, unsteadiness in his voice. “They could not have doubled back past us. They came in here-but now they are gone!”
The Captain’s gaze swung once more to me. “How?” his voice rasped that one word demand.
“To each his own sorcery. They asked a gate to open-it did.”
It had opened for them-not me. But that would not stop me, any more than this remnant of broken, fleeing men would stop me. Somewhere beyond that wall was a part of me. It would draw me on, guide me, and I would be whole once again!
“She-she can get us by-“ Thacmor nodded at me. “The witches-they say wind and wave, earth and sky, obey them.”
“One witch alone, who could not use her power before?” The Captain shook his head. “Do you think she would have been here, waiting for us, had she been able to break their spells? No, the hunt’s lost now-“
Smarkle licked his lips, the others shifted uneasily.
“What do we do now, Captain?”
He shrugged. “We eat, we-“ He paused to grin at me, “amuse ourselves. On the morrow we lay plans again.”
Some one of them laughed. Another slapped his near companion on the shoulder. They were pushing aside tomorrow, living for the hour as was customary with fighting men whose lives were long forfeit. I glanced at the meat by the fire. It would soon be done, then they would eat and then-after-
If I only had the knowledge. There was that in me, I was sure, which might act as shield and sword at this hour could I release it. Will-I had always thought of it as power of will. Will-power-Could I channel will to make of it a weapon?
No Shadow!
THE SIMPLE bag, my desperate thoughts kept coming back to that. They had scooped up snow, dumped it by the fistful into a small pot now shoved close to the flames. A few drops from a certain small bottle into that and-
But I was as far from achieving that as I was from finding the vanished gate. What I did not know was so much more than what I did.
They ate and the smell of the roasting meat, as they tore it with teeth or sawed chunks off with the belt knives, aroused the hunger the cordial had allayed. They offered me none and I knew their purpose. Whatever use they planned to make of me this night, I would not go hence with them in the morning. Why should they wish to burden their troop with a woman who was also a feared witch?