Gilden-Fire

  he did not miss the point of her glance toward Hyrim.

  When his mount finally came to a halt, Lord Hyrim fell off as if he were already unconscious, moaning in his sleep.

  - Is his pain severe? Korik asked Sill.

  - No, Sill responded. He is unaccustomed. He will recover. But he will have difficulty in Grimmerdhore.

  Korik nodded. He said farewell to Brabha for the night and began unwrapping the bundle on his back. The other Bloodguard followed his example: soon all the Ranyhyn had galloped away to feed and rest, and to keep a distant watch over the camp. When the lillianrill rods

  [47]

  were unpacked, Lord Shetra used one to start a small campfire. With some of the supplies Korik had brought, she cooked a sparse meal. While she ate, she watched Lord Hyrim as if she expected the smell of the food to rouse him. But he remained face down on the grass, whimpering softly from time to time. Finally, she went to him and nudged him with her foot.

  He shoved himself up sharply, clutched his staff as if he had been snatched out of sleep to face an attack. For a dazed instant, his lips. trembled, and his eyes rolled widely. But when he gained his feet, he awoke enough to see where he was. The fear faded from his face, leaving it grey and weak. Heavily, he shambled to the fire, sat down, and ate what Shetra had left for him.

  However, the food seemed to meet his needs. Soon he recovered enough cheerfulness to groan, 'Sister Shetra, you are not a good cook.'

  When she made no reply, he stretched himself on his back by the fire, sighing plaintively, 'Ah, agony!' For a time, he stared at the

  [48]

  way the flames danced without consuming along the special wood of the lillianrilI. Then he turned his face to the sky and said gruffly, Friends, I had bethought me of fit revenge against those who gave to me this unendurable ride. Since noon, I have been full of dire promises - in place of food, I think. But now I am contrite. The fault is mine alone. I have been a fat thistle-brained fool from the moment the thought of the Loresraat and Lordship entered my head. Ah, what business had I to dream of Lords and Giants, of lore and bold undertakings? Better had I been punished severely and sent to tend sheep for the rest of my days, rather than permitted to follow mad fancies. But Hoole Gren-mate my father was a kind man, slow to chastise. Alas, his memory is poorly honoured in my thick self. Were he to see me now, thus reduced to raw quivering flesh and strengthless bones by one single day astride the honour of a Ranyhyn, he would have shed great fat tears as a reproach to my overfed resourcelessness.

  'Then let us rejoice in his absence,' said

  [49]

  Shetra distantly. 'I do not like tears.'

  Hyrim took this up as if it were an argument. 'That is well for you. You are brave of blood and limb - in every way enviably courageous. But I - do you hear the talk of the refectories in Revelstone? It is said there that my staff is warped - that when this staff was Made for me by High Lord Osondrea, it felt the touch of my hand and bent itself in chagrin. By the Seven! I would be offended if only the talk were untrue, I weep at every opportunity.'

  He looked over at Shetra to see if he had produced any effect. But she appeared to be listening to some other voice, and she spoke as if to herself 'Am I?'

  'Are you?' Hyrim inquired gently. But when she did not reply, he returned to his badinage. 'Are you courageous? - is that your question? Sister Shetra, I assure you! I have proof positive. Who but a woman with bravery in her very marrow would consent to share such a mission with me?'

  At this, Lord Shetra turned her bird-of-prey eyes toward Hyrim. 'You mock me.'

  [50]

  'Ah, no!' he protested at once. Do not think it. You must learn to hear me in my own spirit. I seek only to warm the air between us.

  'Better that you do not speak,' she snapped.' I do not hear your desires. The wind of your words blows cold.'

  Instead of replying, Lord Hyrim gazed at her with the look of intent repose which came over the Lords when they melded their thoughts. She shook her head, refused him, climbed to her feet. But the next moment, she answered him barrenly, as if she were too full of dust to resist his question. 'I have left behind a husband who believes I cannot love him. He believes he is inferior to me.'

  She cut off any response Hyrim might have made by stepping quickly to the fire. 'We must not keep the wood alight more than necessary. Without a Hirebrand to tend them, the rods will decay slowly - and we will have greater need of them.' As if she were in a hurry for darkness, she pulled the wood out of the fire and hummed a lillianrill command to extinguish it. Then she wrapped herself in a blanket and lay

  [51]

  down on the grass a short distance from Lord Hyrim.

  After a while, Korik asked Cerrin:

  - Will her concern for Lord Verement weaken her?

  - No, Cerrin replied flatly. She will fight for both.

  Korik understood this assertion and accepted it. But he did not like it. It carried echoes of other losses and griefs - deprivations and hollow places which the Haruchai had not taken into account during their sole night of extravagance. Dourly, he posted his comrades in a wide circle around the camp. Then he stood with his arms folded on his chest, gazed warily out over the grasslands and the star-path of the moon, recited his Vow through the long watch. He could not forget any details of the last night he had spent with his wife, whose bones were already ancient in the frozen fastness of her grave. The Vow sustained him, but it was not warm.

  Still it gave a rhythm to the sleepless night, and the time passed as a myriad other

  [52]

  darknesses had passed - in ceaseless vigilance. When the moon completed its worn traversal of the sky and fell into the west like a weary exhalation, Korik decided that soon he would awaken the Lords. However, a short time later Lord Hyrim struggled out of his blankets of his own accord. Even in the bare starlight, Korik saw that Hyrim was stiff and aching from the past day's ride. But the Lord suppressed the groans which twisted his face, and began to prepare breakfast.

  The aroma he created revealed his talent for the work. Korik smelled strength and refreshment and delicacy in the steam of the broth Hyrim made - a savour Korik had not scented since the curious healing meal which High Lord Prothall had cooked after the battle of Soaring Woodhelven, when all the warriors and urLord Covenant were sickened by the reek of blood and burned flesh. The food's subtle potency awakened Lord Shetra. She came close to the fire looking dull and pale, as if she had not slept well for many nights; but as she ate, Hyrim's work spread its beneficence through

  [ 53 ]

  her, and she brightened. When she was done, she nodded to him, approving the food as if

  were apologising. He answered with a broad grin and an apothegm which he claimed he learned from the Giants:

  'Food is concentrated beauty - the sustaining power of the Land made savourable and ready for strength. A life without food is like life without tales - deprived of splendour.'

  When he mounted to ride again; he managed to limit himself to one tight gasp of pain.

  The Ranyhyn ran as if they were hurrying to rejoin the sun; and at daybreak the riders found that they were crossing short irregular hills covered with stiff grey grass. There was no sign of human life. The ground was arable, if not inviting; but no people had ever lived here, It was too close to Grimmerdhore. Though dark, Grimmerdhore was among the least potent, the most slumberous, of the Forests, the surviving remnants of the One Forest which had formerly covered the whole Upper Land - and though since before the time of Lord Kevin there had been no Forestal in Grimmerdhore to

  [54]

  sing the ancient trees to wakefulness and movement and vengeance. - still people kept away from the severe woods. Many things lived in Grimmerdhore, and few of them were friendly. It was said - though Korik did not know the truth of it - that the kresh, the yellow wolves, had been born in Grimmerdhore.

  Yet the Bloodguard did not waver in his determination to pass directly through the Forest. It wou
ld lengthen the journey by days to go around, either north or south. Still, he exercised added caution. As the company cantered into the new day, Korik sent one of his comrades wide of the company on each side, to increase the range of their wariness.

  By midmorning, his caution was rewarded. Korik received a call from one of the ranging Bloodguard, who was out of sight behind a hill. He stopped the company and waited. When the caller came over the hill, he was accompanied by a woman mounted on a Revelstone mustang.

  She was a brisk young Warhaft, and her Eoman was riding patrol along the western

  [55]

  borders of Grimmerdhore. She asked for news of Revelstone, and when she heard of Lord Mhoram's vision, she requested permission to accompany the mission. But Lord Shetra ordered the Warhaft to remain at her scouting duty, then inquired about the condition of Grimmerdhore.

  'Wolves,' the Warhaft reported. 'Not the yellow kresh. Grey and black wolves - nothing else. And little of them. Small packs raid outward, find nothing and return. We have avoided them so that they would not be wary of our scouting.'

  'No sign of the Grey Slayer?' Shetra pursued. 'No scent of evil?'

  'The Forest conceals much. But we have seen nothing - heard nothing.'

  The Warhaft and Shetra exchanged a few more details, and the Lord refused an offer of help for the crossing of Grimmerdhore, Then the mission started eastward again. As they left the Warhaft behind, Hyrim waved back at her and said as if he were lonely, 'It may be that we will see no other people until we gain Seareach.

  [56]

  'I would have been glad for the company of her Eoman.'

  'They would slow us,' Shetra returned without looking at him.

  Korik sent two Bloodguard wide again. In this formation, he was confident of the company's readiness except on one point: Lord Hyrim's horsemanship. Since the previous day, Hyrim's scant control over his riding had deteriorated - the combined effect of rougher terrain and extreme soreness. Now at every jolt he clutched like a drowning man at the mane of the Ranyhyn; and between grasps he used his staff like a pole to steady himself.

  -If he falls, I will catch him, Sill promised.

  But Korik was not reassured.

  -At full gallop in Grimmerdhore, he will be at hazard.

  Sill stiffened, but could not deny Korik's point. He proposed constructing a harness for the Lord, then discarded the idea. The Bloodguard had no wish to affront the Ranyhyn that had chosen Hyrim: they preferred to carry the additional risk themselves. Korik drew calm-

  [57]

  ness from his Vow and observed to his comrades that the question of Hyrim's riding would soon be answered.

  Just before noon, the company swept over a ridge and came within sight of the Forest. The hills had hidden it until it was almost upon them. It loomed around them on the east and south as if they had surprised it in the act of trying to encircle them. But now that they had seen it, Grimmerdhore Forest stood up out of the grasslands like a fortress: its black trunks grew thickly together as if to form a wall; its gnarled limbs bristled like weapons; its shrouding dark green seemed to shelter lurking defenders. And over all the ground before and between the trees were brambles with barbed thorns as strong as iron. They interwove with each other tightly, to resist any penetration, and at their lowest they were taller than Korik.

  The Ranyhyn stopped, unbidden: they were sensitive to the denying will of the Forest, though the trees had never held any enmity for them. The riders dismounted. Lord Hyrim stared at Grimmerdhore as if its mood con-

  [58]

  founded him; and Lord Shetra dropped to the grass, felt it with her hands, staring all the while at the trees - trying to read the Forest through the sensations in the ground. When Hyrim said, 'Never have I seen Grimmerdhore so angry, she nodded slowly and replied, 'Something has been done to it - something it does not like.'

  Korik was forced to agree. In the past, the ancient ire of the Forest, the hatred for people who cut and burned, had always been drowsier than this, more deeply submerged in the failing consciousness of the trees. Still, what he could see of Grimmerdhore did not look sentient enough to be active.

  -Then the peril lies in what has been done to the Forest, said Tull, completing Korik's thought.

  - Unless a Forestal has found his way here, Runnik suggested.

  - No, Korik judged. Even a Forestal would require much time to awaken Grimmerdhore. There is another danger within.

  Gradually, the Lords began to resist the

  [59]

  mood of the Forest. Hyrim started to prepare meal - a large one, since he would not have the use of a cooking fire again until the company was past Grimmerdhore -and Shetra walked to the brambles to touch them with her fingertips and listen to the murmurings of the wind. When she returned, she had reached Korik's conclusion: there was not enough wakefulness in the timbre of the wood to account for Grimmerdhore's mood. Something else caused it.

  'Not the wolves,' said Hyrim, sampling his fare. 'They have always been at home in the Forest. And they care for nothing but themselves unless another power is there to master them. Another mystery I hope I will not be asked to unravel. Riding is challenge enough for me. Shetra nodded absently, ate the food Hyrim gave her without paying it much attention.

  In spite of their concern, the Lords did not delay. They ate promptly, then left the Bloodguard to pack their supplies and went together on foot to the edge of the brambles. There they raised their arms, held their staffs high, and

  [60]

  gave the ritual appeal for sufferance to the woods:

  Hail, Grimmerdhore! Forest of the One Forest! Freehome and root, and preserver of the life-sap of wood! Enemy of our enemies! Grimmerdhore, hail! We are the Lords - foes to your enemies, and learners of the lillianrill lore. We must pass through!

  'Harken, Grimmerdhore! We hate the axe and flame which hurt you! Your enemies are our enemies. Never have we brought edge of axe of flame of fire to touch you - nor ever shall. Grimmerdhore, harken! Let us pass!'

  They shouted the appeal loudly; but their cry was cut off, absorbed into silence, by the wall of the trees. Still they waited with their arms raised for a long moment, as if they expected an answer. But the dark anger of the Forest did not waver. When they returned to the company, Lord Shetra said squarely to 'Korik, 'Grimmerdhore Forest has never harmed the Lords of its own will. What is your choice, Bloodguard? Shall we attempt passage?'

  [61]

  Korik suppressed the tonal lilt of his native tongue to speak the language of the Lords flatly, that what he said was both a decision and a

  promise. 'We will pass through.'

  With a silent nod, his comrades turned and called to the grazing Ranyhyn. Soon the company was mounted in formation, facing the Forest. Korik spoke quietly to Brabha, and the Ranyhyn started forward, walking directly at the fortifying brambles. When Brabha was close enough to nose the thorns, a narrow slit of path became visible before him.

  In single file, the company walked into the shadowed demesne of Grimmerdhore.

  The thorns plucked at them as they passed, but the Ranyhyn negotiated the path with such easy skill that even the long blue robes of the Lords suffered only small rents and snags. Yet the way was long and twisted, and Korik's senses quivered at the vulnerability of the company. If the brambles within the Forest were active, the riders were in grave danger. Korik sent a warning to the Bloodguard who rode nearest the Lords, and they braced

  [63]

  themselves to jump to Hyrim's and Shetra's defence.

  But none of the bushes moved: the low breeze carried no sound of awareness through the thorns. And then the brambles began to shrink and thin until they fell away like a sigh, leaving the riders in the hands of the Forest itself.

  The air around them was thick and deep almost audibly underlined with slumber; and it shifted faintly through the dim, mottled shadows like an uneasy rest, disturbed by dreams of damage and bloody repayment. It smelled so heavily of moss and damp moul
dering soil and rot and growth that it was hard to breathe: it seemed to resist the lungs of the riders. And the crowded branches blocked out most of the sunlight: between occasional bright swathes of filtered lumination the trees seemed to brood in gloom, contemplating death.

  But the quiet of Grimmerdhore was not as impenetrable as it had first appeared. From time to time, strange hoarse birds screeched.

  forlornly. Black squirrels raced overhead. And

  [64]

  frequently the Bloodguard heard frightened animals scuttling away from the company through the underbrush.

  Still, the way became easier. The woods spread out within the perimeter of the brambles: the path broadened as if the trees were guarding it less closely; and animal trails wove back and forth around it. As a result, the company was able to resume its formation, with the Lords and Korik riding on the path and the other Bloodguard moving through the trees around them. Here the Ranyhyn went more quickly, almost at a trot; and the company moved straight in towards the heart of Grimmerdhore.

  They rode as if they were passing through a reverie - the shaded and sombre musings of the Forest - until after dark. Except for Lord Hyrim's groans whenever he caught his balance, they travelled in silence, warding against something in the woods which might hear them. And even when he groaned, Hyrim gave no sign that he wished to stop or rest. He was caught up in Grimmerdhore's mood. But Korik

  [65]