The warning choked off in her throat as she found herself frozen, unable to move hand or foot, and with a weight pressing against her breast as if to forbid her free breath. In the meadow before her, the moonlight seemed to thicken as if some power drew upon it to produce a form.
Liara gasped for breath and gasped again. What stood there? The form of the thing was clearly that of a female, for its silver height was unclothed, but the head—white, sharp-snouted, with red ears, not folded as usual back against the skull, but standing erect as when the hunt was launched.
It was out of a nightmare—but no nightmare she had ever heard of before—a foul mixture which had nothing to do with the will of nature.
Nausea arose within her. Yet somehow her will awoke. There had been no call, no sound which even she could hear. But that—that loathsome character strove to draw her toward it—beckoned her as if in her innermost part there was a likeness, a kinship—NO!
Liara was no longer aware of anything except that thing in the meadow, that which summoned. Around her, fouling her lungs as she breathed, was the thick smell of kennels. The thing’s blazing eyes caught hers and held; the form standing there appeared to grow, taller, more solid, more powerful.
Come—blood to blood—come, the order continued. While that treacherous part of her own unknown inner self was drawn, it was sharp pain which broke that fast-woven spell. She felt the bite of metal in her flesh.
And straightaway, before the thing could tighten its invisible cords on her again, Liara’s own hand moved. She threw her sleeve knife.
She saw the hound-woman raise clawed paws to her throat and then stagger back, then crumple down. Liara whimpered and staggered in turn, until her shoulder thumped forcibly against what had once been the wall of a watch tower. Pain held her in its fist—even as if that knife had entered her own throat.
Through watering eyes she saw the limp white body in the grass. The brilliance of the silver which had made it so visible was fading, just as the smoothness of the flesh vanished. The thing was still female, but the hound head was gone—only a skull thatched with grizzled hair remained.
Liara was able to pull herself straighter—the pain had faded. She could hear shouting and saw a wave of more just such hairy bodies ripple forward.
Nor did the cries of alarm come from one direction only; she was dimly aware that they also sounded from behind. The camp in the ruins must be beset by more than one party.
They were attacked by such a wave of Gray Ones as none in that refuge had ever seen drawn together before. Only the moonlight was their friend; had the sky been clouded, the fierce determination of those without might well have won them a way within.
Of this Liara was barely aware. Since her knife had taken the hound-woman, her arm flopped by her side, so weighted that it might be encased in the stone of the walls. She coughed and coughed again, tasting blood which she spat away.
Keris set a second clip into his dart gun. At least this was one weapon with which he could truly claim expertise. He continually blinked his eyes, trying to ease a smarting which had struck them at the rise of that white pillar of light just before the attack broke. Liara had been fronting that pillar and he was not sure what she had done, but he guessed that she was responsible for its vanishing.
There was another figure up on the wall where Liara had earlier stood and he heard the voice of the Lady Eleeri raised in what could only be a war cry. She was using her bow with the skill he had often seen demonstrated in the arms court, and he was sure that very few of those arrows missed their marks.
Still the waves of Gray Ones came as if maddened past all thought of self-preservation. There followed the high-screamed challenge of a stallion encountering traditional foes, and from the arched entrance below broke the Keplians. One watching them now could well believe in the tales of their devil blood.
Even as a warhorse might be trained to rear and so bring down any footman menacing his rider, so did the mare Theela and the colt stamp death, rip and toss bodies aside.
Then was a breathing space when no new forces came out of the distant woodland. The Keplians made a round of the bodies, once or twice raising a razor-sharp hoof to snap out a flicker of life. However, when they approached that crumpled figure Liara had confronted, they circled it at a distance, their heads down as if they sniffed deeply at what lay there. Then Theela swerved to head for the ruins, her companions behind her.
“Liara?” Though the voice was low, it cut easily through the fog surrounding the girl which had led her to believe she was no longer any part of those who fought here.
Light, brilliant—blue—searing her eyes. She could not lift her deadened arm to shade them. The shine of the hound-head had been almost as strong.
She could not even see who stood behind that mighty lamp, but the voice she knew. The witchling.
At that moment it was as if someone had unveiled a secret for her viewing and she shrank back again against the stone. There was that in her . . . she held a taint which those—those things of the dark could sense, could call—
“They called.” The brilliant light still held her fast. “But did you answer?”
Life was returning to her arm, she was able to bring her hand up to her trembling lips.
“I did not then . . . know—”
“Do not hold yourself at fault.” Mouse’s soft voice was serene. “If you drew them, then also their purpose was betrayed when you brought down their bait. And that very bait alerted our watchers.”
“Hound . . .” Liara murmured through stiff lips then. “We are the Hounds of Alizon, not merely the packs we raise. And those packs have been used for Dark purposes.” She shivered. Though no female had watched an Ordered Feeding, yet the details of such were as known to all as clear as crystal in a collar.. “Your people say I am not of the Dark, but if there is in me that which can draw something searchers want . . .”
Her thoughts were flying very fast now, seeming like a stream of orders shouted in her ears. “If that be so . . . then I have no place with you.”
“If you were of the Dark, Lady Liara, then death would have been your portion as you stand here. We are all fashioned by those of our blood gone before, but it is the choices that we ourselves make which can change the weaving patterns.”
The light no longer tortured her eyes. Now the Lady Eleeri came to her, still holding her bow.
“This was an attack planned by hate but not by true knowledge. If they believed that they could win through our defenses by the tricks of a half-taught Shaman, then they are the less to be feared. Had they waited—”
But Liara had already caught the logic behind that.
“Waited until we were strung out on the trail, until I was behind with the ponies. Yes, then they would have had their victory.”
“Never.” The radiance from Mouse’s jewel had faded, revealing her as she stood behind the wall of its brilliance. “For I say they believed you to be the way to us and you are not. Nor can you ever be—unless”—she spoke more slowly now—“you allow yourself to doubt, to seek shadow and turn aside from Light.”
“How can you be sure,” Liara asked, “that I will not?”
They had given her trust, these enemies of old, and she feared trust, feared it because among her own it never held. However, outwardly she accepted for the present Mouse’s assurance, though her mind was busy untangling tormenting thoughts.
She did not sleep for the rest of the night, though she lay quiet among her blankets. This quest of theirs—gates upon gates—what had it really to do with her?
That she might ever return to her own place—no. She had been forcibly barred from Krevanel by Kasarian’s action. There was no place for her at Lormt, even if she were to turn back, and if she remained among these she had come to accept she might well once more be used against them.
Hound . . . Whenever she closed her eyes now she could see that silver body and the hound-head. She had never heard any tales among her people of s
uch an unnatural creature. But what if that was what Alizonderns were inside? Had they so absorbed the inner natures of their prized, four-footed companions that that was how they would appear to an eye which could truly see—a mixture of human and beast? All those days she had spent with Volorian, her pride that he shared knowledge with her . . . had that time strengthened that taint they did not realize they possessed?
She kept much to herself with the morning and she was busy, for the ponies were unusually unruly. Perhaps the scent of the dead bodies beyond the wall reached them. Secretly she plundered one of the packs, setting aside a packet of journey cakes. Bow and arrows were not her weapon, nor could she help herself to such without it being instantly noted. She still had three of her four throwing knives, and a short sword she had used mainly to hack paths through thorn brush when necessary.
When had she ever had anyone who really cared what became of her? In Alizon she had filled a need and done her duty well enough that those of Krevanel seemed to find her well qualified. Her help with the ponies—that would weigh a little against a second attack of the Gray Ones.
Morning mist became rain and they all turned the hoods of their cloaks up over their heads. But no one suggested that they try to wait out the storm, for Mouse had announced, before the downpour had become too heavy, that there were indications of gate Power somewhere ahead.
Trees gave way to tough grass and clumps of brush, and that in turn to a stretch of gravel in which were upstanding stones set in the general confusion of a forest grove. The ponies had to be prodded into keeping up with the party and then seemed to decide on their own that they were better served by company.
Liara dropped back, as was the usual way if one answered a call of nature and slipped around one of the tree stones, waiting until the rear of the Borderers rode by.
Then, shouldering the very small pack which was all she allowed herself, she skulked from outcrop to outcrop away from the plodding party, not knowing or caring now in what direction she headed.
Keris was surprised when one of the pack ponies crowded up beside Jasta. The small beasts usually kept their distance from the mounts of the rest of the party. He glanced back to see that the lead animal closely followed by the rest, yet there was no sign of Liara on her tough mount and she usually kept carefully close to her charges.
*She is gone.*
He started at the Renthan’s mind-message. Since the happenings of the night before, his once-vague suspicions of the Alizondern girl had reawakened. Then he had held the next post in line with hers and had seen a strange pillar of light arise facing where she stood. His forehead creased in a frown. It had been as if some fleeting breaths of time had been rift from him and he remembered nothing clearly until the light was overthrown to the ground and he was busied picking off those slavering Dark ones who attacked so oddly without any cover as if they had expected to find the defenders asleep.
He had been with Krispin and the Lord Romar when they had ridden forth, with the addition of the young Keplian stallion, to survey the bodies after the battle. And his ranging had brought him close to where that light pillar had been rooted. Something had shone in the grass and he dismounted.
There was a dead Gray One, of course, a female and larger than any he had ever sighted in all the years they had warred upon such in Escore.
Oddly enough, the bristled face turned up to the light was layered with what appeared to be white paint. And as he stooped to see the closer, he could distinguish flat pieces of stiff red stuff fastened to either side of the skull as if to mimic ears. In the creature’s throat was a knife buried near to its hilt, not quite far enough to hide its quan iron blade. And he had seen that knife hurled many times over in the arms court at Lormt, always thudding exactly in the center of the target. That was Liara’s. He tugged it loose and rammed the blade several times into the ground to clean it. Odd she did not come to claim it herself; such knives were too valuable to be left lying, even in bodies.
They had been so busied breaking camp that he had forgotten his find and it was only now, when he could not sight the Alizondern girl and Jasta said she was gone, that he remembered.
“Gone—where?” For a moment he felt a sharp flash of fear. Even though the Falconer and one of the Borderers kept guard, this place of many stones offered excellent chance for an ambush.
*To follow her own trail,* the Renthan returned.
“To betray.” Keris was not altogether sure he meant that.
*To give us freedom from what she fears the most.* Nor for all Keris’s urging would Jasta elaborate on that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Karsten, Southeast of Var
I t had been raining, the heavy endless rain which soaked one’s garments to the skin, but the land seemed to welcome such a burden of endless drops. Meadow grass gave way to tangles of vines, which appeared to carpet the ground instead of searching for any tree or rock which could bear them aloft. Here and there, sheltered by the larger leaves were huge scarlet flowers which gave forth a cloying perfume and were shaped, Liara thought as she struggled along, not unlike the stripped skulls of shriekers tossed aside after the great day of annual slaughter. But there was nothing else here to remind her of her homeland. She knew that she was entirely lost.
Yet twice fortune had favored her. The first time she had been warned by keen hearing to take cover as a troop trotted by on the remains of a road which had not been kept up for many years. They were huddled in cloaks, those who had them; the rest wore blankets, odds and ends of hides, pulled around their shoulders.
They were not of the Old Race, but a mongrel lot, and from the saddle horn of the leader bobbed the severed head of a woman, anchored so by twisted hair. They were southerners such as she had always heard them described—yet she had certainly seen none of their like in Lormt.
Her next caution that this was not deserted land had come with a heavy rise of smoke. She had hidden out for nearly half a day, her now too slim body pressed to the ground, staring down at a keep which had clearly fallen to attack. She was thankful she was so far away that she could not hear or see clearly what happened there. The troop which seemed to have taken the small stronghold might be better armed and disciplined, but its soldiers, she was sure, were no different from those brutes she had earlier seen.
The keep had fallen, but perhaps there were some who escaped and those mailed riders below might sweep the fields around to make sure of their prey. Liara edged back as well as she could, pulling over and around her the well-leaved branches of a sturdy mat of brush.
At least she could sight no hounds to be set on the trail of fugitives. These southerners apparently never depended on such. She let her head fall wearily back against a tree trunk centering the cover she had chosen.
Her fingers were on her belt. Five days since she had left the party from Lormt. If they had come seeking her . . . But why should they? She had been set among them by necessity, not choice. And time drove them. They would have no time to hunt for her and still cover the ground assigned them—already far too large a stretch for so small a party. Briefly she wondered what kind of a gate Mouse’s jewel had found within that strange place of stone pillar-trees. Not that it mattered.
She rummaged in her small pack and brought out the forelegs of a ground-hopping creature she had knocked over with a stone at dusk the night before. Her knives Liara dared not risk, but she had discovered that her wrist skills, honed by practice with the knives, could also hurl stones to advantage. The meat had only been partially seared by the handful of fire she had dared to light and had kept going only for a short time. It smelled rank and tasted worse, but she chewed and swallowed doggedly.
That which she had feared the most, what had in truth driven her apart, was ever to mind. But she had never picked up the odor of the Gray Ones, seen any of their paw prints on overgrown roads or game trails.
Her retreat from overseeing the engagement at the keep had been close to noon. Now it was near twilight when she struc
k recklessly into the ground-matting vines and saw before her a rise of trees which gave a daunting impression of gloom rather than promise of any shelter. Liara paused once on her steady plodding, which followed a zigzag pattern to allow her the use of any place where the vines thinned somewhat, to send a stone from her carefully selected collection at a commotion among the leaves. To her it seemed that some hidden creature was taking flight and hunger ruled her enough to try to make sure of some catch.
There was a shrill keening and the vine leaves were torn hither and thither as she caught glimpses of a small body and dared to throw again. When the struggle subsided, she advanced to find a bird—large as the fowls at the farmsteads, its fluffed feathers shading into the green of the leaves themselves.
Picking it up by its broad feet, Liara pushed through the remainder of the vines to the first fringe of the wood. Only there, well shadowed by the trees, did the girl stop to examine her kill. Praise be to Uncle Volorian, she nearly said aloud. She had been armored long since to the bloody ways of feeding the hounds and certainly her own needs were as important as theirs. More and more she was breaking through the shell of an Alizondern female.
Now as she grubbed in the leaf mold under the tree, which kept off most of the rain, she looked back at her existence in Krevanel as another life. As she uncovered a stone or two, embedded them in her mold hollow and then searched around for small pieces of brush or half-rotted tree branches, she wondered whether, given the chance (and the assurance of course that her littermate was not waiting on the other side to bring her down), she would willingly pass again through that postern gate in the depths of Lormt.
The bird was cleaned and plucked. She had her small fire after several snaps of the lighter, and pieces of meat impaled on some straight sticks over the flames, which sizzled as the fat began to burn into greasy drops and encourage high flames.