Well, they were in error. This land was hers. She felt this as fiercely as another would regard a beloved child. Somehow, it had become a part of her long ago and she could not bear to see it torn asunder by warring lords, reduced to a ragged memory of the Kingdom it had been. And to prove that she so believed, she wore the Rings, did she not?
"Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan," she said in a whisper as she descended the stair.
"Let wisdom come to me in this hour, for I need that which I can lean upon!"
Harous—not only must he be considered, but also another urgent question. The
Sea-Rovers were very near their goal. Likely they were making for the deserted
Ash-enkeep on the coast. Still strong of tower and wall, and with all the sea to serve them, that place was one from which they could well be an ever- enlarging thorn in the breast of the uneasy country. So much, so much to be done and so few of those she could depend upon. Once more she damned Harous for the meddler he was.
Then she forced from her mind the many ominous questions as she passed from the inconspicuous tower door into the corridor, to seek Boroth once again and be sure of how he fared.
Fourteen
Obern debated long with himself whether or not to re-port these strange occurrences to Snolli. A man, clad first in mist and then in mail? Very odd. And what had been his errand in the Bog that it infuriated so many of its inhabitants, and where had he and his guard ridden off to?
The temptation was strong to follow now. The mail-clad man had had three companions; so did he. They wore armor and his men did not, but surely a
Sea-Rover, even lightly clad, was the equal of any of the dwellers in this new land, be they ever so well-armored. If one of them could enter the Bog and emerge unscathed—howbeit with a few spears thrown after him—then four Sea-Rovers could do the same, and more.
"Let's follow," Iaobim said. "We came scouting, did we not?"
The other two men nodded, grinning. "That we did, sir," Haldin said.
"Let us go where the man of mystery showed the way.
The Bog-people will go away presently, and then we can follow our unwitting guide's footsteps. Who knows what we'll find once we're across the river?" Roush put his hand on his dagger.
"Sounds like good adventure," Iaobim said.
"Should get to know our land," Haldin said.
"And the people in it," added Roush. "D'you suppose Bog-maidens are as ugly as their men?"
"One sure way to find out," Obern said. "But first we must inform my father."
The others would have protested, but he silenced them with a gesture. Yes, this was a matter for Snolli, and perhaps for all the chieftains under him. But he also decided to petition his father to be allowed to return, to lead an exploration party.
Reluctantly, his companions let go their ambition to head rashly into the Bog.
They waited until both the horsemen and the ones who followed them were well out of sight. Then the four men began making their way down the ridge and toward the ford in the river separating Ash- enhold—the land they were calling New Void, now the province of the Sea-Rovers—and the mysteries of the Bog.
Upon his return, Obern discovered that his lady, Neave, had fallen ill, no doubt as a result of the hardships of the voyage. The boy, however, seemed to be thriving. He could not stay, but left Neave in her maid's keeping; he was needed elsewhere, and judging from the tenor of the summons, on more important business than men clad in mist.
After the formal custom when discussing a matter affecting the whole of the kin clan, High Chief Snolli had summoned all the heads of households to a conference. In battle, his orders might be supreme, but in decisions as sweeping or perilous as this one might be, he needed to consider the corporate will of his people.
The keep that they had claimed as their own was both spacious and beautiful, with its symmetry of towers and strong gatehouses. Swans still swam in the moat.
However, the building lacked furnishings; they must have been looted long ago.
So those in attendance were seated on the floor in a half circle, facing their lord. Only Snolli occupied a chair, one he had brought with him on their flight.
He held the speaking-rod for all to see.
"There is this," he said, using the formal tone and manner of one choosing his words carefully. "We are not the only ones of our people who lived past the fighting. Though we thought all was lost, the Orceagle is newly arrived at New
Void. It followed our wake and is even now tied up at the gate, being small enough to navigate the moat. On their way, they met a Trader whose ship was newly out of Rothport. He had news of what passes now with these Rendel lords.
It is no secret that King Boroth is ailing and not far from death. His Queen holds the land together, but for how long is a matter for wagers. The Prince is a nothing, and it is said that he and his mother are no great friends. There are several strong lordships, and over the past few years, they have been increasing their power and the number of their house armsmen."
He got up and began to pace back and forth as he spoke. "It's clear to see that these lords will be at each others' throats the minute the King draws his last breath. It is also said that the Queen has strange powers and that these alone now keep his spirit in his body.
"So far, none of the neighboring Rendel lords have appeared to notice that we have taken what was abandoned and now abide here. Nevertheless, it is in our best interests to have our new land lawfully. Our scouts have ridden to the old boundaries of this hold, and only once has there been a coming of those of the
Kingdom—not aimed at us, it would seem, but at the Bog." He nodded at Obern, who nodded in return, rose, and took the speaking-rod. Then he told the assembly of what he and his men had seen.
When he had finished, he handed back the speaking-rod to his father and sat down again amidst murmurs of speculation, quickly stilled as Snolli looked at each of the men in turn. "It is plain that we cannot hope to escape their notice forever. For our own sake, we must go to them, make an alliance. We cannot afford to wait for them to realize that we are here and intend to stay. Then there is this—we may be put to the Queen's purpose rather than our own. She may attempt to gather these lords to her service, if only temporarily, by pointing them at us—an invader Foulness, or so they will claim. The Sea-Rovers are not universally liked."
There was a murmur of laughter at that. Snolli smiled also, and then took up his thought again.
"No one has, to our knowledge at least, tried to make peace with those of the
Bog or to gather allies there. It might be well for us to make a pact with the
Bog-men. This lord who invaded the land was within their territory, and seemed to be driven out unharmed. What he did there, or what his errand was, who knows?
But that he had a strange protection against the dangers of that country was plainly seen by Obern, as he told you.
"Our greatest need is closer to hand. For the sake of the future, we must put our new land to our use, and not risk being driven out again. Cattle are wild here, perhaps left to roam when this keep fell. Go outside the walls and you will see the remains of fields waiting for the sowing, and that should be done soon. We are farther south than we have ever lived before, so the growing time may be lengthened. Even if it is, we must think of plowing as well as the capture of the straying beasts."
He paused, and it was Kasai, the Spirit Drummer, who spoke then. "Why is it that this land lay fallow for so long?" he inquired as if of them all. "We have a good harbor—the Traders have made use of it during the past years. There are no survivors of those who dwelt here, and yet the boundaries appear to wall out neighbors. This is something that it might be well to investigate."
Snolli nodded. "You have the Sight, Kasai. What has that made plain to you?"
The small man seemed to hunch together. He didn't need the speaking- rod to make his words come easily. His hands slipped over the skin surface of the drum that was ever with him, bu
t they did not touch to bring forth sound.
"This is a place of shadows," he said. "Dark shadows. Just as we sensed the evil of the Lizard-riders, so some like taint holds here…"
Snolli leaned forward, frowning, his hand going to his sword hilt. "The evil ones have been here?" Those seated on the floor before him shifted in their places, several looking over their shoulders as if expecting to see threatening shadows.
Kasai shook his head. "Not the Lizard-riders, no. We know the stink of them too well, and all would have sensed it when we came ashore. But this much is certain. There was a wrong done here, such a wrong as has made those of this land desert it."
Though he was but his father's backshield and had already fulfilled his duty at the assembly, Obern could not stop his own question from being voiced. "Can you draw out this wrong from the past and make it clear to us, so that we know what we face? And perhaps banish it? Does the Sight allow that?"
His father did not frown at him in rebuke. Therefore, Obern thought, Snolli must harbor a like thought.
"No one can measure the depth or the width of the Sight," the drummer replied.
"As yet, what I sense is a shadow. I can not even say whether it will engulf us or holds only for those of this land and blood. There is this, though." He straightened a trifle, "there is Power in the Bog. That, too, I can feel. It is not turned to harry us, not yet. However, we must remember this lord who went into the Bog with strange body protection and then returned, and most of all, we must ask how the weapons of those who hunted him out failed to bring him down."
Snolli nodded. "This is a fishnet that is tangled near past all our smoothing."
He began to tick off points on his fingers. "Our concerns here in our new home—acceptance, food, and shelter. The borders to be watched against the coming of some lord who has just noticed what we have acquired. The Bog. If so much
Power does lie within, perhaps this unknown that Obern saw went to treat with it and add it to some alliance. We cannot know. For the present, we can only scout and make sure that nothing comes upon us from either the east or the north."
A gray-haired man, Baland, under whose management their source of supplies had been centered for years, got up from his place, took the speaking-rod, and began to speak. "Chieftain, we have six oxen taken by one of our hunting parties. They are ready for the yoke, though they are old. We can begin to break ground and should do it now. Let the herdsman and drivers go armed, and we also shall have our scouts on duty. We hungered much on our voyage, and our women and children suffered greatly. I say let us delay no longer in this matter lest we know the sharp pinch of belly when the cold season comes. This is rich land; it was well-worked in the past and we can make it open for seed again."
Snolli took the rod that Baland handed him and looked from face to face. "Is such the will of all here and now?" he asked.
One hand after another went up, palm outward, in assent.
"So be it!" With those words, Snolli recognized what would now be their accepted choice, the details of which would be worked out in turn with the separate deputies gathered here.
Most of that company now withdrew. Obern lingered, as was his right as Snolli's son, and listened to the reports of those who remained to offer their suggestions as to what was needed and when. He listened, but his thoughts drifted elsewhere, and he was remembering in detail that crossing of the
Outlander at the Bog-river ford, his armor appearing to be of mist alone.
How had that peculiar armor been summoned? It was no defense Obern had known before, and yet the High Lords of his land were constant in their search for new weapons and more-effective defenses. Had Snolli's suggestion been correct? Had that lord entered the Bog to make contact with someone—or something—within those forbidden ways?
Any notion that they themselves would dare to invade the depths of the water-soaked land would be utter folly until they knew something more of what had to be faced there. That would mean scouts. And that, Obern determined, meant him.
He summoned to his mind's eye what he had so far seen of the eastward stretch of their new land. Still, his thoughts kept straying to the west, and he surrendered to his curiosity. The cliffs that walled the Bog from the sea, yet allowed its waters to stain the outer waves, offered no way that even a light skiff could be taken through one of the cave entrances.
There was no sea route in. Therefore, if one did not enter from below, how would he know what lay above? Their old homeland had once, as they believed, also been well guarded by heights. He himself had been on scout in the vicinity of the two passes that only days later were seized after a desperate battle with the
Lizard-riders. It was mere chance that had kept him out of that fight, but he had listened to the tales the survivors brought back. The Lizard-riders' monstrous mounts had shown raw ferocity in an ugly tide that could not be stemmed. They had climbed the keep walls relentlessly, and nothing seemed capable of holding them back.
Across the border river, the Bog cliffs began. So here also there might be a chance to work one's way up from these lower heights, which the keep held still impervious, to a ridge from which something of their neighbors could be seen.
He was so deep in his inner speculation that he was unaware that the last of those conferring with his father had gone until Snolli turned in his direction.
"… is it not so?" His father's voice was raised with a sharp abruptness, which brought Obern alert, aware that Snolli was watching him with a suggestion of a frown on his face.
"Sir?" Obern knew he was revealing his lack of interest in the scene just past.
"Have your duties rested so hard upon you that you have to doze off in my presence?"
"I was thinking, sir," he said.
"And what are your so weighty thoughts?" There was certainly irritation in
Snolli's question.
"The cliffs, sir," Obern said. It could be that any suggestion of what had caught his attention might indeed be a reckless and worthless one. Yet he must explain, as was the duty of any summoned to conference. "Fritji said something that put my mind to thinking about where to send someone to scout out the lay of the Bog-land."
Swiftly he outlined the idea of a search along the cliffs. "With the long- see glass, perhaps. Much can certainly be sighted with that." Now that he was voicing it, Snolli's permission for the prospect seemed more attainable. His enthusiasm dimmed when his father made no immediate answer.
Obern was tempted to add to his suggestion but was well aware that Snolli, as a true warlord of great experience, might consider the ills of such an expedition greater than any gains.
At last, Snolli spoke. "We shall think on this."
Obern felt the trickle of excitement. If Snolli would seriously consider such an action, then surely—He set an instant guard on his tongue. Though he had thought to petition his father to be allowed to volunteer as part of this dangerous scouting expedition, this might doom him to having no part in it at all. It could well be that the warlord might think it better the duty of one of his second chiefs.
His father got to his feet and went to the window, which looked to the west.
From his belt he took the long-see glass and pointed it toward where the Bog cliffs gave way to the lower cliffs on which the hold was rooted. Obern hesitated for a moment and then came up behind Snolli. Perhaps his father would allow him to. use that spying tool himself; perhaps with it, he could indeed see some way of traveling along the loftier barrier.
"It will be thought upon," his father said without turning. "Go and summon Kasai now."
Frustrated, Obern went in search of the Spirit Drummer, but he was aware that
Snolli was once more inspecting the far distances with his precious instrument.
Ashen, standing in the mouth of the passage with the opening behind her, faced what seemed to be complete darkness. There was no glow ahead, no matter how faint, to suggest that some of the strange illumination-rods had been set there.
&
nbsp; As she had ducked through the doorway, she had seen Weyse disappear down the corridor with a suggestion of confidence. The creature appeared to know well what lay ahead. Ashen shifted her pack a little and resolutely stepped into the dark hollow of the hallway.
Here the air felt dead, and there were odors that the girl identified as having to do with some of those stagnant waters that all tried to avoid. She reached out to touch the wall on her right and quickly drew back again. It had been like pushing her finger into a blot of slime.
From ahead there came a trilling call. Ashen quickened her pace at that summons.
She took care also, for she was apprehensive that the slime curtain on the wall might have spread to the flooring underfoot.
However much she loathed the feel of what she must touch, she once more reached for the wall and continued to run her hand along it, hoping that touch might take the place of sight and she could discern any change in the passage.