The Stone Arrow

by Richard Herley

  Close by the wall of the barracks, they came out of the gate and into the stalls and stands of the fair. He looked over his shoulder. Life was returning to Segle’s face.

  “This way,” he said, taking her behind the fowler’s stand, round it in a loop, under an awning where cooked venison was being sold, through a narrow gap between two tables piled high with the dead plumage of mallard and quail and snipe, and, coming out of the fair, he led her downhill, due south, past the throng of people round the beacon fire, following the road to the mines where many people were passing back and forth. The crowds grew thinner; beyond the fires there was darkness. The moon, a perfect circle, hung in the glare over the fort.

  With Segle’s warm hand in his own, Tagart left the road and started across rough ground, scrambling down the slope of the settlement fields. They were trampling the crops. Vaguely the huts and houses passed them in the moonlight. The slope steepened and they were among hawthorn scrub. Twice Segle slipped and fell; twice Tagart pulled her to her feet and drew her on, putting distance between them and the summit. They reached a level on the hillside and Tagart halted on an empty path, unfamiliar to him, that ran to left and right, with more scrub leading down on its farther side, towards the marshes and the coast.

  He glanced uphill at the Trundle. He saw the slaves’ quarters illuminated by the firelight of the beacon, and he saw the palisade and ramparts, the framework of the guard towers, black and linear against the smoke and an orange sky. He saw the loose awnings and canopies of the fair, the people and animals, the cattle in pens; he heard their voices and the music, and above them he heard the hounds give tongue and the shouts of their handlers as the teams came straining through the south-west gate.

  Even as Tagart pulled Segle across the path he heard the shouts become angry and the hounds’ voices become yelps as they tangled their leashes with the stalls, tipping over tables of venison and game, their muzzles confused and over-busy with the strong scents of quail and snipe and mallard. The pack was already broken in purpose, not fifty yards from the gate, the hounds running against their collars, eager to find the trace: the handlers dragged them to, and held for them again the bedding from Segle’s quarters and the bottle of rosewater given by Blean. But still the course through the stalls and crowds puzzled them and Tagart heard more yelps.

  The delay gave him no heart. He knew that dogs trained to hunt human beings were of a special kind. They would not be among the stalls for long.

  “You must run with me,” he told Segle. “When I am not carrying you, do as I do. Plant your feet in mine. We’re going into the Rifes.”

  3

  Between Valdoe and the sea lay three miles of unroaded waste: reed-marsh and lagoon, wet thicket and underwood, acre after acre where the drainage of the hills merged with the wash of surf and the sluggish leak under an unstable beach. At night it was a dangerous place, a wilderness of water sounds, of sudden deep channels and rotten islands, and beyond them sparkled moonlight on ripples and the mace-swamps, and the open streams that twisted and turned and became choked and lost among shattered willows and decaying leaves. Where the rivers grew brackish the reedbeds began. For nearly two miles they stretched towards the coast, giving way at last within hearing of the beach, becoming a muddy creek and a line of saltings. After that, there was only shingle: pebbles, foreshore, stinking weed, breaking froth, and the open sea.

  Less than a mile ahead of their pursuers, two figures waded the last of the freshwater marsh and appeared in the moonlight by the beginnings of the reeds. Tagart had used all his knowledge to slow the dogs, and Segle, who knew wet ground better than he, had guided them through the worst of the willow swamps and osier beds; but from the hounds’ voices they could tell that the gap was closing quickly, perhaps too quickly, and they knew that if they misjudged and blundered in the reeds they would stand no chance. By now they were both naked, covered in mud, their limbs bleeding and torn from brambles and broken branches. For some of the way Tagart carried Segle. Times beyond count he had fallen; they had both fallen; or sunk to their thighs in ooze and struggled clear.

  There were three dog-handlers. The break handler controlled the leading team, and the two brace handlers came behind. They were soldiers, experienced men who had served on slaving trips, both from the Trundle and abroad. Each lived with and looked after four hounds: big, heavy animals chosen for their endurance and strength, trained to obedience.

  The dogs knew the marshes. They knew the sounds of splashing, of breaking wood, and the sound of breeze in the reed stems. They knew the bird-cries, and the smell of eels. By their breed and training they could taste scent as it lingered on the surface of the water, or in the filling footprints across an oily mud-bank. A trail which had long since scattered among the spikes and fluffy heads of the reed-mace could, with a few stray molecules, be regained and held and followed with renewed baying and hauling at the leashes.

  Behind the handlers came four ordinary soldiers, cursing the way of the scent, south through the scrub and towards the swamps. They had been held up for a long time among the stalls of the fair: the dogs had lost the scent completely, not once, but six or seven times. At last they had found it again, just off the road, in the barley field.

  They passed the deserted boundary line and followed the trace across a scrubby heath which dipped in slow stages to the lower road from Eartham. On the other side the heath became one with a dense stand of birch and oak, mingled with elms where the trees bordered the Apuldram road.

  The dogs massed here in the moonlight, their noses close to the ground. The line of scent had been drawn beside the road for a hundred paces. Halfway along it, where Segle had climbed on Tagart’s back, the trace of rosewater abruptly stopped. But the hounds had already owned Tagart’s personal odour: the vegetation by the road held it strongly and they followed without difficulty. The scent crossed the road, recrossed it, wandering and broken among the foul stench of the wayside hemlock, and turned back under the elms and through a broad bed of nettles that stung sensitive muzzles and eyes and flews. From the stamens of the male flowers, powdery pollen got in the dogs’ noses; the leaves and the ground smelled like dry hemp. The leading hound, a big black bitch, turned in bewilderment with her tongue held low. The scent had died. The other dogs came up. One sneezed; another whimpered. The brace teams spread through the nettle-bed, searching from side to side.

  “Where’s it? Where’s it? Where’s it?”

  The handlers spoke to the dogs, and to each other.

  “Where’s it, girl? Where’s the line?”

  The black hound sniffed at a particle, a hint, her wet tongue sliding at something in the air … roses; not roses … rose-petals. She drew in air again, across damp membranes, but no fresh nerves fired: she had used up all the scent.

  “Back it on! Back it on! Turn it!” the break handler shouted, anticipating by moments the black hound’s own conclusion: that the prey had doubled back.

  “Back it on! Back it on!”

  They raced back to the roadside and the stink of hemlock. The hounds ran about, loose on their leads. Within moments they had regained the taste of Tagart’s musk. And, ten yards on, at the place where Segle had climbed down, it was rejoined by rosewater.

  The trail led due south. In full cry the hounds ran straight through the trees and after it.

  They were checked by the first water of the marshes, at a stagnant ditch, a natural drain rank with willowherb and flags. To cross it in the easy wake of the scent they were awaiting the handlers’ word – the dogs never went leashed where the handlers could not follow. The black bitch whined impatiently as the leading handler probed the ditch with his staff.

  It was safe, waist-deep, and the dogs thrashed across. The water stank; smelly mud rose to the surface. The quarry had smeared themselves, to no avail. Their scent, barely disguised, appeared strong and sure on the other bank.

  The soldiers crossed the ditch and dragged themselves clear.

  They were in the
marshes now. It was time to change the mode of chase. There were firm places for dogs that would not take human feet, short cuts made obvious by the wanderings of the scent.

  The hounds yelped and strained in excited frenzy to be free. Fingers worked at straps and buckles, and twelve collars were unleashed.

  Before them reached wet woodlands of sallow and willow, with open ground among the islands of trees and fallen trunks.

  Mud-spattered, swearing and sweating, the men ran behind, skirting ditches the dogs had crossed, negotiating streams the dogs had leapt. With every yard the trail grew stronger, newer, fresher. As the dogs sensed it the pack’s stride lengthened and its speed increased.

  Just ahead of the black bitch the leading runner squealed. In the moonlight and darkness it made a clumsy, tearing somersault and slid limp-backed into the leaves. It had run onto a broken stake, hastily angled and thrust at dog’s-head height into the ground.

  The pack faltered. The black bitch smelled suddenly opened flesh and heard the handler’s rage.

  “Leave him, girl! Leave him! Go to!”

  She turned and the dogs ran on, less one, the stream of rosewater growing. Together in a scramble they entered and swam a black pool; on its far bank they trod on thorns and tasted Tagart’s taint. Snarling, growling, worrying what they had found, tearing it to pieces, they dragged something free, the strongest scent yet, rammed into the space below a rotten log.

  The handlers came up.

  It was Blean’s cape, the one that Segle had worn.

  “What do you think?”

  “They’re slowing. They must be tired.”

  “We’re nearly on them now.”

  The hounds whimpered and panted. Some shook fur and made spray.

  “Go to! Go to! In the water! Go to!”

  Another black pool; a tangle of willow branches and old trees lying drowned and quietly rotting in the water with their limbs submerged. The trace wandered at its edge, and moved uncertainly, then went in. The quarry, both together, had swum the pool, so recently that the trace lingered in the air as well as on the film, destroyed by the hounds as they plunged and splashed, whining with frustration: for in deep water the scent went under, below the rise of a floating trunk, where the dogs could not follow. Wet pads and claws, legs not meant for climbing, scrabbled at rotten willow bark. The dogs found no purchase and fell back, unable to climb over the obstacle, unable to swim under. The brace hounds paddled to the sides, exploring the tangle of old branches and withered leaves, looking for a way through. It was no use.

  “Turn it! Turn it! Turn it!”

  “Come out and turn it!”

  Reluctantly, paddling, the hounds came out, while the handlers struggled to catch up and tried to find a route which circled the maze of streams and pools, to get to the other side of the floating trunks, to search among the osiers and willows for the line of scent that somewhere had to resume its course.

  * * *

  Pushing the reeds down flat, using the stems and leaves to help support their weight, Segle led Tagart first in one direction and then another, pushing southward in a passage of rustling and crushing and sucking. She was carrying a makeshift pole, a sallow branch two yards long. By the feel under her feet, by the subtle changes in the rate at which the mud threatened to give in, Segle sensed her way along the seams of older and firmer ground: a skill she had been taught in the tribe, demanding speed, nerve, and experience. To stop once, to hesitate, would allow the mud to open and swallow them up.

  Above the noise of their progress, Tagart tried to listen, to ascertain how long the pursuit had been delayed at the pool.

  It came again, the terrifying music of the hounds. They had already crossed the pool and regained the scent.

  In one hand Tagart was carrying a pole like Segle’s. In the other he was carrying the bundle of his clothes – leggings and a jacket. Before entering the reeds he had taken them off. When Segle gave the word he was to drop them, leave them for the dogs to find: because once the dogs had stopped in their course to investigate, the handlers would do the same.

  “Now!” Segle called out.

  Tagart let the clothes fall.

  In the brief freedom since leaving the fort, Segle had already recovered herself. From incredulity that Tagart had come back from the dead, and wonder that he had managed to overpower Blean, Segle had marshalled her feelings and now it was she who was guiding Tagart, using her knowledge of the reeds to help them both. And in the few words and gestures they had exchanged, he knew that he was no longer alone; his empty days were over.

  Suddenly there was no support for his feet and Tagart was sliding into the mud, slime rising past his calves, his knees, his thighs, towards his waist. Somehow he had lost his grip on the pole. Instinctively he threw his arms out and tried to grab handfuls of reeds. Segle heard his shout and turned to look. Without seeming to pause, she turned her pole horizontally and allowed herself to fall, spreading her arms and legs to distribute her weight.

  “Lean back! Lean back and keep still! Struggling gets you in deeper!”

  Tagart felt the mud rising over his waist. The reeds towered above him, the seed-heads pendulous and heavy, obscuring the bright circle of the moon. In the clear space overhead, the night sky was filled with stars. Before him was utter blackness; on the mud, bluish glints.

  Segle, using the pole for support, crawled towards him. “Lean back! Lean back!”

  He could hear the hounds coming closer. By the change in their voices he thought they were entering the reeds.

  “Lean back!”

  Tagart tried to do as she had said. The fierce suction below fought him, dragging on his legs, refusing to let go. He was going down.

  “Lean back!”

  Contrary to its every instinct, he forced his body to respond. He forced it to yield, offering more of itself to the mud; and as he leaned back he found his feet rising and became aware that he was no longer sinking so fast.

  “Spread your arms and pull on the reeds. Let the mud float you like water. Don’t struggle against it, let it help you.”

  With agonizing slowness Tagart tried to obey, to drag himself backwards and out of the mud. But now he felt his head sinking into the slime. He heard the dogs’ voices become dull and faint as it filled his ears, its coldness rising up his face. Despite himself he knew that he was near to panic; he knew that once he felt the mud closing over his nose and mouth he would thrash and flounder and be unable to stop himself from going down, on his back, with no hope of getting out.

  The dogs were coming. He was trapped here, and they were coming.

  He spoke, and his voice sounded strange to him; he heard the words filling his head.

  “Leave me here. I can’t move. Leave me here.”

  Not a word of Segle’s reply reached him.

  * * *

  The soldiers splashed and waded knee-deep through the last open channel before the reeds. From the osiers and sallows each had taken a pole.

  The brace handlers called their dogs in and directed them after the break team, into the corridor of reeds broken down by the prey. There was no longer any need of scent. The trackers could see where the quarry had gone.

  One of the soldiers was carrying a bundle of thin rope; he took it from his shoulder and the end passed along the line, linking the men together. If one went down in the mud, the others should be able to pull him up.

  “Go to! In the reeds, girl! Go to!”

  The black bitch, her feet sinking in the ooze, her tongue hungry for confirmation of the wide trace shown by mere eyesight, led the hounds into the forest of stems and along the zigzag of reed-swath made only minutes before.

  * * *

  Below his head, Tagart felt a gentle pressure. Segle was lifting him so that he could breathe.

  His fingers found something hard and relatively unyielding, out of place in the sea of slime and reeds. It was his sallow pole. Segle had found it and put it within his grasp.

  Using the supp
ort of the pole, he began to win. Slowly, he freed more and more of himself from the mud. Beside him he was aware of Segle’s help, her support, lifting first his arm, trying to raise his body, his legs; and then all at once the mud had relinquished him and he was able to move.

  Segle was speaking, her words unable to penetrate his deadened hearing. He pressed his fingers to his head and cleared some of the mud from his ears. At once he heard the hounds, three hundred paces away, less, drawing nearer through the reeds, and he heard the soldiers’ shouts.

  “Try to stand on the pole. Try to stand up.”

  Segle had risen to her feet, balancing on the precarious support of her own pole as it sank deeper into the mud. She extended a hand. With a slippery grip Tagart took it and he too was rising. His feet found the pole, ankle-deep in slime.

  “Follow me!”

  They had made a mess of the reeds and mud where Tagart had foundered, churning the mire into a black and watery bog. But Segle managed to pass it, and Tagart, covered in mud, placed his feet exactly where hers had been and once again was running through the reeds.

  Almost as the fresh reeds opened for them, the dogs ran down the reek of Tagart’s clothes.

  The break handler shouted. “Go to! Leave it!”

  “Go to!”

  “Leave it! Go to!”

  But in their excitement few of the hounds heard. Too late he shouted again; too late the other handlers shouted. Only the black bitch had heeded and gone through. The others, growling, gnarring, tussled with bared teeth for the jacket and leggings; and as they fought for them their feet began to sink deeper and deeper.

  “Go to! Go to, you bastards!”

  “Don’t let them stop!”

  “Go to! Go to! Go to! Go to!”

  The break handler tried to change direction, to avoid the pack of dogs in his way. With his pole held high, unthinking, he faltered, stumbled, and in the softest mud at once sank to his waist. The water soaked his jacket, his chest, covered his chin. He sensed the suction beneath him, all around him. The mud was almost a living creature. And as the break handler tasted swamp he knew it wanted him.