My smithy! Suddenly a great longing for it flooded over Elof, an overwhelming homesickness. For squalid as it was, it was the only home he had made himself, and he missed the security and peace he had found there, even the monotony that went with it. His precious tools still hung there, if they had not been stolen. Why had it all been wrested away from him? Why should he not simply make his way back there, do what he could, serve in his way? These duergar creatures—how human could they be, dwelling beneath the mountains? What did they live on? They had looked human enough, in their way—but strong and dangerous also, having little in common with ordinary human beings. Even the Mastersmith had feared them, till he had the sword. Seeking them out—a mad idea, forced on him like all the rest… He tossed and turned in a fit of resentment, hearing the pine needles whisper vague secrets beneath him. Why? And by whom? What power, what arrogance? He ground his teeth at the memory of that mocking smile, and glared at Kermorvan. In the morning that one would tell what he knew of Raven, if it had to be wrung out of him; Elof had to content himself with that.
He did drowse at last, lulled by the rush of the wind in the pines overhead and their heavy fragrance, undisturbed by the owls that came to perch on them and the scurrying of small things among the pine needles. He woke only once, with a full moon in his face, and peeped out between the branches to see wide white wings flash across its disc, once, and vanish. He sank back into sleep, and dreamed of Kara.
Next day, as they marched down out of the woods and out onto heathlands, he found Kermorvan still strangely unwilling to talk outright about the dark visitor. "Somebody once told you!"
"I was not under his eye, then!"
"And I am? Then so are you, as long as we're together. I'd better know something of him for my own protection, hadn't I?"
"Protection?" Kermorvan sounded puzzled. "Raven is not evil. Or, I should say, he who is called the Raven, for it is only a given name; I have heard many others-Wanderer, Hooded Man, Father of Storm, Lord of the Battlefield. I know not which, if any, is truly his own. Such a power is not so easily confined within a single name."
"A power? A lord of the Ice?"
"Did I not say there were others? Powers that defend life as the Ice seeks to destroy it? Though which of the two is stronger, or whether they are equal, or whether both serve a greater power yet, no one can agree. But such powers there are, and my people have long revered them— too long, perhaps, for they have faded into half-truth and legend, figures on walls and banners, half-remembered songs, no more. Saithana, if truly she exists, may be one. But Raven certainly is! For know, smith, that you shod the steed of a great power that night. If you like, a god!"
"He said as much!" Elof gasped. "But then… if this is as you say, and it makes my head whirl worse than the wine, he did indeed bring me to meet you… for what purpose?"
Kermorvan shrugged. "Who can say? But purpose there was, and we are working it out with every stride we take. Do you see now why I have not cared to think too heavily about this? Every choice I make, every decision, affects our cause in many subtle ways. And not necessarily for the best! The Raven is not evil, but he does not take sides, they say. He is the defender of life, in all its forms, and human life most of all. He is, or was once, a great sign among us, but I have also heard that he is yet respected, at least, by many of the Ekwesh." He walked on a long way, letting Elof digest that. "And even if he does favor our cause, he may not give the help we would wish. For his is an enemy to sluggish stagnation, it is said, and favors change and growth even at the cost of strife. He will not allow men to become dependent on him, save perhaps to balance the enmity of the Ice. So he will stir their affairs about in strange and willful ways, in the guise of a trickster— as you have found!"
At length Elof said, "Now I come to understand much, and a wider world opens before me. But it is a confused one, and even more dangerous than I had thought it—not merely full of ordinary and unconnected dangers, but a very battleground of forces! Small wonder the Mastersmith denied me such knowledge, he who serves the Ice, seeking to turn me down its paths for his own purposes. But I remember nothing of such lore even from my far childhood in Asenby."
"Aye, such things came to be little thought of there, as the high wisdom of old slipped away and the people's concerns turned more to the harvests of soil and sea. Perhaps this secretive smithcraft of yours helped that dwindling, hoarding knowledge as its wealth, away from the common run of folk. That was one reason I never considered it more than a mere superstition, when first I met it. Now…" He gestured helplessly. "A wider world has opened to me also, and every bit as confusing. I held the view of most educated men—among my people, that is—believing the powers were something remote and impersonal, guiding our affairs from afar. I held tales of their appearance in human form parables at best, and at worst lies to the credulous. How after all could some such airy being don a human frame, like a cloak?"
"He seemed solid enough to me, that Raven!" said Elof sourly. "And that damned great beast he rode! Or was everything illusion?"
"Perhaps not," mused Kermorvan. "I always found tales of the powers riding from place to place, or indulging in less dignified behavior, absurd or blasphemous. But I remember reading one philosopher who purported to explain them by holding that the powers assumed human form the better to understand us and influence us—sharing the ordinary joys and pains, strengths and hindrances of our bodies, and cloaking much of their awe and might. Another held that they could only affect this material world directly by taking some solid form in it, and that that form was more or less fixed, reflecting their absolute natures. You may guess I thought this feeble stuff then. But now…" He shrugged eloquently. "I am baffled. And that is not something I will ever readily admit."
"But the horse rode faster than any normal horse might," said Elof thoughtfully. "Or so it seemed…"
And so they made their way up through the wild country, talking and disputing, marveling at each other's wholly different brand of learning. At day's end they often found it had lightened their road, speeding them further on than they expected. In that first day they neared the margins of the Debatable Lands, and at the next day's dawning the High roads of the coast were already in sight.
"I have a little money," said Kermorvan thoughtfully. "Enough, maybe, for a couple of horses, when we come to somewhere that will sell them."
"Might it not be better kept for food?" asked Elof.
"No, I think not. Speed will help us, at least for a time. If pressed, we can always sell the horses again. Or eat them," he added thoughtfully. Elof grimaced.
But it was long before they found anywhere to buy food or horses, for the first small town they came to along the roads lay in ruins, and the next also, and the next. They might perhaps have found some stored food the fire had missed, but neither man could bring himself to search. It had all happened some months since, but the stench of fire and decay hung over them yet, and unburied skulls still grinned among the fireweed in the blackened fields. These towns had lain between the roads and the sea; the next, Randeby, was inland, and built around a high bluff, and it stood, after a fashion, having driven off a heavy attack with loss. But there the fugitives from the other towns had come, eating up the already scant supplies. Famine and pestilence hung over its walls, and gaunt-cheeked men and women encamped at its gates swooped down on the travelers with savage shouts the moment they were seen. Kermorvan had to fell three to drive them off, and for all the rest of that day he was silent. "Human wolves!" he said at last. "Poor creatures! For the last small coin in our purses, or crust in our satchels."
"Or even the flesh on our bones," said Elof dourly. "So I read their taunts. Thus the Ekwesh drag us down to their level."
"And yet there is food all around them, for the hunting. But I will not risk staying to teach them the skill." He gave a wry laugh. "The Raven may have been kinder than you knew. There will be little enough traffic moving on the roads this year, even inland, if this is the rule."<
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Elof nodded. "I might have starved even as they do. I wish I could help them!"
"Rid them of the Ekwesh, then. For without that all lesser help is meaningless."
They slept in trees that night, and after, to put off any pursuers. But the day after that, as the road curved well away from the sea, they came to Tensborg, another and much larger town that had not been attacked or overwhelmed by fugitives, and found that though there was little food to spare there were horses in plenty, kept for the Sothran traders who had not yet come this year. They bought two decent mounts at small cost, and thereafter made good time northward. For a month they rode up the High roads along the coast, seeing the northern countryside alter gradually around them. As the roads turned inland, skirting a hilly region, they entered a changing woodland. The high redwoods and bristlecone pines became fewer; hemlocks, oaks, firs and spruces took their places, and the smaller dawn redwoods. The undergrowth, too, grew thinner; the high sword ferns disappeared, the anemones and rose rhododendrons, with their brilliant blooms, became gradually smaller and paler and finally all but vanished. But as the roads neared the sea once more, the woodlands themselves vanished among low hills topped with scrubby grass, and in the dunes only verbena and sea lavender showed bright. It was around the sea's margin that they saw yet more of the havoc the Ekwesh wrought among the little towns. "Always by the sea!" said Kermorvan coldly. "For the Ekwesh are not great horsemen, and have not mastered the act of fighting on horseback—you need proper stirrups for that! So they bring no horses with them, and will not roam far from their ships lest they be cut off."
Elof looked to the east, where rolling hills rich with grass and little patches of woodland stretched away into the dim distance. This was the country he had grown up in; he could not be so very far south of Asenby here. Yet it felt not in the least like home… "So the inland towns are safe?"
"No! Though they think they are, here and in the south. When those barbarians meet no resistance they will surely move further and further from their ships, bring or capture horses—oh, I have tried to tell so many men that, traders and farmers and fat little burgesses. And where has it got me? They don't want to believe! The Ekwesh are another man's problem, never theirs."
"But if it is the Mastersmith who drives them on, then besting him—"
The swordsman shook his head. "It may save the situation for a while, but not forever. He merely seizes his advantage, exploiting what his masters have already prepared, long before you forged that blade. Without him the Ekwesh would simply go on as they have been doing, and sooner or later they would have struck at the south. Other, stronger forces drive their empire on, and whether it is in our or any man's hands to best then, I do not know."
At length they came to a region where high hills and deep inlets blocked the coast way, and the roads turned away inland. Here they were in much worse repair, and the going was slower; it was weeks more before the trav-elers reached the feet of the mountains, and high summer blazed down upon them. It was the best and safest time to venture into the mountains, but as they did not mean to go by the well-trodden roads, or stay within the usual passes, the horses would be no use. They sold them at a little town Elof remembered from his first wanderings as reasonably honest, and with the proceeds bought food. But Elof held back a few coins to treat with the town smith for metal and the use of the forge. He took two strong staves and shod them with metal spikes and heavy beaked heads so well crafted that the smith suspected a plan to discredit him, and had to be persuaded otherwise at the point of Elof's blade. "At least that master of mine gave me some skill in the mountains! Picks like these may save our lives on the high slopes."
Kermorvan cocked an eyebrow at the fuming smith. "Then let us put them to the test at once! There is no safe bed for us here now, in any case. The mountains must provide!"
They slept that night in a small wood as they often did, a league or so above the town. But just as the moon was sinking they were rudely awakened by a sharp scuffling at their roof of branches, and springing up they found themselves face to muzzle with a vast bear. It sprang back at their sudden yells, and they had time to draw their swords. Moaning in anger, it reared up on its hind legs, twice as tall as Kermorvan, and cuffed its huge paws at them. The swordsman grabbed his pack and drew out his mailcoat, trailing it like a net ready to tangle its claws. But seeing them stand their ground the bear ducked down with a gruff snort and went crashing off into the wood. Kermorvan shivered. "I thought we would be safe, as we have been till now. Most beasts will flee a sleeping man, or ignore him."
"Indeed," mused Elof. "The smaller bears may be savage on occasion, but the giant breed who winter in the caves rarely eat meat, even carrion. What made him so aggressive?"
"Bears were ever fickle in their ways," shrugged Kermorvan. "Well, let us rebuild our shelter, and take turns on watch. I will take first turn, till moonset."
Elof nodded, but was silent. It seemed strange to him, that attack, like the symptom of some hidden sickness in the woods. He rolled in his cloak, now cool and unwelcoming, and did his best to sleep. But all through the next days, as they climbed through the steep hillside forests, the image of illness kept coming back to him, in the blighted trees, the weird phosphorescent fungus growths on the dead stumps, the huge patches of poison ivy that seemed to spring up at every turn. Vines and parasites trailed rootlets round their necks, creeps caught their ankles, thorns snagged their clothes and pricked their skins. Things of small moment, perhaps, but they were matched by the behavior of the beasts. More than once the travelers had to leap back as bronzen snakes struck rattling at their legs instead of slithering to escape. Kermorvan, gazing up at a strange sound in a twilit tree, almost lost an eye to a great horned owl that swooped upon him and was only with difficulty thrashed away. In the heat of the noon, flies came droning down the slanting sunbeams and would not let them rest an instant; toward evening the bloodsuckers hung about them in a whining cloud. All usual enough in woodlands, but not in such intensity. It seemed to Elof that some change, subtle and sinister, was taking place in the woodlands he had once roamed through on the Mastersmith's expeditions. All too often the blood-freezing yell of haunting daggertooth would send them hurrying on with drawn swords.
"How many of the brutes can there be?" panted Kermorvan. "So many in this small area would surely strip it of game in a week! Or is one persistent animal hunting us?"
Elof shrugged. They slept in a tree that night, lashing themselves to the boughs with the morse-hide ropes they had brought from the ship. Elof lay awake long on his perch, though it was not too uncomfortable, staring up at the pale glimmer over the mountains, at the edge of the night. He thought of the pent-up power it reflected. Was the spreading sickness, the new hostility of the wood, yet another kind of reflection? A chill breeze crept through his cloak; he shivered, and looked away. But before he was wholly asleep he heard a soft pattering on the leaves over his head, and great round drops came trickling down onto his face. He groaned, but there was no risking a shelter on the ground now; he would have to suffer the rain where he was.
The lower woodlands were hard enough to endure, but as they neared the higher slopes worse was to come. They had long since exhausted the food they carried, and it was chiefly Kermorvan's skill at trapping that kept them alive; they could find little enough game to hunt. "I almost wish that daggertooth would come after us now!" muttered Elof, worrying at the flesh of a small shrew-thing. "We might see what his steaks taste like!"
"He could hardly be any tougher," agreed Kermorvan, thrusting his portion back over the little fire to cook further. Then he sprang to his feet, overturning the meat, stamped the flames to embers and whipped out his sword. "Hau yma!" he whispered. "What moves?"
Faintly Elof heard it at first, a low soft crackle, the sudden burst of a dead branch on the forest floor, bushes rustling as they were thrust aside. Something was moving indeed in the twilight, something slow but heavy. And yet there seemed to be no rhythm in t
he sound, no separate footfalls.
"It's… slithering…"he whispered.
"Aye…" muttered Kermorvan, and then suddenly he thrust himself sideways into Elof, slamming them both into the weeds behind the bole of a great tree. "Climb!" he hissed, and sprang for a lower branch, while Elof was still trying to collect his wits. Kermorvan saw him stagger up, and swung back down to reach out a hand, just in time. There was a sudden loud smashing in the bushes, and with a rush something huge came sliding and slithering into the little ring of bushes. Gasping, they hung there in the tree, Elof slung precariously between the branch and Kermorvan's hand. From where they were they could not see what had come at them, until there was a loud rasping sniff and it moved forward. Then a great dark flank slid into view. It rested on the ground like a serpent, but it was larger by far than any serpent they had ever seen, and a short stubby leg protruded from it. A long-clawed foot crunched down on the embers of their fire, and there was another loud sniffing sound, a rustle as of scaly skin, a waft of putrid, musky stench. Elof's blood ran cold, but his curiosity, as ever, overran it. Detaching himself from Kermorvan's unwavering grip, he leaned forward, trying to make out what manner of beast it could be. But unfortunately, perhaps, it was facing away from them, and he saw only a thick hindleg, some twelve feet behind the foreleg. Just in front of it lay their packs, with so many things they could not spare—
Elof swung down on the branch, and hung an instant by his hands. Then he swung back, kicked forward, and dropped light as a feather on a bare patch of pine needles, muffling his footfall. He bent, scooped up the packs, praying Kermorvan's would not clank again, and flung himself into the weeds as the dark flank heaved and the leg thrust out. But the thing had not noticed him. In another wave of stench it slithered slowly forward, almost rowing itself along with its short legs, and went snaking off downhill. But it was a long time after the sound died away before either man dared move.
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