by Alan Garner
“You, too, have pledged yourself to our need,” he said coldly.
“And do you think I’m going to help you if Colin’s not safe?”
“A promise not fulfilled is none at all,” said Atlendor.
“All right, then, it isn’t. But what are you going to do about it?”
“You shall have fifty horse and myself to lead them, but not until the sun is down,” said Atlendor. “If all is not settled by the third night, the fifty and Albanac shall stay, and I shall take the rest of my people beyond Bannawg.”
Albanac spoke quickly: “That is noble, and will serve our need.”
“It is foolish, and the vote of force,” said Atlendor.
CHAPTER 16
THE HOWL OF OSSAR
S usan and Uthecar chose horses from among those of the lios-alfar, and Susan also took a sword and a shield. She had no other armour, since none of the linked mail the elves carried with them fitted her.
They led their horses up to the wizard’s cave.
“Isn’t there a horse for you?” said Susan.
“I shall not go with you,” said Cadellin.
“Not go?” cried Susan. “But you must!”
“I have thought of this,” said Cadellin. “My duty is here, guarding the Sleepers. Only I can wake them. If I were killed, I should have betrayed my trust, and only in Fundindelve can I be certain of life. And, Susan, though the Morrigan thrives, and Colin is in her power, the Sleepers wait for one whose shadow will quench the world, and I must not fail them.”
“That is true,” said Albanac. “We were too close to the threat to see it fairly. It is better that the Morrigan triumph now than that the Sleepers never wake.”
“But what about her magic?” said Susan. “We don’t know any.”
“That is a chance you must take,” said Cadellin. “You are not helpless there. And if you were, Susan, you should not complain. Of your own will you sought this end. I have done what is in me to keep you from it.”
“I see no good in further talk,” said Uthecar. “There is little of the day left to us for doing what is to be done, unless we are to be a gift to the Morrigan.”
“Yes, come on,” said Susan.
It was an awkward leave-taking. Susan and Uthecar, while admitting the logic of Cadellin’s words, had too much emotion in their own natures to have made such a decision themselves. As they went from Fundindelve, Albanac took Cadellin’s hand, and so only he felt the wizard’s grief, and saw the light that stood beyond his eyes.
They rode quickly but easily.
“The sword and shield are for palugs,” said Uthecar. “Do not be thinking to match them with a bodach’s spear. That will be our work.”
“But didn’t the Wild Hunt see to them?” said Susan.
“I dare not hope for that,” said Uthecar. “Some will have escaped, but how many? Let the sun go down, and we shall know.”
It was midday when they reached Errwood. They approached less cautiously than before, and Uthecar went about and through the ruins on his horse to decide how they could best prepare for the night.
“It will not be simple to guard the house,” he said when he returned. “These three sides are level and open, but at the back there is danger. The space between the walls and the hill is small, and the hill has been quarried sheer in parts, and bushes grow thickly. The Morrigan can be very close and we not know it. This is where we must start.”
He went to the back of the house, and began to cut the rhododendrons away from the rock face. Albanac started further along from him, and they worked towards each other, clearing the hill in a strip ten yards wide.
Susan pulled the fallen bushes into close piles along the edge of the shelf on which the house stood, between and above the two arms of the stream.
All this took four hours, and the remaining daylight was spent in hacking as much of the growth as possible on the steep banks below the shelf. The wood from here was made into one heap on the lawn.
Nothing happened at any time to make them think they were in danger. Once or twice Susan thought she heard a dog howling, far away, and Albanac seemed to hear it, too; he would stop his work, and listen, and then go back to felling the bushes, his whole body swinging to the strokes as though he was fighting for his life.
“I would be clear of the valley until the lios-alfar come,” said Uthecar at sunset. “Now what bodachs and palugs there may be here will creep from under their rocks and out of their holes, and we should have little time for breath. In open ground they will not be so deadly.”
“What about the Morrigan?” said Susan. “I thought we were here to keep her out.”
“The moon will not rise yet; until then we shall see little of her,” said Uthecar. “But let us make fire quickly now before we go. There is enough wood to burn through the night, and neither bodach nor palug seeks fire.”
From under his cloak Albanac produced flint and tinder, and eventually they managed to spark some twists of dry grass into flames, and these by nursing were transferred to twigs and leaves, and so to the bush pile themselves. There were more than a dozen of them, and when they were all ablaze twilight had come.
They mounted their horses, and galloped along the drive to the moor, where they halted, clear of sudden attack.
“How long will it be before the elves get here?” said Susan.
“Not long,” said Albanac. “They will have left Fundindelve as soon as the light grew poor, and their horses are fleet as Melynlas when there is need.”
They crossed the stream to a flat meadowland, where the horses would have better grazing. The sky was yellow, the black clouds of night drifting in, giving a stark quietness to the valley. But this was broken with a shock that made the horses rear, as a dog howled close by.
“Where is that?” cried Albanac.
“Yonder!” said Uthecar. “High on the hill!”
And there by the dead trees where Uthecar had killed the bodach loped the shape of a black dog. It was as big as a calf, and so indistinct against the trees, in that light, as to appear to be made of smoke. It put back its head, and the loneliness bayed again, and then the dog slipped through the wood, and they did not see it.
Albanac sat with his head bowed, unspeaking, for a long time after the voice had died. Uthecar looked at him, but did not move, and the weight that lay on both of them was felt by Susan.
Albanac drew a deep breath. “The Howl of Ossar,” he said. But even as he spoke they heard a drumming in the air, growing louder, and the skyline was broken with movement as though an army was rising out of the heather, and down from Shining Tor rode the lios-alfar, with naked swords in their hands, and the blades like flame.
They halted in a swirling crowd after the momentum of the hill, but they did not speak, even among themselves.
“We are come,” said Atlendor to Albanac. “Where is the Morrigan?”
“We have not seen her, but she will be close,” said Albanac. “We did this minute leave the house: it is ringed with fires, and the ground is clear, though on one side there is much against us. Neither bodach nor palug has been found.”
“I smell them,” said Atlendor. “They will come. But let us go to the house, and there make ready for what we must; for I smell blood, too.”
They rode along the drive, three abreast. The horses walked, and shields were held at the ready, since by now the last light had gone.
It was impossible for so many to approach the house in silence, but no one talked or made any noise that could be prevented. The light of the elves’ swords in the damp air made a nimbus which was reflected coldly in the leather of the rhododendron leaves.
When they came to the fork in the path, Albanac held up his hand to stop the column. Something was wrong; they could all sense it. Then the elves swept forward to take the bend at a gallop. The house was in darkness. The fires they had left a few minutes ago had been snuffed out: the mounds of wood stood black around the house, and the air was bitter with a charred and
acrid smell.
CHAPTER 17
THE WITCH-BRAND
T he elves did not falter. They rode into line, and in a moment they had put a cordon round the house, facing inwards and outwards alternately.
“Quick now!” shouted Uthecar to Albanac. “We must have fire!”
He jumped from his horse, and snatched a handful of dead grass, but the air was so laden with moisture that the grass would not light easily, and the more they hurried, the more they fumbled, and the more the sense of danger crept over them. But when they did start a flame the wood was soon rekindled, for it was still warm.
“Wind would have fed, not killed,” said Albanac. “And water would have smoked. This wood is dry. The Morrigan does what she is able before the moon rises.”
“And that is enough,” said Uthecar. “We must have light, since not all here have the eyes of dwarfs, yet it leaves us no guard but our hands.”
“We gain more than we lose,” said Albanac. “Why else has the Morrigan starved the fire? Until the moon rises she has not the means to put more than fear and fright into us, and from the shepherd’s tale I would guess that shape-shifting is beyond her skill now. She sits out there, and waits for the moon.”
“Ay, and what then?” said Atlendor, who had ridden over to join them. “We must show our strength: thus we may not be called to match it with hers. Come with me,” he said to Susan, and they rode to the middle of the lawn, where he stopped, and lifted Susan’s wrist above her head.
This was the first time Susan had been conscious of her bracelet since the appearance of the Einheriar on Shining Tor, and she was puzzled to find that she could no longer read the word of power. The script which had stood out so clearly from the metal then was now as unintelligible as it had ever been.
One by one the elves came to Susan. They touched the bracelet with their arrows and with their swords, and then went back to the ring of fire. By the time the last elf had taken up his post Susan ached to the bone, but Atlendor still held her arm high, and when the circle was complete he spoke in a voice that went far beyond the light.
“Here is bale for you! Here is a plague to flesh! Come; we are ready!”
He clashed his own sword against the bracelet, and let Susan’s arm fall. But as Atlendor did so, there was a gasp from one of the elves below the quarried wall, and he slid round his horse’s neck to the ground, a spear between his shoulders.
“One life to save a man,” said Atlendor quietly, but before anyone could move, a voice spoke from the hill behind the ruins.
“We come. Have patience. We come.”
“That’s the Morrigan!” said Susan.
“Where is she, Hornskin?” said Atlendor.
“Behind the bushes,” said Uthecar. “I cannot see her.”
“Hadn’t we better get inside the walls?” said Susan. “We’re sitting targets here.”
“And where should we be but under crushing stones, if the moon rose, and we not knowing?” said Albanac. “If we go to the front of the house we shall be safe from spears, since only on the hill above can they come close.”
The lios-alfar had all turned to face outwards. Those who, like the dead elf, had not already put on their shirts of mail hurriedly unrolled their packs.
Susan, Uthecar, and Albanac crouched below the lawn near to what had been the main door of the house.
“It is good to know where she is,” said Uthecar. “Think you if we put our swords to the bracelet it will be proof against her magic?”
“It would not kill,” said Albanac, “but its virtue may corrupt and gall the wound a sword makes, and I think the arrows will stop her from trying to gain the house by shape-shifting.”
“If the house should come with the moon,” said Uthecar, “Susan and I shall find Colin within. Do you keep the door here, Albanac.”
They waited through the hours to moonrise. Atlendor guarded the fires. There was no move to extinguish them – just the reverse: they seemed to burn faster than holly, and Atlendor was put to it to keep the fires high, and the pile of wood on the lawn began to dwindle. At this rate it would not last long. Atlendor stopped in the act of throwing a branch into the flames. The Morrigan had nearly won. He hurried round, raking the fires together, sacrificing every other one for the sake of the hours left to the night. But after this the Morrigan seemed content to wait. The fire was normal, no bodach sent spears.
The moon rose a long time before it was seen, and it shot high from a cloud, an ugly slip of yellow, taking the watchers by surprise. And though the light it gave was small, and could not even dim the fires, the moment it touched the ruins they shimmered as in a heat haze, and dissolved upwards to a house. The windows poured their dead lustre on the grass, making pools of white in the flames.
“Now!” cried Uthecar, and Susan and he threw themselves up the bank and put all their weight to the door. It swung easily, and they fell over the threshold, and as she stumbled, a spear passed over Susan’s head and skidded along the hall. Uthecar kicked the door shut, and the wood rattled under an impact that was made of many separate blows delivered at the same time; points of bronze stood out like teeth. But the door was closed, and even while the echo was still loud, Uthecar and Susan were running up the stairs.
“He will not be near to the ground,” said Uthecar, “and we must hurry, since he will not be unguarded, either, and the fire and our coming will be plain to any.”
They went from room to room, throwing open the doors, but all were empty. The house rang with their search.
They reached the end of a landing, and Susan was about to charge the door, when Uthecar stopped her.
“Wait! I am not liking this.”
He pointed to the upper panel of the door. A design had been painted on it in black, and there were strange characters grouped around the design.
“It is a witch-brand,” said Uthecar. “Come away.”
“No,” said Susan. “It’s the first thing we’ve found. I’m going to look.”
She tried the handle carefully: the door opened, and Susan stepped into an enormous room. It was as bare of furniture as any other she had seen, but on the floor a circle had been drawn, about eighteen feet across. It had a double rim, round which were more characters similar to those on the panelling, and in the circle was a lozenge, and a six-pointed star was near each of its four corners. In the centre of the lozenge stood a squat, long-necked bottle, which held a black substance that writhed as though it was boiling, though the cork was heavily sealed with wax, and two points of red light swam inside the bottle, always the same distance apart.
Susan approached the circle, and the red sparks stopped their drifting, and hung against the glass. Susan felt compelled to pick the bottle up, but as she reached the circle, the room was filled with a buzzing, like the whine of flies, and the circle rims began to smoke. She stepped back quickly, and at the same time Uthecar caught her by the shoulder and pulled her out of the room. He slammed the door.
“The Brollachan! She has penned it here!”
“That?” said Susan “Then we must stop her from getting in here, or she’ll set it loose!”
“Small wonder it could not be found,” said Uthecar.
“Listen!” whispered Susan. “Somebody’s coming!”
There was one door they had not yet opened at the end of the landing. It was smaller than the others, and from behind it they heard footsteps drawing near.
“Back,” said Uthecar. “Give room for swords.”
He braced his legs apart, balanced for flight or attack. The running footsteps checked, the door opened, and Uthecar gave a shout of gladness, for in the doorway was Pelis the False, sword in hand, frozen by surprise.
Uthecar sprang, but Pelis was as quick, and the sword bit into the door as it was snatched shut in Uthecar’s face. He pulled it open, and ran along the short passage beyond. At the other end Pelis was disappearing up a staircase in great bounds.
“Do not follow,” shouted Uthecar to Susan. �
��Guard here.”
The stairs were not long, and at the top was a single door. Pelis was fitting a key into the lock, but he did not have time to open it before Uthecar reached him.
He was no coward. Without a shield he stood, his sword in both hands, his back to the door, and there was not a stroke or a thrust that Uthecar made that was not parried and answered. But the advantage of the shield began to tell, and Uthecar worked Pelis away from the door and to the stairs, and once there, Pelis had to give ground.
Susan listened to the clash of iron, and the heavy breathing which was magnified by the stair well, and tried to believe that she could make herself use her sword.
When Uthecar and Pelis came into sight she flattened herself against the wall, and watched the glittering play of blades as they swooped, leapt, and sparked about the dwarfs with a cruel beauty that had the precision of dancing in it.
“To the room above,” Uthecar gasped as he reached the bottom step.
Susan nodded, and began to edge past the fight. Uthecar increased his attack, but even so, Pelis was able to make one vicious cut at Susan as she darted for the stairs. She threw up her shield, and the blow glanced off the rim, and dragged a long groove in the stonework of the wall, but it did not touch her, and she was through.
Susan looked at the key in the lock. Did Uthecar want her to open it? She examined the wood, but there were no marks or lettering visible, so she turned the key, and kicked open the door.
It was a cell of a room; windowless, empty of comfort as the rest of the house; and standing against the opposite wall was Colin.
CHAPTER 18
THE DOLOROUS BLOW
P elis the False hewed at Uthecar’s shield. It was riven in two places, and if he could make it useless he would have more chance of halting the slow retreat down the corridor. As a swordsman he was Uthecar’s match, but his disadvantage made attack nearly impossible, and though he had got past Uthecar’s guard once, the wound was slight, and he himself was losing strength through a gash on the shoulder. The girl alone would be no obstacle as far as weapons were concerned, although he was still suspicious of her bracelet, but he had to finish the dwarf quickly, or the fighting would lose its purpose.