Heather looked at Earl and giggled. “I guess you were right. You're definitely a fourteen-year-old, outside and in.”
Laughing, he flopped over in the snow and looked at her. “And you were right, too. There're some very good things about being a teenager.”
Awkwardly he placed a hand on hers. “And I've learned some other things. There are mistakes I won't make again. I won't deny that I need people.”
She smiled shyly. “And I won't deny that I need to be needed.”
Rested finally, the three climbed the opposite side of the valley. Once on the level again, Earl pointed to a dark table-like rise in the south. “Our route takes us by that tor. It's not the goal; I think that lies beyond. But it's an interesting spot nonetheless.”
“It's an odd-shaped hill, all right,” Welly said.
“It's an old Iron Age hill fort,” Earl replied. “Pre-Roman, but when I knew it, the fortifications were still well intact. I imagine it's weathered a bit since.”
Welly was interested now. “I've read about them. Weren't they surrounded by banks and ditches?”
Earl nodded. “Most of the people lived outside the forts, but when enemies threatened, they and their livestock moved behind the walls. There are views in all directions. Very defensible. See a lone flat-topped hill anywhere in Britain, and you've probably found an Iron Age hill fort.”
Throughout the day, they trudged on toward the tor. Having a fixed goal that drew closer gave a feeling of achievement. But as sunset neared, they still seemed uncomfortably distant. Earl had been feeling more and more uneasy as the afternoon wore on. Now he urged them to greater speed.
“We know Morgan's about, but that in itself doesn't bother me. She may be content just to watch us. But there are other things, evil, distorted things. I feel them. And her long absence earlier worries me. She was up to something, and it may not bode us any good.”
“What you're saying,” Welly said, panting, “is that we'd better get to that hill fort before nightfall.”
“Exactly.”
Night was indeed falling when they reached the tor and began scrambling up its steep side. The sky had been unusually clear all day, and now the full moon shone through a high, thin curtain. As they walked, rocks and humps in the snow cast deep black shadows in the silvery light.
At last they reached the top and passed through breaks in the embankments that encircled the crown of the hill. Not long before the Devastation, restorers had cleared the ditch and rebuilt the walls. But there were still major gaps and sagging spots, the work of both time and scavengers seeking building stone.
Still, any walls gave the travelers some feeling of security. Choosing a sturdy section to break the west wind, they gratefully took off their packs and brought out some food. Earl ignited a small domestic fire while Welly rigged up a blanket lean-to against the wall. The bank of clouds along the western horizon suggested they might be due for a storm.
They dined on bread and strips of dried meat, but throughout the meal, Earl kept getting up and walking to the opposite wall to look east. Again and again the hazy moonlight showed only an empty landscape. But this didn't shake his conviction that something was coming.
At last he saw it. A blackness appeared in the east that was not a cloud. It spread inklike over the plain, and the moonlight did not penetrate it. Slowly it rolled toward their hill.
Noting his suddenly rigid attention, the other two joined him. “What is it?” Heather asked quietly.
“An army of sorts. Morgan's army.”
With growing alarm, they watched the advance. This, Welly realized, might be the eve of his first battle. But he feared he wasn't feeling the appropriate sentiments of a warrior. Heroes always seemed exultant, eager for the fray. He felt cold and weak. But he would stick it out. And if it proved to be his last battle as well as his first, at least he'd be spared this wait again.
The black wave flowed closer, lapping around the base of the hill. The moonlight and the glow of their own green torches made the enemy visible. Too visible.
“Well, now we know where Morgan spent last month,” Earl said bitterly. “On a recruiting drive among the east coast invaders.” The mutant creatures below were men and beast and horrible blendings. Most, Earl imagined, were twisted in mind as well as in body: easy conquests for Morgan, ready to hear a voice like hers and follow. He flinched at the thought of what their progress had been like: the steady ravaging of a land that had little left to ravage.
Standing on the ancient earthen battlements, he scanned the crowd below. His eyes and other senses picked out creatures from a world more distorted even than devastated Europe. They reeked of unnatural evil, beings alien to this world and eager to taste its blood.
Sounds drifted from below. Howls and yapping, inhuman laughter and shrieks. Earl left the others and, chanting words under his breath, walked around the wall's perimeter, moving his hand in quick, decisive gestures.
Now the sounds rose in intensity. From out of the dark, roiling crowd moved a figure edged in fiery green. Morgan's black hair and cape blew wildly about her. At her side strode a huge gray wolf, and she rode a beast like the one at the Penrose farm, yet far larger. Its whiplike tail was split in two, and the mane surrounding its cruel face was longer and seemed tipped with fire. Strange ridges ran down its side, suggesting folded wings. Its cry was terrible.
When its unearthly screech had ceased ringing from the sky, Morgan called out Merlin's name.
Earl stepped onto the wall, his voice rolling down in derisive waves. “Morgan, are you and your friends going somewhere? If so, I suggest you save yourself a climb. This hill just goes down again on the other side.”
“Little boy, don't joke with me!” she screamed in reply. “I give you one last chance to join me.”
“Join with your netherworld friends and all this world's sweepings? No thank you, Morgan. I choose my own companions.”
“Children and dreamers; some companions! You are a fool, Merlin. In every age, you are a fool. And you deserve to live in none!”
She shrieked a command, and the creatures about her answered in deafening response. Like a loosed flood, they surged up the base of the hill. A frontal attack, Welly thought with an attempt at detachment. Very unsophisticated. But with the numbers balanced as they were, he feared that sophistication wouldn't matter much.
He and Heather stood close together, gazing at the approaching horde. But Earl paid it scant attention. Standing alone on the inner wall, he bent low, swinging his staff in a flat arch and snapping out orders.
At the base of the outer bank, a line of purple sparks appeared. Quickly they grew into tall columns of flame. Swaying back and forth like huge snakes, the flames broke loose and began weaving down the slope toward the oncoming army. Some in that force quailed at the sight and ran off into the night. Others held their ground but shrieked when the pillars of fire coiled into their midst. Many were consumed.
Over the land, the night wind was rising. Suddenly the three on the hilltop were hit from behind by powerful gusts. The storm that had lurked in the west had crept up behind them. With a deep rumble of thunder, the dark clouds cracked open, and rain cascaded from the sky. The columns of battling flames hissed furiously and sputtered out.
A flash of lightning froze the scene before them, showing the dark forces in a new advance. They were led now by a pack of long, skeletal creatures with huge eyes and translucent skins.
“They're coming!” Heather yelled over the crashing rain and thunder.
“Stand back from me!” Earl yelled in return. “When the next lightning comes, keep clear!”
The sky split down the middle and spilled out blinding light. Earl stood with his legs braced apart and thrust up his arms as if reaching into the storm. Lightning jabbed down toward him. Suddenly it swerved and arched away to explode into the masses advancing up the slope. The crash of thunder obscured all but the first screams, but not the smell of charred flesh and fur.
Mor
gan cried out. From the back of her rearing mount, she, too, reached toward the sky. She seemed to grab at a spear of lightning and send it hurtling off to where the three stood. Earl flung up an arm. The bolt veered aside but smashed into the top of the hill, leaving a new smoldering gap in the walls.
A growling cheer rose from below, and the opponents that remained again surged forward. “Still too many of them,” Earl muttered. Head tilted, he surveyed their advance. Then, crouching down, he spread his arms out wide.
In the ditch surrounding the fort, the air quivered and jelled into a lurid purple mist. It glowed coldly within itself. Pouring over the outer bank, it flowed down the slope, sweeping over the front ranks. From its shroud rose coughs and gasping cries.
A gust of wind from the east smashed into the cloud and pushed it back up the slope to thin and vanish. But where it had lain, the ground was littered with dead or writhing bodies.
A lull descended over the battle. The storm was rolling off toward the north. It continued its sky-bound battle in the distance, one mountainous cloud after another briefly rimming itself in light. It had been a natural storm, after all, Earl decided, not one of Morgan's making. But she had used it well.
The remaining creatures milled about on the slope. Some could be seen slipping to the fringes of the mob and slinking off over the plain. With threatening commands, Morgan urged her troops on. The huge wolf beside her leaped into their midst, tearing at the hesitant until its jaw dripped with blood. Again the attackers moved forward.
They were fewer now, but they were closer. Earl jumped down from the wall into the fort, dropping to his knees by a rain puddle. Dredging both hands into it, he pulled up dripping handfuls of mud. Frantically he patted this sticky mass into a roughly human shape. Peeling a splinter from the base of his staff, he stuck it into the manikin's crudely molded hand.
Cradling his creation in both hands, he climbed back onto the wall to see the foremost of the attackers almost at the outer bank. Shouting a string of rasping words, he lifted his hands above his head and hurled the figure through the air. It shattered on the crest of the lower bank.
The fragments splattered over the hillside. Wherever one fell, it rapidly grew into a life-sized humanoid: larger, but as lumpy and misshapen as the first. And these new figures moved forward, each clutching a staff licked with purple flame.
Clumsily the creatures lurched down the hill. Wherever one encountered an enemy and swiped it with its fiery staff, the other screamed and burst into flame. But when an enemy struck first at a mud thing, the manikin broke apart into lifeless shreds.
Watching from below, Morgan screamed in anger. She jerked back on the reins of her mount. It squealed with the sound of tearing steel. Rearing back, it spread great coppery wings. With mighty thrumming, the wings beat in the air, and together the creature and its rider rose into the night.
They lifted high above the battle, higher than the hilltop. With a laugh like the cry of night birds, Morgan raised one hand into the air and whirled it over her head. Out from her hand spun a sinuous light. It grew and crackled, and along its length rose a shivering curtain, pulsing and fading and glowing again, an aurora of shimmering greens.
With a flick of her wrist, Morgan sent the glowing serpent snapping toward them. From its tip, great bolts of green fire broke free and showered over the hilltop and into the fort. Whatever they hit burst into flame.
As the firebolts crashed around them, Welly and Heather huddled together, staring in awe at the flying horror. But Earl, his gaunt face glistening with sweat, concentrated on his work. He drove the tip of his staff violently into the earth. As he chanted, purple fire ran up its shaft and spread into tangled branches.
At a word, the limbs bloomed with flame. Wrenching the fire-tree from the ground, he held it aloft and shook it. Blossoms of purple flame broke loose, arching into the sky. Some smashed into oncoming green fireballs; others rained down among the attackers.
The night air raged with light, screams, and the hiss of falling flames. Heather and Welly were tempted to drop to the ground and hurl protective arms over their heads. What kept them on their feet was a vision of hideous attackers somehow breaking through and jumping on their backs.
They looked nervously about the broken circle of earth and saw that indeed some creatures had made it through. Urgently the two turned to Earl. Lean and pale in the eerie light, he stood on the bank above them swinging his flaming tree. The wind whipped his hair wildly about his face, and all his senses were focused on the battle overhead, meeting volley with volley. Their eyes met, and the two children closed in behind him, holding up their bright Eldritch swords.
The gleaming blades seemed to know swordsmanship, as their wielders did not, and the two thrust and parried with startling effectiveness. Dark blood sprayed the air. Several attackers drew back and disappeared into the night.
A slimy gray creature singled out Heather. Its cold-eyed reptilian head rose from a tangle of tentacle-like arms. It hissed venomously as one arm swiftly coiled up and wrapped around her throat. The thing was cold and slick. Its surface rippled as muscles constricted around her windpipe. With one hand she scrabbled feebly at the tightening coil, while her other arm awkwardly brought up the sword. Several desperate slices, and she severed the tentacle. The strangling segment loosened and slithered lifelessly to the ground as she gasped for breath. Undaunted, the creature sent forth two more arms to entangle her weapon, but she leaped back and hacked wildly into the writhing mass.
Welly confronted a squat goblin-creature, each of its three hairy arms wielding a club. The thing was clumsy but powerful. The flashing sword splintered one of the clubs, but another broke through the blade's defense and smashed jarringly into Welly's right shoulder. The whole arm went numb. His deadened fingers dropped the sword into his other hand. Wielded left-handed, the sword moved awkwardly, but it came from an unexpected angle and took the slow-witted creature by surprise. With a looping swing, Welly sliced off one of its ears. In an arc of blood, the ear sailed into the darkness, and with a gurgling whine, its former owner followed it.
Welly paused to fight down sickness; then shakily he turned to help Heather. But his eye caught the flicker of something gray rocketing up the hillside. Welly's skin prickled as he watched the thing dart from one concealing shadow to another. It was the huge wolf they had seen at Morgan's side.
Worse than anything from his fevered nightmares, it was three times larger than a fell-dog. And where those creatures had merely been hungry, this beast seemed afire with evil. It slunk on its belly through a still-smoldering gap in the wall. Its hair was brindled and gray, its yellow eyes wicked and close-set. The tongue flicked snakelike between yellowed fangs. And before it there flowed a wave of cold.
The thing stood in a shadow of crumbling wall and looked coolly about the shattered fort and at its three defenders. The jaw dropped open, and there came a low growling laugh.
Hunching down, it began stalking toward Earl, whose whole attention was fixed on the fiery clash with Morgan. Twenty feet from its prey, the creature jumped onto a large rock.
Welly crouched in the shadow of the bank. Numbing cold flowed about him as it had on another night. His hair bristled at the memory, and his hands grew slick and clammy. But slowly he stood up and, stepping out from the shadow, raised his sword between Earl and the huge wolf. The beast glanced down at him, an evil intelligence flickering in its eyes. Then, ears pricked forward, it raised its head and surveyed its goal and the gap between them.
Deliberately the beast crouched down, great muscles bunching and rippling under its fur. A growl rose from deep in its chest. Suddenly it sprang into the air, arching high over Welly's head. Welly yelled and leaped straight upward. His sword point gouged the beast down the length of its belly.
The creature spun sideways and crashed onto the ground. Snarling, it rolled over in mud already bloodied from its long wound. It crouched to spring again. Without pausing, Welly hurled himself at it, thrusting
his blade deep into the shaggy chest. The wolf jerked violently and threw back its head. Its jagged howl shattered the night.
The body shuddered, pulled away from Welly's now-smoking blade, and lay still. Its coarse wolf features slowly blurred and changed into those of a man. Garth.
At that dying howl, silence fell like ice over the battle. Earl spun around to see what was happening behind him. “I should have guessed,” he said as even the human form dissolved into dust. “Morgan's consort was a werewolf.”
Welly looked down at the smoldering mud where the body had lain. This was his first kill in battle, and it was not the grand thing he'd imagined, even with a victim as foul as this. He felt oddly weak and polluted. Again, he wondered if he would be sick. It would be almost a relief.
Earl had turned back to the battle, but there was little left there. In his brief moments of inattention, Morgan and her mount had vanished. Their snaking green aurora was already fading from the sky. Below, those attackers not dead on the hillside were fleeing in panic into the night. Weary of killing, he let them go.
Heather had dispatched her opponent by finally lopping off its reptilian head. Shaking with fatigue, she joined her companions. Her face was ashen, her thin hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
The three surveyed the suddenly silent battlefield. It was now lit only by a mist-shrouded moon and by patches of fire, green and purple, that still flickered about the hillside. These burned with cold fuelless flame, except where they fed on corpses.
Heather, her lips pale thin lines, asked weakly, “Is it all over? Is Morgan gone for good?”
Earl nodded wearily, leaning on his now-flameless staff. “She's gone, though hardly for good. But this battle's over at least. I hope she's had her fill of direct confrontation. I certainly have.”
He swayed where he stood. Alarmed, Welly caught him and kept him from falling.
Tomorrow's Magic Page 15