Dark of the Moon

by P. C. Hodgell

  She brought her knee up sharply into the hillman's groin and again with a crack into his chin as he doubled over.

  Marc threw himself backward, twisting sideways. One spear point passed under his arm. The other tangled in his jacket. He snapped the first one's shaft by catching it between his body and arm and turning sharply the other way. The other spearman was trying to free his weapon. Marc grabbed it. He jerked its head forward through his jacket and the man into his fist. By the time he had freed himself from the spear shaft, the other hillman had fled. He and Jame stared at each other over the bodies of the two fallen men. She looked very young, and very frightened.

  The big Kendar shook his head as if to clear it. Jame could almost see memory fading from his eyes.

  "That man hit me and then . . . and then . . . ah, no matter." He wiped the blood off his face. "Your throat and my head certainly have taken a beating lately. Here." He bent and pulled Ganth's ring off the hillman's hand. "I'm afraid the finger that wore this is gone, but then I always did think it should be given to the pyre. You'd better wear this now for safe-keeping."

  Jame took the ring. She was suddenly very cold, both from the Ever-quick's icy waters and from delayed shock. She dressed hastily, with shaking hands. Yes, Marc had really forgotten. One mystery of the B'tyrr's dance had always been that no one could recall its exact details afterward, not even the dancer—not until now. This time Jame did remember. Sweet Trinity, she had nearly taken both that man's life and his soul. And before that? The impulse to use her claws on the Earth Wife's imp and to dance at the Peshtar inn; had her encounter with Keral triggered all this, or had she always been so reckless? The Arrin-ken had spoken of honor and balance. How far could one go in either direction without falling? Where did innocence end?

  Girl, you don't want to find out, she told herself. Be very, very careful, because it would be so easy to let go.

  Jame put on her father's ring. Even on her thumb it was too big, but her glove kept it in place. Its cold touch steadied her. She held this and the sword in trust for her brother, and they must go to him. That was her primary responsibility now. She picked up Kin-Slayer and nearly dropped it again. An odd tingle had shot through her hand. There were many strange stories about this sword, including a tradition that it enhanced the strength of its rightful wielder; but Jame had handled it before without noticing anything unusual. Of course, she had never worn the ring before either. The sensation faded. Jame shrugged and returned the sword shard to her knapsack.

  Marc had bound both captives with their own belts and was now questioning the one whom Jame had stunned.

  "We have a problem," he said quietly to Jame in Kens. "This is a Grindark, all the way up from the Oseen Hills. He says he and his brothers were hunting nearby—poaching, really—when a man swooped down on them out of the sky."

  "A man?"

  "Well, for lack of a better name. He was naked and seemed to be gliding on skin stretched between his limbs and torso, rather like that white thing we saw yesterday. Also, he had the image of an imu burned into his face."

  "Trinity! That must have been the changer from Peshtar."

  "That's likely, especially since he said he was an emissary from the Black Band. It seems that Bortis has a pact with Grisharki, the Grindark warlord, who used to be one of his brigands. The upshot is that these hunters were sent on ahead to waylay us while the changer went to summon more Grindarks from Wyrden, Grisharki's stronghold. They must be well on their way by now."

  "So we've got Grindarks coming at us from one direction and brigands from the other. Lovely. Now what?"

  "We could angle northwestward and try to outflank the Grindark . . . but no. We would only run into more hunting parties. So it looks as if you'll get your wish, lass: the Anarchies it is."

  * * *

  FOUR LARGE STEPPING STONES led across the Ever-quick, each one carved with an imu face. On the far bank were two malirs. Surmounting each was the skull mask of a rathorn, a stallion on the right with both the nasal tusk and the ivory horn curving back from between wide-set eye sockets, a mare on the left with only the nasal tusk. The bones hanging beneath each chimed together in the wind. A road paved with white cobbles stretched back between the malirs into the meadow, toward the trees.

  "That's the hill tribes' spell-path," said Marc. "Their shamen won't enter the Anarchies by any other route and no ordinary hillman is likely to at all. So here we give the slip to the Grindarks and perhaps to any brigand with hill-blood."

  "But not to Bortis?"

  "I doubt it. He isn't likely to honor the taboo, but with luck we can still evade him without going too far into the Anarchies. Ready?"

  Jame settled her pack more comfortably. In it, besides the sword and Book, was a portion of their food and spare clothing. The pony stood nearby, looking bewildered to find itself both unloaded and free.

  "Ready," she said.

  "You first, lass, and mind your step."

  Jame backed up a few paces, then took a running leap at the first stone some six feet from the shore. The water rushing past it was both very swift and surprisingly deep, and the stone itself slick with moss. She bounded from one to the next across the stream, seeing the green faces flash past under her feet. On the far side, she turned so that Jorin could use her eyes to cross. Marc followed the ounce.

  They went up the spell-path of white cobbles through the meadow. Ahead, the road ended untidily under the shadow of the trees. Some of the cobbles there seemed to be covered with moss of different colors, which birds were carrying strand by strand up into the trees. No, not moss. Suddenly Jame knew what the shamen's rites were, and what use the hillmen found for the heads of their enemies.

  From behind came the sound of voices. Drifting mist momentarily obscured the meadow, and under its cover, the two Kencyr gained the trees. Looking back, they saw snatches of the far bank, then the entire length of the river with some thirty men on the other side. One of them was all too familiar.

  "Damn," said Jame in a low voice. "Bortis. He must have been one step behind us all the way. But how?"

  "Maybe he didn't go back into the Ebonbane to rally his men after all. Maybe he just came after us with as many as he could find of the ones who had been on leave in Peshtar."

  "He's got one of the Grindark spearmen. Now what . . . Trinity!"

  A shriek cut across the Ever-quick's loud gurgle. The hill-man was cowering at Bortis's feet, one of his forebraids, roughly severed, dangling from the brigand chief's hand.

  "Come on," said Marc. "We'll have to go farther in than I expected." He turned and set off with a long stride toward the deeper woods. Jame and Jorin trotted beside him.

  "But why? What's happened?"

  "I underestimated Bortis's cunning and cruelty. The Grindarks believe that the roots of their manhood lie in those braids. That hillman will lead Bortis anywhere rather than lose both of them, and his sense of smell is nearly as keen as a wolf's."

  They went southward through the trees, through a patch of a weed called "deadman's breath," whose stench should stun the tracker's nose temporarily at least. Beyond was a brook running down to the Ever-quick. This they followed for some distance, wading upstream in the shallows, before turning southward again. Winter apparently came late in this corner of the world. Few leaves had as yet even changed, and the air was almost warm. A deep silence lay over the land. Dense as these trees had seemed from the other side of the stream, Jame now saw that the real forest still lay ahead, on the other side of a large clearing. They passed under the shade of a solitary red maple, nearing the line of darker trees. Mist blew across the meadow, and abruptly they were back beside the maple.

  Jame stopped short, gaping. "What in Perimal's name? Marc, am I losing my few remaining wits or did we just jump backward about fifty yards?"

  "So we did. How very odd." The Kendar walked on over the ground they had already covered once. Jame and Jorin followed. "Now, how far had we . . ."

  He vanished.


  ". . . got?" said his voice behind Jame. She spun about and saw him loping toward her, away from the maple. "Just about to here," he said, stopping beside her, pointing to the ground a few feet ahead. "This, I would guess, is how the Anarchies were closed to the hill folk."

  "And to us?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. After all, a few hunters have gotten in, although they keep the way a secret." He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Have you ever heard of step-back and -forward stones?"

  "Of course," said Jame impatiently, her mind on brigands and weed patches. "Certain rocks are supposed to be so closely linked to where they developed geologically that if you move them, they somehow exist simultaneously in both the old and new sites—that is, if you know how to set them properly. Songs say that the Builders played all sorts of tricks with them. Ah," she said as Marc dropped to a knee and began to cut out a square of sod. "I see what you mean. If some of those special rocks are buried here under the grass . . ."

  "Then stepping on them automatically transports us to their original location, back under that maple." He lifted out the sod. At the bottom of the hole were stones, smoothly fitted together, carved with intricate figures.

  "Those are Builders' runes," said Jame, peering down at them. "A ring of step-back stones? That would certainly close the Anarchies, but why should the Builders want to do that, assuming this really is their work?"

  "I have no idea. No one knows much for sure about those folk. We'd be safer if we could cross this barrier, but offhand, I don't see how."

  "One possibility does occur."

  Jame let her pack drop. She backed up several yards, then ran toward the exposed stones. Just short of them, she leaped head first over the barrier, rolled—and came up back under the maple. Damn. Marc was just turning. She sprinted toward him through the clinging grass. Her foot came down in his cupped hands and they launched her with all Marc's tremendous strength added to her own. She left his hands as a stone does a sling. The ground passed in a blur twelve feet beneath—no, less: in fact, here it came. She rolled over and over, finally coming to a breathless stop—almost under the dark trees.

  "Are you all right?" Marc called after her.

  "Fine, fine," said Jame, gingerly picking herself up. "Just send my stomach along by the next post rider. Now, where's the edge of this thing . . . ah." Her probing knife struck stone under the sod. "Twenty feet wide."

  "Here." Marc picked up Jorin, and hurled the surprised ounce across the hidden stones. Then he threw Jame's pack after her.

  "Now you."

  The big Kendar shook his head regretfully. "There's no way I can jump that far. You go on, lass. I'll cover your retreat."

  Jame stared at him, appalled, as he unslung his war-axe and turned to wait for the Black Band. She had never stopped to consider how he would cross. It was unthinkable to leave him and yet . . . and yet . . . no. There had to be another way across those damned stones.

  Stones.

  Jame turned and began to hunt feverishly through the grass for some of the rocks she had just rolled over. Finding one, she pried it out of the ground. Marc looked back, puzzled, as the stone thudded to earth some eight feet behind him. Jame had already pried another, even bigger rock and was staggering back with it.

  "You were trying, maybe, to get my attention? No games now, lass. Run while you can."

  "Don't be . . ." she heaved the second stone, only managing a few feet's distance with it ". . . stupid. Look, the earth that's accumulated over the step-back stones obviously doesn't hinder them much, but then it belongs where it is. But the two stones I've just thrown are displaced. They come from ahead. I haven't the skill or knowledge to build a 'step-forward' with them, assuming they're even the right kind of rocks, but just maybe they can counteract the old rune-ring enough to act as stepping stones."

  Marc looked dubiously at the two rocks, now almost invisible in the grass, and again shook his head. "It's too chancy." He stiffened. "Here they come. Go now, quickly."

  "Listen, you idiot," Jame hissed at him. "Either you come over here, or I'm going over there. My word of honor on it!"

  Marc gave her a quick look, then shrugged. He went back a pace, then leaped for the first stone, the second, the far side. Jame caught his arm.

  "Well, I'll be damned," he said. "It worked. Look out!"

  He knocked Jame backward, away from the first wave of bandits. They rushed onto the hidden stones, shouting, and suddenly found themselves back level with the maple. The slower brigands turned, thinking they were under attack from behind. As a lively—if confused—free-for-all began, the fugitives took cover in the trees. A shadow swept over the clearing.

  "Damn," said Jame. "It's the changer. If he saw how we crossed, he'll tell the others. Now what?"

  "We go farther in."

  Jame looked back into the shadow of the trees. A vast silence waited there, and a lurking presence of leaf and blade, bough and branch that numbed her mind. But what choice did she have?

  "Yes, we go on. We have to."

  They slipped back into the trees, and the shadows swallowed them.

  * * *

  BOUGHS ARCHED against the sky like the ribs of some great cathedral roofed with leaves. Green light filtered down from above. Gray birds glided between the trees, the underside of each wing marked by a single, almost human eye picked out in subtly shaded feathers. Below, mist drifted around ferns, between the silver-gray trunks. Everything was hazy and dreamlike, a quality enhanced by the great silence of the place. What sounds there were carried with unnerving clarity and seemed to come from all directions at once. Jame and Marc moved as quietly as they could, listening for their pursuers. They heard nothing, but that might only mean that Bortis had had the sense to keep his men quiet once past the step-back stones. Meanwhile, the roof of leaves and mist hid them from the changer, if he was still looking for them. Maybe they really had shaken off pursuit. Marc thought their best plan would be to cut back across the rune-ring as soon as possible and continue down the Ever-quick on its deserted south bank. He didn't tell Jame that he was no longer sure exactly where the stream lay.

  Jame was equally confused. Not only had she no idea in which direction they were going, but also her senses felt oddly muted. These woods reminded her of the Earth Wife's lodge in Peshtar, except that here one sank into the strangeness of the place as if into deep leaf mold. She had felt a faint murmur of this among the decaying temples of Tai-tastigon's elder gods. There was something so strange about them and this place, something so . . . alien. But then she and Marc were the aliens here, as the Earth Wife had said. This wasn't even their world. What if there was a native force on Rathillien that had nothing to do with their god? What would that do to the Kencyrath's monotheism, to its entire self-conception?

  Damn. These were the same doubts that had seized her the first time she had stumbled into the Temple District. Well, this time she wouldn't panic, at least not before she had good cause. But sweet Trinity, she thought, looking uneasily around, how strange it all was.

  There! A flicker, seen out of the corner of her eye, gone when she spun around to face it.

  "What is it?" Marc asked.

  "I . . . don't know. Something short and gray. It was watching us. Jorin?"

  The ounce stirred uneasily. He had clearly caught her visual flash, but had no sensory impressions of his own to add. Whoever . . . whatever the watcher had been, it had left neither scent nor sound. Suddenly the cat's ears pricked. A hoarse, coughing cry welled up around them, as if out of the very earth. Leaves shivered on nearby trees.

  "What . . . ?"

  "Hush." Marc pivoted, but mist and undergrowth cut visibility to a few yards in each direction. The sound could have come from anywhere. "That was a hunting cry. There are rathorn about."

  "Wonderful. Why do we always get a choice of disasters?"

  "Virtue has to have some reward, I suppose."

  Jame snorted. "Just once, I wish it would pick on someone else . . . hey!"

&nb
sp; At that moment, her foot had suddenly broken through the leaf mold into the tangled roots of a dead sapling. They closed on her ankle. She tried to pull it free, without success.

  "What in Perimal's name—Marc, these roots—they don't want to let me go!"

  The tree groaned and began to topple, straight toward her. Marc pushed it aside. It hit the ground with a crash that echoed on all sides, bounding off one tree after another, until it at last faded away into the distance. The roots twisted as the tree fell, clamping even tighter on Jame's foot. She gave a hiss of pain.

  "Use your axe . . . ah! It's crushing my ankle."

  Marc stripped away mold and earth, exposing the fibrous network beneath. He thrust his big hands down into it. "The shamen never even bring edged tools here, much less weapons. We mustn't use them either, if we can help it." He gripped the roots on either side of Jame's ankle. The muscles on his arms bulged, wood creaked, and the foot suddenly came free. Jame rubbed her sore ankle gingerly. Ancestors be praised for a stout boot. But had that been a freak accident or a deliberate attack? Just how strange was this place?