Clifford Simak - The Fellowship of the Talisman

The castle was little more than the mound that Ghost had described. Two crumbling turrets still stood guard at each end of it, but between the turrets, the stone lay heaped in an untidy pile, the rough edges of the fallen stones rounded and modified by weather. But the thing that caught Duncan's attention was the well-spaced standing stones, no longer upright, but canting at various angles. At one time, it was apparent, the entire castle had been surrounded and fenced in by a circle of massive stones of the kind that one might see, or so it was said, at Stonehenge and on a smaller scale in many other places. But this circle was larger than the one at Stonehenge, if traveler's tales could be credited, perhaps a great deal larger, for this castle circle once had enclosed many acres. In an earlier day, Duncan thought, it must have been an impressive sight, but now, like the castle, it was considerably dismantled. The lintel stones, with the slow canting of the uprights, had fallen from their places and lay half buried on the surface, or, not falling entirely free, still lay with one end propped against a standing stone.

The sun was no more than a few minutes above the western horizon, and shadows were lengthening and growing deeper in the valley. Just beyond the castle ran a quiet river, unhurried in its flow, with small flocks of ducks flying above it, and others floating on its surface. Behind him Duncan could hear the subdued mumble of the wind blowing through the rift.

He walked forward to join Conrad. Tiny had trotted on ahead, quartering the slope of hillside below them, nosing out the land.

"I would say we should go down to the river and camp the night," said Duncan. "Get an early start, come morning."

Conrad nodded his agreement. "It will be good," he said, "to have some open land. Now we can make better time."

"We need to," Duncan said. "We have wasted a lot of time."

"If we could have caught some of the Reaver's horses."

"We tried," said Duncan. "They were having none of us."

"We still can make good time," said Conrad. "We have good legs."

"The hermit will hold us up."

"We could put him up with Meg on Daniel. That horse could carry both of them and never notice."

"We'll see about it," said Duncan. "The hermit would raise hell. He wants to be the same as you and I."

"I'll grant him that," said Conrad, "if he'd just keep up with us." They started down the slope, the others trailing along behind them. They had reached the bottom of the slope and started out across the valley when Meg let out a shriek.

They whirled about.

Filing out of the timbered hill to the east of the rift came a long rank of hairless ones, and behind them loomed a bank of fog, or what appeared to be fog, disturbed and agitated, as if some sort of commotion were taking place inside of it. Tendrils of it spurted out in front of the rolling bank so that the slouching hairless ones seemed to be wading knee-deep through a patch of ground mist. In the broken rifts of the swirling fog could be caught occasional glimpses of obscene monstrosities-an impression of teeth, of horns, of beaks, of glittering eyes.

Conrad sucked in his breath. "Magic," he said.

The rest of the band was piling down the hill. They reached Duncan and Conrad and swung into line to face the oncoming hairless ones, who were backed by the roiling cloud of smoky fog.

"We make our stand here?" Conrad asked.

"We might as well," said Duncan. "There's no place to retreat. If we ran, they'd pull us down."

"The ruins of the castle," suggested Conrad. "We could place the mound at our back. Here they'll sweep around our flanks. They'll be down on us like wolves."

"There isn't time to reach the castle," Duncan said. "Besides, Snoopy warned us of the castle."

Daniel was at his right hand, Andrew at his left, Beauty and Meg next, with Conrad and Tiny anchoring the left.

"Meg, what are you doing here?" demanded Duncan. "Get out of here. Run for your life."

She cackled at him. "I can bite and scratch," she squealed. "I can kick. I can summon up some magic."

"A pox on your magic," Andrew told her. "Those coming at us are the ones with magic."

The hairless ones came slowly down the hill with their lumbering gait, the clubs in their hamlike fists held ready. Behind them rolled the cloud of fog that now seemed shot through with lightning bolts, flaring as it seethed. Within it loomed horrific shapes, revealed momentarily by the lightning flares, then shut from sight by the roiling of the fog.

The last rays of the sun still touched the top of the hills to the north, but in the valley, shadows were beginning to creep across the land.

Duncan held his sword at ready and was pleased to find that there was no fear in him. It was useless, he told himself, to attempt to make a stand before such a force. The hairless ones would strike them and for a moment there would be a flurry of fighting, then the hairless ones and the monstrosities coming on behind them would roll over their thin line and that would be the end of it. But what was a man to do? Run, to be hunted down and dragged down, like a fleeing animal? Collapse upon his knees and plead for mercy when he knew there would be no mercy? Simply stand and take death as it came? No, by God, he told himself, he'd fight and when it was all over, once it all was known, there'd be no shame at Standish House.

For a moment he remembered, as clearly as if he stood before him, that old man at Standish House, with his plumb-line upright body, his rugged face with the short clipped mustache, his gray hair and the clear, honest grayness of his eyes. The kind of a man, Duncan knew, that a son could never shame.

He raised his sword as the foremost hairless one came toward him. Another step, he told himself. The hairless one took the other step, his club raised and already beginning to come down. Duncan chopped with his blade. He felt, rather than saw, the striking into flesh. Then the hairless one was falling and another took his place. The sword slashed out again, missed the stroke that he had intended, deflected by the club, but took off the club arm just above the elbow. Beside him Daniel was screaming in battle rage, as only a fighting horse could scream, standing on his hind legs, striking out with his forelegs, crushing skulls, bowling over the hairless ones as they leaped at him. To Duncan's left Andrew was tugging to free his staff from the belly of one of the attackers. Another hairless one aimed a club at him as he was tugging at the staff, but before the club could strike Duncan brought his sword down, slicing open the throat of the thing that held the club.

Duncan lost track of time. There was no past, no future, simply a bloodstained, straining present in which he thrust and struck, as if somewhere back there someone was lining up the hairless ones for him to strike at, as if it were some sort of silly game, replacing the one that went down with another that came charging in upon him to supply him with another target for his swordsmanship. It seemed to him incredible that he could keep on, but he did keep on.

Quite suddenly there was in front of him not a hairless one, but a spitting, vicious fury that was all claws and fangs, black as the deepest pit of night, oozing loathsomeness, and in a flare of blinding hatred, a hatred he had not felt against the hairless ones, he brought down the blade upon it, hewing it in half.

Something struck him from one side and he lost his balance, going over. As he scrambled to his feet, he saw what had struck him. A raging griffin, poised with beating wings over the swirling cloud of fog, which was still streaked by lightning flashes, was reaching down with grasping claws and stabbing beak, slashing, clawing, stabbing, rending the things that hid inside the cloud. Leaning from the griffin's back, a woman clad in a leather jacket, the red-gold glory of her hair streaming in the battle wind, wielded a shining battle axe that was smeared with the red of blood and black ichor such as had spouted from the body of the spitting fury Duncan had killed.