Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Trusla was panting now—the steady speed of the running Sulcar girl was such that she could not equal it, bundled as she was in sweat-sticky furs and hides which imprisoned her body. Still Audha showed no sign of slacking.

Somehow they had found their way back—or Audha had led them—out of that mountain-hidden hall into another passage.

The sea scent was there also, but it was tempered by other odors.

Trusla called on failing strength to draw a deep breath. Not spice, no—it had been long seasons since the perfume had wrapped her under the moonlight in Tor Marsh. She kept glancing down at the darkness about her boots, half expecting to see the wide-open blooms of the march-moon, then long, wide petals curling upward about her feet. But this was not Tor, she thought confusedly. There could not be any such sweetness spread for them to tread on.

Light again—pale at first. Trusla raised her hand to run across the slick skin of her forehead. She felt a queer reaching—as if something sorted their thoughts and memories for a purpose of its own.

There was in this black hole a blaze of light to her right. Oddly enough, those running with her did not even turn their heads in that direction. But Trusla had somehow drawn apart from Simond and there was distance between her and the rest now. She turned her head, looked, and stopped.

Tor Marsh had never been a happy place for her. But now here was a wide door open into all its familiar islands, bogs, and ways. She could hear the drums and her childhood training responded to their beat. There—there just a step or so away was the house which had been her own home. A shadowy figure moved in the doorway—Mafra leaning on her staff, waiting for Trusla to lead her out into a mist-veiled road.

But the girl was jerked back by a grasp, fingers dug so deeply that she could feel the bruising that they set upon her skin.

“No—”

“Come!” The voice was harsh and carried the weight of a command in it. She was dragged along at a queer, almost shuffling pace as if the one who had taken her captive could not walk with a straight stride.

“Shadow—dream—” the voice continued in her ears.

But Mafra was coming out of the hall door, her head up, her head turning, as if her blind eyes were following Trusla as she was so dragged away from her. The girl tried to shift against that compelling hold—to beat and kick for her freedom. But the one who held her was not to be so easily escaped, though she heard a gasp or two of pain as if she had managed to do her captor a hurt.

Her beating hands, when they could find a surface, brushed fur and hide. Certainly it was not chance alone which brought a smear of something else across her fist. She did not know why she raised her knuckles to her lips and licked them, why she had halted in her fight for freedom.

She licked, and the few small grains of powdery sand were on her tongue. As if a curtain were snatched away, Trusla no longer saw Tor Marsh. Mafra did not wait there for her tending. It was only dark, very dark, for the only light, that shallow beam of Frost’s jewel, was well ahead.

“Glamorie.” She knew now who had kept her out of that trap, for trap it must have been. Perhaps since Audha had proved not useful for their enemy, she had been second choice. But she remembered now how the Latt hunter had sprawled across that spread of ice where the sand had given her footing. In his floundering he must have struck one of those patches, leaving spread grains clinging to his clothing as her safeguard now.

He was limping, and though he kept doggedly onward, her vigorous struggle with him might well have opened his hurts.

“All is well!” she said in a breathless voice. “The glamorie vision is gone.”

His answer was a grunt, and she heard the thud of his spear butt against the rock as he pulled himself along.

“Trusla!” One of those shadows ahead turned back and was running in their direction. “Trusla?”

“We are here. There was a glamorie, but Odanki held me from it!” Should she blurt out her half-suspicion that the enemy now sought another tool and had made a try for her?

The light ahead had stopped. She could see some kind of a struggle going on and then one of those shadows flopped to the ground, the witch light held above the prone figure.

Simond, without a word, gave a shoulder as crutch to the Latt hunter. Making the best time they possibly could, they joined the others.

It was Audha who lay, again tended by Kankil. The shaman, her feather cape spreading wide across the rock, bent over her. Now Frost knelt to once more touch the girl’s forehead.

“No one can slay shadows!” Odanki’s denial sprang, Simond was sure, from the fact that thus far all the battles had been between the women, and he given no chance to aid in any skirmish.

Frost looked across Audha’s body to Trusla.

“You were sought.” That was no question but a statement. Her features, even seen by the slim light of the jewel, held a new austerity.

“There was a glamorie—a picture of Tor Marsh—like a door—and one to whom I owe a debt waiting there. It was Odanki who knew it for what it was. He held me back.”

“So, having nearly broken one weapon, she seeks for another,” commented Inquit.

“The dead do not war!” Stymir snarled.

“Always steel for the men—but certain things cannot truly die, Captain. Nor can you, I think, use that sword of yours on this menace, even if she were to stand with empty hands before you. When the snowcat is pursued hotly, she heads for her den, as every wall of that she knows well and she will use all she knows. This one’s hate is still hot and perhaps it will never cool.” There was a tinge of feeling in those last words.

“How does she?” The captain moved closer to look at Audha.

“Life force is drowned—perhaps to set the glamorie. But she lives and it is certain that she will obey.”

Kankil chittered and reached out a hand to touch the shaman’s cloak. Inquit nodded. “You have done your best, sister. Let us now see what else can be done. But we need time.” She raised her head and looked about her. “Stark though this be, we must camp, rest, eat, for we cannot go on if our bodies fail us, no matter how our spirits urge us.”

It was a strange camp indeed. They had left most of their supplies behind except for all the food they could carry. So there were no sleeping mats, only their cloaks, and the men lay harshly in their prisoning armor.

Having shared out meager portions, Inquit produced another bag from beneath her cloak and took out a packet. When she loosed the string of that, Frost frowned, but the shaman spoke directly to the witch.

“Sister, we eat scraps now and we do not know if we can find more food. To deal in this”—she held the bag open—“is, as I well know, a chancy thing and one which must be well considered. But if we are to drop for faintness in these paths, how will that benefit us? I say to you all that what I hold is a precious thing for a Latt hunter, for a traveler caught in a long storm. It grows sparsely and its harvesting is left only to those of the great knowledge.

“Place a pinch of this upon your tongue and then take what rest you can. I will swear by Arska that whatever virtue has been grown into it will serve you well.”

The Sulcars seemed a fraction reluctant, but Odanki took his pinch at once and Simond followed, with Trusla eager to join him. She had heard many tales of strange herbs, and legends said that some could keep one awake and hearty for even days with no other nourishment.

After Frost and Inquit had dipped into the contents of the bag, and they watched the shaman put a pinch of it into Audha’s mouth as Kankil held that open, the Sulcar captain and Joul took their share.