Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

“Rus,” Denever commented, yet he made no move to use his bow.

The evil birds, their naked, blood-red heads agleam in the sun, were spreading out, speeding toward them. Old lore flashed into Keris’s mind—a thrice-circling to immobilize prey for the coming of their masters? He had never heard of birds being used in such bespelling. Again the falcon soared, seemingly unwilling to let near him any of that ghastly flock. For flock it was fast becoming—Keris counted at least a dozen of the creatures now on wing.

“Ssssaaaaa!”

When he heard that sound from behind, Keris drew steel and Jasta half wheeled so that they could now look in both directions. Trotting as if her hooves were on the smoothest of roadways came the Torgian mare which was Mouse’s mount, seemingly so attached to her mistress that she even sheltered next to Mouse’s camp mat at night.

The young witch held her head at a sharp angle, making no move to watch the trail or control the passage of her mount. Instead her lips were moving, though Keris caught no sound of words.

Above, the seemingly purposeful flight of the rus faltered all at once. Their wings flapped vigorously as if they fought against some storm wind which would carry them away. Yet they continued to struggle.

There was a curdling in the air space between the flyers fighting that battle and the party on the trail. It seemed to Keris that the stones about him appeared to yield up shadows which arose purposefully, thickening into a net—no, a sack—a giant sack as he had seen used as a fishing net.

“Sssaaa!” Again Mouse’s voice arose and this time with the snap of a command.

Still the rus fought, but it was clear that they now fought to escape, not to come at any prey. At them, with the power of a full storm gust, came the bag, gathering them in. They were screeching now, their voices echoing and reechoing from the heights about. Keris heard in answer the squeals of the pack ponies downtrail, and trumpet challenges from the Torgians.

Even as the bag closed about the birds, so did it continue to grow thicker, hiding what it held. Then it whirled about in a mad circle, and vanished as might a cloud. The air above was free.

He saw Denever, no longer watching the battle above, move toward Mouse, but already a Keplian strode arrogantly uptrail and the Lady Eleeri was beside the girl, reaching out a hand to steady her. Mouse’s eyes were half closed and she drooped.

The Keplian mare tossed her head, glanced from eye corner at the Renthan—for the two breeds seemed in a rivalry of sorts.

*Trap,* Jasta’s mind spoke.

“Set by whom?” Keris countered. “What has been loosed here?”

*Well may you ask that,* Jasta replied. *The rus are said to serve the Sarn, but Sarn have never been known to ride this far south.*

Lord Romar had joined them and now slid from the back of the Keplian who was his battle companion. He nodded to Denever.

“There is no other way past this height,” he pointed out. “If they have bottled us in…”

Keris and the archer joined him afoot. Behind them the Falconer Krispin settled his returned bird on his saddle horn before he, too, dismounted.

However, the four of them advanced with caution, hardly noting that the Keplian and Jasta, both showing ready teeth, followed. What they found as this too-tempting trail rounded an upstanding pinnacle of bare rock—

Keris had seen many horrors of the Dark. He was no green boy who had never yet blood-wet his blade. But this!

Trap it was, and they were not the first to meet with it. There stood a bulk nearly as tall as the roof of a landsman’s cottage. It had been fashioned—surely this thing had never really lived?—though of that they could not be sure. It was a monstrous head, something out of the deepest of nightmares. And the worst was that it was somehow a nauseating mingling of human and some reptilian species. Its jaws were well open to show a triple row of great fangs which had the appearance of rusted metal.

Lying on the ground about it were fragments of bodies, most clearly human. Keris swallowed—the stench was terrible, but not as bad as facing what caused it. And here the rus had been feasting.

A skull dislodged by the Keplian lay grinning up at them, plucked bare of all semblance of flesh.

Denever was circling to the left, attempting to avoid touching any of that terrible mass, and Romar was taking the right when they were both struck, as well as Keris, with the powerful mind-send of the two mounts who had followed them, uniting in one message.

“There is no one here.”

“This thing has no life of its own,” Romar said with authority. “I guess it is a device once given strong powers to entice prey within reach—as we see by its kills.” He stooped and picked up a sword, the blade snapped off close to the hilt but showing no signs of rust or weathering.

He turned the remains of the weapon around. The hilt was rough with a setting from which jewels must have been pried. Meanwhile Denever was poking gingerly into a noisome mass on the other side of that head. He jerked out, with the point of his lance, a club which rolled until it was stopped by a rack of bones.

“Outlaws,” was his judgment.

It was Jasta who cut in then: *Comrades, this thing is now harmless. Though if it can be activated again, who knows? There is evil here, but it is faded.*

Keris faced the bloodstained snout. “The Port of Dead Ships,” he said slowly. “That was also something set by those long gone but kept alive at times. A gate?” But already he knew that that guess was wrong. This was no gate, though it might once have been a defense for some place of evil, even a gate.

*The Witch.* That was the Keplian. *Perhaps it is her doing which broke the pattern. But do we leave this here perhaps to hunger and eat once more?*

There could be only one answer to that. They threaded their way downtrail and reported what they had found. Mouse was seated on one of the cushion mats, her jewel held tight between her hands, while the Lady Eleeri supported her. But as they came, she looked up. There was such a shadow on her small face that Keris was shaken. He could almost believe that she had witnessed that horror with them.

“It is as Jasta has said.” Her words came slowly. “The evil is no longer strong, but it may return. We cannot leave such a thing to work its will again.”

Farther downslope Liara regarded her heavy boots, a crinkle of pain between her white brows. To anyone who had worn for most of her life soft slippers in a keep, these thick-soled monsters were instruments of torture. Still, the Lady Mereth herself had overseen their making, and the girl had no doubt that the workmanship which passed that pair of falcon-sharp eyes was the best which could be provided.

The reins of her riding pony were looped over a nearby knuckle of rock. Riding, too, left her body sore in places she could not have believed. Whenever she could, she abandoned the saddle and walked beside the line of burden beasts.

To the surprise of all at Lormt, herself included, the wiry, mountain-bred, small beasts were their least troublesome under her control. She knew that most of the party could communicate with the various animals they accompanied. But they considered the pack ponies outside that range of influence.

She had certainly made no attempt at such a talent—it would be witchery. On the other hand, apparently in her presence the creatures could be loaded, herded, used without the vicious attempts at biting and kicking with which they greeted any others. She often caught them watching her as if she in herself were a menace they were afraid to challenge.

There was confusion up ahead. Save for an ever-present rearguard, often Denever (certainly a guard to depend upon if she had need, which she did not), Liara seldom rode closer than shouting distance to the rest of the party, except when they stopped at intervals in their twisting upward climb. When they did come to such halts, she kept with the ponies, suspecting that her presence was of less value than her absence as far as the others were concerned. Certainly she wanted no close contact with that witch whelp, and, though she would never have admitted it aloud, she was distrustful of the Lady Eleeri, who used trail craft like a trained hunter and who was always trailed by her Keplians.