Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

“Gray Ones,” Denever reported that night as they shared out supplies around the great hall table. “They are usually trailers, ready to pull down stragglers. Why do they prowl about now?”

“An excellent question,” Lord Romar returned. He had finished his food early and pushed aside his plate. Now he had spread out fanwise on the board before him half a dozen knives, plain as to hilt, but with the blue-green sheen of blade which meant quan iron—that legacy of the Old Ones which was rarer than any gem Liara had heard of.

For this keep was not only the holding of his Lady’s claiming, but also held secret stores which delighted the fighters now made free of them. There was a quan mail shirt for most of them—though Liara had refused to take that offered. She was caught in a web of magic; she had no mind to become so entangled that the person who was Liara would cease to be.

“Yes, the Gray Ones nose closely,” said Krispin, the Falconer. On his wrist perched Farwing, whom he had been feeding bits from his own place. “Also, their number grows.”

“They were the servants of the Black Tower once.” Eleeri had taken one of the knives from her mate’s collection and was running a finger up and down as if trying so to test its edge. “The tower and he who held it are gone.” There was a stillness about her face as if she were remembering only too well something which had struck close to the heart. “Who or what calls them now?”

Mouse sat still, her jewel between her hands. When she looked up, her gaze traveled from face to face about the board. They were clear enough to see in the golden light of the lamps.

“They are drawn…” she said.

“By what we plan to do?” Keris demanded, shirting in his seat. He could never doubt the statement of any witch, young or old, but they were far too apt to speak obscurely.

“Perhaps,” was the only answer Mouse offered him.

“It is well maybe that we move out soon,” Denever said. “If they seek to set a cork to bottle us up here, of what value will a full fight be? Your—your liege—Hylan”—perhaps he, too, found it difficult to accept the Keplian as a full member of their party—“can he say whence these come?”

“Always,” Lord Romar answered, “they roam. Not long since, this was their territory. Perhaps they seek to make it so again. But this time they have no Dark lord to give them aid. However, you are right. We have found two gates and mapped them—that through which my dear Lady came, and that water-washed one which Lady Mouse assures us is now and has been a long time inactive. How many lie before us—who can tell?”

Liara felt strangely fatigued, as if somehow the light of the lamps on the quan iron blades had drawn from her some of her energy. She had a full day behind her and, if they marched, a number of aching, burning strides out into the unknown tomorrow.

A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched. Why she had given such a reaction to so light a contact, she could not have told. But it had seemed for an instant that some dangerous shadow slipping by had wafted against her.

The witchling? She still gripped her jewel and Liara could see the power in it was awake or waking, for the light shone between her fingers.

“Sister in the Light.” Mouse’s voice was hardly more than a whisper, well covered by the sounds of those about them rising and discussing what must be done before they moved. “You have been sadly plundered of what was yours to have. But hold this ever in mind: That which is born to the Light cannot be taken—unless it turns willingly into the darker path. And you will not! ” Mouse’s last word was as emphatic as an order. Then she was gone, leaving Liara, muddle-thoughted, behind her.

She was busied enough the next morning to keep under control questions and the general uneasiness which she was unable to throw off. Though they had now traveled with the party for a goodly length of time, the ponies were as uncontrollable as ever and she must stand by the head of each, keeping it steady, while its load was lashed in place securely enough to stand all tests of a rough trail ahead.

A third Keplian now joined them. Romar told the parry, “Hylan is our guard marshal, and this land lies under his protection. Thus he cannot be one of us as he wishes. But the mare Sebra, who is this season barren, joins us at her desire.”

They were over the border of Karsten and now they wound toward the southwest. To the east lay the end lands of Escore and there was another party searching there. The Falconers and the Borderers scouted ahead with greater care, for they had entered halfway through their second day afield a countryside which had been mauled and torn by warring. Liara had heard enough to know that after the Turning, when Duke Pagan and all his forces had been swallowed up, this countryside had been ravaged and fought over by outlaws and small lords quarreling for some advantage over their fellows.

For the first time, while she viewed the charred stone of burned out holds, saw unsown fields, with here and there the yellowed bones of a draft animal—or perhaps even a man—Liara realized this is what Alizon might come to with its eternal intrigues and assassinations, its gobbling up of lesser enemies by the greater. She had never before questioned the way of life she had been born into. It was enough to try to see ahead what she could do for her own safety and that of her line. Suddenly she wished that Kasarian rode with her on this trail. She still did not know what ploy her littermate was engaged in, but that he held some touch with Lormt, with the Lady Mereth, there was no denial. Was Kasarian also hunting a gate? The two she had seen so far—a pillar wind-bitten and moss-covered, and then a quiet pond, its waters so clear one could see no sand at the bottom, but rather a stretch of blue-gray rock—were not impressive in themselves.

The travelers were well armed and they rode taking every precaution they could against surprise. She had tried their dart guns but was far from a good shot. Swords were not part of the schooling of a Hearthmistress of Alizon—but knives, now… She hugged her right arm against her for a moment and felt the quan iron with its tepid warmth—the blade never appeared to grow as cold as true steel—against her forearm. There were two more in her belt; one rode within the collar of her jerkin between her shoulders, the other in her boot. With these there were few who could match her.

They camped that night in a shatter of ruins that had no cover nearby, so that nothing could steal upon them unawares. Mouse made her report to Gull, though no spoken word was to be heard. Then she informed the others that the sites of four gates had been located within Estcarp but none of them appeared to retain any power. It might well be that the destruction of the Magestone had indeed sealed them all. Yet who could be sure?

Liara shared the rotation of the guard, and by the stars she thought it might be near midnight when she caught that whiff of scent out of the night. Unlike the stench of that thing of the crevice, this had a familiar odor, one which something in her found exciting.

Memory clicked and she was back with Lord Volorian, trotting behind his burly body, trying to keep up as well as listen properly to the stream of knowledge he was half growling at her. Volorian’s kennels were tamed throughout Alizon. Pups whelped there brought fabulous sums—it they were sold at all. Almost she could feel now the fur on some small, plump, squirming body, hear the rough purr answering to the proper scratching behind the ears.

But—there were no hounds! Liara stiffened; her hand slipped, bringing sleeve knife into her grasp. Perhaps, she tried to assure herself, there were hounds from the destroyed manors and keeps they had seen, gone feral in a pack, interbreeding and managing to live off the land.