Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

She listened with all her might, hearing the scrape of a thick iron-studded boot sole at the next post. Hounds did not hunt silently unless that was brutally enforced by some huntsman. But more and more she believed that somewhere, not too far away, a pack of four-footed danger drew in upon them.

Hound scent? She had as noiselessly as possible shifted her position to face in the direction in which she believed that advance lay. There was a full moon tonight and the open land about the ruin was open to see.

Hound scent? She drew that smell more deeply into her nose and then saw a quiver of shadow advance from a copse of trees well away. Those were no hounds!

Instantly she was alert. She had never seen a live Gray One—and the two bodies she had viewed had been more manlike than dog. But Liara knew what came. And even as she was about to shout an alarm, the enemy struck—with a weapon she had not been expecting—directly at her.

The warning choked off in her throat as she found herself frozen, unable to move hand or foot, and with a weight pressing against her breast as if to forbid her free breath. In the meadow before her, the moonlight seemed to thicken as if some power drew upon it to produce a form.

Liara gasped for breath and gasped again. What stood there? The form of the thing was clearly that of a female, for its silver height was unclothed, but the head—white, sharp-snouted, with red ears, not folded as usual back against the skull, but standing erect as when the hunt was launched.

It was out of a nightmare—but no nightmare she had ever heard of before—a foul mixture which had nothing to do with the will of nature.

Nausea arose within her. Yet somehow her will awoke. There had been no call, no sound which even she could hear. But that—that loathsome character strove to draw her toward it—beckoned her as if in her innermost part there was a likeness, a kinship—NO!

Liara was no longer aware of anything except that thing in the meadow, that which summoned. Around her, fouling her lungs as she breathed, was the thick smell of kennels. The thing’s blazing eyes caught hers and held; the form standing there appeared to grow, taller, more solid, more powerful.

Come—blood to blood—come , the order continued. While that treacherous part of her own unknown inner self was drawn, it was a sharp pain which broke that fast-woven spell. She felt the bite of metal in her flesh.

And straightaway, before the thing could tighten its invisible cords on her again, Liara’s own hand moved. She threw her sleeve knife.

She saw the hound-woman raise clawed paws to her throat and then stagger back, then crumple down. Liara whimpered and staggered in turn, until her shoulder thumped forcibly against what had once been the wall of a watch tower. Pain held her in its fist—even as if that knife had entered her own throat.

Through watering eyes she saw the limp white body in the grass. The brilliance of the silver which had made it so visible was fading, just as the smoothness of the flesh vanished. The thing was still female, but the hound head was gone—only a skull thatched with grizzled hair remained.

Liara was able to pull herself straighter—the pain had faded. She could hear shouting and saw a wave of more just such hairy bodies ripple forward.

Nor did the cries of alarm come from one direction only; she was dimly aware that they also sounded from behind. The camp in the ruins must be beset by more than one party.

They were attacked by such a wave of Gray Ones as none in that refuge had ever seen drawn together before. Only the moonlight was their friend; had the sky been clouded, the fierce determination of those without might well have won them a way within.

Of this Liara was barely aware. Since her knife had taken the hound-woman, her arm flopped by her side, so weighted that it might be encased in the stone of the walls. She coughed and coughed again, tasting blood which she spat away.

Keris set a second clip into his dart gun. At least this was one weapon with which he could truly claim expertise. He continually blinked his eyes, trying to ease a smarting which had struck them at the rise of that white pillar of light just before the attack broke. Liara had been fronting that pillar and he was not sure what she had done, but he guessed that she was responsible for its vanishing.

There was another figure up on the wall where Liara had earlier stood and he heard the voice of the Lady Eleeri raised in what could only be a war cry. She was using her bow with the skill he had often seen demonstrated in the arms court, and he was sure that very few of those arrows missed their marks.

Still the waves of Gray Ones came as if maddened past all thought of self-preservation. There followed the high-screamed challenge of a stallion encountering traditional foes, and from the arched entrance below broke the Keplians. One watching them now could well believe in the tales of their devil blood.

Even as a warhorse might be trained to rear and so bring down any footman menacing his rider, so did the mare Theela and the colt stamp death, rip and toss bodies aside.

Then was a breathing space when no new forces came out of the distant woodland. The Keplians made a round of the bodies, once or twice raising a razor-sharp hoof to snap out a flicker of life. However, when they approached that crumpled figure Liara had confronted, they circled it at a distance, their heads down as if they sniffed deeply at what lay there. Then Theela swerved to head for the ruins, her companions behind her.

“Liara?” Though the voice was low, it cut easily through the fog surrounding the girl which had led her to believe she was no longer any part of those who fought here.

Light, brilliant—blue—searing her eyes. She could not lift her deadened arm to shade them. The shine of the hound-head had been almost as strong.

She could not even see who stood behind that mighty lamp, but the voice she knew. The witchling.

At that moment it was as if someone had unveiled a secret for her viewing and she shrank back again against the stone. There was that in her… she held a taint which those—those things of the dark could sense, could call—

“They called.” The brilliant light still held her fast. “But did you answer?”

Life was returning to her arm, she was able to bring her hand up to her trembling lips.

“I did not then… know—”

“Do not hold yourself at fault.” Mouse’s soft voice was serene. “If you drew them, then also their purpose was betrayed when you brought down their bait. And that very bait alerted our watchers.”

“Hound…” Liara murmured through stiff lips then. “ We are the Hounds of Alizon, not merely the packs we raise. And those packs have been used for Dark purposes.” She shivered. Though no female had watched an Ordered Feeding, yet the details of such were as known to all as clear as crystal in a collar.. “Your people say I am not of the Dark, but if there is in me that which can draw something searchers want…”

Her thoughts were flying very fast now, seeming like a stream of orders shouted in her ears. “If that be so… then I have no place with you.”

“If you were of the Dark, Lady Liara, then death would have been your portion as you stand here. We are all fashioned by those of our blood gone before, but it is the choices that we ourselves make which can change the weaving patterns.”

The light no longer tortured her eyes. Now the Lady Eleeri came to her, still holding her bow.

“This was an attack planned by hate but not by true knowledge. If they believed that they could win through our defenses by the tricks of a half-taught Shaman, then they are the less to be feared. Had they waited—

But Liara had already caught the logic behind that.