Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

“Waited until we were strung out on the trail, until I was behind with the ponies. Yes, then they would have had their victory.”

“Never.” The radiance from Mouse’s jewel had faded, revealing her as she stood behind the wall of its brilliance. “For I say they believed you to be the way to us and you are not. Nor can you ever be—unless”—she spoke more slowly now—“you allow yourself to doubt, to seek shadow and turn aside from Light.”

“How can you be sure,” Liara asked, “that I will not?”

They had given her trust, these enemies of old, and she feared trust, feared it because among her own it never held. However, outwardly she accepted for the present Mouse’s assurance, though her mind was busy untangling tormenting thoughts.

She did not sleep for the rest of the night, though she lay quiet among her blankets. This quest of theirs—gates upon gates—what had it really to do with her?

That she might ever return to her own place—no. She had been forcibly barred from Krevanel by Kasarian’s action. There was no place for her at Lormt, even if she were to turn back, and if she remained among these she had come to accept she might well once more be used against them.

Hound… Whenever she closed her eyes now she could see that silver body and the hound-head. She had never heard any tales among her people of such an unnatural creature. But what if that was what Alizonderns were inside? Had they so absorbed the inner natures of their prized, four-footed companions that that was how they would appear to an eye which could truly see—a mixture of human and beast? All those days she had spent with Volorian, her pride that he shared knowledge with her… had that time strengthened that taint they did not realize they possessed?

She kept much to herself with the morning and she was busy, for the ponies were unusually unruly. Perhaps the scent of the dead bodies beyond the wall reached them. Secretly she plundered one of the packs, setting aside a packet of journey cakes. Bow and arrows were not her weapon, nor could she help herself to such without it being instantly noted. She still had three of her four throwing knives, and a short sword she had used mainly to hack paths through thorn brush when necessary.

When had she ever had anyone who really cared what became of her? In Alizon she had filled a need and done her duty well enough that those of Krevanel seemed to find her well qualified. Her help with the ponies—that would weigh a little against a second attack of the Gray Ones.

Morning mist became rain and they all turned the hoods of their cloaks up over their heads. But no one suggested that they try to wait out the storm, for Mouse had announced, before the downpour had become too heavy, that there were indications of gate Power somewhere ahead.

Trees gave way to tough grass and clumps of brush, and that in turn to a stretch of gravel in which were upstanding stones set in the general confusion of a forest grove. The ponies had to be prodded into keeping up with the party and then seemed to decide on their own that they were better served by company.

Liara dropped back, as was the usual way if one answered a call of nature and slipped around one of the tree stones, waiting until rear of the Borderers rode by.

Then, shouldering the very small pack which was all she allowed herself, she skulked from outcrop to outcrop away from the plodding parry, not knowing or caring now in what direction she headed.

Keris was surprised when one of the pack ponies crowded up beside Jasta. The small beasts usually kept their distance from the mounts of the rest of the party. He glanced back to see that the lead animal closely followed by the rest, yet there was no sign of Liara on her tough mount and she usually kept carefully close to her charges.

*She is gone.*

He started at the Renthan’s mind-message. Since the happenings of the night before, his once-vague suspicions of the Alizondern girl had reawakened. Then he had held the next post in line with hers and had seen a strange pillar of light arise facing where she stood. His forehead creased in a frown. It had been as if some fleeting breaths of time had been rift from him and he remembered nothing clearly until the light was overthrown to the ground and he was busied picking off those slavering Dark ones who attacked so oddly without any cover as if they had expected to find the defenders asleep.

He had been with Krispin and the Lord Romar when they had ridden forth, with the addition of the young Keplian stallion, to survey the bodies after the battle. And his ranging had brought him close to where that light pillar had been rooted. Something had shone in the grass and he dismounted.

There was a dead Gray One, of course, a female and larger than any he had ever sighted in all the years they had warred upon such in Escore.

Oddly enough, the bristled face turned up to the light was layered with what appeared to be white paint. And as he stooped to see the closer, he could distinguish flat pieces of stiff red stuff fastened to either side of the skull as if to mimic ears. In the creature’s throat was a knife buried near to its hilt, not quite far enough to hide its quan iron blade. And he had seen that knife hurled many times over in the arms court at Lormt, always thudding exactly in the center of the target. That was Liara’s. He tugged it loose and rammed the blade several times into the ground to clean it. Odd she did not come to claim it herself; such knives were too valuable to be left lying, even in bodies.

They had been so busied breaking camp that he had forgotten his find and it was only now, when he could not sight the Alizondern girl and Jasta said she was gone, that he remembered.

“Gone—where?” For a moment he felt a sharp flash of fear. Even though the Falconer and one of the Borderers kept guard, this place of many stones offered excellent chance for an ambush.

*To follow her own trail,* the Renthan returned.

“To betray.” Keris was not altogether sure he meant that.

*To give us freedom from what she fears the most.* Nor for all Keris’s urging would Jasta elaborate on that.

It had been raining, the heavy endless rain which soaked one’s garments to the skin, but the land seemed to welcome such a burden of endless drops. Meadow grass gave way to tangles of vines, which appeared to carpet the ground instead of searching for any tree or rock which could bear them aloft. Here and there, sheltered by the larger leaves were huge scarlet flowers which gave forth a cloying perfume and were shaped, Liara thought as she struggled along, not unlike the stripped skulls of shriekers tossed aside after the great day of annual slaughter. But there was nothing else here to remind her of her homeland. She knew that she was entirely lost.

Yet twice fortune had favored her. The first time she had been warned by keen hearing to take cover as a troop trotted by on the remains of a road which had not been kept up for many years. They were huddled in cloaks, those who had them; the rest wore blankets, odds and ends of hides, pulled around their shoulders.

They were not of the Old Race, but a mongrel lot, and from the saddle horn of the leader bobbed the severed head of a woman, anchored so by twisted hair. They were southerners such as she had always heard them described—yet she had certainly seen none of their like in Lormt.

Her next caution that this was not deserted land had come with a heavy rise of smoke. She had hidden out for nearly half a day, her now too slim body pressed to the ground, staring down at a keep which had clearly fallen to attack. She was thankful she was so far away that she could not hear or see clearly what happened there. The troop which seemed to have taken the small stronghold might be better armed and disciplined, but its soldiers, she was sure, were no different from those brutes she had earlier seen.