Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

The keep had fallen, but perhaps there were some who escaped and those mailed riders below might sweep the fields around to make sure of their prey. Liara edged back as well as she could, pulling over and around her the well-leaved branches of a sturdy mat of brush.

At least she could sight no hounds to be set on the trail of fugitives. These southerners apparently never depended on such. She let her head fall wearily back against a tree trunk centering the cover she had chosen.

Her fingers were on her belt. Five days since she had left the party from Lormt. If they had come seeking her… But why should they? She had been set among them by necessity, not choice. And time drove them. They would have no time to hunt for her and still cover the ground assigned them—already far too large a stretch for so small a party. Briefly she wondered what kind of a gate Mouse’s jewel had found within that strange place of stone pillar-trees. Not that it mattered.

She rummaged in her small pack and brought out the forelegs of a ground-hopping creature she had knocked over with a stone at dusk the night before. Her knives Liara dared not risk, but she had discovered that her wrist skills, honed by practice with the knives, could also hurl stones to advantage. The meat had only been partially seared by the handful of fire she had dared to light and had kept going only for a short time. It smelled rank and tasted worse, but she chewed and swallowed doggedly.

That which she had feared the most, what had in truth driven her apart, was ever to mind. But she had never picked up the odor of the Gray Ones, seen any of their paw prints on overgrown roads or game trails.

Her retreat from overseeing the engagement at the keep had been close to noon. Now it was near twilight when she struck recklessly into the ground-matting vines and saw before her a rise of trees which gave a daunting impression of gloom rather than promise of any shelter. Liara paused once on her steady plodding, which followed a zigzag pattern to allow her the use of any place where the vines thinned somewhat, to send a stone from her carefully selected collection at a commotion among the leaves. To her it seemed that some hidden creature was taking flight and hunger ruled her enough to try to make sure of some catch.

There was a shrill keening and the vine leaves were torn hither and thither as she caught glimpses of a small body and dared to throw again. When the struggle subsided, she advanced to find a bird—large as the fowls at the farmsteads, its fluffed feathers shading into the green of the leaves themselves.

Picking it up by its broad feet, Liara pushed through the remainder of the vines to the first fringe of the wood. Only there, well shadowed by the trees, did the girl stop to examine her kill. Praise be to Uncle Volorian, she nearly said aloud. She had been armored long since to the bloody ways of feeding the hounds and certainly her own needs were as important as theirs. More and more she was breaking through the shell of an Alizondern female.

Now as she grubbed in the leaf mold under the tree, which kept off most of the rain, she looked back at her existence in Krevanel as another life. As she uncovered a stone or two, embedded them in her mold hollow and then searched around for small pieces of brush or half-rotted tree branches, she wondered whether, given the chance (and the assurance of course that her littermate was not waiting on the other side to bring her down), she would willingly pass again through that postern gate in the depths of Lormt.

The bird was cleaned and plucked. She had her small fire after several snaps of the lighter, and pieces of meat impaled on some straight sticks over the flames, which sizzled as the fat began to burn into greasy drops and encourage high flames.

Would she keep on ahead through this forest? The fact that she had no real goal was troubling. Remembering the map at Lormt, she made a guess or two and thought she must be close to the southern border of Karsten. There was supposed to be a small nation south of that—mainly of seafarers—called Var. Not of the Old Race, either—would it be wise to strike farther west and try to find refuge there?

The rain had slacked oft a little. She fed from the strong, un-salted meat of her catch and wrapped the larger part in leaves for the next day. There was no way she could post any sentry here. As it had been ever since she parted with the company, she must spend a restless night. But she was so tired that she was not sure she could keep alert enough to sense any peril.

Leaning back against the bole of the tree under which she sheltered, Liara blinked and blinked again. She had brought her knives out of hiding and had them under her hand for instant use. The fire she allowed to die, even though she shivered in spite of the thick traveler’s cloak about her. Against her will her thoughts kept turning to her fine chambers at Krevanel—to the soft bed, to all the luxury she had taken for granted.

Her skulking away from the party… She turned now to consider the decision which had brought her to that act. Alizonderns thought first of their own advantage. She had been tutored from as far back as she could remember to weigh actions in how they would affect herself first, and then others—if there was any advantage in her aiding such.

In spite of the witchling’s words, she knew well by all she had been so taught that those who had accepted her only reluctantly at the first would be well rid of her now.

She ached—all toughening learned on the trail from Lormt did not seem to help now. When she swallowed, her throat was sore. Twice she choked and coughed until her eyes watered. Tired… so very tired…

The dusk of the forest closed in upon her. Her last remembered gesture was to close hand on knife hilt and then, in spite of all her efforts, she slid down into darkness, though there was a part of her which warned that that was dangerous.

So deep was she in exhausted slumber that no spark of warning reached her as they closed in. She aroused, dully aware at first and then with the thrill of pure fear, as she felt hands pawing at her. When she at last gained true consciousness, she found herself staring up into a half-seen bestial face while foul breath puffed down at her as the creature drew taut a rope about her chest and upper arms. She was flopped over roughly and her wrists were lashed together so tightly that the thongs which held her cut cruelly into the flesh.

Then she was rolled back again. She must have fallen prey to these hunters in the early morning, for there was the gray of a well-advanced dawn piercing between these trees to let her see her captors.

One of them pawed at her hair, tangling his wide but blunted nails in the strands enough to jerk her head upward at a painful angle so that when he leaned closely over her they were nearly eye to eye. And his lay within dark pits of his skull, like sparks of fire.

All the dullness of sleep had been swept away from her. She knew that the failure of her own body, her ability to keep on guard, had delivered her to those hunters she had fought to elude. Gray Ones.

They wore no clothing and their haired skins showed patches where scars and running sores were plain to see. The worst was that they were so human in their general stance and bodies. The one who still kept his hold on her was clearly male, but one crowding in beside him, showing sharp-pointed fangs, was a female, though her bared breasts were hardly more than flaps of skin thinly furred.

Two of them were wrestling clumsily with the straps of her small pack, jerking it back and forth as each snarled at the other and tried to win the find for himself.

He who held her head captive spat words at her and Liara had learned enough of the general trade talk which was the common tongue of all who used speech in the north to understand.