Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

Luckily that line of poles did not extend forever. And it looked as if both the swinging spider things and the worms were unable to leave their close vicinity. The Kioga were again striving to bring the pack train and the spare mounts into line when there sounded a distant roaring.

Wind swept at them with a buffeting force, freeing some of the webs. Whether or not the creatures could actually control the flight of their carrying strands, those now in flight could not tell, but at least ten were riding the gusts of wind toward them.

It was several moments before Firdun grasped the fact that they were being herded. Their attempts to outride and outrun those wind riders sent them following a southern direction. Guret, Lero, and Hardin began to prove the Kioga expertise, and that of a Mantle hunter, with their bows.

But these were not easy targets. They appeared to ride currents of air which rose or dropped without any pattern. Those steady streams of air also gathered up puffs of grit from the gravel waves, sending it to sting flesh, threaten the eyes of the would-be fighters.

The travelers were away from the poles now and at least the worms appeared to have made no attempt to follow them. A lucky shot burst another of the web riders, and Obred uttered a war cry. Still the wind blew steadily and the web riders showed no signs of giving up pursuit.

Then lightning struck straight across the path of those web-borne horrors. Struck once, and again. Several webs were rent and the creatures in them burst and gone. It was then that Firdun’s horse stumbled and he was thrown, crashing down on his shoulder so that his sword fell from a numbed hand. A web had touched ground not too far away. Its occupant, apparently uninjured, leaped for the man. His horse had recovered to plunge on. Firdun had stooped to try to recover his sword when sanity returned. Ward… what would ward such a creature as this?

He had never been forced to face the summoning of formulas so fast, but somehow his half-dazed mind was able to sort out words and he shouted them.

The lightning whips still struck back and forth through the spinning webs but did not approach him and he had a feeling that they in themselves might be as deadly to his kind as the creatures they sought to destroy.

That thing which had started its leap at him crashed in midair against what he had so quickly summoned—a shield. Still clinging to that materialization, it thudded to the ground, the shield flattened over it. Firdun shook his head slowly. Why had he not drawn on this talent when the web riders first appeared? He had been as open to attack as a Dalesman of no talent.

Now he flung up his right hand, still numb from his fall, and forced his fingers into patterns which should be as familiar and easy to him as drawing breath into his lungs. Only he struggled as might an apprentice of the least talent. It was as if he himself were somehow in ward, kept from exercising his powers except when he drew upon the very limits of his energy.

The lightning flashes were coming farther apart and weakening. At the very moment he became aware of that, Firdun was forced to his knees. A mighty hand might have reached out of the sky to flatten him for the puny powerless thing he was. Something was draining, gnawing at his memory. He could not recall the proper gestures, the words, as much of him as his own name.

Then followed fear, not that which was the natural result of their battle, but rather a fear which was an emptiness—in him! Warrior and warder as he was, Firdun uttered a cry, his whole body shuddering. He could not move any more than if he really were encased in one of the wind-driven nets.

To be so shaken by raw fear was worse than taking a wound in the flesh, for this reached far deeper, left him a quivering nothing. Nothing—no! He was Firdun of the Gryphon. He clung to the thought-picture of that Gryphon.

Landsil, one of the Great Old Ones, who had stood twice against the utmost power of the Dark and won. Landsil! Instead of the jumble of Power words he had tried to keep in sequence, Fir-dun now centered on that one name, held to it as the only security in his present world.

The hand which pressed—there was no hand! He heard now the beat of mighty wings. And the gale those raised banished that which had entrapped him. From Landsil’s gift had come his talent, and once more the Gryphon returned to his breed that gift.

Firdun pulled to his feet. The web riders had not been swept from the sky even by those lightning bolts which had now vanished. But they were wavering, and that push of wind which had sent them in pursuit was dying—it was dead.

Drifting webs settled on the scrub land. Firdun held up his head. Just as Ibycus had drawn from him more than he thought he had had at the well, so now he brought up his full strength. The air between him and those webs glimmered oddly. He could sense more than feel the freezing cold which was gathering. There was surely a sheen of frost already on the withering grass.

No movement, no wind, no bodies emerging from the webs. The webs themselves were turning into crystals, glistening in a sun which now cut through the haze overhead. Firdun picked up his sword, rammed the blade twice in the soil to clean it of the noisome ichor of the slain, and sheathed it. Turning, he looked for the others.

Aylinn was kneeling on the ground beside a figure in purple clothing. Elysha—struck down by poisons? He was sure that the webs had not carried past where he had taken his involuntary stand. Ibycus knelt at her other side. The Kioga were urging the animals together in some semblance of order, but Hardin stood a little apart, eyeing Firdun as he came, as one might look upon an adept. One hand was covering his mouth.

As Firdun advanced, the young lord was shaken out of his trance.

“Jakata,” he said. “He used his Power—and it did not hold.” His hand arose in a warriors salute. “Lord, they spoke of the Gryphon breed at Garth Howell and Jakata laughed. I think he does otherwise at this hour.”

“The Lady.” Firdun only nodded at the boy’s speech and went on to where those other three were gathered.

He had never seen such an expression on Ibycus’s face before. And beneath the one he could not read he sensed the other’s rage.

“Heart-held”—that was Elysha, her voice thin but her words precise and confident—“this was another testing—be not so disturbed that it came. That one we follow will use every fraction of the Dark which lies in this dreary land to try us.” She raised her hands a little and Firdun saw that the gems in her bracelets no longer held their rich gleam. He was sure then he knew from whence had come those lightning flashes.

Now Ibycus stood up. “Fool, I am a fool. He must know this land far more than any have believed possible—and he makes it serve him.”

“But”—Elysha laughed and raised herself with Aylinn’s help—“he does not know the mettle of those who move against him. Landsil’s get, I salute you,” she said to Firdun.

“Hardly an adept,” Firdun returned, “or perhaps even a ’prentice of promise. But there was no warning from Kethan.”

Aylinn looked up, her face very sober. “He is alive and free. Were that not so, I would know it. Perhaps his way, though still westward, did not follow this same route.”

The pard was crouched in the best spot of cover he could sight in this country, which had changed again from the dry plains they had known. He had caught and eaten a fat waddling bird in the last of the long grasses and had feasted well. Now he was tonguing his paws but still keeping a watchful eye on what lay below this perch of his.

His trailing sense had not been taxed this day. It had been easy to pick up the scent. Earlier he had found only a deserted campsite. But the traces he nosed out angled now a little more to the north, and the land was beginning to rise. Not only were there hills here to break the monotony of the plain, but they were fast growing taller and there was a smudge on the horizon which promised greater heights.