Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

But to that he did not answer at once. He went to the window and looked out into the silence of the night.

“Does it give you fear of me to know this?”

“I do not know. I feared, yes, when I first saw—But with the undersight perhaps you will always be a man to me.”

He turned back to me, but his face was now in shadow. “I promise you this weapon-oath, Gillan, willingly never will I fright you!”

For an instant only did I see fur on his shoulders, a mountain cat’s muzzle in place of his face? But I willed to see a man, and I thereafter did.

“Are there no mirrors in your household? Does demon lore speak true thereof?” I strove to rebraid my hair. By touch alone that was an unhandy business.

A laugh behind me, and then, swept over my head and down, held for my convenience, a mirror indeed. But this of shining metal, meant rather to ward battle stroke than to provide an aid for adornment. Wan and strange did my reflection look back at me from that shield surface; still it did guide my hands in the ordering of my hair. My pins were half missing and the final coiling looser than I wished.

“You have taken up rough housing, Gillan—unless you wish to see it as the others do—” There was question in that.

“Matters as they are suit me very well indeed.” I made quick reply. “I have a liking for facing what I must with a clear head. Herrel, what do we have to fear?”

“Most of all discovery.” He had slung sword on a shoulder baldric which was set with the same milky gems as those of his belt buckle. And now he held in his two hands a helm, wrought of silver, or so it looked. For a crest it had no plume such as those worn by the fighting lords of High Hallack, but a small figure, marvellously made, a thing of rare beauty, in the form of a crouching, snarling mountain cat, preparing to launch in attack-spring.

Discovery, he said. And the burden of escaping such discovery fell largely on me. Herrel must have read my dawning knowledge in my face for he came to me swiftly.

“I do not think we have aught to fear this day, for the trickery in the night will make them wary. But if you again sense anything strange tell me. There is this,” beneath his helm his eyes had the same cold glitter of the jewels in the eye sockets of the silver cat.”perhaps you have chosen ill after all, Gillan. I can not stand against Halse, or the others in spell weaving. But should I learn which one would attack so, then I may challenge sword battle, and they can not nay-say me. Only, to so speak I must have proof that he who I would meet is indeed guilty. I can lay no wall about you—”

“Perhaps I have another safeguard—I had forgotten it.”

It was so slender a thread, but one about to fall will clutch any rope. I pulled aside the cloak on the bed, the one which had plunged me into this. Under that lay the one thing I had brought out of Norstead for my own, the bag of simples. Why I had clung to it, I could not tell, but now perhaps I could be glad.

Healing salves and balms, most of them. But in the last pocket a small amulet which I had made for an experiment and which I had never shown to Dame Alousan, lest she turn on me for following the country beliefs in a fashion unbefitting one who dwelt in a holy place.

Wild angelica, and the dried flowers of purple mallow, with a pressed ivy leaf or two, and also the berries of rowan, sewn into a tiny packet, with certain runes stitched on it. All lore coming from records, yet never so combined before. There was a cord to it, and I looped that about my throat where it could not be seen under the high collar of the tabard. Dame Alousan herself had admitted that some old lore had a foundation of truth, the which she had proved by her own experiments. But this was from tradition older than her religion and alien to it.

Against my skin it felt warm, almost as if some heat generated within it. I turned to face Herrel. His hand went up as if he could ward me off.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Herbs, leaves, berries from the field.”

His hands moved in gestures and then he gave a sharp exclamation and the fingers of one went to his lips, his tongue licking as if he would so cool them against some heat.

“ ’Tis a bane, right enough.” He smiled. “And perhaps not a thing they will be expecting. Or, if they find it, they will deem it a safeguard natural. I do not know how that will hold against any determined sorcery. Let us hope it will not be put to any such test.”

Our company rode forth from the hold of the Riders, and this time there were more horses with packs, for there would be no returning. We were bound for the gate of their vanished homeland. Our pace was less demanding on our mounts, but the land through which we travelled repudiated us as it had the day before, inimical to man, and perhaps to the Riders also. Or was that aura some defence they had set against those not of their blood and kin?

The heights on which the hold had been set was only the beginning of land which climbed. It did not snow, but the wind cut coldly. And we were glad when the unmarked trail we followed wound through woods, shelter which kept off the worst of the blasts.

Herrel rode at my left hand, but he spoke little. Now and then he held high his head, his nostrils expanding as if he would scent something in the air which might be the odour of danger. As I looked cautiously about me, I saw that others of his company did likewise, though the girls were still deep in their contented bemusement. Herrel’s crest was that of the mountain cat, but that of the man who rode with Kildas was a bird—an eagle perhaps—its wings outstretched a little as if it were about to launch into the air. And beyond him was one who wore the semblance of a bear, the viciously tempered, red-brown coated dweller in the mountain forests, wily and cunning so that hunters dreaded it almost beyond any other beast.

Bear-helm turned his head, and I recognized him for Halse. Bear, cat, eagle, I strove to identify the others—finding, without making too obviously my eye-search, a boar, tusked and head lowered for the charge—a wolf—Shape changers, sorcerers, were they also beast and bird at will? Or was what I had seen last night merely part of a spell sent to disgust me with Herrel?

I felt no disgust, however fear, a little, as the unknown always awakens first the emotion of fear. How had the Were Riders proved so formidable in war? As men bearing swords and bows, fighting as the men of High Hallack fought, or as beasts with the brains of men, tearing, stalking, leaping as the furred and the feathered? Before the day was out I was to have my answer.

Our ride was not steady, though it was undoubtedly ground covering. We paused in a small clearing to break our fast when a pale sun marked a nooning. And I thought we were swinging farther to the east than our track had been heretofore. Herrel was uneasy, that I noted first. His testing of the wind increased. And I saw that others of the Riders moved restlessly about, their pacing almost being that of animals scenting a danger yet afar.

Those without brides gathered to Hyron by the picket line and three of them rode out. None of the girls appeared to note any of this so was I restrained to be likewise unheeding. But when Herrel brought me a cup of the amber-hued wine, I dared to whisper: “What has gone amiss?”

He did not fence with me. “There is danger—to the east. Men—”

“High Hallack?” But I could not believe they were so honour-broke, for the code binding the High Lords to certain customs was not easily shattered. “We do not know. It may be Alizon—”

“But Alizon is finished on these shores! There are no more—” I could not at once tame my surprise.