Andre Norton - Year of the Unicorn

The snow had stopped and the firewood was almost consumed. I could not take the back trail; that which dragged at me would not allow it. Thus I must find some way through the barrier—or over it—

“Stand!”

My head jerked on my shoulders.

Men coming up the valley. As the Riders, these were helmed. But their head covering bore ragged crests and were equipped with eye pieces which fitted down over their eyes mask fashion. They had short coats of furred hide and their boots arose on the outer side of the leg in a sharp point.

Hounds of Alizon!

When they had first come to this continent as invaders they had been armed with weapons strange to the Dales, one of which had shot a searing beam of fire. But when their supply ships had ceased to arrive, some two years ago, these had grown fewer and fewer among them. Now they rode as did the other fighting men of this land with bow, sword, spear, and I saw arrows on cord—

I did not move. It would seem prospective danger was now real. For the fate of any woman in the hands of the Hounds was not good to think upon. I had that in my bag which would give me a last freedom, had I chance to use it.

“A woman!” One of them rode past the archers, slid from his saddle and ran towards the fire. Wearing his mask helm he was more alien even than the beasts.

I had no road of escape. Should I try to scramble over the rocks I could be pulled down with ease, or caught when I came up against the barrier of the gate.

Because I did not flee I surprised him. He slackened pace, looked from the fire to me, glanced about—

“So your friends have left you, wench?”

“ ’Ware, Smarkle,” an order snapped from the others, “have you never heard of baited traps?”

He halted almost in mid-stride, and dodged behind a rock. There was a long period of silence wherein the archers sat their saddles, their arrows centred on me.

“You there.” a man stepped out from between the horsemen, his shield well up to cover his body, a captured shield since its surface bore a much defaced bearing of the Dales. “Come out—to us! Come or be shot where you stand!”

Perhaps the best choice would be to disobey, to go down now in clean death with the arrows reaching into that emptiness. But there was a need in me greater than any other, to regain that which I had lost, and it would not let me turn away from life so easily. I walked past the fire, to the rock behind which Smarkle crouched.

“She is one of the Dale wenches right enough, Captain!” His voice rang out.

Still with his shield before him the Captain dodged from one bit of cover to the next in a zig-zag course.

“Come, you, on!”

Slowly I went. There were four archers, the two men behind the rocks—how many more might be in the valley I could not guess. Plainly they had trailed our party here, which showed strong determination on the part of these hunted men, since the course brought them deep into the waste and away from the sea which was their path homeward, could they ever find a ship. As Herrel had said, these were desperate, with naught to lose which counted longer, even their lives. And so they were also beasts, perhaps much worse than the Riders.

“Who are you?” The Captain fired a second demand at me.

“One of the Dale brides.” I made answer with the truth, knowing now that these men were not as they had been weeks, or even days ago. Even as I they had lost some part of them, worn away by hardship and the abiding loneliness and despair which dwelt in the waste.

“Where are the rest then?” That was Smarkle.

“Gone on—”

“Gone on? Leaving you behind? We are not fools—”

Small inspiration came to me. “Neither are they, men of Alizon. I fell ill of hill fever—to them it is doubly dangerous. Do you not know that the Were Riders are not as we? What ails us is sometimes doubly fatal to them—”

“What do you think, Captain?” Smarkle asked. “If this be a trap, they would have cut us down by now—”

“Not and risk her. You—go back, beyond that fire, against the rocks! Keep your arrows on her as she goes.”

I returned, passing the dying fire, setting at last my shoulders against the stone.

“You—back there—” Now the Captain did not address me, nor his own men, but the debris in the valley which masked the gate wall. “Move, and we arrow slit this dainty piece of yours!”

His words echoed about the walls as they waited tensely. And when the last sound died away, he spoke to Smarkle.

“Take her!”

He came at me in a run, dodging about the smouldering fire, slamming his body against mine, pinning me to the rock by his weight. His breath was hot and foul in my face, and through the eye slits of his helm I could see his eyes, a-glitter with a vicious hunger.

“Got her!”

They moved, still cautiously, towards us. Smarkle contented himself for the present with whispers, the obscenity of which I could guess, though most of the words he used I had never heard. Then he pulled me away from the rock and held me with my arms clamped to my sides, though I had made no struggle.

“She’s no Dale wench.” One of the archers leaned forward in the saddle to stare at me. “Did you ever see such hair on one of them, now did you?”

My braids had loosened and fallen, and against the snow their black hue was startlingly dark. The Hounds looked me up and down as Smarkle held me for their inspection, and now I thought I saw a wariness in their eyes. Not as if they feared me to be bait in some baffling trap they had not yet uncovered, but that something in my appearance alone made them uneasy.

“By the Horns of Khather!” swore the archer. “Look upon her, Captain—have you not heard of her like?”

Beneath the half mask of his helm the Captain’s lips curled in an evil leer. “Yes, Thacmor, I have heard of her like. Though in this land—no. But have you not heard there is a way to disarm such sorceresses, a very pleasant way—”

Smarkle laughed, his grip tightening painfully on my arms.

“Let us not look into her eyes, Captain. It is so a man is held in spell. Those hags of Estcarp know how to bewitch mortal men.”

“So they may. Yet they are also mortal. We have caught us some fine sport.”

The sun had come from behind clouds, its westerning rays struck full in my face. Of what they spoke I had no clue. Though that they believed me of a race of old enemies of theirs I could guess.

“Build up the fire.” the Captain flung the order to the archers. “It is cold here—these walls hold out the sun.”

“Captain.” Thacmor asked. “Why would she stay here—unless she means us harm—”

“Harm to us? Perhaps. But rather do I think she was found out for what she is, and so left—”

“But those devils also deal in magic—”

“True. But wolves of a pack turn upon one another when hunger bites deep. There may be some quarrel we do not know. Perhaps even these Dale sheep laid plans and planted her among the rest to bring their ‘Bargain’ to naught. If so, she has failed or been found out. At any rate they have left her to us. And we shall not nay-say them!”

As yet Smarkle held me, and his touch was an offence it would shame me to put into words. Feeling was left me, like a dim memory of something which had once been alive—and good.

They gathered more wood. At one time this valley must have been a channel for a stream of size and storm drift was still caught among the boulders. They stirred the fire I had kindled into higher blaze. Smarkle threw a loop of hide thong about my shoulders and arms, another about my ankles, making me prisoner.

But with them one kind of hunger seemed greater than the other, for one brought a brace of birds, a large rabbit to the fire side, and these they cleaned and spitted for broiling. One of the archers had a leathern flask. He unstoppered it, strove to drink, and then hurled it from him with a curse.