Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

Jervon returned just before sundown, excited and eager. He reported having found tracks of three mounts, one he thought ridden, the other two led. “There was a fourth also,” he added.

“Three of the horses are still there grazing free. There are packs also—but no one camps. I believe that someone met with the traveler—their trails lay close together.”

I was on my feet at once, heading for Bural. “Kerovan—he may have been taken captive!” In my mind churned the many dangers that could have befallen him.

“I do not think so. There is no sign of any attack. The horses are of the desert breed the scavengers usually use and they are peaceful. It is a good situation for a camp.” Now he looked to Elys. “Also there have been safeguards placed.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Of what nature?” she demanded sharply.

“None of a kind I have seen before. There are four peeled wands, each set upright in the earth at the outer limits of a well-seized grazing field. One, to the north, has fastened to it a tuft of horse hair. That to the south bears a patch of snowcat fur. To the east is one with an eagle feather, to the west one bearing boar bristles. I did not touch any. However, they manifestly have a purpose and the horses do not stray past them.”

I glanced at Elys for an explanation. She looked as baffled as I felt.

“Where did he go? The man of that camp—it is Kerovan!” I did not know why I was so sure, perhaps mainly because I wanted to be.

“There are hoofprints—leading on westward into a wood. I would have followed but Agran here”—he drew his hand down the neck of the horse he bestrode—“would not approach it. He was as wild with fear as if a red bear reared in the way reaching for him. It is plain that was forbidden territory and Agran recognized it.”

“But if the horses will not follow—then we can go afoot,” I persisted.

Jervon regarded me gravely. “Lady, I would not try to enter that place whether astride or on my own two feet. It warns one off, I believe that some power rules there. We can but camp and wait at that place—to dare more is to achieve nothing.”

I refused to believe him—then. We did ride on to that strangely marked camp and saw the horses as placidly grazing as if they were in a fenced field, never venturing beyond those wands. I paid only passing attention to those; instead I set Bural on the way to the wood.

She shied violently, near tossing me from the saddle. Twice we fought a battle of wills until I was forced to admit that I could not make the mare venture near the shadows of the trees.

My companions had gone their own way, establishing camp in the same hollow where the vanished traveler had left piled saddle and gear. Jervon tried the experiment of turning our own beasts into the square with the three desert horses and they appeared also to respect the wand barrier so that they need not be put on grazing ropes.

Only I was far too impatient to remain in camp awaiting a return that might or might not come. Having proven I could not ride into the wood, I was determined to attempt it on foot, with the turf torn by hoof marks for my guide.

My start was brisk enough, and neither Elys nor Jervon attempted to argue me out of it. It was not until I was some distance along my chosen path (so was I strengthened in stubborn determination) that I realized I could not move fast, nor could I touch any of those hoofprints with my boots. Rather, without any volition, I was zigzaging back and forth just to avoid that.

An uneasiness was growing in me for which I could not account. I persevered but against a growing sense of danger, of opposition, so that my pace grew slower and slower, in spite of my will to push on.

It was not that I was fronted by any visible wall forbidding entrance to the wood. No, rather my energy was steadily sapped, my will itself weakened with every step I fought to gain. I decided that I was not repelled by fear itself, rather a growing awareness that I was intruding rashly, rudely, on private ground, that I ventured where I had no right to go without invitation.

Even though I had come near under the outstretched branches of one of the tall trees, I realized that my hope of traveling farther was done. This was forbidden ground. Reluctantly I turned back, faced toward camp. Then it was as if a strong force swept me up, a storm of wind (though not a leaf rustled, none of the tall grass rippled) pushed me away, heavy at my back. I had dared to approach a guarded refuge—the wood was a sanctuary—but not one for those of my kind.

As I sat with what I hoped was an appearance of ease. The sun shining on that band of metal, I was certain the stranger’s oddly set eyes widened. For a moment, perhaps two breaths, his gaze held on that. Then he dropped his reins in turn, the shadow steed standing quiet, all four feet planted rock fast, as its rider’s hands arose in an answering gesture of peace. At least in this much he followed Dale custom.

Cautiously, half fearing that my horses might come to life and bolt, I slipped from the saddle. None of the three moved as I watched them warily before advancing through the tall grass toward the cat-crowned man.

He waited until I was a sword’s length away before he spoke—soft slurred words with a lilting cadence. He might have been reciting some formula. I shook my head, then replied in Dale speech:

“Greeting to a sharer of the road; may the—” I hesitated now. I could not wish him Flame Blessing—such words might be an insult to one who worshiped other powers. Nor could I, in all honestly, call upon the Flame myself, since I was marked as one with no right to the belief of true men.

He frowned. For the fist time there was a shadow of expression on his impassive face. Had a faint tinge of surprise also crossed it for an instant? When he spoke again he used Dale speech, accented, but clear.

“Where ride you, man?” He made the word “man” sound like a title of disrepute.

“In search of—” I hesitated again. To inform the first comer of my reason for riding the Waste was folly.

“In search of—” he prompted. Now it was true he wore an expression and it was grim. “Old treasure, of scrap heaps to burrow in, scavenger?”

His hands dropped, not to seize sword as I had first thought, rather to gather up reins. I knew he was preparing to ride on where my mounts would not follow. At that moment I knew fear. For I had a strong feeling if he went I would not again see him or discover more of his kind, while it could well be he represented just those I had been sent to find.

“I am not a hunter of old metal—a scavenger.” I hastened to say. “I ride with a message.”

“What message and to be given to whom?” He was plainly impatient.

“The message I do know—but to whom it is to be delivered—of that I am not sure.”

“Riddles!” he snapped scornfully.

“Not riddle but ignorance. I am out of the Dales where there has been war for two years and more . . .”

He had been on the point of turning his horse, now he stayed that movement.

“War.” Again there was scorn in his tone. “One petty lord man against his fellow, quarreling over half a hillside of near-barren land.”

His contempt for the Dalesmen was open. I half agreed inwardly that he was right. That was all that war had been for years—hot family feuds in which men died, to be sure, but there was no wide ravening of the countryside.

“This is true war,” I made haste to explain. “Invaders from overseas such as we have not seen before, using new and terrible weapons.” There was no need, I decided, for me to explain that most of those weapons had been by now rendered impotent through some lack we did not understand. “All the coast they hold and now they sweep farther inland. Always they bring reinforcements. We die and there are few to fill our empty saddles, or even horses to wear those saddles.”