Andre Norton - Gryphon in Glory

He leaned a little forward, his eyes narrowed. By some trick of the light they yet showed, within their depths, tiny glints of flame such as I had seen earlier in the cat eyes of his helm crest.

“So—why do you then come to the Waste—you in warrior mail? Do you run?”

Temper unleashed or leashed I had long ago learned to use as a weapon. I did not need to show any inner fire in answer to his taunt upon this occasion.

“I bring a message, as I have said.” I decided there was only one way I might achieve my purpose after all—and that was with the truth. “We have taken prisoners and they have talked. Their story is that what they seek is a source of power, and it lies to the west. We think that they believe this. Therefore, it is not our Dales that is their final goal but perhaps—this—” I made a gesture to include the meadow in which we stood. Once more the wristlet blazed. “Your land—and perhaps those you name kin.”

He made a sound deep in his throat, a snarl such as a cat might voice. Now he pointed to my wristlet.

“Where got you that?” he demanded.

“By chance—I found it in a stream in the Dales.”

He smiled, the lift of his lip resembling a cat baring fangs—though the teeth he displayed were no different than my own.

“And where got you those?” This time he pointed to my hooves.

I answered steadily enough.

“My birthright—or birth curse. I have heard it said both ways in my time.”

Again those narrowed eyes studied me closely. When he spoke some of the hardness was gone from his voice.

“I think you may have found those who will listen to your message—or may find them after I take council. Your animals”—he glanced disdainfully at the fear-struck desert horses—“cannot follow our trails. Their breed would die of terror were one of my people to approach them closely. I go now to my pack lord. If he wishes to see you I shall return—Man of the Dales.”

He pointed now to the north.

“There is water there and good forage. If you wish—camp and wait.” He had turned his mount, now he looked back over his shoulder.

“I am Herrel.”

I was startled. It is one of the strong beliefs of my people, who know the Power only slightly, that to give one’s name to a stranger is a dangerous thing—since a man’s name is an important part of himself and he can be influenced through it. Still this stranger had just, by that standard, shown great trust in me. I answered as quickly.

“I am Kerovan.” To that I added no title or lordship, for such were mine no longer.

He sketched a salute with his free hand, then rode without looking back again, while I followed his advice in leading my now-more-biddable mounts on toward that campsite he had indicated.

I did not have to wait long. Herrel returned and with him another like him, save that his helm crest was an eagle with half unfurled wings, his saddle cloth a netting into which feathers had been woven. He sat his horse a little aloof while Herrel told me that I was bidden to speak with their lord. The second rider busied himself by driving four wands well into the ground, each being topped with a tuft of fur or feathers. Herrel, indicating them, told me that they would keep my mounts within bounds as well as any fence, but that I must go afoot.

So it came that I paced as might a captive between the two of them into the dusk of that dark wood. I did not allow my hand to brush near my sheathed sword. From now on I must be doubly wary, though I did not sense from these two, as I always had in Imgry’s camp, the waves of hatred that my appearance fired in the Dalesmen.

Once within the first screen of trees, the way was not hard going. In fact there was a path or narrow road, wide enough for only one horseman, so deep-trodden one might believe it was a highway used through many years. To my advantage, my hooves were no longer constricted by the boots I had worn so many years in concealment. In fact I was glad to stretch my legs by this tramp. The many scents of the forest were heady. I drew deep breaths, and I discovered that I was growing lighter of heart and less wearied than I had been since I entered the Waste.

What did begin to impress me was that I saw no other life save the three of us who moved silently, for the hooves of the horses awakened only the slightest of sounds. No bird hopped on any branch, nor did I spy, along the outer edges of the trail, any beast’s prints. The greenery was very dark nor had I elsewhere seen such trees of so huge circumference of bole. Their bark was black and deeply ridged.

The path we followed wove a meandering way, turning often to avoid such an obstruction as one of those trunks.

How long we traveled I had no way of knowing. My two escorts held their curiously dappled steeds to a walk, while around us the silence grew, the light became more and more dusky. Twice we passed stones, set upright, no normal outcroppings, for they had been wrought upon by man.

The tops of each of them had been carved with diabolical skill—I say diabolical for the creatures sculpture had evoked out of the rock were grim. One was a head, or perhaps better a skull, with a huge beak looming out to threaten any passerby. That bill was also a fraction agape as if about to seize on the unwary. There was something of a bird about it, also a bit of a long-snouted reptile. The holes, which had been left to represent eyes, had insets, so deep within I could not see whether they were gems or not (though how, in the absence of sunlight, any gleam could have been awakened from such was a mystery). I only know that red pits of utter savagery regarded me.

Neither of my companions so much as turned an eye in the direction of that looming guardian. Nor did they, either, regard the second such we passed. Where the first had been beaked or snouted, this was a life-size death’s head possessing close kinship to a skull of my own race. The thing had been more graphically and disgustingly carved as if far gone in decay, stretches of rotting skin portrayed across cheekbones and chin, a nose half sloughed away. Once more there were eyes to watch, these yellow.

I made no comment as we passed these posts. For I was determined not to allow my companions to believe I found anything strange in this wood. To my own pride I owed that much, so I clung to an outward show of self-possession as I would to a battle shield.

We had left the skull post at least five turns of the path behind when Herrel leaned forward to sweep out an arm. As if he had so loosed the latch of a door a mass of branches lifted, swung to one side, to allow us out into the full light of day once again.

The wood still stretched like encircling arms on either side, and, by a distant mark across the horizon, formed another barrier there. However, directly ahead lay a section of land as wide as any Dale holding I had seen. Planted fields were guarded by low stone walls from pastures in which horses, such as Herrel and his fellow rode, grazed. There was the blue sheen of a pond or small lake farther west. Near that stood the first building that was not a long-abandoned ruin that I had ever seen in the Waste.

Stone formed the walls of the first story, but, rising above that, logs were set in tight company. The strangest thing was that these logs were apparently not dead and seasoned wood. Rather branches jutted here and there and those bore living leaves. The branches were thickest near the top of the walls, and spread wide as if they so formed the roof.

From the point where we had issued out of the wood, running directly toward the building, was a continuation of the forest path. Here in the open, however, the way was much wider. Perhaps four horsemen could have ridden it abreast.

He who had followed me on the trail did not urge his mount forward and we proceeded by the same line of march as we had kept under the trees, save that Herrel slowed a fraction to allow me to pace beside him. For the first time since we left my camp he spoke: