Ширли Мерфи - The Castle Оf Hape. Caves Оf Fire Аnd Ice. The Joining Оf Тhe Stone

He lit tinder, stared around the cave, saw the wolves lined up at the cave mouth and felt their voices, felt Meheegan’s voice. Yes, Telien was gone. Gone utterly. Gone not only from this place, gone out of Time itself, gone this instant as he woke—and they could not prevent it. Ram leaped for the cave mouth shouting her name, spun around to stare back into the cave in bewilderment, snatched up the wolf bell and sent his power winging out to find her—felt no breath of her. “Telien! Telien!” He drove with every strength he possessed to surge across space and time seeking Telien.

He could touch nothing but emptiness.

At last he subsided into cold defeat, and then the battle in Carriol engulfed him once more, against his will. Fawdref came to him, mourning Telien with opaque, distant-focused eyes; but alarmed, too, by the battle, tense with it as a wolf is tense stalking prey.

And now Ram began to sense that all across Ere Seers were stirring to the call of battle. He gripped the wolf bell, trying to force clarity to the breath of vision he touched, saw at last dark leaders raise their eyes as the harsh vibrations of battle touched their twisted minds; for this battle had to do with them, this balance of evil and light to do with them. Slowly Ram felt the slippery and the watchful reach out toward the dark wood, to bring their forces under the powers of Hape.

And he sensed that all across Ere gentle Seers, too, Seers who had moved unrecognized among men, hidden in fear, had begun at last to yearn again, to test their unused powers, to stand taller, to shake off their fear of discovery and listen with widening senses. And they, too, reached out toward Pelli—but, cowards too long, they were now afraid to bring their powers to battle the Pellian Seers, and they paused, ridden by confusion. They might have helped Jerthon, might have laid themselves unto a stronger master and thrown their forces with Jerthon; but they were too weakened by their own failures, too afraid.

Ram shouted for Dalwyn, laid his hand on Fawdref’s head. Fawdref stared at him with an inexplicable look. Ram knelt, threw his arms around the shaggy, beloved neck, stayed so in silence for a long moment, heard the commotion at the mouth of the cave then and rose to join Dalwyn—but a great band of winged ones was descending, and only slowly did he understand what was happening, only belatedly see a huge band of wolves streaming down the mountain: Fawdref’s small family tribe and more; the entire band of the great wolves. They must have come from caves all over the mountain, perhaps had been waiting in the mountain for the fires to cool, must have gathered at their leader’s call, for they glanced again and again at Fawdref as they moved down, their tongues lolling, their eyes keen and predatory. Ram stood stricken with wonder as they surged down the mountain and then, by ones and twos, by half a dozen at a time, began to jump to winged backs as the horses of Eresu swept in close to the ledge: wolves leaping to crouch between the horses’ great wings. He saw Fawdref leap past him and settle between the wings of a dark mare, saw wolves riding in the sky in a spectacle that left him numbed. And he understood: it was their battle, too. The defeat of the Hape belonged to them, to all of them, not to men alone.

Dalwyn was there, snorting, eager, his eyes like fire. Ram swung onto his back, he leaped clear of the mountain; they were windborne, a surging mass of winged ones sweeping into the morning sky, wings spread across miles of sky. They swept over the scorched earth then across green hills as the morning light came brighter, across woods like dark seas below them. When they crossed the river Urobb where it flowed into Pelli, the winds were high and cold, buoying a hundred pair of wings. They swept above sheep fields and crofts toward the dark wood, and saw beyond it the cold sea.

Below them rose the dark castle surging with battle that raged across her fetid gardens and up the castle walls. The scream of horses and the clash of swords came sharp on the wind, and new bands of Pellian soldiers were riding fast out from the dark wood. The Hape had taken the form of an immense lizard, twisted around the castle itself, its three heads snatching up men and tossing them like sticks: head of horned cat, head of toothed snake, head of eel tearing at the soldiers’ flesh. Dalwyn dropped suddenly upon the writhing lizard. Ram leaped, was clutching one scaly neck. Around him, winged horses dove and wolves jumped for the lunging coils, clinging, tearing at its scaly hide. Ram’s knife flashed. The Hape reared, swelled in size, grew so huge the castle was nearly hidden beneath its writhing coils. Ram rode the scaly neck, trying to sever the cat-head, and the Hape’s power was like hands tearing him away.

Below him, mounted soldiers slashed at the Hape, arrows flew, piercing its thick hide; swords were more useful than arrows as the soldiers rode in under its coils to slash at the softer belly. Ram felt Jerthon’s strength suddenly from somewhere—he was not in this lizard battle, was somewhere dark, sending his power but to Ram. Ram felt the wolves’ indomitable stubbornness as they fought; saw wings sweep above him and hooves slash as the winged ones themselves attacked the Hape, carrying two dozen Carriolinian troops. A winged horse screamed, swords flashed to cut at the Hape, dodging claws. Below, the battle was a melee; wolves were falling from the flailing snake down into the battle.

At last Ram clung alone as the winged ones surged around him dodging the Hape’s lashing heads while soldiers slashed out. Blood spurted. Ram had almost severed the cat-head when the other two heads swung toward him and the toothed eel reached to clutch at him, the eel-head horrifying, grinning, mouth open to devour. Below, soldiers were climbing now, straddling the whipping lower coils; and Ram could sense soldiers below in the dark rooms, sense Jerthon there battling in darkness. He worked frantically at beheading the neck to which he clung, slipping in the spurting blood.

All but spent, Ram felt the last neck sinews sever, saw the cat-head fall, felt the Hape weaken as blood spurted anew from the neck. He could feel the dark Seers’ forces gathered in surging hatred as the Hape writhed wildly, one neck headless and flailing, splattering blood, the eel-head coming down on him to tear him apart. He felt himself slipping and grabbed the severed neck bone, the only handhold, faced the eel-head in desperation and saw it had changed to a huge grinning head of a man.

*

Below in the castle Jerthon and two dozen troops routed Seers from locked rooms, tearing open bolted doors with a battering post; then turned suddenly to face torch-swinging Pellian troops. The battle was brutal in the half-dark, the torch fires swinging to show face of enemy, of friend, then swinging so only dark shadow lay before a man’s sword. A grim, desperate battle waged in the close, fetid dark. Jerthon’s men fought with a fierce hatred of that dark, fought with righteous fury until at last not a Pellian soldier remained standing, until all around their feet lay the dead and dying. Jerthon’s men swept past them to fling open farther doors down darker hallways. ‘Take no captives!” he shouted. “Kill them all, we want no captives such as these!” Not captives with Seer’s minds to trick them, not in this desperate bid for victory. And as doors were flung open, monsters slithered out, abominations leaping to embrace them—monsters cut down by Jerthon’s men, or sent trembling back to disappear when he held the runestone high before them.

And then in the cellars at last they came upon BroogArl secreted, as if he feared failure, among shadows; cringing. He stood suddenly, naked of flesh in a wild vision, white bone wielding a sword like flame, his sightless eyeholes seeing too clearly the stone in Jerthon’s hand. Jerthon dropped the jade quickly into the pouch at his waist. And dangling from BroogArl’s neck were the bloody heads of a dozen Carriolinian soldiers, comrades fallen in battle.